THE CONTROL: An Arranged Marriage Romance by Elena Monroe (ebook reader android .txt) 📕

to keep that nugget of truth to herself, unlike my marriage, those two shared everything and it was only a matter of time before Khaos showed up to pull Bowen up by whatever morality he had left.

BOWEN

Eve was on her way to healing while I was on my way to the package store for more alcohol to pour into my wounds. I had been one sip short of blackout drunk for weeks. At least it seemed like weeks when I strung together how many times I yanked a blanket over my eyes.

One sip is a lot when you’re trying to navigate your house in the dark and be considerate of another person. One is sip is what stood between me and the demons taking over.

Healing was always just out of my grasp when your hand is more interested in being wrapped around a bottle. I spent a lot of my youth avoiding letting any pain break me. I trained myself to never be broken.

Guess everything catches up to you eventually. All the years I spent simply numb came back tenfold.

I couldn’t remember going or even coming back anymore. The only time I left the safety of my own house was for more of what was keeping me this way... All I remembered was opening a bottle in the package store and threatening the owner to say shit to me about it.

I came to sprawled against my door, keys jangling from the lock and when I reached out to examine my space, I found a bottle still in my grip.

This wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t make it inside my house and if I was being honest? It probably wouldn’t be my last.

My whole life was a reason to get wasted and stay hidden under the feeling of booze.

Eve’s trauma that I almost added to by not being there.

Elias’s dead body... still in my backyard.

My mom being sold off to the highest bidder—my dad.

Being Famine for the Clave especially after all I know now.

Braeden’s deathiversary.

None of us were normal and the world was hell-bent on making sure a happy ending was just as painful as the rest, blended in so nicely you’d overlook it because you didn’t deserve shit but what you had.

I didn’t bother getting up from the comfortable spot when I must have passed out again. The second time I came to I heard doors slamming before my eyes peeled open. Great, Eve called in the fucking cavalry.

What were they supposed to do that I hadn’t already done to feel better myself?

 

I didn’t need their support; I needed a while to be piss-poor drunk and then resume life like normal. Until numb felt normal and these new fucking feelings felt like the stranger.

The guys closed in on me, speaking amongst themselves in whispers like I wouldn’t hear them. Being this drunk still didn’t affect my hearing—only my patience. Ignoring me and chastising me for simply being myself, I felt Khaos and Grimm manhandle me, hands closed around my muscles until they ached, ripping me from the position I fell asleep in.

Vic reached over the white picket fence that mocked me on a daily basis, hitting the latch like he knew how. Pushing it open, he held it open for the guys who I let carry me like dead weight when I stopped utilizing my legs.

I stopped trying to help them help me a long time ago, why start now?

Still clutching the bottle, I pushed it up to my lips when I saw Elias rotting in a lawn chair and caught a whiff of urine. Looking down at my jeans, I realized it wasn’t Elias, but me. Somehow I managed to piss myself while I was too busy being drunk to remember to pee.

I wanted him to rot. Maybe not literally in my backyard but sometimes life takes a literal meaning to your desires.

Without any warning, I felt my balance truly slip right out from under me when I tried to catch myself from going over the pool’s edge. With a splash, I fell into the deep end, submerged under the water. Letting go of the bottle, I watched it sink further than I was.

For one split second, I debated staying here, right here, and joining my twin wherever we were destined to end up. Two halves of one whole couldn’t possibly be separated by two judgements.

We didn’t match but we were balanced.

Hell, maybe he was an angel in death so I could be a demon in life.

I knew Braeden wouldn’t want me following in his footsteps, no matter how much I was already. I was killing myself just more slowly, with poison that took much longer.

The only thing he left behind was that note under my pillow outlining all the ways his act of suicide was supposed to save me. He was older by seven minutes and always rubbing in what he thought he knew best because of it.

He died so he wouldn’t marry Eve, knowing how much I loved her, and the bonus of escaping his own personal hell made it just as appealing. It landed him somewhere between selfish and selfless, whatever that is.

As soon as my hands reached the edge, I hoisted myself up, heaving on the inability to breath underwater while still being drunk.

A fake baptism doesn’t cure alcoholism; it only saves souls.

Khaos was kneeling closest with a worried look on his face. “I told you guys he could drown. Fucking idiots.”

It sounded like he liked me and I overlooked it the way I always did. I didn’t want to be liked, loved, or even lusted for. I wanted to live and die until shit got complicated.

Helping me up, I twisted to my back and rolled over on the lush