Page 43 of Shy Girl

Finally, he speaks. He turns his head, and his eyes—red and raw—find mine. “My mother was murdered yesterday,” he says, his voice flat, stripped of anything but the weight of the words. He looks back down, his fingers twitching against his knees. “She got robbed at gunpoint in a grocery store parking lot. They got away with her purse and still fucking shot her.”

The words hit the air like stones, heavy and sharp, and I can feel their weight pressing into the space between us. I stare at him, my breath catching in my throat. There’s a knot in my chest, tight and

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unfamiliar, and I can’t tell if it’s pity or fear or some awful combination of the two.

He sniffs, a wet, broken sound, and for a moment, it’s like I’m staring at someone else—a child who lost his mother, not the man who’s turned me into this, who’s stolen the shape of my life and forced me to crawl. His face crumples, his body shaking as he breaks down into tears, loud and wrenching, his grief spilling out in waves.

And then he grabs me. His arms wrap around me with a force that steals my breath, and he holds me against him, his face buried in my shoulder. His sobs are loud and raw, soaking through me like rain.

For a second, I think maybe this is it. Maybe this will crack him open, make him see himself for what he is, for what he’s done. Maybe this will change him, make him realize that holding me here, stealing my life, was monstrous. Maybe he’ll let me go.

I hold my breath, my heart pounding as his tears soak into my skin.Please, let this be it,I think.Let him see.

But his grip only tightens, his sobs turning into muffled, guttural sounds. And I stay still, trapped in the silence of his grief, in the terrible, fragile hope that this might be the moment that saves me.

The next morning, Nathan is stone, hard and emotionless, like the man who cried into my shoulder never existed. His grief is gone, or maybe it’s buried so deep it’s turned into something else—something sharp and jagged. He doesn’t look at me when he unlocks the door. His movements are brisk, mechanical, his face a mask of blank indifference.

I sit there, waiting for a crack, for the softness that had briefly flickered through him the night before. For a moment, I think maybe I imagined it, that the version of him who shook and

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sobbed into my skin was some trick of the dim light. But then I reach out, hesitant, my fingers trembling as they hover near his arm.

He turns and slaps me across the face so hard that I topple over.

“You’re a fuckingdog,”he says, his voice low and venomous, each word landing like a stone thrown into a well. The room feels smaller, the air sucked out, and my cheek burns hot under his hand.

I stare down at the bed, my heart pounding in my ears. The tears threaten to come, but I choke them down, swallowing the lump in my throat. He stands there for a moment, breathing heavy, his hand still raised like he might strike me again. His eyes are hollow, his expression cold, like he’s already erased what happened yesterday.

Losing his mother hasn’t softened him. It hasn’t changed him. Whatever part of me dared to hope for that feels small and stupid now, shriveling under the weight of his anger.

He doesn’t say anything else. He just grabs the leash, clips it to my collar so he can take me to the bathroom. My knees hit the floor, the rug scratching at my skin, and I crawl after him, my body moving on autopilot, my mind frozen in the slap, the burn of his hand, the words hanging in the air like smoke.

He’s harder now, harder than he’s ever been, and I know, deep down, that whatever softness I thought I saw in him was a ghost. Whatever version of him I held onto last night is gone, buried under the weight of himself.

YEAR FOUR

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“Shy Girl, come here,”Master Nathan calls, his voice slicing through the thick quiet of the house. It echoes easily from the kitchen to the living room, where I’m sprawled on my pallet, tracing shadows on the ceiling until their edges blur and fade. His tone is casual, but it hooks into me, pulling me upright without hesitation.

I crawl toward him, knees brushing the rug, each movement automatic now. He’s at the counter, stirring something in a pot, the scent curling through the air—warm, savory, the kind of smell that awakens a low, desperate hunger. My stomach tightens reflexively, clenching around the promise of food I know he won’t share.

“I’m having some company over tonight,” he says, his voice light, like he’s telling me we’re expecting rain. “I’m going to need to handcuff and gag you, so hurry up and eat your dinner.”

The bowl lands with a dull thud in front of me, its contents glistening in the dim light—a single piece of chicken breast, shriveled and overcooked. I stare at it for a moment too long before lowering my head.

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