Not yours to reject
"Must be nice though. Two Alphas fighting over you."
I open my mouth to correct her, to lay out exactly how untrue that framing is, how none of this was something I asked for or wanted, how being rejected in front of two hundred people doesn't magically become romantic just because someone else happened to notice. The words are right there, ready to spill out in careful, reasonable detail.
I stop myself. Barely.
"I need to get to the clinic," I say instead, and walk away before I can undo my own restraint.