My Alpha

1

I was home alone again. Mom didn't make it back home yesterday, and it looked like she was not going to make it home today either. Why was I here? I came to visit my mom, but she's not here. I have a list of things I could be getting done at home. Yeah, there was no point in being here. All I was doing was watching television and eating.

I wiped the crumbs off my shirt and got up. I turned the television off then cleaned up my mess and headed into the kitchen. I washed all the dishes I made and straightened everything up. I ran the vacuum, making sure the house would be clean for when my mom did finally make it home. Then I went upstairs to pack my bags.

I didn't unpack a lot, so packing everything up didn't take long. I grabbed the pad of paper on the counter and wrote a note to my mom. I didn't want her to think I was leaving because I was mad or upset. The truth was I was neither. I was happy for my mom.

My dad died when I was thirteen. He was coming home from work and was hit by a drunk driver. My mom took his death hard. In the beginning, she tried to be strong. She tried to pretend she was okay. I could hear her crying in her room every night. After months of listening to my mom cry alone in her room while I cried in mine, I went to her room, she held me tight and we cried together. Time healed some of our pain but the hurt was always there. When someone close to you dies, that pain of losing them never goes away, no matter how much time goes by. That person will live with you until your last breath. So will the hurt and pain.

For years, mom stayed to herself. She stopped doing all the things she loved. She stopped smiling and laughing. She distanced herself from all her friends. She was a shell of a person without my dad. It was hard to see her like that. Sometimes she would spend days in bed. She lost a lot of weight. She was here but she was not living. She was a zombie.

Her friends would come by and call to check on her. Bringing her food and making sure she was okay. Sometimes she would answer or come to the door, but most of the time she would just ignore them. The visits got less and less until one day they just stopped coming.

My senior year of high school, everything changed. I had been studying at my friend's house and was on my way home. It was dark and misting outside. I was having a hard time seeing through the patches of fog. I didn't notice the animal until it was too late. I swerved to avoid hitting it and slid into a tree. The impact of the airbag crushed some of my ribs and punctured my lungs. I still have the scars from the emergency surgery they performed to save my life. They are long, dark and deep and cover a good portion of my chest and upper abdomen. I kept them hidden, not letting anyone see them. Even Tony has never seen them. I always kept my shirt on. He could touch my breast with his hand, but that was all. I also never took a shower when he was home. Or got fully undressed in front of him.

He asked me about it one time, and I was honest with him. I told him I had been in an accident and almost died. And that the surgery to save my life left scares. Scares I was not comfortable with other people seeing. He tried to find sneaky ways to see them. I caught him with a flashlight one night while I was sleeping trying to slip my shirt up to see them. I freaked out when I caught him.

"Come on babe, I love you. Just let me see them. It's not going to change how I feel about you." he said as I left and drove home. That was our first fight. After that, he realized I was serious about it and gave up, not wanting to cause another argument.

That accident changed everything. I was in a comma fighting for my life for three weeks. When I finally woke up my mom was sitting by my side holding my hand with her head bent down crying. She jumped up when my hand started to twitch. When she saw that my eyes were open she started screaming for doctors. The last thing she said before they made her leave the room so they could check me over. "I'm sorry."

I couldn't understand why she had said she was sorry. I asked her about it when I was home from the hospital. My memory had started to come back and I remembered the accident. It was not her fault. She was not even in the car with me, so I couldn't understand why she was apologizing.

She told me she was apologizing for leaving me. Not physically but mentally. For not being strong enough to get through the pain. For not being there for me and taking care of me like I needed her to. She promised she would do better.

It didn't happen overnight. It took time. But eventually, she was able to start living again. She was leaving the house more. She got in contact with her old friends, who welcomed her back with open arms. She was meeting up with them for lunches and dinners. She was finding herself again.

I worried about her when I went off to college. My college was six hours away. I couldn't just pop in and check on her whenever I wanted. But we talked all the time, and she was doing well. She was spending a lot of time with her friends and one of them even got her a job at her company. Mom lost her job after dad died. That's normally what happens when you don't show up. Her boss was understanding for the first six months. He gave her paid leave and even offered to have the company pay for her to see a therapist to help her deal with her loss and depression. She went to a few appointments but then stopped. She was living off my dad's pension and the settlement money she received. My dad's brother was a lawyer. Apparently, the guy who hit my dad was the soul owner of a huge billion-dollar corporation. My uncle was mad and wanted to charge the man with everything he could. It wasn't until later that he discovered that it was not his first D.U.I. In fact, the man had been charged 37 other times. Every time he bought his way out of trouble and the charges were dismissed. So my uncle sued him and took all his money, ensuring he was unable to do it this time.

He not only took him bankrupt but his company as well. Our settlement was very generous. My mom was well off. Which ment I was well off as well. The day she received the settlement check, she went right to the bank. She paid off all her and my dad's debt, including the house and the cars, and she split the rest into two separate bank accounts. One was for her, the other for me. She said that's how my dad would have wanted it. My mother and I were both billionaires and no one knew. My uncle made sure our names were never mentioned publicly connected to the settlement. And he had the records sealed.

I was happy for my mom. My dad would have wanted her to move on to live after he was gone. She deserved to be happy again. She deserved to feel loved.

I smiled at the thought of my mom being happy as I closed and locked the door behind me.