“By the time I made it to the end of middle school, I managed to get accepted to a specialty STEM high school. Everything got easier when I figured out where I was supposed to be.” Unlike lots of kids, I loved high school. Not for the social part. That bit still didn’t make sense, but I loved the science, and coding felt like coming home. All the parts of my brain lined up and it made sense.
“Your parents must be so proud of you.” Elena pushed gently against my chest to raise her head so she could look at me. “To have worked through all that and found the thing you were meant to do. The thing you could shine at.”
Proud wasn’t a word I’d thought of most of my life. It was hard when the normal things that are no big deal for most people, like putting away the groceries or closing cabinet doors, seemed impossible to me.
“I still fall short with lots of things. I don’t have to explain that part to you.”
It hit me then that I didn’t. She’d seen the holes in my world almost from the moment we met. And she’d been filling them all along, making things easier for me in her own way. We might not have talked about favorite books or food preferences, but she knew more about me than friends I’d had for years. Because she’d spent time in my home.
“You’ve found ways to deal with all of that. As long as you don’t wear out Anna, you’re golden.”
“I overpay her. A lot.” And she was worth every penny.
“You talk to your parents every week?”
“Yeah. My sister too. Amanda is four years older than me.” Amanda was a pain in the ass older sister, but she’d also looked out for me and made school bearable. “Are you close to your family? They must be proud of you,” I said repeating her words back to her.
She looked wistful, and I worried that I’d overstepped. She’d brought up families first but that didn’t mean she wanted to talk about hers.
“Not exactly,” she said before I had a chance to tell her it was okay if she didn’t want to talk about it. “It’s…complicated.”
20
Irested my head against Jake’s chest so I wouldn’t have to look at him while I answered his question. I didn’t know how to explain my family—or lack of one—to him.
“It’s just my mom and me. No siblings. I never met my father. He took off when I was a baby.” I waited for the pity I didn’t want him to feel. “She did the best she could, or at least what she believed was her best.”
While Jake’s mom was helping him with homework and advocating for him at school, my mom was teaching me how to use my looks to get what I wanted, showing me by example. I almost never saw my mother without a full face of makeup, including false eyelashes. Not the over-the-top televangelist wife/Jersey Shore kind. My mother splurged on her makeup. It was expensive, and it made her look expensive. Which made hunting for rich men easier.
“It couldn’t have been easy not having a dad around. Are you and your mom close? She must have been busy taking care of you guys.”
She was busy—just not with regular work. Between manicures, facials, Pilates, and starving herself to stay a size six, maintenance was a full-time job. One she seemed determined topass on to me. There was almost always a man in her life, just not the same one for long. He’d buy her clothes and jewelry, even something as big as a car occasionally. Then he’d move on. Men like that didn’t marry women like my mother. They played with them until they got tired.
She’d keep what she needed to hunt for the next guy and sell everything else to support us. I grew up knowing that my value as a woman came from how I looked. What I weighed. What my hair looked like. I started dieting when I was eleven and didn’t stop until I left for college and lived with other girls. It’s not like eating disorders didn’t happen in the dorms, but it was so much less stringent than what I was used to. Which wasn’t something I wanted to explain to Jake.
“We’re not close. I love her.” I did, despite everything. “But she’s got her own life.”
“She’s got to be proud of your business. You built a life for yourself. Plenty of people don’t get that far.” He stroked a hand over my back, smoothing away some of the anxiety that had settled in my stomach at the start of the conversation.
“My mom measures things with a different scale. What I look like matters a lot more than what I do.”
“You’re gorgeous,” he said, tipping my face up to meet his gaze. “What could she possibly improve on?”
I ran through the litany of faults in my head. The hint of marionette lines around my mouth from excessive smiling. The scattering of freckles on my forearms I wasn’t willing to bleach or cover with makeup. The last ten pounds that wouldn’t budge unless I deprived myself of things I wasn’t willing to give up anymore. And most recently letting a man backstage behind my still carefully curated image to see me sick and without my makeup.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to reach that bar. Maybe if I marry well.” I cringed as the words left my mouth.
I didn’t want Jake to think I was looking for a rich husband. I wasn’t. I wanted a partner, someone who was successful in his own right and who could stand beside me. When Jake and I started having sex, I knew he wasn’t that guy. Or I assumed he wasn’t because he didn’t look anything like I expected. I assumed he’d been lucky and stumbled into some money or some kind of windfall.
I now realized how far off I’d been. He certainly hadn’t been lucky—except maybe with the family he’d been born into—and overcoming his challenges made him more successful than most people I knew. I still didn’t understand his job. I doubted more than a handful of people did. But I knew he was very good at what he did. I just hadn’t let myself see it before.
I saw the sexy, barefoot, board short-wearing guy who couldn’t be bothered to order a new couch for himself, and I put him in a box. I’d been a snob. No better than my mother for judging people by how they looked. Only paying attention to the trappings around them rather than seeing the real person, standing in front of me. I hated myself a little bit for that.
“I had a decent childhood,” I said, pushing aside my thoughts for the moment. “I had what I needed, if not always what I wanted.” I pressed a kiss to the warm skin of his chest before sitting up and positioning myself against the pillows. “Are you up for another movie?”
“Always. It’s your choice this time.”
Iwoke up with the movie credits playing in the background and Jake’s body curled around mine, his arm around my waist. I started to turn to face him and he held on, pulling me tighter. Something in my heart melted at the unexpected rightness of sleeping with Jake. At the way he was aware of me even in his sleep. I hadn’t done a single sexy thing in the pastthirty-six hours and some decidedly unsexy things, and he still wanted me there with him. I didn’t have to ask. I felt it in his touch. In the way his body protected mine. He didn’t just want me for how I looked. He wanted me as a person.
