_{[At his dead silence, she does pause, briefly. It's not that she thinks he'd still be pissed at her, not when she's talking about THIS, but not even she can get rid of that stupid, irrational, instinctive fear of disapproval. It's all too easy to slip back into her long-ago childhood self's shoes when she talks about this, so it's a relief to hear him speak up, even if she can hear the tension in that voice.]}

'right.

I, uh... I thought it'd get better. Thought if I was... _{[A good girl.]} ... I thought I could make it better.

_{[In many ways, Alessa had been more mature at age seven than Heather feels now, in a reborn body, more than two decades later. Steadfastly weathering the storm and trying to stay strong for Claudia, who had been even smaller than she. ... But seven years old was seven fuckin' years old and Alessa had been as naiive and desperate to please her beloved (and yes, she had loved Dahlia) mother as any other lonely child.]}

... And then one day, it got so bad that... that...

_{[There's a rustle, because the only thing she can really do at the end of that sentence is rake her hand through her hair and hope that it somehow stimulates the right words. It doesn't.]}

... It was awhile before Dad got me out of there.