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"Oh, it’s so good to see you," she told me happily. "I’ve been thinking about you all the time. How's it going? How are you feeling?"
"Uh, I," I blurted out, a little shaken, not sure how to respond. "What are you doing here?"
"I came down to see Morgan," she explained. "I just wanted to tell her how grateful I am for everything she did, that’s all."
"Oh, right," I replied, lowering my gaze to the ground. "You’re … You’re doing well?"
"Oh, amazing," she gushed, shaking her head, like she could hardly believe it herself. "I can’t believe it’s only been a month since we all got out of that awful place. So much has changed."
"Really?" I replied, my ears perking up. A success story was exactly what I needed right now.
"Yeah, I just came down from visiting my family," she explained. "You know it’s been nearly two years since I had a chance to see them?"
She shook her head, as though it was basically unthinkable.
"I can’t believe I left it so long," she continued. "God, seeing them again, it was … It was incredible. Just like old times!”
She sounded so happy, so full of joy, like she had so much happiness in her it was threatening to bubble up and over the top at any moment.
"They … You told them what happened?" I asked her. "With … With the brothel?"
Her eyes clouded for a moment, and she nodded.
"I wish I didn’t have to," she admitted. "But I did. They deserved an explanation as to why I just dropped out of their lives like that."
"And how did they take it?" I asked. She sighed.
"They were sad for me, of course," she replied. "I think my mom is struggling with it the most. But Morgan got us set up with family therapy, so we can start working through it. I think that’s going to make a huge difference."
"Right," I muttered.
"What about you?” she asked, reaching out to give my hand a squeeze. "What are you still doing here? Are you back to see Morgan, too?"
I shook my head.
"No," I admitted. "I haven’t … I just haven’t had a chance to leave yet."
"Oh," she replied, obviously surprised. "I … Why not?"
"I just haven’t wanted to yet," I blurted out. It felt like such a stupid answer, after everything she had told me. Her family had been able to welcome her back, but I still couldn’t even stand the thought of talking to mine again, not with everything that had happened, everything I had been through.
"Why not?" she asked. She had always been blunt. I guessed, in our line of work, there wasn’t much use hiding anything from each other. I smiled, trying to throw her off the scent.
"Just not ready," I replied, but my voice choked up in my throat as I forced the words out, making it obvious what was really going on here. Her brow furrowed sympathetically.
"You really shouldn’t keep yourself back from your family," she assured me. "You’ll be surprised, honestly. They’re going to be so much more accepting than you think."
"Yeah, I’m glad it went that way for you," I told her, unable to keep a tone of bitterness out of my words. I was glad for her, I really was, but I just didn’t know if I had access to that same kind of forgiveness. I had left my family for so much longer, what were the chances they were going to want to so much as lay eyes on me after everything I’d done to them? All the ways I had abandoned them, when my father was ill, when they had needed me most?
"It will for you, too," she promised me, tightening her grip on my hand, as though she needed me to believe it. I couldn’t even look her in the eye. I knew she was just trying to help me, but how could she really understand everything I had been through? How could she understand that my family hadn’t exactly been accepting when they had heard about the dancing, let alone everything that came next?
"You deserve it, Selina," she added. Fuck, I could feel tears threatening me again. Why was I so emotional recently? I needed to get my shit together, stop letting all this feeling get the better of me.
"So, when are you meeting with Morgan?" I asked her, shifting the conversation to something I could actually handle.
"I was hoping to see her this afternoon," she replied, clocking that I really wasn’t ready to have this talk with her. "Do you know if she’s around?"
"No, but you could talk to one of the guards about it," I suggested. "They know this place better than I do."
