25 #3
He wasn’t trying to prove anything to the Hollywood influencers and power players. That was just an excuse. He simply hadn’t wanted to admit the truth to himself or anyone else. Not even Maria, the one person who’d probably understood that truth long ago, without his having to tell her.
Because if he admitted it, he also had to admit that he still cared what his father thought of him, after more than two decades
of estrangement, and he didn’t want to care. Caring made him feel like that helpless child again, unable to make his dad even
look at him, much less understand him and his choices.
It was pathetic, and he hated himself for it, and the realization should probably send him back to therapy for a while. But
it was the truth.
He was still trying to prove he was worth something.
He was still trying to prove he’d been right to leave.
He was still trying to prove things that shouldn’t have needed proving in the first place. Even if they had, twenty-one years
of staying afloat in Hollywood—no, thriving in Hollywood—and six years of creating a new, tight circle of loyal, loving friends should have already proved them. To his father. To himself.
So why was he still listening to his dad’s voice in his head?
And if he didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, what kind of life did he actually want ? What would make him genuinely happy?
Did he even know?
Because he’d told Maria he did. He’d told himself and her and everyone else that he’d dreamed of having a multimillion-dollar
home in an exclusive gated community from the start. That he’d always yearned for high-profile, well-compensated roles on
shows like Gods of the Gates and FTI .
But that was a lie too. When he’d moved to LA, he’d simply wanted to make a living doing projects he found worthwhile.
He’d wanted love as well. He’d needed it, ached for it. Love and friendship and a family.
And over the course of six glorious years, Maria had given them to him, one by one.
Before she’d begun her quiet but relentless campaign to connect him with his colleagues on a personal level, he’d been respected
in Hollywood. Considered hardworking and professional. But no one especially liked him, and why would they? How could they
even claim to know him, when he barely said a word to them off camera?
People had known he was a good actor. They hadn’t known whether he was a good man.
That question still didn’t have a definitive answer, did it?
Because when Maria, the woman who’d lit his lonely life and filled it with joy and companionship, had told him what she needed,
what would make her happy, he’d heard her.
But he hadn’t listened.
Just like his father.
Maria hadn’t just told him once, either. She’d told him multiple times in multiple ways. At Alex’s charity event, when she’d
shaken her head and said she didn’t know how a long-distance relationship could work for anyone. On the island, where she’d
woven a disparate group of people into a loving, supportive community, a very real sort of family, and not simply because
he’d needed that family and maybe everyone else had too. She’d needed it.
She’d told him with all those regular, lengthy FaceTime calls with her siblings and parents, so many he’d marveled at the
likely cost of their data plans. Even before he’d met the Ivarssons in person, only an idiot could have missed how important
family was to her existence.
Then he had met them. And for the first time in his life, he saw how a functional family could work.
How everyone could repair chinks in each other’s armor, always knowing their own vulnerabilities would be shielded in return whenever necessary.
How affection could be freely offered, and needing that affection wasn’t a source of shame or weakness.
How people with very different personalities could still respect and appreciate one another.
He also saw how comfortable and content Maria became when the people she loved surrounded her. Then she’d sat surrounded by
him , cradled in his arms, between his legs, and literally opened the most painful reaches of her past to him in the form of a
family photo album. The stories she told, the pictures she showed him, had exposed her vulnerabilities so starkly, he’d sat
stunned behind her, touched and terrified and shaken to his core. Because from that moment forward, she was trusting him to
shield those vulnerabilities, to keep her safe, in the same way she trusted her family—and no one else in the world. Just
the Ivarssons and... him.
That first photo they’d taken of her would haunt him for the rest of his damn life.
The little girl in the plastic sleeve looked like Maria. Sturdy. Tall. Same features. Same hair. But the Maria he knew sparkled
and shone, lit from within by joy, by warmth and humor and confidence and a determination to confront the world on its own
terms without ever losing herself in the process.
Any light in the photo of that child came from the camera flash or the sun. Not from her. There wasn’t a single spark of warmth
in her shuttered expression or those hard, suspicious brown eyes.
She was a young Medusa, powerful and angry and weary of a world that hurt her and hurt her again for no reason, and the chilly
boldness of her stare should have turned that world and everyone in it to stone. But it didn’t.
So she’d turned herself to stone instead, because stone couldn’t grieve.
Except in the most basic of ways, she looked nothing like the Maria of today. She looked, in fact, much like Peter had in photos until approximately six years ago.
If she got him in a way no one else had, maybe that was why. She’d been a version of him once. Unlike her, though, he’d had
no Ivarssons in his life to insistently chip away at his veneer, then return him to the world protected by something far warmer
than stone. At least, not until Maria Ivarsson arrived at an LA sauna, wearing only a small red bikini, and cracked his impenetrable
facade before she even began trying.
The little girl in the picture wasn’t his Maria. Not yet. Her cold eyes were a silent testament to that, and to all the betrayal
and loss she’d already endured at eight years old. Once he’d heard her story, he’d seen it written in her picture.
That story and that picture had broken his heart.
But he still hadn’t understood. Preoccupied by his own needs, his own desires, his own demons, he still hadn’t fucking understood .
Maria might not be a child anymore, but that child still existed within her somewhere, and she remembered all too clearly.
One after another, the people she loved had left her alone among strangers.
And he’d intended to do the same. For a job he didn’t even fucking want .
If he’d ever loathed himself more, he didn’t remember when.
In that convention hotel room, she’d sobbed .
He’d failed to listen, informed her that he intended to re-create the worst horrors of her life, and then fucking raged at her when she’d balked. So there she’d been, perched uncomfortably on a too-small upholstered armchair, bent over and huddled
in on herself, hiding behind her fucking hands as hoarse, broken sobs wrenched from her throat and convulsed her body.
Because of him. Entirely because of him.
He’d done that to the woman he loved more than anyone and anything in this world.
And even then, she’d kept trying to explain to him how she felt, what she needed, again and again, in different words, using
different arguments, hoping he’d get it. Finally, finally get it. But he simply couldn’t comprehend how the life he wanted—told
her he wanted; thought he wanted; tried to convince himself he wanted—would make her miserable, even if she loved him. Which
she did. Only a fool would claim otherwise.
His father should be proud. His boy had grown up to be just like him.
If his mother could have seen him in that hotel room, what would she have thought of him? Why hadn’t he been listening to
her voice in his head all these years? Because Dad hadn’t understood him, hadn’t known how to love him in a selfless way, but
she had. And if he’d thought about it, he’d have known exactly what she would have wanted for him.
Not prestige or fame. She didn’t care about that. Not an expensive house, clearly, since she’d willingly abandoned their spacious
family home for a dingy apartment and never looked back.
No, she’d want him to have creative work he found satisfying and a partner who loved him as he was and would help him be the
man he needed to be.
That was all. That was everything.
And he’d already had it. Then let it walk out the door.
He hoped his blue cupboard was never this soiled again. Digging it out was going to require one hell of a shovel, and Maria
might never agree that he’d gotten it clean enough to earn her forgiveness.
But he had to try.
When the screen went dark and the lights in the theater came on again, he barely noticed.
Applause. Another short speech. More applause. More small talk. Handshakes. Exits.
Then it was over, thank fuck, and Nava and Ramón walked him to his car. He embraced them. Promised to call and visit soon.
Thanked them for coming. Then drove away.
He hoped like hell they’d caught the sincerity of his gratitude, because he quite frankly had no idea what he’d said to them.
Logistics had been occupying his entire brain, and making pleasant conversation wasn’t exactly his forte at the best of times.
But he’d make it up to them back in LA, and when they needed his patience and forbearance, he’d offer it. Gladly. It was what families did.
He knew that now. Thanks to Maria.