Chapter 2 The Second Chapter: Break-up

My eyes flew open as I felt the morning sunshine seeping into my skin, my eyelids have never been heavy. I don't know how much I cried last night. I fell asleep while doing so.

"You're breaking up with me on the phone?" My eardrums seemed to be almost shattered by Lucien's screaming the previous night too.

"Yes!" I exhaled. "If you can party with another woman kissing you while I wait for you to show up on our dinner date, I have all the right to break up with you on the phone!"

After ending our call last night, I also bombarded him with messages that I know what he's been up to and that the party is never a part of the business.

Charmaine is HIS business!

I poured myself a glass of water after getting out of bed. I deem it necessary, especially with the bawling and sobbing I wasted on Lucien last night.

My phone rang. I only took one look at it before shoving it into my drawer.

With a heavy heart, I straightened and began packing my things.

***

I'm now back in my old apartment, one side facing a river and another the main road.

I don't care if it's so far from the penthouse we shared. I just want to get away from him as soon as possible.

I checked my phone. I'm not surprised that I have thirty-three missed calls and a couple of voicemails. I opened one.

"Vesta, where are you? You know that Charmaine is Beta Vincent's only daughter. I'm just gaining favor from him since he's also one of the pack's elders. I promise we are just friends. You're my girlfriend. You can ask Beta Thomas himself that there is nothing between the two of us other than a friendship that has been built for years. Please come back to me-don't leave me like this!"

Friends? Since when do friends share a picture of her being kissed on the cheeks by someone else's boyfriend in social media?

I have never heard my Alpha mate use that pleading voice to me, especially not in a voicemail. If this was in another situation, I could have smiled. But no, it just made the weight of our break-up more depressing.

I've been a fool for too long. Perhaps that's what it does to one who's so blindly in love.

I unpacked my things and began rubbing the dust off my bed. My room was worn. Nevertheless, I'm now back here-in a place I used to call home. This is the place where I'll heal and be whole again.

I opened another voicemail, this time he seemed like crying on someone's shoulder. I'll bet my soul that it was none other than Charm's. "Vesta, babe..."

Then there were just sobbing and inaudible words that were between his cries and begging. I don't know if he's really begging or just reminding me that I am nothing without him. Or maybe both.

Last night wasn't the first night he stood me up. He always kept me waiting and waiting and waiting. Not to mention he always breaks his promises and then makes another promise-only to break that another promise.

"Sorry, babe. I'm working overtime. I know I promised you a movie date last night. I'll just take you to my yacht and tell the pack's private chef to cook for us. How about that?"

And yet, there was never a yacht date. That 'overtime' of his was revealed to be attending a concert with Charmaine. That yacht date ended up not happening too since Beta Thomas told me that it's the anniversary of their friendship and it's not to be missed knowing that they 'only' celebrate their anniversary once a year.

Yeah, right. As if you all only see each other once a year too.

I put down my phone and focused on my chores at hand.

I walked over to the closet where the paint was already fading and yanked it open. As soon as I opened one of my suitcases, my gaze found a lavish red box with gold ribbon on it.

Lucien bought it for me last week. An early anniversary gift, he says. It was a gradient of royal blue and tawny orange handbag, the exact shade of the ocean when dawn rises and the sky's colors rippled on its surface. It was Alpha Lucien's favorite color, and the exact time when we had our first kiss.

I shook my head and ignored the gift and tucked it away in the corner. I pulled another suitcase, quickly unpacking my clothes and belongings-like how I unpacked my feelings all these years of how my mate treated me.

It might have been a heartache to leave the penthouse, where most of our memories once came to life. Instead, I felt a great wave of relief washing through me as if I'd been finally hauled from the ocean where I constantly drown and ask for help but no one dares.

Hours later, I found myself now lying on my old bed. My eyes are red-rimmed again thanks to the tears that casually slipped from my eyes as I was unpacking. 'I have left him for good now,' I told myself. 'There's no turning back.'

As I lay, I finally dare to pick up my phone. And true, it was brimming with gossip.

Apparently, Charm has posted that I broke up with her 'beloved friend' Alpha Lucien. "She's a heartless bitch," she said in her post. "Everyone, be careful of your girlfriends and boyfriends being like her. She just used Alpha Lucien to make herself popular."

Several messages of foul insults and heart-wrenching threats flooded my inbox.

Now, he's just allowing her to act as if she was the one who had been his girlfriend for five years.

I'm no longer chasing him. I'm no longer allowing him to chase after me.

Not this time, because I finally saw the reason why I needed to stop Lucien's heartless treatment: my Alpha had feelings for Charm and it was time I accepted that.

It's no mystery at all no matter how many times Lucien lies or beats around the bush every time I ask him about Charm and their so-called friendship.

If he's not going to stop his treatment of me, then I should-once and for all.

Well, perhaps they do fit each other. And I'm glad I'm now far from either of them.

Turning off my phone as I inhaled and exhaled, I began to indulge myself down that road of healing.