At first, the rough feel of his hand startled you. The fur was like that of an animal but the eyes that stared back into yours were intelligent and concerned. And behind them, a life you only dreamed of.

He took her waiting arms for granted in the cosy kitchen that smelled faintly of butterscotch and cinnamon. A yellow smell.

She touched you as unreservedly as he did, enfolding you in her embrace before you had time to draw back. He laughed at your startled expression and that's when it knifed through you. That feeling you hated.

It would happen many times. When you posed for a picture that wasn't taken. When you recoiled from the enormous spiders that descended down towards you and he was forced to accept their gifts alone. When he asked you what you were doing and you ground the dismembered creature beneath your shoe before he could see. When his eyes fell on you that horrible day his father didn't come out of his room.

It was those eyes that bothered you the most. Filled with expectations you could never live up to. With unstinting hopes you could never fulfill. With lies you told about yourself with every move you made. With lies he believed.

When they looked at you, you smiled. Just like you always had. Just like you did when they were your mother's eyes, bitter and empty. When they were your grandfather's eyes, hungry and cruel. When they weren't your father's eyes.

But you couldn't shake him. No matter what you did, he was still looking. Not with fear or disgust, with lust or hatred. With hope.

You wanted to put it out. To pull it apart. To poison it. To destroy all those fake ideas with your name on them, this other you that existed only in his mind. To take him back there, to show him what you felt, what you saw. To make the light leave those eyes as it had left yours. To make him understand. To make him see them for what they were.

To make him see you.