“Oh, sweetie,” Papa said, walking over to hug me and kiss my cheek, eyes watery with sympathy. “It’s okay. There are no such things as monsters.”
Papa’s affection and the obvious pain he held in his heart for me was so much that it nearly pushed me over the edge into tears. “Papa,” I said, both sheepishly and warningly.
“I know, I know,” Papa said, stroking my hair, reluctant to let me go. “You’re still my little boy, though. You’re my eldest and sweetest.”
I laughed bitterly, then instantly felt bad. It wasn’t Papa’s fault. None of it was. My parents were absolutely the best. They hadn’t blinked an eye or said a thing when it was strongly recommended that I not ever live alone. When a therapist suggested I live in an institution designed for omegas like me, they’d rejected the idea and taken me in with everything they knew that meant without question.
“I wish you hadn’t messed with your hair,” Papa said, following me as I headed out of the den and into the kitchen. “You’ve always had such lovely hair.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?” I asked, doing a double-take to look at it in the hall mirror and to run my fingers through its pink and purple spikes on the way to the kitchen.
Of course, the answer hung directly across from the mirror in the family portrait we’d had done five years ago, before…everything. I stood happy and smiling in that photo, the oldest of my parents’ eight kids, my normal, brown hair combed perfectly. That Quincy was happy and dutiful. No piercings, no tattoos, no shredded soul.
That Quincy was a chump.
Papa sighed. “I know you’re too old to have your papa telling you what to do, but sometimes I think all these…changes haven’t really been good for you.”
We reached the kitchen, and I whipped around to glare at Papa as a jolt of unregulated emotion hit me. “I didn’t change on purpose,” I snapped, my mood a complete one-eighty from three minutes ago. “This isn’t my fault!”
Papa sucked in a breath and rested a hand on my forearm. “Breathe, sweetheart. In for four, hold it, and out for six.”
I closed my eyes and did what Papa said. Breathe. Shorter inhale, longer exhale. Regulate my nervous system. Smooth the jagged edges where the bond used to be.
Fuck Chester and his fucking?—
“Breathe, baby,” Papa said, his voice helping to soothe me. “Breathe past it.”
It took a few minutes, but the flare eased up and the part of me that was actually me gained control again. I wanted to weep, but at least I was in control.
Sort of.
“Thanks, Papa,” I whispered, opening my watery eyes and smiling at him.
Papa looked like he might cry, too. He rested a hand on the side of my face and smiled at me. “I’m so proud of you, Quincy,” he said. “You never should have been put in this situation, but you always handle it with so much grace and strength.”
“I handle it the way I handle it,” I said, resting a hand over my papa’s for a second, then leaning into him for a hug. “Dr. Matthis says I’m making progress.”
Dr. Matthis also said that I was lucky I’d only been bonded to Chester for a few months and that I’d only been twenty at the time, because if I’d been older or bonded for longer, I might never have had a chance of recovering.
That didn’t make me feel better when I walked through life feeling like I’d had a limb hacked off.
I noticed the kitchen clock over Papa’s shoulder as I let go of him and let out a quick, “Oh, shit! I’m going to be late if I don’t get going.”
Papa gave me another of his wary looks. “Are you sure this is the best idea?” he asked.
My face heated, but I only said, “Yep.”
How did you explain to your papa that you liked kink and pain and sexual humiliation because it was the only thing loud enough to drown out the gaping nothingness of a severed bond? What words were there to reassure the man who had carried you for nine months and nurtured you for your entire early life that you really wanted to have some anonymous, sadistic alpha fuck the life out of you, because acknowledgement of damage was the closest you could ever get to healing it?
“I should be back by Monday morning,” I told him, grabbing my keys from the bowl beside the kitchen door and the overnight bag I’d packed earlier. “And don’t worry, okay?”
“You’re my baby,” Papa said, walking me out the door and over to my car. “I will always worry about you.”
I leaned in and kissed Papa’s cheek before throwing my bag in the backseat. “I have Monday and Tuesday off from work, which should give me plenty of time to recover. Dr. Matthis knows where I am and what I’m doing. I have everyone’s numbers in my phone, and if I feel like I’m going to lose it, I know who to call.”
I was already close to losing it, but that’s why I was going off to play. It was so much easier to hand myself over to a Dom than it was to deal with the rage and the grief on my own. It didn’t help that my heat wasn’t far off either. Everything got so much worse for me during heat, obviously.
Heats were supposed to be about nurturing and strengthening a bond. Mine were non-stop, painful reminders that I’d had part of my soul ripped out.
