Beauty and The Beta (Bailey) novel Chapter 203

My body slid down the wall next to my bedroom door until I was sitting upon the floor with my back against the wall, tears falling from my eyes at hearing Asher's words. My body racked with painful sobs. Everything he was saying was everything I wanted to hear. He was the most perfect guy, of that I had no doubt, but he had been telling me what I should do, and I didn’t need that right now. I do not need someone dictating to me what I can and cannot do. That is not what I need. I have had that for too long from Miles. And while I know Asher is no Miles, I do not need him telling me what to do. I needed his understanding…

I needed Asher to understand how all of this was working. Yet he didn’t seem to. He had heard what he had heard and jumped to the angry conclusion he had. But, ultimately, I needed to do the right thing for my family. I needed to do what was expected of me. I doubt he would understand… he had barely mentioned his family to me. But mine, while I was not particularly close to them all the time, they expected a lot of me, and I had a lot to prove to them.

As our pack's Beta family, there were expectations of us, and my parents had always made us feel them growing up. Pressure upon us to maintain our reputation and image. Jordan was their perfect son, as the next in line, as Beta - not to mention, an all-out sports star, and one of the most popular guys in school. Morgan, their sweet, beautiful, youngest daughter – little miss popular in school, and head cheerleader. And then there was me, the middle daughter. The one that was easy to forget. The non-descript, boring one, as I have been so often described, because I enjoyed my studies. So unlike my other two siblings. The amount of times people had questioned if I was adopted with how unlike my brother and sister I was had hurt, but it was a question people thought was amusing.

With siblings like mine, and the fact my parents so often heaped praise on them, I had to find ways to impress them. And my school work, along with it being an escape from not fitting in, became a means of doing this. Doing well in school gave my parents something to be proud of me for. I tried hard to keep making them proud. I wanted to feel important in their lives, the way my brother and sister seemed to be.

The same way I tried so hard to alter how I looked, after so many critical comments over the years, it was only as I got older I realized I was trying to find somebody else’s idea of what was beautiful. There was nothing wrong with me the way I was. I think Asher had shown me that too. The way he had treated me, wanted me for me, even having seen me at some of my lowest and weaker points. He saw me, and found me beautiful. He made me feel beautiful too. Made me feel wanted and cared for. He made me feel enough…

My heart ached at the thought of what had just happened, but as I was about to call out to him, desperate to have his arms around me, I heard his footsteps walking away. I think he had taken my silence as me not wanting to talk. But, no matter what he and I may have said, I still had to go to this wedding. I was given no choice by my father, and I knew that. He and the Alpha were so focused on how it would be viewed by the pack if I were not there, now the truth about mine and Miles's past had been revealed. They were so focused on image and portraying a wonderful tale for our pack to believe that all was now good between the two of us as former fated mates, that they would not even contemplate how awkward this could be. So, I had conceded that I would have to attend, whether Asher believed it was the right thing to do or not.