Unlike the last time where I wore the same blank stare, I cocked my hip and looked at her like she’d lost her mind. Paxton stormed around the corner, but his face, too, changed. His expression shifted from anger to bewilderment.
I placed two fingers between my lips and whistled louder than her scream. She stopped. Total shock on her face.
“What are you screaming about?” I questioned while my elbows slid across the smoky gray marble for eye contact.
“Her licked my apple,” she whined.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. No whining. I can’t understand you when you do that.”
“Why did you lick her apple, Row-row?”
“Ophelia did it first.”
I held my eyes in contact with Ophelia’s and she looked down. “Look at me, Phi. Don’t look down when someone’s talking to you. You look them straight in the eyes. You’re bigger than that. Now. Did you lick Rowan’s apple first?”
“She did,” Rowan tattled.
“Shh, hang on.” I wagged one finger in the air.
“Yes,” Ophelia confessed.
“Which one?”
Rowan pointed to the apple her sister left her germs on. “This one.”
“Pick it up, Phi,” I requested with a nod toward the contaminated apple. Ophelia picked it up and placed it on her plate. “Which one did Rowan lick?” Ophelia pointed to the slice and Rowan picked it up.
“There. No more germs. You good? You good?” I asked with a straight finger from one to the other. They both nodded with smiles. “Good deal. Fist-bump,” I ordered. My little Clydes giggled and bumped tiny fists. “Hey, I need some bumps, too,” I teased, and all was good.
I walked past Paxton, bumping his shoulder as I passed. “Damn. Your offspring’s are drama queens, dude.”
My hand covered my mouth when I watched Paxton’s expression. I’d just knocked the wind right out of him.
“Who the fuck is that, Gabriella? You whistled at them like you were calling a cab. I didn’t even know you could do that. Fist-bump? What the fuck is that? Who the fuck is this? You don’t act like that.”
The next video was me waking the girls. No biggie. No dilemmas. I gently woke them from their sleep and stood in the bathroom while they brushed their teeth. We talked. I explained to them their schedule while I brushed out their hair. Ophelia whined about swimming lessons, and Rowan assured me she could already swim.
“What?” I didn’t see anything wrong with that.
“This was the other day.”
I turned back to the screen and watched, remembering it with a smile. Ophelia was in bed with Rowan when I went to wake them for stupid art by the bay. I picked up a pig wearing a Florida State jersey and eased my sore body to the floor. With just my arm the pig woke the girls in a deep, cartoony voice.
“Hey. Hey you sleeping girls. Wake up. You have to go make stupid noodle necklaces that are going to get damp and moldy around your neck. Hey. Phi. Row-row. Come on. We have an exciting day, thanks to your dad.”
I screamed when they both rolled over the side, giggling instead of fighting for once. Paxton didn’t have to point it out. I saw it with my own eyes. When I woke them before, I’d worn the same blank stare. This time was different. It was playful, happy, and in love. I loved them so much. Even if I didn’t remember them pre-accident.
The next clip brought crimson to my cheeks.
“This was the night before your accident.”
I was in my room, laying sideways on my bed. My head hung off the side and Paxton pumped himself in and out of my mouth. He held my legs open while he squirted a clear substance through my slit, letting it drip from a foot away. Two fingers held me open and the slippery substance ran down me. After his fingers rubbed it in, he slid a dildo in and out of me. I barely moved. My head moved due to his hips thrusting into me, but that’s it.
Even when he flipped me and gave it to me from behind. My expression never changed. It stayed the same to the last second. Until Paxton shot his load all over my breasts. Paxton left me and I cleaned myself up. Same expression.
“Now watch,” he said.
Once again the screen changed to the bathroom. We were all over each other. My hands didn’t hang to my sides like they had before. They explored his back, his shoulders, and his chest. My head turned from side to side, begging him to touch me, kiss me, and discover my body the way I did his.
Erotic. Pure passion stood between us. Something we didn’t have before. Wow. I understood now. I mean not really. I didn’t understand, but I did. I could see it.
“See what I mean. You don’t do this, Gabriella. It’s not you.”
I didn’t say anything. I really didn’t know what to say. Paxton moved the video to me masturbating in the bathroom.
“I’ve always had to use some kind of lubrication with you. I can’t even touch you without your pussy getting wet now. And look at this shit. Who the fuck is this?
He changed it to that day. I stood in the door watching him walk away, yelling at his back.
“Bastard. Dick. Fuck face. Jerk-off,” I called to the empty house.
I snorted a little with that one.
“This isn’t funny, Gabriella. I can’t even humiliate you with an ass beating anymore. Your pussy likes that, too. I don’t know what to do. This isn’t you.”
“Yeah, so you’ve said that about fifty times. What do you want me to say? Are you sure it’s not me? Maybe it’s me who knew the cameras were there when I look like a robot. Maybe this is me when I didn’t know about the cameras.”
Paxton stalked away and sat on the sofa across from the desk. His fingers went through his hair, frustration written all over his face.
“You know the part that I keep going back to?” he asked.
“Before or after I knew who I was?”
“After. You made Ophelia look you in the eyes. You told her not to ever let anyone make her feel like she needed to look down. You told her she was bigger than that.”
Now I was confused. Even more so than before. “What?”
“I want her to be bigger than that,” Paxton said in a voice I didn’t recognize. Gentle.
I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms with a smirk. “Well, I’ll be. Go to hell. You’re fighting your own demons. You like me this way, and you’re too damn bullheaded to admit it.”
“I can’t do it, Gabriella. I need things a certain way. I don’t want this shit.”
I blew out a puff of air, feeling it, too. “Passion changes things. Doesn’t it?”
“Jesus Christ. Go to bed. I can’t take anymore right now.”
I stood and walked toward him, stopping right in front of him. “Go to bed with me,” I requested. I didn’t offer my hand, only my bed.
“I can’t.”
“Why, Paxton? Why can’t you love me?”
“Walk away, Gabriella.”
My hand dropped to his hair, and my fingers laced through it. His eyes stared up and I witnessed the same loss. The same loss I felt.
“I was a victim of child pornography when I was ten. Goodnight, Paxton.”
His hand grabbed my wrist and he held me with a frown. “What?”
“I just wanted to tell you that. Something I’m sure you don’t know about me. Something that I never told you.”
“How do you know this?”
“I remember things. Mostly when I’m resting, but it’s not current. It’s from my childhood.”
“You sure? Maybe it’s something else. Something from your injury.”
I pulled my arm from his grasp and assured him with a sad tone, “It’s not. Goodnight.”
~~
Sunday was a weird day. Paxton worked from his office most of the day, avoiding me. I made a vegetable lasagna with the girl’s help and we swam in the pool while it baked. We floated on three rafts. Me in the middle. I held both their hands and we closed our eyes. The girls played a game where they had to guess where in the pool we had floated after the count of fifty. I half listened, focused more on the mess I’d gotten myself into. So many unanswered questions.