Now, Lizbeth lowers her chin instead of haughtily jutting it in the air like everyone around her is a piece of shit as Helene sits at the head of the table. I stay back, anonymous and forgotten against the wall, watching Helene pull out a tablet. Her fingers slap off the screen as she tilts it, playing a video of Delilah I’ve never seen before. Asher is still in my head, telling me it’s all her fault while a teenaged Delilah falls onto a bed, mumbling, “Be quick, I have things to do.”
Lizbeth’s lips curl up in disgust at the sight of her daughter as she says, “She always was vocal.”
I don’t watch the love of my life being fucked by countless men as she giggles and moans, each fucking sound scraping my insides. There’s a small voice in the back of my head telling me she’s been drugged. It’s a new one with unknown origins like the video, but it’s a lie.
Just. Like. Delilah.
Then there’s a voice I recognize.
“Will you tell your daddy to sign the contract now?”
Harkin’s business partner. I can’t even remember his name, but Delilah would hug him, call him uncle, make sure to greet him at their family parties. Every single fucking time.
7
DELILAH
Iremain slumped on the floor, blankly staring at the wall as a hum vibrates around my skull, bouncing off the bone, then the stone floors and walls. I don’t try to wipe the feeling of hands off me or focus on the liquids on my skin. I just keep humming while my ankle throbs.
The same hums I would do to perfect a piece of music so I would be allowed to get up from the spiked piano bench. But there aren’t spikes digging into my skin this time, just my blood coating my thighs. No spikes though.
Like those days from my childhood, it’s Kane keeping me sane, who stops me screaming and crying. Because Kane will come back. He’ll hold my hand, tell me I’m special, that he loves me without needing to hurt me. His love is the only one that doesn’t come with pain.
It’s not easy to breathe with my chest flat against the floor, but I don’t want to breathe anymore so I don’t move. Breathing is needed for life and life only hurts. It hurt at six years old, at ten, at fifteen, seventeen, twenty, thirty. The only constant in life is pain, proving everything is true.
The hurt can be good too, because it comes when I remember my baby. My eyes close as I try to remember the weight of them in my arms, how they smelt, if they opened their eyes. So much hair. It was all soft, tickling my cheek when I kissed the top of their head, with lighter fluffy bits, blonde like mine. I’m fucked up, but I made something good. Innocent.
I gave birth when I was eighteen, so my baby isn’t a baby anymore. They’re a teenager. Fifteen years old, living with their own thoughts, opinions, feelings. Fifteen years old is a big age, close to the age my life changed, and they’ll think they’re an adult who knows everything already.
The questions start, muting my humming.
Do they have a family?
Do they go to school?
What’s their favorite subject?
Do they know what they want to be when they’re older?
Do they know I exist?
Do they think I abandoned them?
Do they know I’m sorry?
I hope they know the last one more than anything else. I hope they’re happy, flourishing in my absence.
Yeah, they had to. I wouldn’t be a good parent; I’d be terrible. I never even remembered them, so they’ll have a nice, normal family. One who celebrates their achievements, puts their certificates on the fridge with different magnets they’ve collected on their travels. They’ll have supportive parents, the type of parents who would sit up with them when they’re sick, check their homework, and let them be who they want.
I smile to myself, imagining all the things they’ll have with a kind family. They might even have siblings who don’t abandon them—parents they’d never run from.
A good family for the best baby.
I hope they look like Kane and inherited all the good he had instead of anything else Asher or I could’ve given them. Kane’s DNA is the same as Asher’s, so his goodness could’ve been there too.
The small amount of peace I’ve found in a make-believe world is shattered as the steel door unclicks and my mother walks into the room. Her heels click against the stone as she steps around my prone body to stand in my line of sight, disgust etched on her features—all of it directed at me.
But I smile up at her as I ask, “Are you happy now?”
