"You don't get to speak for me, Aria." Hillary's voice is low, rough, vibrating with a mix of frustration, desperation, and something unsteady underneath that Aria has never heard from him before.
His chest rises and falls rapidly, his jaw tight, muscles rigid, as if trying to force himself to hold back what is threatening to spill out anyway.
"Sometimes I hate how vulnerable you make me! Do you know how it feels?! Not like I'm trying to rank anything but... do you know how it feels for an Alpha who is expected to be the pillar, the one everyone relies on, to feel vulnerable just because of love?! Because of… someone?! To feel like if you cannot be with this certain person, you won't survive the pain that comes with it?!"
He goes quiet, but the pause doesn't bring calm. It feels like a held breath before an explosion.
Then, almost reluctantly, he speaks again, his voice rough and desperate, "And if I hear you say I don't love you, that I… it just feels terrible. So stop."
Aria stiffens, feeling the full weight of everything... longing, mistakes, the impossible love, and the unbearable truth that sometimes what you feel most deeply is exactly what has the power to destroy you entirely.
Her stomach churns, her hands tremble slightly at her sides, but she keeps her gaze level, firm, refusing to flinch under his intensity.
Regardless, she speaks. "If I were in your shoes, I would have let go of what I know I can never have. No matter how bad it feels… you ask if I know what it feels like to feel vulnerable because of someone, to feel like if you are not with someone you won't survive the pain, but do you know how it feels to watch that someone be with someone else?!"
Her words tumble out, jagged and urgent, and she blinks rapidly, struggling to keep the tears from spilling. "I know I'm just an omega, created to feel, nothing big about me. I'm weak, generally. But I'm still standing, trying to fight what I'm feeling. So how about an Alpha who is generally strong?! Can't you really do this?!"
Hillary doesn't answer immediately. He just stands there, jaw tight, fists curling at his sides, eyes dark and stormy.
Aria takes the silence as a sign that her words have landed, but she doesn't wait for him to recover his composure. She presses on. "If you really love me, then just leave me alone. That's all I want right now. Not a relationship that I know isn't going to lead anywhere."
"I can't agree to that right now," he says, his tone unwavering.
"It doesn't matter if you do or not, Hillary," she says, "because I'm seriously done here. And don't ever pull me into a room like this again or look at me in a way that..."
"What? You are giving me conditions now?!" He interrupts before she can finish.
"Victoria knows that something is going on between us. That's because you've been staring at me," Aria says, almost reluctantly, the words slipping out before she can catch them. Even she hadn't planned to admit it like that.
"What?! That's not possible! Did you tell her?!" His voice rises, disbelief and shock warring with suspicion, his hands gripping at the air as if he could grab the truth from it.
"Tell her?! And why would I even do that?"
"I don't know. Maybe you were just swallowed up with everything and said it even when you hadn't planned to," he replies, his voice edging into panic.
The way he panics, the sharp, almost uncontrolled way he latches onto that possibility, makes Aria ache more than anything he's done in all of this mess.
She swallows hard, her throat tight. "I didn't," she says simply, her voice calm despite the fire roaring inside her.
"If she was the one who just told you, then did you deny it? You should have denied it because she can't know that. She must just be suspecting with random thoughts. She isn't sure about anything! So you should have denied it firmly." He stumbles back, running a hand through his hair, his body tense, every line of him taut with panic.
"If you are so panicked about her finding out, then maybe you should stop staring at me and pulling me into places like this!" Aria fires back, her steps quickening as she storms toward the door.
"I'm not panicked for the reasons you think! And you know it!" His voice cracks, strained, "I'm trying to protect you here! Because if she knows… that means..."
Before he can finish, Aria reaches the door, yanks it closed with a force that rattles the frame, and steps away, leaving him inside, the words he couldn't finish hanging in the tense, empty room behind him.