Page 35 of Don't Remind Me
Not with her.
This at least I could have.
I took a few more bites of the dessert, leaving most of it for her, and by the time it was gone, so were the rest of the customers. Isabelle came over with the check, and I grabbed it off the table before Dani could reach it.
“Let me pay half,” she insisted, palm open on the table for me to hand her the bill.
“No,” I said simply.
“I owe you for the paintings.”
I fished out my card and placed it in the folder. “It’s not like I bought and donated them myself. Plus, it was my idea to order the whole menu.” And as far as I was concerned, she’d never pay for another meal in my presence.
She studied me for a moment before leaning back in defeat. “Fine. I’ll just find another way to repay you.”
More than one idea flashed through my mind, and I reminded myself for the dozenth time since we sat down that no version of tonight ended with her bare skin against mine.
Isabelle came to grab my card. I left her a big tip, and we headed out, reemerging onto the sidewalk. The air had cooled a little, still warmer than the AC inside the restaurant, but no longer muggy.
“Let me walk you home,” I said. I didn’t like the idea of her being out here alone at night, no matter how safe the area was. Plus, I wasn’t ready for the night to end just yet.
She nodded with a soft smile, and we started down the empty sidewalk. We took several steps in comfortable silence, just the dull clacking of her shoes on the concrete.
I glanced her way. “Can I ask you something?”
Her arms swung easily at her sides, her body seeming more relaxed than earlier in the night. I shoved my hands in my pockets to stop from clasping her hand in mine.
“Shoot,” she said.
“It’s about something you said at the gallery, about your dad missing things outside the lens.” She’d said it quietly, almost like she hadn’t realized she was saying it out loud. Like she normally wouldn’t have, bottling it up instead behind the composed mask she showed the world. But the mask had slipped, and I’d seen it. “What did you mean by that?”
She took a deep breath. “That was…maybe not fair of me to say. His job wasn’t the only reason he was distant.” She looked up and explained, “My parents are divorced. I was thirteen, and it wasbothof them putting their jobs before their marriage that caused it to fail.”
It sounded like maybe they had both put their jobs before their daughter too, but I stayed quiet.
“Because my dad travels so much for work, it made sense for me to live with my mom full time, and it got to the point where I only really saw him once or twice a year. Mostly at Christmas. If he had a show in the area.”
She let out a chuckle, but disappointment weighed it down.
“The few times we’d talk on the phone, it was usually about his next project or the one he’d just finished, and it began to feel like the only way he’d ever see me was if I was in front of his camera.” She shrugged a shoulder. “And I didn’t tend to be his subject of choice.”
Irritation flared in my chest, along with an ache of recognition I’d buried long ago.
I knew that feeling.
Of not being seen by your parents. Of feeling like the only way they’d ever relate to you was if you were something or someone different.
“What about your mom? Are you close with her?”
She let out a hard sigh. The same one I’d used a hundred times in the context of my own mother.
“She’s not exactly a gentle personality. It’s served her well in her career, running board rooms and landing executive positions. But the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve come to accept that we just don’t have much in common.”
I tried to swallow against the knot of longing in my throat that still hoped the same wasn’t true for my family, despite the part of me that had decided a long time ago it was. A more stubborn part of me was determined to keep trying. “Do you still see them for Christmas?”
She shook her head. “I stopped going home to Pittsburgh for the holidays during college. It was a long way to travel from Connecticut, and it was easier to just stay at school for breaks or go home with friends.” She shot me a glance. “That was actually how we first met.”
I gave a blank stare.
