I can be a better person here.
“Part of me is always going to love you,” I say, because it’s true. The memories I have of our early life together are good. Now that I no longer feel such vicious anger and bitterness toward him, I can look back on those times fondly. But it’s a closed chapter for me. “You were a central part of my life for a long time. And I’m not going to lie, when—when we separated, it was really hard for me. I struggled to rediscover myself and what I wanted. Being single after being part of a couple for so long was a challenge I wasn’t prepared for. But I found my feet, and I realized a few things about us. A relationship usually takes compromise and commitment, but neither party should feel like they have to sacrifice, like they have to live a life that doesn’t suit them. We’ve both changed as we’ve gotten older, and even though we might have still loved each other, we didn’t want the same things anymore. We wanted to live different lives. I didn’t want to be as social anymore, and that meant that you were stuck with a party pooper every time we went out, or we stayed home—or you had to go out on your own. That’s not fair for you.” Or for me.
His jaw sets stubbornly. “I want to be with you.”
Ugh. “Why?” I ask bluntly. Time to take off the kid gloves. “Because you don’t want to be alone? Because you want a story to spin for the media so they’ll forget about what Reynolds did? It doesn’t work that way, Rick.”
I may as well have punched him in the gut. He looks devastated. I soften my tone a little. “It’s not easy to start again, but you’re a strong person, Rick. You have friends. You have a solid career and a great professional reputation. You’re good-looking. And now you’re single. Take advantage of this great opportunity.”
For a long moment, he stares at me, and I’m sure he’s going to keep arguing.
Then he sighs and flops back in his chair. “It’s just so fucking tough, you know?” He runs a hand through his hair, and now I’m looking at the real Rick, not the fake suitor who’s been haunting me for the past week. “Everywhere I go lately, people look and me with sympathy, or they snigger and point.”
“Someone’s bound to do something newsworthy soon,” I assure him. “Just ride it out until the next celebrity scandal, and then you can get back to your regular life.”
He brightens. “True. I guess I’ve just never been the patient type.” He looks around. “Are you really happy here, Jase? Because it’s kind of cool, but in a short-term way.”
I grin. “I’m happy,” I assure him. “The slower pace is perfect for me.”
“Well, okay.” He gets up, and I follow suit. “I’m gonna head to the airport. I’m glad things are good for you.” For a long, awkward moment, we stare at each other, then he grabs me in a tight hug. “See you, Jase.”
I stand there after he’s gone, part of me sad. Mostly, though, I’m relieved and excited that I can move forward without anger and bitterness weighing me down.
Chapter Sixteen
Dimi
Jason’s been gone less than half an hour when my mom calls. I’m ashamed to say I debate with myself for a second about whether to ignore it. I’m still tired from last night, distracted by thoughts of Jase meeting with his ex, and I have a pile of things to do before tonight’s show.
But it’s my mom, so I answer. “Hey, Mom.”
“My sweet boy.” I’m instantly on alert. She sounds like she’s been crying.
“Mom, what’s wrong? Is Gram okay?”
“She’s fine, Dimi. I have something to tell you. Are you home?”
“Uh…” My mind races. What could it be? “I’m at Jason’s. I’ll come to you—ten minutes. Mom, are you alone? Is someone there with you?” Could she be sick?
“Your dad and gram are here,” she assures me. “I’m okay, baby. I just need to talk to you.”
“Okay. I’m on my way.”
Needless to say, I don’t waste any time. I debate whether to text Jase and let him know I’m going but decide to wait. Depending on what Mom has to say, I might still be back before him.
I make it to my parents’ house in record time and let myself in, calling, “Mom? Hello?”
“We’re in here,” Dad shouts back, and I follow the voices to the living room. Mom and Dad are sitting together on the couch, Gram in one of the armchairs. They all look solemn.
“What’s going on?” I scan them all—nobody looks hurt or sick.
“Sit down, Dimi,” Dad says, and he sounds sad. I’m not going to be able to rush them, so I sit in the other armchair and wait. “Your mom and I overheard something at the party last night,” he begins. “It’s something you really need to know.”
I don’t know why, but my mind immediately flashes to drugs. Is someone on the cast using? Or worse, dealing? JU has a pretty strict drug policy. This is not an ideal time to need to recast.
“Who is it?” I blurt. I know it can’t be Trav, thank God, but there are some other key players we can’t afford to lose right now.
Mom blinks, and Dad looks confused. Gram just sits there. “You mean you know?” Mom asks.
“No,” I say honestly. “I had no idea. This is terrible. Recasting right after opening night—a successful opening night—is going to cause gossip. The truth is going to get out, and the press will all be negative. Depending on how they spin it, this could cause issues for all of JU. I’m going to lose my job.” Am I overreacting? I feel like maybe I’m overreacting.
My parents stare at me like I’m insane. Gram chuckles softly.
“Dimi,” Dad says slowly, “what are you talking about?”
I sigh and lean back in the chair. “To be honest, I have no idea. You’ve freaked me out so much that I’m jumping to ridiculous conclusions. Just tell me straight out: did you hear something to make you think one of the cast has a drug problem?”
Dad laughs, and Mom’s lips twitch. “No.”
A load lifts from my chest. “Okay. Phew.” I sit up straight. “So what is it, then?”
The humor disappears. “Dimi, we’re so sorry,” Dad says softly. “Last night we heard someone proposition Jason, and he made plans to meet up with him today.”
Well, yeah.
It takes a second for the meaning behind their sorrowful faces and words to sink in, and then I laugh.
“Dimi?” Mom asks worriedly. “I think he’s hysterical,” she says to Dad and Gram.
“I’m not hysterical,” I manage to say, sucking in a deep breath and trying to calm down. “Sorry. Just… I thought you were going to tell me something terrible.”
“It’s not terrible?” I’ve shocked Dad, but Mom looks… hopeful?
“It’s not true.”
Dad smiles sadly. “I’m so sorry, Dimi, but it is. I heard it myself.”
“Yeah, but what you heard was Jason’s ex being a pain in the ass and Jason trying to fob him off without causing a scene,” I explain.
Mom shakes her head. “Maybe that’s what Jason told you—”
“Mom, we’d been expecting the guy to cause trouble of some kind,” I interrupt. “Not that, exactly, but something. The plan was to delay and distract until any scene caused wouldn’t be attached to opening night. Jason’s gone to meet him now to tell him to get lost.”
“Are you sure?” Mom raises an eyebrow. “It sounds like Jason might be sneaking around.”
“You’re insane,” I say flatly. “In fact, you both are. Derek was right there with Jason when Rick ‘propositioned’ him. Do you really think Jase is so stupid as to make an assignation in front of one of my friends—or that Derek would have stood there and let him?”
Dad blows out a huge breath and shakes his head ruefully, chuckling a little. “What a relief. Sorry, Dimi, I never saw them. I was facing the other way and didn’t want to turn around in case I caught their attention,” he says, then freezes.
We all
look at Mom.
“Sascha? Did you see Derek there?” Dad sounds sad again, and I get why when Mom’s face twists.
“Jason could still be sneaking around. He’s convinced Dimi that this ex is here to cause problems—it’s the perfect cover.”
“Oh, Sascha.” Gram gets up and goes to stand in front of Mom. “You need to let this go. Dimitri is in love with Jason. Jason loves Dimitri. They are good men who are good for each other. Why do you dislike him so?”
“That kind of age gap is just not right,” Mom insists stubbornly, and my stomach sinks.
“Mom, we’ve talked about this.”
“And I’ve been nice to him! But that doesn’t mean I have to approve.”
“You don’t have to approve,” I agree. “But respecting my choices also means not trying to break us up. Do you not care if I’m unhappy, as long as you get what you want?”
“That’s a terrible thing to accuse me of. I’m your mother. The only thing I’ve ever wanted for you is that you’re happy.”
“It doesn’t seem that way,” I declare bluntly. “I’m happy now, with Jason, and yet you’re going out of your way to cause problems.”
“This is ridiculous, Dimi. I heard your boyfriend make plans to meet up with another man and I was not supposed to say anything to you?”
I level her with a look. “Context is important, Mom. The fact that one of my best friends was there is a pretty big indicator that nothing hinky was going on. And anyway, what did you hear exactly? What were these ‘plans’?”
Mom clamps her mouth shut, and Dad sighs.
“There were no plans. Not really. Jason said something about discussing it somewhere else, another time. It was all very vague.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Dimi. I should have thought this through more clearly.”
Yeah, he should’ve, but I can see why he didn’t. Initially, even the suggestion that I was being cheated on would have raised his ire. And then when he calmed down and the critical thinking should have kicked in, he had Mom confusing the issue.
“This has to stop,” I say firmly to Mom. “I mean it. The only reason I’m not walking away from you right now is because Jason isn’t close to his family and he loves that I’m close to mine. I want to give him a close family, but if need be, I can live without that.” I don’t mention that my relationship with my siblings won’t change, but that she’ll be missing out. “I love you, Mom, but I love him too. And I’ll choose him.”
She looks utterly devastated, but I stand firm. She looked that way the last time we talked about this, and clearly it didn’t stop her from trying to cause trouble. She needs to know I’m serious.
But fuck, how I wish we weren’t having this conversation. My stomach hurts.
“There will be no choosing,” Gram declares. “Go home, Dimi. Enjoy your Sunday afternoon. We will see you and Jason tomorrow night at dinner.”
“But—” Mom begins, and I lose it.
“But what? There are no buts! Jesus, Mom, what’s this really about? You don’t like the age gap? Why? Why does it even matter?”
There’s a moment of shocked silence. I keep my gaze firmly on Mom. I want answers. I want to know why she’s so adamant about this and if it’s going to keep coming back to haunt me.
Mom stares at me.
I stare back. I’m not going anywhere until she answers me.
Finally she sighs, leans back in her chair, and focuses on the ceiling.
“You have to understand, Dimi, as a parent, it kills me to watch my kids make mistakes when I know better.”
Part of me wants to leap in and tell her she knows nothing, but I keep quiet.
“Most of the time, I make myself stand back and let things happen, but this… this is not something I can just let go.”
I can’t stop myself this time. “Why, Mom? Why is this the line?”
She sighs again and looks at me. “When I was in college, I fell in love with one of my professors.”
Well. That wasn’t what I expected her to say.
“What?” Gram demands, eyes wide. I glance over at Dad and see surprise on his face too. Clearly this is something Mom’s kept to herself all these years.
“I was eighteen,” Mom says defensively. “I went to him for help with one of my assignments, and he was—I thought—charming and sophisticated and a real man, not like my classmates, who were more interested in getting drunk and high and telling fart jokes. I hadn’t yet met the people I fit with, the ones who would be real friends, and I was a little lonely. So I kept making up things I needed help with and going to see him, and we talked a lot about all sorts of things. With the perspective of maturity, I can see how much he was humoring me, how condescending he actually was during those conversations, but at the time….” She shrugs. “One afternoon he invited me to go home with him and continue our discussion over dinner. Just a casual meal between friends, he called it, and I was so flattered that I went. It all developed from there.”
I’m so completely off-balance that I can’t think what to say. It’s my mom. I mean, I know she has an identity beyond that, that she went to college in New York and lived there for a few years after, dated people, had friends, worked, met Dad… had a life outside of what I know for her, basically. But I can’t quite compute that she was an innocent eighteen-year-old who was seduced by her professor.
“He was much older?” Dad asks quietly, and I force myself to pay attention.
“In his fifties.” Mom smiles bitterly. “He actually had two children at that college. One of them was a classmate of mine. I never even knew until after.”
Gram shakes her head. “Was he married?”
Mom nods. “I didn’t know. At the time we were… his wife had gone home to New Hampshire to nurse her terminally ill mother. I found out he was married when she came home unexpectedly to surprise him one weekend.”
We all wince. That must have been traumatic for her. I can’t help but remember what Jase told me about Rick’s alleged visits to his sick mother.
But….
“Mom, I’m so sorry that happened to you. And I can see why, after an experience like that—”
“Oh, I’m not done,” Mom breaks in.
Sweet hell, there’s more?
“When his wife came home and it came out that all his protestations of love and admiration were just a ploy to get a teenager into bed, he told me that there was no reason for us to stop seeing each other. When I made a dramatic declaration about never wanting to see him again, he threatened to tell the dean I’d cheated and then tried to bribe him to keep quiet by offering sex and have me thrown out of school.”
Holy fuck.
“I was lucky. His wife, who had gone into the living room to get some of her stuff before she stormed out, overheard him and told him if he dared to do any such thing, she’d tell the dean herself what had happened.”
I wait. I don’t think there’s more, but just in case….
“So that’s how I know it’s a mistake to get involved with a man so much older.”
Okay. She’s done.
“It completely sucks that you had to go through that,” I say carefully. “I really hope that he was punished in some way—maybe he died friendless and alone. We can hope, right?” I get why she didn’t report him, especially back then. Things wouldn’t have gone well for her.
She smiles weakly. “It’s not nice to hope for someone else’s misfortune,” she chides. “But yes.”
“But… there’s no resemblance between what happened to you and my relationship with Jason.”
She frowns. “Dimi—”
“No, Mom. Please listen. You were eighteen, living away from home for the first time, and you said it yourself, you were lonely. He was your professor, in a position of authority. He was also using you and didn’t care about you at all or intend for the rel
ationship to last. I’m an adult. I’ve been dating for a long time, have been looking after myself for over a decade. I have a lot of family and friends here—I’m not lonely at all. Jason is my colleague, but technically, I’m his boss. He’s not married, not in a relationship with anyone else, and he genuinely loves me. I love him. This is not a fling, Mom—he and I are planning our future. You can’t hate him just because he’s older than me. I get why this flips a switch for you, but I also expect the logical, rational, mature part of you to step in and realize there’s no similarity to what happened to you.”
“I can’t believe you can say that after—”
“Dimitri, go home.”
There’s no arguing with Gram when she uses that tone, so I get up, kiss her, hug Dad, and leave. Maybe it’s a dick move not to kiss Mom too, but even though I do love her and my heart aches for what she went through, right now I kind of hate her too. We’re dealing with enough this weekend without her adding to the pile.
***
By the time Jason gets home and recounts what happened with Rick, I’ve changed my mind about a dozen times about whether I should tell him about my visit to my parents. In the end, I figure he needs to know—it may come up at some stage. And anyway, I don’t like the idea of keeping big secrets from him.
So now we’re sitting on his couch, mentally and emotionally overloaded.
“Are you okay?” he asks finally. “I’m so sorry. I thought she’d… well, I don’t think she’ll ever like me, but I thought she’d gotten used to the idea of me. And it can’t have been easy hearing about what happened to her.”
I give a little shrug. “Same. I wish she felt different, and I hate that she had to go through that, but I guess it is what it is.” I take his hand and squeeze. “I’m okay. What about you?”
Follow My Lead: A Joy Universe Novel Page 21