Chapter 41
PANDORA’S DIARY
The next morning, I disentangled myself from Leo and poked around his bedroom while he sleepily watched.
Neither he nor his parents had thrown out his elementary school art.
There were still two hand-drawn pictures of us: a stick figure and a Medusa-haired blob fishing off a dock, and a stick figure and a Medusa-haired blob floating in outer space.
His high school sports trophies were on top of the bookcase and I recognized the Legos, of course, though now most were combined into a mishmash of buildings and vehicles for Bob.
I struck gold when I discovered that Leo’s parents had collected every article that ever mentioned him.
One described him as “the handsome young owner of the world-renowned Carter Editions Limited, which has handled first printings of Twain, Shakespeare, Poe, and Shackleton.” A regional newspaper crowed about his role in finding one of Darwin’s unknown journals.
In one interview, Leo gushed about the thrill he felt at discovering unique items, such as a copy of Frankenstein in which Mary Shelley had doodled a picture of the monster, and a piece of Josephine Baker’s sheet music upon which Ernest Hemingway had written “the most sensational woman in the world.”
As a rule I wasn’t interested in old books. Still, I asked him about his business, and he was so passionate that I kept asking—even though he demanded that I tell him one story about my job for every story he told about his.
We spent most of the morning like that, chatting back and forth.
Well, interspersed with more snooping. I found another article in a Boston lifestyle magazine that described him as an eligible bachelor.
That one included pictures of his Beacon Hill apartment, and enticing little tidbits about his social life, so naturally I brought it back to bed and quizzed him.
“What does it mean, you’re a patron of the arts?” I asked, tapping a picture of him in a tux at the symphony. “You sell used books!”
“I don’t just sell—”
“And who’s the blonde?”
“I, uh, no idea? She just wandered into shot.”
I turned the page and pointed to a picture of the same woman. “Into this shot, too?”
He peered at the magazine. “She dumped me and moved to Alabama.”
“Ha!”
“Yeah.” He propped himself higher on his pillow. “Speaking of breakups, I never fully apologized for what happened between us. It’s a little late, but I’m sorry for what I said when we were kids.”
“Oh, you mean that you’d break up with me in a heartbeat if I didn’t get my gift?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.” He stroked my bare shoulder, and his voice grew even warmer. “Thank the Dames you got your gift.”
“Yeah, that’s—” I paused. “Wait, what?”
“It turns out that brutal honesty isn’t the best way to talk to your teenage girlfriend.”
I pulled away slightly from him. “So what should you have said?”
“I should’ve explained that I didn’t want to have to hide who I was from a normal woman, then maybe we wouldn’t have wasted all these years apart.”
“Wait.” My throat clenched as I stood. “Is that what you took away from this? Are you saying you should’ve broken up with me if I didn’t get my gift?”
Leo stilled. “You got your gift.”
“Answer me, Leo. If I turned thirty without any gift, would you have broken up with me?”
“No, but do you know how hard it’s been for me and my dad to keep such a major part of ourselves from my mother?”
I stared down at him. “Yet your father loves her anyway.”
“Are you genuinely angry right now?”
“I’m not angry,” I snapped. “I’m trying to understand.”
His lips thinned. “I love my mother, Pan—that’s what made it hard.
I spent half my childhood protecting her, making sure she wasn’t too confused by faerie-kin magic, too saddened by the memories she’d lost. Do you know what it’s like, seeing your mother grope for missing feelings, missing connections, missing years?
Or lying to her about your own gifts? Hell, Dad deliberately made a shitty drawer in the kitchen just so she wouldn’t be subject to his full ability.
If you paid any attention, you’d know what a wreck she is during the lobster bake every year. I wouldn’t do that to another family.”
“Are you kidding me right now? You’re comparing me to an inconvenient drawer? And you have to love her, she’s your mom. But you wouldn’t love me if I didn’t have a gift?”
“You do have one!”
“But if I didn’t.”
“That’s as dumb as the ‘would you still love me if I was a worm’ thing!”
“And of course you wouldn’t.”
He threw his blankets aside. “Of course I fucking wouldn’t. You’re not a worm! You’re a pain in my ass, but you’re not a worm.”
“So, wait—every time you flirted with me—when we went sailing—the way you looked at me—you thought, ‘This is a fun, forgettable island fling’?”
“No! No.” He paused. “Nothing with you is ever forgettable.”
“Oh, my—” The breath was knocked out of me. “So you were having a little fun with a normal girl who doesn’t matter.”
“That’s not—”
“You called me a rare treasure!”
“Because you fucking are one!” he said, stepping in front of me.
I shoved him. “You called me a Dames-damned treasure and still thought I wasn’t good enough for you.”
He took a deep breath. “This has nothing to do with good enough, Pan. I never wanted you to live like my mother. I wanted to protect you.”
“From what? Your dickish behavior? Why wouldn’t I want to live like your mother? I think she’s amazing and she’s loved.”
“What are you doing right now?” He ran his hands through his unkempt hair. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why am I doing this? You say you care about me, but you’d switch it off in a heartbeat if I didn’t have a gift.
That’s not what caring is, Leo.” My anger deflated into a sudden sadness.
“You think magic is worth more than I am. Don’t you understand?
This is why I never wanted to get my gift.
I should’ve been enough for you without it. ”
“That’s not what I’m saying, at all, Pan.” Leo took a breath. “Can we start this whole conversation again?”
“No. Because I’m starting to understand.”
He stepped toward me. “Pan, please. Your gift doesn’t matter.”
“I love you, Leo,” I said, turning away from him, “but maybe you’re right. After getting my gift… maybe you’re not good enough for me.”
“I’m probably not,” he said. “But I want to be. More than anything I—”
“Just go,” I said.
“Pan, I—”
“Go!”
“This is my bedroom.”
“Get out!”
His shoulders slumped as he looked at me. I didn’t meet his gaze. After a moment, he turned and left. I didn’t care that I’d just kicked him out of his own bedroom.
I just sobbed and flopped onto the bed. I guess, deep down inside, I knew all along Leo would still disappoint me. I wasn’t surprised, Diary. But Dames, was I sad.