CateRyan, let's not talk about high school, okay? Everybody knows that I hated high school, so...
What are you talking about, who hates high school, Cate? What, did you have a pizza face or something?
Cate
No!
Like an unrequited love affair with the driver's ed teacher?
Cate
Ryan, will you...Ryan, stop!
Or were you one of those girls who got knocked up on prom night? (pauses when he sees Cate's reaction) Did you get knocked up on prom night?
More like winter formal...
Look, an ambush is not the way to win your child back.
I know. Before you say anything else, you have got to hear me out, okay? (pauses, turns to Cate) Go ahead.
Cate
Okay, so I'm not a soccer mom, and he, he can barely spell PTA.
Don't even know what it is.
Cate
Yeah. But we're here, and...okay, we're just not gonna go anywhere until you approve us.
Cate
No, you listen. I gave her up 16 years ago because someone in your department promised me that there would be someone great to adopt her, and no one did, and if you would have left her with us 16 years ago, how can you not leave her with us now? She has been in seven foster homes, and she has hated every single one of them. Are they really that much better than our homes? Are we that much worse? Because we can make room for her.
Get batteries. Not fight on the lawn. Look, we don't have it all worked out yet, you know?
Cate
We can give her the one thing that no one else ever has: love
Not everything in her life was bad. I don't like the looks of it, but Bug, Tasha...
Cate
What?
I don't know. To Lux, they're the good. I mean, if you think about it, we both had families before Lux. So maybe she just wants you to realize that she had a family before us.
Cate
Pretty insightful for a quarterback.
Cate
(about the Santa letter that Lux wrote at age 8) Okay, I know that right now, this seems like a really big deal, and I am not saying that it isn't, but that letter...that letter was sweet. Anyone who reads it would see that.
It's not sweet. It's sad. While other kids were asking for Play Stations and Barbie dream houses, I was asking for parents.
Cate
Right, which is understandable, because that is what you wanted.
Right. But no one wanted me, and now the whole school knows that.
Cate
Lux--
No! Don't you understand what I'm saying? Not a single person ever, in 16 years, wanted me! Out of all the foster homes, out of all the parents that stood outside that chain-linked fence and watched us play like, like we didn't know what was going on, they picked out kids like we were puppies...or cars. But nobody ever chose me, including you. So...so don't tell me that this isn't a big deal, or that you understand how I feel, because you don't!
I try to be her friend, I get punked, and then I yell at her like a jack-hole.
Cate
Lux deserved it...except maybe that part where you called her stupid.
Ugh, stupid...that's my dad's nickname for me for the last seventeen years. You know, it's one thing not being as good a businessman as my dad, but I thought that if I ever had a kid, I...maybe that's why I just like being Lux's friend. Because I'm afraid that if I'm a dad, I'll be him.
Cate
You don't have to be your dad. You just have to be a dad.
Cate, come on, let me explain!
Cate
Explain? I mean, I just walked in on you on top of my boss. Oh, god, that image! I, I, I just...I feel assaulted. You essentially just raped my eyes!
God, Cate, I am so sick of you and Ryan acting like I can't be a good parent to Lux. She's been in our lives the same amount of time, Cate. You don't have any more experience than I do.
Cate
Well last time I checked, giving birth to her counts for something.
And then you gave her up! What, what does that count for? Let me be clear: I am not dropping out of that competition to make you happy. You were the one keeping me from Lux. You were the one with a douche fiancée, and you were the one coming here, yelling at me. So the only way I am walking away from that contest is with a car.
(referring to Cate sleeping with Baze) You wanna be honest? Then you tell me why you did it. Why was he worth trashing our relationship?
Cate
God, Ryan, he wasn't, it was stupid, it was a mistake. I don't even know why I did it.
Yeah, you don't know. If you risk everything, everything that we had on something stupid, some mistake, then you're even more screwed up than I thought. No, don't bother trying to fix us, Cate. You just fix yourself.
Cate
I was just thinking about you.
Cate
Yeah, well, I mean, I was thinking about your hot legs and my cold feet. Why is it so hard to keep a pair of socks together?
The missing one usually turns up. Sometimes it just takes someone else to find it.
(to Cate and Baze after an emotional confrontation with Lux) I know it doesn't feel like it, but what you had today was a breakthrough. Trust me. I've seen other kids have moments of honesty like this, and that's usually when things take a turn for the better. I know that you tried to shoulder the blame, but it doesn't belong with you. I'm not going to remove Lux from you care. If anything, this shows me that you're a real family, with all the bumps and bruises that a teenager brings, like anyone. And as far as I'm concerned, you two should start the process of having your parental rights reinstated.
Cate
Is there, is there really a chance at that?
In my opinion, yes. I can see how much she means to you, and that all three of you are committed to making this work...perhaps Lux most of all. It was a hard thing she did, saying that. She risked losing you all over again.
Cate
(crying) She doesn't need to worry about that, ever.
You don't have to convince me. Convince Lux.
That's what this is really about, right? Cate not being there?
I say yes, and what? You send me away to live with someone else? I don't want to live with someone else. I want to work it out with Cate and Baze. I just...
Look, I'm the one who's going to decide if you stay together, but ultimately, it's not up to me. It's up to you. If you can't be straight with me, you're never gonna be straight with Cate and Baze, and then you'll be right back on my couch six months from now, so when you say that Cate wasn't there for you, tell her what you mean.
(long pause, turns to Cate) Where were you?
Cate
What?
I was out there my whole life. Where were you all that time? You never even checked. You never wondered what had happened, if I was okay?
Cate
I...I mean, I...I didn't really think that I had to worry, because they told me that you were gonna be adopted, that you were gonna have a better life. I really, I really thought that I was doing what was right for you.
It wasn't for me. If it was for me, you would have checked! But you did it for you. You did the right thing for you!
Lux, it's not all on Cate. I wasn't there exactly, either.
Yeah, but you didn't know, and nobody who knew you would have expected you to be there.
Cate
I was sixteen years old. You know, I didn't have anyone to turn to. You know my mother. She was drinking her way through another divorce. I even wrote a letter to my father, but when I realized that I didn't know where to send it...you know, that's when it hit me. I had no idea what a good parent was. There was just no way that I could be one. Not at sixteen.
Then...what about a few years after that, when I was three and stuck in a hospital where no one visited? Or two years after that, when my foster mother shoved me into a wall and told the social worker that I fell off a swing? Where were you? We used to make up these stories about why we were given up, because we didn't want to believe that our parents, our mothers, could hold us--their babies--and just give us up! But you did. You gave me away to nothing, like I didn't matter to you, because I didn't!
Cate
No, no, Lux. You do. You matter now.
Cate
No, Lux. You matter. You do. You matter now, Lux!
No! (stands up) Now doesn't count! I...I'm sorry. I don't forgive you, Cate. I don't. (walks out)
I know I seem like I'm okay, but I'm more messed up inside than you realize. And the truth is, I don't forgive you. I don't know when I'll ever be able to forgive you.
Cate
Lux, you don't have to. You don't ever have to forgive me. I'm never gonna be able to forgive me. I just want a chance to make it right with you. Will you tell me what I have to do to make it right?
Life Unexpected · 122 quotes
