Chapter 36 #2
“Go upstairs and change. Then later help me dye my hair. Beth left town a month ago, and I still haven’t found a new girl who can do it like she did,” her grandmother calls from the kitchen. “This one girl from church messed my hair up real bad.”
“Hey there. Long time no see, pretty girl!”
The voice from the living room makes Lila freeze.
Her uncle Sean steps forward, grinning, reeking of his familiar mix of alcohol and body odor. He pulls her into an all-too-familiar hug, inhaling deeply as he holds her tight.
“You smell nice and expensive,” he says, his hot breath brushing her ear.
Lila forces a smile as he finally lets her go.
“Hi, Uncle Sean… I, um, need to put my stuff away, and then I’ll come down to help Nana with dinner.”
“Hey, relax, won’t you?” Sean says as she heads for the staircase. “You just got back. The old lady’s been doing just fine on her own, so you don’t have to pretend you care all of a sudden.”
Lila pauses, blinking rapidly, confused. “What?”
“Oh, nothing,” he says with a dismissive wave and a smirk. “Didn’t you hear your grandma? Go change. Wear something comfortable and watch TV with me. The old lady’s already finishing up dinner.”
Lila forces a nod and turns away, making a beeline for the stairs. Each creak beneath her feet echoes in her head, amplifying the discomfort twisting in her gut. She rushes into her old room and locks the door behind her.
The air inside feels stifling, as though the room has been sealed in time.
But she can’t dwell on that now. She strips off her clothes, tossing them into the far corner in disgust. Sean’s lingering scent and invasive touch make her feel filthy, as if the fabric has absorbed the weight and grime of the encounter.
She stands in her undergarments, breathing hard, every muscle tight—trying to shake off the violation clinging to her skin.
Her body feels scorched by the memory, begging to be scrubbed clean.
For a moment, she considers throwing the clothes away, as if that might purge the sickening knot in her stomach.
Instead, Lila reaches into her tote and pulls out her new phone, sending a quick text to Max to let him know she’s arrived safely. Obsessive as he is, she can picture him pacing at his desk, waiting for an update.
His reply comes almost instantly.
“I wish I were there.”
The message twists something deep in her chest.
Oddly enough, she wishes he were too. Max, complicated as he is, would never let anyone lay a hand on her. The thought unsettles her. He treats her like she belongs to him, like something to possess. But it’s true. No man would dare touch her in his presence. Anyone who tried would pay for it.
Sensing he’s waiting for her response, she types back quickly.
“I’ll see you when I get back. Don’t worry. And don’t come.”
“Okay. :(”
The brief exchange leaves her feeling unsettled and conflicted. Max’s presence, overwhelming as it can be, has become something she could rely on.
Shaking off the thought, the urgent need to wash away the invisible grime left by her uncle’s hug resurfaces. Without hesitation, she grabs her bath items and heads for the shower.
As she adjusts the water temperature, she realizes it’s been a while since she’s used a bathroom this small.
The walls feel closer than she’d like as she studies the tiles, noting the mold and reddish biofilms creeping along the grout.
Guilt settles in. She hates that her grandmother has been left to manage this two-story house alone.
As warm water pours over her, she silently hopes that dinner will be ready by the time she finishes.
Her plan is simple: eat quickly, give her grandmother’s inevitable barrage of prying questions the vaguest answers possible, help clean up, dye her grandmother’s hair, and retreat upstairs.
The sooner she can escape back to her bedroom, the better.
She wants to avoid any chance of being alone with Uncle Sean.
She can’t imagine him leaving anytime soon. He’s probably still here because he has to while out on bail.
She just has to brave four nights. Then she’ll be free to return to New York the day after Christmas.
The thought of going back to Max’s side, of all places, as something freeing unnerves her.
How had it come to this? After a month of a monotonous routine, Max, the man who has taken so much control over her life, has somehow become the comforting option rather than the home she has spent more than a decade in.
He’s taken her freedom in countless ways, yet here she is, counting down the days until she can return to the man who made her feel trapped and, paradoxically, safe. The irony isn’t lost on her.
She tells herself it’s only because anywhere is better than being back here, in this madhouse. And maybe… a mild case of Stockholm syndrome.
After scrubbing the shower and finishing her wash, Lila throws on a soft sweater she’d taken from Max’s closet and a pair of black leggings, enjoying their comforting embrace as she hurries back to her room and locks the door behind her.
Now that she’s clean, she can finally breathe.
As she dries her hair, she looks around, taking in the remnants of her old life.
The bedroom is bathed in warm, dim light that feels stuffy and close—a stark contrast to the penthouse, with its perfect lighting and cool, open air.
Her gaze drifts to the corner where her old dresser stands, still plastered with stickers she collected as a teenager.
On the wall behind it hangs a corkboard covered with photos from her school days, including several of her and Jake.
They no longer bring her comfort. It’s strange. She doesn’t remember her bedroom ever making her feel this way. It was always her sanctuary.
She quickly snatches the photos with Jake, crumples them into a ball, and tosses them into the wastebasket beneath her desk. She can’t look at reminders of him—not when she’s still so close to slipping back into old habits.
She begins digging through her closet, pulling out any gifts he’d given her and tossing them into a pile to donate later, when she stumbles upon a doll tucked deep in the corner of the top shelf.
“Well, I haven’t seen you in years,” Lila murmurs as she pulls it down.
Miss Darbie.
Lila’s finger pets the side of the doll’s head, its dark hair still as soft as she remembers. Unlike the dolls of most children that are ruined by home-cut hair from safety scissors and makeup attempts with markers, this one remains in almost perfect condition.
The sight of it pulls her backward in time.
“I should’ve known he was a loser when he showed up to your birthday with that,” she remembers her mother huffing, shoving an ex-boyfriend’s shirt into a full garbage bag. Her mother had wanted a fresh start after another brutal breakup.
They’d been sorting through things to donate and throw away when her mother picked up the doll that had been collecting dust on a shelf.
“I told him to get you a Barbie,” she’d said. “I bet he just rushed into a random dollar store and grabbed whatever doll he could find. This thing can’t be a more obvious knockoff. Look at this horrendous paint job. She’s cross-eyed.”
“You sure know how to pick them, Mom,” Lila had said, rolling her eyes.
“So, should we get rid of little Miss Darbie or what?”
Lila remembers being handed the doll so she could decide, clutching it tightly. She knew she was too old to keep it, yet something inside her refused to let it end up in the donation pile.
The memory loosens its grip slowly. When she blinks, she is back in the bedroom.
She makes her way to the bed and sinks onto it, never taking her eyes off the doll as another long-buried memory begins to surface.