It gives me purpose.
I don’t get to dance. I didn’t have a change of clothes. Instead, I climb up on the piano and lay on my side, looking out on my purpose.
I won’t give up on it. On any of it.
* * *
Lucy picksme up from the studio midmorning to take me home, and I change quickly whilst she waits in the car. She knows something is up. I don’t go to the studio on a Sunday—especially not in men’s clothes. But she doesn’t question me, doesn’t ask anything until after lunch, laying on the garden swing seat we have spent many days of our childhood and teenage years chatting on.
“I think Mason’s dad is an alcoholic,” I eventually voice.
Lucy’s hand finds mine between us. “But that’s not what has you going to the studio on a Sunday morning?”
“No.” I roll my eyes at her perceptiveness. “He fucked it up, Luce. He is such an idiot.”
“He’s a male. It’s their thing.” She smiles.
“He had me looked up, looked into my mum and the studio.”
“What?” she asks, taken aback.
I nod my head. “I took it on the chin too. I promised myself I wouldn’t leave. We had the most incredible sex. God, the sex, Luce,” I groan, making her laugh. “He prepared a beautiful date, said all the right things when I freaked about the gifts he bought me, then when I needed space, and for him to shut up so I could process the whole him having me looked up, he crushed me. Told me I would run my studio into the ground if I didn’t stop helping Mum and pay back my loans.”
Tears well in my eyes as I prepare for what comes next.
“How did he get that much information?!”
I shrug. “I told him to stay out of my business, that he could have sex with me, but he’d get nothing more than my body.” Cringing at the memory, I close my eyes.
“Oh, Nina, that’s not you.”
“What?”
“Babe, you’ve known this man a week. You’re attached already, look at you. You could never have no-strings-attached sex. It’s why you have broken so many hearts over the years,” she explains, pulling me into a hug.
“He compared me to my mum. Told me the apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” I mumble into her neck.
She tuts, shaking her head. “God, Nina, he really is a dick.” She sighs. “But...”
“But?” I question, not liking that but at all.
“It’s not you. You’re not your mother, and he shouldn’t have said that.But. You painted the picture for him. He just hung it to dry.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am.” She squeezes me tight. “I promise you I am, just don’t go writing him off just yet, okay?” She fingers the bangle on my wrist. “Is this Cartier?”
I roll my eyes. “I have no idea.”
“As your best friend, it’s my job to step in and tell you when you don’t see situations in their true light, yet you’ve always made it so easy for me. You have a good head on your shoulders, and you always make the right decision. I envy your balls, babe. Trust your judgement, and don’t ever feel bad for letting your guard down.”
“You think I should give things a go with him?”
Does Mason even want to give things a go?
“It doesn’t matter what I think. You’ll do you anyway.”
* * *
