Alice in Hell (Alpha/Omega)

Alice almost there

ALICE POV

It hadn't taken very long before Namjoon had pulled me to the side to talk to me about the trial that we had to go to. I could see the regret on his face of having to ask me to do this but it was necessary for me to attend to make sure that everything would be going smoothly. And I dreaded seeing him again, it would be the first time since I had come home that that would happen and I honestly just wanted to disappear from it all.

Namjoon apologised over and over for this, being on his knees as he broke down, not being able to hold on a brave face and I almost broke with him, just sat down beside him and told him that I understood and that it was okay, trying to make him have a happy smile back on his face.

As we were sitting on the floor, he reassured me that he would not be able to touch me while I was there and the whole pack would be by my side. That this whole thing was basically just a formality as our lawyer was sure that we would win this, I just needed to testify against him and tell what he had done to me and then it would basically be a win for us. Not that I cared much for winning, I just wanted peace.

And it made sense what Namjoon told me, it was basically a sin and therefore unforgivable act to take away someone's second gender. It was taking away someone's identity and with that, ruining their place in society. That was something that I realised quite quickly, with no scent, everyone seemed to know exactly what I was so most of the time I had to wear a neutraliser used to mask scents to give the appearance of being something that I was no longer.

Pretending, especially if we were out of the house, had become the norm for me. And on one hand, I liked to pretend, make it seem like I wasn't broken glass and I was just a normal girl. But it was also so exhausting to do, putting up a front of everything was fine so that not everyone would know exactly what I was. Trauma filled. It was so unfair that such a simple thing as scent could reveal so much of myself without my consent, I just wanted this to end.

But that was an old story by now, I couldn't hide beneath my darkness for all eternity and I needed to take some steps to heal myself and one thing that would help immensely would be for that man to rot away in prison for the rest of his life. He deserved something on par with what he had done to me but I was not cruel and I would not wish what he did on me, on him. So prison was the next best thing, it would give me the peace of mind that he was not just around the corner, ready to take me away once again. It would help with the growing agoraphobia that caused panic attacks or shutdowns every time I was out of my room, that danger was just around the corner. I would gladly suffer a few more of those if that meant that I would be free of him for the rest of my life afterwards.

But before I could start to do that, I needed to mend a bit more and that meant to mend some of my relationships that had gotten cracks after I got back. It was things that I knew deep down wasn't my fault but that didn't mean I felt guilty for causing them nonetheless and I could no longer just stand around and do nothing about it. I was tired of being the damsel in distress and it was high time that I took my healing into my own hand so that me and my loved ones don't suffer any longer. I might be broken but I was not broken glass that needed to be handled with care.

It was not like that they were very subtle with their actions either, and it helped that I was not in the haze that I had been for the few first weeks. Their actions were clear to me and I could see when some of them tried to keep away from me every time I entered the room. And it hurt, it hurt a lot but I wasn't angry at them, sometimes I forget that I wasn't the only one that went through something traumatic and maybe that was selfish of me but it was hard to not just think inwards.

Everyone heals differently and at different rates, and that healing was very often not linear so no matter how much I wanted to be mad at them, I could not. I just wanted to know what I had done wrong so that I could work on fixing that for him. I wanted us to be together as before even though that was wishful thinking. But the least we could do was try and that meant talking to each other and by god that was scary.