Blackness Takes Over & Blackness Awaits Read Online Free PDF Page B

wasn’t his fault and I’m not going to let him beat himself up for something that had nothing to do with him. I grip his hand to get him to look at me, trying as hard as I can to convey through my gaze that this is not his weight to bear. After a few moments of eye contact he nods and I close my eye. I’m fucking tired. I feel the bed dip under his weight behind me and his arms come around so he’s spooning me, I let him. I feel safe with his arms around me. I hear O’Sullivan and Callaghan enter the room.
    “How is she Kav?” O’Sullivan asks quietly. The bed dips in front of me, my good eye seeing O’Sullivan smiling at me. He’s scared. He moves my IV line and lies down in front of me.
    “She’s gonna be fine,” Kav mumbles into my hair. O’Sullivan holds my hand and brushes his finger across my wrist where there are surely marks from the zip tie. The bed dips at my feet, I look down my shoulder to see Callaghan sitting by our feet. He looks at me with his eyes glistening. He isn’t going to cry, but he’s full of emotion that he doesn’t know how to direct. It’s as though he and I are able to talk to each other through our gaze. I can’t explain it, but I know he understands what I want to say to him and vice-a-versa. I nod at him in thanks. He lies down putting my feet into his chest wrapping his arms around my legs. I’m cocooned by comfort and fast fall asleep. This is what love feels like.

I’ve been at their place for ten days. I started talking and “eating” by the end of the first week. The last week was just getting back on my feet again. Kav slept with me every night. They moved me to a guest room the second night I was here, so Kav could have slept in his room but he never did. We never talked about it. Once I could talk again the questions started coming. I told the boys what Liam had done. Their reactions were fury unlike any I had ever seen. I asked repeatedly what happened to him, but they would never answer other than to tell me he wouldn’t be bothering me anymore. I gave up asking eventually. Now the hard questions.
    “Why wouldn’t you go to the hospital, Shannon?” O’Sullivan asks at breakfast. I lean my head back and look at the ceiling. I know I have to tell them. I have to be honest, but that’s easier said than done for me. I trust these boys and THAT is monumental for me. The only people I’ve trusted in my life has been family. They feel like family after this week and a half and they deserve the truth.
    “O’Sullivan, I didn’t want them to call social services.” He looks at me with giant bugged out eyeballs.
    “Why would they do that?” He’s trying to steady his breath while he looks at the other guys whose brows are both furrowed waiting for my story.
    “Because I just turned seventeen and my guardian is in the hospital with stage four pancreatic cancer…dying. Social services could take me to a group home or foster care and I would lose at least a year of school until I aged out of the system,” I rattle off as quickly as my lips allow. All their eyes are bugging out now.
    “What?!” Kav asks, while shaking his head free of the dream he thinks he’s having. I just sit there and let the information sink in.
    “What do you mean guardian? Where’s your family, your parents?” Callaghan asks pointedly. I’ve been dodging the family question while I’ve been here. They kept asking if they should call my parents for me and I told them there was no need, that I would call them once I could talk properly so as not to make anyone worry. It was a good lie, I thought.
    “My father died when I was eight and my mom took off a few weeks later. My great uncle, Mick, was the only living relative that I had left, so I moved to Kansas City to live with him.” I keep my head down, picking at the fruit in front of me. I’ve never told anyone this story. People back home just took the “my parents are dead, I live with my uncle” CliffsNotes version and