Their quick movements are almost overwhelming.
"Bay, sweetheart!"
Too loud, fuck.
Dad reaches my bedside in a heartbeat, his hands gripping my own so tightly. "How do you feel, how do you feel, honey, Bay…?"
They both lean over me, their faces filling my blurry vision. Of course, I try to grimace, but I can’t, because my lips are so swollen I can barely move them.
I’m definitely on pain meds, but I still feel awful… and somehow weirdly good too, like something inside me is buzzing, some strange excitement, some twisted spark that comes only from being noticed. I don’t have any other language to tell them what lives in me, so I speak through damage.
All I manage to produce is a low groan.
Then I notice someone else standing in the hallway, hovering shyly in the doorway as if afraid to come closer, nervously chewing at his pink fingernails and probably ingesting glitter.
It’s Alex, and behind him stands an older omega with his hands resting gently on Alex’s shoulders. I can guess who he is.
"I was so worried," Dad keeps talking. "The doctor said you have a concussion and bruised ribs…"
I stay silent because my head feels like it has been shaken and stirred in its own sauce.
"Your friend, Alex Strada, gave us descriptions of the attackers and the police have already identified them," my father says, his voice tight.
"Yes," Dad adds just as tensely, "the police are already looking for them."
"The oldest was Kit Hanson, the one who held you, and Matt Hanson, the one who beat you…" my father starts, but Dad waves his hand, trying to spare me the details.
"Tell us how you feel, say something, sweetheart," Dad whispers, squeezing my hand.
My eyes drift toward Alex. His eyes are red and swollen as if he has been crying for a long time.
I want him to come closer so badly. Him, specifically him, not anyone else. I want him to touch my hand.
Just that, only that.
Alex seems to sense it. He steps forward, slipping away from his dad’s hands.
"May I come in?" he asks, directing the question to my dad.
"Of course, honey," Dad answers.
Alex crosses the room quickly and sits on my other side. His small hands wrap around my other hand. He’s shaking, yet somehow his touch pulls the pain out of my body, lifting it away as if by magic. Warmth and relief wash over me in a flood.
"Bay, my angel, oh, Bay! I was so scared. You wouldn’t wake up… "
"Sometimes it’s better not to wake up. Sometimes it’s better not to live," I mutter, and the horror on Alex’s face and on both my parents’ faces hits instantly.
Oops. It slipped out. The darkness inside me is always clawing to get out.
"Bay, don’t say that!" my dad bursts out, tears running down his cheeks. "Everything will be alright, the police will take care of this…"
But they don’t know what I’m talking about. The Hanson thing… honestly, it didn’t even shake me that much. I take it with an odd calm. I don’t feel much anger or panic about it. If anything, I feel a reckless thrill because something managed to hurt me even more before, so this? Easy peasy.
The only thing that isn’t pleasant is the look in Alex’s eyes and my dad’s eyes, both filled with tears.
They worry about me. About someone like me? A piece of fucking trash, a cumdump?
I don’t want them to worry. The truth is, I’d rather they worried about something else, something much worse, but they don’t know, they can’t know, so I stay trapped here.
