The Alpha Faked Depression to Win My Love Chapter 03
LYRA
There was one hundred and ten thousand dollars on the card.
I collected my final wages from the delivery company and quit.
The studio apartment was barely two hundred and fifty square feet. I could see all of it from the doorway.
Kieran and I had moved out of the dorms because he claimed his depression was causing worsening physical symptoms.
He said he needed me with him every day.
I had not trusted him completely when he first forced his way into my life.
Then I saw the same illness that had taken Rowan.
My heart softened.
My judgment went with it.
Even now, I could not tell how much of what I felt for Kieran had been love and how much had been the desperate guilt of a sister trying to save her dead brother through someone else.
I became obsessed with curing Kieran.
As though healing him might loosen the nightmare wrapped around my throat.
One year had filled the apartment with more things than I expected.
Matching cups.
Matching watches.
Cheap couple rings.
Every one of them hurt to look at.
I threw them all in the trash.
The old air conditioner rattled above me.
I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
For the first time in months, I stopped working.
Sleep dragged me under.
I dreamed of Rowan in the bathtub.
I had lost count of how many times I had dreamed that scene.
He lay in dark red water, his skin white as porcelain.
Cold.
Silent.
The empty pill bottle had rolled from his fingertips.
His long lashes rested against his cheeks at the same angle they had when he fell asleep waiting for me to finish studying.
Only this time, his eyes would never open.
He would never rub the sleep from them and ask, “When are you coming to bed, Lyra?”
He had erased every conversation from his phone.
The only things he left me were one sentence
Lyra, I’m sorry.
and a transfer of $3,569.81.
Every dollar he owned.
Spring had been at its brightest when Rowan, who seemed born to shine, left at the most beautiful age.
I had been trapped in that spring ever since.
The rustle of a plastic bag near the door pulled me awake.
A man in a black shirt was crouched beside the trash, digging through it like a thief.
“Who’s there?”
He stopped and slowly turned.
Kieran.
He wore a mask, and several places on his face were bandaged.
I rubbed my aching forehead.
I had forgotten he still had a key.
The rings, cups, watches, and souvenirs I had thrown away were now arranged neatly across the floor.
They were cheap.
They still carried my scent.
Apparently, Kieran could not bear to leave them behind.
“What are you doing with those?”
He lowered his eyes.
I could not read his expression.
“I came to collect the last of my things.”
“The Blackwood heir wants garbage like this?”
I sat up and looked around for anything important I had missed.
I planned to return to the dorms and give up the apartment.
Kieran held our silver couple ring in one hand. His thumb moved slowly over the dull metal.
“Lyra, I know you won’t believe me, but what I felt was real.”
His voice was low and raw.
“No one has ever loved me as honestly as you did. I don’t want to lose you.”
“We aren’t fated mates, but my wolf waits for you to come home every day.”
I gave a short, bitter laugh.
The scene at the mansion returned to me.
“Real?”
“Did you love me so much that you made me deliver dinner after you and Sabrina finished fucking?”
“Should I thank you?”
“Nothing happened between Sabrina and me,” he said quickly. “We never slept together. I agreed to be with her before without thinking.”
“I already wanted to end it. I realized the person I actually love is ”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
I cut him off.
The faucet in the bathroom dripped steadily into a plastic bucket.
It had leaked for months.
I collected the water because even a few dollars mattered to me.
That was all poverty ever left us.
Small change.
Small humiliations.
Love without honesty sounded ridiculous in a room like this.
The moment his lie broke open, whatever had been between us became a distance I would never cross again.
“Kieran, when you used my brother’s death to get close to me, did you ever imagine the bullet you fired might circle back?”
He frowned.
“What do you mean?”
I did not answer.
I opened the door and waited.
Pain crossed his face.
He shoved the things from the floor into his bag and stood.
“Stop pretending you have depression,” I said.
“Every person who lies about it adds to the stigma. Every lie makes it harder for someone who is truly sick to be believed.”
Someone like Rowan.
Kieran stood in silence for a long time.
Then he nodded.
He reached behind the door and lifted a bag of small, perfect pumpkins.
He had seen my message about dinner.
“Will you make pumpkin soup for me one last time?”
“No. Your family chef will make it better.”
“I only like yours.”
His voice cracked.
“Lyra, why can’t you believe me once? Why can’t you give me one more chance?”
I had never imagined the Alpha heir who stood above all of Los Angeles would look at me like he was begging for his life.
It did not belong in the poor boy game he had created.
Whether his words were true no longer mattered.
I remained silent.
He understood.
His hand lifted as if to take mine.
Then it fell.
At the door, Kieran looked back at me with red rimmed eyes.
“Do you still love me?”
“No.”
“Could you ever love me again?”
“No.”