"I understand perfectly." She's close now, close enough that I can see how red her eyes are. "You don't see me as a person. You see me as an accessory. Something to dress up and parade around and mold into whatever image you need."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?" She crosses her arms. "You took my clothes, Dante. Not just the skirts and blouses. Everything. My pajamas. My underwear. Even the stuff I wore around the house when no one was looking. You took it all and replaced it with what you wanted."
Guilt twists in my chest, unexpected and unwelcome.
"I was trying to help?—"
"Help?" She laughs, bitter. "You were trying to control me. Again. Like you control everything else in this arrangement."
"I control things because I have to. Because maintaining appearances matters. Because?—"
"Because you can't stand anything you don't own completely." She's right in front of me now, jabbing a finger into my chest. "Well guess what? You don't own me. Not really. You own my time, you own my mother's health, you own this contract we signed. But you don't own who I am."
"I never said I did?—"
"You didn't have to say it. You showed it." Her voice cracks. "Those clothes were mine. They were the only things in this house that were mine. And you took them."
The vulnerability in that admission does something to me I don't want to examine.
"I'll have Maria get you different things," I say finally. "More like what you had before."
"I don't want your charity."
"It's not charity. It's?—"
"Control. Everything with you is control." She backs away, wrapping her arms around herself. "I just want to sleep. Alone. But apparently, that's not allowed either."
She climbs back into bed, pulls the covers over her head like a child hiding from monsters.
And maybe I am the monster.
I stand there for a long moment, trying to figure out how this got so twisted. How a simple wardrobe update turned into this.
But I know how.
Because I went too far. Because I didn't just buy her new clothes—I erased her old ones. Took away one of the few things she had control over and replaced it with my vision.
It was a power move, that’s why I did it.
But it’s also cruel.
I move to the other side of the bed, strip down into my sweatpants, and lie down.
She shifts away from me immediately, putting as much distance between us as the mattress allows.
"Bianca," I say quietly.
"Don't."
"I'm not trying to erase who you are."
"Yes, you are. You just don't realize it." Her voice is muffled by the covers. "Or maybe you do and you don't care."
"I care?—"
"You care about appearances. About making sure I fit into the box you've created." She's quiet for a moment. "But you don't care about me. Not really."
