Risks and Rewards (Of a Life so Simple)

Uncertain Feelings

Meep let out a soft sigh. She and Annabel were cuddled up on the couch, underneath a blanket. Deco was giving his Treasure another swim lesson, with Benny watching. So it was just the two of them.

Pearl and Marina had been gone for a week by this point, and Meep still felt a bit...off, without them nearby.

It was like everything was happening all at once lately. The egg hatched. Octavio was her father, and he'd disappeared. The people who she'd lived with her entire surface life were gone for the first time.

Annabel was, at least, a steady constant. Meep imagined that was the good thing about a good relationship: they were a calming force when the world shook. A hammock on a boat.

Meep sighed again. Uncertainty. Racing thoughts.

Annabel's arms around her squeezed a little. "You alright?"

"......hm." Was all she could come up with for a moment. "I...we're having a nice time, and I don't want to bring you down..."

"Hey, a lot has happened to you lately. I'm here to listen." She replied kindly.

"...mm." Again, she didn't have much to say for a moment or two. "I....I don't know how to say this. It's...I feel, bad? Because of Octavio being gone."

She could feel Annabel's muscles tense. "Cod. He doesn't deserve you." She said lowly.

"Everyone keeps saying that. And I feel weird, because that makes me feel bad too." She explained. "He'd...he'd treated me kindly. And..." She trailed off.

"Its...conflicting? You're kind, and he'd treated you well. So him doing this doesn't make sense." Annabel replied.

Meep nodded, and her gut twisted in anxiety. "It'd been easy before, to forgive him. Because what he'd done hadn't felt...personal. It was just something that'd happened to everyone. But...he was my father, and he still brainwashed me too." The idea tainted every interaction with him, twisting it into something foreign, unfamiliar, and fake.

"Like he didn't trust even his own kid to stay with him." The Inkling muttered. "It doesn't sound like love, Meep. I know you want to see the good in people. But that doesn't sound like love."

The Octoling held in a whimper. "Do you...see me differently, knowing he was my father?" She asked quietly, vulnerable.

"Cod, Meep, no, never!" Annabel exclaimed, sounding baffled that the other had even asked. "The only person who I see differently because of this is Octavio."

Meep didn't reply.

Annabel squeezed her tighter. "Nothing like that would ever change how I feel about you, you know that?"

"...I feel differently about myself." Was the quiet reply. "It's hard not to. I thought I could just...put all the stuff that happened to me, the person I used to be, I thought I could put it all in a box and move past it, and choose who I was now." She clutched tightly to one of Annabel's arms. "But...Octavio. He's my dad. How am I supposed to put that in a box? I can't even talk to him about it, because he left me. It's...internalized, now. I had a dad. I still have a dad. And he was only willing to talk to me when...when I didn't know that."

"You didn't do anything wrong, Meep." She said softly. "It isn't your fault. You don't need to earn parental affection. That's not how it works."

"...I feel like I could've so easily been a different person. I...still don't remember much, about my time down there in the Domes. But...I heard the song, and I left. I always felt bad about leaving the way I did. But now I don't know if it was him specifically I felt bad about abandoning or not." She explained. "Did I feel betrayed, knowing he'd brainwashed me the same as everyone else? Was I surprised? I probably talked to Benny about it, at the time. But I don't remember."