Page 58 of Use Me Up

I grip Callie tighter and steer her out of the dining room. She comes along with me, and we leave the house, leave the entire family behind, and I remember the first time we met these people, how perfect and poised they seemed, how grateful we both were that they accepted us and were kind to us. What have we done to these people?

Callie is crying as we walk outside in the growing twilight of the evening. She wipes at her tears and tucks her face into my chest, and I hold onto her, clutch her against me, and we walk.

Eventually, I start talking. “Right after I left, nothing mattered, and I did some things. Mostly just drugs and things, really, not a lot of risky sex, but things happened sometimes, and I usually could keep it from being, uh, penetrative. Mostly just my mouth. I told myself it didn’t matter, because you had him, and I wasn’t—I didn’t need—we’re omegas, anyway, right? Omegas always need more than one partner to be satisfied, that’s the way we grew up.”

“Ellis,” she whispers, “did this alpha hurt you?”

“No,” I say. “No, it wasn’t like that. I’m just trying to explain. That part was easier somehow.”

“What part?” she says.

“The part where it was all meaningless blow jobs I gave to people who didn’t give a fucking shit about me. That part was bad, but in some ways, it was easier.”

“You want me to feel sorry for you, Ellis? Because of course I—”

“No,” I say. “Look, when I left you, I told myself it was for you.”

She wriggles out of my arms, and I can scent her fury, rising brightly, and it scents like acrid smoke, and her voice comes out lethal. “How dare you say that?”

“I know,” I say, reaching for her. “I see why you’re saying that. But look at us, baby, look at us. If I hadn’t gone completely away, it wouldn’t have worked. You had to think I was unreachable, don’t you see? If you had known where I was, you would have come after me.”

“Yes, obviously, I would have!”

“Well, you wanted free of me,” I say. “You told me that was what you wanted.”

“Oh, God, Ellis, I say shit all the time. You say shit. We tell each other we hate each other, and—”

“So, you didn’t mean it?” I spread my hands. “Wasn’t it better without me?”

She sinks her hands into her hair and doesn’t answer me.

“The way I made myself do it was to tell myself that it was for you. That it was better for you this way. And if it was for you, I could handle anything. But one thing I couldn’t do is… move on. Replace you. Because then I wouldn’t have the motivation anymore to stay away.”

“So, you’re saying you replaced me with the alphas and then you came back?”

I don’t know how to explain this. It doesn’t even make any sense. I walk away from her, over the dark blades of grass. The tennis court looms in the distance, the sky still purple in the west.

“Ellis!” She comes after me.

“Lots of alphas are, uh, really obvious?” I say. “They push and they ask and they’re very aggressive.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Alphas can be shitheads.”

“They weren’t like that at all,” I say. “They were real steady and real secure and they made me feel safe. And they were so, you know, patient.” I swallow. “I never had anyone—”

“That’s what Andrew is like,” she says to me.

“Bullshit,” I mutter.

“Well, so why did you leave them, then?” She falls into step with me, taking my hand. “How many?”

“Two,” I say.

She squeezes my hand. “Two.”

“They’re together. Like, they’re in a relationship with each other. The idea was sort of that they were fine on their own, and they didn’t need anything, but they both like omegas, obviously, because they’re alphas, so it was supposed to be… casual.”

Another squeeze. “Casual’s hard for people like us.”