“What happened in jail?” I have a feeling that’s where a lot of her secrets originate from.
“Nothing. I was in jail. I’m a failure.” The regret I see in her eyes has me questioning everything I’ve read about her before she went in.
“What were you like as a child?” I’ll try a different approach.
“Spoiled.”
She very well may have been, but I feel like there’s more to it. “How so?”
“What do you mean, how so? I was an over-privileged, spoiled brat. If I didn’t get what I wanted, I threw fits, and everyone tossed crap at me that they thought I wanted like it was candy.” Now we’re were getting somewhere. She’s bitter about it.
“You didn’t want these things?” I was curious about why she threw the fits.
“What? No. I mean maybe when I was little, but after a while, I just wanted to stop being treated like a problem. Fits got me attention.” She shrugs like her emotional neglect was no big thing.
“So, let me get this straight. You acted the spoiled princess part in order to get some kind of attention from parents that treated you like a problem?” I’m pissed. Here she is beating the fuck out of herself because she believes she was the problem when her parents didn’t handle her the way they should have.
“What? No, of course not. My parents gave me everything. I was the problem. I was always after more. I needed everything. I threw stupid hissy fits when they refused to get me things.” That she thinks she is entirely to blame for her spoiled ways blows me away.
“Did you have a lot of nannies?”
“Well, yeah, my parents were busy people. I was a surprise baby. I don’t actually think I was supposed to happen.”
“So you were raised by other people instead of by your parents?” I don’t find anything wrong with that, per se. What I have issue with is that she is taking full blame for something that she was made into.
“I know what you’re doing,” she says as the waitress places our coffee on the table.
“What’s that?”
“You’re trying to blame my parents for me acting the way I did. It’s not all their fault. I shouldn’t have always vied for their attention; I should have left them alone when they told me to. I should have accepted that I was never supposed to happen. This is on me. Not them. I’m at fault.”
I’m truly amazed at what she has just confessed. “Think that through again, Ashley,” I tell her, wanting her to hear her own words. While admirable that she is willing to take all the blame for her actions, I have to wonder that if she had gotten the attention she craved, would she have sought it out by hurting others?
I understand the concept of any attention—bad or good—to a child is better than no attention at all, but what she is telling me is fucking blowing me away. She’s no fucking angel, not by any means. Especially after what she’d orchestrated with her brother’s woman, but she is not wholly responsible for the person she grew into.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” she confesses quietly, shame coloring her words.
“Let me ask you something, Ash. If you had gotten what you needed from your parents, would you have sought other ways to get that same attention?”
I watch as she opens and closes her mouth. She is contemplating coming up with some dumb fucking excuse as to why she is the failure. Why she was such a fucking mistake. I have half a mind to blast her folks for that. Then I wonder if she’s ever told them of any of it. Do they know she has craved their love so deeply it’s warped her sense of right and wrong?
“Let’s play a game,” I say instead.
“What kind of game?” She’s skeptical.
“Twenty questions. Only let’s go with ten, so you don’t feel trapped. I’ll ask you one, and then you ask me one. The catch is, you can’t lie to me.”
Huffing out a breath, I watch as she sits back and crosses her arms defiantly. “Fine.”
“I’ll let you go first.” I want her comfortable enough to do this. I don’t plan on asking too hard of questions just yet.
“What’s your damn name?”
A bark of laughter escapes me. “Declan Hart,” I answer. “What’s your biggest fear?”
I can see the lie before her mouth opens. “Being alone,” she shares softly, shocking me. I would have bet she wasn’t gonna tell the truth. “How old are you?”
“Forty,” I tell her, and she seems to perk up at that. Daddy issues? Probably. I’ll be her fucking daddy any day of the week. Just the thought of having her naked ass over my lap has me needing to adjust myself under the table. It also forces me to ask a question I probably shouldn’t. “How do you feel about role play?”