Page 140 of Give My Everything
“What I told you about my relationship with Krissa and how things happened with my dad…that was all true. The only thing I left out was that I’ve been trying to come up with a way to knock him down a peg or five. When you started telling me about your own situation, I just instantly jumped to the potential solution.”
“Which was?”
“My hope was that by marrying you, I’d simply be a constant threat to my dad,” I say, hating the way it sounds. “It wasn’t about taking over his company or getting him kicked out or anything like that. It was simply about making him believe he was no longer the master manipulator andIwas the one controlling the puppet strings.”
Remmy nods, her eyes assessing.
“The thing you have to realize about my dad is that he’s spent my entire life teaching me that winning and being in control is the most important thing, that nothing else matters. So when it finally came time to try to knock him on his ass, the only thing I could think of was figuring out how to take away his control, or at least convince him he wasn’t top dog anymore.”
“Why is he like that?”
I shrug, having thought about it plenty myself. The hours I’ve spent wondering what force propelled my dad to become so aggressively controlling, so maniacal…ultimately, all that wondering was a waste.
If a man doesn’t see anything wrong with his behavior, it doesn’t matter what made him that way in the first place. He’s never gonna change.
“I don’t know what made him the way he is,” I answer. “I just knownowthat the last thing I want is to be like him. What kills me the most, though, is that by focusing on him, I threw all my own goals out the window, all my desires and dreams for the future. My plans to build up a culinary empire…I lit them all on fire by staying here and managing Bennie’s.”
Remmy’s brow furrows and she sits up.
“You didnotthrow your life away,” she says, her voice strong and firm.
I grin at her, appreciating the sentiment even if I don’t entirely agree.
“Thank you, but it’s hard not to think about it that way when I consider the fact that I let anger guide my decisions. My plan was to build up Bennie’s for the first year and train a manager, and then move on to the next project. But instead, I let myself get distracted by the most cliché thing in the world—revenge.”
Remmy stays silent for a moment before speaking, and the minute she opens her mouth, I know she’s going to say something important.
“When I dropped out after first semester freshman year, I had a really dark time. My thoughts were trying to convince me that ending things was a better option than staying around for the pain I was going through.”
I squeeze her hand, my chestachingfor her, for what she went through.
“Thankfully, Josslyn was there for me, and eventually I found a therapist to help me work through why I’d had those thoughts in the first place. I realized I felt guilty about those few days, about the emotions I’d felt, wondering why I was so weak that my mind couldn’t seem to manage life just like everyone else was.”
Her hand reaches out and touches my chest, right over where my heart beats steadily for her.
“But in therapy, I learned toforgivethat version of myself, for everything she’d been through that made her feel like that was the only choice. I learned to forgive her, and embrace her, and love her, to thank her for the hard work she did to crawl out of that hole in the ground so I can be this version of me today. I think that’s what you need to do, too. If you only focus on the potential life you think you threw away, you’ll never truly be able to enjoy the life you’re building now. You have to forgive that man, the man who sacrificed his dreams for revenge, who was clearly in a lot of pain and scrambled to find a way to manage it the only way he knew how.”
I place my hand over hers on my chest, overwhelmed by her words, by the way she sees things so differently than I do, and yet so clearly.
Because truly, this might be the first time I’ve been able to reflect on the past few years and actually acknowledge the points she’s making.
Iwasin pain.
Iwasscared.
Iwasangry and overwhelmed and lost.
And I did what I thought was best at the time.
It’s okay to admit that the choice I made was the wrong one.
Right?
Admit it was wrong, and then be bettertoday.Choose bettertoday. Refocus my energy on something more positivetoday.
“Josslyn suggested I try going back to therapy, and I’m thinking it’s a good idea,” Remmy says, regaining my attention. “Maybe you should consider it, too?”
I nod, knowing she’s right but still feeling too overwhelmed to respond, my mind brimming over from everything Remmy just said.
