Madison had stroked her hair.Expressing emotions has never been easy for you, and that’s not your fault. It’s not uncommon to have it all explode like this. Livvy seems fine. No harm done.
One feeling.That had been Madison’s advice, and one her therapist had approved of when she’d related the episode to her. Feel something, anything. Express it. Embrace the full expression of it. One feeling at a time, if need be. Combined with other coping mechanisms, she could maybe start to learn how to identify and articulate her emotions.
Eve had tried it. It had worked, a little, to varying degrees. She’d figured out where her seeming anger toward Livvy had stemmed from. She’d quit the job she hated. She’d acknowledged her father was a thoroughly toxic individual and confronted her sorrow and regret and desperate desire for love.
Feeling was hard. Maybe not for most people, but for her, it was like standing on a cliff, sharp winds buffeting her from every single direction. Staying steady in the face of that storm, with no one to rely on but herself—it was terrifying.
Madison started sewing again, the rhythmic up-and-down motion capturing Eve’s gaze, calming her.
“How do you think that’s worked for you?”
“Fine. I... I’m in a better place than I was then.”
“Are you happy?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. She didn’t entirely know what pure happiness felt like.
“I think you’re in a better place too.” Madison’s gaze was warm when it rested on her face. “Abuse isn’t a quick or easy thing to recover from, Eve.”
Eve bit back her instantaneous response to that, the one she’d given Madison for years, since they’d met in college—her father had never raised a hand to her or her brother. She had no physical scars. She’d had every financial resource and advantage a woman could have.
They were excuses Madison had always been quick to frown at, though it had taken Eve years to understand why. Emotional abuse was abuse.
Poor little rich girl.
She squared her shoulders. A distant father wasn’t something that was unusual in their social circles. Most women worked through it with therapy or ever-aging romantic partners. Eve was already in the former, and wasn’t interested in the latter.
But Brendan wasn’t only distant to her. As a child, her older brother had come up with a million reasons why their father had treated her with disdain. She looked so much like her mother, and he was grieving. He was busy. He was preoccupied. If Brendan wasn’t one of those things, of course he would love her. Of course he wouldn’t ridicule her. Of course he wouldn’t mock her. Of course he wouldn’t hurt her.
Her brother had meant well. Eve had shut herself down like a computer in power-saving mode, waiting for her father to love her. Trying not to give him any more reasons to hate her, or even look at her.
In the process, she’d shut herself down with regard to the rest of the world too. “I’m trying,” she said with some difficulty. “It’s not easy. Sometimes I feel like a... a turtle.”
Madison didn’t stop that soothing needle motion, though she wasn’t even looking at her canvas. “How’s that?”
“I stick my head out, and then I get scared, and I draw back into my shell.” She clasped and unclasped her hands. “I rejected my father but I never fully confronted him. I quit my job and I hid. I got a business idea and never told my brother. And Gabe. Oh my God, Gabe.”
“What about him?”
She leaned forward and dropped her head. “I saw him this afternoon. We went to a cake tasting. He said he was going drinking tonight, so I...” Basically stalked him. “I made sure I would be in a position where I could accept his call if he called for a Ryde.”
“And what did you hope to get out of that?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling silly and childish. “I—I don’t know.”
Madison’s tone gentled. “It’s okay not to know. It’s okay to just want to see someone.”
“No... I’m soweird, Mad.”
“You’re not weird.”
“I am. I wish I could straight up tell him I liked him.”Go out with me.He’d been drunk, yes, but how had it been so easy for him? It was never easy for her. “Or even tell him I’m Anne, his friendly neighborhood Ryde driver, and get my bracelet back.”
“Ah. He has it?”
Impossible to explain how she’d wound up in his bedroom, without Madison realizing she really was weird, so she didn’t bother. “Yeah.”
“Do you want it back badly?”
