When did Mia and Will's relationship start to shift into something more tense and complicated?
It was the summer the world took her from him, and in her absence, something in him soured, or perhaps ripened…who is to say which is the more dangerous evolution? Three months, an eternity stretched taut and thin like sinew over bone, three months of a house emptied of her voice, and presence. They had demanded it, the faceless bureaucrats, the men and women who pried into matters beyond their understanding. She must socialize, they said. She must be among others her own age, learn their rites, their banal little games. And so, under the blade of legal consequence, he surrendered her to the world.
And she did not return as she had left.
She stepped back into the house, with the same limbs, the same hands, the same face, and yet there was something minutely altered, like a painting restored with new, harsher pigments. The sun had touched her skin in his absence, bronzed her like a relic pulled from the earth, her hair lightened, her gaze deepened.
Something had grown in the dark soil of distance, something restless, gnawing, unspeakable. He had raised her for years with an arm draped in velvet but a grip of steel, shaping her world to orbit him alone, filling the silence of their home with his voice so that she had no need to listen for others. But they had taken her away, forced her into the company of girls who laughed in ways he could not control, of boys whose eyes lingered in ways he had not sanctioned.
And his Mia had returned with a knowledge that had not been there before, some glint in her eye that was not learned from him. He watched her for signs of what had been stolen, for what had been given in return. And she, sharp as she had always been, knew it. Knew he was looking. Knew he had been wounded by absence. And she wielded that knowledge like a blade, pressing just to see if he would bleed.
She did not have to run to make him chase her; she only had to lean just slightly out of reach. And he, fool that he was, let her pull him deeper into the dark.
loooving all of this 🙊 do you think other father-daughter relationships in their social circle like mia's friends, highlight how different theirs is?
There are definitely moments, small, glistening things, that cast their world into stark relief against the lives of others. Instances where the mirror shifts and he sees, with unnerving clarity, just how different they are.
In a clinic once. The air is thick with antiseptic, with the low hum of nervous chatter and the occasional rustle of magazine pages. Mia sits beside him, languid, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. Around them, the room is a constellation of girls and their mothers with clipped voices, with reassuring touches, with the easy rhythm of women accustomed to these visits.
Will is the only man.
A woman, polished, blonde, the sort who smiles with all her teeth, leans forward, her eyes crinkling at the edges. “It’s nice to see a father here,” she says, her voice dipped in something too warm, too pleased.
Will shifts. Shrugs. “There was no other option. I’m a single dad.”
That should be the end of it. But it isn’t.
The woman’s laughter is airy, weightless. She tucks a curl behind her ear. “That’s wonderful. Not many men would—”
Across from them, a girl scoffs, arms folded, expression twisted in something between disbelief and distaste. “I wouldn’t want my dad here anyway. That’s so creepy.”
Mia tilts her head, appraising the girl with an expression too sharp for a place like this. “If you’re afraid of your own dad seeing your body but not a random male doctor, I think you should call the cops.”
The girl blanches, her mother gasps, and Will feels the weight of a dozen eyes flicker toward them. He exhales, slow, measured, and mutters, “Mia.”
She shrugs. Unbothered. Unapologetic. She was right.
—
Another waiting room, another stark display of difference. This time, it is Will who is unwell, a sluggish weight pressing against his ribs, exhaustion coiled deep in his bones. And Mia who should have been sighing, watching the television they had there, or looking pointedly at the clock like the other teenagers around them, is not.
Instead, she is pressed against him, curled in close like she belongs there, her fingers brushing against his wrist, tracing absentminded shapes against his skin.
She watches him. Not the television in the corner, not the nurses flitting back and forth, but him.
“You’re pale,” she says, and before he can deflect, she’s tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear, her brows knitting together in a way that makes his chest tighten.
Around them, fathers sit beside their children, silent, separate. Some of the girls glance up from their phones with vague disinterest before turning away again, while others tap their feet, sigh, check the time. An obligation. A duty.
And then there is Mia.
Leaning into him. Watching him. Worrying.
And he wonders, how many of these men have daughters who would look at them like this? Like something fragile, something precious?
Is obsessive questionnaire allowed?
What’s an example of a time Mia tested Will just to see how he’d react?
Has Will ever gone too far in one of their interactions and regretted it?
How does Mia react when Will tries to assert control over her in a more traditional parental way?
Does Mia ever fear Will, or does she feel completely safe with him no matter what?
It is welcomed!
1- It was summer when she did it. The sky was a bruised shade of violet, cicadas humming, the heat still clinging stubbornly to the air. Will had been inside, waiting, watching through the half-open blinds. And there she was Mia, his Mia, on the front porch, with some nameless boy, some pretty-limbed idiot who had no idea what he was walking into.
She kissed him. A lazy thing, effortless, as if she were offering nothing more than a passing thought. But Will knew better. He saw the way her fingers twisted in the fabric of the boy’s shirt, the way she angled her head, not toward the boy, but toward the window.
For him.
And something ugly, something ancient and terrible, ignited inside him.
He didn’t remember opening the door. Didn’t remember crossing the space between them. But suddenly, he was there, and suddenly, the boy wasn’t. He had stumbled back, some mixture of confusion and nerves flashing across his face, and Mia, standing perfectly still, that lazy little smirk playing at her lips, just watched.
She was waiting.
And it got ugly.
—
2- The regret comes like a shadow, slinking in the spaces between breath and bone.
He always regrets it.
It stains him. She stains him. A burden, a sickness, a beautiful, untouchable curse. He carries it for her. For the way the world would sink its claws into her, rip her apart if he let it.
It is his sacrifice.
And it burns.
—
3- She knows when to obey. It is an art, the way she slips back into place, the way she tilts her head, widens her eyes, plays the role she was made to play. His good girl.
But only when he forces it. Only when he grips her chin, when his voice drops into something hard and unrelenting. Then, and only then, does she listen.
But she is not afraid.
Not really. How could she be?
There are moments, fleeting, where she looks afraid, her breath caught in her throat, her fingers twisting against the hem of her dress. Moments where something inside her flickers, like a deer watching the flash of a hunter’s knife.
But she never runs.
Never from him.
Always to him.