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Not indifferent butveryinvested…in what I’ve always felt were the wrong things.
Sofie is one of the few people that knows I was put in beauty pageants at three months and it continued until I was seventeen.
My mom believes in three things: God, beauty, and reputation.
And not in that order.
Beauty came above all else, with reputation almost tied for first. For her, the more awards I won, the better her reputation.
My brother is a year and a half older than me, and it’s shocking that he loves me at all since, growing up, everything revolved around me. I won titles and prizes and awards at every pageant, even while begging my mom to let me stop competing, and it wasn’t until I was seventeen that I finally got the nerve to sabotage myself in a pageant.
It was the only way out.
I flopped on purpose…however, it was at one of the most crucial times of my life and a pageant where the stakes were high. I didn’t get the scholarship I needed to go to college, and my mom had gone through all the money I’d earned in previous pageants. But standing up to her in that way gave me the momentum I needed to leave home.
I think my mom has hated me ever since.
“Whatcha thinkin’, Mama?” Dakota stops right in front of me and shades her eyes with her hand as she looks up at me.
“Ugh. Sorry. Mama got distracted with—” I shake my head and make a face. I bend down and put my hands on her cheeks. “Do you feel my love, baby girl?” I ask. “All the time?”
“I do,” she says, grinning wide.
I kiss the tip of her nose and stand back up. “I’m so glad. I want that more than anything. For you to feel my love and for you to be happy inside out.”
“I feel your love all the time, Mama,” she says. She taps her heart. “Right here.” She looks down at her stomach and rubs it, frowning slightly when she looks back up at me. “Maybe when I eat all those donuts, I’ll be happy inside out too.”
I laugh and put my hand on her shoulder. “Good thing we’re here.”
I point to Happy Cow, and she does a little skyrocket jump that’s so impressive but quick, I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t already been looking at her.
We walk inside and Dakota does another leap, thankfully, this one a little more contained, and I think she’s just excited to be here, but then she says, “Wyatt!”
I’ve been replaying the words he said to me in the courtyard over and over. I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear that I’m doing a good job with Dakota. It’s one thing to hear it from Sofie and the friends I’m making here, but another from my boss...the guy I’ve considered problematic since I got here.
His kindness to me that day has helped balance some of the tension I felt from talking to Maggie.
He turns and breaks out into a smile when he sees Dakota. “Hi, Sweets!”
His eyes meet mine briefly and he says hello, still grinning, before turning back to Dakota to ask what her favorite pastry is. She runs down the long list, and he laughs. Ugh. Why does he have to be so charming with her? It’s a heady combo—warms me up inside and rips my heart out at the same time.
I want her to have a relationship like that with her dad, and it just doesn’t seem like it’ll ever be.
Lar and Mar smile at Dakota and me, Mar dusting the powdered sugar off her apron.
“Did you hear all that, Mar?” he says.
Mar nods. “I sure did.”
“It’ll be my treat,” Wyatt says.
“Oh no,” I jump in. “That’s not necessary. I’ll—”
His expression is cautious when he looks back at me. “My bad. I should have checked to make sure you’re okay with her having all that sugar.”
“Well, we’re here, so I was planning on getting a box—”
“Okay then. My treat. Put that bear claw in their box, Mar.”
