I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. I was… I was so damn mad, disappointed, I wanted to throw up.

But Ivan kept going. “Mr. Santos, your daughter is the hardest working person I’ve ever met. She’s persistent to a fault. Someone will tell her not to do something, and she only does it more. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who has fallen more than her and gotten right back up, never complaining, never crying, never quitting. She’ll cuss herself out, but it’s at herself. She’s smart, and she’s relentless,” he said calmly, his hand squeezing my leg tighter than before.

“She gets to the facility at four in the morning Monday through Friday and trains with me until eight. Then she goes to work, on her feet right after that until noon. She eats her two breakfasts and her lunch in her car, then comes inside and trains with me until four. Three days a week, she has three ballet lessons by herself and one with me for two hours each time. One day a week, she takes Pilates from six until seven. Four days out of the week, she goes for runs and works out after we train. She goes home, eats, spends some time with the rest of her family, and goes to bed by nine. Then she’s up at three o’clock in the morning and does it all over again.

“And for months, she was going back to the facility to practice by herself from ten at night until midnight. Because she was too proud to tell me that she needed help. Then she would go home, sleep for three hours and do it all over again. Six days a week.” The hand on my leg gripped the fuck out of it, not hard but… desperate. And Ivan kept talking. “If Jasmine wanted to go to school, she would graduate with honors. If she wanted to become a doctor, she would be a doctor. But she wanted to become a figure skater, and she is the best I have ever had as a partner. I think that if you’re going to do something, you should be the best at it. And that’s what Jasmine is. I understand school is important, but she has a gift. You should be proud of her for never giving up on her dreams. You should be proud of her for being true to herself.”

Ivan paused and then said three words that slayed me. “I would be.”

Fuck. Fuck.

I didn’t even realize I had shoved my seat back until I was getting to my feet, dropping my napkin and fork and knives beside my plate. Something in my chest burned. Seared. Flayed me inside out.

How did Ivan know me so well and my own dad not?

How could Ivan know all these things about me, and my own dad be disappointed in who I was? I knew I wasn’t book smart. When I’d been younger, I’d wished that I had been. Finishing high school had been hard enough for me, but it was because I hadn’t given a shit about it, because I had loved this sport and wanted to be like the other girls who were homeschooled or had private tutors. I hadn’t been lying when I said I hated school and had no interest in going back.

But it was hard enough to be a disappointment with the one thing I was good at, without being able to handle disappointing my own dad, simply by being me.

That burning sensation made its way up to my face, and I honestly felt like I couldn’t breathe. It almost felt like I was drowning as I pushed past the people waiting by the hostess podium, shoving the door open as I tried to gulp for breath. My palms went up to cover my eyes as I sucked in air, trying so hard not to cry. Me. Cry. Over my dad. Over Ivan. Over the reminder that I was dumb and a failure, regardless of how I looked at it and how happy I was. It had all been too soon. Or maybe I was finally just acknowledging how much my dad’s beliefs and desires and actions affected me.

But goddamn. It hurt. It sucked.

I could win every competition this season, and I would still be stupid, useless Jasmine to my dad. Disappointing, big-mouth Jasmine. Cold, pissed-off Jasmine with dreams that were a waste of time and money.

I hadn’t been enough when he left, and I still wasn’t enough for him now.

But I wanted to be. It was all I had ever wanted. I had wanted to be enough for my fucking dad. Even now after all this shit, I still just wanted him to see me. To love me. Like everyone else in the restaurant did.

I wanted to be enough just the way I was, without Ivan having to tell my dad all the things about me he should have known.

My palms grew wet, and I sucked in a breath that sounded like a sob but felt like a razor blade straight into my sternum.

The one man I wanted to appreciate me and respect me, didn’t.

And the other man, the one whose appreciation and respect I had told myself for so long didn’t matter, seemed to think the world of me.

Why didn’t he know how hard I was willing to work every day for the things I wanted?

Digging the meat of my palms even tighter against my eyes, fully aware I was probably smudging my mascara and eyeliner but not giving a single shit, I sucked in a breath that probably could have been heard from down the block.

The doors beside me opened and I heard a “you should probably give her a minute,” said by my brother, followed by the sound of the door closing.

I didn’t sense someone close by until it was too late, and two arms wrapped themselves around my shoulders. It only took a single sniff to know who it was.

My choke reached down into my lungs, pretty much making my entire chest contract in a near hiccup. The arms hugging me pulled me into a chest I was too familiar with while I dropped my arms and let them hang loosely at my sides. And I let it happen. I let my face fall forward into the spot directly between pectoral muscles I’d seen countless times, and touched countless times, and admired more and more by the day, and I grit my teeth to keep from making anymore choking noises.

I failed.

The muttered “fuck” went in one ear and out the other. Followed by what must have been a cheek pressing against the top of my head. Ivan’s voice came low, so low I barely heard him. “Why do you do this to yourself? Huh?” he asked me.

My chest stuttered, a hiccup, a compressed choke that hurt me more than I already was.

“You know how good you are. You know how rare that is. You know how much work you put in to everything. You know how strong you are,” he whispered, his arms crossed over my shoulder blades. “Your dad doesn’t know anything about figure skating, Jasmine. From the sound of it, he doesn’t know you at all. You know better than to let what he thinks get to you. You know better.”

“I know,” whispered into the bone directly between his pecs, squeezing my eyes shut so that I wouldn’t disgrace myself even more by bawling into him.

“You warned me, but I didn’t believe you,” he went on, some part of his face still pressed against the top of my head.

“I told you,” I said, the miserable feeling inside of me growing by the second. “I told you. I didn’t even want to come. I knew it was going to happen, but I’m stupid, and I hoped maybe this time would be different. Maybe I could shut up and he could pretend I wasn’t there, like he always used to. Maybe this time he wouldn’t criticize me and tell me all the different things I could be doing with my life, but no. It’s my fault. I’m a fucking idiot. I don’t even know why I still bother. I’m not going to be an engineer like Sebastian. I’m not going to use my GI bill to work in marketing. I’m not going to be a project manager like Tali, or even just be Ruby. I’m never going to live up to my brothers or my sisters. I never have—”

My voice broke. Totally just snapped in half.

And that was when the first wave of tears hit my eyes, and I gasped to keep them inside of me. To fucking keep them in because I wasn’t going to do this. I wasn’t going to fucking do it, especially not over my dad’s comments.

But your body doesn’t always listen to what you tell it. I was well aware of that. But it still felt like a betrayal when it didn’t hold in the tears I was trying to keep a rein on.

And Ivan’s arms tightened even more, pulling me in the millimeter left until we were plastered together from thighs to hips to chest.

“I was a mistake, you know? My parents had already been on the rocks, and then my mom got pregnant and my dad stuck around for another couple of years, hoping things would get better, but they didn’t. And I wasn’t enough for him to stick around, so he left. He just fucking left and came back once a year, and my brothers and sisters loved him, and he loved them, and—”

“You are not a fucking mistake, Jasmine,” Ivan’s voice shook into my ear and my shoulders went so tight, I started trembling. Me. Trembling.

And I cried. Because my dad had left when I was three, and instead of watching me grow up, instead of being there to try and teach me how to ride a bike like he’d taught all of my brothers and sisters, it had been my mom who had.

“Your parents splitting up had nothing to do with you, and your dad leaving is on him. It wasn’t up to you to keep them together,” he continued on, anger hanging onto the softness like a shield.

And I just kept on crying.