Forget Me Not (Forgotten Series Companion Chapters)

Heavy Burdens

Andrew

I had many regrets in my life. So many I felt like I could drown underneath their weight and pressure. Guilt too. Sometimes it ate at my skin and bones to the point I wanted to dig my claws into my flesh in an attempt to strip it out. I wanted to rend my flesh from my bones to atone for the cruelties I had allowed to happen, the brutalities that has been wrought underneath my rule, the horrendous torture that I had allowed to continue, had allowed to happen to my child.

I knew that if I had not met Amber, had not looked upon her and saw the one female I would stand beside without pause. I would have taken my own life, unable to live with myself a moment longer.

Amber was my saving grace, she truly was. A female as tough as can be and that held my head above the water. She had done so much for me, had taken care of my little one, my Maricella, when I had failed as a father. She had given me my sweet little Lula, a darling little girl I loved with my everything just as I loved her sister. She had taken care of me when my regrets and guilt got too heavy to carry on my own and all I wanted to do was curl up and die underneath my own failures as an Alpha, and even worse, a father.

She had helped me a lot. Her voice soothing as she would brush my hair from my forehead, telling me it was alright, that it was okay, that mistakes were allowed and that I was atoning for them the best I could. She told me of how Maricella loved me so very much, that as her memories had come back that she had spoken so reverently of the father I had been to her growing up. She talked about how Mari would cry over memories scraped knees and how I would dutifully kiss them better, how Mari would speak of me with all the love in the world as she talked about remembering bed time stories and tea parties.

I wished those talks would make me feel better, that Mari's love would help close the wound on my soul but it was like pouring salt within it instead. It was a violently painful response to hear of how good of a father I was as I remember just how horrendously I had allowed her to be treated. I didn't know, it was something Amber reminded me with that soft voice that would hitch with her own emotions as she would look at me with those vividly blue eyes and all I could think was that does not excuse me from what I had allowed to happen.

Working through my emotions, working through how I felt, how I was dealing with everything that occurred was a difficult process. I wasn't going to lie because at times it was so painful, the marks against my soul too great, that I wanted to simply end it all. There was nothing I could do to atone for my mistakes, not when it came to Maricella, not when it came to the other Omegas. I had allowed a brutal system to exist, had allowed it to thrive underneath my blind gaze.

Amber was my constant and so was Maricella. They both did their best to help me through it, to help me become better. I loved them all the more for it, even when the guilt at times made it impossible for me to look Mari in the eyes and pick up my little Lula because I felt utterly unworthy as a being to touch her innocence lest I harm her too. They picked me up when I wanted to collapse and held me close when all I wanted to do was push the world away.

I was learning to live with the crushing guilt and regret. I was. I knew it would never go away and some might have believed that having Maricella's faith and forgiveness in me would have soothed it over but it didn't. She never should have forgiven me because it never should have happened. It was a thought that kept me up even when everyone else fell asleep. I would lay awake, thinking about what I could have done, what I should have done, with only the moon awake to judge me.

However, in their quest to heal me, to help me unburden myself from the guilt and regret that clung tight to my bones, Amber and Maricella had unearthed something I had not expected. Years worth of unrestrained resentment that had been directed at an unsuspecting source.