Anonymous gift. Pay off all her debts.
That's not—that's not how my parents met. They met at a dinner party. Friends of friends. That's what they've always told me. Love at first sight, but normal. Romantic, but ordinary.
Not this.
I scroll down, heart pounding.
"Olive flew to Hawaii to meet her mysterious benefactor in person. 'It was like a fairy tale,' she recalls. 'This beautiful estate, the ocean, this incredible man who had chosen me out of everyone in the world. How could I say no?'"
I look at Jade’s search history. The queries lined up in the browser bar like an accusation.
Nicholas Crawford Olive Crawford how they met
Nicholas Crawford paid Olive's debts
Crawford family Maui
My legs feel unsteady. I sink into the chair.
My father sent my mother a check. Brought her to his island. Made her dependent on him before she even knew what was happening.
Exactly what I did to Jade.
I thought I was being romantic. Original. Sweeping her off her feet in my own way. But it's not my way at all, is it? It'shisway. A pattern I absorbed without ever knowing it existed. A blueprint I followed without ever seeing the plans.
Like father, like son.
The phrase rises up like bile in my throat.
Is this why Jade pulled away? She read this article and saw herself in my mother's story. The struggling artist. The anonymous money. The beautiful cage.
She thinks I'm trying to control her.
For a long moment I just sit there, staring at my parents' faces on the screen. My father's arm around my mother's waist. Her smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.
They lied to me. My whole life, they lied about how they met, how they started, what their love was really built on.
And I became him anyway.
The realization should horrify me. Should send me spiraling into guilt, into self-loathing, into desperate plans to prove I'm different.
But that's not what I feel.
What I feel is something darker. Something that coils in my chest and tightens its grip.
She's mine.
The thought surfaces from somewhere primal, somewhere I don't usually let myself look.
I don't care if the pattern is the same. I don't care if I'm my father's son. I don't care if she's seen the blueprint and recognized her place in it.
She came here. She stayed. She let me touch her, taste her, have her. She'sminenow.
And I'm not letting her go.
I close the laptop and stand up.
So she knows about my parents. So she's scared. So she's out there right now convincing herself that everything between us has been a game.
