Chapter 51
Dakota
After my shift at the gas station earlier, I’d purchased a fifth of our cheapest vodka and some sour gummy worms. My liver was protesting the decision now as I sat on my floor drinking all alone, but I didn’t care. It was making me feel better.
I’d skipped Micah’s class today—which I was sure he was mad about. But, again, I didn’t fucking care.
I was drinking the liquor straight from the bottle and I’d had enough of it that I no longer needed a chaser.
It felt like my head was floating around my bedroom, swinging heavy towards the floor, then lifting towards the ceiling, everything spinning around me.
Anthony had texted me this morning, and that was half of the reason for my spiral today.
The other half was my new usual torment—using two different men as blades to cut myself with.
Only a matter of time before I just fucking bleed out.
I shouldn’t have messaged Anthony back, but I did, and it only made everything worse.
He wanted to make sure I got the invitation to his stupid wedding in the mail.
I hated when he texted me like he was actually my brother, like we were just family trying to find time to catch up in our adult lives.
And I didn’t want to go to his horrible wedding.
I told him as much, and he said I was being immature. Said I was being childish.
Thought you liked that.
Fucking pedophile.
My phone screen had a new crack in it from when I’d thrown it across my bedroom and it crashed into the corner of my dresser, but I had no plans to get a new one anytime soon, so there was nothing I could do about that.
After my text interaction with my half brother, I decided to skip all my classes for the day.
I still got off my ass to go to work, but that was simply because I couldn’t afford not to.
Eric seemed concerned about me. Ever since the day I started bawling in the middle of the aisle while dripping rain everywhere, he’d been even more understanding than usual.
I felt bad, knowing that all of my anguish was my own fault.
Eric was worrying about a person who didn’t deserve to be worried about like that.
I took another sip of vodka, feeling pressure build behind my eyes. The bad thoughts were getting louder and louder in my head, drowning out everything else, trying to drown me.
Anthony’s footsteps down the hall. His car engine starting. The beach.
His mouth pressing against mine and his hands in my hair. A bad, bad feeling in my stomach. A sinking feeling.
Brothers weren’t supposed to do what he was doing.
But he said it was fine.
He said it would be better like this. So I tried not to care.
His fingers pushing inside of me, his head between my legs.
My face turned up towards the roof of his car and my eyes filling with tears because it felt good, and I thought that meant I’d wanted it.
Sweating, my cheeks flushed red, a knot in my throat, a warmth low in my belly I’d never experienced before.
Wanting to tell our dad, even though he wouldn’t care.
Or my mom, even though she’d be too scared to do something.
But never telling anyone because I was more scared of Anthony leaving me than anything else. I needed someone to care about me, and he did. So I kept my mouth shut.
I became so quiet I didn’t speak at all.
I never said a fucking word.
The tears that had been gathering in my eyes finally spilled down my face in two gleaming trails, my nose dripping with snot. I couldn’t stop any of it, not with my mind stuck in the past like this. My fingers circled the glass neck of the vodka bottle tighter, nausea rippling in my gut.
It was only a matter of time. Soon, the darkness would cover me completely.
My mattress cradled my body as I flopped down, staring up at the ceiling while it spun around and around above me, my teary eyes slipping closed. Quiet sobs lodged in my chest, but I swallowed them down. Shame was like a noose of thorns around my neck.
I’m not sure how much longer I can run from this.
My eyelids felt so heavy all of a sudden, the alcohol in my system muffling all my thoughts. I moved to lay on my side, worried I would fall asleep and choke on my own vomit if I stayed on my back. My skull was pounding.
I kicked my foot out and knocked the vodka off my bed, the heavy glass hitting the floor with a loud thud, then rolling slowly across the room. The noise made my head ache. But my bed felt warm, and sleep was calling to me, dragging me down, down…
A knock on my front door had my eyes flying open.
I fumbled for my phone, squinting my eyes to focus on the clock. Did I fall asleep? It’d been almost two hours since I last checked the time.
Shit.
I couldn’t even remember how I’d ended up laying in my bed, nor did I remember deciding to go to sleep.
There was another knock. I sprung to my feet, swaying unsteadily, trying to remember where I put my knife.
I spotted it on top of my dresser, so I grabbed it, almost tripping over the bottle of vodka laying on the ground in the middle of the room.
My mouth was dry and my head hurt, my feet uncoordinated as I moved them into the hall.
I stumbled over to the front door, slamming into it and aligning my eye with the peephole. Micah.
My heart squeezed and fresh tears tipped over my lower lashes, all the fight draining right out of me the second I saw his face.
I unlocked and opened the door, dropping the knife on the ground.
Micah didn’t hesitate to step inside and wrap me in his arms, not saying anything, just holding me as I started crying harder.
It was too dark in the trailer and I hated how drunk I still was and I wished he could fix me.
I cried into his chest, wanting to have the strength to just push him away and stand up on my own—but knowing I didn’t.
Everything I did with him was wrong, and yet, I couldn’t stop.
I didn’t even care that he was my professor at this point; it was the least of my worries now that I knew he wasn’t even human.
It felt so pointless now. Such an easily-overcome hurdle compared to everything else.
“Will you tell me what’s wrong?” Micah said with his lips pressed to my hairline, his palms rubbing up and down my back.
“Everything is wrong,” I mumbled. His shirt was damp from my tears.
“Does that include me?”
“Yes. Of course it includes you. And—” I cut myself off, sniffling.
And Mason, was what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t tell Micah that.
We’d never explicitly defined our relationship as something exclusive, but that insignificant fact was only something to assuage my guilt, not to erase his anger if he learned what I’d done with Mason.
“And what?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m drunk.”
“I know you’re drunk.” He walked me backwards into the kitchen, then lifted me and sat me down on the counter.
I stared down at my knees pressed against his stomach.
I was less inebriated than before my two hour nap, but far from sober.
Micah held the back of my head and I slumped forward, leaning into him.
“Can you fly me somewhere?” I asked, my voice muffled against his shirt. “With your wings,” I clarified. The alcohol was making me brave or stupid. I didn’t know which.
He hesitated a moment, before replying, “Sure. Anywhere.”
“Really?” I sat up to look at him.
“Yeah. It’s cloudy. I’m shocked you’re asking me to do this, though.”
“I have to.”
“You really don’t. I’m not going to force you to fly with me.”
I shut my eyes, feeling the throb in my skull.
“I do. If I’m going to keep doing this with you, I have to…
see the angel things.” The words my mouth was saying didn’t make sense to my brain, but I mostly meant them.
In the back of my mind, there was this little timer, counting down to the end, and it was injecting urgency into my movements.
Everything would eventually implode, and I needed to make use of the time I had left.
“Where do you want to go?” Micah asked, running his fingers through the ends of my hair.
“To my favorite beach.”
“Then let’s get some pants on you, yeah? And a coat.” He took a step back.
“Won’t I be warm if you hold me?” I wiped my eyes with my fists.
“It’s still going to be cold in the sky. And I thought you might want to walk around on the beach.”
I nodded and slipped off the counter, padding down the hall to my bedroom. I tugged on some sweatpants, then pulled a coat over my big sleep shirt. Stuffing my feet into my boots, I attempted to get my focus back, to make myself less tipsy. Overcome my own mind or whatever. It wasn’t working.
Micah came into my room shirtless, moonlight drifting over his muscular torso.
Nerves tightened in my stomach as I started to fully realize what I’d asked him to do. I squeezed my eyelids shut, swallowed hard, shook my hands out, then nodded.
Micah took my hand, walking me outside into the frigid air by his side.
I couldn’t see lights on in any of the other trailers around mine—it was the middle of the night, so I’d expected that—but Micah kept walking towards the edge of the property.
We came to a stop past a line of sparse pine trees, out of sight of any windows belonging to my neighbors.
The sky was low and heavy, clouds blotting out most of the stars.
He had me stand in front of him, our hands linked between us, as his shoulders shuddered and his black wings rose behind him.
Like before, the size took my breath away.
“Are you sure you can support my weight?” I questioned, a bit anxious he’d drop me.
Instead of replying, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pushed us off the ground with such significant speed my stomach bottomed out. I flung my arms and legs around him, my scream muffled against his shoulder as I hung on for dear life.
We just kept ascending.