2
Alana
I runmy hands through my hair for the tenth time in five minutes, inhaling as deep as I can, but it doesn’t feel like I’m getting enough oxygen. I’ve been in countless shitty situations before, and I always figure my way out of them. But Megan has the common sense of a five-year-old. How in the fuck did she not see him losing it?
I was trying to help her- trying to prevent this shit from happening. She’s walked into too many situations trusting just anyone, making herself an easy, naive little target. I’m so used to her not seeing the signs, I try to point them out for her, and there was a time when she used to listen. But this bitch has gotten a lot better at distinguishing my voice from her thoughts, and now she just ignores me even when I’m trying to save her ass.
It must feelsooogood to be able to trust any and everybody, to never have to question anyone's motives.
I don’t have that luxury. I’ve never had that luxury.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been protecting her.
It’s always been me coming to get her out of the trenches. I’ve kicked too many girls' asses in those group homes that found themselves wanting Megan’s shit or bullying her. I saved us from getting molested by handsy foster brothers, and dads, from being physically abused by jealous, vindictive foster moms, and being raped by that disgusting creep of a psychiatrist. If she just would have let me out a few more seconds, I would have killed that bastard and made sure he’d never have the chance to do it to anyone else.
I know I’m here because Megan is too weak to handle the shittiest parts of life. Each time she gets backed into a corner, I'm here to barge our way out of it. I never minded it before, but it almost seems unfair.
At some point, Megan will have to grow a backbone- eventually, she’s going to get tired of being taken advantage of, especially by the people she trusts.
This shitKameron’spulled has to have opened her eyes. There’s no way she can look past this. All the signs were there, and since I trust nobody, his possessive behavior was easy to see. But Megan wrote it off as him doting over her.
That stuck-up bitch, Veronica, saw it too, but she’d never come out for shit like this. She’s all mouth and won’t be bothered to get her hands dirty. But at least she isn’t as useless as Megan. At least she saw Kameron deteriorating and tried to get help.
Fuckin’ Blue. I blame Veronica for getting his head all screwed up trying toactuallyscrew him.
Seriously what the fuck was that?
I pace the floor in front of the bed trying to refrain from tearing out my own hair.
I’m sick of playing the savior. Each and every time I have to bail Megan out of something, she’s never able to handle her own shit, and she’s never thanked me. All I get is villainized for keeping us safe our entire life.
“Ah!” The baby roundhouse kicks the shit out of me, his or her foot jams out of my side, and I stop dead in my tracks, staring down at my protruding belly.
I’m frozen, not sure of how I feel about the life inside of me. There's a fucking kid in here. The little things that piss, shit, and cry all day, but having a little monster of my own was always an entertaining thought to have, even if I never thought it was possible.
When I left Ian, my reality punched me in the fucking face. I realized I was ignoring the bitter truth about my existence. I couldn’t let Ian go on with the idea that we’d be this perfect family, despite how much I wanted to be able to give him that. Two people would have been brought on to my sinking ship, and I couldn’t fuck their lives up with my baggage.
Yet here we are. Everyone in a giant clusterfuck anyway. I try not to think of Ian right now, even though he has been all I think about since I met him. He’s probably going insane. Every decision I made was to try to save him from pain, and he’s probably hurting now worse than he ever was.
That makes me furious.
I look down at my stomach and pray to a God I don’t know exists that it’s Ian’s. If it is his, it won’t solve everything, but it will make it a hell of a lot easier. He’s been through so much, and he deserves someone that will love him unconditionally without baggage or trauma. If this baby is his, he’s tied to me for life, and it makes me both elated but incredibly sad because he doesn’t deserve all of this.
I force myself to breathe. I'm getting out of here. It’d be much fucking easier if I weren’t six months pregnant- I would just kickKameron’sass or figure out a way to drug him so I could just slip out. But since I do have an actual human inside of me and no access to anything that could knock him out, I’m going to have to come up with some other way.
Kameron is just as naive as Megan- if I had come across him before Megan, I would have gotten him for everything he owned. He has no idea what a woman like me is capable of.
Only one man has ever been able to keep up with me, and I will do whatever it takes to get back to him.
I look around the room, searching for anything I can use as a weapon. However, the room is decorated with the bare minimum: a queen-sized bed, a nightstand on both sides, and a dresser. I could break the mirror and weaponize the largest shard of glass, but then I risk hurting myself.
When I come up with nothing, I stop in a huff, but my eyes land on the window.
I go over to the window and open it. The warm breeze brushes against my face, and just a little of the tension from being stuck here, lifts. For a moment, I’m transported back to Ian and I’s little balcony back in Chicago. I have to be smart if I do manage to get away fromKameron. I’m carrying around a bowling ball, and I don’t speak the language here. Kam’s done something with Megan’s passport; who knows where the fuck her I.D is, and he’s the one holding ALL the fucking money. Everything is stacked against me right now. Theonlyway out I can think of is snatching Kam’s phone. If I can bypass his lock screen passcode to dial the only number I know off the top of my head- Blue’s. I’m sure I can get it off of him. If Megan could entice him without even trying, I might only have to be nice and bat an eyelash at him.
Even the thought of doing that grosses me out, and it gets me climbing out the window.
Instead of just throwing my leg over the window sill like I normally would, I sit up onto it and hold on tight as I put one leg over, then the other. I slide off the sill and land on my feet as light as I can.