There had never been a way to win with her father. With Mother, it had been easy – a burden and a chore that she’d never asked for, but easy once she had brought her mind around to it. She’d always been smart. Which was probably a curse. If she’d been stupid, or just play-merrily-with-butterflies naive, maybe her life would have been better. She could have believed that her mother really loved her, and she could have been blissfully ignorant about how much her father hated her. Her mother had always possessed an image of what a perfect daughter was, and any deviation from that was met with confusion and…

Seven Years Before Dorian Knocks Stef swayed. Plant your foot to the right. She stared at the ground, which was ever so slightly out of focus, and moved the foot to please the voice in her head. It kept her standing. And standing was good. Whatever this was, being flat on her face wasn’t going to improve the situation. There was, after all, drunk in public; and lying in the gutter drunk in public. She was happy with the former and hoped to avoid the latter. Not that this was reeeeally being drunk. At least, that was the logic that she- She turned, stumbled forward, and threw up into the…