Where Do You Think You’re Going?
Dahlia
I tip-toe down the stairs, hoping to avoid my mother. There’s no way I want to run into her before my ‘lunch date’ with Maverick. It’s only ten thirty, but I need a little more time before coming clean—
“Where do you think you’re going, Dahlia Fleur?”
Uh oh. “Morning, Mom. I was just going to meet… Maverick for the date you arranged.”
“Come sit down.” She gestures to the couch across from her.
I could be eight years old again and in trouble for painting the bathroom floor with my nail polish for as terrified as I am right now.
“About that date… it was polite of Maverick not to come down to breakfast this morning. Your father wouldn’t have understood.”
WHAT! “How did you know? We didn’t even say a word to each other.”
“Since you might one day have children of your own, I’ll tell you my secret. Ever since Basil started sneaking out at fifteen, I go around to check to make sure my children are safely asleep in their bed before I can rest easy. ”
“You saw us! We didn’t—We weren’t—We haven’t—”
Mom smiles. “Of course, you weren’t sleeping together. You’d be a lovely shade of puce right now instead of having slightly cherry cheeks. Do you love him?”
Might as well just say it now that we’ve been caught. “Yes.”
“Is he a good man?”
Lie. Lie like you’ve never lied before. “The world doesn’t think so.”
“Do you for one single moment believe I care what the world might think of your man? Half the family thinks I’m trash for becoming a poker player. The other half decided I was a gold digger for marrying your father, even though I’ve earned three times more than he has during our marriage. You can’t live your life by what other people think. Is Maverick a good man?”
“The best. Mom, if you knew all the things he’s done after all he’s been through—” I brush a tear away. “—you’d love him too.”
“I don’t need to know any of those things. All I need to know is that he makes you happy. And since I saw the evidence of that earlier this morning, I expect you two will be making use of the clubhouse I booked. You’ll make a lovely June Bride.”
“Mom.” Even as I complain, images of Vex… Maverick and I saying our vows, dancing our first dance, walking into the future together as man and wife flash before my eyes.
“What, you will.”
“He hasn’t proposed yet.”
“Then maybe it’s time for you to bake him a brownie cheesecake.”
***
A few excruciatingly long minutes later, I step out the door to meet Vex—Maverick. I like the new name so much better than the old one. “The gig is up. Mom knows.”
“She told me last night.”
I should be mad at him for not warning me, but I wouldn’t let him utter a word when he walked into my bedroom. “And she knows you snuck in last night.”
“How? My entry was flawless.”
Like I’m going to give away her secrets. I might need some of her tricks later on. “She’s a mother. They know everything.”
“Noted.” He grins down at me. “Why did you come to your parents’ house for the weekend?”
“For the same reason you bought me a frightfully expensive house a few doors down from my parents’, because I want this to be forever. So, I was going to tell her… But she already knew.”
Maverick wraps his arms around me. “That means we don’t have to hide anymore.”
“It does.” I hug him back with a smile.
“So, what would happen if I kiss you right now?”
Hmm, good question. Mom is already planning our wedding. “She’ll probably start decorating a room for her grandchildren.”
“One for every kiss at the front door?” He leans down.
“Possibly.”
“A big family sounds good to me.” Maverick presses his lips to mine as the curtain shuts.
A big family… sounds perfect.
***
The last time I walked up to this doctor’s office, my stomach was full of dread even with my mother at my side. Today is a good day. I’m going in strong enough to handle what needs to be done.
“Where do you think you’re going? ”
Maverick’s voice makes me jump out of my skin.
“There aren’t any general practitioners in this building. They’re all surgeons. Where do you think you’re going without having said a single word to me?”
I spin around to face him. “You said you don’t do doctors.”
“For myself. For you, I do whatever needs to be done. And why exactly are we standing in front of a medical building full of surgeons without you having said a single word to me about it?” He takes two steps forward until he gets right in my face. “Everything. I need to know everything about you so that I can protect and take care of you.”
Isn’t that sweet? “I can take care of myself. And that means going to the doctors on my own whenever I feel the need to.”
“Dahl.” He lets out an exasperated sigh.
The poor man can’t handle even the idea of me being ill. He looks about ready to pass out. “Would you like to come with me today?”
“Yes. Yes, I would.”
“If I hadn’t let you come, would you have asked Shock to hack in and find out what the appointment was about?”
Maverick shrugs. “Probably.”
What am I going to do with this man? Make him a brownie cheesecake and give him some babies. Ever since Temperance talked about Maverick having a family, that’s all I can think about. “You might not like what you’re about to hear. Can you handle it without exploding?”
He takes a long slow breath with his eyes closed, opens them to stare at me for a moment, and takes another breath. “I can.”
“Good. I don’t have time to explain. I’m five minutes late already and doctors get picky about that.”
“They’ll take us,” he mutters under his breath.
The poor doctor is in trouble.
“There’s nothing wrong with me. You don’t need to worry.”
“I’ll worry if I want to. ”
Cute man. How is he going to handle it if one of our imaginary kids gets sick? This is going to be an adventure.
***
“Ms. Fleur, it’s nice to see you again.” The doctor shakes my hand, but his eyes go to Maverick.
“It’s nice to see you, too.” That isn’t actually a polite falsehood. “This is Maverick Steele. We’re together now.”
The doctor shakes Maverick’s hand with only a slight tremble, which is impressive considering the murderous glare he’s receiving.
“So, are you ready to go over the details of your breast reduction surgery and schedule the procedure. Or do you have more questions?”
Maverick’s eyes bulge out of his head. “You aren’t having your breasts cut off.”
My poor guy can’t handle life. “Yet,” I finish for him. “I’ve decided to wait until it’s medically necessary, but I’d like to make arrangements for the therapy you and my mother were talking about to help build up my muscles and avoid it for as long as possible.”
“What are you talking about, cutting off your breasts? The only reason women cut off their breasts is if they have cancer. Do you have cancer? Because, Dahl, cancer is something you should definitely have mentioned. I don’t want you going through any step of that alone.”
The doctor clears his throat. “Breast reduction surgery isn’t part of cancer treatment. Those usually involve reconstruction, not reduction. Ms. Fleur is here about a strictly cosmetic procedure. At some point, due to her body shape, it will become a medically recommended procedure, but that might be years away. ”
What do I say? How do I explain all it means to be a woman with naturally large breasts? A woman who hated them so much, she planned to cut them off rather than look at them again in the mirror.
“We’ll get you set up with some physical therapy. And readdress this issue in the future.” The doctor stands up.
“Thank you,” I whisper before the doctor walks out.
“We’re talking when we get home.”
And my good day just ended. “You’re going to need s’mores.”
Maverick takes my hand in his and squeezes it. “Whatever this was all about, nothing is scarier than thinking about a moment without you.”
Will he really mean that after I come clean?
***
Maverick pulls me to the couch as soon as we step inside his place.
“Shouldn’t we go to the library? Or maybe get some blankets?”
“Talk. Because I need to know why the woman I love was contemplating cutting off her breasts.”
“Reducing them. I wasn’t cutting them off completely.” Though I have thought about it a time or two when things were really bad.
“Dahl.”
“Your stern face is cute.”
“And your attempts at distraction aren’t working.”
I am brave.
I am brave.
Small steps are hard, but I am brave enough to take those steps for a better life. “Promise me you won’t think less of me.”
“Less of you? You’re talking to a man with blood on his hands and you're worried about me thinking less of you.” He stands up and walks away. “Your mother threatened me… She talked about you living through enough and told me I better not hurt you. Is all of this what she was referring to?”
Mom told him my life was hard. “Probably. But it was all of my own making. Can you believe the worst thing that ever happened to me was by my own hand?”
“There’s something worse than being drugged in my bar.”
That should have been the worst day of my life. “You saved me. There was no one there to save me when I ruined my life. Instead, they decided to record it for posterity.”
Vex…Maverick sinks down to his knees in front of me, taking my hands in his. “What happened?”
“I was a stupid kid. Just like millions of other stupid kids around the world every day. At fifteen years old, all I wanted to do was to be one of the cool kids. Being an awkward book nerd didn’t help. When I got invited to a sleepover party at the most popular girl in school’s house I was thrilled, even though I knew it was a pity invite. She was Montgomery’s girlfriend.” Can I do this? Can I really talk about it to him?
“Eyes on me.”
Huh? I look up into his eyes.
“You’re here. You’re safe with me. Whatever happened then is in the past. We are forever. Your mom is planning our children’s names already.”
“If we have a little girl, I’d like to name her after your sister.”
He cups my cheek. “Then that’s what we’ll do. But you need to keep talking so we can move past this, and you can explain to me how vegetable curry is your favorite food.”
That kind of has to do with my story. “The party was just supposed to be a silly teenage thing: music, junk food, and gossip. But someone decided we needed to really make it a party by drinking and dancing outside by her pool. I didn’t bring a suit the same as most of the girls, so we just wore our underwear. It wasn’t supposed to be anything. It was just supposed to be silly fun.” Silly fun .
“Were you raped?”
“No. That I could have blamed on someone else. Even drunk, it would have been their fault. But this was all me. It’s not like I’d never had a drink before. Mom didn’t want it to be something we did because it was the forbidden fruit. I didn’t really like drinking. One or two sips and I’m good. But somehow that night I got stupid drunk. The kind of drunk you only get when you’re in a safe place. I must have thought I was safe. My memory of that night ends after the first sip. But I thought I’d never stop seeing what happened in my mind.”
“Breath in. Breath out. Calm your mind. Focus.”
I do as Maverick says. “Everything was fine until I went to school the next Monday. Then my whole world collapsed. Someone had recorded me dancing at the party. Just me. No one else. I was all alone, dancing with my clothes off.” Why did I do that? “Why did I take them off? Why would I ever take them off? Even then I was shy. Why would I take my clothes off?”
“Someone recorded you dancing naked when you were fifteen?”
I nod.
“Then spread it around your school?”
“Kids and their stupid pranks.” That didn’t feel like a prank. “I wasn’t like those girls you see in movies. You know, the strong ones that just laughed it off. I was weak. And every day I got weaker until it destroyed me. I don’t know if it was the fact that everyone in school saw me naked, that they laughed at me all the time, or that suddenly all the boys thought it would be cool to grab me. Every day I died a little more. Until one day I told my mother I wished I was dead, and if she made me go back, I’d find a way to make it happen. She knew I meant it. I never went back to school. Therapy started that afternoon.”
“Was that what you were afraid of telling me? That you did something stupid as a teenager? I don’t care.”
“My weakness didn’t end there. Through high school, I made some progress, but leaving my house was a struggle. The fear of seeing someone from school ruled my life. But between my mother and my therapist, they convinced me college would be different. The kids would be more mature. They weren’t. They were the same horrible people from high school. I don’t know how it happened, but halfway into the first semester, someone covered the school with pictures from that night. And the video was sent to everyone on campus.” The laughter and leering never stopped. “My mother picked me up that day, and I never left my house. They fixed up the guest house for me to live in as I got older.”
“How did the video get out?”
“We had no idea. Someone from school must have really hated me. For years I hid. It got to the point where I was terrified even to go into my own backyard. I’d stay in the guest house and write. One of Mom’s friends worked at a publishing house. Nepotism got me published, and somehow my books took off. Living in such an insular world, my online writing group was my one source of human contact. My first big step to living a real life was going to a conference like the one I just went to. I’ve made so many small steps now the big ones don’t feel so big anymore. But when I told you I was afraid that if I didn’t go to work, I’d never leave the house, that is still a real fear of mine. It would be so easy to slip back into hiding from the world.”
“I’d never let that happen.”
Foolish man. “You couldn’t stop it. I’m the only one that can fight those battles. You can support me. But I decide how I live.”
“Anything you need, I’ll do. But Dahlia, those pictures mean nothing to me. You were a child.”
“A stupid child that became a weak woman.”
“Don’t say that. The woman sitting in front of me is anything but weak. She fought to have a life. And if you need a break, time to reset and try again, we’ll do that together. Because whatever happened and whatever might happen in the future, I love you and I’m proud of you.”
Small steps feel so big.
“Now about those vegetables…”