“You know I wouldn’t have minded you being distracted. In fact, I think I even told you a little distraction might be healthy for you. What’s really going on here?”
“I didn’t want you to see me fail again. Icouldn’tlet you see me fail. If I told you about him and we didn’t work out or if our time together made me blow it with The Fantasy debut, it would be yet another misfire in front of the one woman I always want to impress.”
The clock was ticking toward my presentation. I struggled to get my emotions back in check, to cordon off the horrible disaster area that was my heart so I could continue my work.
But my breaths were shaky. My shoulders shuddered. And when Clara wrapped her arms around me, tight and fierce, I couldn’t stop my tears.
She whispered as she held me.
“I couldn’t ever have children, you know. It wasn’t for lack of trying. But I just couldn’t. And I know I can never replace yourparents. But I hope you know that I’ve always thought of you as my daughter. I’ve loved you and looked after you and there’s nothing you couldeverdo that would make me leave you behind, Scout. Nothing you could ever do that would make me love you less. Not a botched job, not a busted product launch, not a failed relationship.Nothing.I love you because you are Scout Porter. And Scout Porter isfucking awesome.”
The tears were hot and fast. Inescapable. “He told me I hated myself.”
“He’s right,” Clara said, not unkindly. “You do.”
“He tried to help me with my parents,” I explained. “And he tried to get me to stand up to Lloyd. And he tried to help me find a job in the aerospace sector. And he went and made me fall in love with him, the big dumb idiot.”
“A new job?”
Shit.Pulling out of her embrace, I tried to explain. “Right. About that, I’m sorry—”
She brushed one of my tears away. “Don’t be. I always knew I would lose you when you saw your own potential. I’m just glad he said it instead of me. You’d’ve never gone job hunting if I said so.”
“I barely went job hunting whenhesaid so.”
A ghost of a smile haunted her thin lips. “Journey of a thousand steps and all that.”
With that, she took my hand and helped me to my feet. Together, we walked to the green room. Once inside, I was set upon by the management staff of the conference, who started hooking me up with a wireless microphone system for my presentation. A makeup woman helped me fix my tear-stained face. Someone else swapped my jacket with a loaner, since this one was wrinkled now. But once they were gone and there was nothing left to do but wait, I sank against the nearest wall and miserably returned to the topic.
“He tried to help me with so many things, Clara. And everysingle time, I shot him down. And he was here. He wasright herejust a few minutes ago and I didn’t try to fix things. I let him leave. I didn’t fight for him.”
“Because you don’t think you’re deserving of love. You don’t think you’re deserving ofanything.”
There it was again, that casual acknowledgment. “Does everybody know? I feel like I’m the last person to learn this about myself.”
“Pretty much. But there are many things you can tell someone and they believe it.Looks like rain. There’s spinach in your teeth. When you get to the light, take a left. This is Tottenham’s year. But how do you tell someone that they’ll never be happy until they stop despising themself? You don’t. You just love them until they realize that they’re worth loving.” Her eyes swam with silvery tears. My own mother had never looked so proud of me. And I’d never felt more loved than in that moment. “It took you a long time. But I think you’re there. Welcome to the rest of your life, Scout. It’s going to be beautiful.”
“How?”
“It’s like I’ve always said. You can have anything you want. You just have to believe that it should be yours.”
The unspoken question hung in the air. It echoed through my mind in Hudson’s voice.
So whatdoyou want, Scout?
I knew that answer better than I knew my own name.
I wanted to stop being afraid all the time. I wanted to stop questioning myself. I wanted to stop hating myself. I wanted friends. I wanted a fulfilling career. I wanted a life that was thoroughly and messily and unapologetically my own.
But most of all…
“I want him, Clara. Ilovehim. I just don’t think he loves me back.”
Her eyes glistened. “What a fascinating hypothesis. And,what’s even more exciting—you’ll get to test that hypothesis very shortly.”
“What do you mean—”
It was at that moment that a set of nearby curtains twitched and a stagehand in uniform black clothing and a headset appeared, calling me forward. Here it was. The launch. The moment we’d all been waiting for. Once I stepped out, I would be in front of a crowd of thousands, selling them on the future of sex as we know it.
