Once Burned (Morelli Family 3)

“I don’t want you to try to please me, Elise. I just want you to be yourself. I just want you to… be happy.”

Tears glisten in her eyes as she screams, “I don’t know how!” She angrily dashes away a tear that falls, visibly shaking with emotion. “I need direction. I need to know what I’m supposed to be doing with myself in order to know if I’m doing it well. Right now, I’m empty. I am lost. I have never felt so useless in my life.”

I have no idea what to say to her. I have no idea how to help. My mind is blank, but I struggle to come up with something. “You’re not an object, Elise, you don’t have to be useful. If you’re looking for purpose, I’m more than happy to help you find that, but… I don’t know how, either. Maybe would you like to look for a job?”

“Like a cleaning job?”

“No.” I shake my head, frowning. “No, Elise. Just a job, a normal job, where you could interact with other people, maybe make some friends.”

“I’m not good at making friends,” she tells me, sitting back down, her shoulders sagging.

“You’re very nice, I’m sure it’ll be easy,” I tell her, taking a seat on the couch.

This time the tears that gather in her eyes appear to be tears of frustration. “Why did you make me leave?”

White hot anger courses through me, but I leash it this time. “I didn’t make you leave. Mateo asked you, and you agreed to it.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

I roll my shoulders, cracking my neck. I clear my throat, trying to keep my cool. “Yes, you did. You know you did, because at first you said no, and then you changed your mind.”

Her teary eyes dim when she remembers why. “If you wanted me to be yours, you could’ve kept me there. You didn’t have to leave. We didn’t have to come here.” She says ‘here’ like we’re literally in the worst place in the world. “You could’ve just told him. They could’ve moved me like we moved Meg. I could’ve kept my position.”

I wish we did live at the mansion right now, so I could go to the gym and take my aggressions out on a punching bag. Because every single word out of Elise’s mouth fills me with more rage.

“It wasn’t a position,” I barely manage to get out through my locked jaw. “It was slavery. He didn’t pay you. He took you from your home when you were little more than a child, he took you out of school, he isolated you in his house. Mateo isn’t your goddamn savior, Elise.”

“I know that,” she snaps. “I get it, okay? He’s bad. I get it.”

“I did all of this for you,” I state.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“I didn’t expect a thank you,” I shoot back. “But you’re acting like I’ve wronged you in some way, and I haven’t.”

“And you’re telling me you want me to be myself, but then when I am, it’s not good enough. So if you want some alternate version, you’re going to have to specify what fucking features I need to add.”

“Oh my god, Elise. I don’t want you to customize yourself for me.”

“But you don’t want me to do what I’ve been doing for the past six years of my life.”

“Clean if you want to clean. Cook if you want to cook—I don’t care. Make 50 fucking muffins every morning if that makes you happy. I don’t hate that you do it, I just… I don’t want you to feel like you have to. Or it’s all you can do. I don’t want you to feel like you’re still…”

I don’t know how to finish that sentence without further pissing her off, and she does not swoop in with a nod of understanding to save me.

“I wasn’t unhappy there,” she states.

“But you’re unhappy here,” I say, because it’s not a question.

Her gaze falls back to the dark television screen, and she looks drained. “I just need a purpose. It’s not that I can’t be happy with you, I just… I don’t have any idea what you want from me. I need to know what you want from me. I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense to you—you want me to be myself, you want me to be honest, that’s what I need. I need structure. I need… someone to tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

I feel like I’m trying to walk up the side of a steep mountain with no rope. Despair sweeps over me and I’m so tired. I’m tired of this, and it’s only been nine days.

It’s just not enough time. She just needs more time. She’ll normalize eventually, but I need to take it slow. I need to take baby steps.