Page 121 of Breaking Away

She thinks I’m trapped, living with Dmitri. That I was pushed to it, and he took advantage.

No.

“Mom.” I grab her arm. “What you’ve described? Being trapped? Living with Dmitri is nothing like that. Maybe at first I had no choice but to move in with him, but now—” I feel myself genuinely smile. “He’s important to me.”

“Like Tyler was?”

“No.” Denial is a gong inside me. “He’s not Tyler.”

Dmitri is kind and good and generous, and I want him. Not only in a regular physical sense, but in that I want to tease him across that kitchen island. I want to listen to him grunt and workout, and I want him to be snobby about healthy food, even as he lights up whenever my cookies are baking. I want to tap my feet against his muscled thighs when we watch trash tv on the couch. I want to go to his games, all of them, cheering him on in the stands so loudly my voice cracks. His little smirks, the ones that feel saved just for me, that tell me I’ve snuck through his grumpiness to amuse him, I want all of them.

He’s not Tyler.

My mom’s eyes are filling. She thinks I need saving.

I dig my phone out of my pocket. “You’ll never guess what happened. I was the social media manager for the Vancouver Wings for one of their games. They asked me to photograph them. Look at all the comments my work got. People are following my personal photography account because of it. I’ve gotten messages from people asking to see more of my work.”

I show her.

Does she get it? This is who I’ve become these last few weeks.

She takes her gloves off and scrubs her cheek.

“I’m changing and believing in myself,” I say. “Or I was, until these last few days when Tyler started harassing me harder and I got that email from dad, assuming so many things.”

She hands me back the phone. “Your dad loves you.”

Did she see the photos properly?

I remember Dmitri absorbing each one, asking for more.

Mom holds onto my shoulders. “Sometimes I find your dad looking at old videos of you as a kid. He’s sad you aren’t home.”

I can’t bear this information. It hurts to hear because it’s not like I’ve withdrawn my love from him. He’s done that tome.He’s made it so particularly conditional, suited to his world, and not mine.

Tearing my eyes from her, I look anywhere else. The clock on the wall reminds me. I have an interview. At the same time, I’m questioning everything.

Why am I really here in Seattle?

When this firm emailed, asking for an interview, I thought it was a sign. A solution to me figuring out my life properly and relying on myself. Only myself.

Except, looking back at my mom, I think I’ve got it wrong. I don’t have to do absolutely everything on my own to believe in myself. I was already getting there… and it wasn’t done alone…

The Kavi who was with Tyler is not the same Kavi who is with Dmitri.

“I didn’t go to college,” I say out loud.

My mom’s hands wave. “That’s fine, you don’t have to–”

“I’m a photographer.”

She blinks, confused by the connection.

“I know…” says my mother slowly.

“Do you?” I get up, waiting until she also stands. “Because sometimes I think you think I’m a photographer in the sense of—” I groan. “I don’t know, like a person patting their daughter’shead, patronizing her, saying something like, ‘You’re doing so great, sweetie.’”

“Youaredoing so great–”

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