Andie stared hard at his mate, tension in every line of his face. “Nothing to say to that, Jake? That’s all I get? I’m a mistake? I should go be with Clay at college, and then we’ll live in a fancy house with cars that run, just like I always dreamed? I’ve really hitched my wagon to a star now! Cars that run! I should be with him despite the fact that every first I have to give, I have given to you. Only you. Despite the fact that we both know that you are my fated mate and that I love you, you don’t want a claim bond anymore. Don’t want us anymore. Don’t want the person you haven’t gone more than a few days without seeing for the past twelve years. It’s just over, just like that? Think hard, Jake. Think real hard before you answer...”

If Jake thought hard, he thought hard fast because, almost instantly, he responded with a rough, “That’s right.” Very sure. Very clear. Very angry.

Andie was stunned into silence. Tears and pheromones were pouring out of him. “Well, ok, then,” he choked out, fumbling for the door handle on the truck, yanking on it frantically because it was mostly busted. He could never get it to open, and it had never really mattered much because Jake usually ran around and opened his door for him anyway. Not anymore, though, apparently. Andie had given Clay a hug because Clay had come out to his mom, and it had gone badly. So Andie didn’t deserve love. He didn’t deserve a life with his mate. He didn’t even deserve help with the broken door. He was a gold-digging slut who apparently cared about cars that ran and houses now, so he was on his own. Jake wasn’t even looking at him. Fucking fine, then.

Andie did not, in fact, need Jake or his help. He was not going to compromise on his right to have friends and support them. He was done being a substitute punching bag when he hadn't done anything wrong, but someone else clearly had. He had tried to get Jake to talk it out. He had tried to take care of him. Jake was too far gone for a productive conversation tonight. Things would just have to run their course, but Andie wasn't going to sit in this truck waiting for it to happen. He cranked the window down, reached through it, and popped the handle from the outside. The door opened a few inches. He waited a beat for Jake to reach across and grab it, to pull it shut again and stop him from leaving. Jake didn’t even try to stop him. He didn’t even look over, and that hurt Andie more than anything. Andie climbed out of the truck and shut the door, being careful not to slam it because he wasn’t the irrational jerk in this fight. Then, he turned and started walking.

Did Andie expect Jake to follow him from a distance? To make sure he was ok out there in the dark by himself? Or pull up alongside him and ask him to get in the truck again so Jake could take him home? Oh, yes. Yes, he absolutely did. He walked nice and slow, giving it a chance to happen, sure that it would. Sure that twelve years of being an inseparable pair didn’t end with a hug in plain view of everyone in the HEB. A friendly hug offered for a good reason, a reason that guaranteed Clay and Andie would never ‘multiply’ or live together in a house with a white picket fence and two cars that ran in the driveway.

After walking about twenty yards, Andie heard the roar of the truck’s engine turning over. He slowed a little more and moved to the side of the road, ready to be pursued and apologized to. Then he realized that the sound of the engine was getting fainter instead of louder. He didn’t want to, but he turned and looked. He saw tail lights. Or rather, the singular functional tail light of Jake’s truck. It was heading in the opposite direction. Unbelievable. Jake is going to feel so bad about this later.

Andie hadn't been planning an outing, and he'd hurried down to Jake's truck, so he'd left his phone at home. He couldn’t call his father or anyone else to come and get him. It was a short walk, though, and hoofing it would give Jake another chance to change his mind. If Jake changed his mind before Andie reached his house, he would hear Jake out for at least a little while. As he slowly walked the mile home through the dark in his five-dollar flip-flops, swiping at his raw, tear-soaked face as he went, he was still more worried for Jake than himself.

Something, something was terribly wrong. Something had happened. There was acting strange, and then there was being unrecognizable. This was the latter. Like most Alphas, Jake could be a little possessive, but all this over Clay? And to fight over that hug was one thing, but to tell Andie the claim was a mistake? There were things mates didn’t say to each other, ever. That was right up there at the top of the list--it wasn’t like he had forced the claim on Jake or even pushed it. He'd just... broached it. He'd offered it. Jake had accepted. Enthusiastically. It wasn’t like Andie could just go home and take it off with make-up remover or have it lasered off since Jake had changed his mind. It wasn’t like Andie hadn't worried that it was too soon, but he'd weighed the pros and cons with Jake, and they'd agreed on it. He'd done it for Jake. So Jake would know that they were forever, no matter what happened with college and jobs and the rest. For himself, too. So he'd know that they were forever despite those things. So now Andie was good and bonded forever with someone who'd just ditched him in the dark over nothing.

To leave a mate, a claimed, fated mate, alone and defenseless in a not-particularly-safe situation? No right-thinking Alpha would ever be able to tolerate the risks of that in the same way that no even marginally decent mother would send her toddler out to play unsupervised next to the highway. Jake would never do that. Forget Alphas… Jim, who had been a Beta, must be rolling over in his grave at Jake’s lack of responsibility and manners, leaving Andie to walk home in the dark by himself with no phone. Yeah, things had been a little rocky lately thanks to College-gate, but…

Well, Andie knew one thing. He knew Jake. The real Jake. Knew him to his core. And Jake was going to regret this. He’d come back tonight or tomorrow. He’d call to make sure Andie made it home ok. Andie wasn’t going to take that call. Or any other calls from Jake, not for at least a week, but Jake would call.

Jake did not call that night. Or the next day. He did not come over to plead for forgiveness. When Andie went to Jake’s trailer five days later to find him, already starting to feel ill from pheromone withdrawals, Jake wasn’t there. His mother had no idea where he was. She just affirmed that he'd been gone for days. Not that she’d seemed to care much or even understand exactly what Andie was asking her. She was using again, clearly. Was that why all this had happened?

So, humiliated by the necessity, Andie had called around, trying to get information from someone else. None of Jake’s friends knew where he was, either. Sick and scared out of his mind, Andie had gone out to the ranch a full week after he’d last seen his mate. Jake wasn’t there either. His boss had at least heard from him, however. Four days earlier, Jake had called and left a message apologizing for the short notice and saying he wouldn’t be coming in that day or ever again. He’d left Texas and had no plans to return.

Jake wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. That was the good news. Jake was voluntarily letting Andie be sick and hurt and scared and alone. That was the devastating news.

Still, Andie thought that surely Jake was just laying low, that he’d come to his senses soon and turn up. Jake had never even been outside of Texas. He didn’t have anywhere else to go! Maybe his truck had broken down wherever he was, and he couldn’t get back. Or his little burner phone ran out of minutes, and he had no money to add more. Andie kept thinking of excuses for Jake’s behavior.

Then, Oskar Dahl’s friend on the police force was kind enough to let them know that Jake’s truck had been reported as an abandoned vehicle at the Greyhound Bus station parking lot. A Tracfone was sitting on the front seat, and so were the keys. The officer had asked around at the bus station, and Jake had paid cash for a ticket and boarded a bus a week ago. Andie realized then that he and that rusty old truck had something in common—they were both no longer wanted or needed.

That was the day Andie told his father about the claim. That was the day Andie went to bed. He stayed there, or in the bathroom, for almost three weeks, leaving only for a trip to the ER for IV fluids one night that first week. Although it was too late in the process to do him much good, they’d prescribed him some higher-dose suppressants to help with the withdrawals, but Andie couldn’t keep them down. He was feverish and aching, shivering and vomiting. And crying. God, so much crying. Sleep should have been his one relief, but every time he slept, he dreamed of endlessly chasing after a single red light as it disappeared into the darkness.