“I’m so sorry I caused us so much pain and I said Persephone and I wasn’t brave enough.”
“You’re the bravest person I know, babygirl. Look at all that you’ve done.” He pulls a tissue out of his pocket and wipes my tears, and then puts it over my nose. “Blow.” I do. The tissue comes away glittery, too.
“I’m getting glitter all over you,” I say with a shaky laugh.
He presses his forehead against mine. “Please get glitter all over me,” he whispers. “Drown me in it.” Then he glances over my shoulder. My parents must be standing in the doorway of my dressing room, watching us, but I don’t check to see. I can’t drag my eyes away from him.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” he says, looking back at me.
Now that he’s here I don’t want him to leave, as if he might disappear once he’s out of my sight.
“I’ll be here when you get offstage,” he promises, and finally I nod. He looks down at my fists, still clutched on his shirt. “You have to let go of me, babygirl,” he murmurs.
“Okay,” I whisper, and slowly let go. He plants a kiss on my nose and squeezes both my hands. He looks down at me a moment longer, and then he’s gone.
I take a deep breath and turn back to my parents. “Well,” I say, not able to stop myself from smiling, and not wanting to, either. “I should get changed.”
They wait outside my dressing room and don’t say anything as we leave the theater and walk to their car.
I’m sitting in the back, grinning to myself with the pink roses clutched in my arms, when my mother asks, “What is a dom, Abby?”
I screw up my eyes for a second, embarrassed. “It’s, uh, short for dominant. It’s the person who takes charge in a dominant slash submissive relationship.”
Silence from the front seats.
In for a penny. “The rules and boundaries make me feel safe. By giving up some power I am empowered in the rest of my life. It sounds sort of illogical—”
“No, no,” my mother interrupts. “It makes sense.”
I wonder if it does, but it sounds like she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, either way, so I hold my tongue.
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Finally she says, “So when he hit you, it was, ah...”
“Mum, there’s a film called Secretary I think you both should watch. It would explain a little better than I can. Will you both watch it for me?”
My father clears his throat. My mother looks at him. “Oh, all right, darling. We can do that.”
I dart forward in my seat and plant a kisses on both their cheeks. This must be so hard for them, but they’re trying, and I’m so grateful for that. I know how hard it is to try when all you want to do is curl into a ball and refuse to face something. “Thank you,” I whisper.
I stare out the window, hugging myself and smiling up at the streetlights as they slide past, each one as bright and white as a stage light. Rufus. Tomorrow. It seems like there’s a desert of time stretching between now and then, but it sparkles on the horizon like a beautiful oasis.
* * *
He meets me outside the stage door and I go up on tiptoe so I can wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face in the collar of his shirt. He holds me so tightly.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper over and over. “I’m so sorry.”
“Shh,” he tells me. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m so proud of you.”
I pull back a little, my eyes searching his face. I can’t see any resentment or anger there. Only love. “But I caused us so much pain and now all I want is to have you back.”
“Oh, babygirl,” he says, squeezing me tightly. “You did in a couple of weeks what it took me five years to do. I’m just sorry I couldn’t find the right way to help you.”
“But you did help me. I never would have been brave enough to be myself if I hadn’t met you.”
He kisses me. “Will you be mine again?”