I study her.
"What about you? You don't seem like someone who makes random, rash decisions. You have a drive in you that I rarely see in other people."
"What do you mean? I flew to Switzerland to chase down a man who absolutely didn’t want my help. I wouldn’t call that a solid plan."
I nod. "Yes, but you don’t take no for an answer. You don’t like to fail."
"More like I’m terrified to fail," she looks down at her coffee cup as if our conversation is bringing something up to the surface.
I wait.
"I didn’t pick my college because I loved it." She shakes her head, mostly to herself. "God… I don’t think I’ve ever admitted that out loud to anyone."
She says it quietly, and I don’t interrupt because I can feel there’s more coming.
"It was his college. My father’s," she adds. "I chose the same degree, and I went for the big fancy PR firm—the same one my father worked for right out of college."
"Your father worked for Legacy PR?"
She nods, sucking in her lower lip as if it helps her focus. Then she lets out a hollow breath that isn’t quite a laugh. "The irony isn’t lost on me that I chased the same thing he left me for."
I stay very still, though an unfamiliar instinct to reach out and touch her has me clenching my fist to keep me from doing it. It could send her off course, and I can sense that she needs to say this out loud. And maybe I need to hear it too. To understand her better. To know where her scars lie, just like mine.
"That kind of ambition usually starts as a way to prove you were worth staying for."
"Yeah, and it didn’t work."
"It rarely does in my experience. What happened?"
"He left when I was two," she continues. "He took a career-advancing job in London, then divorced my mom. He used to call on my birthday and Christmas morning, but after a couple of years, even those stopped. I don't even remember his voice..." she turns her coffee cup slowly. "I told myself the career was a coincidence. That I just happened to be good at it. That it had nothing to do with him. But when I invited him to my college graduation, and he didn’t bother to show, I knew it then. The diploma didn’t feel like the victory I thought it would."
"Because?"
"Because I built myself into the exact version of success I thought would make a man who never showed up finally seeme," she says. "I thought he’d realize for the first time that I’m worthy of his time and attention. I still don't know if I'm here because I'm good at this job or if I’m here to prove something to a man who hasn’t bothered to think about me since the day he left."
She exhales.
The words hang between us. The ugly truth she just admitted in the middle of this café, hundreds of miles from home, to a man who’s been refusing her help since the day she got here.
I know I have to give her a part of me in return. The parts of me that I wish she’d never see. My ugly truth, and the one that I keep hidden from everyone, but now I see that our upbringings weren’t that far apart.
"When I was younger," I say slowly, "I thought if I was exceptional enough, he'd respect it. Three Olympic medals. Graduated at the top of my class. NHL contract." A pause. "I kept thinking,this will be the thing. This will be the one he's proud of."
She looks up. Recognition in her eyes, as if she knows this story like the back of her hand. That’s always the hardest part—hope.
Hope that one morning they’ll wake up and realize that you’re worth it. That all the blood, sweat, and tears used to get you there weren’t all wasted.
"And?"
I lean back against the backrest of my chair. "He just expected more."
I see the moment of recognition in her eyes.
Two high achievers–both abandoned children. Different architecture, but the same uneven foundation. The kind of damage that’s caused by growing up trying to earn something that was never on offer.
"People leave when they get what they want," I say.
She's quiet for a moment.
