AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We’re past that,” I say. “Aren’t we?”
“Just a joke,” he says.
“Anyway,” I say, clearing my throat. “If I’m to be with you for an undefined amount of time—”
The thought sinks in fully.
I don’t know when he’s going to release me, do I?
I push the unsettling thought away, pressing on. “I’d like to live a normal life.”
“Being a Bachman is anything other than normal,” he says.
His comment pricks curiosity in the back of my mind, makes my conversation go off track.
Instead of continuing my list of demands, I find myself asking, “What was it like? Growing up as a Bachman?”
He thinks about it for a moment, then gives a shrug. “I don’t know another way.”
“True,” I say. “I guess we are all just products of our upbringing.”
“Speaking of.” He leans back in his seat, settling in for the long flight. “What I read in your file was interesting. You were in like, what? Five beauty pageants?”
I cringe, knowing he has a full file on my life, that he knows every detail of my past while I barely know anything about his.
“One every year from the time I was ten to fifteen.” My stomach roils thinking of the annual Little Miss Lake County Pageant, an official qualifier to enter the state-level competition. “It was the contest that if you win, you go on to compete for the state title, basically. I’m sure having seen my file, you’re aware I never placed in the county competitions, therefore, never moved on to the state ones.”
“We have a similar setup for martial arts competitions—I’m thinking of the ribbons and trophies that lined the walls of my childhood bedroom,” he says. “But how did you not win? You’re stunning.”
“I’m glad you think so,” I say. My cheeks heat from his admiring gaze. “But I’m not the type that is typically considered beautiful.”
I’m too short, too curvy, my hair too curly. The winners always seemed to have legs that started where mine did, but kept going up to the sky, their calves toned but still impossibly thin. I was more on the muscular side, my legs strong from hours of swimming.
Not to mention, I’m talentless.
“You had to have a talent,” I explain.
“You don’t?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I’m a good swimmer. Incredibly organized. Give me any room or desk or closet and I’ll have it perfectly useful in a matter of hours.” I think back to the praise I was given by a college English professor. “And I’ve been told I can write. But those aren’t the kinds of talents that can be shown off on stage.”
“What did you do?” he asks. “For your talent?”
I sigh, still feeling the deep pain of embarrassment all these years later. “My mom would come up with these things she called ‘numbers.’ Little dance routines. I was a terrible dancer.”
He laughs. “I know.”
“How?” I ask.
“The club. When you were dancing by yourself. It was terrible.” He smiles. “I found it… absolutely adorable.”
“Thanks.” Overwhelmed by all his praise, I go quiet, forgetting the point I was trying to make when I first started this conversation. I stare out the window.
I’m sucked back into that other life.
I think back to the hours and hours of torture, my mom and me standing in the center of whatever messy trailer we were living in at the moment, the worn carpeting beneath our bare feet, practicing whatever dance routine she’d made up for that year, convinced this would be the one, the “number” that would finally help me win.
That that was the year we would make it to state.
