Page 83 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
“How did you know?” Roy finally says. His eyes never leave Lucas’s.
“I’ve driven by your building lots of times,” Lucas says. News to me. “I’ve seen you eying the sports cars with knowledgeable appreciation. When I picked up Melissa that night, Christmas Eve, I knew she had a fondness for you. You’ve been very helpful to me since. I owe you. So, I called your building manager and had a chat with him. Found out about your love of classic cars.”
“That’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever heard of. I have no idea what to say.”
“It’s my thank-you gift for being a good friend to Melissa, a kind confidant when she needed it. And a decent man, willing to do favors for people without asking for anything in return.”
I’m speechless and frozen. Lucas had known about my soft spot for Roy and then he went out of his way to do something about it. Although Lucas said something about a favor and I have no idea what that’s about. I do know it likely didn’t warrant the use of a classic car.
“You sure do know how to bribe a doorman,” Roy says.
We all laugh and it’s a good thing because I feel the strange onset of sentimental tears. I’m not sure what Roy means by the bribe crack. What possible favor he could be doing for Lucas?
It doesn’t matter. I throw myself at Lucas and kiss him, murmuring words of adoration without any filters, without any thought except a heavenly urging that this is right. There’s no need to think about whether I should or should not put myself at his feet—metaphorically speaking. No concern about making myself vulnerable or whether it’s wise to do so in front of Roy, in front of the anyone who happened to be in our vicinity on the streets of New York.
Making a spectacle of myself is at the top of the list of things I never do—avoiding it is at the top of the list of rules to live by. Followed closely by the rule to maintain the upper hand in any relationship with a man—to avoid being in the position my mother—birth mother—had been in.
It hits me that deep down that I abhor how my mother allowed herself to be owned by a man to the extent that she had to give up her baby. For whatever reason, I know that it hadn’t been my mother who’d rejected me willingly, and I know my mother had been grieved by it. But I also know my mother had been too weak to avoid it. I hate her for her weakness, her vulnerability, her lack of independence more than anything in the world. I not only want to prove myself to my birth father, I want to defy him and everything he stands for.
Somewhere deep in my subconscious, maybe I’m holding back from my relationship with Lucas because I sense a similarity between him and my birth father, the domineering way he has that comes naturally. I have to wonder if he’s a benevolent dictator, if being with him would be giving up my independence, if I’d be like a pet kept in a gilded cage like I imagined my mother had been. No matter how connected we are, how loving he is, how kind, charming, elegant, intelligent he is, I can’t forget that there’s danger in loving him.
The danger is that I would be owned by him if I let down my guard. And then I would lose myself—whoever I am—before I even knew myself, before I had a chance to fullybemyself. My deepest fear is being owned by a man, enslaved by him and my passion and love to such an extent that I would be willing to make an abhorrent sacrifice, just as my mother had.
I can never allow this. Will never allow it.
The second he wraps his arms around me in return, I freeze, realizing what I am doing, realizing the place my runaway emotions are carrying me: to the precipice of emotional suicide, to the end of my identity. I pull back with a jolt, like I do in those dreams where I think I’m falling off a cliff. Then, as if waking up, I hold his arms and keep myself separate, staring into his eyes as if he is the devil, the most beguiling devil in all of hell.
“I felt a need,” he says. He shrugs. That heart-melting gesture that makes my crazy heart beat slow to a saner speed.
“No wonder . . .” I didn’t know what to say. No wonder I love you? Or no wonder I’m captivated by you but not necessarily in a good way? Shaking my head, I manage a smile. It’s strategic and I know he’ll know that, know he’ll want to know why. I hope to hell he’ll never guess.
Because the one thing I fear more than being owned by Lucas is losing him.
God help me.
* * *
With my nervescloser to the edge than they were when we started the drive, we leave the city behind along with the happy glow of Roy’s gratitude and Lucas’s kind gesture.
I fiddle with the radio because I’m in a fiddling state, as if it’s Christmas Eve and I’m waiting for Santa Claus. Or no, like it’s the night before final exams and my position of valedictorian is riding on how well I do. Lucas reaches over and puts his big warm ungloved hand over mine.
“It’ll be fine. It’s true I don’t know your parents as well as you do, but I know they’re decent enough to accept that you need to find out who your birth parents are.”
“I know. It’s just that—” I stop because I don’t know what’s troubling me, but something is.
“It’s just that you feel guilty? Like you’re betraying your parents?”
“Sure, let’s run with that,” I say, not even sure if that’s it. It’s like I’m holding some mysterious black box in my head and it’s stuck closed I can’t open it. Or maybe I won’t open it. Because there are secrets inside and I don’t know if I want to know what they are.
“Maybe I don’t really want to find my birth parents?” I say. “What if it does more harm than good?”
“What’s the worst thing that can happen, Melissa? You already think the worst of them, after all. Maybe you’ll find they’re not the monsters of your imagination.”
“That’s just it, I don’t necessarily think of them ascompletemonsters. How can I? I come from them, I have their blood in me. It’s like finding out about who they are will be like finding out about myself.I need them to not be monsters.”
He doesn’t say anything. My heart hammers and my gut churns. I just uttered the bravest words I’ve ever said to anyone and he’s not responding. As I start to feel dizzy, he throws on the blinker and pulls the car to the shoulder. Cars and trucks whiz by us. He leaves the engine running and shifts toPark. Then he faces me and the churning nausea settles when I look into his eyes, feel the warmth and kindness.
“Melissa, you are who you are. Whether your parents are saints or ax murderers and whether or not you know them. And you are a beautiful person inside and out. You are smart, resourceful, and hardworking. You’re also ambitious to a fault, competitive, practical, and private. I’m still learning about you and loving every minute of that process.” He stops and looks at me, makes no attempt to lean in and kiss me when I wish he would. I feel tears prickle and clamp down like a bear trap on my emotions.
