Chapter 6 #2
In an easy, swift move, he got off the bed and had me in his arms. I managed not to squeak.
I hadn’t meant he had to carry me. That was okay.
I also didn’t mind it. Like it was nothing, he quietly carried me from the room and down the stairs to the kitchen.
He flipped on the light, all of it with me still in his arms.
Now that we were downstairs, I spoke at full volume. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you kidding? Of course you should have woken me. You always should wake me.” He set me on the counter. “I could try to make some eggs.”
They didn’t cook. I shook my head. “No, how about something just like some cereal?”
“Oatmeal. That’ll be better. That I can microwave.”
Sounded perfect. A thought dawned on me. Maybe it had been his carrying me right now that had made me remember what I’d forgotten. “You carried me out of the school.”
He stuck the oatmeal in the bowl and filled it a little bit with water before he walked to the microwave. “Better to call it what you did on the YouTube comments. A prison. You were in an abusive prison. That was not a school.”
“But it was you. You came in and got me. Thank you.”
He met my gaze. “We were all there but, yeah, no one was carrying you out of there but me. I lost you. I was getting you back.” The microwave dinged and he pulled the bowl out and then hissed, setting it down. “Sorry, a little hot.”
“Don’t hurt yourself.”
He grinned at me sheepishly. “I should have gotten a potholder or something.”
Or just given it a second. I wasn’t going to argue with him. This time he grabbed a towel to hold it and brought it over to me. “Careful. It’s hot. Oh. ” He rushed to the drawer and came back with a spoon. “Here.”
I kissed him on the lips, breathing him in, and he closed his eyes to sigh against me. “Thank you, Barrett.”
I scooped some oatmeal and blew on the spoon before I took a bite. He was right. This was just what I needed. I took three more bites before I spoke again. “This is so good. Thank you. You didn’t lose me.”
“Felt, hell feels, like I did.” He leaned against the counter watching me eat. “I had to get you back.”
I smiled at him. “You weren’t even there.” I kept eating.
“That made it worse. I came out of class to hysterical texts from my brothers. Finally, one just said, come home. I was massively confused, got home as fast as I could. That’s when it was finally explained.
Phoenix was a mess. The twins were alternating between inconsolable and angry at the world.
I just knew… you were gone. I knew it. Then it was confirmed. And everything was so quiet.”
I shook my head. “There are four of you. No way was it quiet.”
“It was silent. Phoenix left to come down here. We followed him in less than a day. No way were we leaving him. Still, silence. Just utter lost silence. We needed you. I need you.” He kissed my shoulder.
“So you wake me up when you’re hungry. You wake me up if you have a bad dream.
You wake me up if you can’t sleep. You wake me up if the room is too hot or cold. Anything. Okay?”
I had been right. It was absolutely the right thing to wake Barrett tonight. “Okay.”
“Good.”
We were silent the rest of the time that I ate, and by the time I finished I wasn’t dizzy anymore. Tiredness wafted through me. Barrett took the bowl out of my hand and placed it in the sink.
“I can walk.” He didn’t have to carry me around.
“I know. I still like carrying you.” He picked me back up, and this time I let myself squeak. He patted my rear, and I laughed. He flipped off the light, and we went back upstairs. On quiet feet, he put us both back where we had been just half an hour earlier.
He crawled in next to me, and I wrapped my arms around him, bringing him closer. “Thank you, Barrett.”
“Hush. No thanking me. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I kissed his chin. Julian rolled over, wrapping his arms around me from behind. I really was tangled in both of them. And I loved it.
I took a deep breath. Okay. I was okay. I was all right. We were safe. “I’m sorry you’ll be tired tomorrow.”
“Worth it.” He kissed my forehead.
I closed my eyes.
Time must have passed.
“Hey.” Jer touched my foot, and I opened my eyes. “Princess, time to get up so you can eat something before therapy.”
I rubbed my eyes and darted out of bed. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
“Hey.” Jer grabbed me. “You’re okay. It’s okay. Just time to get up. What are you sorry for?”
All four of them were staring at me when I finally connected what I had done. “I… I…” Fuck. “I thought I was in trouble. I couldn’t oversleep. I don’t know why I thought it was here. I just…”
“Woke up confused.” Jeremy hugged me. He smelled familiar. “It’s early days. Hasn’t been a week. Don’t get yourself worried about this.”
I took a deep breath. “Well, I guess we can see why I need therapy. I’m off my rocker.”
“Don’t put yourself down to make us feel better.
You don’t have to joke. You were scared.
” It was Phoenix who spoke, putting his hand on my back.
“We love you. We’re all fucked up.” He squeezed my shoulder, and I pulled back to look at him.
“I got those numbers for you. Do you think it’s safe and smart for you to be the one to call all these girls?
I mean some of them are twelve years old, right?
What are you going to say to them? Your parents want you dead in six years?
I think… I think we need a different way.
You contact your close friends. But the rest of them?
I think we need Kit to get involved in this. ”
Okay. This was a lot for first thing in the morning but there was little time to waste. “Will he do it?”
“Yes. He will. He has people who will pretty much do anything.” Julian climbed out of the bed. “Hungry? I’ll make you something.”
I really wasn’t. Not even a little bit. But I probably should eat something to try to get onto some form of a regular eating schedule. “Just something small. I ate in the middle of the night.”
Three of them stared again. “You did?” It was Jer who asked.
“Yes, I made her oatmeal at two in the morning.” Barrett yawned. “I took care of her. She was hungry.”
Julian rubbed his eyes. “I slept through you leaving the bed?”
“You’re exhausted. I was glad you did and I wasn’t waking you.”
Barrett stretched. “Come on. Let’s get this done. I don’t know what your day will be like, Alatheia, but when we’re all back together, you can make your calls, and then we’ll figure out something to do tonight that isn’t too much but also fun.”
“Sounds good.”
Phoenix cleared his throat. “Hey, Barrett, can you come back for me? I know you’re taking Alatheia, and I don’t want to interfere in alone time.
It’s important for all of us. I think. But, I need a ride.
I can ask Eric, but I’d rather not if you can take me.
I need to go check in with my therapist but not for an hour. ”
“Yep. Got you.” He smiled at his brother.
The morning was relatively familiar. We all ate breakfast together. Julian was more chipper than he had been, which I had to think was because he had slept through the night. He would probably say it was because he’d slept next to me. I smiled at the thought.
I turned to Phoenix before I left the kitchen. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here with you when you were going through this.”
He kissed the end of my nose. “Still going through it, Red. We’re going to go through this next part together.”
“Thanks for getting me that information. Really, thank you.”
He kissed my cheek. “Wasn’t hard, and I actually love being able to do something for you. I missed your middle-of-the-night meal. I was only asleep about half an hour.”
I’d never been to a therapist before. I really had no idea how this was going to go.
We stepped outside and I abruptly stopped.
“I need my hat. The one that your mother made me. I need it.” I turned and headed back in, taking the stairs two at a time.
My head was going to be freezing otherwise. I put it on fast and ran back down.
Barrett side-eyed me. “Did you want that for the cold or because you are worried about what people might think about you? Because if anyone were to say or even think anything…”
I stopped him by squeezing his arm. “It’s cold for me. I don’t even have a coat.”
“Hold here a second.” This time it was his turn to return into the house, fast. A second later he had a hooded sweatshirt in his hand.
It was his. “Raise your arms.” I did as he said, and he put it onto me, almost taking off my hat in the process.
It said Columbia on it. I’d seen him wear it a lot.
“Jules is going to get you a coat today. This will help.” He grinned.
“Besides, you look adorable in my sweatshirt. I think it’s yours now. Yep, it’s definitely yours.”
I smiled. “I should say no. It’s yours. But I’m not going to. It’s warm, fuzzy. And it smells like you. I want it to keep smelling like you, so you have to wear it in between me wearing it. Like back and forth.”
“And when I’m wearing it, it’ll smell like you.” We got into his car together. “We’ll have to wash it sometimes or it might get gross.”
That was true. He turned us onto the small road to head toward the clinic. It was quiet. Houses every so often but mostly the big pine trees were visible everywhere. “Why did you guys build this here?”
“Eric thought it was essential we have some place to go where we could just be ourselves. There are enough doctors and nurses here to staff it. Our mother’s births made them feel that way.
Only Kit could be there when all of us were born.
It would be weird, right, for his brothers to be in the room when his wife delivers.
It’s a high pressure situation. What if she slipped up? ”
Those were all good points. “Makes sense.”
“And like everything else, the Lents are forever wanting to show the people here that we aren’t trash. That they can’t mess with us.” He frowned. “That they can’t kidnap us.”
I took his hand where it was between us on the center console. “What are you thinking when you say that? Your eyes… they went somewhere.”
“I’m thinking”—he sighed—“that Phoenix was always the smartest of us all. He survived when the others that night were killed. He doesn’t remember it.
But he did. And I don’t believe that now he’s clean and focused that he is going to leave it alone.
I think it’s only a matter of time until he goes after them in some way.
” He met my gaze for a second. “And I’ll be helping him because I’d never leave him to that. ”
I stared straight ahead. Yes, that was true. There was no way we would all be down here without that happening. “I will too.”
“First, we help you too.” We pulled into the clinic’s parking lot.
The lake was huge, and the cloudy weather that had moved in overnight wasn’t making it less gorgeous. The glass windows of the clinic gleamed from a reflection off the lake. The beige facade blended harmoniously with the natural surroundings as I was sure it had been designed to do.
Once again, I was sure that the landscaping would be beautiful at other times. Right now, it looked like it had all gone to sleep for a while. It was cold and resting. Maybe there was something beautiful about that, but right then I couldn’t see it.
“It looks dead,” I said to Barrett. “Everything.”
Barrett leaned against the side of the car. “It’s not dead. It’s taking a break from everything. We do that, too. Right? Sometimes we have to take a rest to start over.”
He wasn’t just talking about the grass. I smiled at him. “I don’t suppose I could just ignore this and I’ll suddenly be fixed? Like I won’t have a freak out waking up. I won’t freak out at the table. It’ll just stop.”
He winced. “Probably not. But I’ll be here with coffee when you get out. Although truthfully the coffee is awful here.”
Good to know.