e light on. I tried to sleep in the dark, but it was scary. It was dark when my parents died. It was dark in the closet where my aunt used to lock me when I annoyed her. It was dark when Brian kicked me out. Bad things happen in the dark.”
Fuck. She was totally killing him. And if he ever got hold of her bitch of an aunt or her ex…well, they’d wish they’d never put a foot wrong with his little darling.
He gently grasped hold of her chin and raised her face so she was gazing up at him. “You don’t ever have to be in the dark again, understand? There will always be light. And I will make sure that no bad things can hurt you.”
She nodded a little uncertainly.
“So, Brian kicked you out and that’s how you ended up living in your car?” he asked, working hard not to let his anger filter through into his voice.
“He handled all the money. I had a job, I tried to pull my weight. I was cooking in a diner. It was long hours and I’d get tired and when I get tired I…”
“You’re more likely to slip into Little space,” he guessed.
“Little space? Yeah, I guess that’s right. And he hated that. Can’t blame him, he wanted a girlfriend. Someone who he could be proud of. Not a little girl.”
He frowned. “How did you get involved with him? Surely he knew about your Little side before you moved in together?”
She shook her head. “I hid that part of me. It’s my fault. I thought I could keep that part of myself hidden from him, but instead I found it harder to keep it suppressed when we were living together. He was a regular in the diner and one day he asked me out. We dated for a couple of months then my lease came up for renewal and he said there was no point in paying for two places to live. I guess…I thought that sounded good. I’d never had someone who wanted me before.”
He clenched his free hand into a fist but didn’t say anything. “But when I moved in, things were different. He started to get impatient with me. He was embarrassed by me,” she whispered, sounding so ashamed it broke his heart. “I tried to be what he wanted, but I’m not very good at socializing. I’m clumsy and I often say the wrong thing and he just continued to grow angrier and angrier at me.”
“Did he ever hit you?” he asked tightly. If he had, he’d kill the bastard.
“No.” She shook her head. “He’d just yell at me about how childish I was and how I needed to grow up and that I needed to make more of an effort to be a real girlfriend.”
“Oh, baby.” He cupped the side of her head against his chest, rocking her slowly. “He didn’t understand your needs but he should never have belittled you because of them. What happened when he kicked you out? What about your job?”
“I’d lost my job,” she whispered. “Things were tough in our town and everyone tightened their belts. I was looking for another one, but I couldn’t find anything. He said he was sick of supporting me and that we were out of money and that I had to leave so he could get a roommate who could pay their share of the bills. I think he had another girlfriend and he wanted to move her in.”
“Mother-fucking son-of-a-bitch!”
“Daddy, you need your mouth washed out!”
He was gratified by the teasing note in her voice.
“Daddies don’t get their mouths washed out. But I should watch my language in front of you. If I ever come across that asshole…”
She placed a hand over his mouth. “It’s okay. I’m away from him now. I never intend to see him again.”
“I hate that you have nightmares about him. About the way he treated you.”
“Me too.” She sighed. “Those aren’t my only nightmares. I have bad dreams about my aunt. She was in the nightmare tonight too, yelling at me that I should be grateful to her for taking me in. That I should have been the one to die, not my mom.”
He kissed the top of her head. “She was an old bitch who didn’t realize the treasure she had.”
“I think she might be the reason that I…that I hoard food. When I moved in with Brian, I tried to stop, really, I did. For a while I managed. But as things started to go bad with our relationship then I started to hide things. It got easier to hide them once he moved into a different bedroom. He found them that same night he kicked me out. By then he was just sick of me. I told you I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”
“That just got added to your tally, little one,” he told her.
She froze then glanced up at him. He wiped at a stray tear that dripped down her face. He reached for a tissue and held it up to her nose. “Blow.”
Her cheeks grew red. “Clint.”
“Blow. Now.”
She blew her nose and he wiped her nose clean then threw the tissue on the floor.
“Clint, that needs to go in the garbage.”