I smile. “I’m not either.”
He taps my nose. “Then let’s go.”
“All right,” I laugh. “Be ready to see my crazy in all its glory.”
We get in the car and make our way south to Normal, Illinois, where nothing about my life was normal. Westin asks questions about my childhood and I do my best to warn him about my father. Daddy is a protective man by nature, but when it comes to me, he’s a little past crazy and borders on insanity.
“Scared yet?” I ask as we’re entering the county limits.
“I’ve dealt with you for two years, Ren. Nothing scares me anymore.”
I slap his chest and laugh. “Jerk.”
“It’s fine, once I meet your dad, and he realizes how good I am for you, it’ll be just a matter of time.” Westin pushes back in the seat with a self-assured smile.
“Until what?” I challenge him.
“Until you realize how good I am for you.”
“Is that so?”
He looks over, grips my hand in his, and laces our fingers. “Two years of waiting for the perfect moment to make the move has me pretty damn sure. I’m a surgeon who would never make a cut I wasn’t sure would heal right.”
I roll my eyes and snort. “Surgical talk about relationships?”
“I figured you’d appreciate that one,” he laughs.
“You really know the way to my heart. Nothing says romance like scalpels and stitches.”
“Let’s be real, we both know that the idea of surgery is a turn on for people like us,” Westin challenges.
He’s not wrong. There’s a thrill in knowing you are in control of life and death in that moment. The patient can’t advocate, you have to make the tough calls, and if things go down a bad road, you fix it. I love the power I feel over myself more than anything. I can’t get excited or flustered. I need to be composed and ready to handle whatever gets thrown at me. I’m very good under pressure—well, at least in the operating room.
“So if I talk about the weight of the scalpel and the bright light that hangs above you,” I drop my voice to sound seductive. “Does that turn you on?”
He shifts a little. “Nope.”
I lean close, taking the tip of my finger and running it around his ear. “Really? You wouldn’t want to tear my clothes off if I said something about the way everyone’s eyes are on you when you take the blade to someone’s skin the first time? How every breath is being held because you’re about to start . . . surgery?” My voice is barely a whisper while my lips graze across his skin.
Westin’s pupils dilate, but he keeps his eyes on the road. “You really want to play this game as we’re getting close to your dad’s house?”
I giggle and move back to my seat. “Well, here’s one more thing about you to catalog. Surgery turns you on.”
We enter the town of Normal and my nerves hit me. I have no idea how bad things are at my father’s house. I worry that once Wes sees the real truth about who I am and what I come from, he’ll look down on me, or his family will. It won’t matter that I’m a doctor now, and don’t need their money. I’ll still be the white trash girl from Illinois who has more student loans than she can manage. I’ll never be good enough because I’m poor, and rich guys don’t love poor girls.
Westin grew up in an affluent family. They go to church on Sunday, have big Christmas dinners, and he doesn’t know what it’s like to struggle. I don’t want anyone to judge my family.
“There’s an opening in the cornfield right up there, turn right,” I direct him.
I wanted to drive up here, but Westin was adamant we take his car. I bet he’s regretting it now, based on the sound of rocks clanging against the paint on his very expensive Tesla.
The house comes into view after the bend, and I try to see it through someone else’s eyes. It’s a small white farmhouse in desperate need of paint. The shutters are missing from the one window, and my brother’s motorcycle sits by the front steps. And then there’s the washing machine that broke five years ago that currently serves as a lawn ornament. Over on the other side is a scarecrow sculpture I made in high school. And apparently Everton hasn’t mowed the lawn in about three years.
We look like hillbillies.
I close my eyes, inhale, and look to Wes for the judgment I’m sure will come.
Instead, Westin just takes my hand. “Let’s go meet your dad.”
“It wasn’t always like this,” I say quickly.
His head jerks back. “What?”
“The house,” I explain. “It was once beautiful. My mother would’ve never let it look this run down. She would’ve kicked their asses until they cleaned it up. I just don’t have the time to come up here as much as I should. That’s why it looks like we’re poor and a mess.”
This is just another example of me not being able to hold it all together.
“Ren,” Westin says and waits for me to look at him. I slowly lift my eyes to his. “I don’t care about any of this. I care about you, and my first thought when we pulled up was: I bet they had fun growing up on this farm. My house was a museum. We weren’t allowed to touch anything or build a tin man.” He points to my scarecrow. “I would’ve sold my left arm to have a place where we could just . . . be.”
How is it that he sees the house the way I once saw it? It was my happy place. I could be whoever I wanted to be when I was on this land. I was a grease monkey who loved to sew clothes, equal parts my father and mother. Each day here was an adventure with two loving parents who nurtured whatever it was we were passionate about.
My gaze moves back to the same house and instead of focusing on the washing machine, trash, and overgrown lawn, I see the tire swing in the tree. I’m hit by memories of Everton and me trying to swing each other high enough to make the other puke. A little farther over is the tree my mother and I planted on my fifth birthday. Each year, she’d take me out there for a photo. That tree is huge now, and we grew together.
This land was more than just a place we lived, it’s home.
“Thank you.” I move in and press my lips to his. “Thank you for reminding me that I was looking at this place I love without seeing it the way it really is. I was so nervous you would judge me, or my family, because you didn’t grow up like this. I wore thrift store jeans, and I made my own dresses.”
“Just because we grew up different doesn’t mean either one was better, babe. Yeah, I had nice things and a new car at sixteen, but I had demands and expectations. There was no tire swing. It was fencing lessons. I didn’t get to climb trees, I had to climb to the top of the class with grades. I fucking hated my life.”
“I’m sorry I predetermined how you’d see me.”
Westin’s smile is warm and comforting. “I think we’ve all been judged enough. With me, you don’t have to worry about that.” It seems like I’ve been doing the same in regards to him.
I touch his cheek. “I’m a lucky woman, aren’t I?”
“I’m glad you’re finally seeing it. Come on, let’s get inside,” he nudges.
We exit the car and my father steps out onto the porch.