Page 53 of Suits and Spark Plugs

His voice dropped and he lowered his hand to the table. “Like a beautiful, talented, warm, and kind young woman who is throwing her life away in a backwards town with a—and I hate to say this—trashy family when she could break the cycle and be so much more.”

I bit my lip as fury rose in my chest and a sharp and stinging retort begged for release. It took a few breaths, but I viciously clamped it down before saying, “Trash? Is that how you see me?”

“You? No. You’re incredible. You have no idea how lovely you are. You have so much potential that you don’t seem to see. You’re not intentionally throwing your life away. You sincerely believe you’re doing what’s best, but from where I’m standing, you’re making some big mistakes. I could elevate you from it all if you’d allow it.”

I nodded. “I see. What would your wise and professional opinion be on how I fix that?”

He either didn’t sense the sarcasm or chose to ignore it as he pushed on, blue eyes seeming to grow brighter. “You need to cut ties with your family and look out for yourself.”

“Is that so easy to do?”

He leaned back and shrugged as he took a bite of his food. The sudden shift in his mannerisms was baffling. “Not always. I can take you under my wing until you learn to stand on your own two feet. Sometimes necessary things are the hardest.”

I focused hard on my food, until I could count every noodle, wanting nothing more than to shove my chopstick up his nostril. “I am not beneath you. I do not need you to elevate me, or to break any cycles.” I looked up to find him still chewing. My arms felt numbed by rage. “I can’t help but wonder why you’d bother dating someone so in need of rescue.”

“You’re worth saving. I want to marry you someday, when you’re ready. I think together we could do great things.”

I had just taken a sip of my water and now I choked, covering my mouth with my napkin as I worked to recover. “Married?” I managed to wheeze.

“You’re surprised by that?”

“Yes. The more we’re learning about each other, the more we’re appallingly different. Marriage doesn’t seem like the next topic of conversation.”

“Growing pains, babe. As relationships shift and change there’s bound to be some irritation and bumping up against each other. We’ll settle in to an even better normal once we scrape away the rough edges.”

“Why do we have to scrape at each other?”

“In order to mold into one. That’s what marriage is all about.”

My mind flashed back to the discussion with Connor the night before, about how love shouldn’t mean trying so hard to change the other person. My heartbeat felt heavy in my chest, and I knew my face was becoming flushed. “Can’t two become one without reshaping each other? Can’t we each be who we are, tethered together by mutual respect, affection, and genuine acceptance?”

“Are you honestly saying you’d change nothing about me if we were married?” He asked the question so matter-of-factly that I saw for the first time that he thought nothing of trying to change people, including himself.

“I’m honestly saying that when I do get married, I hope it’s to someone who I don’t want to change and who doesn’t want to change me.”

He scoffed. “Good luck with that. Everyone wants their partner to change, even if it’s something small. Full acceptance is a myth.”

“I don’t agree. I fully accept my family, with all their faults and flaws, and still love them.”

“Do you?” He was tense now, leaning forward to spear me with a glance.

“Yes.”

“Well, could have fooled me. You’ve never said so.”

The barb took my breath away, but I pushed on, hoping he couldn’t see how it had affected me. “Then I have some work to do. But that work will not be going home and telling them how they have to behave in order to make me happy. That work will be in going home and learning to look for the good.”

“That’s pretty idealistic speech.” He laughed, but it was without humor.

I tilted my head to the side and looked closely at him, peeling away the layers of who I’d wanted to see. “Interesting that it took so long for us to really see each other,” I finally said. I folded my napkin over my uneaten food and prepared to stand.

His expression remained calm. “No, Olivia, I’ve seen you all along. My mistake was in thinking you’d ever be more than a poor girl from a hick town.”

I took a deep breath and willed back a tide of tears as his words turned cruel. Not tears of sadness, but tears of indignation. Here he was telling me I was trash, when he was the one acting like it. It made it much easier to do what I’d come here to do and walk away without a backward glance.

“At lease we agree on one thing: We have no future together. Not only do you think I’m a joke, but you want me to uproot everything and follow the perfect path you’ve laid out. The only person who can choose my perfect path is me.”

His face flushed a little, contrasting against his light skin, and I couldn’t honestly tell if it was from anger or hurt. “I feel sorry for you, Olivia. You truly don’t understand what it means to be a part of a team, and I shouldn’t be surprised, because what’s best for you is how it’s always been.”

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