I glue my ear to the door and listen in on their conversation.
“Enough is enough, Blair!” Uncle hisses. “Can’t you see that she’s stressed?”
“She’ll get better with Dr Khan,” Aunt replies with that air of confidence.
“She can’t get better from a disease she doesn’t know about. You can pretend all you want, but she’s remembering, Blair. She’s smart to know those recurring nightmares mean something.”
“She’s not remembering,” there’s a note of panic in Aunt’s voice.
“Even if she isn’t, she will soon. Or those people will come for her.”
People? What people?
“She’ll choose us.” Aunt’s tone hardens. “Elsa will choose us.”
“Even if she does, you can’t pretend that all of this is okay just to protect yourself.”
“Protect myself?” I can almost imagine Aunt scoffing. “I did everything to protect her. I don’t want her to go back to that phase of her life, I wanted her to start anew. I thought you wanted that for her, too.”
“I do, but as Dr Khan said, she can never really move on if she hasn’t dealt with the trauma.”
“She’s dealt with it by forgetting all about it.”
“She was a seven-year-old child, Blair! That was her only defence mechanism. It doesn’t mean she dealt with it. She didn’t know how to deal with it at that age.”
“And you think she does now?”
“She needs to know.” His voice softens and my heart breaks. “Are you blind to the lost look and the tears in her eyes? Are you blind to her screams after the nightmares? Because it cuts me over every time.”
“She’ll be fine. She will.”
“Fuck this, Blair!” He yells. “I won’t let her suffer just so you won’t feel guilty.”
“Keep your voice down,” she whisper-yells.
I glue myself further into the door, my heart almost beating out of my chest.
“I’m done, Blair. Okay? I’m done keeping her in the dark just because you don’t want her to hate you. If you don’t tell her, I will.”
“You don’t know the whole story.”
“I’ll tell her what I know.”
“Shut up, Jaxon.”
“I won’t shut up. You need to face that you abandoned her and her mother when they needed you the most.”
“I did not and you know that.”
“You ran away and never looked back. Elsa lost her mother and family because of it.”
My knees shake and I can’t remain standing. No other sounds come out, and I quietly leave from their door.
My heart slams in my chest.
Thump.
Thump.