The Truth About Drew

t w e n t y

Sweat poured off Drew as he ran yet another sprint. His legs were killing him and his ribs felt like an elephant had done the Macarena on them, but he forced himself to keep going.

"COLLINS!" The basketball coach screamed, his face bright red and veins bulging from his neck.

"Yessir?" Drew wheezed as he turned and started another suicide.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Running, sir!" Drew wiped his forehead, his head pounding. He was so thirsty.

"AND DID I TELL YOU TO RUN?"

"Yes sir!"

"WHY DID I TELL YOU TO RUN?"

"Because I haven't been to practice in six weeks!" Because I've been recovering from an injury, asshole.

"EXACTLY! DROP AND GIVE ME FIFTY!"

Drew groaned and slowly dropped to the floor. One....two....three....

"FASTER!"

"Fuck off," Drew muttered murderously under his breath.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" The coach screamed.

"He said 'fuck off,' Coach!" One of the other boys on the team piped up helpfully.

What the hell, dude. I thought we were cool.

Coach looked ready to pop a blood vessel, "I WANNA SEE YOU RUNNING UNTIL YOU DROP!" He shrieked.

Drew glared at the boy who was fist bumping his friends and sat up just long enough to flip him off.

"Coach," the boy sang. "Drew just flipped me off!"

"COLLINS!"

Drew moaned.

***

"So, did you die?" one of the boys piped up in the locker room as they wiped the sweat (and probably some tears) from their skin.

"Oh yeah, Charlie. I totally died. What you see now is nothing but a ghost because the first fucking thing I would do as a ghost is come to fucking hell week for basketball," Drew snapped as he yanked his shirt over his head.

"At least you got a badass scar out of it," another player called out helpfully.

"Because that makes up for the possible brain damage and death of my future modelling career."

One of the alphas let out a short scrap of laughter. "Right, modelling career. Dream on, Collins."

"Right, because you're so much better looking," Drew said sarcastically, looking the burly alpha up and down. "The only thing you could model is the after picture for heroin abuse."

The boy next to him burst into laughter, leaning over and gripping his knee until his face turned bright red and he was gasping for air. Drew grinned, enjoying the power.

"Wanna say that again, little omega?" the alpha snapped, drawing himself up to his full height, a good four inches above Drew.

"Actually, I have lots of things to say, Travis," Drew said, crossing his arms. "I'm actually a delightful person if you bothered to see past your own ugly nose and maybe not see people as just their class. You know, I've had enough of you and the rest of the fucking alphas on this team thinking they're God's gift to us omegas, just because you exist. News flash, dude, you're not. Not even a little. You're actually kind of pathetic and I'm done with your bullshit." He grabbed his bag and gave a two finger salute to the betas in the locker room that were staring at him like he was God. "Good luck dealing with these idiots." 

The next day he quit the basketball team, went home, locked himself in his room, and finally let himself have a good old fashioned breakdown.

***

It had been two days and Kai still hadn't managed to coax Drew out of his room. The only signs of life were the almost hourly updates to Bitter. Drew wrote when he was stressed, and his readers knew it too. As Kai scrolled through the comments he noticed the flow of concerned comments: "Are you okay?" "Babe, are you stressed?" "Talk to us! We care about you!" "Don't work yourself too hard ;-;"

The only person he had let in was Blake, the smaller boy slipping through the crack Drew made in his door before closing it quickly. It hurt that Drew didn't trust him enough to rely on him when he was upset, but he tried not to let it bother him too much.

Aaron sat by him, back pressed against the wall, head in hands. Blake and Drew hadn't been seen for a day now.

Kai stood up and started pacing. "Okay, there's gotta be something we can do," he said, dragging a hand through his hair.

Aaron shrugged, "Not much. Blake gets depressed easily enough as is, and now Drew's going to feed off that. It's not like we can force them to come out...."

Kai growled, chewing on his lip. Break the door down! his alpha side screamed.

He set his forehead against the door, sighing. "Babe? Can you hear me? I miss you.... Please come out."

When he got no response he sat down harshly next to Aaron. "Have you had to deal with this before?"

"Not this bad." Aaron shook his head.

"Fuck!" Kai yelled suddenly, making Aaron jump as he slammed a fist down on the ground. "I feel fucking useless! What use am I if I can't comfort my mate when he needs me?"

"What did you just say?" Aaron said, his face paling.

"I said I feel useless-"

"No! Did you call Drew your mate?" Aaron leaned in close to Kai. "Were you going to ask him to bond with you?"

Kai blushed, "Not right now.... Eventually, I guess."

Aaron dragged a hand down his face before sighing. "Okay. Time's up."

"What?"

"This is either going to go really well or really bad."

"What?"

Standing up, he knocked on the door. "Okay. You both need to open the door. This is no longer healthy. Don't make me open it."

There were small sounds of movement, but the door didn't open.

"Mrs. C!" Aaron called.

"Yes?"

"Sorry about your door!"

With a crash, Aaron kicked the door in. He and Kai peered in. Blake and Drew were staring at them with huge eyes. Blake was sprawled across the bed while Drew sat at the desk, a word document open on his computer. An open bag of apples sat next to him.

"What the hell?" Drew shrieked. Blake tried to get up and in doing so tripped over the blanket and fell on his face.

Aaron ran forward and helped him up, ignoring the punch Blake sent into his chest.

"Drew?" Kai asked.

Drew's eyes started watering and he slowly patted his cheek. Kai ran forward, sweeping him up and kissing him on his cheek, eyes, nose, lips, all over his face. "Don't do that again!" he said thickly.

Drew nodded. Kai hugged him again.

Christie popped her head in, "Aaron!"

Aaron stiffened. "Shit."

"What did you do to my door!?"