“I’ll pick it up soon. I have more important things to do right now. You may continue.”
She rolled her eyes at him and he was grateful to see a bit of her sass return.
“When I got here, I told myself I couldn’t keep doing it. That it was stealing. But no matter how hard I tried; I couldn’t stop myself. So…so I worked out an exchange.”
He stilled in his rocking for a minute then resumed. “What does that mean?” He made certain his voice was non-judgmental. Calm.
“I-I stopped eating.”
Shit. No wonder she’d lost so much weight.
“I mean, not entirely because I still tasted everything as I cooked. But I figured that if I didn’t eat proper meals then I wasn’t really stealing, just taking my share. But it’s stealing, I know that. I’m so sorry.” She sniffled.
“Okay, listen to me. Listen. This is the last time I say this.” He grabbed hold of her chin, raising her face up. “I am not mad you took the food, nor I am not going to punish you for taking it.” She opened her mouth to say something and he shook his head. “No, I don’t want any arguments about that. You’ve already got a tally for not telling me about Allan, for lying to me and for putting yourself down. You don’t want to add to it for something I don’t consider an offense that deserves punishment. When did the hoarding start?”
“After I moved in with my aunt,” she whispered. “She used to withhold food from me. When I would come home from school, she’d usually still be at work. She used to send food with me for lunch because she didn’t want anyone coming around and asking questions. She told me if I told anyone about my life at home that I’d be sent to a home for naughty girls where they locked you in a closet every night. I hated being locked in the closet.”
“I cannot believe she locked you in a fucking closet.” His voice was cold, dark and she trembled against him. He kissed the top of her head. “Sorry, baby. Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
My God, it was amazing she had turned out as sweet and loving as she was after living in that hell. That she could put her trust in him was a fucking miracle.
“She didn’t do it all the time. But I didn’t like the dark and she knew that…she only did it when I was really bad.”
“You listen to me, little girl. You were never bad, understand me?” he told her firmly.
“But I was whiny and sometimes I answered back and—”
“You were never bad,” he interrupted her. “Say it for me. I was never bad.”
“I was never bad,” she whispered.
“My aunt was an evil, old bitch.”
“Daddy, I’m not allowed to swear.” There was a ghost of a smile on her face.
He snorted. “I’ll make an exception when it comes to her. Say it.”
“My aunt was an evil, old bitch.”
“And she didn’t deserve someone sweet and lovely like me.”
She gave him a shy look. “And she didn’t deserve someone sweet and lovely like me.”
He kissed her forehead. “That’s my good girl.”
She snuggled in. “I like being your good girl.”
“Now tell me the rest.”
She sighed. “Like I said, she’d give me lunch to take to school, but I wasn’t
allowed to just help myself to food from the kitchen. Only sometimes she would have a date or something would come up after work and she wouldn’t come home until late and I’d get hungry…”
“Oh God, baby, she’d punish you for eating?” He was so appalled he was shaking.
“Yeah. But it wasn’t all the time. When she had a boyfriend, she was happier. When they moved in, it was even better because she played the part of a doting aunt, but when they left…”
“It got a whole lot worse.”