“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I told you if you bought one of my sculptures, I would never talk to you again, and you did it, anyway, because that’s what people like you do—whatever you want because you can and everyone else’s feelings be damned.”
Ian pointed at the dress hanging on the hook behind the door. “That’s your Christmas gift. I bought the dress from Mrs. Scheinberg for you.”
“You what?”
“I bought you that dress. She even gave me a discount as long as I promised to go to shul with her. That’s your Christmas gift from me. Not the sculpture. My father bought your sculpture. I had no idea he’d bought it and no idea he’d stored it in my old room when I sent you up there. I was as shocked to see it as you were.”
“Your dad bought it?”
“You were right. He wasn’t thrilled we were dating. He’s a politician. Image is everything to them, and you made him a little nervous. I admit all of that. But my father is a good guy ninety-nine percent of the time, and when I told him he should go check out your work at the gallery, he did. He saw the sculpture and fell in love with it. He bought it to keep in the family.”
Flash crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the worktable.
“You told him to go look at my art.”
“I was showing you off,” Ian said. “I wanted him to see how talented you are. And he saw. He said he had to leave the room for a few minutes when he noticed you’d engraved my name on the heart.”
“I did that because I know your name was engraved on your mother’s heart.”
“I’m sure it was,” Ian said.
“And I know that because it’s engraved on mine.”
“Flash...” Ian couldn’t speak anymore.
“It hurt more than anything ever hurt when I thought you’d betrayed my trust,” she said. “I felt that hurt all the way to my heart. It’s terrifying to love someone as much as I love you. I was looking for any excuse to get away from how much I love you. You gave me one.”
“Cutting your losses again?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. I guess I need to stop doing that.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
She dug her hands in her pockets. She looked small and young, hurt.
“My mom was a hotel housekeeper when she met my father,” Flash said. “She’d started cleaning motels and worked her way up to a five-star hotel in Seattle. He was the sort of guy who stayed in five-star hotels.”
“Rich?”
She nodded. “And he was the sort of man who used women because he thought the whole world was a banquet, and he was the guest of honor. I’m sure you know the type.”
“Very well, unfortunately.”
“Mom got in touch with him when she found out she was pregnant. He refused to have anything to do with her or me. He sent her a check for ten thousand dollars and wrote ‘Final Payment’ on the memo line.”
“Asshole.”
“Seriously. When I was nine I asked Mom about who my father was and why he never visited or called or anything. Mom doesn’t like to lie or sugarcoat stuff. She said, ‘Your father doesn’t think we’re good enough for him.’ I feel like it’s coded in my DNA now, this distrust of men with money or power and especially both. And that’s shitty, right? Taking all that old pain that has nothing to do with you out on you?”
“You and my dad have a lot in common. You’re both punishing yourselves over things you didn’t have any control over. He didn’t cause the car accident that killed my mother. You didn’t cause your father to reject you before you were even born. And yet, decades later, you’re both still beating yourselves up over it. Dad won’t get remarried and you keep running from me.”
She rubbed her bare arms and shrugged. “I don’t want to be like this,” she said.
“I know. But I love you, anyway. And I’m not going to stop loving you. I’m going to love you long enough and hard enough that you eventually figure out that I’m not one of the bad guys. I understand it might take a while but you’re worth waiting for.”