I take him up to my room, and he frowns. “It’s a little stark, isn’t it? I was expecting lots of pictures and knick-knacks and personal things.”
I shrug. “My mother persuaded me to get rid of a lot of those things over the years. It used to be pink,” I say, looking at the walls.
“I’m sorry, kitten. That must have been hard.” He looks like he really means it, too. He sits down on my bed and picks up Chubbles. “Who’s this, then?”
We spend a few minutes going through all my stuffies and he admires each one as I pile them into his lap.
“You know,” I confess, “they were all in a box upstairs until recently. The night you yelled at me I came home and cried and dumped them all out and slept on the box room floor with them. My mother found me there the next morning.”
He looks stricken at this confession, like I still might be hurting because of something he did. “Oh, kitten. I’m so sorry.”
“No, no, it’s all right. Later on you were the reason I had the courage to bring them all downstairs again. The night you asked me to call you, you know, the thing, I started Googling, um, the thing, and found all these other girls like me. It was such a relief. I brought them all downstairs again the next morning.”
There’s a look on his face that’s warm and sweet and intense at the same time.
I want to ask him how he felt when he realized what he was into, and if he’s ever been afraid of what people might think, but I hear someone walk loudly up the stairs, cough, say my name, and then my father puts his head round the door. I think he was worried he was going to catch us making out. What he actually sees is Rufus with a lap full of stuffed animals and one in each hand, as well.
“Oh—ah, pud—dessert is ready.”
“Okay, we’ll be right down,” I say.
My father goes back downstairs and I get up off the bed and go to take all the stuffed animals off Rufus’s lap, but he catches my hand.
“Abby,” he says, looking into my eyes, “I love you.”
I stare at him. And then I burst into tears. Big, gulping, ugly tears.
Panic flicks across his face. He stands up, stuffies falling left and right, and puts his arms around me. “Oh, shit, Abby, what’s wrong? Shh, it’s okay.”
I bawl into his shirtfront for a minute or so, and then he digs a tissue out of his pocket and wipes my tears and blows my nose. He smooths the hair back from my face and looks down at me with bewildered eyes.
I try to explain. “Every time I’m af-af-afraid of something—” I hiccup “—you just t-take it away.”
“Sweetheart, what were you afraid of?”
“That I l-love you. That I f-feel so much for you in such a short time and I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to. I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t met you. I honestly don’t.” I sniffle and look down at the soggy tissue in my hands. “I’m not explaining myself very well.”
“You’re explaining it perfectly.” He kisses me and then smiles. “You love me?”
I nod. “Since the night we first slept together, when I realized you like the whole me. The part that likes stuffies and the part that likes that red dress. I didn’t think anyone would ever be so accepting of all that I am.”
“Babygirl,” he says, “how could I not be?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and bury my face in his chest. A minute ticks by, and then he says, “I’ll go downstairs. You go to the bathroom and wash your face with cold water, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper. I catch his arm. “But I’ve cried all over your shirt.” He’s wearing a blue shirt and the tears show.
He just smiles and shrugs and goes downstairs. When I come down my father and Rufus are talking about military history, my father’s pet subject. My mother’s eyes flick between Rufus’s damp shirt and my blotchy face, but she says nothing.
After dessert I walk Rufus out to his car. He stops by the bonnet and turns to me. “If I tell you I love you again are you going to cry?”
I shake my head.
He smiles and strokes my cheek. “I love you, babygirl.”
“I love you...” I look to the left and right, as if for eavesdroppers, and then raise myself up on tiptoe and whisper in his ear. “Daddy.”
I watch him drive away, then saunter back inside, a silly grin on my face.