When I Dreamed of the Alpha Again Chapter 03
The next second, Nathan’s expression suddenly softened.
As if nothing had changed, he reached out and gently ruffled my hair.
“Allie, are you feeling unwell? Why do you keep avoiding Tiffany and me?”
“It’s Tiffany’s birthday today. She’ll be really upset if you don’t come. Let’s go celebrate with her, okay?”
He was smiling—but I could sense the quiet probing beneath it.
Of course.
Ever since yesterday, I had been acting completely out of character—avoiding them whenever possible, keeping distance from Nathan, no longer clinging to him the way I once did.
If… this Nathan wasn’t the same eighteen-year-old Nathan, then he would definitely start to doubt whether I was still the seventeen-year-old Allie.
Three years after sealing the mate bond, whatever feelings I once had for Nathan had long since been worn away by mental torture and emotional exhaustion.
Now, what I felt for him was nothing but fear—and hatred.
“I… I…”
I forced a smile, but Nathan cut me off before I could finish.
“Let’s go. We’re celebrating Tiffany’s birthday together. I’ll send you home later.”
As an Alpha’s command, I couldn’t refuse.
So I followed silently behind them.
In the past, when the three of us walked together, I would always be the one watching Nathan and Tiffany laugh and talk in perfect sync, my heart quietly aching.
But now, I only looked at them coldly, without any emotion at all.
Even my mind was already calculating an excuse to leave early.
…
The night before I jumped from the rooftop was Tiffany’s death anniversary.
Nathan, who was usually away indulging in his own affairs, unexpectedly returned to the pack house. He smiled at me—softly, almost cruelly.
“Allie, do you remember when you were stopped by the lake?”
“That day I was on patrol. I stood by the lake and watched you for a long time.”
The reflection in the glass window of the pack house showed my face turning pale in an instant.
That day… I could never forget it.
I had been chased all the way to the lake by several pack members. They called me a murderer. They lined up to slap me one by one, shoved my head into the water, tore my books apart and threw the pieces into the lake.
In the end, they forced me to kneel and repeat a hundred times:
“Tiffany, I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
I obeyed—numbly, hollowly—because only then would the humiliation end.
On graduation day, I thought it was finally over. I tried desperately to forget everything, to seal away anything related to Tiffany.
I thought I could start over.
But now, six years later, Nathan told me something I never knew.
That day of humiliation… he had been there.
He had always been there.
The Nathan who once held my hand as a child, who grew up beside me like an older brother, had stood somewhere nearby—watching silently as I was humiliated, beaten, and forced to my knees.
Nathan leaned closer, his voice still calm as he continued speaking.
“Also, Allie… your mother is sick now and can’t afford treatment. Your father has been rejected by the entire pack for disloyalty to the Alpha. Life has been very hard for him.”
“All of this… is because of you. They could have lived their whole lives as respected Betas. But now they’re forced to pay for your mistakes.”
I watched my own unfocused pupils slowly go dead as his words sank in.
So that was it.
As long as I, the so-called “sinner,” was still alive in this world—and as long as Nathan remained in my life—none of this would ever end.
The only way out was death.
To die… as “atonement.”
That was why, on that night, I climbed to the rooftop where Tiffany had once jumped—
And left behind a note that said:
I am not the murderer.
