Page 61 of Lessons In Grey

I yawned, trying so hard to stay awake. What was the point of energy drinks if they didn’t give you energy? “Tell me about it. About being happy.”

16

Grey

October 12th, 2021

Icould feel the tension leave her body as she drifted off into sleep. I couldn’t honestly believe it. This kind of exhaustion, it was…it made me angry. She had had four 20oz cans of Redbull and she was still so exhausted, she couldn’t stay awake.

But fuck, I had missed her, and she fit so perfectly against me.

I wanted nothing more than to keep her here forever. To stitch her into my side so she could never leave.

“I was the last of the boys to be adopted,” I began quietly, leaning my head against hers. “Beckett, my Uncle, Malachi’s brother, he found me. Some…some nobody kid wandering down the street covered in his father’s blood, mom gone. I had no idea where I had been heading, I just knew I had to get away.

“I was 13 at the time, and it took a while toprove myself to Malachi, which I was grateful for. He never takes anything lightly, but the four of us, he saw something in all of us that eventually led to us all being adopted.

“Anyway, Beck, he had picked me up. I don’t know why I ever got in his car, maybe I was just that lost. He took me to his place, let me shower, gave me a good meal, and told me training started in the morning.

“For the next year, I woke up at 4am and trained. Brutal. The most brutal training anyone, let alone a 13-year-old, should be put through, but I had nothing left but rage. It was something we all had in common. Rage which led us all into a certain level of psychosis too, but that’s beside the point.”

I squeezed her tight, my eyes traveling to her knees, her thighs. Her skirt had ridden up. Fuck, I had spent lunch hour slamming one out in the fucking teacher’s private bathroom like a fucking child because of that goddamn skirt. I could see the top of her thigh, the start of her perfect little ass.

I inhaled deeply, shuddering as I reached over and gently pulled her skirt down. Not today. Not yet.

“All throughout that year I remember seeing him. He had seemed so elusive then. He and his three sons, his daughters. Stories. Beckett told me every night about what they did. How Malachi took them out on missions at such a young age. Everett was two and a half years younger than me, already going out to deal with business, and I wanted in. I wanted that family. I wanted that loyalty, but I knew I had to earn it.

I leaned my head back against the wall, remembering how hard it had rained the day I finally met Malachi.

“I was training in the field, the grass shifting into mud as I worked, the rain pouring. I probably looked as bad as Sirius had the day I found her. A drowned rat. And then this man, he appeared out of nowhere, behind him were these three kids. Each of them around my age, the girls a little younger, each of them so fierce, so powerful. I remembered feeling so intimidated, but oneof Beckett’s rules was that we couldn’t let our fear show. Not even for family.

“So, I straightened, panting, soaked to the bone and shivering, but head held high, watching as they all settled before me, umbrellas protecting them from the rain.” I swallowed. “I remember Malachi’s face shifting from this hardened legend into the soft expression of a father who held such pride for his son. He said ‘you’ll never be alone for as long as we live,’.

“Jack stepped forward then and held out a ring.” My eyes fell to the ring on my righthand ring finger. A silver ring with a raven etched into the face of it. Mine had its wings spread, beak open, claws outstretched. “He handed it to me, far too big for my finger at that point. ‘Welcome to the family’, he said.”

Emily adjusted herself in her sleep, curling into me, stretching her fingers, her hand falling to my lower stomach, her head falling further on my chest.

God fucking dammit, my soul burned for hers.

I pulled her closer and kissed her head again. “That feeling I had felt that day. In the middle of the pouring rain, exhausted, freezing, ready to drop, slightly terrified, but my heart had felt so full,” I told her. “I felt it in the very depths of my bones, that warmth. That knowledge that I would never be alone for the rest of my days. I didn’t know what to do. Smile or laugh or cry. I was just…overwhelmed with the feeling of…it felt as if the sun had risen in my chest. That’s what happiness feels like. Like peace and warmth in the middle of a storm.”

I inhaled her beautiful scent just as my hand fell, a crinkling noise meeting my ears.

I looked down, finding her pocket open. I angled my head just enough that I could see what rested within it, a smile touching my lips.

I slid my hand in and pulled out a gummy worm. It wasn’t some magic trick like I had thought in July, her pockets were just large enough to hold an entire bag of gummyworms. God, I loved that.

I slid it over my tongue, closing my eyes, trying to feel what she felt as the crystals of sour scratched against my tongue, drool pooling.

I chewed it slowly, my eyes opening. “One day, baby, you’ll forget this feeling of deep emptiness. I will fill you so full of everything I am that you won’t have the capacity to remember how you felt before. I promise.”

17

Emily

October 31st, 2021

They had convinced me to go to a party.