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King’s hand tightens over the curve of my shoulder, his other smoothing up and down my throat, so careful with me it makes me hurt worse.
Rex clutches me close, wrapping himself around me like warm, safe walls.
The rest of the world doesn’t matter.
Doesn’t exist.
Nothing but their words, because they mean them, they mean them even though it hurts them. There’s something like love tangled here, something I can only suspect because I’ve never really felt it before.
There is a cold absence bleeding in my chest and I think of the ways I have tried so hard to fill it. Nothing even close to stitching me back together, no matter what I do to heal the darkness.
Until these noxious boys picked me. Fucked me, adored me, ruined me. It was inevitable. I thought they would grow bored, that they would find out just how uninteresting I am. That I would do more drugs and pop more pills and they’d think I wasfun. They wouldn’t see the fear, the dread, the anxiety. The ownership of my father. All of these things that make up my entirety. How much effort I assumed it would take to keep theirattention, only on me, would take everything I had to give and more and I would give it.
It would kill me in the end but I would give it.
And then I’d be free.
They hold me as I cry, together, brothers not made of blood, but of love and respect and loyalty. Something that twisted them to hurt me, but they’ll get over it, me. In a few weeks time this will all have meant nothing.
I’ll go to class and earn my grades, keep my head down, my nose clean, so to speak. I won’t try to be fun anymore. I don’t think, even with all the pills, I ever really was anyway. Barely close to normal. I’m not sure anything could help me achieve that either.
Normality.
Rex brings my head up, kissing my salty lips, swallowing the evidence of my sadness, and he doesn’t even know what it’s for. I think of the way he kissed me, just like this, after King and Flynn saved me from the train.
How I cried because I wished they hadn’t.
King’s face is buried in the crook of my neck, his lips suckling along the side of my throat.
It feels like begging. The way they both cling onto me and I hate it.
I’m no good for them.
Everything is so gentle, both of them so careful, handling the stupid, broken girl.
It makes me want to laugh, but I don’t, holding my breath as my sobs subside, my crying slower.
I’ll wait until I’m alone tonight. Underneath my covers, the sheets pulled over my head, the glow of my string lights peeking through the cotton, I’ll cry then. And I’ll let the final pieces of my heart dissolve.
I draw in a deep breath, bringing my free hand up to my aching face, swiping away the tears beneath my eyes which makes me wince, contact with the bruises, but I hold my tongue, not wanting to show just how much I really fucking hurt.
I should want them to feel guilty, I should want to make them feel worse, disgusted with themselves, guiltier.
Worse than me.
But I’m not sure I’d ever want another person to feel like I do.
Suffer as much as me.
So I say, “Thank you,” soft and quiet and submissive, if only to draw their attention away from me. And then, “I don’t need that from you, but thank you. I just need to be left alone now.”
I dip my chin, a breath shuddering its way in through my teeth as I try to keep my composure, get myself together. I have another class later today, and then a study group with a tutor, because I’m going to fail, and I need to pass everything, or I’m going to be sent back to Briarmoor.
My father can do anything he wants with me.
I want to scream it, the reminder of it sharp like a rusty nail through my temple, but, instead, I roll my lips into my mouth, between my teeth, locking the words back inside.
“Kitten, I want-”
