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PERLA

“You don’t ever talk about your father.” Grant’s voice came out of the dark, breaking the quiet hush of the room. I opened my eyes, and the shapes of the room came into focus. The blur of the overhead fan. The wall sconces. The rectangle divisions of the trayed ceiling.

I considered pretending to be asleep. It had been a few minutes since we had said our good nights. It was feasible, and I closed my eyes, warming to the idea.

“Perla.” Grant reached over and patted the top of the covers. “Perla, wake up.”

Dammit.

“Yes ...?” I said, letting the irritation soak the word.

“You don’t ever talk about your father.”

“Who, George?”

“No.” He rolled onto his side, facing me. “Your real father.”

“He wasn’t a father to me,” I said quickly. “You know that. He was barely there.”

“I don’t really know that. I mean, you have never talked about him. Not in the fourteen years we’ve been together.”

I let out a strangled laugh. “Do you blame me? I have therapists for that. Forgive me if it’s not something I want to talk about outside of that.”

“But I think it would be—”

I reached out and grabbed his arm, squeezing it hard. “Careful, Grant. I won’t go down that rabbit hole just to satisfy your morbid curiosity. I had a complicated relationship with my dad, and then it was over. Just leave it at that.”

He didn’t like that. I could feel the stiff hang of disapproval in the silence, but I didn’t care. There were certain things I would share with him. That portion of my life ... it was nothing he ever needed to know.

“Oh, princess. My beautiful, beautiful princess.”

I pinched my eyes shut against the memory, locking it back down. When I reopened my eyes, the emotion was gone. “You don’t ever talk about your sister. Want to dive into that, Grant? All the happy memories? What about the other ones? What about the last time you saw her?”

“Don’t do that,” he said, his voice strained. “Why would you say that?”

“There’s a reason we don’t talk about certain things.” I rolled away from him and tucked the pillow tighter underneath my head. “We should keep it that way.”