Chapter 14 Liam #2
“How’s your head?” It’s as good an opening question as any, I decide while taking a seat across from her at the table. Hours ago, I gritted my teeth and willed myself to mask the pain while Dr. Baker dug around in there. Now we’re sitting down to eat here. Life moves fast.
She lifts a shoulder, digging into a salad. “It’s all right.” Her blonde locks are loose, concealing part of her face when she lowers her head. I wish she wouldn’t try to hide from me.
“What about your knees?”
“Sore. A little swollen. But not bad.” She looks up from her food—only a moment, the briefest eye contact before she retreats inside herself again.
Should I tell her the truth? It could be she deserves to know, but I’ll be damned if I have the first clue how to broach the topic.
Remember how we left your father for dead?
Surprise, he escaped somehow. It doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue.
What would I gain from coming clean? Nothing but a briefly alleviated conscience.
For fuck’s sake, what am I thinking? If she knows he’s alive, she might make it her mission to contact him.
“Can I ask you a serious question?”
I get a brief glance once again before she shrugs. “Sure.”
“How do you feel about him being gone now? I understand you’re not wanting to show emotion or anything like that. I respect it, I do, because I had to train myself to turn off my feelings. They’re a weakness I can’t afford. Is it like that for you?”
For a long time, all she does is frown, moving greens and salmon around her plate.
The silence lasts so long, I’m ready to give up before she surprises me by clearing her throat.
“We were standing there today, next to the grave.” Her voice is small, far away.
Not weak, exactly, but thin. “And I was thinking to myself... I should feel something. Even relief would be better than feeling nothing at all.”
“Was it shock?” I ask. I remember that all too well. The soul-numbing reality of being completely alone in the world.
She shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. It’s just nothing. I don’t feel anything, and I’m not really surprised. He wasn’t a good father.” She says it with all the casual certainty of someone looking up at the sky and declaring it cloudy.
He was a bad father. Tell me something I couldn’t already imagine.
“I know he kept you locked away from the world most of the time.”
She doesn’t bother asking how I know. “Yeah, well, that wasn’t the worst of it.”
I instantly recall the scars on her back and wonder if that’s all or if there was even more? What did he do to her? I don’t think I will get a straight answer if I ask—I know better than to try. I can’t look too eager. Besides, my knowing precisely how he mistreated her won’t change anything.
Chewing my sandwich, I search for the right thing to say. “He never did strike me as the fatherly type.”
At first, all she does is snort loudly and shake her head, then violently spear a slice of cucumber like she has a personal problem with it.
“He was not. I don’t think he had the first idea how to be a real dad.
Not that I know exactly what he should’ve done differently.
But you see things growing up. You go to school, you notice the way the other kids talk about their dads.
Doing things together, going places, making memories worth looking back on. ”
That’s an interesting choice of words. Worth looking back on. I bet there are plenty of memories she would rather forget.
“I have to admit something.” I wait for her to glance up from her plate. “I assumed you were keeping yourself from reacting whenever I mentioned him because you wanted to be strong.”
“Who says I don’t?” There’s something steely in her eyes.
This is Donovan Blackwell’s daughter. I can’t let myself forget that.
Whatever he put her through, he shaped her into someone who won’t be underestimated.
I wish it didn’t make me like her so much.
I never imagined liking her. And I can’t afford to.
Now that she’s started talking, though, she won’t stop. I wonder if she’s been waiting for the opportunity all this time. An excuse to get things off her chest. I doubt she was ever given much of an opportunity. Who would she talk to, locked away like a princess in a fairytale?
Her long, heavy sigh tells the rest of the story, the parts she doesn’t put into words either because she doesn’t want to or because she can’t bring herself to.
“Anything I felt for him died a long time before he did. It took years. It’s almost embarrassing how much I wanted him to change.
I actually believed he would. He’d be nice to me.
He’d buy me a necklace, for instance, only to make me wear it in front of his friends so he could look generous.
But I wanted to believe he did it because he loved me. I wanted to believe it so, so badly.”
Amazing, really. At first, I didn’t want to tell her Donovan survived because I didn’t want to give her hope.
Now? It would be cruel to tell her the man who probably tormented her worse than I ever could is still breathing.
She looks around the room, chewing, then lifts a shoulder. “I mean, it’s not like I have much freedom around here, but it’s still better than every second of my life being spent under his thumb.” Then she snickers. “Though even at home, I was allowed to have a little entertainment.”
“Like what?”
“Like a TV.” I almost make the mistake of laughing when she rolls her eyes, like she can’t believe I need to ask the question. “I don’t think it would be that dangerous, letting me watch TV. Do you?”
When did this become a negotiation? And when did I start feeling sorry for her? That’s dangerous shit. “It depends.”
“Depends on what?” she questions.
“You don’t watch trashy reality shows, do you?”
The corners of her mouth twitch, but that’s the closest she comes to grinning. “Not sure what falls under that umbrella term. I like baking shows, but also stuff about addiction, hoarding, and OCD because of the psychological aspect of them.”
It sounds boring as hell to me, but probably less boring than sitting around all day staring at the walls.
Besides, the more time she has to sit and think, the more likely it is she’ll start plotting. Living here might be better than living with Donovan, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to be on her best behavior. It might be smart to give her a distraction.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell her. She tries to hide it, but I’m watching too closely for that. Her eyes light up with hope before she looks back down at what’s left of her plate, moving scraps of lettuce around with her fork.
Exactly what did he do to her? What did he put her through? I can’t shake the questions—hours later, I’m still wondering what he did to make her this disinterested in him. Kids aren’t born feeling disconnected from their parents. It’s the kind of thing that has to be trained, even beaten in.
Whatever it was, it went beyond overprotectiveness.
That much is obvious. Somehow, he trained her to be strong, but he also trained her to disconnect.
Taught her to turn off her emotions. I know from personal experience that’s not the kind of thing you read about in a book and learn to practice in your life. That is a hands-on sort of training.
I spent so many years imagining her as his pampered little princess, spoiled, unaware of what he did. Where the money came from. Empty-headed, content to enjoy what comes out of the suffering of others.
She eyes me warily when I carefully settle into bed without securing her. “Have you been forgetting something?”
“If I didn’t know better, I would think you enjoy being restrained.”
“I don’t. I’m only checking.” She rolls her eyes and clicks her tongue, getting in beside me. “I don’t want you blaming me for letting you break protocol.”
“I’m not breaking anything,” I reply. “Everything I do has a reason. Don’t let it go to your head,” I warn.
In case she doesn’t believe me, I drape an arm over her, holding her still. “You’re not going anywhere, so don’t bother thinking otherwise.”
You are mine. At least for now.