AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As easy as it’s been to open up about my father, crossing this bridge feels hard. It cuts right to my broken heart.
“I always wanted to be noticed by my dad. When I was younger, like eight or nine? I wasn’t the baby he could show off, or the cute toddler he would parade out for a quick visit before sending me off with my nanny.”.
I shift and move to the floor so I’m on his level, and maybe in an effort to make myself smaller, as if it will make this secret safer to share. The gym is empty, but the space is still big. My words feel risky, like saying them will make him look at me differently. My palms sweat, so I rub them along my calves while I chew at my lips. He’s being patient—quiet. He must sense that I’m struggling. When I glance up to meet his kind eyes, I can’t help but mirror the faint smile he’s wearing. I take in a slow, deep breath.
“When I started getting noticed on social media, likereallynoticed—”
“You mean famous,” James cuts in.
I laugh and look down at my hands that I’m kneading in my lap. It’s such a silly thing to be famous for. And I’m notreallyfamous. I wouldn’t consider myself on the level of actors and musicians. I take a decent selfie and know how to work a brand into giving me free shit.
“I kinda thought my dad would be impressed, I guess. From a business perspective?” I give him a sideways glance and he nods.
“You’re brilliant at it . . . using those tools for influence? Brilliant.” His admiration doesn’t feel like hot air.
My mouth pulls in tight on one side for a reluctant half-smile.
“Thanks,” I say. “My dad thought so too, only . . . I became a tool as well.”
“How so?” he asks.
God, James is so gentle.
“I was fifteen the first time my dad left me alone with a group of much older men.”
James shifts, and I let him come to terms with that statement before I share more. I’m sure he’s thinking the worst thoughts, which, thankfully, theworstnever has happened. But that doesn’t make anything that has okay. And saying these things out loud is an enormous and terrifying step for me.
“It was at one of the new nightclubs downtown. It was part of a hotel deal my father partnered with, and the guys were investors. They wanted to meet me. By then, I’d been on MTV a few times and showed up inPeople. I was known beyond the digital app-obsessed generation, I guess. I was . . .”
“You were a pretty, young girl,” James fills in.
My mouth snaps shut and my chest caves in at the truth of it all. His jawline flexes and he rubs his palms along his thighs, almost as if he’s holding back some anger on my behalf.
I shake my head and blink nervously, dismissively.
“It was a long time ago,” I say.
“Morgan,” he hums my name.
The sound of his voice—his tone—cuts into my heart, and my eyes sting at the cold truth of my relationship with my father. I look to my side and run the sleeve of my sweatshirt over my watering eyes. I won’t cry over this. It’s done.
“It was mostly just taking photos with them,” I begin explaining. I can’t look James in the eyes because if I do I will stop wanting to share. I don’t want him to see me the way my father does, and a twisted part of me has always felt that sharing how I feel will spread the disease, as if acknowledging the disfunction of my family diminishes me in everyone’s eyes.
“Everyone had a cell phone and they all wanted to snap a photo of me with them as a memento. I’m sure I’m still carried around in their sim cards or clouds, this photo of a girl who looks older than her age draping herself against some man her father’s age. I didn’t get it. Or maybe I did but simply didn’t care.”
“Your dad was noticing you. You felt seen,” James says.
“Yeah,” I say, nearly smiling as I speak. He gets it. I still look away as I continue, but my shame fades a little.
“And the mimosa guy?” James leads. I think he’s put the pieces together.
“He’s the son of a guy my dad needs to bend a little. Not every photo of someone with me is used to make them feel good about themselves.”
James pulls his mouth into a tight line and nods.
“To be fair, he hasn’t used me for one of his ploys in a while. The last time before this did not go so well. Rich men can get a little . . . handsy.”
“You mean be classless assholes,” James adds.
