Page 23 of The Bronze Garza
Tears wrack us both. We weep with relief in each other’s arms, whispering words of love and comfort and gratitude.
He hugs me until my ribs start to hurt.
But I don’t dare let go.
Never.
Not ever.
ChapterSix
“It’s a start.”
Lyra
“You should join a club,” Dadsays. “Like improv, or…something fun and mindless. What about archery? You used to love that.”
From where I’m sprawled on my back on the floor of his office, I rest the book I’m reading onto my chest and cast my attention across the room to him. “Stop trying to get rid of me.”
Forehead crinkled with concern, he twists his fountain pen back and forth between his fingers. He’s worried about me. It’s what he does. Worry about me. All. The. Time.
I hate it. Hate that he never seems to have peace of mind because of me. It makes me feel like I’m a curse to his life.
Yet at the same time, I’m selfish. Because I use his unconditional love for me as my comfort blankie, forever cocooning in its warmth, refusing to outgrow it.
Since I’ve been back, I’ve hardly left his side. Wherever he is there I am. This has led to him operating from home for the time being, to be here for me. He’s assured me he doesn’t mind my clinginess, that he prefers having me in his line of sight where he canseeI’m safe. But at six months in, we both know it can’t continue like this. I’m a twenty-three-year-old woman.
I do nothing.
I go nowhere.
Outside of family, I communicate with no one but my best friend Holly and my therapist. And… I’ve given up on everything and every dream I’ve ever had. I was in my second year of college when I was taken. Studious and anal, driven and focused.
Now, I just feel lost.
All I do is read...and read...and read…have long, deep therapy sessions…and read some more. I used toloveme some romance novels, couldn’t get enough. But now my view of men and sex are so skewed that romance novels repel me. I grew an attachment to thrillers back in that penthouse, and that’s all I’ve been drowning myself in. Thrillers are more real, true to human nature and the evil the lives within us. It exposes us. No sugarcoating or unicorn farting bullshit.
I’ve developed a serious hatred for men and sex.
Sex.
The reason for half the evil in the world. The reason women are being kidnapped and sold and forced into prostitution. The reason behind countless other heinous sexual crimes.
I don’t think I could ever again see sex as anything other than outright violence.
“I’m not trying to get rid of you,” Dad replies. “I just...I just want you to start living life again, Lyly.”
“Iam.” I pick up the book from my chest and wave it at him. “Through the pages. I’ve livedsomany lives.”
He shakes his head at me but smiles.
The office door swings open just then and his fiancée sweeps in. Long legs, bleached blonde hair with blunt bangs, Botox face, and too much perfume. “Darling, it is time for dinner. Will you be coming downstairs or are you eating in your office again?”
I don’t miss how she stresses the word “again.”
Eloise Jones is a nice enough stepmother. Likeable. Although it’s always felt like there’s something lurking under her personable, agreeable veneer, which made it difficult to truly know her, we had an amicable relationship pre-abduction; I’d accepted and respected her as the woman who contributed to my father’s happiness and we’d gotten along fine. But there’s been a disconnect between us since I got back. The thin bond we’d had, lost.
In a way, I get it. I’ve been hogging Dad, which is probably cramping their romance. Most of all, with Dad working from home now, she’s pretty much been in early “wife” orientation. Where she was used to having all the time in the world to spoil herself rotten with his wealth while he worked wild hours, with him being home most of the time now, she has to cater to him and his needs like the housewife she signed up to be. So I’m sure, though she’s glad I’m back safe and sound, that she’s also resenting me.
