Chapter 70
70
SHILOH
The last day of the semester is always bittersweet, but this time I feel like it’s transformative. For the first time since I was a kid, I’m looking forward to Christmas. Toby has officially moved into the apartment with us, and we turned my old room into an office for Don and a studio for me.
I’m going to miss having access to the full art building for the next three weeks, but at least I can paint and sketch in the apartment. It was always too busy at Kink Manor to get enough down time to really let go creatively. My downtime was usually spent in kitten space in the basement if I got any.
“All done for the year, Kitten?” Don comes around the counter to greet me with a kiss before I take my usual seat at our table. I nod as he heads back to help Sid clear the unexpected rush of students. They all seem to be needing a last minute caffeine fix before hitting the roads.
It doesn’t hurt that most of the professors canceled classes to give the out of town students the opportunity to beat the winter storm they’re calling for tonight. Days like this make me glad I took the loan offered by the old landlord to be able to come here for school.
“Toby should be here soon,” I tell him as I pull out a sketchbook to mess around with the logo for the café they want to build together. “He wanted to drop something off to that Greg guy before he left to head home. I guess he’s graduating early and Toby still feels bad about the fight back in the beginning of the semester.”
The blast of cold air from the door makes me shiver before I turn to see who was asshole enough to push the door open that wide. I freeze in place as I lock eyes with my worst nightmare in the flesh.
“DONNIE!” I scramble out of my seat and race behind the counter in terror. Don grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me behind him to face down the demon that destroyed me.
“You need to leave,” Sid growls out while I hide behind my owner. I’ve never been so thankful that Toby is late. He would attack Michael and then I would lose him. Don and Sid could probably take him eventually if they worked together, but my best friend would be snapped like a twig.
“I just want to drop this off. You’ll never see me again.” Michael’s voice sounds different, softer, from what I remember, but then again, monsters are always worse in our dreams and memories. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry Shiloh. I fucked up both of our lives all because of a bastard who cared more about his image than being a decent human being.”
The woosh of the door and blast of cold air isn’t enough for me to accept that he’s left. I keep my eyes squeezed shut, hiding as much as I’m able behind the man I love, but when Don turns his back to the door, I know we survived my worst nightmare.
“I can handle this solo for a bit,” Sid says as I bury my face into my owner’s chest. I can barely stay upright from the crash of adrenaline. “Why don’t you guys head to the office for a bit? I’ll send your pup back when he gets here.”
Donnie thanks his employee and pulls me down on the futon in his office, wrapping his arms around me tightly while I feel like I’m vibrating out of my skin. It could have been minutes or hours, but eventually the shaking stops and I don’t feel like the world is shattering around me anymore.
“Do you want to read the letter now or wait for Toby to get here?”
I didn’t even notice a letter next to Don on the futon. Where did it come from?
“I just want to drop this off…”
Oh.
He wrote me a letter. “I didn’t realize monsters could write.”
Don’s chuckle makes me realize I said that last part out loud. In the end, I decided to wait for Toby to get home and for us to close the shop and go upstairs where I can fall apart safely in the arms of the men I love.
While Toby is understandably upset to have not been there when the source of all of my nightmares showed up, the look I share with Don assures me that he agrees with me that it was a good thing our pup was preoccupied when Michael showed up. I’m still debating calling the cops for him violating the restraining order, but I’ve decided to read the letter before I make any type of decision on sending his ass back to prison.
“Time to rip off the bandage, Kitten.” Don hands me the letter after we finish dinner.
I don’t want to read it, but I feel like I owe it to that seven year old boy to find out why the fuck he had to grow up and suffer like he did. Ripping open the envelope, I feel Toby’s arms snake around my legs from his seat on the floor. Don lays his arm across my shoulders and reads along with me.
Dear Shiloh,
I’m not good at a lot of things, especially making amends. They say it’s an important step in rehabilitating me for society. Going into this program, I only looked at it as a way to reduce my sentence and get out to make you suffer for turning me in.
I’m not going to lie to you. I hated you when you put me in prison. Yeah, I knew that day that you went to the cops. I offered you to Bill because he was the one who gave me the heads up.
You weren’t supposed to choose the cross, little brother. You were supposed to disappear with Bill and the cops would lose their case.
In a way, you earned my respect that day, and I will regret it for the rest of my life.
I swore after escaping my father’s clutches, I would never be afraid of another man. But I was afraid of you from the second I met you. You had everything I once had. You had the loving mother and my dad adored you. I knew how it twisted me when shit hit the fan and I kept waiting for it to happen to you.
I took custody of you to be able to use you. I was just waiting for you to be just as fucked up as I was so that I could use you as an enforcer or to infiltrate some rival drug dealers turf. But you stayed so fucking pure. The more you kept out of my business, the worse I had to treat you to justify it in my fucked up mind that I still had worth.
I guess it all boils down to the fact that I was a self centered asshole and you NEVER did anything wrong to deserve what I did to you. If I could go back, I would leave you with the social workers.
I can’t change the past, but please don’t ever think you deserved what I put you through, what that drunk put you through. Your mom was a nice lady. I’m sorry she ever met my dad. I’m sorry she died.
If you’re still reading at this point. I gotta say I always knew you would be a better man than me. I’m leaving town as soon as my parole officer can clear me for a transfer. I need to be away from this city. I need the fresh start and you don’t need to be looking over your shoulder for me. You’ll never see me again.
This is the only gift I’ve ever given you, and I’m sorry it is about fifteen years too late.
-Michael
PS ~ If there is ever anything I can do for you, I’m at your disposal. My parole officer will know how to get in contact with me.
I don’t expect you’ll ever want to even think about me again, but I would spend the rest of my life as a worm under your feet if it meant I could take back even the smallest fraction of the pain I inflicted on you in my misguided transference of my own.
Setting the letter on the coffee table, I can’t help but shed a few tears for the relationship that never had a chance to develop between my stepbrother and I. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I will ever forgive what he did.
He was right. He is shit at making amends. But there is a sincerity in his written words that I never once heard from him in the decade he kept me with him.
“Are you alright?”
I look down into Toby’s face and give him a soft smile.
“I think I am. I’m with the two men I love most and my nightmare is leaving town for good. I think for the first time in a very long time I am looking forward.”
Don gently turns my face to him and asks, “Looking forward to what, Kitten?”
“Everything, Owner. I’m looking forward to everything.”