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She felt the sudden, ingrained shame of having asked for something she wanted, but fought against it and waited.
“Just because your parents don’t appreciate what you do doesn’t mean it holds less value. You’re trying to be true to yourself, and not to hurt anyone in the process. What more can you ask of yourself?”
“Everyone acts like you’re just supposed to find what you love right away, and if you don’t, just do something you don’t love. And if you do neither of those things you’re being selfish.”
“Portia, you say that alcohol helps you to relax and be open with people. Can you tell me how being open without alcohol makes you feel?”
wasn’t until Portia had cut it out of her life that she’d realized it had stopped being fun and started being a coping mechanism, long, long ago.
“I don’t even know why my friends and family put up with me.” “Probably because humans make mistakes and other humans forgive them.”
Before we continue, you shouldn’t feel bad about not knowing this stuff already. Why would you know random minutiae of etiquette? It served no purpose to you before.” She sighed. “You’re learning skills, but lacking those skills had no impact on your worth. Your value doesn’t lie in the way you hold a glass or a knife, or whether you can make a formal toast.”
celebrating even the smallest steps, because every small step added mileage toward reaching your goals.
“But when you talk about fake personas and silly rituals, remember that some of us can’t opt out of that stuff. Before I even open my mouth, I’m judged based on whether I’m perceived to be pretty enough or wearing the right thing—not too revealing, not too frumpy, not too cheap looking, not too fancy. When I do talk, it’s whether I’m articulate enough. So while you’re rightfully annoyed by this, just remember that at least half of the population has to adopt these fake personas and silly rituals just to get through the day.”
She was tempted to sooth him, to tell him it had been fine. “Yeah. That really sucked and I was disappointed and felt like an idiot. Thank you for apologizing.”
She wanted to tell him that he had it all wrong, that she was selfish and didn’t think of others, except he wasn’t. She was always trying to figure out how to please people. She was always running low level scans making sure there was nothing for her to do. It was exhausting, now that she had put her finger on it.
“You’re going to be tired all the time in this new life of yours. Do you know who bears the brunt of it when a man given power gets tired?” “Christ, look, if you have something to say, just say it. Out with it.” Johan exhaled deeply, as if he’d been waiting for Tav to ask. “Portia is not your walking stick, McKenzie. If you cannot do something without her, that means that when you do something with her, you’re bearing down on her with all your force. You’re a large man, and every walking stick has a maximum load it can take before it snaps. Adding romantic liaisons only decreases the
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They’ve already started telling this story about me that doesn’t feel like me at all. What if I don’t live up to it? Or what if the story changes for the worse? Or what if everyone I’m close to gets hurt?”
sometimes you need to change things up a wee bit. If you base everything on how things worked in the past, then we’d have no innovation and no change.”
“You’ve read Arthurian legend. You get the appeal. Arthur was the chosen one, the one who could pull the sword from the stone. But every kid who’s heard that story from the middle ages until today has thought ‘That could be me.’ And now you’re Arthur. These kids might not want to become a duke, but they know it’s possible.” Tavish sat beside her on the sofa, leaving a space between them. “Aye. No one ever talks about how Arthur felt holding that sword, though. And I’m not complaining, but it’s a mite heavy at times.”
That is the brave part. Seeing an enemy at the gate, an enemy who could rip you to shreds, and then taking that deep breath, lowering the drawbridge, and inviting them in. You’d been defending your castle for years. Lowering the bridge must have been so hard.”
“She deserves better than me, Mum. A man playing at the peerage who needs his hand held for the simplest thing.” “What the bloody hell, Tavish?” his father suddenly cut in. “What do you think people fall in love for, if not the hand holding? Do you think marriage is two people walking side by side, never touching lest one of them pull the other down?”
