Page 104 of Cherry Auction

Dear the girl, aww, you finally stand up for yourself in one moment in your life and you suddenly think you can handle shit? How adorable. Where were you when Daddy stuffed us in the oven? That’s right. Hiding in the box. So shut the fuck up and respect the strong one. I protected you then and I’m protecting you now. Sit the fuck down, little girl.

Things devolved from there.

We talk through Dr. Ezra now. I argue about how obviously deranged she is.

But then Dr. Ezra goes on and on about how she’s part of me and somewhere, deep down, I might not be ready for what being with Domhnall would mean right now.

I bawled during that session after he suggested that.

I mean, yeah, Domhnall’s intense, and being with him right away would be intense because we don’t know any other way to be together. But he’s all I fucking want. He’s my family. I thinksheeven wants that, too. So I don’t know why she’s being so fucking stubborn.

But she’s started to hate it here.

She says it’s like being locked up in Father’s house in Amsterdam.

She says we have to get out because we can’t breathe here. She screams at night because there’s a dungeon downstairs. Just like Daddy had.

It’s not fair to Domhn, or me, but it doesn’t seem to bechanging no matter what I do. My emotions are just as jumbled as my memories. My love and her disgust and hate and our adoration and desire and fury... I can’t tell what I feel for who or why.

I’m going to go crazy even more than I already am if I stay here.

Dr. Ezra lifts an eyebrow. “Are you serious, or is this like last week?”

“No.” I stand with my shoulders back and my head held high. “I’m really ready this time. I made arrangements. They have the same bank I use here in Chicago and there’s plenty of funds from the auction. I’m just gonna crash for a few days with my friend Ria, then she’s gonna help me find a place of my own.”

He nods. “Check in with Dr. Kim when you get there. She’s the specialist I told you about. I’ll be waiting for her call that you’ve arrived, letting me know that treatment with her has been established. You’ve already signed the forms for me to share my notes and consult with her.”

I nod. I’m glad to have a doctor already there, but other than that, I’ll be on my own. Like, really, on my own. For the first time in my whole life. In a place I earned with my own money. Okay, yeah well, I earned it by selling my cherry, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t still spill blood, sweat, and a river of tearsfor that money by the end.

I can’t imagine being on my own without someone telling me who to be or how to be a good girl.

But I’m afraid if I stay, I’ll never get better. I love Domhnall too much to shut down and switch every time I see him. It’s time to find out truly once and for all whoIam,and to make something—someone—of whoever’s still left rattling around in my head.

“Remember what I told you,” Dr. Ezra says. “There is ayoudeep down inside. A whole. Even if you never integrate. That’s just fine as long as you aren’t giving into destructive tendencies. Just try to discover yourself. Be curious. What areyoulike?”

I sigh, rolling my eyes. All his exercises are so tedious. I can’t imagine any of them ever being helpful. “Yeah, yeah, learn how to turn up the light on my room,” I repeat. “And the longer I do therapy and other shit so I can discover myself, whatever the fuck that means, the more I’ll see the decorated room in the light.”

“Exactly.” Dr. Ezra smiles kindly, looking far older than his early thirties. “Good luck, Anna.”

“You’ll tell him why I had to go?” I ask, a knot curdling in my stomach.

“He already knows.”

I nod, knowing he’s right even if I hate it, and walk out of the room. I pause at the door, heart thumping in my ears. “But he knows not to come down while I leave? She might be mean, or go catatonic. I don’t want that to be his last memory of me.”

“He knows not to come down.”

I turn the doorknob, half-hoping Domhnall will have ignored the doctor’s instructions anyway.

But when I yank the door open, I breathe out. There’s no one there. Just an empty hallway. I don’t hear a single thing besides a ticking clock as I walk through the eerily still mansion. There’s only Professor Roberts waiting for me at the front door, ready to escort me to a waiting car.

I walk with her down the steps and glance back up at the large mansion. In the sudden bright light of day, I can’t tell if a curtain upstairs just moved.

“Did he tell you to say anything to me?” I ask Professor Roberts with a tight throat.

“You decided you didn’t want to communicate with him,” she says, opening the passenger side door for me.

Does that mean hedidhave a message for me? Everything in me clenches, wanting to know what he’s said. Instead, I hurry inside the car and yank the door shut. I squeeze my eyes closed.

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