Page 8 of Drag Me Up

Last time I missed for two entire days, I was unable to move from under the covers without immobilizing pain. Spencer and Eli had to force feed me my medications for a few days until I evened out again. I swore I would never let myself get that bad again after seeing Shiloh’s face when I emerged from my room that morning. Guilt is a wonderful motivator, even if I resent the others for playing dirty.

Throwing all of my things back into my fuck-me bag, I hope I can somehow manage to sneak back into the house without anyone seeing me. It’s the downside of living in a house with multiple Daddies and the littles and pets who need reassurances. They keep me centered, but at the same time make me realize just how broken I am. I don’t want what they do. I don’t want a relationship. I don’t want to feel love. I don’t want to give someone my heart only for them to not be able to accept when my brain fucks everything up.

The world would be better off without me in it.

That thought circles through my head at least a million times every day. It would be so easy to miss the top stair or forget to stop at a stop sign or take a turn too late. But in all of those scenarios, my actions would have consequences for innocent people. My therapist doesn’t like it, but fact is, it’s total strangers that keep me fromacting on those thoughts. I don’t stay alive for myself or my friends. They would be disappointed and sad but would ultimately understand.

I sure as fuck don’t care what my family thinks. Hell, I’m pretty sure my father would be grateful that he doesn’t have to bury all the news stories. He paid off the judge to rush my name change after the media leaked about me testifying last winter in the trial against Sabrina Carlisle. He didn’t want to have his name associated with “that event” again… not like he ever let it get out the first time.

No, I don’t worry about people I know. I stay alive for the hypothetical little boy who would find my body at the bottom of the stairwell. I stay alive for the faceless cop or firefighter who is one incident away from facing his own decision like this. I stay alive so that my trauma doesn’t become a burden to an unwilling and unrelated person. It is my guilt over the hypothetical consequences of my death that stops me from taking my life.

7

ERIC

Driving home, I sing along at the top of my lungs to the pop songs of the nineties, knowing that the music can never be loud enough to drown out those thoughts telling me to just forget I have brakes. My nerves are completely shot when I get to the hill leading up to the house. I floor it, trying to get home as fast as possible, swerving around a moving truck chugging along halfway up the hill.

I guess the landlord finally approved someone for the last trailer. I knew of at least a dozen people who applied for it, but no one ever got approved. According to Eli, the landlord has his own criteria outside of finances and rental history when it comes to approving applicants. I’ve never met the man, but he somehow approved me for the manor house without me applying. Clarence says he put in a good word for me, but I think he just wanted to get me off his couch.

Pulling up to the house next to my truck, my Mini is practically hidden. I watch as Eli, Jace, Toby, and Spencer head over to the trailer park as the moving truck clears the top of the hill. It’s Saturday afternoon, so Lucky and Shiloh should be at class. Jay should be asleep. That leaves Scott to contend with. Seeing as how he was out last night, there is a good chance he is still asleep or buried in laundry in the basement trying to make up for the lost time. His OCD is nothing if not predictable.

This might be my only chance to get inside, so I grab my bag and make a run for it. Before I can get through the entryway, I crash into someone and knock them down. Looking at the man on the ground, I realize my chances of escaping without questions have plummeted to zero. Lucky is staring at me in horror, tears forming in his eyes.

“Yeah, I know how I look,” I whisper to him as I help lift him back onto his feet. “Please don’t make a fuss and I’ll answer any questions you have in my room.”

I should have known Lucky was going to be home when I saw Toby. I forgot that while he and Shiloh have classes together all week, Toby is in the same Saturday biology class as the two of them, so he should have been gone as well. Lucky immediately fires off a text before I can stop him when we get to my room. At my look he blushes and puts his phone away.

“I had to tell Daddy I wasn’t going to be helping the new guy move in,” he says and moves some of Sassy’s dresses out of the way to make room for him to sit on theloveseat. “Jace speaks really highly of the guy and I wanted to see what kind of man person makes our teddy bear smile like that.”

I pause while unpacking my bag. Jace is one of the few people who trusts even less than I do, so ifhesays the new guy is good people…

Considering how wound up I am, I can only conclude I did not get lucky last night, and with how my face looks, I’m going to have to make do with toys for at least a few days. Well, unless the new guy is into masks? The soft knock on my door interrupts my train of thought before my libido causes catastrophic side quests for me. Only one person in the house ever knocks that tentatively.

“Come in, Kitty Cat,” I call out, keeping my back toward the door. I know what I look like and if I can prevent Shiloh from seeing it and suffering a flashback, I will.

“Toby said you guys weren’t answering his calls and I… I g-got worried,” the young man mutters as he cracks open the door to my room slowly. “I d-don’t want to interrupt or anything, but I had to make sure you know?”

Lucky gets up and pulls him into the room and I want to slap the boy. Lucky has been here for less than a year. He hasn’t seen one of Shiloh’s meltdowns yet. We are all very careful not to trigger an episode for him if we can help it. Lucky doesn’t see it that way, having to suffer through his own episodes thanks to his monster of an ex-wife and her family. He thinks we are babying Shiloh too much.

“Kitten, I don’t want to scare you,” I tell him before turning around. “I’m alright and it’s over, so you need to just breathe it out, alright?”

It’s obvious that Shiloh is struggling not to hyperventilate upon seeing my bruises, but Lucky holds tightly to his hands and whispers something that calms him. I don’t know what the little shit said, but he needs to share with the class if it can bring our Kitten back from the brink.

“Was it… D-did it… Are th-they…”

I walk over and pull Shiloh into a hug and shush his attempts at questions. I can feel his body shaking in my arms, but he is so much stronger than the broken boy he was when he moved in two years ago.

“They got away,” I tell him honestly, even knowing that it will set him on edge. I swore five years ago that I will never lie on things that are important like crimes, infidelity, or fashion. “But I’m alright. Nothing is broken except for my ego. That will teach me to try and pick up a guy at a rando bar.”

“I thought you went to Pegasus after work?” Lucky asks as he sits back on the loveseat. Shiloh curls himself into the smaller man’s lap somehow like the kitten he is. “That’s where the bartender guy said you were going to when I asked where you were at Mister Drag last night.”

I nodded at him and plopped down onto my bed like a starfish. Oh how I love my Egyptian cotton sheets and ultra soft mattress topper. There’s nothing like sleeping on this cloud every night.

“That was the plan,” I tell him pushing myself up onmy elbows. “But then Eli the Emperor decided to try and tell me what I can and can’t do with my own fucking life. So I split.”

I lay back down and stare at the ceiling of my room. I don’t need to be looking at Lucky and Shiloh to see their looks of disappointment. At this point, everyone in the house is well acquainted with my act first, think later side effect of my ADHD.

“I just can’t help it,” I sigh. “It’s like I have an out of body experience when someone tries to tell me I can’t do something. No matter what they say or what their reason for it, Ihaveto reject it. It’s not even a choice and I can’t walk back from it until I calm down. But usually by that time, the damage is done trying to prove them wrong.”

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