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“Because I want a little freedom.”
“You have freedom,” he said, frustration turning to confusion.
A dry laugh escaped me before I could call it back. “No, Daddy. I absolutely have no freedom. There are days when I feel so suffocated from the lack of freedom that I literally cannot breathe. I have Rodger or Marcus, or both, breathing down my neck if I so much as step out of this house.”
“You know why—”
I held up my hand, cutting him off once again. “Yes, I know why. I was there, remember?” His face paled, and I had to look away before I started crying. Remembering what happened all those years ago still had the power to make me shiver, and I knew the nightmares were just as stark for my parents. The kidnapping, finding me almost overdosed on the drug the psycho had given me to keep me quiet while I was transported, and finally, the barn I had been trapped in with two of my aunts was set on fire. My darkest memories always came back whenever I smelled smoke. “But that was thirteen years ago, Daddy. That person is gone. Why do I have to be treated like a prisoner every time I leave this house? Why am I being punished for something some psycho did?”
“Mia.” Momma’s voice was soft, drawing my eyes to her. “Sweetheart, we don’t mean to make you feel like that. It just gives us peace of mind when we aren’t around to know that you are safe. We nearly lost you—not once, but twice. You and your brother are our world. We just want to protect you.”
My throat burned from the tears aching to be set free, but I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t throw a tantrum. I was an adult now, and if I lost my cool and started screaming and demanding things they needed to give me freely, then all my plans would be lost. Sucking in a slow, deep breath, I clasped my hands together to keep them from shaking. “I know your reasons, and I understand them. But I can’t live my life like this forever, Momma. I need space and privacy. Neither of which I’ve ever been given.”
“I’m sorry, honey.”
“Stop being sorry,” I told her. “I said I understand.”
“Are you saying you want to go to college without Rodger and Marcus?” Uncle Jesse spoke up for the first time, already shaking his head. “I didn’t let Lucy go off to college without Marcus. There is no way in hell we are agreeing to let you. No way.”
I took another deep breath, praying for patience. But like my hair, I had a red-hot temper that caught fire easily. “All my life, I’ve always known who I am. The rocker’s princess, the dance prodigy. Those were my identities. I wasn’t just Mia Armstrong. Now… Now, I’m no longer the prodigy, and I feel like I’ve lost who I am. I want the chance to figure that out. I want the chance to just be normal. How am I supposed to find the new me if I’m being followed around by two guys who look like secret service?”
“No, Mia,” Daddy said, already shaking his head. “I might have been able to get on board with the school you chose, even the job, but there is no way in hell I’m going to let you go anywhere without bodyguards.”
“You’re not even giving this any extra thought. Just take a little while to think about it, Daddy,” I urged, begging him with my eyes to do this for me.
“I could think about it for a year and still come to the same decision. The answer is no, Mia.”
I lost the battle with my tears, and they started to fall. Angry at myself for being unable to control them—at being unable to control anything in my own life—I wiped them away. “You know, I’ve never hated being your daughter until right now,” I whispered.
Before he or the others could say another word, I ran from the room.
I got as far as the living room before my knee protested, and I had to limp my way up the stairs to my bedroom. I slammed the door, acting like the little girl they continued to treat me as, and fell face first onto the bed before letting the sobs overtake me.
???
“Mia.”
Groggily, I lifted my head to find Momma sitting on the edge of my bed. Blinking because my eyes felt crusty and dry, I turned onto my back, realizing I’d cried myself to sleep. A quick glance at the digital clock on my side table told me I’d been sleeping for hours. The sky outside my window was pitch black, not even the moon shining through to ease the inky darkness of the night.
The lamp beside my clock was on, telling me Momma had turned it on when she’d come in. She sat there with her hand on my arm, her face pale and tense, but her eyes were full of something that was mysterious to me—but, for some reason, gave me hope.
“We should talk,” she said matter-of-factly, and I jerked into a sitting position.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” I told her, guilt creeping in for the parting shot I’d tossed at Daddy as I’d left the dining room earlier.
“If that is how you feel, then it’s probably what he and I both needed to hear,” she said quietly, but there was no mistaking the trace of sadness in her voice. It only made my guilt intensify.
“I’m still sorry.”
“Let’s not linger on that. I want to know how much all of this means to you. The school, the job…the lack of a bodyguard.” She clasp
ed her hands in her lap, and I was suddenly presented with the businesswoman who seemed to rule the entire music world so effortlessly.
“It’s everything, Momma,” I told her earnestly. “I don’t just want this—I need it. I feel lost, like a part of me is missing, and I can’t freaking find it. Have you ever felt that way?”
She looked away from me, her eyes skimming the room as she seemed to think over my question. For a few seconds, her eyes would linger on the posters on the wall, my posters. One of me dancing as the Sugar Plum Fairy for the New York Ballet two summers before. One of me dancing front and center with the London Ballet Company when I was fifteen. She loved those two posters and had framed miniature copies on her desk at work.
“Yes,” she said after what felt like an eternity had passed, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute. “More than once, I’ve felt just like that. But that was before you came along. Before your dad and I figured out we couldn’t live without each other.”
