I want to tell them I like them. I want to take them on shopping trips and read books together and hold hands and cuddle and laugh and have fun non-platonically. But that fuckass man I called my father ruined that for me. Every time I hold hands, I remember feeling his hands, and then feeling the sharp pain of them against my cheek. Every time they call me a nickname, it’s the same one he’d call me, and then I’d remember all the awful things he did. I want to love them and be with them, but I have too much baggage and I wouldn’t be able to show great amounts of affection all the time.