I heard my brother Jojo suck in a breath and heard Ivan’s fork clink against the side of his plate. Mostly though, I heard the anger in me churning to his words. To his bullshit-ass assumptions. “You think I’m a quitter?” I asked him, fully aware I was giving him the same look I gave other people when I was three seconds away from losing my shit.
“Jas, we all know you aren’t a quitter,” Jojo chimed in quickly, finally.
We both ignored him.
“You don’t want to finish school because it’s hard for you. Those are the words of a quitter,” my father claimed, slashing my heart in half at the same time.
Had he not heard a single fucking thing I’d just said?
Beside me, Ivan cleared his throat, his fingers sliding up even higher on my thigh and squeezing me, not in anger but… in something else I couldn’t place. And before I could open my mouth to defend myself, to yell at my dad that that wasn’t the point at all, he beat me to it. “I know I’m not a member of this family, but I need to say something,” my partner said calmly.
I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. I was… I was so damn mad, disappointed, I wanted to throw up.
But Ivan kept going. “Mr. Santos, your daughter is the hardest working person I’ve ever met. She’s persistent to a fault. Someone will tell her not to do something, and she only does it more. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who has fallen more than her and gotten right back up, never complaining, never crying, never quitting. She’ll cuss herself out, but it’s at herself. She’s smart, and she’s relentless,” he said calmly, his hand squeezing my leg tighter than before.
“She gets to the facility at four in the morning Monday through Friday and trains with me until eight. Then she goes to work, on her feet right after that until noon. She eats her two breakfasts and her lunch in her car, then comes inside and trains with me until four. Three days a week, she has three ballet lessons by herself and one with me for two hours each time. One day a week, she takes Pilates from six until seven. Four days out of the week, she goes for runs and works out after we train. She goes home, eats, spends some time with the rest of her family, and goes to bed by nine. Then she’s up at three o’clock in the morning and does it all over again.
“And for months, she was going back to the facility to practice by herself from ten at night until midnight. Because she was too proud to tell me that she needed help. Then she would go home, sleep for three hours and do it all over again. Six days a week.” The hand on my leg gripped the fuck out of it, not hard but… desperate. And Ivan kept talking. “If Jasmine wanted to go to school, she would graduate with honors. If she wanted to become a doctor, she would be a doctor. But she wanted to become a figure skater, and she is the best I have ever had as a partner. I think that if you’re going to do something, you should be the best at it. And that’s what Jasmine is. I understand school is important, but she has a gift. You should be proud of her for never giving up on her dreams. You should be proud of her for being true to herself.”
Ivan paused and then said three words that slayed me. “I would be.”
Fuck. Fuck.
I didn’t even realize I had shoved my seat back until I was getting to my feet, dropping my napkin and fork and knives beside my plate. Something in my chest burned. Seared. Flayed me inside out.
How did Ivan know me so well and my own dad not?
How could Ivan know all these things about me, and my own dad be disappointed in who I was? I knew I wasn’t book smart. When I’d been younger, I’d wished that I had been. Finishing high school had been hard enough for me, but it was because I hadn’t given a shit about it, because I had loved this sport and wanted to be like the other girls who were homeschooled or had private tutors. I hadn’t been lying when I said I hated school and had no interest in going back.
But it was hard enough to be a disappointment with the one thing I was good at, without being able to handle disappointing my own dad, simply by being me.
That burning sensation made its way up to my face, and I honestly felt like I couldn’t breathe. It almost felt like I was drowning as I pushed past the people waiting by the hostess podium, shoving the door open as I tried to gulp for breath. My palms went up to cover my eyes as I sucked in air, trying so hard not to cry. Me. Cry. Over my dad. Over Ivan. Over the reminder that I was dumb and a failure, regardless of how I looked at it and how happy I was. It had all been too soon. Or maybe I was finally just acknowledging how much my dad’s beliefs and desires and actions affected me.
But goddamn. It hurt. It sucked.
I could win every competition this season, and I would still be stupid, useless Jasmine to my dad. Disappointing, big-mouth Jasmine. Cold, pissed-off Jasmine with dreams that were a waste of time and money.
I hadn’t been enough when he left, and I still wasn’t enough for him now.
But I wanted to be. It was all I had ever wanted. I had wanted to be enough for my fucking dad. Even now after all this shit, I still just wanted him to see me. To love me. Like everyone else in the restaurant did.
I wanted to be enough just the way I was, without Ivan having to tell my dad all the things about me he should have known.
My palms grew wet, and I sucked in a breath that sounded like a sob but felt like a razor blade straight into my sternum.
The one man I wanted to appreciate me and respect me, didn’t.
And the other man, the one whose appreciation and respect I had told myself for so long didn’t matter, seemed to think the world of me.
Why didn’t he know how hard I was willing to work every day for the things I wanted?
Digging the meat of my palms even tighter against my eyes, fully aware I was probably smudging my mascara and eyeliner but not giving a single shit, I sucked in a breath that probably could have been heard from down the block.
The doors beside me opened and I heard a “you should probably give her a minute,” said by my brother, followed by the sound of the door closing.
I didn’t sense someone close by until it was too late, and two arms wrapped themselves around my shoulders. It only took a single sniff to know who it was.
My choke reached down into my lungs, pretty much making my entire chest contract in a near hiccup. The arms hugging me pulled me into a chest I was too familiar with while I dropped my arms and let them hang loosely at my sides. And I let it happen. I let my face fall forward into the spot directly between pectoral muscles I’d seen countless times, and touched countless times, and admired more and more by the day, and I grit my teeth to keep from making anymore choking noises.
I failed.
The muttered “fuck” went in one ear and out the other. Followed by what must have been a cheek pressing against the top of my head. Ivan’s voice came low, so low I barely heard him. “Why do you do this to yourself? Huh?” he asked me.
My chest stuttered, a hiccup, a compressed choke that hurt me more than I already was.
“You know how good you are. You know how rare that is. You know how much work you put in to everything. You know how strong you are,” he whispered, his arms crossed over my shoulder blades. “Your dad doesn’t know anything about figure skating, Jasmine. From the sound of it, he doesn’t know you at all. You know better than to let what he thinks get to you. You know better.”
“I know,” whispered into the bone directly between his pecs, squeezing my eyes shut so that I wouldn’t disgrace myself even more by bawling into him.