Page 32 of Drag Me Up

My father tried to kill me.

I run from my father’s house without bothering to grab anything. All I know is I’m running for my life at this point. I saw my death in his eyes, the same eyes I see in the mirror every day.

I don’t know how long I run, but I finally collapse on the steps of what looks like a club of some sort, miles away from home.

That is not my home anymore. I have no home. No onewants me. Everyone abandons me eventually. I’m used goods. I’m broken. I’ve always been…

“Sugar, you okay?”

I look up into the gentlest eyes I’ve ever seen outside of Ms. Sara, Mattie’s mom. The lady in front of me makes me feel the same way, like she’s a real mom… not like the monster I was given to. Something inside of me that was barely there snaps, and I surrender to the heartache and emptiness that is now my life.

“That’s the day I met Cleo for the first time,” I tell the room as I open my eyes. “Clarence helped me get the small amount of stuff I had from my dorm and moved me onto his couch until a room opened up in Kink Manor.

“It took a while for my father’s attorney to track me down, but he finally did after my deposition for the trial. They started the process for a legal name change for me. I had to choose a new name because I was no longer his son as far as he was concerned. I was told in no uncertain terms was I to contact him, and I was fine with that.”

Matt pulls me back against his chest and squeezes me tight. “Is that why the hotel staff called you Mr. Pierce?”

I nod and look out at everyone in the room. “I refused to give up my first name, but agreed to change my surname. Pierce was originally my middle name. I legally completed the name change about six months ago. I forced him to wait so that I wouldn’t have to jump through hoops when mytrust fund was set to release on my twenty fifth birthday. Because I refused to change my name in the beginning, he paid out a rather exorbitant amount to make sure my name was buried and redacted in the original trial documents.”

Everyone in the room is staring at me with varying levels of shock, except Matt.

“How didn’t I know about this name change? I’m your boss,” Clarence asks from his perch on Theo’s lap.

“I made the change myself in my file and on the payroll roster. Call me paranoid, but I figured the less people knew about it, the safer I would be. You only have us listed by first name, so you never noticed it,” I tell him. I only feel a little bit guilty. Mostly, I’m enjoying the look of annoyed outrage on his face. “You really should learn to be more creative with your password. Theo’s birthday is not a secret among us.”

The laughter that flows through the room is still tense until Lucky jumps up from petting Shiloh’s back and exclaims, “You’re like a secret agent! Daddy, he’s a super spy!”

25

ERIC

Sipping on my Sprite, I watch as Mattie locks the door. After going through the details of my name change and the fact that my father is going to be on the warpath, we all came up with the plan that extra security cameras will be set up at McKinley’s, the bar at the bottom of the hill, so that we can track all the vehicles coming up to our neighborhood. Clarence has already arranged for Theo to be at Mister Drag full time until this all blows over, letting someone else take over at the Devil for the next month for the front desk and security.

“I’m so sorry this happened on your birthday, Cutie.”

I snuggle into his side when he sits down next to me on the futon. “It’s not the worst thing to happen. Hell, it feels nice to be happy and loved on my birthday for a change. I haven’t really had that since you left.”

Matt stops his soft caress of the back of my neck and I can feel him tense. “Why did you leave like that?” I askhim tentatively. I’ve always been afraid of this answer. “Didn’t you miss m… your mom?”

I barely manage to hold back the selfish question. Of course, he didn’t miss the annoying brat who kept popping up. He was a teenager headed to college. What kid in college is thinking about the twelve year old son of his mother’s boss?

“I missed you and your tablecloth dresses every day, my unicorn boy,” he says as he kisses the top of my head. “I regretted the deal I made with your father almost immediately, but I didn’t realize the ramifications and the fine print until that last day we saw each other.”

I had to think back to the last time I saw him. I remember the day he left for college like it was yesterday. That was the worst day of my life, outside ofthe event. He wasn’t at my graduation party, even though Spencer swears he saw him.

“The fountain?” I ask and he nods. That whole day was a blur. It was my sixteenth birthday and I had a bit of a concussion from flipping my brand new convertible. Father was so angry that day. That was when he took me to his doctors and I got put on so many mood stabilizers that I became a zombie.

“Father said you were disgusted with me and I had to stop being a child if I wanted to be respected as a man. I thought I dreamed you up that day as a manifestation of my happier past. You leaving was like the proof I needed to accept that my life was going to be shit and I needed to grow up”

I hear a sniffle from above me and see tears streaking down Matt’s cheeks.

“Why did you leave me, Mattie?” I need to know the answer before we move further into this relationship. I didn’t think of it before, but the conversation earlier made me realize that he could just walk away from me again. I can’t do this with him if there’s a chance of that happening again.

“I didn’t know exactly why your father brought it up, but he offered to pay for my undergraduate degree at NYU as long as I didn’t come home at all during those four years. I was seventeen and facing a mountain of debt to even go to community college, and he offered to pay for it all at my dream school: tuition, room and board, books, even an allowance.”

As a kid, I would have never understood how this would be enough to get him to leave me. I worshipped the ground my Mattie walked on and would do anything to stay by his side. If he had explained back then, I wouldn’t have understood. Hell, I probably would have found a way to stow away in his car like I did that Christmas.

But as an adult looking back, I get it. My parents paid their staff the bare minimum that they could get away with. Ms. Sara would have never been able to afford to help Mattie with college expenses. This deal with my father was a once in a lifetime opportunity for him.

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