“You really want to do this?” I ask Mia as we climb out of the shuttle bus. We’ve sent everything to the airport except for our passports, phones, and wallets. Our flight’s the last one out of Tokyo and we won’t need anything else.

“Absolutely sure,” Mia says, seemingly totally refreshed after yesterday’s long shopping trip and the passionate costumed encounter that led to us eating room service in bed.

My mask was ruined after I ate Mia out and she gushed on my face . . . but I can’t imagine a better souvenir than the slightly stained fabric that I tucked into my suitcase this morning.

We approach the ticket gate, and I reach into my pocket and pull out my wallet. Inside is a simple black card, and if you don’t look closely, you wouldn’t notice the Mickey Mouse ears embossed faintly in the plastic.

“May I help you?” the park attendant asks, her eyes widening as she sees my card. “Yes, sir!”

I let Mia stammer in surprise as we’re whisked through the normal gates, a simple signature on my part getting her free access to everything, and suddenly, we’re inside the park, although in a part not many people are familiar with. Finally, she can’t take it any longer.

“What was that? Are you CIA or something?”

“Close . . . Club 33,” I reply, showing her my membership card. “It’s sort of Disney’s VIP club.”

“I didn’t know you liked Disney that much.”

There are so many questions in her eyes, and I’m on the verge of telling her why I have this card, but now’s not the time.

I clear my throat, thinking back with a smile. “I . . . it’s a long story. So, where do we start?”

We end up starting with Splash Mountain, skipping the already eighty-minute line to climb right into the front of a log after only five minutes of walking, and as we go over the falls, it sets the tone for the day.

Again, we do a lot of people watching, and as we do, I notice the differences between Anaheim Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland.

“Is that ten or eleven Snow Whites?” I ask Mia as we walk past It’s A Small World while munching on some strawberry flavored popcorn.

“I stopped counting anything after fifteen Elsas,” Mia says, giggling as a trio of princesses goes running by. “And I thought we enjoyed dressing up last night.”

“I doubt we could do that here,” I remind her with a chuckle. “Wrong genre, remember?”

We hit everything. The Mountain Trio, Splash, Space, and Big Thunder. Star Tours. Pooh’s Hunny Hunt. In each ride, we get to skip lines, going all the way to the front, even passing up the Fast Pass people to just walk onto a ride. All it takes is flashing the small rubberized wrist bands that we’re wearing, and we’re able to take the entire park at our own pace.

Even better are some of the ‘extras’ involved. “This is so cool,” Mia says as we walk through the VIP entrance to the Haunted Mansion. “It’s like a whole new ride!”

I agree. In the VIP section, the pictures move, the paintings are a little creepier in a fun way, and even the music’s different. It doesn’t take away from the ride but adds to it, like we’re getting the full attraction.

“Each park’s a little different in the VIP areas,” I whisper to her as we leave the Haunted Mansion. “I remember . . .” I start and then stop myself before exposing too much.

Mia hears it in my voice, and her smile dims. “Remember what?” She says it casually, not prying but just inviting me to share with her.

I shake my head, forcing a smile even as I see another group of happy children and teenagers go by, a knife suddenly jabbing in my heart as a father and son walk by holding hands and laughing. A pang of hurt washes through me, the little boy in my heart wishing for a moment that it had been my life. But wishes don’t always come true. Even at the happiest place on Earth.

“Nothing. It’s a long story and for another time.”

It’s not exactly a lie. It is a long story, and I redirect while I can. “Come on . . . I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat.”

The Blue Bayou cafe, just across the water from the start of Pirates of the Caribbean, is quiet and refreshingly cool after the muggy Tokyo afternoon. Sitting down, Mia waits until after the waiter’s come and taken our orders before reaching across and taking my hand.

“Hey,” she prompts, and I know what’s coming. She’s not letting me off the hook that easily, but she doesn’t force the issue, just asks, “You okay?”

“Sorry,” I whisper, my eyes drifting to another happy family in the middle of the restaurant. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Why not?” she asks, giving my fingers a squeeze. “I mean, yeah, it was kinda strange to listen to Davy Jones in Japanese, but it didn’t really take away from the ride.”

I can tell Mia has a feeling there’s something more going on and is trying to lighten the mood and give me time to corral my thoughts.

“Not that,” I admit, taking a deep breath. Yesterday, I could see the nervousness in her eyes when she shared her childlike things with me, but she did it anyway. Now, I’m almost trembling like a leaf, frightened shitless. “I guess this might be the happiest place on Earth, but I never got to go even though it was something I always wanted as a kid.”

“Dad?”

The house is pretty quiet, but I’ve gotten used to that. Since Mom died, Dad never really turns on the TV much . . . when he comes home at all.

“I’m in here.”

I enter the dining room, or at least that’s what it used to be. Dad had the furniture all taken out. Now it’s his home office. With Mom gone, he can’t travel for his work as much as he used to. He’s still a member of his ‘firm’ where he’s a lawyer, but his career’s supposedly stalled. At least that’s what he says when he talks at me.

Not to me.

At me.

“Dad, I got my report card.”

He turns around in his chair, his face pinched and his eyes already flinty as he holds out a hand silently for the card. I’d like to lie to him, but he knows the school calendar pretty well . . . and I have to bring it back by Friday with his signature.

I fidget from side to side, my shoes squeaking on the hardwood flooring, wishing I could evaporate as he reads off the grades. “Math . . . A minus. English . . . A. Social Studies . . . A. Physical Education . . . A plus. Science . . . B plus.”

I can see it in his eyes, and I try not to panic as he folds the report card and puts it back in its cardboard envelope. “I—”

“Pathetic,” he says, staring at me. “I provide for you, and the best you can fucking do is a B-plus in Science and an A-minus in Math.”

“I screwed up one test, that’s all. I’d just—”

“So stupid, that’s what you are,” he sneers, getting out of his chair. The quiet label hurts more than what comes next as he gets louder and louder. “I should beat your spoiled rotten ass raw! Maybe you’d learn your lesson then! Such a disappointment!”

His hand raises, but before he can strike, I retreat to my bedroom like usual and go to my special hiding place, feeling at least a little secure. But I heard his words as I scurried out, and they echo in my head, even as I put my hands over my ears trying to drown them out. “Run away, just like you did while she died.”

I sigh, coming out of the past to see Mia’s stunned face. A part of me wants to clamp my mouth shut, keep it bottled up the way I always have, but it’s like I’ve been uncorked and I keep going.

“And Thomas Goldstone for the touchdown!”

My chest’s heaving, but after having run ninety-five yards in the fourth quarter of what’s been a high-scoring game, I think I’m allowed to be a little gassed. My teammates are all excited. With this touchdown, we’ve put the game out of reach for Westwood, and those cocksuckers are our biggest rivals. They knocked us out of the playoffs last year, and this year we’re going to be the ones dancing on the fifty-yard line while they go home to listen to the state championship on the radio.

Still, as I jog back toward the sidelines, I scan the bleachers for what’s probably the hundredth time tonight, and the thousandth time this year, even though I know it’s pointless. Because in all of the eight thousand screaming, cheering faces, I know the one person I want to be here most isn’t.

“He never went to a single game?” Mia asks, and I shake my head. “Why?”

“He never thought I was good enough. I’d absorbed it and had gotten used to it by then. Honestly, if he’d come, he probably would’ve just told me what I’d done wrong and made it worse. But there was that little boy inside who still dreamed I’d look up and see him in the stands, smiling and proud, you know? I still feel it even today. That desire to finally impress him, but the practical side that never wants to see him again. Does that make me awful?”

“Of course not! Why?” Mia asks, horrified. “Why did he do that to you? That’s so horrible, Thomas. I’m so sorry.” Her words tumble out, but before I can answer, she pulls me in for a hug, her arms wrapping around me and taking the edge off the atrocities I’ve told her.

Pulling back, she looks me in the eye, cupping my jaw. “And why do you still put yourself through it? He’s not worth it.”

“Because of my mother,” I reply before I can stop myself, telling Mia my deepest, darkest shame. She listens intently as I tell her the memory, our food forgotten. In the end, I have to choke out the last few words. “So that’s what happened. I watched cartoons while my mother died from a drug overdose. I let her die, and he blames me for it.” I’ve never actually said those words aloud.

I wait for her judgement, her criticism, her horror at what I did. I wait for her to pull away from me once she sees the truth of what a monster I am. And I try to prepare for it, but there’s no way to be ready for your heart to be ripped from your body. And that’s what she will do if she scorns me now. She holds my heart, my soul, my future in her hands as I hold my breath.

“And you internalized that and are always trying to make up for it,” Mia says like she just figured something out about me, and I nod. She looks at me, and there isn’t disgust in her eyes, nor pity. Instead, there’s just . . . something I’m not ready to name yet.

“I try to break the cycle, but I always get sucked back in. Eventually, I decided if I couldn’t be perfect enough to get his love, I could damn sure be perfect enough to make sure he couldn’t ignore me anymore,” I admit, thinking back to those days as well.

“The day I left for Stanford, he never even said goodbye. I didn’t care, or at least that’s what I told myself. I went to college, got my degree while using my extra scholarship money to invest, multiplied it, and when I graduated early, I went to him with the plan for my company.”

“Why’d you go to him?” Mia asks. “I mean, did you think he’d be happy for you?”

I shake my head, sighing. “No, I knew I was giving him a noose to hang me with, but I was still too young for a bank to back me and I was desperate. So I worked a deal with him. He gave me a loan, and I gave him shares of the company and signed away my inheritance. I took that money and what I’d saved up myself from my successful investments . . . and in three years, I turned it into twelve million. From there . . . well, now you work in my building.”

“Which I happen to enjoy, by the way.”

I nod, watching as a boat full of a laughing family goes by, making me sad at what I didn’t have. “Somewhere along the way, I realized that he was never going to forgive me.”

She tries to interrupt me, but I shake my head. “I know, there’s nothing to be forgiven for. I was just a kid. But the narrative’s been written in my head over and over. So when I realized he was never going to forgive me, was always going to try to keep me down, I decided to stop making my success about him. I work my ass off, push myself harder than even he would to be my best, and I do a damn good job running my company. Not because of him, but in spite of him. And that eats the shit out of him.”

I grin, and I know it’s tinged with spite, but I can’t help it. There’s too much history, too much ugliness for it to be anything but a vindictive victory.

Mia reaches over and squeezes my hand. “You’re a good man, Thomas. Regardless of what your father thinks, you were not responsible for your mother. And even with a lifetime of his beating you down, you rose. Because deep down in your core where it matters, you’re a good man. And I see that.”

Her words heal something inside me I thought was a never-ending gaping wound. I memorize the words, wanting them to battle back against the voice in my head when it inevitably returns with snide insults. With her acceptance, her acknowledgement of the side of me only she sees, I feel stronger, better than I have in . . . ever. It’s comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time, to be so exposed, so seen.

“I think you’re the only person who thinks I’m a good man. Most folks would describe me as a monster, an asshole. Oh, a Ruthless Bastard,” I say, quipping with the name I know is muttered around the office to describe me. I let it slide, and besides, the reputation helps with making sure people do their best work.

Mia smiles brightly and winks. “Well, that’s because you like to put on that mask. But I happen to think you’re best without it.”

I let the lighter mood wash through me, reveling in the fact that she’s not running and screaming from my baggage like I expected. In fact, as she snuggles into my arms, she seems almost relieved that I finally spilled. Shockingly, I am too. Though I hate that she had to hear all that about me, the weight on my shoulders is lessened from the sharing.

I lean down, whispering hotly in her ear, “You didn’t mind the mask last night.”

She giggles, and I let the sound brighten my soul. And then she looks up at me. “I’m truly sorry you went through all that. Can I ask you a question?”

Without hesitation, I say, “Yes, anything.” And I almost mean it.

She bites her lip. “With a shitty childhood like that, how’d you end up knowing so much about Disneyland? Why’d you get that fancy VIP card? Isn’t coming here like poking at the bruise from your childhood?”

She’s a smart one, I’ll give her that.

“That’s a story for another day. But suffice it to say that I’ve been to Anaheim Disney more than a few times, and once to Orlando. Club 33 is just one of the perks of being me.” It’s almost the truth. After all, Tom Nicholson doesn’t have a card, though he’s the one who takes kids on a dream daytrip, but Thomas Goldstone is the one with the black card in his wallet. Funny thing is, they’re feeling more like one and the same with every healing moment with Mia.

She nods, letting me keep that story, and we’re quiet for a moment. It feels like I just ran the most important touchdown of my life, celebrated on the field with the guys, and now I’m blessedly alone in the locker room, replaying and letting the joy wash through me. Except this isn’t a game, and I’m not alone. This thing with Mia is real, and it’s everything.

Her voice is muffled by my chest, but I hear her anyway. “Do you worry about being perfect, about proving something to your dad, about your past when you’re with me?”

I sigh, not taking the question lightly because I can hear that she didn’t ask it carelessly. “With you? No, when I’m with you, I just . . . am. I feel . . . free.”

I can feel her cheek move against my chest, the smile against my heart warming me. “Good, because I want you to spend your time with me smiling, relaxing, and having fun. I want the real you, the one you hide, the one you don’t let anyone else see. Just me. Mine.”

I tip her chin up with my fingers, looking into those gorgeous blue eyes. “And you’re mine.” Our gazes lock, and though we’ve said so much, there is more left unspoken in the blue seas of her eyes. I kiss her softly and then whisper, “If I’m yours, what are you going to do with me?”

I expect her to say something flirty back. Most women would take full advantage of an opening like that. Mia, of course, is not most women. And somehow, I’m surprised, but not really, when she pops up and grabs my hand. Her eyes light up with childlike joy. “We’re gonna make Disney our bitch! Let’s ride, Tommy!”

And though a part of me would like nothing better than for her to ride me, she knows on some cellular level that this is what I need. A day in the park, innocent wonder at every turn, an experience I should’ve had many years ago but one that she can give me today.