Daddy's Little Girl

Brokenandbracing

Chapter 2 : Broken and bracing up.

Amara sat on the floor, knees drawn to her chest, drowning in a college sweatshirt she hadn't worn in years. Her hair hung in greasy strands and mascara bled down her cheeks in Rorschach stains.

She hadn’t slept, not really. Her body gave in to brief blackouts between sobs, only to jolt awake from dreams filled with flashing lights, Melissa's moans, and Liam’s face twisted in surprise, not guilt.

Her sheets still smelled like him. Like that stupid cologne she’d picked out..woodsy, and expensive, a lie wrapped in pretty packaging.

By the time morning lights shone through the blinds, her phone buzzed again.

Zoey : I saw the news, and I’m on my way.

She didn’t reply, or move, she just let the silence consume her.

Somewhere in the city, Liam was probably already spinning the story, his publicist drafting sugar-coated apologies to shove down her throat. His lawyers buying off photographers. The machine grinding into motion, just like last time.

Except this time, she wasn't going to give in...

Two hours later, the door creaked open.

"Oh crap, Mara."

Zoey stood frozen in the doorway, designer bag dangling from her fingers. The same Zoey who'd been exiled from Amara's life because:

"Too many friends make you look desperate, darling."

Amara opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Zoey dropped to her knees, and rushed forward, crouching in front of her like they were girls again, ditching classes to cry about boyfriends and bad grades, pulling a bottle of Don Julio from her bag.

"Okay, ground rules." She cracked the seal with her teeth, spitting the cap onto the floor "We're doing this in phases.

Phase one: get shitfaced.

Phase two: curse all men to hell.

Phase three..." She paused, "actually, that's it, those are the only phases that matter."

Amara looked up at her blinking and let out a sort of broken laugh, "He did it again Zoe, this time with cameras watching.”

Zoey’s grip on the bottle turned white-knuckled, "I’ll castrate him with a rusty spoon."

"He was going to propose, I found the ring...I actually thought he’d changed.”

Zoey poured two fingers straight into Amara's mouth. "And now he can shove it up his stinky ass"

Zoey pulled back slightly to meet her eyes. “Do you still love him?”

The question hovered.

Amara swallowed. “I don’t know, I think... Or maybe because I was scared of going back.”

“Back?”

“To being nobody,” she whispered. “To struggling, to being that girl with nothing but a cracked phone screen and dreams too big for her wallet. Liam... he gave me a way out. I thought if I loved him enough, I’d forget where I came from.”

Zoey’s face softened. “But you didn’t forget, you just built a prettier cage.”

A bitter laugh escaped Amara’s lips, “Gold-plated bars still lock you in.”

Zoey snatched the tequila back and took a swig. "f**k his bars, f**k his money, and f**k his stupid self", she reached for the blanket on the couch and draped it over her. “You don’t owe him your silence, Amara at least not anymore.”

Amara leaned back against the couch, staring at the ceiling.

Her voice was quieter this time. “I was fifteen when my mom told me survival would always mean compromise. She said women like us don’t get fairy tales , we get trade-offs. It's either safety or love, wealth or dignity, but not all, you could never have everything”

“And you chose safety,” Zoey said gently.

Amara nodded. “At first, then I told myself it was love and maybe it was... for a while.”

They sat in silence for a long time. The kind of silence that didn't feel awkward, just... necessary.

Zoey broke it first. "Remember when we stole that bottle of vodka from your mom’s cabinet? And you puked in the Uber?"

Amara’s lips twitched. "You held my hair back and lied to the driver."

"Damn right I did." Zoey’s grin faded, and I'll do it again, every damn time."

Remember Santorini?" Amara suddenly snorted, tequila dripping down her chin. "When I threw that ugly-ass vase at him?"

Zoey's eyes lit up with vicious glee. "The one that cost more than my rent? Oh my god—"

"It missed his head by a mile," Amara wheezed, tears of laughter mixing with the angry ones, "Smashed right through that bullshit modern art he loved so much."

"And his excuse" Zoey clutched her stomach, voice pitching high in imitation, "It's just how Europeans greet people!"

"s*x is now a form of greeting, oh pardon me for being an illiterate", Amara responded in the same tone.

They collapsed against each other, laughing so hard the tequila bottle nearly toppled. For a second, it was just them again—two girls who knew how to turn rage into something survivable.

Zoey wiped her eyes, still giggling. "You should've let me teach you to throw properly, that would've solved our problems years ago."

Amara's smile faded slightly, "next time I won't miss."

Then Amara turned her head. “Do you remember that scholarship I didn’t take? The one in Paris?”

Zoey's brows lifted. “The one Liam said was beneath you?”

She nodded.

“I should’ve gone,” Amara whispered.

“Then go now,” Zoey said. “Apply again, do something for you, not him, rebuild, become that bad b***h again.”

“But what if I’m nothing without him?” she asked, almost childlike.

Zoey smiled softly. “Then be nothing... and grow from it. I’d rather see you start from scratch than rot in luxury.”

A long silence passed, then Amara stood, walked to her closet, and returned with the locked box.

Zoey whistled. "Damn girl, you've got a whole spy kit in here, what’s that?”

“Plan B.”

She unlocked it, revealing the burner phone, the USB, and the fake passport.

Zoey held up the passport. "Who's Elena Vasquez?"

"My emergency exit." Amara traced the edges of the USB, "I always knew this might happen."

Zoey stared, “You’ve been planning to leave him?”

Amara looked down at the contents. “Not exactly, but I knew there might come a day I’d need to disappear.”

Her fingers hovered over the burner phone, then retreated.

“Not yet,” she said. “Let him sweat and try to fix the unfixable.”

Zoey smirked. “Revenge?”

“Oh absolutely,” Amara whispered, "and in worst way possible"

Then she walked over to the window, holding a small shot cup filled with tequila, the city glittering below like a broken promise.

Somewhere out there, Liam was scrambling. But here? Here, the reckoning was just beginnin

g.

Zoey clinked her cup against Amara's. "Now that's a phase three."