Page 271 of Handsome Devil
“I don’t like you seeing it,” she said.
“You’re not weak, Devi. You’re strong. If anyone’s weak, it’s me. I spent my whole life judging other people for weaknesses I saw in them. I built my whole professional reputation on my ability to identify weaknesses in others. And all that time, I was filled with weaknesses. I just learned how to hide them instead of dealing with them. I fixed everything around me instead of fixing myself. I never learned how to be strong, like you. Because I didn’t have to be. My grandmother was strong. My mother was strong. I was taken care of. Protected. I just… I don’t want to live like that anymore.”
“That’s why you left?”
“Yeah. That’s why I left.”
“Tell me about it,” she said. “Tell me what happened when you were away. You said you missed me…”
“I did.”
“But you were gone for like a month. Why?”
“I just… needed it,” I told her. “I really fucking needed it. I felt like my family, and the Davenport name, had owned me all my life. I wanted to know what it felt like to not be beholden to them just for a little while. To not be under their protection or their rules.”
“And?”
“And it felt good. For a while.”
“And no one ever recognized you?”
I shrugged. “Why would they? I’m not a celebrity. I’m not really anyone down there. I was just some guy on the beach. Some tourist who couldn’t surf. I hung out with some other travelers, and a bunch of local guys, too. And I was just one of the guys. We drank beer and we hung out on the beach. It was cool. And different. I tried to go into a store a few times only to find a sign up, that they were closed because the surf was in. Everything’s upside-down in that place. And it was so… relaxed.”
Devi listened, her eyes warming. “You had fun,” she said.
“Yeah. I had fun. I’ve never had a life that was that… carefree.”
She smiled a little, like she was happy for me.
“I told them my name was David Jones.”
“You did not!”
“Of course I did. He’s my alter ego now. Maybe next time I need to disappear, David will take you somewhere nice.”
Her smile faded. “Maybe.”
I took her hand in mine. “Devi… in the end, all it was was a little vacation from reality. And in the end, I realized I wanted my life back. I always wanted this life that I was born into. My only real issue was with myself. I never felt like I deserved any of it.”
“Why?”
“Because I had this fear that maybe I was just like my dad. Utterly fucking useless.”
“Dane, come on.”
“I’m serious. What good am I without the stuff they gave me? I really didn’t know the answer to that question and it was slowly eroding my faith in myself. I think I was drawn to you from the moment you crossed my path because you saw right through me. You didn’t have faith in me, either. It was like you saw the real me. Or at least, you saw past the Dane Davenport that everyone else saw. I wanted to know why you didn’t like whatever you saw in me, and maybe win you over or something. But that never happened.”
“You won me over, Dane.”
I didn’t even know what to say to that. Did she mean that?
Was she talking about back then, or right now?
“Why are you so afraid of being like your dad?” she asked me. “You never talk about him. Please don’t tell me he’s a gangster?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t do your research on that part of my life?”
“No. All I know is your parents divorced long ago. I didn’t think to look any further into it than that. I guess I figured if there was something super important, like he was a gangster or something, that would’ve jumped out.”
