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Her eyes filled with tears, but the accompanying smile told me they were happy tears.
“And what about Rose? We’re a package deal, Marcus. If you love me, you have to love her, too.”
“And I do. She might not be the daughter of my body, but she is the daughter of my soul. She’s my girl as much as you are, Celine.”
She rose from her seat and climbed onto my lap to kiss me tenderly. I kissed her back until someone whistled loudly. There were cheers all around us, and I raised my head to smile hazily at the crowd.
“The next round’s on us, ladies and gents,” I announced.
Another resounding cheer echoed through the room, and Celine dragged me onto the dance floor to dance to her favorite country music. After we danced a bit, I took her by the hand and led her back to our booth.
“Honey, I have something for you,” I said, pulling out a small box from my pocket.
Celine went white with fear.
“Marcus, it’s too soon! We’ve only just got back together,” she wailed.
“Relax! It’s not a ring,” I said, with a laugh.
She peered at the box suspiciously.
“What is it, then?”
I opened it to reveal a key.
“This is the key to your very own studio. You don’t need to rent any more space for your classes.”
She reared back in horror, which wasn’t quite the reaction I had expected.
“Why would you do something like that?”
“Excuse me? This is a late Christmas present for you, Celine.”
“A studio? Are you fucking crazy? You can’t just buy me a studio, Marcus!”
“Why not?”
“Because we weren’t even together over Christmas,” she yelled. “We were broken up.”
“So what? I still loved you!”
She took a deep breath and then a few more until she could speak calmly.
“Marcus, I appreciate the sentiment, but do you know how it makes me feel when you give me something so big?”
“Grateful? Happy?”
She shook her head stubbornly.
“No. It makes me feel like a failure.”
“But why?”
“Because it tells me that you don’t think I can buy a studio on my own someday. Of course, I’d love to have a space of my own, but not like this, Marcus. I want my studio to be a reward for my hard work, not a handout.”
“I’m just trying to help you, Celine,” I argued.
“And I love you for it. But you need to learn the difference between help and a handout. Because what else are you going to do for me, Marcus? Will you also take over the marketing for my studio? Will you staff it with a bunch of strangers I don’t even know? And after that, will you appoint a team of instructors to do the teaching so that all I have is my name on the property documents?”
