"Disgusting," she said. Over and over. Like a prayer. Like saying it enough times would make it true. Like she was washing something out of me that soap can't reach. "Filthy. Unnatural. This is your fault. Your body. Your sickness."
I tried not to cry. Crying makes it worse. Crying means I'm weak and weak means more punishment.
I cried anyway.
She left me on the bathroom floor afterward. Locked the door from the outside—she had a key installed last year, the kind that locks from the hallway, just for me. I sat on the tile for three hours. Counted the tiles. There are 147 full tiles and 23 half tiles where they cut them to fit the edges.
My knees bled from kneeling so long. The tile is textured. Little ridges that dig into skin. I have scabs there from last time that opened up again.
I took my pills when she finally let me out. Three of them. The doctor says I should only take two but two doesn't stop the slick completely. Three makes me nauseous for an hour. I threw up in the kitchen trash can and Linda told me to clean it up and stop being dramatic.
I don't know what I am. I don't know why my body does this. I just know it's wrong and I'm wrong and the pills are the only thing standing between me and more cold showers and more tile and more of Linda's hands and her voice saying disgusting like she's trying to scrape the word into my bones.
Four years of this. When will it end?
I keep a bag packed under my bed. One bag. Clothes, toothbrush, twenty-two dollars I've saved from returning cans. In case I have to leave fast. In case she decides the pills aren't enough. In case she decides I'm not worth the state money anymore.
If I count the tiles enough times maybe I'll stop existing.
My jaw locks. Something hot and sharp pushes behind my eyes. I blink it back. Keep reading.
Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to have a family. A real one. Not a placement. Not a woman who keeps me because the state sends a check.
I watch other kids get picked up from school. Their moms hug them. Their dads ruffle their hair. They climb into cars that smell like fast food and dog hair and someone else's laundry detergent and they don't even think about it. Don't even realize what they have.
I don't know what safe feels like. Not really. I know what the absence of danger feels like—the days Linda doesn't hit me, the hours between punishments when my body can unclench. But that's not the same thing. That's just the space between storms. That's not warmth. That's not someone choosing you because they want to, not because they're paid to.
I wonder if I'll ever know the difference.
I turn pages. Skip ahead. The handwriting shifts. Gets smaller. Tighter.
I know what I am now. I looked it up. Spent three hours in the library reading medical journals on a computer in the back corner where no one could see the screen.
Omega.
The word looks wrong written down. Too small for what it means. Too clinical. Like it should come with a warning label or a cage.
0.3% of the male population. Capable of carrying offspring. Biologically wired for bonding with alpha-designation individuals. Heat cycles. Slick production. Scent-based attraction that is, quote, "involuntary and largely uncontrollable."
So that's what I am. A body designed to be wanted by people I can't say no to. A biological lock waiting for the right key.
Terrific.
A later entry. Different tone. Quieter.
What do I want? If I'm being honest. If I'm writing in a notebook no one will ever read and I can say the thing I'd never say out loud.
I want someone to see me. Not the omega. Not the foster kid. Not the charity case or the quiet one or the boy who doesn't cause trouble.
Me.
I want someone to look at me and see the person underneath all the hiding. And I want them to stay anyway. Not because they have to. Not because Margot asked them to. Not because biology made them.
Because they choose to.
I want to be chosen.
I've never been chosen. Not once. Not by parents who gave me up. Not by foster homes that sent me back. Not by Linda, who chose to keep me only because the state paid her to.
