Page 11 of Daddy's Muse
“You don’t pay for anything, so shut up and be grateful you’re even here,” someone snapped harshly. A familiar voice. It took only a few seconds for me to place it.
Colby’s fucking roommate.
“I’m sorry,” Colby quietly murmured.
I crept closer, seeing that he was half-shadowed beneath the hazy blue glow of the security light outside the side entrance to the dorm. He stood with his shoulders curled inward, spine bent like a child about to be punished. Across from him, the roommate—Bryan or Brendan or B-something—I was sure it started with a B—towered over him, arms crossed and voice laced with smug cruelty.
“You think you’re smarter than everyone else just because you tutor losers all day?” he sneered. “Maybe if you spent less time acting like a kicked dog, people wouldn’t walk all over you.”
Colby didn’t say anything. Just stood there, clutching the strap of his withered backpack like it might keep him from breaking apart entirely.
I couldn’t believe that I’d forgotten about his roommate. A pest was gnawing at the foundation of the life he was trying so desperately to build, and I’d allowed it to continue.
That would change.
I waited until his roommate had disappeared back inside, watching as Colby lingered a moment longer, wiping his sleeveacross his eyes, head bowed. He then turned and walked toward the library, alone, smaller than I’d ever seen him.
I followed him silently, frustrated at myself.
I’d been too focused on observing from a distance, making sure he stayed safe from me, when what he needed… wasmore.
It clicked into place in my head: he needed me. Not just in the shadows, but actually in his life, walking beside him, making him smile.
Colby was trying to carry everything on his own, and clearly, no one around him was doing anything to help.
I clenched my hands in my coat pockets, my pace steady as I tailed him toward the library.
What kind of gods allowed this kind of suffering to go on unnoticed?
No. They hadn’t. I could not doubt them and their ways.
For the past few months, I’d understood that they had put him in my life, although I kept questioning thewhy.
Jævla idiotisk.Fucking idiotic.
He was mine, of course.
Not just mine to watch over from a distance.
But my fated.
And I was meant to end his suffering.Thatwas why they had presented him to me.
Colby had gotten into college on his own merit. He worked himself raw. He said “thank you” even when people were cruel, and “I’m sorry” when they didn’t deserve it. That boy needed someone willing to bleed for him.
I watched him disappear into the library as I remained across the street in the shadow of a vacant building, heart beating slow but steady, like something ancient and certain was moving inside me.
Maybe it was the gods. Maybe it was just instinct.
Either way, it was time to shift the current.
I couldn’t just watch anymore, especially not when I now knew what he was to me. I’d been careful—so careful—about staying on the fringe of his life, about not touching anything too directly.
There wouldn’t only be more anonymous offerings left like breadcrumbs for him to smile at from now on.
Instead, there would be gentle weight lifted from his shoulders, unseen favors, accidents bending in his favor, and protection he didn’t even realize was being paid for in blood and devotion.
When the time came, I’d introduce myself properly.
