The Omega and The Arrogant Alpha (by Kylie) novel Chapter 298

Still, I keep walking.

Near the admin wing, I hear voices through an open doorway, a low discussion already underway, and I recognize one of the names being mentioned, a decision point that used to land squarely on my desk.

I pause without meaning to.

Not to interrupt.

Just to listen.

They’re handling it well.

Better than well, actually. Calm, thoughtful, weighing consequences without dramatizing them, and I stand there for a few seconds longer than necessary before realizing what I’m doing and stepping away, my pulse ticking up slightly for reasons that don’t align neatly with logic.

This is what you wanted, I remind myself.

This is what stepping back looks like.

By the time I reach my office, I already know I’m not going to stay there long. The room feels too still, the desk too empty, the chair positioned for someone who doesn’t need to lean forward all the time anymore, and I sit anyway, resting my hands on the surface, grounding myself in the familiar texture of it.

The quiet stretches.

No one knocks.

No one needs me.

That’s when it hits, sharp and unwelcome in its clarity.

I’m not relieved.

I’m unmoored.

The realization settles slowly, like something heavy finding its place in my chest, and I sit there with it, not pushing it away, not immediately reframing it into something useful, because that instinct is part of the problem.

I spent so long being necessary that I don’t know how to exist without it.

Later, Ben finds me in the doorway, watching the room like I’m deciding whether to enter or leave.

“You’ve been drifting,” he says.

“Have I,” I ask, and the question comes out lighter than I expect.

He nods. “All morning.”

I step back and let him in, and we sit on the edge of the desk, close but not touching, the way we do when we’re both being careful not to assume anything about what the other needs.

I let out a short, breathless laugh. “Fire was easier.”

“Fire was killing you,” he replies.

We sit with that for a moment, the truth of it pressing in without demanding resolution, and I realize with a faint, disorienting clarity that stepping back didn’t end anything.

It just exposed the space underneath.

When he finally reaches for me, it’s light, a hand at my wrist, grounding without anchoring, and I let myself lean into it without deciding what it means yet.

Later, when he leaves to handle something that actually needs handling, I stay behind, standing alone in the doorway, watching the corridor continue without me.

For the first time since this all began, the pressure isn’t coming from outside.

It’s coming from the question I’ve been avoiding.

If I’m no longer necessary, what do I choose to be?

The thought follows me as I turn off the lights and close the door, unresolved and unavoidable, settling into my chest with the quiet certainty that this isn’t the end of the work.

It’s just the beginning of a different kind of reckoning.