Page 24 of Into Pitch

“I stayed quiet,” I breathe, eyes fixed on a spot on the wall now. “I watched TV with the volume low and ate cereal for dinner. I learned how to make myself small.”

“Because?”

“Because when I wasn’t small, I was inconvenient. And inconveniences get punished.” The words come out sharper than I mean them to.

He doesn’t so much as flinch. “Punished how?”

I stiffen. The question inside of a door that I’m not wanting to open yet.

“Not like that. Not physical. Not—” I stop and force the truth. “Not by her, at least. She didn’t hit me.”

He nods slowly, accepting the boundary without trying to shove through it.

“Then what did she do when you were inconvenient?” He asks, coming at it from the same direction again. Unwilling to let me completely back down from facing it.

“She ignored me or she’d snap. Yell, kind of. Tell me to stop being dramatic and that I was too sensitive. Or that I was ruining her night.” I fidget, knee bouncing again.

He doesn’t say anything and I glance to him, anger stirring in my chest like a flame trying to catch oxygen. I hate that we’re dredging all this shit up. Especially when I had pushed it down so long ago. “She’d act like I was selfish for needing her. Like I was demanding something unreasonable.”

“What were you demanding?” He counters gently.

I laugh, and it’s ugly. “A mother.”

The word hangs in the room, heavy and unavoidably true.

Dr. Dormsworth gaze doesn’t move. “Say more.”

I stare at him like he’s insane. How is that not sufficient? How has what I said not done its job and filled in the gaps he clearly wants to pry open with his fingers.

“What do you want me to say?” I grind out past my clenched jaw.

“I want you to say what follows up what you already have. Finish the thought, Sadie.” He demands smoothly.

“Fine? You want to hear that she chose everything else? She did. Drugs. Men. Parties. Whatever came next. I was just there, a piece of furniture and a responsibility she didn’t ask for.” I snap in frustration.

“And how did that make you feel?”

I could scream.

I push up off my feet and decide that pacing is better than sitting. My eyes looking for any point in the room that doesn’t make me want to hurl something at his stubbornly calm head.

I want to tell him that I don’t know and that it doesn’t matter. I want to make a joke and pivot and talk about bartending again like my life is just late nights and tips. But fuck—I’m here. I’ve kept showing up knowing we would get to this point, and I knew I would have to face it. That I couldn’t cower or get angry.

I stop a few feet away from him, arms wrapped to my shoulder as my foot taps and my eyes bore into his own. His dark hair styled nicely atop his head as he peers up at me through his glasses. For the barest of moments I wonder what he would look like messy. He was a handsome man, well—gorgeous if we’re being down right honest. But there’s a lack of light in those blue eyes that gives warning to the man he really is.

My temple jumps and I force my next words out.

“I felt abandoned.”

He nods once, almost imperceptibly, like he’s been waiting for that surface. “By what?”

I scoff, “by her.”

Obviously.

“By the person she was supposed to be and who she never could be.”

My fingers curl into my arms where I shift to fold them over my chest, nails pressing into the leather of my jacket as I study Dr. Dormsworth for a reaction to my answer. I breathe through it like I’m riding out a wave.