Drowning

Drowning
Raelynn POV

I thought I was strong until I watched Kieran’s own mother sit out pill bottle after pill bottle with a smile on her face. Her reasoning?

To keep Kieran sedated. He couldn’t be a problem if he was so doped out on whatever sits in those labeless bottles. She didn’t care that she allowed the demons that haunt his mind to make him their host. She didn’t care that her husband, the father of her children, tried to create monstrous killing machines.

She didn’t care that her son was drowning.

Kieran cleared his throat in the doorway of his bedroom, “I uhm,” he reached up, massaging the back of his neck. “Don’t know what to fuckin’ say,” he huffs out a laugh, but it’s devoid of any humor.

“Would you like to watch a movie?” I force a smile, but Kieran steps into the room, “Maybe after we talk. You don’t have to sugar coat shit with me, Rae.”

“Okay, I’d like to talk then,” I forced another smile, hoping it’ll somehow calm my nerves.

Kieran isn’t an open book, so this feels like something forbidden… taboo even.

“What do you want to know?” the bed dips as he slides in beside me, resting his back against the headboard.

“Has your mom always supplied you with drugs?”

“She took me to a doctor once when I was a teenager, but when my father found out about it, he went ballistic,” Kieran’s whole body shivers. “He made her watch him fuck another woman and then clean him up afterwards. Said if she was going to humiliate his name, then he would humiliate her. The kicker though was him making us watch.”

My jaw slowly unhinges.

“He wanted to teach us a lesson on respect and how it’s taught to your future wife,” Kieran muttered dryly.

“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered, unable to form a coherent sentence. My mind was whirling with that bit of information, and that was simply where our conversation started.

“Nothin’ to say, Bambi. My mother is a pushover bitch and Emilio makes Satan look like the good guy,” Kieran scoffed, tugging at a loose thread on his sweats. “After that, the bottles started appearing. Somehow she knew when they would be empty,” he rolled his eyes, “As you saw today.”

“I’m assuming your father has no idea?”

Kieran chuckled, “Bingo, or if he does, he doesn’t give a damn because he deemed me a lost cause a long ass time ago.”

“That’s really fucked up, Key.”

At some point, he’d moved over enough for our legs to be pressed together.

“Did you just curse, Bambi?” he nudged me with his shoulder. “Didn’t know you had such a foul mouth.”

“You’ve heard me curse before,” I mutter, gripping Kieran’s sheets in a fist.

“Are you embarrassed to curse in front of me?” he put his index finger beneath my chin, “Come on now, you’re sitting here fileting me open after watching me have a mental fuckin’ breakdown and you’re embarrassed to say fucked?”

“Not embarrassed,” I growl, making Kieran snort. “It’s just not something that happens often and it’s uncomfortable that you’re pointing it out."

“Just so you know,” he leans down, eyes remaining locked on mine until he can’t any longer. I feel the heat of his breath fanning against the sensitive skin behind my earlobe, “I fucked you against my kitchen counter earlier and I plan to fuck you again very soon. Maybe in the shower…. Or,” his tongue darts out to moisten his lips, grazing my earlobe, and a shudder ripples through my entire body. “Maybe I’ll fuck that ass again.”

“Kieran,” I barely get out his name, a breathy whimper threatening to spill past my lips, but I swallow it down. “Talking… We’re talking.”

His words slither their way through my veins, creating a heat that settles in my core.

My cheeks flame, but Kieran only chuckles, releasing me from his spell, “I was talking.”

Another growl bubbles from my throat.

“Those are cute.”

He’s acting… differently. More relaxed than I’m used to. When we’re together, there is always this tightness to his personality. As though he’s trying to refrain from too much of anything. A practiced control that always kept me second guessing.

“Fine,” he holds his hands up with a smirk, “I’ll behave.”

“Are you an addict, or are you struggling?” His smirk fell immediately. It was a foolish question. I knew it the moment the words left my lips, but Kieran didn’t seem bothered as he bumped shoulders with me. “I’m an addict, Bambi. There’s no glossing over that shit. I didn’t start using this heavily until, well…..” Kieran frowned, his brows knitting together.

The normally icy blue of his eyes grew brighter the longer I stared, but I quickly realized that it was being enhanced as the whites of his eyes tinged pink.

It felt like ice had been injected into my veins when it finally dawned on me.

“It’s me….”

“What the fuck?” Kieran’s head whips to the side, “No, it’s not fuckin’ you,” there’s a glassiness coating his eyes now. “I mean, yeah, I guess it’s you, but,” he chews on his bottom lip. “It’s not you.”

My vision blurred, “Why wouldn’t you just tell me to leave?”

“That was the fuckin’ problem,” Kieran’s voice was thicker than usual.

“I would have walked away, Key. You being healthy,” I hiccup, “That’s way more important than… Some stupid project!”

I was the one spiraling now. His admission felt like a sucker punch to the gut and the guilt made me feel like I was sinking into quicksand.

“Listen to me,” he snarled, but I couldn’t. I tried to climb out of the bed, but he grabbed me, pinning me to the mattress, “Rae, fuckin’ listen to me,” he all but screamed. My body froze with a sharp inhale.

“Fuck,” his head falls forward, pressing against my sternum.

“Kieran, please,” my voice, barely above a whisper, cracks, and tears burn a trail along my temple.

When our eyes locked, my suspicions were confirmed. His pupils were blown out and a drug-induced haze clouded his normally vibrant eyes.

“You’re high….”

“Yeah,” he nodded slowly, “I am.”

“Why?” I was barely clinging to this world, ready to fade off into nothingness. Anything to get me away from the endless waves of guilt that seem to want to rip me limb for limb.

Kieran was drowning himself in drugs to deal with having me in his life.

“Because when I’m fuckin’ blissed out up here,” he jabs his finger against his temple, and I see his face twisting to fight an onslaught of emotion, “I don’t have to face the fact that I fell in love with you.”