Not wanting to acknowledge the truth.
The truth that could so very much scare her.
Because I knew you’d always have to come back there, and if I was there and you were tied to that town, we might one day work it out.
“I don’t know. I guess I just grew up there, and it felt . . . good. I fit there, you know? Maybe I’m like Tony. Maybe the town’s just in my DNA. Can’t escape it.”
I don’t tell her I almost left more times than I can count.
That I had offers for cities. Jersey City and Hoboken both had large agencies desperate for good body guard, and as a man trained by the well respected Joe Thomas, I would have been me in a minute.
But I stayed.
I definitely don’t tell her that anytime I got wind that she might be leaving, anytime she had some job interview out of town, I’d start looking again, ready to put roots somewhere new.
To finally get out of a town where I see her at every corner.
The woman who was both always and never mine.
“Yeah,” she says, and when I look at her, I see it.
She might not be able to admit it, but she feels that pull too.
“Is it your parents?” I ask.
“What?”
“Your parents. Is that what kept you in town? Or close, at least?”
A sick, twisted part hopes for what I know won’t happen, at least not yet.
A part of me hopes that she’ll say it’s not her parents. That it’s me that kept her tethered to the small town she grew up in when she had big, grand dreams.
There’s a sigh, and then she speaks, stirring the tiny spoon in her white ceramic mug.
It clinks on the sides rhythmically, like she’s using it as a metronome to keep her calm.
“Maybe. I guess.” She looks at me and smiles, but it’s not necessarily happy. “Probably. I’m an only child, you know?”
“Doesn’t mean you have to stay where your parents are rooted.” She pauses, furrowing her brow.
“Doesn’t it?”
“You do what makes you happy, Zoe. I guarantee that’s all your parents want.” She tips her head from left to right, mentally weighing her response. Zoe probably has a pros and cons list in her mind for every moment of every day.
“I mean, yes. You’re right. If you asked my parents, that’s definitely what they would say, but the reality is—” I shake my head and cut her off.
“Your parents’ happiness is not your responsibility.”
“I never said—”
“You didn’t have to. I know you better than I know me, Zo. I can see it.”
“You have Luna and Ace. You won’t understand—” I stop her again.
She’s spewing the toxic shit that lives in her mind, and while it’s good to know, good to have a better understanding of how her mind works and how the pressures she’s put on herself functions, this shit ends with me.
“You being an only child does not mean it’s now your job to fulfill any thoughts or dreams or ideals your parents had about their lives.”
“That’s not fair—”
“You’re right. It wouldn’t be fair for you to live a life that doesn’t bring you joy because you think it’s what your parents want of you.” She scrunches her nose and shakes her head, refusing to give in.
“I’m not—”
“You wanted to be an interior designer.”
Silence.
Finally, something that stops her dead in her tracks.
“It wasn’t safe enough. You felt like your dad wasn’t happy with that decision. You switched majors. Let me ask you this—how many moments in your career have you felt fulfilled, Zoe? How many times have you looked at what you’re doing and felt like you made the right choice for you? That you were satisfied with what you were doing every day?”
Silence.
“My dad wanted me to work for the Colemans like he did. He used to say I was built for it, it would be solid and consistent, and I could make good money there. I didn’t want that.”
“But you have siblings, Zander,” she argues.
“What does that even matter?”
“It means your sister owns her own business, and you work for the town, and Ace is in a damn rock band. If you never live up to a single of your parents’ expectations or hopes and dreams, there are other people to pick up the slack.” I stare at her, and my heart hurts.
She really believes that.
“I, on the other hand, am the only one to make my parents feel like they did well.”
“Your parents' life fulfillment is not hinging on your career choices,” I say, my words lower now.
“But isn’t it?” she asks, her eyes moving to the table where she spilled some sugar, her fingers drawing lines in it.
“It’s not, Zoe. And I guarantee your parents would be pissed as fuck to find out you’ve been living in misery to try and impress them.”
“Stop. I’m not living in misery.”
“You aren’t happy, though.”
“I am.” I sigh and roll my eyes.
She’s so fucking stubborn.
“Fine. Then, you’re not as happy as you could be.” She stares at me. “If you close your eyes, if you could redo life and ensure that whatever field or path you chose succeeded in a way that your parents would never shut up about how great you are, what would you do?”
White teeth bite into a pink lip.
I want to bite that lip.
Not the time, Davidson.
It’s definitely not the time when her eyes move to me and for the first time since we left, I see honesty there.
“Something creative.”
“Not marketing?” She sighs.
“Probably not. I mean, maybe if I was in some art department or something, but creative work doesn’t pay the way management does in the corporate world. And it’s not stable. It’s so closely linked to sales, and if you don’t get them, you’re out of a job.”
“Stability doesn’t always equate to happiness or fulfillment, Zoe.”
She doesn’t answer, her finger continuing to play in that sugar, and I instinctively know there’s no more to say.
She needs to steep on it.
“I want you to take one thing from this week,” I say. It’s a lie, of course. There are many things I want Zoe to take from this trip, including me.
Including being mine.
But if she doesn’t, if that’s just not in the cards for us, but then she leaves with a new perspective that pulls her to happiness, I’ll be satisfied.
“I want you to think about where your life has been and where it’s heading and what would make you happy. When you die, do you want your legacy to be marketing? Your parents won’t be here forever, Zoe. What happens when you spend your life living for them, and then they’re gone? Who will you live for then?” She blinks at me.
“You don’t have to respond. Just think about that.”
I think she might speak, argue, or something, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she nods.
“Okay, Zee,” she says, and I’m calling that a win.
As I’m staring off, lost in thought, thinking about all the ways I’d like to give Zoe a future that would fulfill her, something soft hits me in the face, and Zoe giggles. When I look over, she’s smiling, a straw still to her lips.