Bab 83: 83. Chapter 83
When Alexis was little, her father took her to Disney World; she got to meet the princesses and have her picture taken in Cinderella's castle and eat breakfast with Chip and Dale and Donald Duck, all her favorites.
He bought her any souvenir she at all admired; they went on every roller coaster he could drag her on; they gorged themselves on cherry-coke slushies, funnel cakes, and hot fudge sundaes in mickey mouse ears.
He was making up for it, for her mother, for the miles between them now. She knew it, even at the time. She loved Disney World, but she loved her father more, and there was no way she was going to choose her mother over him.
Even at that age, she wasn't sure that she could always love her mother. She did love her, of course she did - what little girl didn't? No matter how bad a mother she was. But already that love had limitations, boundaries, barriers to keep her heart from bruising quite so easily.
She knew there would have to be a separation, a wall between herself and her mother. Not because Meredith is a bad person; no, in fact, it's because her mother is such a good person. Or well, if not good, then at least harmless and lovely and fun.
She doesn't like having that wall between herself and Kate. Because Kate is so very good, and right, and true. Dependable. There is nothing for her father to make up for when it comes to Kate. If anything, Kate makes up for her father.
"What're you thinking about?" Rafe says gently.
Allie looks over at him, best friend and love, takes the hand he's offered to her. "My mom."
"I like her."
"Oh. I mean. Meredith."
He wrinkles his nose. "Not so much."
Allie laughs and leans against his side. They've come back to the beach because the roar of the water drowns out everything else; she feels alone with him in a way she never has before, with anyone else. Except maybe Kate. She has the same ability to make the world stand still, give Alexis a chance to breathe.
"I love you, you know," she says quietly, sliding her foot through the hot sand, spreading grains of it over her toes.
"I do."
She giggles at that. "Oh, you do?"
"Yup."
"And?"
"And I'm glad. It makes it a lot easier. I don't have to kidnap you and hold you in my basement this way."
Allie giggles again, feels that stupid breathlessness in her body, the heat, and not at all from the sun and sand. "Well then. Creepy as that is."
He's grinning at her. "And I love you too."
"There we go," she laughs, rolling her eyes at him.
"So what about Meredith had you looking like that?"
She shrugs. He knows her issues; he tries to be good about them. She's pretty certain that it goes even deeper than she herself knows or cares to think about. How can it not? Her mother, for all intents and purposes, abandoned her. Her mother didn't want her; her mother thought it was all too much.
If she repeats the truth to herself often enough, maybe that will dull the sense of having been left behind.
"Allie? What were you thinking about?" He prompts her because he knows her; she's grateful that he doesn't let her think too hard, too long, too much. He draws her out of herself.
"The difference between having Kate and not having Meredith."
He nods; she can feel the movement of his body as he shifts closer. His side is now flush with hers. She drops her knees down to sit with her legs out in front of her, their arms entwined, hands clasped.
"So. Want to tell me what it was like? Not having Meredith."
"A relief," she breathes out, blinking against the sun. She lays her head on his shoulder and relaxes.
"I can see that," he laughs softly. "Sometimes, it'd be a relief to have my mom quiet for once."
"Don't say that," she chides. "Because it's not true."
"It's close to true."
"Your mom is just excited for you. And she wants you to be happy."
"I think your mom wants the same for you."
"My mom does, yes." She doesn't know why she makes the distinction anymore. She's old enough to know, for herself, which woman is truly her mother; she was old enough when her father married Kate in the first place. Still she clings to Kate as if in rebellion to her mother. "But Meredith?"
"Meredith too. She wants you to be happy, Allie."
Even though Rafe barely knows the woman, can't have known all the things that have happened between Meredith and Allie, hearing the words, the certainty in his voice, eases the tight feeling in her chest.
"But Kate - well, she wants more for you than that," Rafe says.
"What do you mean?"
"She doesn't just want you to be happy. She also wants you to be a good person. I don't know that Meredith would understand the distinction."
His eyes are intense as he stares into the waves.
"She wants your happiness, but she wants more than that. She wants you to be good to others, to help people instead of hurting them, to make the world a better place because you're in it. To not be selfish, to look out for your brother and sister, to love without borders."
Allie gapes at him, her skin flush in the summer sun.
"You can tell," Rafe says finally. He turns and looks at her again. "I can tell. She wants it for Dashiell and Ellery too. For them to be decent human beings. That's so rare. I hope I can do that."
"What?" She wraps her fingers around his hand, squeezes. "Do what?"
"Love my kids enough to make them good people. Love them the hard way, and not just all the easy ways."
Something clicks then, something she's known for the last five years or so, but never had the words for it. "That's what it is."
Rafe's fingers lace through hers. "What?"
"That's the difference. Between Kate and Meredith. Meredith loves me in all the easy ways. And Kate in the hard ones. The ones that take more work. The ways - they ways that hurt sometimes, but make me a better person."
She closes her eyes, remembering how mortified and angry she was when Kate picked her up from a party and then sent her to view an autopsy as her punishment. She'd thought, for so long, that Kate was cool, that the woman would be her friend, but that wasn't what Kate had done that night, wasn't what Kate seemed to think she should do.
Her father had often been the cool dad, and she'd loved it, but it was Kate that made him love in all the more difficult ways. It was Kate that showed both of them how doing the things that hurt were sometimes the best ways to love.
Rafe squeezes her hand. His voice is low and hesitant when he speaks again. "Do you think we'll hurt each other? Good or bad, will we-?"
Allie's heart pounds, but she curls her arm against her chest, bringing his trapped hand to her lips. She kisses his knuckles, the overworked fingers, the callouses and burns from a career spent with knives and burners and ovens.
"Allie?"
"I think we will."
He nods, as if he expects as much. Something about the resolution on his face, the resignation, reminds her of what they've been through to get to this point.
"I think I already have, haven't I?" She pulls her knees back up, his arm trapped in the cradle of her body. Allie shifts so that their laced fingers drape over her knee, her cheek pressed to the back of his hand.
Rafe looks at her, the grey of his eyes like the churning waves. "You haven't hurt me because you love me. You've hurt me because I loved you. And that's entirely my fault."
She turns her head so that her lips brush his knuckles; his thumb lifts and strokes her cheek.
"I didn't want to hurt you," she whispers. "I didn't mean to."
He nods. "I know. My fault, remember, Allie? It's my fault, babe, and I'd do it again, fall in love with you, all the painful times of wanting you and not being able to have you, because I have you now."
Her joy unfurls within her chest and spreads, warm as sun-soaked honey, out through her veins and along her smile and in her eyes. Alexis lifts her head from the back of his hand and turns to him, her knees falling in his lap. She releases his fingers and instead winds her arms around him, his wiry strength, his hot skin, the body that loves her.
Rafe kisses the corner of her mouth, being careful to keep it decent, keep them decent out here on the beach. She laughs into his huffed breath, his low growl of frustration.
"I want to be alone with you," she says, her fingers playing with the hair at his nape even as he kisses her mouth again.
"I want to marry you," he groans in reply, hugging her tighter, pulling her closer.
She gasps on a laugh, tugging back, catching his ears with her hands to keep him away. His eyes open.
"You want to marry me." She's laughing at him, at how he's said it.
"Of course."
Oh, but he's serious. And she wants him. Wants to marry him, have everything with him, even the times of pain and the hard parts of love.
"Come find me when you've got a ring," she laughs, shaking her head at him and kissing him again, deeper - forget the kids on the beach.
"I will." And then he breaks the kiss, pushes her back, and stands. "In the meantime, before you make me do things that aren't appropriate in front of a crowd, let's get lunch."
She smiles and puts her palm in his outstretched hand, hums at him as he lifts her up. "Back at the condo or . . . alone?"
He grins, lifts an eyebrow as he begins making his way back towards the boardwalk. "Oh, you did say you wanted to be alone with me."
Allie laughs back at him, nudges him in the shoulder. "Yeah, yeah. But honestly, I want us to go be with my family. Do you mind?"
He pauses in the sand, his hand curled around hers, his face tender towards her. "Allie, oh babe. I don't ever want to separate you from your family. They've made you into the woman I love."
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone