Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“What?” I bark, at the same time hating all the ways I understand why she thinks that. “I don’t—”
I breathe out harshly and meet her piercing gaze. “Me either. I want to be the man you needed back then. I’m trying to be.”
My guts twist. She’s in my arms now but it feels fucking selfish even though I know she was hurt when I pulled away a moment ago.
But how fucking dare I even fucking lay a finger on her after failing her so badly? I know we were both in some fairyland for a little while with the sun and the pool today, trying to pretend the whole world didn’t exist.
But then she saw the truth of me. She saw that I’m a weak, unworthy fuck. And I always have been. I spent all these years so angry at her when I’m the one who failed her so badly back then.
“Mads,” I manage to growl out between gritted teeth. “I fucking left you with him. All I saw was my own shit instead of realizing that you—” I glare down. “—That you needed me to save you.”
She throws her arms around my neck and crawls into my lap. I scoop her up and crush her to me. Her hands cup the back of my head like I’m something precious in the world to her, when everyone else me whole life only looked on me like I was shite to be scraped off their boot—
“You were just a kid, too,” she whispers, eyes searching mine while more tears run down her cheeks.
I wasn’t though. At least not compared to her. And now she has nightmares from whatever he did to her.
What the fuck did he do to her to make her scream like that?
What has she pushed down in her lake? She can’t remember right now. But that doesn’t mean she never will.
Cause don’t I remember? Everything always came up out of the lake eventually. There was a drought this one year, and the water dried up. It got to be so there was more shit than there was lake. All the rusted cars and busted up bikes and freezers and mountains of trash people’d tried to bury there got exposed to the bright light of day again. Another year, a body floated up to shore.
Everything always comes up out of the lake, one way or another.
The pain’s got to come out somehow. Right now it’s just screaming nightmares. But whatever else is down there… one day there’ll be a drought. One day she’ll remember and god help us both.
The pain in her eyes still wet with tears feels like a whip. No, it slams harder than a whip ever could. Like a knife, it slices deep. Because it’s her pain.
Oh god, the weight of it is really just hitting me now. He had her for her whole life.
I force myself to keep looking into her eyes. He took my body and yeah, me mind too, it felt like most days, but it was still only four months. I know I’m a broken man, but if it had gone on much longer, I woulda fractured in ways I couldn’t have come back from. If I ever even have.
I don’t look away from her eyes, glimpsing all she doesn’t even know she knows yet. The way he was, with his specific proclivities— I don’t think he would’ve touched his own daughter. It would’ve been her mind he’d enjoy twisting the most… but God only knows with that sick smear of a shite.
She needs me to get my shit together. She needs me to stay in control. I failed her before but I won’t now.
I hold her face in my hands. “Stay here, love. I’ll be right back.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t leave me alone. I need you, Domhn. I feel like I’m shattering into pieces without you. I can’t keep myself together unless you’re here.”
“It’s alrigh’, love. I know. I’ll be back in half a minute. Just stay right here. Don’t twitch a muscle. Can ya do t’at for me?”
She looks terrified but nods.
I let go of her and hurry off the bed, sprinting to my office. I grab what I’m looking for and come back before she can even miss me.
I find her staring desolately at the wall, and her face only comes back to life when she sees me again. She immediately reaches for me, and I sit down beside her again, holding the object behind my back.
“On your knees,” I say sternly.
Her eyes widen in surprise and interest, and I also note the way they snap back to focus. She’s fully here with me, the haze of terror gone. She climbs off the bed and drops to her knees on the soft carpet at my feet, face down.
I breathe out in relief. I was right. This is what we both need.