“Nope. Not since Mom died. Beck and I swing by and drop off things for him once a week, but he’s never so much as acknowledged it.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Only because it bothers Beck and my other siblings, but I’ve sort of accepted that this is how it is.” He shrugged. “I don’t like to dwell on shit like that, so I don’t.”
And here I’d spent the past however long thinking he’d had it easy. That his demeanor was because he sailed through life without a care. But his mom had died far too young, and his dad had abandoned him for all intents and purposes. Ford had never had it easy. He just hadn’t let it define him.
There was so much more to him than everyone else saw…than he allowed people to see. But he’d shown me… Opened up in a way I wasn’t sure he’d done with anyone else.
“It’s hard to miss someone who was never really around, but I miss the idea of a relationship we’ll never have, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” I knew all too well, having spent too much time wishing for parents who would love and support me. Wishing for any other parents but mine.
“What about you? Your mom ever do anything like this for you?” he asked, tracing his fingers along my palm.
I snorted. “Uh, no. Nurturing wasn’t really her style. Or my dad’s. They focused more on tough love…minus the love.”
Ford stiffened behind me, just the subtlest change in his posture. “How long’s that been going on?”
“Let’s see…my birthday’s in September, so…almost thirty-two years?”
“Jesus, kitten. I never knew. I thought—”
I shrugged, swallowing the lump in my throat at the anger in his voice. Just knowing he cared enough to be upset on my behalf warmed something inside my chest. “No one did. And they worked hard to keep it that way. Narcissists are great at putting on a mask for the world. Pretending everything is fine—that they’re the real victims, andIwas the problem.”
“How bad was it?” he asked, his voice strained as if he had to force the words out.
“Not…awful. They didn’t physically abuse me.”
He swore under his breath. “That doesn’t make me feel any better. They hurt you?”
In sneaky ways…ones that were so hard to articulate. Ways that had taken me years with my therapist to fully realize.
“Nothing my therapist couldn’t help me work through.”
“Kitten.” It was a single word, but his tone said so much.Tell meandLet me be here for youandI want to kill themall wrapped up in two syllables.
I blew out a deep sigh. I’d never opened up like this with anyone in my personal life. Only my therapist knew these parts of me, and that had taken years of building trust before I’d felt comfortable sharing.
But somehow, it didn’t feel scary with Ford. I didn’t wonder if he’d believe me. If he’d make me out to be the bad guy like my parents were so good at doing. If he’d think I was overreacting. Didn’t worry he’d see me as weak for striving to be better for them instead of myself. For not taking charge of my life sooner.
Somehow, I just knew he’d support me.
“I wasn’t who they wanted me to be,” I said. “Who they thought I should be. And I got really good at listening to what they were saying. So much so that I started to believe it. I was too fat, too tall, too driven, then not driven enough… Too smart, then too dumb. They found a way to criticize me foreverything. And the trickiest part was they kept moving the goalposts. In one breath, they wanted me to dumb myself down so I could find a husband. And in the next, they told me I’d never make anything of myself if I wasn’t valedictorian. And when I wasn’t…”
“Fuck. No wonder you hated me.”
“I didn’t hate you,” I said, meaning it this time.
“You didn’t like me.”
I shrugged. “It was just hard coming to terms with everything, especially when I’m still living with the repercussions of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“All my plans hinged on my achieving that. So when I didn’t, I ended up at my sixth choice for undergrad because that was the only one that gave me a full ride, and I didn’t get into Harvard Med. It was probably a pipe dream, but I kept thinking that maybe if I had gone there, my parents would finally be proud of me.”
“They should be proud of you anyway,” he said with a hard edge to his tone. “You’re here, trying to buy your own practice.”
