He understood, but I don’t.
When do you stop being someone’s daughter and start being your own woman?
“Ahem.” I refocus. “I don’t know what happened to her. The Feds whisked her away, but promised they’d keep me posted. And I gave her my bracelet to?—”
“Your mom’s bracelet?” Dad barks, his veins popping.
“Yes.”
He starts to lecture me. “Alena, that was her?—”
But I interject. After this week. After last night. After Loch made me feel free and powerful, even bound in cuffs, I insist, “Dad, it was mine to give, and Mom would’ve done the same thing. I know you want to protect me, but you can’t imprison me. Not in the past. Not in this house. Not under your rules. Your love is in the right place, but your control isn’t.”
The irony whips through me. Along with the understanding.
This is what Loch meant.
I want Loch’s control because it’s my choice. It’s my power to give.
But with my dad, he acts like I have no choice. I know he loves me; he wants to protect me. But I don’t understand why he’s so extreme about it. Why everything I do is under his eye—I can sense it, though I live hundreds of miles from home on purpose.
I wanted to be free. To take risks. To play in the sunshine as I did with my mom when she was alive.
With my dad? There’s so much darkness. Yes, of course, there’s love, but it comes with a foreboding sense that he’s protecting me from something horrible, when ironically, it’s already happened.
My mom.
My bully.
My self-esteem.
And I refuse to live in its prison anymore.
“I love you, Dad.” I stand up, kissing his forehead. “But you need to see me for who I am, not for who I was.”
I’m taking my own advice.
“Sweetpea.” Dad reaches for my hand. “I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you, and?—”
“Hello?” A familiar voice sings from our front door. “I smell bacon, bitch!”
Dad mutters as Vale bounds into our kitchen, “No, I smell trouble.”
Her gray eyes land on him, pause, a tense look exchanged before they fall on Nadine and me. “What did I just interrupt?” Vale tilts her head. “Let me guess. Another episode ofFather Knows Best.”
Nadine laughs, Dad grumbles, and I kiss his forehead again before strolling across the kitchen to grab her hand. “Come with me.” I tug Vale upstairs.
“Alena!” Dad shouts. “Finish your breakfast first!”
“Love you, Dad!” I shout back before closing my bedroom door and slumping against it. “He’s on the warpath again. Guarding me like a man-eating lion.”
Vale flops onto my bed. “At least your dad still gives a shit. Mine’s too busy shooting his sperm into every willing womb.”
“Eww.” I laugh.
“What? It’s true.” She sits up. “And speaking of sperm and willing wombs. Girl, what happened last night? Last thing I saw you were strapped to a tower, getting your pussy properly worshipped by the Cunnophile King, then you were gone.”
“My dad showed up.” I yank off my pajama top. I need to get dressed for my date with Loch today. “Talk about a cunt-block from hell. What’s worse? That my dad and his friends walked into a sex club or that I ran out?”
