Page 56 of Wildfire
“I was honest about how I feel for the first time yesterday. It felt good to finally say what I needed to say. It feels good to tell you this stuff, so thank you for being patient with me.”
“You’re really brave, Russ.”
“I’m the opposite of brave. He’s told me that enough times for it to be imprinted on my brain.”
Word by word, who Russ is gets clearer and clearer to me and I feel honored that the man who shares so little is sharing with me.
“You are brave. We live in a society that tells us our parents are the greatest thing we will ever have and will ever lose, and you just—I don’t even know. You’re putting yourself first anyway. That’s brave.”
“I learned a long time ago that if I didn’t put myself first, nobody else was going to. Forgiving people who repeatedly let you down is like sticking your hand in a fire over and over and expecting it to not keep burning you.”
“Sounds like me and my dad. Except I’m singed to a crisp.”
“What’s the deal with you two?”
“Elsa thinks he hates us because we’re both terrible drivers, but I think it’s because I look like my mom and he really hates my mom.”
He moves onto his elbows and looks at me over his shoulder. “Hold up, your sister is called Elsa? Are your parents Disney adults?”
I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked something similar. “Shut up. I’m named after the northern lights. Could have gone my whole life thinking I was named after a princess, but my mom decided to traumatize me by sharing where I was conceived instead.”
He’s laughing as he lies back against my stomach. “And Elsa?”
“PredatesFrozen. It’s a really popular name in parts of Europe. My dad likes to pretend he backpacked around Scandinavia when he was younger, but in reality he stayed in fancy hotels and ate in fancier restaurants every night—not a hostel or backpack in sight.” Mom loves laughing at that one. “He owns a Formula 1 team called Fenrir, which is from Norse mythology, so there is a theme. Elsa used to tell people we had a brother called Thor.”
“Would it help you to know that I am named after a dog my mom had when she was a kid?”
“Yes. I feel silly telling you about my dad after your dad has been so cruel to you. My dad isn’t cruel. He doesn’t outright say horrible things to me; he just makes me feel like his life would be easier if I wasn’t around. He’s always put work first, which I get because he’sgot a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, and because of it, I’ve had opportunities and been to places that people would kill for.”
“Nice things don’t make the bad stuff acceptable, though,” Russ says.
“I’d give all that up to feel like he loves me. We’ve been stuck in this cycle where he ignores me, so I do something silly to get his attention. When I was a teen I shoplifted, knowing I’d get caught. I got a fake ID and went to places I was too young for. Pissed off my teachers. Posted a picture of myself on race day wearing the merch of his main rival, Elysium. The F1 pages reposted the shit out of it.”
“Jesus, Rory.”
“And it works, but only for a short time because he’s annoyed; but at least he calls and sees me. Nothing ever happens. I’m not punished, he doesn’t try to understand. My mom justifies it because of course I’m like this, it’s his fault. Then his anger wears off and he goes back to pretending that I don’t exist. And every time, I’m, like, this is going to be the time where he proves he cares—but I just end up hurting my own feelings.” I know I’m rambling. I know I’m oversharing, but when I think about stopping he reaches up and squeezes the hand I have resting in his hair, urging me to continue.
“I repeat the cycle. He has a girlfriend named Norah, and she has a daughter, who’s our age, called Isobel. Norah posts about Dad like they’re the happiest of families. But I’ll never be part of it, and it makes me sad and it makes me do things like drink excessive amounts of tequila and ask you to skinny-dip with me.”
“That feels like a million years ago.”
“That’s why I loved this place so much growing up. It was a couple of months where I felt wanted and valued. I didn’t have to worry about what was going on at home. I knew coming back here was the only thing that would break the cycle. So that’s my trauma dump. How fun. We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”
“A walking advertisement for daddy issues.”
“Do you hate them? I don’t hate my parents, even though they’re definitely the root of all my problems.” He doesn’t say anything, so neither do I. I might have pushed him too far, so I keep twirling the ends of his hair around my fingers and pressing them gently into his scalp. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to share anything you don’t want to. I didn’t mean to go too far.”
“You haven’t. I told my dad I hated him yesterday, but I was hurt. I’m not sure I do, though. I think I hate the way he makes me feel. If he stopped doing the things he knows he shouldn’t and started acting like the person he was when I was a kid, then I could have him in my life.”
“What about your mom?”
He hums, long and low. “I love my mom. I’ve just always been mad at her for enabling my dad. After talking to her yesterday, I think she’s realized she doesn’t know everything. So yeah, that’s my trauma dump.”
Knowing the type of difficult relationships he’s dealing with makes me understand him so much better and I’m giddy that he’s trusted me with something clearly so raw. “Thank you for sharing with me.”
“Thank you for comparing yourself to an airport.”
I try to stop the laugh so I don’t give him motion sickness, but I can’t help it. I cover my face with my hands, like that’ll block out the embarrassment. “I swear I’m not this much of a disaster normally. You make me nervous, I think. It comes out and I can’t even stop it. Sometimes I lie in bed awake at night cringing. Emilia has done nothing but bully me about it since we got here.”
