Or worse—she will, and she'll tell Margot. And then Margot will know. Will know about the pills. Will worry about me and this new environment and it will ruin her perfectly crafted new happiness.
My hands shake. Trembling so violently I have to press them against my stomach to try to stop it. It doesn't work. The shaking travels up my arms, into my shoulders, my whole body vibrating with panic.
Eleven years. I've been on suppressants for eleven years. Since I was nine years old. Since Linda discovered what I was and started medicating it away. Four thousand days of pills.Four thousand mornings of swallowing down my nature. Four thousand times of choosing to hide. I've never missed a dose. Not once. Not a single day. Not even when I was sick. Not even when I forgot and had to run home from school. Not even when Linda withheld them as punishment and I had to beg. Never. Never once.
I don't know what happens if I stop.
Yes, I do. I know exactly what happens. I've read about it. Researched it. Stayed up late at night googling medical journals and forums and horror stories. I know what's coming.
Heat. Three to four months, that's the cycle. That's what the doctor said. That's what the literature says. That's what happens to every omega who stops taking suppressants. But I'm due. I'm—Oh god.Oh god oh god oh god.
I pull out my phone. Fumbling with it, nearly dropping it, my hands too shaky to grip properly. The screen is too bright. The app takes too long to load. Come on. Come on. Check the calendar app where I track everything. The one with color-coded entries and reminders and detailed notes. The one that knows my body better than I do.
Six weeks since my last heat.
Six weeks.
My stomach drops. Falls through the floor. Keeps falling.
The numbers stare back at me from the screen, stark and damning.
Six weeks means I have six more before—
Before I'm in hell. Before my body betrays me. Before everything I've hidden comes clawing to the surface. Before I become exactly what Linda always said I was.
The phone slips from my hand and hits the floor. The screen cracks. I hear it. The sharp sound of glass splintering. I don't pick it up. Can't. Can't move. Can't think. Can't—
I can't do this. Can't be here. Can't—The walls are too close. The room is too small. I'm suffocating. Drowning on dry land. I need out. Need air. Need—
I need out.
I run out of my room and down the stairs. My feet pound against the steps, too loud, too fast, I don't care I don't care I don't care. My mind is reeling —thoughts colliding, breaking apart, reforming into worse thoughts, worse scenarios, worse outcomes— and I make a snap decision. The night air hits me like a slap when I stumble out the back door. Cold enough to burn my lungs. Sharp enough to cut. Real enough to hurt.
Cold. Sharp. Real. The only real things left. Temperature. Pain. The ground under my feet.
I don't know where I'm going. My body moves without direction, without thought, just momentum and panic and the desperate need to run. Just away. Away from that room. Away from the empty bottle. Away from the violation. Away from the timer that's started counting down in my head. Away from the reality that someone in this house hates me enough to—To what? To destroy me? To expose me? To punish me for existing?
My fist connects with brick before I realize what I'm doing. The impact reverberates up my arm, through my shoulder, into my spine. Bone against stone. Flesh against immovable object.
Pain explodes up my arm. White-hot. Immediate. Clarifying.
Good. Yes.This.This I can control. This I can feel. This makes sense.
I hit it again.
And again. And again and again and again until there's a rhythm to it, a pattern, a meditation of violence.
The brick scrapes skin. Rough texture catching on knuckles, tearing epidermis, exposing dermis, going deeper.Splits knuckles. The skin parts like paper, clean lines that immediately fill with blood. Blood smears against stone —dark, almost black in the dim light, spreading like ink, like proof that I'm real, that I'm here, that I exist— but I don't stop.
Can't stop.
All I can feel is the impact. The jarring shock of bone meeting wall. The way it travels through my hand, my wrist, my arm. The way it numbs everything else. The way it drowns out the panic, the fear, the voice in my head screaming that I'm running out of time. The sharp, clean pain that drowns out everything else.
You're disgusting.
Hit. Blood spatters. I don't care.
Filthy.
