Chapter 9 #2
“Fair enough. But, yeah, good idea. If she’s happy to meet in town, to come over here, then we should absolutely accommodate her. Do you know if there’s a week that’s better than any other?”
Lila actually had a pretty good mental image of the schedule for the hotel over the next few weeks.
Even though she wasn’t in charge of reservations, she often checked in with the system.
“Yeah, I think that two or three weeks from now would be perfect. If she needs a month, I know that would be fine too.”
“Okay. I think that would work for me. As long as we can squeeze it around this.”
“You and I will be done with this pretty soon. In the next couple of weeks, I would think, and anyway, you know we can be flexible to an extent.”
“Sure. But we don’t want to be out here when it starts getting frosty.”
“Yeah. I suppose not. But we won’t be. Because you and I are competitive like that.”
Much to her surprise, he smiled at her. “That we are. So if we set our minds to something, it’s definitely going to be done.”
“Definitely,” she said.
They finished their meal in silence, and then he sat there, obviously composing an email with his thumb. Then he sent it off and stood up. “All right. Let’s get back to it.”
When they started work again, they hit that same silent flow state, and worked a couple hours longer than usual, both of them bone tired and exhausted when they hit camp again.
She lay down on her back in the tent, while he started up a cooking fire, and very kindly grilled up some burgers.
He had brought a slightly more elaborate food setup since they would be out there for a couple of nights, and she was grateful for that. Because she was absolutely famished.
They both went into the tent with their hamburgers, half-reclining on their sleeping bags while they ate them.
It took a good five minutes for it to start to feel a little bit too intimate. And then when it did, she didn’t want to move or change anything, because she didn’t want him to know that she was feeling that.
“Have you contacted your other siblings?” she asked.
“No. I’m not going to until I have all that... sorted out in my head.”
“Do you really think they’re going to reject you if you’re not... A multimillionaire or something?”
“No. That’s not it. But I’d like to add this trail to my list of achievements, my investment in this part of the ranch to my resume.”
“As far as I know, family doesn’t usually require a resume.”
“Some do,” he said.
“Sure. Some do, but those would be shitty families that probably aren’t worth being part of.”
His shoulder jerked up, and she realized he was suppressing a laugh.
“Yeah. That’s fair. And maybe they are a shitty family. Maybe my sisters will care as little about me as my own mom did. But until I can be sure of that, I’d like to just hedge all my bets.”
“I’m always surprised that we don’t have more half-siblings out there,” she said.
“I know that Walker did his DNA, that’s how he found out about his dad.
But as far as David goes... No more kids.
At least, none in any database. I just would have thought that if he was like that with my mom, he was like that to a lot of people.
But I guess she was the only one pathetic enough to keep going back to him. To let him put her in that position.”
“Listen, I can understand why it surprises you that he wasn’t enough of a prick to have kids with a bunch of different women. But I don’t know that your mom was pathetic.”
“Maybe pathetic is harsh.” Her heart felt bruised. She was really hard on her mom. Her mom, who was dead, and not here to defend herself. And she knew that she was because she used it as a short leash for her own self.
Used it as a cautionary tale, so that she would never be tempted to fantasize about somebody so much, to turn them into such an important part of her own life, that she lost herself entirely. She was fixated on Nolan, it was true, but she had kept him behind a razor wire fence.
As if the invitation was ever open to you... You would have had to scale that fence, and even then, you probably would have gotten attacked by Dobermans on the other side.
True. It wasn’t like he had ever shown any interest.
And maybe part of her had let that fascination keep her safe. Had let it keep her from going on dates with guys like Jason.
Because if she actually had sex, actually had a relationship, then she would be in danger of being just like her mother.
“Maybe. Maybe she wasn’t pathetic. But I think she had some things really twisted up.”
“That is true,” he said. “But I can see how it’s possible. We all had each other growing up. What if we hadn’t? Wasn’t your mom totally disowned by her family when she got pregnant?”
“Yes,” Lila said, looking down at her now empty plate. “She was. They were pretty terrible to her, actually.”
“And so, there had to be some story about how that love was worth that. Worth being disowned by her parents.”
“But why couldn’t we have been the love that was worth being disowned for?”
He let out a long, slow breath and rolled over onto his back. “I don’t know. Any more than I know why I wasn’t enough to help my mom get clean and sober. When there was clearly another life out there that was worth it for her.”
“Maybe we’re just shit,” Lila said, speaking the fear that lived deep at the center of her chest. “What if that’s true? And we can’t see it because we’re the same kind of not enough. But... Both of us were pretty much rejected by our mothers.”
“That’s not very cheery.”
“It’s not. But don’t you think it’s worth... looking at? At least for a second?”
He shook his head. “No. Because no child asks to come into this world, and no child picks their mother. I suppose by that same turn, no mother picks her children, but ours chose to have us. And babies don’t ever deserve rejection.
There’s no such thing as a bad one. So I don’t think it was us, Lila. ”
“But what if it was?” She rolled over onto her side, and looked at him intently.
“Don’t you ever... Do you ever just feel like something is missing from inside of you?
Like, I’m really lucky, and I know that.
I didn’t miss out on much of anything because I had Cody and Walker, and...
You, if I’m honest. I was taken care of, but still, my mom only went downhill after I was born.
She became less interested in her other kids once she had me.
Like I was the six pound straw that broke the camel’s back. ”
“That could be true. And it could still be not personal.”
“Well, it feels personal. Like I did something wrong. Like, maybe I was annoying and I cried too much or... Maybe I’ve always been this outspoken, and maybe I was a really annoying little kid.”
“All little kids are annoying, Lila. You were no exception. But we stayed. And it wasn’t hard.
Don’t go looking for trauma in new places.
You absolutely deserve to be as angry at your mom as you want to be.
And if you want to figure out how to be nuanced about it and not think of her as entirely pathetic, that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be the pathetic one. You’re not.”
“Are you actually saying that you like me?” The words felt dangerous, and she wished that she hadn’t spoken them, but she had, and it was too late to go back and suck them back in.
“Yes,” he said, dark eyes locked dangerously on hers. “I like you.”
“And you wouldn’t abandon me,” she said.
What was she doing?
“No, Lila, I would never abandon you.”
“Good,” she said, letting out a long breath after she said it. “Because Cody would beat your ass if you did.”
“Yeah. Cody would beat my ass if I ever hurt you, and I’m well aware of that.”
Lila didn’t say another thing to him that whole night. But she did spend the whole rest of her wakeful time trying to figure out if there was anything behind those words.
And what all they could mean.