My fingers press harder into my skin and I bite my cheek until I taste blood.
“That day I was tied to the post and he had sex with me, I didn’t want it. At all. I was bloodied, in so much pain I couldn’t think straight, but I allowed it to happen. I didn’t have much of a choice with chains around my wrists, but I told myself, this is how you survive. This is how you get them to back off. You have survival sex whenever possible to curb his attitude. I’d get Mellcom to take it easier on me through him. I—”
I close my eyes while my truth hangs there, waiting for me to admit.
“I still chose him. Over and over again,” I whisper. “I learned him. Learned what would set him off, what would calm him down, how to…exist around him without making things worse.”
My throat burns.
“I made it normal,” I say. “I made his actions normal. I madehimnormal. He’s the one who grew tired of sneaking into my room or me in his. It was like one day, he saw how pathetic my attempt to manipulate him was and just decided he’d teach me what real pain and manipulation looked like. And now he’s just gone.”
My voice hollows and silence settles around us once again for a fleeting second.
“I should be relieved—I am relieved—but it doesn’t feel…”
“Finished,” Iric supplies, and I breathe.
“Yes. It doesn’t feel finished.” A tear slips down my cheek, and I swipe at it impatiently. “It feels like he got off so easily. I mean, he had to die. He cut a little girl’s throat. He was going to die no matter what after that, and I had decided to be the one to do it. I’m thankful my men did it for me now, but it still feels like he got the easy way out while I have to fight through and figure this shit out.”
“You have to heal the damage he caused, and that’s not fair.”
“It isn’t.” My jaw tightens and I pick at my cuticles. “Up until lately, I’ve been cautious with men who love and literally fuckingworship me, because I couldn’t get that fucker completely out of my head. I let him have too much space in my insecurities. I look at myself now and keep thinking about how long I stayed with him. With Mellcom. How much I adjusted. How far I bent just to make it work. I’d never put up with that now, but it still fucking taunts me.”
My voice softens, almost lost.
“It’s so easy to make excuses for why I stayed. Because it was easier than leaving. Because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Because I didn’t have anything of my own and couldn’t make it alone. But the truth…” My voice tightens and my breath shudders. “The imitation room pulled the truth from me. I believed I deserved everything that was happening to me because that’s all I was worth. That’s what I allowed myself to be worthy of.”
“You’re ashamed of yourself,” Iric says. Not harsh or heavily, just…finishing the truth I wouldn’t say out loud
“Yes. I felt it a little back then, but not nearly what I feel now. Now, I know so many truths that if I had known them back then, I would’ve done so many things differently.”
“And that’s where your mindset change about your parents has come from. It’s why you’re looking at Laney the way you are.”
I squeeze my eyes shut as his power coats me in warmth and steadiness.
“She’s now in a position you were in. Vulnerable, dependent, looking to the people around her to decide what happens next. You’re trying to include her in every decision and overcompensate for what she’s lost.”
“And now I’m letting her go,” I mumble.
“You’re making sure she’s safe,” he corrects.
“It feels the same.”
“I know,” he says. “That’s because you’re not seeing her for her. You’re seeing yourself.”
Silence crashes down around us as that truth that everyone can see but I’ve refused to admit lands like a blow across my heart.
“You’re looking at her and measuring what you’re doing against what was done to you. Are you informing her enough? Are you checking on her enough? Are you doing enough? The answer to all those questions is yes, but you’re coming to the same but incorrect conclusion.”
My chest caves in and tears spill freely down my cheeks.
“Regardless of everything I’ve done and what I’m doing, at the end of the day, I’m doing to her exactly what my parents did to me. Leaving her in the custody of someone else while I run off and do the Valories bidding.”
The words burn my tongue and hurt my heart.
“She isn’t you, and you are not them,” he says firmly, but instead of it hurting, it grounds me. “You are not abandoning her. You’ve made it possible and have sworn to yourself you will do whatever it takes to be a part of her life. You will fill the role of big sister to her and Lambrit, not because they placed it on your shoulders, but because you want that. You want that family and you want to protect the family you’ve built. That’s the difference, Thayla. You will do whatever it takes to have it. You won’t bend to a belief or whim that could jeopardize that.”
My lips tremble and a harsh gasp pours through my mouth when I gaze up at him.
