Page 112 of Use Me Up

“Oh, there is,” says Gatlin. “I felt him in the bond when he was making love to you. But you’re going to leave Ellis.”

“I should,” I say. “I really should. And I’m too young to get pregnant.”

“Which is why you took that pill,” says Gatlin. “I’m relieved, actually. I didn’t know how I’d feel, but I don’t want that kind of pressure right now, especially with Ellis being… Ellis.”

I smirk. “Yeah. But, you know, maybe we owe it to ourselves to try to see what’s here. And if there’s something here, maybe it could be the right mix of traditional and non-traditional. Maybe I might want to have babies sooner than later.”

Gatlin gives me a look, his eyes very wide.

“I mean, maybe,” I say.

Gatlin’s lips curve into a smile.

ellis

I don’t know what the worst part of coming back to the three of them is.

That they’re not really even angry, just resigned, as if they never expected anything better for me? I apologize, of course, I apologize a lot, and they’re sort of stone through all of my apologies, which is fair, I guess. They don’t tell me it’s all right what I’ve done, but then, they wouldn’t, because it isn’t.

Maybe the worst part is that I’m relieved when Hannah tells me she took the Plan B, and I can see that she’s relieved, too?

Or that they listen to me tell them about the dialectical behavior therapy with very glazed-over expressions, none of them nearly as excited about it as I am?

Or that they all leave me alone afterward?

The last one, I think.

Hannah says she needs space, but that I could call her at some point when she’s had some time. The alphas say they’ve stayed too long as it is and they have to get back to work.

And then, there I am, in a house that smells like them, all alone.

It feels awful.

And I think, for maybe the first time in my life, about just enduring the awful, instead of trying to escape it, trying to replace it with something that feels better, or trying to fix it in some way.

In some ways, it reminds me of being back in the Polloi, because the Polloi always thought we were being persecuted in some way and that the goddess would reward us for enduring our suffering.

But it’s not like that.

It’s more like… what if everyone else just doesn’t feel things the way I feel them? What if things are more intense for me? What if, because I’m an omega, I’m more sensitive to pleasure, but also more sensitive to pain?

What if this pain and discomfort I’m feeling is just normal, and sometimes you’re supposed to feel a little pain and discomfort?

It feels like a revelation, actually, weirdly, like the key to unlock all the difficulties of my life.

The way I’ve always thought there was something wrong with me?

Maybe it was just this, that I felt things too intensely.

And maybe all I need to do is know this, know that when I’m feeling discomfort, it’s more intense than the way other people feel it and just endure it.

So, I don’t do anything.

I don’t reach out to Hannah and try to grovel and I don’t whine to my alphas. I stay home, clean the house, watch TV, play video games, just do whatever I would do normally. I research therapists and I call around, but it’s a little bit demoralizing, because none of them are taking new patients for months.

Eventually, I start researching dialectical behavioral therapy on the internet.

Calliope has, of course, not texted me the name of it, but I google and I’m able to figure it out. I go through some of the ideas about it online, and I end up on this cool website that has all these videos and self-paced worksheets, and this seems great, like, who even needs a therapist if you have this?