Chapter 19 Abandoned
Abandoned
Wrong.
Everything was wrong.
The ceiling wasn't right—white instead of the soft grey of Gabriel's bedroom.
The sheets felt different, expensive but unfamiliar, lacking his scent that had become my anchor.
The light filtering through windows came from the wrong angle, and the traffic sounds were muted, distant, like this apartment sat higher than any place I'd ever lived.
I sat up, disoriented, my hand immediately going to my throat.
The collar was gone.
"No." The word came out small, frightened. "No, no, no..."
I scrambled out of bed—a bed I didn't recognize in a room I'd never seen—and my legs gave out. Not from weakness but from the trained response to distress. Kneel when afraid. Crawl when lost. Present yourself for comfort that would make everything clear.
But the hardwood floor was cold, unfamiliar, and no one came.
"Daddy?" My voice cracked, pitched high with rising panic. "Gabriel?"
Silence.
The apartment sprawled around me, clearly expensive with its floor-to-ceiling windows and modern fixtures. Nothing like the grey box I'd lived in before. But also nothing like his warm study or the pink room that had become home or the bed where I'd fallen asleep in his arms just—
When? How long had I been here? The last clear memory was writing the letter, reading it to him, falling asleep grateful and owned and safe.
I forced myself to stand, body shaking. A closet door stood open, and inside—
All of them. Every outfit from the past twelve weeks. The white dress from that first day. Pink sweaters and lavender skirts. The leather pieces, the lace, the cotton panties I'd worn while serving him breakfast. All hanging in perfect order like museum pieces. Like evidence.
"No." Stronger this time, edged with hysteria. "This isn't right. He wouldn't—"
The kitchen drew me, stumbling and unsteady. On the granite counter—so similar to his but wrong, wrong, wrong—sat an envelope. Thick, official looking. My name on the front.
Not Bunny.
Lilah.
My hands shook so badly I could barely open it. Cash spilled out—neat bundles that had to equal around 500k So much money. Enough to start over anywhere, become anyone.
But I only wanted to be his.
A single sheet of paper floated to the floor. I dropped to retrieve it, ended up on my knees again because standing felt impossible.
Lilah,
The Mire Institute thanks you for your participation in our program. As agreed, your compensation has been provided along with relocation to appropriate accommodations.
We wish you the best in your new life.
Dr. Catherine Wells
Director, Mire Institute
Not from him. Not a single word from the man who'd promised—
"You said forever." The words came out broken, directed at empty air. "You said I was ready. Said we'd go to the mountain house. Said I'd cook for you and—"
My voice cracked completely, sobs taking over. I crawled toward the bedroom, some desperate hope that I'd missed something. A note from him. An explanation. Anything that made sense of waking up alone with money I didn't want in an apartment that wasn't home.
"Please," I whispered to no one, checking drawers, closets, under the bed like a child looking for monsters. "Please, please, please. I was good. I was so good. I didn't burn the toast again, didn't fight, didn't—"
The bathroom. Maybe there—
But the bathroom held only expensive toiletries I'd never chosen, fluffy towels that smelled like nothing, a mirror that reflected a woman I didn't recognize. Hair wild, eyes swollen, wearing a silk nightgown I'd never seen before.
Where were my collar marks? The faint bruises from his hands? Any evidence that the last twelve weeks had been real?
"Think," I told my reflection, trying to channel his calm control. "You're spiraling. He taught you how to handle this. Breathe. Ground yourself. Find your center."
But my center had been him. My grounding had been his touch. My breath had synchronized to his, and without him I couldn't remember how lungs worked.
I made it back to the living room before complete collapse. Everything was perfectly arranged—a new laptop on a desk I hadn't chosen, a phone charging on a side table, fresh flowers in a vase like someone had staged this life for me to step into.
The phone. Maybe—
But when I grabbed it with desperate hands, the contacts were empty. No numbers, no history, no proof that Dr. Gabriel Mire had ever existed in my world.
"No!" I threw it across the room, watched it shatter against the wall. "You don't get to erase this! Don't get to train me to need you and then—"
"Dependency on physical contact is concerning."
His words from days ago, suddenly significant. Had he been preparing me for this? Teaching me to survive without touch because he knew—
"You knew." Horror crept in alongside rage. "You knew you were going to leave me. All that talk about forever, about the mountain house, about building a life—"
"You'll exist in a world where I can't always be touching you."
Not 'we'll exist.' You'll.
I'd been so stupid. So trusting. Believed every word while he prepared my exit. The new apartment, the money, even teaching me to tolerate distance—all of it groundwork for abandonment.
"But you said you loved me." Arguing with memories now, completely unhinged. "Said I was yours. Said—"
"Being mine doesn't mean physical proximity."
Oh god. He'd told me. Warned me. I'd just been too desperate, too deep in submission to hear the real message. He'd been saying goodbye for days, and I'd thought it was training.
The sobs came harder, my body curling in on itself. Without thinking, my thumb went to my mouth—self-soothing behavior he'd encouraged. But that just made it worse because he'd taught me that too. Taught me to comfort myself because he wouldn't be there to do it.
"Mr. Hoppy," I gasped, sudden hope flaring. "Mr. Hoppy would be—"
But frantic searching revealed no stuffed bunny. No paci hidden in drawers. No physical reminders of the soft parts he'd uncovered. Just the clothes and the money and this empty apartment that felt like an expensive tomb.
I crawled to the closet again, pulled out the white dress from that first day. Pressed it to my face, desperate for any lingering scent of that room, that moment, that beginning of everything. But it smelled like expensive dry cleaning. Sterile. Empty.
"Please come back." Whispering to fabric now, completely gone. "Please, I'll be better. Won't burn anything. Won't need so much touch. Won't be so needy. Please—"
"Thank you for letting me witness your transformation."
Past tense. He'd been speaking in past tense that last night, and I'd been too grateful, too deep in the moment to notice.
"Tomorrow we get to keep teaching each other."
But he'd known there would be no tomorrow. Known while I read my pathetic letter, while I served him one last time, while I fell asleep trusting in forever.
The laptop drew me like a magnet. Maybe there would be—
But it was factory new. No files, no history, no breadcrumbs leading back to him. Even the wallpaper was generic. Like I was supposed to start fresh, build a new life on the ashes of who I'd become.
"I don't want a new life!" Screaming at technology that didn't care. "I want the one you promised! Want to kneel by your chair and cook your meals and—"
My hands moved without conscious thought, fingers finding the browser. Maybe I could find the Institute, find him, explain there'd been a mistake. That I hadn't asked to leave. That I'd chosen to stay, chosen him, chosen forever.
But searching for the Serenity Institute yielded nothing. Like it didn't exist. Like the last twelve weeks had been fever dream or psychotic break. No evidence of the place that had destroyed and rebuilt me.
"This can't be happening." But even as I said it, I understood with horrible clarity that it was. This was always the plan. Take broken women, fix them enough to function, then release them back into the world with money and a fresh start.
I'd just been stupid enough to believe I was different. Special. Worth keeping.
"You're mine forever," he'd said.
But forever had lasted exactly twelve weeks.
The money mocked me from the counter. More than enough to build any life I wanted. Except the only life I wanted was the one where I woke up in his arms, made his coffee, knelt at his feet, served his needs. The life where Bunny existed as more than memory.
"I can't." The words came out broken, directed at the cash like it might listen. "Can't be Lilah again. She's dead. You killed her. Killed her and built Bunny and now—"
Now Bunny was homeless. Collarless. Abandoned in a nice apartment with designer clothes and enough money to pretend the last twelve weeks never happened.
But they had happened. Every moment was carved into my bones, written in muscle memory, encoded in responses I couldn't turn off. I still wanted to kneel when distressed. Still sucked my thumb for comfort. Still felt phantom collar around my throat.
Still loved him with every atom of my rebuilt self.
"Please." I wasn't even sure what I was begging for anymore. For him to appear. For this to be another test. For the pain to stop. "Please, Daddy. I'll be so good. Already miss you so much. Already—"
The sobs took over again, ugly and primal. I ended up on the bathroom floor, cool tile against fevered skin, trying to remember how to exist without him. But every coping mechanism led back to his training. Every self-soothing technique bore his fingerprints.
He'd built me to need him, then left me to function alone with that need.
The cruelest gift imaginable.
Hours passed. Or minutes. Time meant nothing without his structure. Eventually, exhaustion won, pulling me under into fractured dreams where he explained it all. Where this was just another exercise in distance. Where I'd wake up back in his bed, safe and owned and home.
But when consciousness returned, I was still alone. Still abandoned. Still Lilah in a world where only Bunny made sense.
The money sat on the counter, untouched and untouchable. The clothes hung in the closet like artifacts from a life I couldn't return to. The empty phone and blank computer waited for me to build a new existence.
But I didn't want new. I wanted the familiar weight of his collar. The simple pink room where I'd learned to submit. The mountain house we'd never see. The future we'd planned in whispers and promises.
I wanted him.
My owner. My doctor. My Daddy who'd sworn I was ready for whatever came next.
But he'd lied.
I wasn't ready for abandonment. Wasn't ready to be Lilah again. Wasn't ready for a world without his structure, his touch, his constant presence reminding me I existed.
Without him, I was nothing but conditioning without purpose. Training without application. A perfectly programmed pet with no master to serve.
The thought should have made me angry. The old Lilah would have raged, destroyed things, used fury to fill the void. But Bunny only knew how to hurt. How to ache. How to wait for an owner who wasn't coming back.
So I waited.
Curled on a bathroom floor in an apartment I didn't want, wearing silk that wasn't mine, crying for a man who'd loved me completely and left me anyway.
Waiting for forever to begin.
Even though my heart knew—with horrible, breaking certainty—that forever had already ended.
And I'd slept through the goodbye.