Page 32 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

He looked at me for a long moment. “I don’t hate you.”

“You act like you do.”

“I act like that with everyone.” His green eyes flickered, a crack in the surface that closed almost as fast as it opened. “It’s easier.”

I didn’t really understand what he meant then, not until one night during Parents’ Weekend, sophomore year. I was walking back from the library when I heard voices coming from one of the private meeting rooms.

The door was slightly ajar. I should have kept walking. Instead, I froze.

“You’re an embarrassment.” The voice was cold, cutting. “Third in your class? A Cavill should be first. Always first.”

“Father, I⁠—”

“Don’t make excuses. Excuses are for the weak. For people like your mother. Is that what you want to be? Weak? Pathetic? A disappointment?”

There was only silence. I could picture Max on the other side of that door, back straight and face blank.

“You will do better. You will be better. Or I will find someone who can carry the Cavill name with the dignity it deserves. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good. Now get out of my sight.”

The door swung open and Max walked out. He saw me standing there, saw the horror I couldn’t quite hide from my face. For a long moment, neither of us moved.

Then he just walked past me, shoulders rigid, and didn’t speak to me for three days.

When he finally did, it wasn’t to explain or apologize. He just sat down across from me at lunch and said, quietly, “Now you know.”

“I’m not going to say anything,” I told him.

“I know.” And in that moment, the first foundations of our pack were laid.

His coldness was never arrogance. It was self-preservation. He kept the world at a distance not to shut it out, but to keep it from seeing how close he was to breaking.

Finn was the bridge.

He always was. Even back then, he had this gift for making people feel comfortable, for finding common ground where none should exist. He dragged Max to the library to study with me. He dragged me to the dining hall to eat with them. He refused to let either of us retreat into our respective shells.

“You two are more alike than you think,” he said once, when Max and I had been at it again, probably about class privilege. “You’re both stubborn, you both think you’re always right, and you both need friends who won’t let you get away with your bullshit.”

“I don’t need friends,” Max said.

“Everyone needs friends.” Finn threw an arm around each of our shoulders, pulling us together despite our protests. “Especially friends who know all your secrets. Much harder to be a dick when someone can call you on it.”

He wasn’t wrong.

We graduated together four years later, a scholarship kid, an heir to a fortune I couldn’t comprehend, and the golden boy who never met a stranger. We went to the same university. Started Synthera together in a tiny rented office with nothing but a dream and a stack of research papers. Max gave most of his inheritance away that year. He didn’t want anything of his father’s he couldn’t tear down.

The memory fades as I reach my office, and I realize I’ve been standing in front of the door for nearly a minute, lost in the past.

My phone buzzes.

“Ma.” I answer with a smile she can’t see but probably hears anyway. “What’s up?”

“Ethan, tesoro.” Her voice is warm and slightly breathless. She’s seventy-five now, and her heart isn’t what it used to be, but she refuses to slow down. “I’m calling about Saturday.”

I lean against my office door, already knowing where this is going. “I haven’t forgotten.”