Chapter 8 #3
I couldn't stop. Couldn't control it. My body shook hard enough that the crayons scattered across the table, cerulean rolling onto the floor, midnight blue cracking under my clenched fist. The careful mandala we'd been coloring blurred through tears that wouldn't stop coming.
"Let it out," Clara murmured against my hair. "All of it. Every year, every loss, every time you had to be big when you wanted to be small."
The permission made it worse. Or better.
Hard to tell when everything was breaking apart.
I cried for the seven-year-old who'd come home to an empty room.
For the ten-year-old who'd spent her birthday decoding intelligence about a weapons shipment.
For the thirteen-year-old who'd wanted to read about jellyfish but had to study encryption instead.
For the sixteen-year-old who'd never gone to prom because my father said social events were security risks.
For the eighteen-year-old who'd graduated with honors in subjects she'd never chosen while the life she'd wanted dissolved like sugar in rain.
My nose ran. My eyes swelled. I made sounds that weren't quite screaming but weren't quiet either—keening noises that would have horrified my father, would have earned punishment for being weak, dramatic, useless.
But Clara and Eva just held tighter.
"That's it," Eva said, her voice steady against the storm of my breakdown. "Get it all out. You're safe here. You can be angry. You can be sad. You can be fucking furious if you need to be."
"I hate him," I gasped between sobs. "I hate him for taking everything soft. For making me into a tool instead of a daughter. For—"
The words dissolved into more crying, but uglier now. Angry crying. The kind that came with clenched fists and the urge to break things. To destroy something the way he'd destroyed my childhood, methodically and without remorse.
Eva pressed the elephant she'd been holding into my arms. "Here. Sometimes it helps to hold something."
The elephant was gray velvet, worn soft from handling.
It smelled like lavender. Its button eyes were kind.
I clutched it against my chest like it might save me from drowning in my own grief, and somehow it helped.
This soft thing that seven-year-old me would have loved.
That twenty-six-year-old me still needed.
Time became irrelevant. I cried until my ribs ached.
Until my throat was raw. Until the violent sobs mellowed into exhausted gasps and then into shaky breathing that still caught every few inhales.
Clara and Eva never let go. Never rushed me.
Never suggested I pull myself together or be strong or any of the toxic things people said when grief made them uncomfortable.
When I could finally speak again, my voice came out destroyed.
"I'm a Little."
The words hung in the fairy light air like a confession at church. Like admitting to a crime. Like revealing the secret that might make everything fall apart.
"I think I've always been one," I continued, pressing my face into the elephant's soft head.
"But I never—I didn't know it was real. That other people felt like this.
That it was okay to want to be small sometimes.
To need someone to make decisions when the world feels too big.
To want to color and have stuffed animals and wear soft things and—"
"Breathe," Clara said gently. "You're spiraling."
I forced air into my lungs. Held it. Let it out. The rhythm Ivan had taught me, though thinking about Ivan made my chest seize with new panic.
"What if he thinks I'm broken?" The fear escaped before I could stop it. "What if this is too much? Too weird? Too—"
Eva actually laughed. Not mean laughter but genuine amusement that cut through my spiral.
"Anya." She shook her head, lavender hair catching the fairy lights. "Ivan know all about Littles. I think he’ll be delighted."
My breath stopped entirely. "What?"
"Both his brothers are Daddy Doms," Clara added, her tone gentle but certain. "I’ve heard Ivan ask about it. I’m sure he’s into it, too.”
The elephant in my arms had absorbed so many tears it was damp, but I held it tighter anyway.
"What if I'm too broken?" I whispered. "What if I don't know how to be Little right? What if—"
"There's no right way," Eva interrupted firmly. "There's just your way. What makes you feel safe. What helps you heal. What lets you finally breathe."
She pulled back slightly to look me in the eye, her expression fierce with understanding.
"You get to have this, Anya. The childhood you missed. The softness you were denied. The chance to be small and protected and cared for. You get to have all of it."
The words settled into my chest like seeds that might grow into something. Hope, maybe. Or just the possibility of hope. The idea that twenty-six wasn't too late to have the childhood that had been stolen. That Ivan might want to give that to me. That I might actually deserve it.
The elevator ride up felt like ascending into a new life, carrying a bag that weighed nothing and everything simultaneously.
Inside: a gray elephant named Peanut whose button eyes had watched me cry out twenty years of grief, a journal with a soft cover that begged to be written in, a set of sixty-four crayons that Clara had insisted were essential.
Small things. Soft things. Things that seven-year-old me would have treasured and twenty-six-year-old me clutched like life rafts.
The doors opened onto Ivan's penthouse—our penthouse, though I still struggled to think of it that way. Late afternoon light painted everything gold through those massive windows, and Ivan was at the dining table, laptop open, surrounded by the careful order he used to manage his anxiety.
He stood the moment he saw me. Not casually, but with the immediate attention of someone who'd been waiting.
His gray eyes tracked over my face—swollen eyes, blotched cheeks, the general destruction that came from crying until your body ran out of tears.
Then to the bag in my hands, where Peanut's trunk poked out the top, visible and undeniable.
Understanding dawned across his features like sunrise.
"Anya."
Just my name, but weighted with so much knowing that my knees almost buckled. He crossed the space between us in three strides, stopping just outside my personal bubble, hands at his sides but ready. Always ready to catch me if I fell, but never assuming he had the right to.
"You were away for a while. What happened?" His voice was gentle, careful. The same tone he'd used this morning when he'd apologized for pulling away from our kiss. But underneath the gentleness was something else. Anticipation, maybe. Or hope.
I set the bag down with shaking hands, Peanut's trunk still visible, a gray flag of surrender or victory—I couldn't tell which.
"I'm a Little."
The words came out steadier than expected. Maybe because I'd already said them once today. Maybe because Clara and Eva's acceptance had made them real. Or maybe because Ivan's expression didn't show surprise, just careful attention that said continue, I'm listening, I'm here.
"I think I always have been," I continued, needing him to understand the depth of this. "But my father never—I never got to be a child. He took that from me when I was seven. Threw away my toys. Told me I was too old for soft things. Made me into something useful instead of letting me be young."
My voice cracked, and Ivan's hands twitched like he wanted to reach for me but was waiting for permission.
"Today, at that store, I realized I've been grieving for a little girl who never existed.
" Tears threatened again, but quieter now, exhausted from the earlier storm.
"For the childhood I should have had. For memories I'll never make.
For all the soft things he stole because my brain was more valuable than my happiness. "
"Anya—"
"Did you know?" The words rushed out, needing to be said before I lost courage.
His jaw worked—that tell that meant he was choosing words carefully.
"I suspected," he admitted quietly. "The way you self-soothe.
The sleeve chewing. How you curl up small when you feel safe.
The way you responded when I made decisions for you at Junior's.
" He paused, gray eyes holding mine with intensity that made my breath catch.
"But I needed you to discover it yourself.
To choose it. I couldn't—I wouldn't push you toward something just because I thought it might help. "
"Will you—"
The question lodged in my throat. Too big. Too vulnerable. Asking would change everything, would make this real, would admit that I needed something I'd been taught was weakness.
But Ivan waited. Patient. Steady. Like he had all the time in the world for me to be brave.
"Will you be my Daddy Dom?"
The words came out whispered, barely audible, but they landed between us like atoms splitting. Like tectonic plates shifting. Like the moment before lightning strikes when the air goes electric.
Ivan moved then, slow enough that I could stop him if I needed to, and his arms came around me.
Not sexual. Not demanding. Just solid and safe and exactly what I needed.
I pressed my face into his chest, breathed in his scent—soap and safety and something uniquely Ivan—while his hand stroked my hair with careful gentleness.
"I'll be whatever you need me to be, kotyonok." The Russian endearment rumbled through his chest into mine. "Your husband. Your protector. Your Daddy. Whatever helps you heal."
Kotyonok. Kitten. It made me feel precious. Like I deserved gentleness.
I pulled back enough to look up at him, and his face had softened into something I'd never seen before. The Ice King completely melted, replaced by a man who looked at me like I was worth saving.
"I need a Daddy," I whispered, giving him the truth he'd been waiting for. "I need someone to make decisions when I can't. To tell me I'm good when I only feel broken. To let me be small without thinking I'm weak. To give me the childhood I never had."
His hand came up to cup my cheek, thumb brushing away a tear I hadn't noticed falling.
"Then I'm your Daddy." Simple. Absolute. Like marriage vows but more binding. "We'll figure this out together. Learn what you need. Build the dynamic that works for you. No rush. No pressure. Just—"
"Us?" I offered, echoing his word from this morning.
A smile transformed his face—rare, genuine, devastating in its complete warmth. The kind of smile that made me understand why people called him the Ice King. Not because he was cold, but because when he melted for you, the transformation was absolute.
"Yes, malyshka. Just us."
Malyshka. Little one. Another pet name, this one making my chest tight with recognition. This was real. I was his Little. He was my Daddy. We were choosing this together.
"There's an elephant in my bag," I said, needing to lighten the moment before I started crying again. "His name is Peanut."
"Peanut is a good name for an elephant." No mockery. No condescension. Just acceptance. "Would you like to introduce me?"
I nodded, suddenly shy. This was different from confessing I was a Little. This was actually being Little in front of him. Letting him see me vulnerable and small and needing comfort from a stuffed animal.
But Ivan just waited, patient as always, while I retrieved Peanut from the bag. The elephant looked even softer in the golden light, his gray velvet catching the sunset like he was made of evening clouds.
"This is Peanut," I said, holding him carefully. "He helped me today. When I was crying. Eva gave him to me to hold and he—he made me feel safer."
"Then Peanut is very important," Ivan said seriously, like we were discussing nuclear codes instead of a stuffed elephant. "He should have a proper place here. Would you like him in your room? Or would you prefer him somewhere else?"
Your room. Not the guest room. The shift made my stomach flutter.
"Maybe—" I hesitated, then forced myself to ask for what I wanted. "Maybe he could stay in the living room? On the sofa? So he's there when I need him?"
"Of course." Ivan took my hand—the one not holding Peanut—and led me to the sofa. "Where would he be most comfortable?"
We spent the next few minutes seriously discussing Peanut's placement, and something in my chest loosened with each moment that Ivan treated this as important. As valid. As worth his time and consideration.
This was really happening. I was a Little. Ivan was my Daddy. And somehow, impossibly, that was okay.
Better than okay.
It was exactly what we both needed.