The Alpha's Choice

Prologue: To Claire The first time I tried to greet you, your eyes were grey. I know. It’s a ridiculous thing to say. You are probably frowning and thinking ‘but my eyes are blue’ and considering to just dismiss this letter all together. But they were. I knew, because before then, they’d always been blue. It was a week after your parent’s death. I barely knew you back then, but you’d been in my sights for a while. We were kids, many years before that dreaded day of your 16th birthday, where we found out we were mates, and I crushed your soul. But it was not long before I began looking at you. I had been, for a while. That’s how I knew your eyes were different that day. I don’t even remember what I planned to tell you that day. If I am being honest with myself, I probably wouldn’t have gotten past the greeting. And if I had, it wouldn’t have been anything good. I have never been good when it comes to you. But you walked past me that day. Just straight through, without even looking back. You never looked back when you walked away from me. That wasn’t the last time that I tried, but it didn’t take long for me to notice you were not going to see me. Not when your mind was drifting somewhere far away, and I wanted you to see me, Claire. I wanted you to look up, to look back. I knew that, in your head you were up in the sky, drifting with the wind, and I wanted to drag you back down with me. I’ve always been a coward, though, and too prideful for my own good. So, I pushed you, literally, and I remember you falling and then, finally, as the world came to a still, you looked at me. I don’t think you understand what having your eyes on me felt in that moment. It was like breathing air for the first time after suffocating for an eternity. I knew, then, that I was lost. But understanding it was something different. Accepting it might as well have been a distant dream. So, because of my stupidity and my own twisted feelings, as well as my own selfish desire to have you looking at me, our relationship became what it was. I became your tormentor, and you, my victim. I know I’ve apologized a thousand times, and you’ve forgiven me close to a thousand times as well, but I am sorry. I truly am. You made me realize how truly miserable I was making you that day, but I should have seen it on my own. I should have kept you with me in a way that didn’t mean hell for you. Maybe we wouldn’t have hurt each other as much as we did then. For that, I take the full blame. You deserved to find someone better, and it pains me to learn that you did. Losing you was the punishment I dreaded the most, yet it is the one fitted best to my crimes. To truly lose you, though, I have to forsake all hope, and I can never do that when I look into your eyes. Because even after all these years and how much we’ve changed, some things never change: You remain kind, and I remain weak. I want us to move on Claire, but to do so, I cannot have the option to call for you anymore. I know you’ll come, and I’ll be lost once more, but I can’t anymore. Not if it means remaining stuck. You once said goodbye to me through a letter, so in the spirit of that, I chose to do the same. Live a long life, Claire. A happy life. One I could have given to you if the times had been better to us, and I had been better to you. Maybe I’ll find the heart to be a better person in the future, and I’ll finally find a way to look into your eyes without being stuck, but until then, Goodbye.