“Are you going to let him talk to your parents that way?”
They all turned on me. I felt the gravity of their attention shift, but I picked at my veal piccata instead of answering. After all, Dad’s response wasn’t a denial. It was an evasion.
Theydidthink I was stupid and naïve enough to be used that way. To them, my brain and heart were fundamentally broken. I was book smart but incapable of managing my own stuff. It had been that way since I was a kid, confirmed with the terrible Lloyd Exeter debacle, and reaffirmed every time they so much as spoke to me.
And they were right. I really was incapable of managinganything but engineering projects. That was why I’d held back for so long. Even now, I wasn’t able to stand up for myself and my partner.
Failure.It might as well have been tattooed across my forehead.
After a moment of my silence, Hudson sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you—either of you. But to be totally honest, I don’t give a shit what you think or have to say. My loyalties are to Scout, and right now, you’re both treating her very badly. I’m not going to listen to it.”
Mom chuckled. “If you don’t like the way we talk to our daughter, you can leave.”
“That’s the thing, ma’am. I can’t. Because for some crazy reason, Scout listens to you, and I care about her too much to leave her in the company of people who will make her miserable.”
Mom and Dad’s stares burned holes through my curtain of hair and into my cheeks, turning them fire-red, but I didn’t look up.
Eventually, Mom threw her napkin on the table and rose. “Fine, then. We’ll go.”
They collected their things in silence. But before they went, Hudson stopped them.
“I feel sorry for you both, you know.”
My parents stilled. He tipped his wineglass in their direction, toasting their departure.
“You’ve had Scout for twenty-six years. And not once in those twenty-six years did you ever realize how special she was. Not special because of her intellect or the things she did. Just because of who sheis. You missed out.”
My heart, which had sunk to the floor more and more with each passing second in my parents’ presence, suddenly lifted. It wasn’t just that Hudson liked me. I think I knew that already. And it wasn’t just that he defended me against them—though that didn’t hurt.
It was that he recognized what I’d always known but never had the strength to say.
I was a person. I wasn’t my grades or my degrees or the job I held. I was apersonand my parents never got to know her.
Braving a glance up, I saw Mom’s lip curl. She pulled her jacket tight around her shoulders. Her gaze slid disgustedly from Hudson’s face to mine. “We’ll talk about this later, Scout.”
And then, they were gone. Leaving us with Frank Sinatra, half a bottle of wine, and the check.
Hudson and I finished our dinners in relative quiet. The air simmered with tension—not from me, but from him. He practically radiated with rage from his interaction with my parents, and I didn’t know how to pierce it.
Once outside, we walked to his car, which was parked at the far edge of the near-vacant parking lot. We’d parked under the privacy of a tall, shady tree. It had seemed almost romantic around sunset. Now its fractal-patterned arms cast veiny shadows over Hudson’s handsome face. Instead of ducking inside the car, though, he lingered for a moment, debating with himself. Finally, he asked me:
“Do you want to talk about what just happened in there?”
“I’m sorry about them—”
To my surprise, he flinched. “Sorry? Why the hell should you be sorry? They werehorribleto you.”
Ever since meeting Hudson, I’d learned that sometimes tenderness was even more painful than cruelty. No one had ever acknowledged the way my parents treated me, much less got outraged over it on my behalf.
I couldn’t look too closely at that. I diverted to safer territory.
“I shouldn’t have let them talk to you that way.”
“We’re not talking about me, Scout. We’re talking about you. How can you let them treatyoulike that?”
“They’re my parents, Hudson,” I said, as if it explained anything.
It didn’t. I knew it. He knew it. And what was worse, we both realized what Iwasn’tsaying.
