“He doesn’t love anyone else more than you,” she kept going.
I almost snickered. Almost. But I managed just to look at her, not agreeing or disagreeing, because I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. I didn’t want to talk about him anymore.
And I didn’t want any pity. At least any more.
My mom reached forward and tapped my chin. “He was being an asshole tonight, but he loves you in his own way. Not more or less than anybody else. He’s just… wrong. Dumb. Close-minded.”
That time, I couldn’t hold back my eye roll as I leaned back against the seat. “Everyone knows Ruby is his favorite, Mom. It isn’t a big deal. I’ve always known that.”
Her frown was genuine. “Why would you think that?”
I snickered. “When was the last time he ever bought me a ticket to go see him? Every year, he gets Ruby tickets. He’s gotten Tali and Jojo tickets too a few times. But me? When?”
She opened her mouth as if to argue, but I just shook my head.
“It’s fine. It’s really fine. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m okay with it all. I know he’s closed-minded, and I know he thinks he loves me in his own way. But I’m done. If he can’t accept me for who I am, I can’t force him to, and I’m not going to change my dreams for him.”
Her mouth opened slightly, just slightly, and she shook her head. “Oh, Jas….”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t. Nothing is your fault. This is between him and me. We don’t need to talk about it anymore,” I said, closing my eyes and leaning back against the seat.
And we didn’t.
But I still couldn’t help but feel that sadness that somehow mixed up with determination as I sat there.
Chapter 18
“Can we talk?” my dad’s voice came from behind me.
I froze as I leaned against the boards, waiting for Ivan and Coach Lee as they argued over whether we should change a jump or not. I hadn’t cared whether we did or didn’t; I was letting them go at it. I was too tired and too emotionally wrung out—seriously… exhausted from the night before—to bother putting up a fight. So I’d been waiting there, watching them, sipping on water from a comfortable distance away.
So I hadn’t been paying attention. I hadn’t spotted my dad inside the LC, or much less him managing to sneak up behind me.
“Jasmine, please,” he pleaded quietly as I turned to blink at him over my shoulder. He was five foot seven max, with a slim, strong build that I knew I’d inherited. That dark hair, dark eyes, and skin that was a shade of olive that could have come from at least a dozen places in the world.
I looked like my dad. We shared all the same colors. The same structure.
But I got everything else from my mom… because he hadn’t been around.
“Five minutes,” he asked quietly, watching me patiently.
It had been hours since I’d seen him at the restaurant, and I knew his time in Houston was running out. Then it would be a year until I saw him again. Possibly even longer. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d come to Houston and I hadn’t seen him.
He’d never cried about it, and I had stopped long before I noticed it.
I wanted to tell him I had better things to do. I wanted to tell him to leave me alone. And maybe a few years ago, I would have done exactly that if he’d pulled some shit like he had in the restaurant, in front of Ivan and the rest of the family.
But if I’d learned anything over the last year and a half, it was the reality of how tough it was to live with your mistakes. I’d learned how hard it was to face them, and how much harder it was to own them. We all did things we regretted; we all said things we regretted, and guilt was a crushing weight on a person’s soul.
And I wanted to be better. For me. Not for anyone else.
So I nodded and said nothing.
The deep breath he let out in relief, I didn’t really eat up as much as I could have.
Making my way to the opening onto the ice, I put my skate guards on and glanced over my shoulder to try and get Ivan’s attention. But he was still too busy talking to Coach Lee. On the floor, I headed toward the bleachers around the wall. Taking a seat in the middle of a bench, I stretched my legs out in front of me and faced the rink, watching my dad take a seat beside me but a few feet down.
On the ice, Ivan had turned around and was looking at us with a frown from his spot besides our coach.
He hadn’t said a word during practice that morning, and I was grateful he decided not to bring up my dad, let alone me crying all over him. There was only so much my pride could take. Instead, Ivan acted like nothing different had happened, like everything was normal.
Worked for me.
“Jasmine,” my dad said on an exhale.
I kept looking forward.
“You know that I love you, yes?”
Love was a weird word. What the hell was love? Everyone had such a different opinion on what it meant to them; it was hard to figure out how to use it. There was family love, friend love, romantic love….
Once, when I was younger, another skating mom had seen my mom smack me on the back of the head and had gotten really bent out of shape over it. But to me, that was how we were together. My mom had smacked me because I’d been a smart-ass and deserved it; I was hers and she loved me. Mostly though, my mom knew I didn’t react to hisses and threats.
Galina had always been the same way with me. She taught me responsibility and accountability. She didn’t take my backtalk. She’d smack me on the back of the head too.
But the thing was, I had never doubted that they wanted the best for me. I wanted honesty. I had needed them to love me more than my feelings, because I wanted to be better. I had wanted to be the best.
I had never wanted someone to baby me. I didn’t need it; it made me uncomfortable. It made me feel weak.
Love to me was honesty. Being real. Knowing someone’s best and worst. Love was a push that said someone believed in you when you didn’t.
Love was effort and time. And while I’d laid in bed the night before, it had jumped out to me that maybe that was why I had taken things so badly months ago when my mom had made it seem like I loved figure skating more than her. Because I knew what it was like to not be important to someone.
I had held this fucking grudge to my heart with duct tape and superglue, all the while being a massive hypocrite.
“Oh, Jasmine,” my dad whispered, sounding pained when I didn’t reply to his question. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him reach for me, his hand covering mine.
I couldn’t help but go stiff, and it was impossible to miss that my dad noticed and did the same.
“I do love you. I love you very much,” he said softly. “You’re my baby—”
I huffed, not letting myself suck in his claims of love.
“You are my baby,” my dad insisted, his hand still resting on my own.
Technically, yes.
But I wasn’t. And everyone knew that. He was just in denial, trying to make himself feel better.
“I want the best for you, Jasmine. I’m not going to say I’m sorry for it,” he said after I didn’t respond.
I still refused to look at him as I said, “I know you want the best for me. I get it. That’s not the problem.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
On the ice, Ivan started doing really lazy laps, his gaze staying on my dad and me, no matter where he was. He was watching to make sure everything was fine. I didn’t doubt that if I needed him, he’d skate over and butt in.
But I wasn’t that kind of person. I had avoided dealing with this as long as I could. It was time though.
“The problem is that you don’t know me, Dad.”
He scoffed, and I turned my head just enough to finally look at him.
“You don’t. I love you, but you don’t know me or understand me. Not even a little bit. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a pain in the ass or if you just don’t like me.”
He blew out a breath of frustration that I was going to ignore. “Why would you think I don’t like you?”
I blinked and tried to push away the gross, disappointed feeling in the middle of my belly. “Because you don’t. How many times have we spent time together, just us two?”
My dad’s mouth hung open for a moment before he closed it. “You were always busy. You’re always busy now.”
The answer was never. We’d never spent time together alone. He spent time with each of my brothers and each of my sisters, but never with me.
I was busy. But he’d never even tried. He’d never even come to the rink to sit at the bleachers and watch me practice, like everyone else had on multiple occasions. And if he’d ever even given a little bit of a shit, he would have.
So I controlled my breath, controlled my features and mouth so I could respond to him and not go off. “I am, but neither one of us made time for it. How many of my competitions have you gone to over the last… six years?”
For some reason, I didn’t enjoy the look of discomfort that came over his face. “You stopped inviting me,” he claimed.