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“They aren’t,” Atty says, letting go of my hand to put an arm around my shoulder. “Blair and Corvin talked them into a compromise.”
If Atty wasn’t so strong, if he didn’t know I’m a squirrely mess so he has to hold me extra tight, I would have torn away in pure disgust.
“Corvin Morales? What the hell does he have to do with anything?”
As if there hasn’t been a piece of him in every corner of my life since I woke up in a hospital bed freshman year with him and those green eyes filled with regret sitting at my bedside.
“Don’t, Shiloh,” Blair says in that soft but firm big brother way of his. “Corvin went to bat hard for you. It won’t be ideal, but if you can keep it up for the whole semester, they’ll loosen the leash.”
“What leash?”
Blair’s eyes flick over to Atty’s, and he sighs before gripping one of my knees and drawing his gaze to mine.
“You’ll be staying with Corvin for the semester.”
All of the nervousness and frustration drop into the blackhole that opens in my stomach. A tingling sensation like when your arm goes to sleep from laying on it too long starts up over my whole body.
The world comes into focus like a curtain swaying in the breeze. It’s darkness all around with a bulb of light in the distance. There’s a crick in my neck, something cold and hard keeping me in place. My arms don’t work, and they ache like a motherfucker.
It burns. Somewhere below my waist. My thoughts are foggy and uncoordinated, like I’m fighting to break the waves of a tsunami.
A sharp pain blooms at my groin and spreads throughout my body. The speck of light flickers out and back in. The darkness is gone, replaced by bright fluorescent light.
It stings. I squeeze my eyes shut. My body hurts.
Something touches me and I recoil.
I close my eyes, and when they open the brightness is dimmed, a pair of green, fear-filled eyes latch onto mine.
My stomach sinks, and the darkness snakes back in.
“Loh?”
My skin still rests on pins and needles, but I shake off the fog clouding my thoughts and turn to a worried Atty. The hand that was on my shoulder is now tangled in my hair, scratching over my scalp.
“Fuck no,” I rasp. “I’ll take some random guy in the dude’s dorm before I share a room with him.”
Blair sighs and straightens, fingering his hair into a braid like he often does when he’s nervous.
“You don’t have a choice. We made a deal with the Dean and if you don’t stick to it he’ll rescind your acceptance.”
“Who told you to make deals on my behalf?” Who the hell gave Corvin the right to be part of those deals?
“I did,” Blair says. “Because I’m your brother, and this is my fault.”
Atlas stands, putting an arm around my brother’s waist and making me sick to my stomach.
“Don’t say that,” he mumbles and brushes a kiss over Blair’s temple.
I look away because it doesn’t feel like a moment I should be a part of.
“If I hadn’t been worried about Dad for so long, if I hadn’t been bailing him out of every shitty situation, maybe I would have noticed you were suffering before we wound up where we did.”
Blair Novak will take as much on his shoulders as the people around him allow, and like hell am I letting him take the blame for my monumental screw up.
“Shut up,” I bark, garnering both of their attentions. “I took the pills. I drank the alcohol. I skipped my meds. I swung so fast between manic and depressive that they blurred together into one massive freak show. I wouldn’t have listened even if you had been there to help.”
I’m sure most people would love for their family to make excuses for their behavior, to not have to take that responsibility on themselves. But I’ve seen what that does to people, and it kills them. Slaughters them from the inside out.
