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She looks up at me through hooded lids, and I swear my heart beats so hard against my ribs I think they might break.
"Okay," she says with a shrug, and I deflate a little. It's not like I expected her to just forgive me, but I’d hoped that maybe she’d started to forgive me just a little.
"Is there anything I can do to make this up to you?" I ask, and she sighs, dropping the brush.
"Honestly, I don't know," she mumbles, looking up at me with enough helplessness to gut me. "Maybe if you told your dad that you won't marry me, then this engagement thing becomes a moot point. Because if you won't do it, then it's not just all about me not wanting to do it."
I run a hand over my short hair. "It's not that easy. My entire life has been about pleasing him and living up to his expectations." I pause, trying to think of a way to explain it to her, but come up blank and end up rambling. "The only thing I've ever done for myself is playing football, and even that was a fluke. If it hadn't been for Coach seeing me throw a ball around, it probably never would have happened on this level. But when Coach insisted that I join the team, my father didn't want to say no. Not because I wanted to play, but because he didn't have a good reason as to why I shouldn’t and it wouldn't have been socially acceptable for him to have just said no."
I take another breath, realizing how whiny I sound, so I suck it up and wrap up what I’m trying to say. "So I ended up on the football team. But trust me, I paid for that several times over in other ways. Saying no to him… it isn't all that easy."
She picks the brush up again and starts pushing it through her hair. "I get that. Really, I do. That you guys really need to learn to work on standing up to your parents. Just because they brought us into this world, doesn't mean that they get to dictate our entire lives. If I’d have let my mom dictate my life to me, I would probably be dead by now or be somebody's whore." My eyes go wide at her confession, but she just shrugs. "I always knew that wasn't the life for me, so I fought as much as I dared, even if that didn’t look like fighting. You guys all appear so strong, so stubborn, but realistically, you just act like scared little boys running back to Mom and Daddy every time something goes wrong. Or they snap their fingers, and you go running. They say jump, you ask, ‘How high?’ Have you ever considered what it is that they would possibly do if you said no to them?"
She pauses again, but continues before I can speak. "Everything in this world is about how it appears from the outside, so it's not like they're going to cast you out, and even if they did, it's not like you couldn't survive the fallout of it."
I consider her words and realize that she's right. I hadn't ever really considered what the worst thing that could happen would be if I said no. I know Travis has Katy, so it’s harder for him, but I don't say a word about that because I don't know if she knows that yet.
But for me, there isn't any big, deep, dark thing to keep me from saying no to my father.
What's the worst that could happen? My father disinherits me? But then I could just play football for the rest of my life, which is what I actually want anyway. It's not like my world would end.
"You're right," I tell her. "I hadn't considered any of that. I just do what I've always done because that is the way it’s done."
In that moment, I make the decision to speak to my father and tell him that I'm done. I'm out. Because she's right, it shouldn't all be on her and this whole thing with Pops would have never started if I'd have just told my father no from the get go.
I don't tell her what I have planned, because there's no point in getting her hopes up yet, but I decide then and there to finally stand up to my father and do the thing I probably should have done years ago and tell him no.
She doesn't say anything else while she gets herself presentable for our parents again, drying her hair before putting on new clothes. She ends up in jeans and what looks like the softest sweater I've ever seen in my life, her hair falling in waves down her back, looking far more like the girl I know than the one that we arrived with.
"Let's go finish this stupid day," she says, and I can already see her wistfully looking back at the bathroom. Like it's her own personal escape.
"We don't have to stay for long," I tell her. "Most of the presents and everything would have been done already, and I'm sure one of the boys can fake a stomach ache to get us out of dinner if you really want to get out of here."
For the first time all day, I see a small glimmer of hope shining in her eyes.
"Yes, please," is all she says in response. I stuff my hands in my pocket as I stand and nod.
"Then that's what we'll do. We won't be here for more than another half hour. None of us really care about any of this anyway. Like I said, our lives are just a show."
She smiles sadly at me and gives me a hug. "I’m sorry that this is what your lives are. My life might have been crappy, but at least it's been authentically me."
I rest my cheek against the top of her head, breathing her in as I hug her back, wondering what that must feel like to be so entirely yourself with no repercussions.
I make a resolution to myself to be the person that she can so obviously see I could be. Because the person in her mind is a much better man than I am right now.
Everything I am is because of who my father has tried to make me, just like he did in pushing me at her, but he's going to have the shock of his life when he realizes that the girl he tried to push me toward is the reason I finally walk away from him.
* * *
It's been three days since the mess that was Christmas, and I think we might finally be getting somewhere with Briar.
Some of her walls are starting to come down and she seems to be more relaxed around us again.
It could be because we've barely left home since we got back from the Kensington's on Christmas Day, or it could be the fact that the puppies make her seemingly defenseless every time they're around, but in the last couple of days, she's finally started talking to Travis and me again, and I'm not sorry about it.
I know Travis is still dealing with his own demons about everything to do with her, but I've made my decision, and my father is just going to have to live with it.
Today, the twins are traveling with their parents to see their family and Travis has made his annual trip to go and see Katy, which means that it's just Briar and me around the house.
