“They wound up getting pregnant. They’d been trying for years. And, well… there was no longer any need to keep me in the picture. With their miracle baby on the way, they didn’t feel like they had the space to take care of me anymore, so I was shipped off to the next place.”
The air in my lungs burned. How could someone do that to her, to any child?
“Stop.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I know that look. I don’t want you pitying me.”
“It’s not pity,” I insisted.
“Then what is it?”
I didn’t have an answer. There were no words to describe what I was feeling. Frustration. Horror. An overwhelming need to protect her.
I settled for pulling her into a hug instead. Vivian settled against me, burying her face in the crook of my neck. She smelled divine, as always. Warm like the summer sun.
I wasn’t sure how long we were locked in each other’s embrace. A few seconds. A few minutes. A whole hour. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that she felt so unbelievably right in my arms. Deceptively small and soft, but I knew better. She was a firecracker with a sharp tongue and a quick wit, which made it even more fascinating to see her so vulnerable. Just for me.
“Do you think we can watch a movie or something?” she murmured against my skin, her breath hot against my neck.
I was about to tell her that it was too late for that sort of thing. If anything, the stimulation of all the colors dancing off the screen would keep her awake. There was also the added issue of noise. I didn’t want to risk waking Wally, even though I knew for a fact that my son was a deep sleeper.
But she peered up at me with her doe eyes and I realized I was overthinking. For her, I’d make an exception. All the exceptions.
I took her hand and guided her to the living room. She curled up against me when we sat down on the couch, pulling her knees close to her chest while fitting in the crook of my arm. She frowned at the far wall.
“Uh, where’s your TV?” she asked.
I picked up the remote from off the coffee table and pressed a button. The projector screen lowered, unfurling from the mount on the ceiling. The projector suspended above our heads flicked on, specks of dust glittering in its light beam.
“Fancy,” Vivian commented. I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely impressed or being sarcastic.
“What do you feel like watching?”
“Something where I don’t have to think too hard.”
I surfed the channels until we found a late-night run of a nature documentary, the British narrator’s low voice commentating as various animals traversed the length of the frame.
This was all so strange, and at the same time, not at all.
I couldn’t remember the last time I actually sat down to watch TV. I was so used to my rigid routine that something as simple as a documentary made me feel restless. I had things to do, work to take care of, security cameras to check. What was I doing watching giraffes eating leaves off tall branches when I could be—
“I can hear you thinking.” Vivian watched me intently, an almost studious level of concentration in her gaze.
“I wasn’t thinking about anything,” I insisted.
“Liar.” She snuggled even closer. “Just try to relax.”
“Iamrelaxed.”
“Do you want to know what your tell is?” Vivian grinned. “Whenever you lie, your voice gets really flat. Like you’re afraid your intonation will give you away.”
“Have you been studying me?”
“Maybe.”
I leaned in a little closer. “You think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?”