Page 62 of The Prime-Time Experiment

“And hey…” Dee said more gently, stepping slightly closer. “Your dad might not have loved you the way you deserved—” Riley flinched hard enough that Dee noticed, but Dee didn’t retract the statement.

“That doesn’t mean you’re unlovable, Ri,” she said steadily. “It means he wasn’t capable of loving anyone properly in the first place.”

Riley’s breathing faltered unevenly.

“And that was never on you,” Dee continued, softer now. “None of it was.”

The pressure in Riley’s chest spiked violently, too much emotion arriving too quickly for her nervous system to process cleanly. Her thoughts lost coherence around the edges, fragments colliding faster than she could separate them.

“You are loved,” Dee said. The certainty in her voice made it worse somehow. She said it so casually, so matter-of-fact, like it wasn’t optimism or comfort or something being offered conditionally. It was simply true.

“By me,” Dee continued quietly. “By the people you’re finally letting close to you. By that family tonight.” Her expression softened slightly. “In the span of one night, you’ve had that entire family fall in love with you. Do you see how loved you are?”

Riley’s throat tightened painfully, because that was the part she still didn’t know how to hold. The possibility that people could know what had happened to her and feel grief instead of disgust.

Protection instead of blame. Love instead of obligation. And suddenly all she could think about was how different her life might have been if someone had looked at her like that sooner.

That, that broke something. The word didn’t sit outside her anymore. Dee stepped forward then and pulled her into a hug.

Riley’s entire body locked instantly. Every muscle went rigid, every instinct pushing hard for withdrawal: for space, for control, for distance. Her hands hovered awkwardly between them, not touching, her breath catching sharp and uneven in her chest.

“This is—” she started, her voice unsteady, “this is not—I can’t—”

“I know,” Dee murmured softly. “Just stay with me for a second.” She didn’t tighten her grip, didn’t force Riley to reciprocate it. She just… stayed. Holding her, giving her someone to ground against. Riley held herself there, rigid and unmoving. Every instinct was telling her to pull back, regain control.

But nothing about this felt like before. There was no threat in it, no sharp instinct telling her to pull away or protect herself before something changed.

It was just Dee. Her friend, her safe place. It took her a second to realise that it wasn’t their apartment that made her feel safe, it was her friend. Riley’s breathing hitched again, uneven now, fracturing under the pressure building too fast inside her chest. And for once, there was nothing she could do with it. No system to apply or structure to force around it tightly enough to contain it.

Her hands moved first, hesitant and uncertain, like her body was attempting the action before her mind had fully agreed to it. Then slowly, carefully, they settled against Dee’s back.

The contact didn’t hurt, that realisation alone almost undid her. It had taken her until these moments, years from what she endured with her father to realise it wasn’t touch that frightened her. It was him.

Riley’s grip tightened suddenly, fingers twisting into the fabric of Dee’s shirt as something inside her gave way all at once. Her breathing broke completely.

The first tear hit before she consciously realised it had fallen, followed immediately by another, then too many to separate as years of control ruptured under the unbearable weight of finally being safe enough to stop holding it all alone.

“This is not—” she tried again, her voice breaking this time, uneven and fragile in a way she didn’t recognise.

“It’s okay.” Dee’s hand moved gently to the back of her head, not pushing, just there. “You’re okay.”

Riley shook her head against her shoulder, her breath coming apart completely now. No, this wasn’t okay. It wasn’t controlled or efficient or her normal way of functioning, and yet she didn’t want to pull away. If anything, she felt the need to hold Dee tighter, and so she did.

“You’re safe,” Dee murmured again. “And you are loved.”

The tears came faster, her breathing uneven and unstructured, her body finally releasing something it had held too tightly for too long. Riley’s grip tightened, her forehead pressing lightly into Dee’s shoulder.

Her chest rose sharply as another wave moved through her, stronger this time, and she didn’t try to stop it. She let it move, even as her breathing struggled to keep up, because she could feel it now, clearer than before. This wasn’t panic, or something she had to be afraid to feel.

This was grief.

Not the contained, intellectualised version Riley had reduced everything into for years so it could be analysed instead of felt. Not something distant enough to observe safely from behind logic and clinical terminology.

This grief lived in her body; in the relentless tension she carried through every room she entered. In the exhaustion of spending a lifetime monitoring tone, volume, movement, proximity. In the instinctive understanding that safety was temporary, conditional and could disappear without warning if she stopped paying attention for even a second.

Because she had been a child, and she had been afraid in her own home.

The thought moved through her with devastating clarity now that she finally allowed herself to stay with it instead of turning away. Children were supposed to feel safest with their parents, that was the shape the world was meant to have. A father was supposed to be the person who made fear smaller.