Real by Amy Bellows
Prologue
Buddy
The first time I saw the ocean on TV, I wasn’t sure if it was real. It seemed like the setting of a fantasy show or the backdrop for a whimsical music video.
But it also looked too wild to be fake, too rough around the edges.
“Where is that?” I asked Candlewick.
We were sprawled on Dorian’s bed in the middle of the afternoon. Candlewick laid his back against the headboard, his arm slung across my shoulders while I rested my head on his chest.
He didn’t mind cuddling with me. Even when he woke up bleary-eyed and sick from the drinks Dorian had given him the night before, he never got mad when I slipped into bed next to him to feel the beat of his heart against my cheek.
“That’s Rixton. Prettiest beach in the world,” he said.
“Is it real?”
He let out a breathy laugh. “Of course it’s real. Jesus, Bud. Have you never been to the beach?”
I didn’t answer. I just watched the camera pan over the crashing waves. The truth was, I couldn’t be sure. There was something wrong with my memory. The only place I could remember was the house I lived in with Dorian. There were random images and pieces of information in my mind about other places too. They were just disconnected from my own experiences.
The memories of my childhood were simply gone. I couldn’t remember anything before I met Dorian. No high school, no family, no friends. Nothing.
When I asked Dorian where I came from, he said, “Red.”
I didn’t know what that meant.
“Bud, answer me. Have you ever been to the beach?” Candlewick asked.
I shook my head.
He pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head. “Fucking hell. We gotta get you out of here.”
He said that sometimes as if there weren’t security cameras everywhere in the house and armed guards at the front gate of the estate. It was completely unrealistic, but I still loved that he said it, that he allowed me to dream.
“Where would we go?” I asked.
Candlewick muted the TV. “You’d love the beach. Smells like salt and fresh air. The sand is soft and sinks between your toes. If I could go anywhere in the world, that would be it.”
This confused me. Candlewick was allowed to leave the estate. He sometimes left for weeks at a time until I wasn’t sure he’d ever come back.
“Why don’t you go there now?”
He rubbed his hand in calming strokes along my back. His fingers were soft and perfect—so different from my own. It was obvious why Dorian preferred him over me.
“Money, Bud,” he said, still stroking my back absently. “The world outside these walls is all about money. If we want to escape or go to the beach, we need to have it.”
“How do we get it?”
He laughed again, even though I wasn’t sure why my question was funny.
“Why do you think I sleep with Dorian? It’s certainly not because of his sparkling personality.” Candlewick’s voice had an edge to it I didn’t like. But the way he hated Dorian as much as I did comforted me.
Or maybe it just gave me hope that I might not be as broken as Dorian claimed I was.
The world was so big—full of beaches, other omegas like Candlewick, and wide-open streets where I could run free. Maybe somewhere in the world there was a person who wouldn’t mind the way I looked.
Or maybe not. Maybe I was so repulsive no one but Candlewick could bear to be my friend. Sometimes I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the chance to find out.
“Is there any way I could make money?” Dorian certainly wasn’t going to give me money to sleep with him, even if that was something he wanted, and it definitely wasn’t. He’d made that clear plenty of times.
“Someday,” Candlewick said.
That was the word that always ended the conversations about escape. Candlewick’s plans were a nebulous, far-off thing. Not something we’d do next week or next month. Just someday.
It took me several years to realize that “someday” was just like me.
It wasn’t real.