Chapter 151: Flowers and a friend
Chapter 150
Ciel
Ivan asks me again about my day, and it would be rude to give him a curt response when he just said all that.
Besides, Ivan’s my friend. And I’ve never had a friend before. Let alone an omega friend.
So I start texting. And typing. And I can’t stop myself.
About the frustrations. About the kitchen I’m not allowed to use, the chefs who smile politely while telling me I don’t belong. About the "duties" that feel like being dressed up and displayed. About sitting in this room watching the two people I love do things that matter, while I just...
exist.
I send it before I can second-guess myself.
The three dots appear immediately.
💬Ivan: I’m going to give you a call right now.
I stand up. Jack and Nolan are both still engrossed in their work—Jack frowning at a document, Nolan typing something with the kind of focus that makes the rest of the world disappear.
I walk into the bathroom and shut the door behind me.
I never get stunned by the sheer luxury of this bathroom anymore. But tonight, the marble counters and the gold fixtures and the enormous tub that could fit three people feel like they’re mocking me. A pretty room for a pretty thing.
My phone rings. I take a seat on the toilet lid and answer.
"I don’t think a text would accurately express my emotions," Ivan says.
"Okay."
"Do you know what my first impression of you was?"
"Uh... no?"
"You looked like a fairy. At the park. I remember poking Zander, like hey, look at him, he’s so pretty, like wow." He says it with such sincerity that I cough out a laugh despite myself.
"Do you know what else is pretty?" he asks.
"Uh..."
"Flowers."
I wonder where this is going.
"The thing about flowers," Ivan continues, his voice slower now, more deliberate, "is that some people nurture them. Some people look at them. Some people cut them. Some people step on them. Some flowers are edible, some are poisonous, some have medicinal properties. Some are treated like weeds. Some are placed in greenhouses."
"Okay," I say, not sure where he’s taking this.
"One thing I’ve realized, Ciel, is that the world treats omegas like you and me like flowers."
I go still.
He keeps going. "At some point, we start thinking we are."
My fingers clench around the phone.
"But babe." His voice softens. "We are not flowers."
I don’t say anything.
"We have emotions, feelings, desires, hopes, dreams. We feel pain, sorrow, joy." His voice is steady, firm.
"No matter how the world tells us otherwise. No matter how we convince ourselves otherwise."
My fingers clench around the phone, tightening until my knuckles ache.
"We are not flowers," he says. "The first step is to acknowledge that."
I don’t answer.
"You and I are the lucky ones, you know. We found people to nurture us. To protect us. To love us." He pauses. "But no matter how much they do that, if you won’t turn your roots into legs, when winter comes and your petals fall, you’ll be scared. When a bug eats your petals and leaves. When the soil is diseased and you can’t be as pretty."
His voice softens.
"What’s going to happen then, Ciel?"
I swallow. "I don’t—"
"Life isn’t a story with happily ever after," he says.
"There will be ups and downs. Good seasons and bad. How long are you going to last if you believe that every single flaw means you’ll be uprooted and thrown away?"
My chest tightens.
"But you’re not a flower," he says softly. "You’re not going to be uprooted. You’re not going to wither because one season is hard. You’re a person, Ciel. A whole person. Not something that exists to be pretty and then discarded when you’re not."
"I don’t know," I say eventually. My voice cracks on the last word.
"Then let’s do this." Ivan’s voice shifts, brighter, like he’s switching into teacher mode.
"Every time you’re reminded of being an omega. Every time the expectations press down on you. Every time you catch yourself thinking you’re just here to be looked at."
He pauses.
"I want you to tell yourself this."
I wait.
"Omegas are human beings."
"Omegas are not flowers."
I repeat the words in my head, letting them settle somewhere deep.
"Remember you’re a dad, babe," Ivan says, his voice gentler now. "What if your little one presents as an omega? Are you going to tell him his value comes from being attractive?"
"Of course not!" The words come out sharp, offended. Angry at the very suggestion.
"How is he going to believe that?" Ivan asks quietly. "If what you tell him contradicts how you treat yourself?"
I go silent.
The bathroom is too quiet. The marble tiles gleam under the soft light, perfect and cold. My reflection stares back at me from the mirror across the room. Pale. Red hair. Golden eyes.
Pretty.
That’s all I am, if I let myself believe it.
But what if Lanny is an omega and he looks in the mirror one day and sees the same thing? What if he grows up thinking his face is the only thing that matters?
I think about Nolan. About the years he spent telling me I was more. About the way he looked at me like I was the whole sky, not just something pretty in it.
I think about Jack. About the way he said I’m not here for your body, Ciel. I’m here for you.
They’ve been telling me this whole time.
But hearing it from another omega,from someone who has been where I am, who has felt what I feel...it lands differently.
It’s not someone telling me I’m worth more.
It’s someone showing me it’s possible to believe it.
I can’t complain about the way the world treats me when I treat myself the same way.
I can’t change the way the world sees me.
But I can change the way I see myself.
I owe it to myself.
If not for me, then—
Lanny.
And he won’t believe it if I don’t believe it for myself.
I exhale slowly. Let the breath out. Let something else in.
"Thank you," I say.