Claimed by My Bully Alpha Chapter 365

Aurora’s P.O.V

Ashton laughed as he pulled away, holding his hand up in surrender before he went to stand back with Maggie and Avery.

I rolled my eyes, but the giddiness in my chest wouldn’t fade. "Lunch sounds perfect," I admitted, glancing at Riley, who nodded in agreement. 

Maya and Alpha Camden approached then, their presence grounding me a little. The Alpha gave me a knowing look, one that carried both approval and an unspoken expectation. "Unfortunately, duty calls for us," he said, his tone firm but not unkind. "But we won’t send you off empty-handed." 

Maya reached into her bag, pulling out an envelope, and pressed it into my hands. "Consider it both a graduation gift and a little extra for lunch," she said, a rare softness in her usually serious expression. "Enjoy yourselves. You deserve it." 

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. I had never expected anything more than their presence, but this—this was more than I could have asked for. "Thank you," I whispered, my fingers tightening around the envelope. 

Caleb clapped his hands together. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go before Aurora starts crying all over again." 

I shot him a glare, but I couldn't stop the laughter that followed as we headed toward his car.

Unfortunately, Ashton, Maggie and Avery had to catch up on classes, so they couldn’t join us and left with Alpha Camden and Maya, but we all promised to go for a treat soon, when they were free from their classes. But at the very least, they had made it to my graduation, and it already felt like the bridge that had started to form among us was shortening.

The second I settled into the passenger seat, I exhaled, looking out the window as we drove through familiar streets. Downtown hadn't changed much, and yet, after everything, it felt like I was seeing it through a new lens—one shaped by longing and nostalgia. 

I pressed my forehead against the glass, watching as the city I had missed so much stretched before me. "It's been a while," I murmured, mostly to myself, but Riley must have heard because he reached over, squeezing my hand briefly. 

"Yeah," he agreed. "But it still feels like home, doesn’t it?"  

I turned to him, my heart swelling at the truth in his words. It did. It really did.

I can’t even remember the girl I used to be before Caleb. It feels like she belonged to a different lifetime, a shadow of someone who barely existed, someone who was so easy to overlook, so easy to ridicule. I used to be the most bullied girl in school, the one people whispered about, laughed at behind my back, sneered at to my face.

I used to feel so small, so insignificant, like the weight of the world pressed down on me and no one even noticed. But within a year, everything changed. My world turned upside down, and I became someone new—someone powerful, someone untouchable. 

Or so I thought. 

Because just as that conviction settles in my chest, Caleb pulls the car to a stop, and my breath catches in my throat. Jeremy’s Diner.

The same place I had worked at for almost three years, where I spent endless hours wiping down tables, refilling coffee cups for customers who barely acknowledged me, saving every last tip just to make it through the month.

I stared at the neon sign flickering in the window, the same one I used to look at every single night before dragging myself home, exhausted and aching, wondering if life would ever get better.

But it was also this very same Jeremy who had kept me alive and well fed when I didn’t have enough money in my pockets. The very same man who would grumble about Riley showing up unannounced, and yet, he would feed him, spend hours talking to him and just keeping him company. And the same man who had thrown my stepfather out of the diner when he had barged in, demanding that my pay be given to him since I was a minor.

Caleb shifts in his seat, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel as he turns to look at me.

“You okay?” 

I don’t answer right away. My pulse is erratic, my stomach twisted into knots. The past feels too close all of a sudden, like it’s reaching for me, trying to remind me of who I used to be. I force myself to swallow the lump in my throat and nod. “Yeah. Just… I didn’t expect to be here.” 

He watches me carefully, those sharp, knowing eyes of his taking in every little reaction. Caleb always sees through me. Always. “We can go somewhere else,” he says, but there’s something in his tone—something that tells me he brought me here for a reason. 

I shake my head. “No. It’s fine.” It’s not, but I refuse to let it show.