AN: I didn't mean to hate on Twilight, I love it, but do you really think that's the kind of thing Payson would like? ;) Anyway, I think it is the gymnastics that makes my writing a little disconnected, since I'm not a gymnast myself. I tried to get it out of the way and move on to other things. I hate Summer, too, so that's why I made her a drunken crazy two chapters ago. I had a lot of fun with that, because I'm evil that way. I hope you like this chapter! Tell me what you think!
"Are you ready?" Sasha asked. Payson squeezed his hand as though she was holding on for dear life. Her world spun. What would Kim say? What would she do? Payson hated being uncertain. It was the feeling that scared her the most, as though not knowing her future was worse than not having one at all. And this wasn't just her future, either, it was the person she loved she was afraid for. Mark could be dangerous, but the wrath of her mother was even more deadly. Kim was like a grizzly bear when it came to her cubs. If she ever found out that Lauren had sent the video of Payson and Sasha's kiss to the NGO, whatever they were about to face would seem like a game of tag. Payson was sure that when they told Kim that they were in an inappropriate relationship, she even winced at the words; her mother would explode, like a volcano, drowning Sasha in lava that scalded his skin. Payson would try to defend him, but that would only make the situation worse. Kim would skin Sasha alive, claiming that was what he got for laying a hand on her daughter, just like she would've done with Max if Becca hadn't shielded him.
"Payson, don't act like you already know what's going to happen," Sasha soothed. "You know your mother as an authority figure, so you're imagining the worst possible scenarios that probably are never going to happen. I know your mother as a friend, and among the many arguments we've had there's never been a time when I doubted she would forgive me. She'll see our side eventually; we'll make sure of it. But it is true that you know your mother better than me, no matter how it is you do. I need to rely on you to tell me if I'm going about defending us the entirely wrong way. Okay?" Payson couldn't respond. There was a lump the size of Canada sticking inside her mouth like an icicle, making it impossible to form words. She twisted the silver band Sasha gave her around her finger, nervous. He leaned in to murmur in her ear, "When you were little, did your mother ever tell you that she would love you unconditionally, that no matter what you did or the trouble you were in, she would love you anyway? After this, she will still be your mom. She will still love you." She nodded, seeing his point.
"But…" her voice sounded small, which infuriated her and that, that was the end of being scared. Payson fixed her posture, lifted her head, and strengthened her voice. She would not be weak, not on her own property, so she stared at Sasha, straight in his eye. "She made no such promise to you. That's what makes me anxious. We have no clue how she will react, only that she will be much angrier with you than she will be with me, and that unsettles me because I love you and I don't want anything to happen to you. Don't underestimate my mother, Sasha Belov. She is lethal, and if she feels that you have harmed me she will stop at nothing to make sure that you burn in Hell for the rest of eternity." Clearing her throat, she turned to look at the front door of her house, but she was not quite done.
"Payson…" Sasha interrupted. She ignored him.
"Now, you are right. I know my mother much better than you do. We are doing the right thing by telling my parents separately. When they are apart, they are weaker, and they cannot feed off of each other for support. Mom's opinions reflect those of my Dad's. When she's alone, she could have a completely different response than when she's with Dad. For example, if Dad is angry, she will be too if she is around him. If they are apart, Dad could be mad and my mother completely overjoyed, though that is a stretch. They tend to think similarly either way." Payson turned to face him. "What is it you wanted to say?"
He took the silver band off of her finger and held it in front of him, level with his eye. "Inimă, do you remember what this stands for?"
Payson didn't blink. "Love, always," she answered, not a hitch in her voice. He put it back on her finger.
"That's right. No matter what happens in that house, no matter how Kim reacts, I will still love you. Nothing is going to change that. So in a way, your mother and I are similar. She loves you irrevocably, and so do I, just in very different ways. One day, I will marry you. Remember that." Before she could stop in, he rang the doorbell, not that she would've. Payson was still mesmerized by his words, the same way she had been at the Invitational.
One day, I will marry you.
The door opened, and the daze had ceased. There Becca stood, looking bewildered. "Um…is this a surprise party?"
"You can't have a surprise party with two people, Becca," Payson scoffed. "Is Mom home?"
"Yeah, but Pay…you didn't have to use the doorbell, it's your house."
"That, actually, was me," Sasha said to her, holding up a hand, "Hi, Becca." She looked like she had just noticed him for the first time, and was very surprised about it. Phoebe ran up next to her and barked. "Hello, Phoebe," he greeted, leaning down to pet her, which surprised everyone. Sasha didn't seem like a dog person. He probably wasn't, he just had wanted to make a good impression.
"Becca, we really need to talk to Mom…alone," Payson said, as gently as possible. Becca had been really fragile since the whole Max argument. She twisted people's words and accused them of hinting that she was a slut or that she was an idiot for trusting Max, but she didn't seemed phased by that comment, which was a relief.
Instead she just looked at them knowingly and teased, "What, are you asking for her consent to get married underage, Pay?" Payson's mind soared remembering what Sasha had told her moments prior to that joke, and even though her heart fluttered like a bird she was still annoyed at her sister for giving her a hard time.
"BeCA," Payson complained.
"Fine, fine, she's in the kitchen." Becca looked a little sheepish when she said, "…Come on in."
Payson led Sasha into her house and stood in the living room. She looked wishfully out the window at her thinking tree, thinking that she'd much rather be sitting high up in a branch with Sasha, out of reach from the rest of the world. Kim followed Becca into the doorway, looking a little bemused. Becca left, mouthing "Good luck" to Payson before she vanished down the hall. Payson appreciated that, because she knew she would need it. It was also nice to know that even though she and her sister had been arguing, and both of them had changed and grown, they would still always be connected. That was the way it would be with Sasha, too, she reassured herself, no matter what Kim said or did after they told her.
"Hi, Sasha, it's nice to see you on our day off," Kim greeted, giving him a hug. Payson winced. She wouldn't be hugging him in a minute.
"Hi, Kim," Sasha said, vaguely feeling like he was meeting the parents, even though he worked alongside Payson's mother every day.
"So, to what do I owe this lovely surprise?" she asked, looking from her daughter to her coworker, completely unaware.
"Mom, I think we should sit down," Payson said, gesturing to the leather chair across from the couch. Her mother looked even more confused, but she obliged, and the secret couple sat next to each other on the sofa facing her. "Mom," Payson repeated, "Sasha and I have something to tell you." He nodded.
Kim's face changed from bewildered to an expression of concern. "Is everything alright?" she asked.
Payson hesitated. In her eyes, yes, everything was more than alright. But would her mother see it that way? "Yes," Sasha said earnestly. "Everything is more than alright, and although immediately you might not think so, Payson and I are both very happy." He spoke her thoughts, as usual.
"But then why do you look so pale, sweetheart?" Kim reached out and touched her daughter's cheek. Payson caught her reflection in her mother's reading glasses. Wow, she was pale. Her face looked like snow, white chalk against the dark tones of the couch she was sitting on.
"Listen, Mom," Payson said with her eyes looking very sincere. She took a deep breath. It's not going to get done until you do it, Payson. "Sasha and I have tried for months to avoid each other as much as possible, because whenever we came face to face all we saw in one another was something that we wanted desperately but could never have." Payson's stomach churned and clenched in fear. She had never felt this terrified, not even when she fell off the bars at Nationals and heard her back crunch like a pretzel beneath her. Kim's eyebrows shot up like a rocket.
"Um…okay?" she said hesitantly. "That's not what I was expecting."
Payson went on. "I know. This wasn't expected. This wasn't wanted, even. All I ever wanted was to be an Olympic champion, and these feelings put my dream in jeopardy. I know this, but I also know that Sasha is worth it. When I kissed Sasha that night we stayed late training for Worlds Trials, I didn't just have a little school girl's crush on him. When I went into a room, I looked to see if he was there. When he was, all I wanted was to be near him. He was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep, all I dreamt about, and the first thought I had when I woke up in the morning. When he took me to the ballet, I thought for the first time that making a full comeback from breaking my back was possible, but every time I looked at him, I felt like crying because I knew that he would never feel anything for me remotely similar to the way I felt for him, and even if he did, neither of us would admit it to ourselves or each other. All my life the only thing I've ever wanted was an Olympic gold medal or four of them if I was good enough. I thought that telling Sasha the things I'd been feeling would completely ruin my chances. The night I kissed him, though, I felt good enough. Sasha makes me feel like anything I strive to do I can achieve so long as he's with me. He's the one person in my life who has never hurt me, will always believe in me, and look out for my best interest. You can't tell me that he's doing to me what Max did to Becca. It isn't true. We aren't doing anything dangerous, or illegal, or wrong. Max was using Becca. Sasha is not using me."
"How can you know he isn't using you, Payson? You're seventeen years old! You're too innocent, too…"
"…naïve?" Payson finished for her. "You know that isn't true. If I was naïve, I wouldn't be a gymnast. Gymnasts can't be naïve. We have to be attentive of all our surroundings and completely aware of our limits. Sasha and I are not progressing too quickly. We went to see a psychologist so we could get a professional's opinion on our situation. He told us that so long as we refrained on anything sexual until after the Olympics, which I always intended on doing even before I fell in love with Sasha, then he saw no reason why we couldn't be together…"
"Payson," Sasha interjected. "May I say something?"
"Be patient." Payson gave him a look. Kim looked like she was fighting a smile. Payson took that to be a very good sign.
Sasha held his hands up in surrender. "Okay, go ahead."
"So, in conclusion, this love that I have for Sasha is never going to leave, and I don't want it to. If you tell us we can't be together, it won't do any good. I will never fall out of love with him, and I know he feels the same." She looked over to Sasha, and nodded her head once.
"My turn?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered.
"Kim," Sasha said, being sure to make very good eye contact, "I love your daughter more than I will ever be able to say. I resisted acknowledging this for a long time, because I never wanted to hurt her or her career. That is a big reason why I fled to Bucharest. I never want to cause her any pain." Kim looked like she appreciated this, but was very reluctant to admit it. "You and I have been friends since we met. I admired you and Mark in the wonderful way you have dealt with Payson's career. Lots of parents I've met over the years either have trouble coming to terms with the fact that their daughter is not normal, she is a champion, or they abuse their daughter's talent and milk as much money as they can out of it. You do neither." Kim noticed that Sasha did not call Payson a child; he called her Kim's daughter, which would be true no matter how old she got.
"Everything Payson said is very true. I do not use her. I see her as an equal. She is the most amazing woman I have ever met and will ever meet. When she kissed me, I only pulled away because I was afraid of harming her. Payson brings out a side of me that very little people see. I have cried in front of her more times than I have in front of my own parents. We share a bond that very little have. She astonishes me more every day when she finishes my sentences, immediately races to her friends' sides when they need her, the way she has so much dignity and poise in whatever she does. When I saw her grab her ankle at Worlds, I had never been so frustrated and scared. Here I have been, trying so hard not to cause her any pain, and here she is, hurting over something I had no control over. Then when she insisted on doing her vault with a one foot landing, I fell in love with her all over again. She is so brave; she makes me want to be a better person. Payson actually compared our relationship to the song you and Mark danced to at your wedding…"
"In my Life?" Kim asked, surprised.
"Yes, and I completely agree with her. We both care deeply about lots of different places, people, and things, but all that love combined doesn't compare to the way we love each other. I intend to spend the rest of my life with her. I want to marry her. Not now, of course, I realize she is much younger than I am, but some day, once we are both ready, me mentally, and her physically. I also realize that you might worry about me being biased in training. Since we confessed that we loved one another, that hasn't been an issue, and I intend for it to stay that way…"
"What about Summer?" Kim interrupted. Payson let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. Of course Kim would want to know about her best friend eventually, but for that to be her first concern…Payson didn't know whether to be relieved or hurt.
"What about her?" Sasha didn't bat an eyelash.
"Didn't you love her at one point?" Kim demanded.
"No," Sasha responded. "No, Kim, I never did. To me Summer was like what I thought I could never have with Payson. I was only with her because I liked being around her as a friend, and I knew she cared for me, so I figured if I could not have the one I loved, why not have the one who loved me? That is not something I am proud of."
Kim looked stern. "You broke my best friend's heart and now you want to marry my underage daughter?"
"Yes, Kim, I do want to marry her, but not while she is still underage. When we are ready, I will come back and ask for Mark's consent. Of course we will tell him before that," he added quickly. "I was hoping to tell him right after he returns from Minnesota."
Kim waved him off. "I'll tell him. He'll be less upset with me."
Payson raised her eyebrows. Sasha saw the resemblance between them for the first time. It wasn't in their traits, more their characteristics. "Does that mean…you aren't upset?"
"Of course I am. I'm madder than I've ever been my whole life, but Payson is right, I can't do anything about it. You're still going to feel the way you feel no matter what I say. And, honestly, Sasha, we are friends. I feel a little betrayed, but there are so many jerks in the world that my daughter could've fallen for that would've run right over her heart on their bad boy motorcycle and right on to another girl. You won't do that to her. You're a good person, or else you wouldn't be my friend."
"I do have a motorcycle," Sasha pointed out.
Kim's lips tightened. "Don't let Payson anywhere near it," she ordered.
Sasha laughed. "Yes, ma'am," he promised.
"Don't call me ma'am! The fact that you're going to be my son-in-law one day makes me feel old enough. You've called me Kim forever, and that's how it'll be forever."
"Yes, Kim."
"That's better. Now all I have to worry about is how my husband is going to react…"
Payson visibly grimaced.
Kim smiled and spread her arms wide. "Welcome to that family, Sasha."