Chapter 12 – Leveling the Playing Field
It's been a week since both Ana and Sawyer were discharged from the hospital and headed to Montesano to recover. Sawyer sends Taylor and I an updated twice a day, but I haven't heard from Anastasia at all. I don't know why I expected to, but I did. Maybe it was more hope than expectation. It's taken all of my self-control not to reach out to her. Ray has called me every other day to let me know how they are both doing, which is more than I expected from him.
To take my mind off things, I've spent time working, sparring with Bastille, or on appointments with Flynn. Well, that, and having Mrs. Jones work with Taylor to create a dream bedroom for Kate at the new apartment while she's vacationing in Barbados. As much as she grates on my nerves, I can see what Ray meant that though Kate and Ana are polar opposites, their friendship works. Ana keeps Kate's feet firmly planted on the ground, and Kate pushes my favorite bookworm to be more outgoing. So if I ever have a chance at a relationship with Anastasia, I need to make peace with Kate. Besides, Elliot is infatuated with her and even my parents are thrilled about it.
Even work is slow right now. We have two acquisitions ongoing, but Ros is on top of them. I actually feel useless. I've reviewed half a dozen contracts this week and didn't have to amend any of them. My team is too good. The one thing I did work on personally was a contract to buy into Sawyer's company to produce fashionable bulletproof clothing and emailed it to him. I'm waiting to hear back, but I can't imagine him saying no to a silent partner who wants to infuse some major cash into his business. After the past few weeks, I would feel better if my security detail were better protected.
My thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in."
Taylor enters carrying a pastry box with a letter attached. "Lacey Sawyer dropped this off for you. She was in Montesano visiting Luke for a few days and Miss Steele sent this for you.
"Miss Steele sent me a package?" I asked as I took it from him and looked at the envelope. It was her handwriting and the envelope made me smile. It said:
To: Mr. Christian Grey, CEO & Control Freak Extraordinaire
From: Ms. Anastasia "Out of her Mind on Pain Meds" Steele
Be a good boy Mr. Grey and read the letter before you open the box.
I glance at Taylor skeptically. He merely smirks and informs me that per Sawyer, Ana has baked every night since she's been home. It's how she copes. He's probably gained ten pounds in one week between her baking and her cooking.
"Thank you Taylor," I say dismissing him as I remove the handwritten letter from the envelope.
Dearest Mr. Grey,
First and foremost, I want to apologize for the tone of my response to the letter you emailed me a few weeks ago. I stand by the message, but not the tone of the letter. There is no excuse for my bitterness toward you, when your apology was sincere; so for that I seek your forgiveness.
I've learned a great deal about you over the past month from the things you've told my father, to what you've told me, and to what I've weaseled out of your mother while she cared for me. Your mom is AWESOME OKAY! Yes, I'm doing my best cheerleading voice, not that I was ever a cheerleader or desired to be one. Since Luke was griping about being a little brother, I'm playing the role of little sister and forcing him to watch all of my favorite teen movies. We started with 'Bring It On' and Luke is sick of me already. He says I need downers because the pain meds are having opposite impact on me so I'm beyond hyper. To which I replied: Tough crap Luke, pain meds authorized and necessary, so sue Dr. T for prescribing them!
Wow, I'm not capable of linear thought. I keep getting side tracked. Oh yeah, leveling the playing field in the spirit of Grey-Steele fair disclosure act of 2011. Grey-Steele reminds me of something out of Zoolander. Have you seen that movie? It's one of my favorites. If so, give me your best blue steel. I'm waiting!
Sorry, the medicine made me stupid and I fell asleep. I'm more coherent now – promise! Though at times my thoughts may still be scattered. Ray and Luke say it's an endearing trait, so if you have issue with it, take it up with them. Neither one of those two know to put the toilet seat down. Are all men like this? I don't like going splash in the middle of the night. Stupid men. If it happens one more time, I'm going to sew the escape hatch closed on all their underwear. That will teach them.
Wow, I read back what I've written so far and I promised to send the unedited version. I'm going to get coffee before I continue making a fool of myself. As much as I hate coffee, I hate looking like a fool even more.
Back!
I know I've mentioned to you how my time in Texas damaged me. It's something I've never spoken about, but since I know most of your dirty laundry per-se and without a signed NDA, I thought it was only fair that I shared mine.
My mom divorced Ray because she cheated on him with husband number three, Stephen Morton. Ray and I were both devastated. I was a junior in high school at the time and even back then I was on the shy side and a bit of a bookworm, though I was a bit of a smart ass sometimes. Mom insisted I live with her and Morton, whom I never liked. They dragged me to Las Vegas with them.
My mom is a hopeless romantic and is one of those women who flutters from relationship to relationship, because she doesn't believe she can make it on her own. I can only attribute that to her parents. From what I've been told about them by both her and Ray, were they were a textbook case of codependency at it's worst. She was a product of her environment, as we all are growing up, but she was never given the tools to look to become something more. The one thing my mother did absolutely right, was provide me with nearly sixteen years of a stable foundation with my dad, Ray.
I know there are many people unhappy with my mother right now, Kate, Ray, Jose, Jose Sr., Luke and probably you, when she didn't come to see me either time I was in the hospital. Frankly, I would have been shocked if she had. I love my mother; though there are times I don't particularly like her. Should she have come up while I was in the hospital? Yes, but the reality is, she's playing the emotional hand she was dealt in life. While I don't like it, I understand it and will never repeat that mistake. I will not be like her. It was an early lesson in the knowledge that some people can't get passed their upbringing. I can't allow that to be me. I can't.
Mom grew up in a middle-class family and dreamt of more. When I was growing up, she used to watch all these stupid television shows and dream about having a more upscale life. Ray is just Ray – he has no need for expensive material possessions, and I'm the same way. We were happy, but mom wasn't. Ray and I might not be genetically related, but there is little doubt that I am his daughter.
I'm grateful Mom stayed with him as long as she did. Deep down, I knew one day she would leave him and that made me cling to Ray even more. I had a great childhood here in Montesano. We fished, hiked, watched sports, hunted, went to classic car shows, and did just about everything together. My mom must have felt left out, because she didn't want to do any of those things. She wanted country clubs and socials. So when mom met Morton, it was the beginning of the end. He fed her fantasy though he had no way to make it happen. She lived in her happy, little dream world and idealized a monster.
Mom and number three dragged me to Las Vegas to live for a week. We moved to Texas abruptly because one of the neighbors heard me screaming and called the police while I was home alone with Morton. He told her we were moving to Texas for a refinery job and she readily agreed no questions asked.
I didn't want to go even further away from Ray, but didn't get much of a choice. At first, they both found jobs and worked full-time, while I attended high school. It's difficult adapting to a new school when you are an extremely shy and reserved person by nature. I realize now that this was part of number three's plan back then – abuse by isolation. Mom would be working the night shift as a ward clerk at a hospital, leaving me all alone in the apartment with him.
It started with ogling, moved onto sexual and derogatory remarks, and escalated into inappropriate touching. It was six months of hell. All the time I fought back tooth and nail. My mother didn't believe me back then. She accused me of trying to break them up so I could return to Montesano with Ray. We didn't speak again until my last day in Las Vegas. They were the worst six months of my life and it all came to a head one night when number three was drunk and made a pass at me. I fought back, which angered him. He beat me to within an inch of my life with his hands, his belt, and hit me with a dining room chair. When the fight was knocked out of me, I sobbed as he started to rip my clothes off after he'd taken off most of his. I was lucky that night. My mom came home early from work because of a migraine and saw first hand what was happening to me. She picked up a vase and broke it over his head, and then called an ambulance, the police, and Ray.
Morton ended up in jail for a year. I ended up back to Montesano with Ray the next day with a broken arm, ribs, and emotionally destroyed. My mom couldn't face me. She knew she was in the wrong. She moved back to Las Vegas, as she'd liked it for the week we lived there. Her marriage to Morton lasted six months. Our estrangement lasted just over a year after that because she felt I was better off without her.
I returned to Montesano with all of my self-esteem beaten out of me and fearful of everyone. I found it difficult to trust both men and women after that. My dad was the only person I trusted and even then, I withdrew into my own head, books, and schoolwork. I didn't cope with anything that happened to me – I avoided it like the plague. I dressed down to avoid any unwanted attention. I read or did school work sixteen hours per day. This is how I spent the second half of my junior year in high school and all of my senior year.
I chose to attend WSU, though I was accepted to Stanford, because it was close enough to Ray that I felt safe. I knew it was a short, two-hour drive home. I needed to know that I could be there if I felt the need to. I became more of a clingy daddy's girl than I had been before Texas.
Adjusting to college life was difficult. When I went to my dorm room that first day, I was shocked to find it was a co-ed dorm. I literally sat in the corner of my closet and had a massive anxiety attack. I called Ray. He helped calm me a bit and promised to try to find me a non-coed dorm.
I went to the housing office and begged to get into a different dorm. I couldn't explain the why's, but there I was, having a massive panic attack in public, when Kate, who I didn't know back then, comes over and soothes me, before turning to the woman behind the counter at the housing counter and yells at her, "Can't you see she's in the wrong dorm? You people are idiots. She requested a non-coed dorm. Clearly there's a reason. And while we're at it, I requested a private room. You idiots got both wrong."
When they informed Kate that there weren't any changes available, she told them to screw themselves. I remember watching her in awe. She was powerful and self-assured – two things I'd never been. She called her dad, who was a major donor to the journalism program, and he put us up in a hotel for a week while he bought the apartment we lived in for the next four years.
When the housing office refunded me my housing stipend and my meal plan dollars, I offered them to Kate's father, who was there to close on the apartment. Mr. Kavanagh pulled me aside and said, "My Katie has been spoiled rotten by her mother since she was a baby. She needs someone like you in her life, someone normal so she can learn to empathize with people. Keep your money baby girl. It's nice to see her protective of someone who isn't herself. Teach her how to cook and send me pictures of the disasters. I need a good laugh sometimes. You two need each other. It's nice to see Katie with friends who aren't entitled, spoiled little rich kids." So each semester, I used my housing stipend for groceries and tried to teach Kate to cook. I would have been better off trying to train a monkey. Hopefully your brother can cook, because she's hopeless, but God I love her like a sister.
Kate brought me out of my shell to a great extent. She pushed my comfort zones and while I haven't told her any details of husband number three, I know my mother has and asked her to watch out for me. See, my mom isn't all that bad. She's just a lost soul sometimes. You call Grace your savior and your angel. Ray, Kate and Jose are mine.
My Miss Kavanagh dragged me to book clubs at first to get me out of my own self-imposed exile. Once I got comfortable with that, she dragged me out to bars for happy hours. Then twice she got me to go with her to clubs. I'm definitely not a club person. There are too many strangers and it never feels safe.
Jose was the first guy I ever trusted. We met on campus when we both got lost trying to find our way to class. If it was at all possible, he was even shyer than I was. There are two kinds of Latin men, well at least that I've met, many are outgoing and vibrant, and others are like Jose, painfully shy and awkward. He's highly intelligent and the first person in his family to attend college. He studied engineering, yet he was artsy. Some of my best memories were of him picking me up at four in the morning with a thermos of coffee in hand so I could accompany him to photograph the sunrise, and then heading back for the sunset with an ice cream sundae.
We used to talk about our mothers. His mom died when he was a teenager and his father was lost without her. Hell, they both were. On the first parent's day on campus, when our father's both showed up, we realized they knew each other from their military service. After that, the Rodriguez's and the Steele's spent a great deal of time together on weekends and vacations. Jose became the little brother I never had. For me, he was safe. I knew he wouldn't try anything. It took him being drunk off his butt to try to kiss me and it wasn't welcome. I'm glad he didn't succeed.
I didn't date through high school or college. Not once, not at all. Fear is a powerful motivator and men in general terrified me. It was like I shut that part of myself off. I wasn't ever attracted to anyone in real life and, unlike most girls my age back then, I never crushed on an actor either. It was like the off-switch was clicked and locked down. I didn't mind it because I was safe and for me, that was the most important thing.
And then I met you and the switch clicked on. You are the only man I've even been attracted to and the only man I've willingly kissed. You made me feel alive for the first time and it scared the heck out of me. Your mood swings and controlling nature left me further on edge, but there was something about you that I trusted, until you showed me that room. Absolute, blind, raging panic took over me. I remember standing there and in my minds eye, all I could see were flashbacks to number three's abuse and I felt like I couldn't turn it off. I had a pure adrenaline reaction when you touched me and I struck you. It was hurt, or get hurt in my mind. It was fight or flight and I did both – fight first, flight second.
After I ran called an ambulance for you and ran into Taylor outside Escala, I got into the cab, rented a car, then parked and cried for an hour. I was absolutely paralyzed just sitting in the dark wishing I wasn't me. Then I embraced my inner Kate Kavanagh and got angry. Angry was good, so by the time Taylor called, I was filled with something I'd never felt before – self-righteous indignation.
The rest of the story, until last week, you already know. I've stated numerous times that you bring out the worst in me, but talking to Luke and Ray lately, I understand it now. I was disappointed in you for wanting to take me into that red room and it reinforced the lack of self-worth beaten into me by number three. If we'd met before my time with Kate, I'd have withdrawn into my books after that incident, but Kate helped me lay the building blocks of who I want to become, so a new defiant attitude seeped out of me, along with my long smothered smart ass. It was the first time since number three where I actually tried to defend myself. Clearly, I need to find a middle ground and yes, I'm working toward it.
I'm sorry I went bat shit crazy on you over the redecoration of the apartment. Sawyer arranged for Ryan to bring me the few items I honestly couldn't live without. You will be happy to know, I'm sitting on the bed my step-father made for me when I was a little girl and resting on my bedside table are the framed picture of my birth father holding me in it's original frame. The dried flowers have become potpourri, which I've stuffed into a mesh bag and sewed into the small teddy bear Ray got me when I had my tonsils removed at the age of six.
I'm sorry that I can't be what you think you need and desire, but if I attempt to become what you need, I'll only lose myself and I can't allow that to happen. I hope we can at least remain friends. I feel like I'm taking my first steps forward to learning to be more self-confident and maybe even reside a little less in my own little fantasy world in my head.
I hope you know that I only wish you the best. You will always be special to me.
With love and hopefully continued friendship,
Anastasia
P.S.: If I rambled, I'm sorry but please remember: I'm still on pain meds and I got through this entire letters without any boob jokes! YAY ME!
P.P.S.: I never realized how often I used the word hope. Guess that's a positive thing given the past month. YAY ME AGAIN!
I must have sat here for an hour, reading and rereading the letter. Honestly, I've read the last line before her sign-off over and over again. She wants to remain friends and signed it with love. Even after everything, she still wants to be friends. I don't understand it.
Finally, I give in, untie the purple ribbon on the box and pull the cover off. Inside is a homemade, chocolate cake inscribed:
You're a good man Christian
and I trust you!
Never forget it!