Page 143 of The Other Side

“Callie, we’ve gone over this,” he murmurs. “I apologized.”

His stare and voice are infused with regret. There’s a gloom residing in him that I’ve never witnessed in our time together. The onyx shade of his eyes has lightened to chocolate, and I can feel a strand of sincerity in his words.

“It was one time. It won’t ever happen again,” he whispers, shaking his head. “Ever.”

My gaze shimmers with tears as it skates back and forth between his eyes. That honesty laces through his voice again, and I want to believe him.

Not so I can agree to re-enter this relationship.

But to know that people can change.

That if Daddy were to have lived longer, he could’ve loved me the way a father was supposed to love his daughter.

“Jesse, there’s a whole life I lived before you,” I confess softly.

My eyes burn with an onslaught of fresh tears.

“I told you I didn’t grow up wealthy, but I never told you I grew up poor. Not just financially,” I explain. “I was poor in love.”

My face screws tight, my vision hazing under the sunlight. I swear I see Jesse’s face morph into Daddy’s, and I almost cower.

“Hey!”

My body flinches.

Daddy’s arm punches the air; a couple of splashes of Jack now staining the charcoal carpet. “You’re gonna stop talking back to me, ya hear?! Now show me some goddamn respect and unpack those groceries I bought for your ass!”

I scrunch my eyes closed for a single breath, feeling my confidence slip through my fingers. My pulse accelerates, my body stiff as it braces for the strike of his hand.

Whose hand…I’m not sure.

It could be Daddy’s. It could be Jesse’s.

“H-he hurt me,” I whisper. My lips puff a breath out, my eyes flicking to my garden right after. I spot the stone doves, and my composure strengthens when I return my eyes to Daddy’s. “I was just an innocent kid.”

“Is this how that boy’s been touching you?”

I shake my head maniacally, my fingernails instantly clawing at the back of his hand. “N-no, we were just studying, I promise. Please stop. Pleeaasse.”

“Who?”

His eyes narrow as he listens intently. That dark gaze catapults me back to that trailer living room with Daddy, and my heart chokes through the next words.

“I owe that little girl my strength. The protection she deserved back then when she couldn’t defend herself.”

Tears dampen my cheeks. “Daddy, stop! I’m not doin’ anything! Daddy, stop it!” I sob, a mallet clobbering my lungs.

My mind spins in a deafening cyclone. I almost don’t register Daddy’s fingers flying inside my underwear.

I inhale, my chest roughly pumping through the breath. Emotion threatens to spill from my eyes, but I lock it as I shake my head. Adrenaline seeps into me, igniting this unknown superpower.

“I won’t do that to her. I won’t. I refuse,” I grit out. “Never again. He’s never going to hurt me again. You…”

I suck a sharp breath in when my eyes catch the sliding glass doors. Daddy’s standing there, his elbow perched on the frame in his tank top and weathered jeans.

I shriek when his fingers dig into my hair. He’s yanking me off the floor, grunting as he shoves me into the wall. “Are you kidding me, girl?!”

My back smacks into the paneling, a grimace bursting across my face as I absorb the blow. I shoot my hands up, nails grinding at his wrists for him to release me. “Stop it!” I cry.