Page 33 of Prey for You

“Bridget, you don’t have to leave, we can talk about something else—”

“No, Gerald. I’mdrawing a boundary.You should be proud. See you next week.”

There was something fiercely satisfying about walking out without looking back, making him see me take control.

The problem was, it didn’t stop his words echoing in my head.

Your bodyneedsyou to see him,floating through my head as I trotted down the stairs from his office.

He still lives as a specter in your head of the man he was when you were seven years old,while I was getting the car started and pulling into the street.

I bet in your memories he's huge.”

That sent my mind back to the looming presence of my father—in my home, in the car, with a gun to my head… The nights I wet the bed not because I didn’t wake up, but because I was too scared to get up to use the bathroom because he’d know I was awake when he might not want me to be.

Shaking my head to rid it of the images of my childhood life, I gritted my teeth and turned my mind back to Sam.

But as I took the exit from the highway to get to my house, Gerald’s voice echoed in my head again.

…You’re still a few weeks from the worst of the triggers for your C-PTSD. It won’t get easier than it is now…

And then, Sam.

You were pulling away. Next time, just say that part instead… You aren’t in control of this, Bridge. And trust me, that’s a good thing.

At some point I found myself sitting in my car in the garage, the door rattling down behind me so the light became dim.

Gerald had been proposing this to me since the day we met. He was a dog with a bone, and it pissed me off. He was usually good at finding new ways to look at a problem if one didn’t work. Why wasthisthe bone he wouldn’t give up?

I gripped the steering wheel, holding onto it to ground me.

Was he right? Was that the only way to stop feeling afraid?

I tried to imagine it, but I didn’t even know what images to conjure. The only time I’d ever seen the inside of a prison was on a screen.

Sam could tell me what it was like, I supposed. But it wasn’t being inside those walls that scared me, though the thought of beinglocked inwith people like my dad made me shudder.

No… when I tried to imagine walking into a room where my father was sitting at a table, or the other side of plexiglass, I just… couldn’t. My skin felt like it wanted to peel off my bones and run for its life.

But that was the point, right? That was what Gerald said would stop if I saw him?

Being able to think about my father, or what he’d done without physically flinching would beawesome.But then I remembered how that conversation would go.

My father wasn’t just homicidal. He was a manipulative bastard who got off on power. When I was a kid I’d always admired how people would do what he said with no questions. But the older I was, the more I looked back, the more I saw the truth.

My father was psychotic. He used people’s fears against them. He collected leverage. And if all else failed, he’d straight up threaten them with pain or death. And everyone knew he didn’t make empty threats. Even at seven years old,Iknew that.

A specter? Yeah, he was. A ghost. A boogie man lurking in the closet of my mind. But the thing Gerald didn’t seem to understand was, my father in the flesh wasworse.

Not answering his letter, not going to see him, it was the only power I had left.

I took a deep breath then and nodded, my fingers squeezing and opening on the steering wheel.

That was it. That was the answer: No.Never.

12. Deposed

~ BRIDGET ~

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