46. Romantic Loser
Romantic Loser
Desdemona
The American spring is resplendent: flowers in full bloom, blue skies stretching endlessly, an open window to the cosmos beyond.
Birds sing and bees hum, flitting from blossom to blossom.
Our Hamptons house is so close to the sea you can hear the distant rush of the surf, the ocean’s lungs breathing in and out.
And I can’t bring myself to enjoy a second of it.
I’m like a shark that can’t stop moving, except that if I stop moving, instead of dying, I’ll think of Elias—which is worse.
So I spend my first day back home making plans.
Scheduling my exam resits in the fall, scheduling revision sessions.
Planning activities, tennis and swimming with Dad, sailing with the twins, spending time with Ophelia.
I make calls to Dad’s office, asking if they might be interested in letting me intern over the summer, so that I can at least work while I wait for my exams. I create and colour-code a revision timetable, create flashcards, organise my books and notes.
On the second day, though, I’ve got nothing left to do, nothing left to plan.
I go for a swim, then for a long walk with our golden retriever, Evie, who was named by Ophelia when she was a little girl by mushing Dad’s name with Mum’s.
I read books, waiting for the rest of the family to get home.
Dad’s the only one who’s already here, but he seems happy to relax and enjoy the last days of quiet before the twins come back and the house inevitably fills back up with members of the Spearcrest clan and their kids.
But Dad is so relaxed that it only makes my restless energy feel worse.
On the third day, I go into the city to visit Aunt Willow at her tattoo parlour, Styx Ink.
I specifically go in on her lunch break, and accidentally walk in on her and Uncle Luca making out with abandon.
Aunt Willow’s propped on the black marble reception counter, and Uncle Luca’s between her legs, one hand on her thigh beneath her short black skirt, and they’re making out hard and wet, Willow’s hand closed tight around a handful of his hair.
“Aren’t you guys too old for this?” I exclaim, turning around to face the door I’ve just come from. A mistake, because even though I can no longer see their disgusting display, I can still hear the wet sucking sound of them pulling away from each other. “For god’s sake, please stop.”
“My favourite niece!” Willow exclaims. She sounds totally unashamed, and in fact, I don’t even think she’s capable of feeling shame at all. “If you think this is bad,” she smirks, sauntering over to me to give me a hug, “you’d hate to see what your parents are like when you kids aren’t around.”
“Ugh, please, don’t!” I cover my ears.
Luca shrugs, and I can see the way his eyes follow Willow as she walks over to the little kitchen nook to make me a drink with her fancy coffee machine. Luca looks at Willow like he’d want nothing more than to drink her blood straight from her gaping heart and devour her soul right out of her body.
Their love for each other should feel grotesque, but it’s almost enviable—to love someone so openly, so shamelessly, that you don’t care who sees it, that it doesn’t even occur to you to feel shame for it.
“Heard about your expulsion,” Luca says when he finally manages to wrench his eyes off Willow. He crosses his arms and raises a pale eyebrow. “Need me to disappear some people?”
“They’ll probably be wishing for death once Sophie is done with them,” Willow smirks, handing me a frothy cappuccino with a little skull made of chocolate powder. “Expulsion, huh?” There’s a satisfied grin on her face. “I’m so proud of you, sweetie.”
Spending the afternoon with them is a welcome distraction, but seeing them together doesn’t make me feel better: to my complete embarrassment, it just makes me miss Elias more.
Because the truth is: I want to be the one propped on a reception counter making out loudly with Elias.
I want his eyes on me when I move away from him, his hand finding my waist whenever I’m close enough to touch. I want him with me, right now—and until we are as old as Willow and Luca, mortifying our own kids with our displays of affection.
And it feels insane to want this, it feels foolish and desperate and reckless. Like something I’m not allowed to do.
But I do anyway.
On the fifth day, I’m sitting at the kitchen counter, books spread open in front of me, trying to concentrate on my studies, clicking the tip of my pen in and out and in and out and in and out and—
“Enough.”
I start violently as the pen is ripped out of my grasp. Dad’s big arms appear in my field of vision as he unceremoniously closes all my books and notebooks.
“Dad! I’m studying!”
“No, you’re not.” He shoves the books aside and claps his hands. “You’re just biding time.”
I glare at him. “If you let me start my internship early, I could be working instead of—”
“You’re not doing the internship,” he says bluntly. He takes me by the hand, like I’m five years old once more, and drags me out through the thrown-open doors to the patio. “I love you, my daughter, but working in an office with you would be hell on earth, and I’m not putting myself through it.”
“What?” My voice comes out strained with outrage. “I’d be an exemplary employee, actually!”
“Oh, no, I know that. You’d be perfect, absolutely perfect, and that’s the problem.
It’s too much pressure.” He lets go of my hand when we reach the small clubhouse by the tennis court.
He shoves the door open and reemerges a second later with rackets and a bucket of balls. “You know what the truth is, Dess?”
I cross my arms. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“Don’t give me sass, young lady. The truth is that I’m glad you got yourself excluded.”
I stop in my tracks. “What?”
“I know, I know, I shouldn’t encourage bad behaviour, and you’re still grounded, I think—I’m not sure what that entails, but—”
He sighs.
“From the day you were born, the only thing I’ve ever, ever wanted was your happiness.
You can’t understand what that’s like, seeing your own newborn child; you were so small, and your hair looked like white cotton candy.
And I had this feeling inside my chest that I can’t even explain, and I knew right there and then that the most important thing was to make sure you’d be safe, and, no matter what, happy. ”
As he speaks, we’ve both folded ourselves down, sitting on the edge of the tennis court. Dad’s blue eyes, catching the sunlight, are illuminated like magic stones.
“When you were a little girl, you used to laugh so much. You were always smiling. My little sunshine child. It didn’t make the feeling in my chest go away—it made it worse.
I wanted so badly to make sure you’d always smile, always laugh.
That you’d want for nothing, that you’d always thrive.
And then your siblings came along and you loved them so much, so fiercely, and I think maybe you felt a little bit of what I felt, the need to make them happy, too. ”
His expression darkens, and he gazes off in the direction of the sea.
“You started school and you’d bring drawings to show us, then schoolwork.
Then it was good grades, top grades, full grades.
Trophies and awards and sports medals. All to make us happy, but the entire time, you weren’t smiling as much.
You started laughing only rarely. And I didn’t know what to do about it, and then you started at Spearcrest, and I wasn’t even close enough to you to make sure you were happy at school.
I hoped you were. All I knew about school was that you were excelling.
Perfect grades. Perfect attendance. Perfect behaviour.
Accolades and awards; prefect then head girl.
And those were all amazing things, but none of those things told me you were happy. ”
He swallows. His voice has grown low and rough, like he’s speaking through a lump in his throat.
“And then I saw you over the Christmas holidays, with that boyfriend of yours. Elias—not at all the kind of boy you usually date. A foster kid, a scholarship kid. And the first thing I noticed is that he was always smiling, always laughing. Such a sad goddamn life, and you would never have guessed in a million years. I couldn’t help but respect him—but I loved him from the moment I saw you with him.
The way all the weight seemed to have lifted from your shoulders.
The way he laughed in your face and you laughed right back, almost grudgingly, like you didn’t want to but couldn’t help it.
It reminded me so much of your mom when she was your age. ”
He turns back and looks at me with a rueful smile. For the first time, I have the strange, unsettling feeling that I’m not just looking at my father, but a separate human being. Someone just like me, who was eighteen once, who made mistakes and fell in love.
Someone real and flawed and fragile as we all are, someone who might stay up at night scared that something bad might happen to people he loves.
“Dad…” I say.
He sounds more serious than I’ve ever heard him in my entire life. Serious and earnest and sincere.
“I’m glad you got yourself expelled, Dess, and I’m not ashamed of saying it.
All you’ve done, since you were a little girl, is try to make us happy.
And somewhere along the way, you started to believe you had to be perfect to do so.
And we allowed you to believe it. But you don’t need to be perfect—not even a little bit.
Your mother and I couldn’t have been further from perfect when we met and when we fell in love.
We’re not even perfect now. We’re a mess, a humble human mess, and we love each other anyway.
And we love you too, no matter how many mistakes you make, or will make.
I love you no matter what, Dess. I love you without rules or expectations or conditions, and I love you even more for your imperfections. ”
For a moment, we stare at one another under the golden sun, the wide-open sky, which is the same colour as Dad’s eyes. My favourite colour.
Hot tears roll down my cheeks; I didn’t even realise I started crying.
“You know what Elias said to me, one time, about love?”
Dad tilts his head and smiles, waiting.
“He said that you love someone not because they deserve it, but because they don’t. He said that’s how you love someone properly.”
Dad nods, a grin dawning on his mouth.
“He said that? Must’ve blown your mind, huh?”
“I thought he was being cynical.”
“But that wasn’t cynical, was it?”
Dad stands and helps me up. He lays his hand over my head.
Despite how tall I’ve grown over the years, I still manage to feel small in his presence, like I’m the little girl he used to carry on his shoulders down to the beach.
“Smart kid, your Elias. Is that why you love him so much?”
I nod, throat suddenly tight. “I miss him, Dad. I miss him so much.”
“My Desdemona,” Dad says, laughing softly.
“Crying over a boy?” And before I can protest, he pulls me roughly into his arms, hugs me like a bear holding its cub, big hand ruffling my hair.
“You might be as smart and beautiful as your mom, but deep down, you’re just a big romantic loser like your dad. ”
I muffle a denial, but it’s buried in his chest as he holds me tight, and I don’t repeat it.