Chapter 15 #3
I wanted to pull her into my arms, force her to acknowledge me, but she was locked up tight.
Her arms were wrapped around her middle as if she were physically attempting to hold herself together.
There were tears in her eyes, and her voice was rough from holding back from crying.
Avoiding my instinct to hold her, I took a beat to calm down as I settled myself against the couch.
It gave her some space to breathe, but I also could keep an eye on her.
Feigning a calm I most definitely wasn’t feeling, I started the process of pulling the truth out of her.
I knew she was upset, but I needed her to tell me what it was she was so afraid of, what secret she didn’t want coming out.
“You had no right!” she wailed before starting a tirade, listing off my multiple offenses.
With every word out of her mouth, she was revealing more and more about herself. I clenched my jaw when she referenced incidents not in the file. It slowly became clearer that Fiona thought reading that file had changed my opinion on her, that I would judge her for the lives her parents lived.
What I learned was that they were two miserable sacks of shits who didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as my girl.
I was starting to think they didn’t deserve to breathe at all…
They weren’t just neglectful; they were abusive, physically and emotionally.
And I was afraid they had instilled a deep belief in Fiona that she wasn’t worthy, that nothing good would stay for long.
I was determined to prove that wasn’t true, but I knew time and action were the only cure. Fiona was losing steam, and I decided to speak up. Time for me to open her eyes to the part of this she is stubbornly ignoring.
“Would you be able to tell me where your parents are now? Right this moment?” She looked stumped by that question, as if it came out of left field.
My beautiful, broken girl still didn’t want to deal with the elephant in the room.
She had run from her problems years earlier, and was afraid that if she looked back for a second, she would summon the people who haunted her most.
Even as she desperately tried to keep her head in the sand, she still took care of those around her. Whether she realized it or not, she was always on alert, looking to help someone the way she wished she was helped. That was clear simply from her first meeting with Charlie.
Fiona didn’t think she was worth extra attention or help, but she gave it to everyone she cared about. It was time she learned she deserved it. That she had people in her life who cared and worried about her, who saw the real her.
I wanted to make it clear I didn’t mind that she had cut her parents out, that she didn’t want to talk about them or her past. Fee deserved the ability not to have to worry, to escape from the fears so deeply ingrained in her.
But if that was how she wanted to deal with the situation, she needed to understand that I would step up to make sure that was a safe option. I wanted Fee to keep living her life, her parents and childhood in the rearview mirror.
I wanted to make sure they didn’t get their grubby hands on any part of the life she had worked so hard to build for herself. She had to see me, though, had to see the man I was and what it meant to be with me.
“You want to keep them away. That means preparing for them to come back—the one thing you absolutely avoid thinking about.” It may have been a bit harsh, but I needed her to know that I understood, that I saw her.
At that moment, I watched as a part of her snapped, Fee’s anger fading as a look of fear flashed over her when I mentioned the possibility of a confrontation with her parents in the future.
With that fear, another layer of the real Fiona was unveiled, vulnerable and unsure.
If the mere mention of her parents could do that, I didn’t want to imagine what seeing them in person would do to her.
As if getting too close to the edge of facing her fears and emotions, I could see as she visibly tried to rebuild some of those walls, flip the conversation.
She turned on her socked foot, stalking into the bedroom.
I waited, curious to see what her next move was, how much she would push both of us until we worked through it.
I refused to believe that this was it for us.
Under all my bluster, I could admit that I hadn’t done right by her, not in this situation.
There was way more in that file than just her parents’ location.
I had my own copy that I’d read over and over, memorizing every detail.
Rather than clearing up any questions I may have had, reading it had only generated more.
If I had just asked Fiona directly, it could have been avoided.
When she stormed back into the living room, she had the file in her hands, and she haphazardly tossed it across the coffee table.
Muttering to herself, I watched helplessly as she pawed through the documents in search of something specific.
Finding what she was looking for, she yanked a photograph from the pile before marching over to me.
Her breathing was heavy as she stood before me, a mugshot of her mother next to her face.
I wasn’t sure what she wanted from me, but her hand shook the photo in my face, and I couldn’t help but try to see any similarity between Fee and the woman in that picture.
It felt like she was trying to horrify me, push me away, as if that mugshot was a reflection on her. But I wasn’t sure how.
What unsettled me the most was the look in her eyes. It wasn’t fear, just a bone-deep sadness. As if the photo would act as some sort of repellant, that all of us would slink away in fear of the haggard crackhead who shared Fee’s last name.
Taking a deep breath, I felt like my teeth were on the verge of cracking from the amount of force it took me to keep calm.
I leaned forward, studying the photo. It would be easy to comment on her looks or the prostitution charge.
Those were low-hanging fruit, and I was disappointed that Fee thought so low of me that I would use her parents’ sins against her.
I had memorized every charge, every note, every photo in that file.
None of it was new to me. I knew her mom was already out of jail, that she had barely served six months for that prostitution arrest, even with her history of repeat offenses.
So, I replied with the information I learned from that picture, the one that mattered the most to me when I first saw it.
“Wish they had gotten her on more charges so she stayed locked away for the rest of her life.” Fiona looked at me, dumbfounded, the hand holding the photo starting to shake as she lowered it to her side. I saw the war going on inside her, and could no longer handle the distance between us.
I stepped away from the couch and pulled her into my arms. She was stiff and reluctant, but relaxed visibly once my hands got on her. Her mind might have been telling her one thing, but her body had different ideas. She looked up at me, her eyes conveying more than she would ever say out loud.
Even though Fiona had cut ties to her family and slowly started to flourish, she still clearly carried around a weight, a distorted view of the world, born from living under the same roof as two cockroaches who only existed off other people.
It seemed to me that almost everyone in Fee’s life had failed her, telling her she wasn’t worth anything.
Atlas had proved that when he didn’t come back for her, when he didn’t put any protections in place before he left.
She proved that by only asking for the bare minimum for herself, out of almost every aspect of her life.
This was about more than just maintaining the physical distance between her and them.
With every passing second of her standing before me, with that picture in her shaking hand, it became clearer; there was far more going on in my girl’s head than I had initially thought.
It didn’t seem to be just about running from a shit life and shit people.
It wasn’t just about Fiona feeling embarrassed about her parents’ extensive rap sheets.
She was afraid. Not that they would find her, though. With horror, it dawned on me that she might have believed that, one day, she would turn into her parents, no matter how hard she tried not to. Fee didn’t expect more, didn’t believe she was worthy of more than what she saw growing up.
My heart broke for her, and I hated myself for going about things in the entirely wrong way. Not wanting to make the same mistake—making assumptions about Fiona or her needs without talking to her—I tried to right the path we were on. I wanted to make sure I understood where she was coming from.
If Fee did believe she was destined to become her mother, I need her to admit it, so I could start the process of proving to her how completely wrong she was. Looking down at her, I finally asked the question I needed to know, that I would only get an answer to if I asked her directly.
“What is it you expected me to say? Be honest, Fiona. There has to be honesty between us. You have to tell me what it is you’re afraid of,” I pleaded.