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"Hate him?"
"Well, yeah."
"I guess I did. I both hated and loved him, in equal measures. When I told him I didn't want to follow in his footsteps, that Iwanted to be a chef, he laughed at me. He told me a chef wasn't a job fit for any man, let alone men like us."
"Men like, what?"
"Rich. Accomplished. Educated. With legacies behind our names. All the things that meant everything to him and have never meant anything to me. I mean, listen, I've always had a comfortable life, more money than I'll probably ever need, all of that. And I appreciate all of it, but I was never content to let that be all that I was. So I loved him for working hard to be able to give me that life, but I hated him for being unwilling to accept that I wanted something different, for hating me for wanting something different.
"My father was very much a man who always got what he wanted, so at first, he just made it so I hardly had time to cook. Always with him at the office, I guess seeing what I should be, what a great future I could have. But it just made me not want anything to do with it anymore. That just wasn't me, and never would be. Finally, after about the fiftieth argument and twentieth threat to cut me off, my mother told him if he didn't let me choose my own path, she would leave him. That did the trick. He let it go, and me along with it. It was like from that moment on, I wasn't truly his son anymore."
My heart aches at his words. Envisioning a younger him having to fight just to be his own person, to follow his own dream. And his mother having to go to those lengths just to get a father to let his son... be.
"Was he the same way with your mother?" I inquire. "I remember you saying she didn't like Law's full name but let him pick it. Did he always get his way with her too?"
He sighs, and it's full of so many emotions. The sadness and anger are easy to tell. "Most of the time. She was from moneytoo and their marriage was all but arranged. Two good families coming together. I can't say I think she ever truly loved my father, as much as she felt he was her duty. But she loved us, so put up with a lot because of it. I could tell she let so much slide just to avoid the battle of it all. But as time went on, she stood up for herself a lot more, let less slide. And when she threatened to leave my father over his treatment of me, I think she finally realized how much power she actually had. Divorce would have been seen as a failure to both families, so she used that more and more toward the... end, to gain her freedoms in small ways."
"How did she die?"
"Went in for a routine procedure, and never made it off the operating table when I was twenty." He chuckles, but it is heartbreaking to hear. And I'm sure even more painful to feel. "Her last words to me were making me promise to make her favorite dish when we got home."
I slip my hand into his. Stupid really, but he needs it right now. I need it right now.
"What was it? Her favorite?"
He smiles then, and... the sight of it is something I will always cherish. "Beef Wellington." My eyes widen, and he laughs. "Exactly. I don't even know if it was actually her favorite. I tried to make it and failed, miserably. But she said it was her favorite, so I kept trying and trying until I mastered it. For her. Sometimes I wonder if she told me it was her favorite just so I wouldn't give up on perfecting it."
"Perfecting it, huh? I'll have to try it someday."
What the fuck are you doing?my mind screams at me. But the words have already left my mouth, and he's already nodding.
"I will bring along a napkin for the inevitable drool."
I laugh. "Like I said before, so humble."
"Master chef, master nurse. I do it all."
"I really do feel so much better. No fever, my throat doesn't feel like a raging inferno, and my head doesn't feel like someone's beating it with a mallet. And all without any medicine."
"I dare say I am all the medicine you needed. Which..." He pauses and licks his lips. Nerves? "Why didn't you tell me you were sick?"
"I didn't... know if that's something..." God, I'm sputtering like crazy, and it has him looking at me with furrowed brows. " I didn't think you'd want to know."
"Why does that sound like you're saying you didn't know if I'd care?"
I only swallow, not wanting to admit he's right. Not wanting to admit that I'm still confused about how much him being here means about him caring.
"Because you do know I care, right?" he asks, making my heart constrict in the worst way.
He cares, but in what way? I could ask, but I'm too much of a coward to.
"I know," I reply instead of saying what I really want to. Because to ask him how exactly he cares for me could bring answers I'm not ready to hear.
He gives my hand a squeeze, making me all the more aware that he's still holding it. And then we watch the show, our hands interlocked, mouths unmoving, my heart confused and mind racing.
Why am I doing this to myself? Holding his hand, sitting here noticing his every breath and the way his thumb occasionallysweeps over my knuckles. Why am I torturing myself this way when I know it'll lead to me crying in the shower again later? And that vision, of my tears mixing with the water yet again, finally makes me begin to move.
It hurts to slip my hand out of his, even more so when he tightens his hold on my fingertips just as they leave his grip. I have to make myself get out of the bed, when he looks over at me with confusion in his eyes. I put on a smile I do not at all feel as I stand.
