Page 72 of Use Me Up

I think having a designation means your brain is wired in that way, somehow, only with scent.

She doesn’t act volatile, though, not as if she’s about to erupt. She’s not angry. She’s not even antsy or excitable. She’s sad.

I open the door to her, and her face crumples the minute she sees me. She moves slowly across the threshold, her shoulders slumped, her lips turned down and trembling.

It reaches inside me the way it always does with her. When she hurts, I hurt. I open my arms to her, and she collapses into them, and we stand there, just inside the door, and her shoulders shake, but she’s entirely silent, and I scent her and I feel her, like she’s inside me, like she and I are the same fucking person, like her pain is my pain.

We end up on the couch in my living room, and she curls up on my lap like a cat, face pressed into my t-shirt, which gets wet and snotty as she sobs and sobs.

Growing up on the compound, there was a definite hierarchy. Omegas at the top, their alphas below, and any betas below that. At the very bottom were children. Children were not seen the way they’re seen out here in the secular world. Out here, people see children as precious and fragile and in need of protection. On the compound, children were serfs. We were labor. We were there to serve the omega and the alphas, and we weren’t worth anything until we were old enough to present.

When Calliope presented as an omega, her worth skyrocketed, but before that, we were both nothing. We’d get in trouble all the time. Our dads would scream at us if we didn’t do our chores or if we missed a spot cleaning the bathroom or if we fought with other kids or if we had emotional outbursts. We were expected to conform to expectations, and when we did not, there were consequences, usually of the corporal punishment variety. Not just spanking, oftentimes with implements and belts, but sometimes real beatings.

Everyone on the compound was stressed out.

They tell you, in the Polloi, that we are the chosen people, the special ones, the ones that the goddess designated as the heirs to rule the whole world. Because someday, we are going to rise up and crush our enemies and take our rightful place at the right hand of the goddess and all of that. The reason that we currently live such shitty lives, though, is because we are being tested by the goddess and we have to live up to a standard to earn her favor. The fact we live in trailers and barely manage to eat and clothe ourselves is our own fault, because if we had done better, the goddess would reward us.

It’s a fairly typical narrative for a number of religious traditions, to be fair. The Protestant work ethic is similar in a number of ways. It’s a way to keep going in the face of suffering, I think. If you tell yourself suffering has a purpose, that it’s honing you into something better, that it will improve you if you surrender to it, it’s easier to bear.

Anyway, the point is, back then, she and I lived under the same roof and we were the same age, and this thing started back then. She’d get punished, and I’d take up for her, so then we’d both get punished. We started being treated like a unit. If one of us did something wrong, we were both blamed by default.

So, maybe that’s when we got so in tune with each other, I don’t know.

I just hold her. My throat is tight. I want to cry, too, but I hold it in to stay strong for her.

I don’t ask her what’s wrong. I know that pestering her about it will only make her more stressed out. I just take her pain into me and share it with her, so that she doesn’t have to feel it all alone. It’s what we’ve always done for each other.

Eventually, she quiets. She’s exhausted, though, still curled up against me, her breath coming in shaky gusts. I stroke her back, up and down, up and down.

“I’m sick of it,” she says finally.

I rub her back. I don’t ask what she’s sick of. If she wants to tell me, I’ll listen, but I don’t need her to explain anything to me.

“I’m sick of being the problem. Andrew is perfect. Andrew never does anything wrong. Andrew is always taking care of me, and I’m always falling apart. And he’s not even angry about it. He’s patient with me. He never even complains.”

I’m pretty sure Andrew complains. I’ve heard Andrew complain. But I don’t say that either.

“I want to be better for him, but it feels like, no matter how hard I try, I can’t. And I think of you all the time. It’s been over a week since I saw you, and we said things, and I meant them, and I do want us to find some way to move on from each other, Ellis, I really do, but… but…” She lifts her face to look at me. Her nose is red. She’s adorable.

I cup her cheek. “You don’t need to be anything other than what you are for him. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

She bites down on her lip. “Ever since you came back, every morning, I wake up, and it’s my first thought. I wake up, I stretch, and then I remember, ‘Ellis came back.’ And I feel it all through my body like joy, like something bright and sweet that smells like fresh laundry drying in the sun.”

I stroke her cheek. “I should never have left you.”

“But then I feel guilty for being so happy about it.”

“Because I don’t deserve it.”

“That,” she says. “And because he’s my fucking alpha. Why am I not that happy, every single day, that I have him?”

“Well, you see him all the time, and you’re used to him, and we keep trying to keep our distance, so you don’t see me and you’re not used to me.”

She thinks about that.

Of course, I doubt it if Andrew and Hannah would be pleased if Callie and I were spending time together regularly, either. On the other hand, maybe if we stopped making it such a big thing, it would be less of a thing.

“I just miss you,” she says. And then she kisses me.