Page 115 of Promise Me Nothing
With Hannah, it’s about wanting to live up to the expectations I assume she might have. Especially knowing that she’s had some… bad experiences in the past. Times when people took advantage or hurt her.
That’s the last thing I want.
So I’m going to let her set the pace. She’s a strong person, a sexual being with desires and needs, and I’ll just need to pay really close attention to make sure I’m reading her correctly. Giving her what she wants.
My phone beeps again and I look down at where it’s sitting on my coffee table.
Hannah: If you come, I think we’ll both have a good night ;)
I bite my lip. God, does she get under my skin in the best way.
Me: I’ll be there.
I drop my phone on the bench and get back to my workout.
I like to spend most mornings exercising, if I’m not too hung over from the night before. When I was younger, exercise was almost all cardio. Runs with my teammates, playing on the field.
But once I got to college, I wanted a slightly bulkier frame. Nothing monstrous. Just something that looked filled out and strong. So I do a modified CrossFit. Jumping rope, lifting weights, medicine balls, short sprints, and then I add in some swimming in the pool.
This morning, I’m only half into it, though, with my mind scattered on so many different things. So eventually, I give it a rest and just head upstairs to shower.
On my way back to the guesthouse, my phone begins to vibrate in my hand.
Calvin Calling…
I roll my eyes and hit ignore. The last person I feel like talking to right now is my dad. Not with how he treated me the last time I saw him.
It’s been almost a month since that night at the yacht club, and I haven’t seen or heard from him the entire time. Not even when I let his secretary know when Ivy’s doctor’s appointment was in case he wanted to come.
Of course he hadn’t been there. I don’t know why the things he does are both so surprising and so expected at the same time.
I slam the medicine ball into the padded ground. Pick it up. Do it again.
My dad hasn’t always been this person I can’t stand. I remember being a kid, spending time on the beach with him and Ben, going on family vacations.
But somewhere along the way, something changed.
I’m self-aware enough to know that it’s possiblehehasn’t changed but thatIhave. That I’ve grown up and now understand who hereallyis.
A self-centered, money-hungry, over-indulgent, obnoxious jackass who doesn’t care if he has to kick his own family out of the way to get what he wants.
The hard part with my father is that what he wants can change on a dime. So it doesn’t matter what you do, how you ebb and flow around his whims… you’ll never be enough because what he wants can never be measured.
I remember hearing my mom crying when I was a kid, maybe five or six years old at the time. Being the angry and somewhat rebellious child I was, I asked her what was wrong. Like I might be able to fix the problem if I just knew who was responsible for hurting her so I could go hurt them.
But of course, being the woman she is, my mother looked me square in the eyes and said, “I’m crying because your father doesn’t think I’m beautiful anymore.”
That’s what it was always about for her. How she looked. It couldn’t have been because he’s just an asshole who cheats. It had to be her fault. She wasn’t as young and pretty as she was when they first got married, and that was her only value.
Having gotten older, her worth was gone.
That’s when she started to change. When her outer shell became a hard plastic. Cosmetic surgery. Expensive clothes. Luxury cars. Fancy parties. If she couldn’t keep my dad’s attention, she sure as hell wanted everyone else’s.
Eventually, she managed to grab the attention of someone who could make her feel beautiful. A man who could give her what she wanted. Something even my father couldn’t give her, with all of his money and resources.
A daughter. A precious baby girl.
That man used her, and she used him in return.
