“Mamma,” Daddy hissed.
She brushed my hair off my face. “I’ll bring water. It’s stressful meeting your significant other’s family for the first time. I nearly had the same thing happen to me,” she said as she patted my hand, but this time I could tell she was lying to be nice. I wasn’t sure what I should say to her, but she left and came back with an ice-cold glass of water and put it in my hands. She said something else to Daddy in Italian, patted my head, and left us alone.
“Drink the water,” Daddy murmured in my ear, so I did. The cold on my tongue and sliding down my throat was a shock to my system and, combined with the hitch of his warm breath in my ear, it gave me a shiver.
“Did someone hurt you?” he asked, deadly quiet.
I shook my head, and he let out a long breath.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head again.
He turned me until I was sitting sideways on his lap, snug against his chest. I drank all the water, and then he took the glass from me and put it on the coffee table beside the vase. The spicy sweetness of the flowers tickled my nose. I melted against Daddy when he pressed his lips to my cheek and his stubble tickled my skin.
“Tell me what is going on.”
Closing my eyes, I knew it was time to get it over with. “I broke a rule, I went outside. I don’t want everything to be terrible again. I’m sorry, I’ll do better. I didn’t mean to do it, I just.... The shouting.”
He shushed me and cradled me close, and after a few minutes of him holding me so tightly I thought I might have a bruise in the shape of his arms, he pressed his lips to my cheek again. It took a while, but eventually I unclenched.
“I was worried you’d gotten hurt somehow,” he said in a rush, breath warm against my temple. “I’m not going to abuse you or make your life miserable. I want you to choose to listen to me when I ask you to do something because you... care about me. It’s important.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I nodded. “There was shouting and... it was like... my body shut down. All I wanted to do was get away from it.” Daddy rubbed his hand along my back while I rambled on and on about my heart feeling like it was going to pop out of my chest, but when I started repeating myself, he rocked me and shushed me. “And... I remember.... I’m remembering my old life. I guess it’s just my life, but I feel like there is an old one and right now, almost like they happened to two different people. It’s weird. My mom.... Her name is Mandy, but she feels like someone else’s mom, not my mom. I just remembered that name right now.” I sat up, my heart racing again. “How? What’s going on with me?” I glanced at Daddy and felt like I was going to fly apart again.
He tightened his strong arms around me. “I don’t know,” he murmured. A wrinkle made a deep worried furrow in his brow.
“I was always so focused on surviving every day. Your family is important to you. Do you hate me because I was able to forget mine?” I clutched at his arm.
“I wish you’d told me things were so bad—in your head.” He nuzzled his lips against my jaw.
“I didn’t really know. I’m scared. What else have I forgotten?” Panic began to eat at me again.
Daddy shrugged. “I want you to see a therapist, you need more help than I know how to provide. I don’t want to force you into anything, but I have no idea what I should do right now.”
The thought of being alone with a stranger scared me more than I was willing to admit, so I said nothing and huddled against him. “Daddy?”
He grunted. “The mind protects itself in strange ways. I’m here for you, I’ll help you. I’ll keep you safe while you’re figuring all these things out.”
“Promise?”
“I do.”
Turning just a bit, I stared into his warm brown eyes and felt like I was falling. He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine, and unlike the times when I’d gotten hard and wanted to please Daddy, this was... special. It felt good and like he was telling me he cared about me as a person. When he straightened, he leaned his forehead against my temple and sighed. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
My heart hurt. This felt so good to me, but maybe it didn’t to him? “Whatever you need, Daddy, you should have it.”
“I need you to.... No, that isn’t fair.” He sighed. “I need you to keep being your sweet, loving self. We’ll get you healthy again.”
“Thank you.” I kissed his cheek, and it felt good to be the one to decide to touch him that way.
Daddy smiled at me. “I’m going to get you cleaned up. I’ll get a cold washcloth and we’ll wipe your face down, then we’ll spend half an hour at the party together. I don’t care what anyone wants. We’ll hang out with Mamma, then we’ll leave. Can you handle that?”
I nodded. “Anything for you, Daddy.” Something his mom had mentioned bounced into my mind unexpectedly and I stilled. I glanced at him, and he cocked his head.
“What is it?”
“Your mom said I could be good for you because of an accident? What was she talking about?”
