Page 59 of I'm Not Yours
The home was two stories and the quintessential beach house, with shutters and shingles, the view of the ocean from the floor-to-ceiling windows incredible. Inside, it was modern with wood floors, an open floor plan, and two fireplaces.
“What . . .” I called. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going into my house.” He smiled. My heart flittered. “I’ve rented it for eight weeks.”
“You rented that house.” I pointed at it dumbly. “That one. Right there. You rentedthathouse?”
“Yes, I did. For eight weeks.”
“For eight weeks?”
“Fifty-six days, give or take.”
Oh, no. This was going to be a problem. “So I’m going to see you, then?”
“Yes. If you want to. I suppose you could always close your eyes when you saw me. Drive blindly down the street, run frommy presence screaming, wear a bag over your head to hide, but neighbors do usually cast eyes on each other occasionally.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Damned you won’t be. I’m positive of that. Thanks for going to lunch, June.”
He turned to open his front door. I didn’t move.
The Greek god was living next door to me.
Oh, man. This was not gonna be good.
Or, maybe . . . it was going to be good.
Very good.
No, it wouldn’t be good. It couldn’t be good. When he knew the truth about my life, we’d be done.
And I had to tell him.
That I knew.
I’d met Grayson when I was working as an attorney.
I became an attorney because I wanted to fit in with The Establishment.
I wanted to be “normal.”
I didn’t want to be poor, I didn’t want to travel around in an old VW bus, I didn’t want handmade clothes, I didn’t want to live in communes or hippie colonies or on farms with no electricity or plumbing.
So, at eighteen, as a rebellious teenager who decided she wanted to live a “normal American life,” I attended a top-tier college on a full-ride scholarship. The college was apparently impressed with how much we had traveled, my fluency in Spanish, and my SAT scores, which were near perfect, comparable to my brother’s and sisters’ scores, a reflection of our parents’ skills as educators.
I missed my family. I loved them. I cried every night for weeks.
But I was going to be Someone. I wasn’t going to be on the fringe of society anymore, I was going tobesociety. I wasn’t going to have long, messy hair and wear rainbow colors, or the tartans of our Scottish clan, and dance at midnight. I was going to be fashionable and mainstream.
In my quest to be Someone, I gave up sewing, a hobby that had brought me a sense of delight and accomplishment, and a camaraderie with my family. I powered through college, powered through law school, graduating second in my class. The valedictorian was Mindy Shadow horse, who lived on a reservation in between her stints at school. She is now a state supreme court judge, the youngest ever in her state. She is my best friend outside my family.
I was hired to work as an attorney under crushing student loans and soul-sucking stress. I worked seventy-plus hours a week for five years. I made a lot of money and paid off my student loans at the end of those years.
Grayson was a partner in a hard-charging law firm on the floor below me. We met in the elevator. I thought he was sleekly, cooly handsome and successful. He had plans, he had ambitions. We would not be traveling around in a VW bus. We dated for six fast months and got married.
I then had what I thought I wanted: Normalcy. I had all the outward stuff that said, “You fit in. You belong. You’ve arrived. You’re successful. You’re respectable. No VW bus for you.” I wanted to be normal.
