The Pairing(89)

“You didn’t know what you wanted to do,” I say now. “And I thought that I could help you figure it out, and I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t.”

“You wanted to go to Paris,” Theo counters. “You wanted the life you wanted—the life you have now, actually, which seems like proof I never even needed to be there. I was a plus-one.”

I feel like putting my head in my hands.

“Theo,” I say, sounding tired even to myself, “I don’t know how else to say it. You were my life. You were always the whole point of it.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have been,” Theo snaps. “Nobody should be that to anyone, Kit, that’s how a person becomes a thing. That’s how you forgot to ask if Paris was what I wanted.”

And I take a breath and say, “I know.”

The Patty Pravo cassette runs out, fading into thin white noise over the truck radio. Signora Lucia switches the dial off.

It’s quiet inside the truck when Theo says, “What?”

“I know. You’re right. So, please, do we—do we have to keep reciting the whole fight? It was painful enough before I knew I was wrong, so I really can’t stomach it now.”

“You . . . you think I’m right?”

It’s strange to realize I haven’t told them. It’s such big piece of cargo, I forget not everyone can tell I’m carrying it.

“Theo,” I say, “the Paris thing is the greatest regret of my life.”

Theo looks at me, their eyes so intent on searching mine that I can’t read anything else in them. Then they say, “Say more,” which is such a Theo answer to a moment of quiet vulnerability that I have to try not to smile.

“You were right,” I say. “I have a dream, and get so obsessively swept up in it that I can’t see anything else. I didn’t see you. I was treating your life as a problem to be solved, planning for the version of you in my head who wanted what I thought was best, and I was so sure I was right, I forgot I’d never even met that person. That’s the fucked-up part. I never loved the Theo who would have gone along for the ride. I’ve only ever loved you.”

I’ve done it again, forgotten to use the past tense when I say I love them. I wonder if Theo will notice this time.

“Yeah, that . . .” Theo says, their gaze far away. For a moment, I think I’ve been caught out, but then they say through a small, sad laugh, “That is fucked up.”

I laugh too, can’t help it. It comes out a sigh.

“If I haven’t said it,” I say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done anything without you.”

Theo doesn’t say anything, but it’s a soft silence. They nod and turn their eyes back to the windshield, which gradually reveals the distant outskirts of Rome. Squat roadside bars, stucco apartments, pointy cypress trees. I watch them roll by, a strange feeling within my chest like the moment a bubbling pan of sugar resolves into caramel. Like relief, like a turning.

After half an hour, Theo lays their hand on mine. Half an hour after that, when we’ve made it to the city, they finally speak.

“I should have checked the bus schedule again this morning,” they say. “My bad.”

The bus is so far from my mind, this surprises a full-throated laugh out of me.

“I could have checked too,” I say.

Theo squeezes my hand.

“And to be fair,” they say as the truck trundles between Flaminio’s leafy pink and yellow houses, “there were days I wished I could just magically disappear all my problems and restart.”

“I think everyone probably wants that sometimes.”

“Now and then I still do,” they say. “But if I start life over, I want it to be mine.”

I nod. “I know.”

Signora Lucia brings us to a bus stop on the edge of a piazza, across from the market where the tour group should be having lunch. We tell her “Grazie mille, grazie mille” over and over until she waves us off, and then we’re running.

When we were young, Theo would get so angry when we raced each other. We’re both fast, and Theo has always had power and defiance on their side, but I have longer strides and better reflexes. They were always one step behind.

Now, as we run across the piazza, I fall back. Theo advances at a thunderous clip, as if they could be unsheathing a sword instead of pulling their phone from their hip pack, hot Roman sun flashing off their hair like laurels on a gladiator. They’re so gorgeous from this new angle.

They glance over their shoulder to find me one step behind them, and something blooms on their face. They turn away before I can name it.


Fabrizio scoops us up in breathless relief outside Antico Forno Roscioli as the group finishes lunch. The blessed Calums have saved us a few squares of crusty pizza topped with dollops of pesto and half of a sour cherry crostata, which we eat in big, messy bites washed down with the dregs of Stig’s lukewarm Peroni. It was close, but we made it.

Six at a time, we’re divided into groups, passed off to a grinning driver with a shiny helmet dangling from their fingers, and led away from the market to join our Vespa fleets. Theo and I are among the last to be assigned, but no driver appears. Instead, Fabrizio gives us a vigorous smile and says, “Amici, you come with me!”

Around the corner, we’re awaited by a group of drivers and a line of vintage Vespas in a rainbow of pastels like a box of assorted Parisian macarons. A handsome middle-aged man wearing fingerless riding gloves shouts a joyous greeting to Fabrizio and kisses him hard on the side of his golden face. I’m beginning to suspect there’s someone in love with Fabrizio in every city on this tour.