You, With a View(89)

I think back to what Flor told Theo, my heart starting to beat fast: You’ve been placed with resources in your life that will help you move on, but you have to allow that resource to help you.

I was there, not just on the road with him—when he was sitting on all of this, too—but in his house, his bed, his life. His real life, and he didn’t tell me.

Something in my heart fractures. For him, and myself.

“Theo,” I breathe out. “Why didn’t you say something?”

He looks down at my hand, still curled around his arm. “I didn’t know what to say to you. I thought maybe I’d figure out how to break it to you before the statement went out, but that didn’t happen, obviously.”

How to break it to me? I shake my head, lost. “I mean before. All those times I asked if you were okay, all those times we talked about your work and what it meant to you? We spent the entire weekend together—”

He averts his eyes, setting his jaw stubbornly. “I didn’t want to mess it up with this.”

I stare at him, long enough that he finally looks at me. “It wouldn’t have messed anything up. I want to know things, including the things that hurt.”

“Even the things that show you I’m not the guy you think I am?” he says, a challenging glint in his eyes. They’re so dark I can’t make out the emotions lurking there. It makes him seem like a stranger.

I frown. “What does that mean? Who do I think you are?”

“Not the guy who got fired from his own company, that’s for fucking sure.”

There’s a beat of silence while I process exactly what he’s saying. “Hold on. You think I would judge you for that?” Theo simply appraises me, and his silence sounds like a YES screamed between us. My blood heats. “I don’t know if you remember, but I aired all of my dirty laundry to you. Now it feels like you were just patting me on the head—”

“I didn’t pat you on the head,” he snaps, straightening.

“Well, you sure didn’t share any of this in return, apparently because you thought I’d think you were a failure. So, not sure what that says about me,” I shoot back, my throat tightening. He opens his mouth, his brows flattening into that stern line, but I press on, averting my eyes. “I mean, clearly there’s no comparison between us. I lost a menial job I couldn’t stand, and you lost the company you founded and led to multimillion-dollar success, but—”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you,” Theo bursts out, and when our eyes lock, something cracks inside my chest. “That right there. God, Noelle, can you blame me for not wanting to admit this to you? You hold me up as some paragon of success. You spent our entire trip talking about the Forbes shit, about the great work I’d done and how you looked up to it. How would you have felt if I’d been like, ‘Hey, by the way, my entire life is blowing up and I’m about to be unemployed’?”

“I’d say, ‘Yeah, me too!’ I’d feel like you were telling me something real.” I drop my hand from his arm. This conversation has shifted so quickly that I’m dizzy. “Are you kidding? You didn’t want to tell me because you think I’m some fangirl who couldn’t handle you not being perfect?”

“Our entire relationship, from the time we were fourteen, was about you thinking I was good enough based on what I’d achieved.” Theo stands up, pacing away from me. “Do you know what it was like to grow up with a dad who, every time you did something you thought would make him proud, decided that actually, he wanted more than that? Who moved the goalpost every fucking time? He made me feel like a failure, always.”

“I don’t know what that’s like, and I’m sorry,” I say, tears springing to my eyes. My dad is waiting at home for me, confused and angry, but even through his disappointment he supports me unconditionally. I hate that Theo doesn’t have that.

His mouth twists. “Then there was you, who got pissed every time I did something, and it made me feel it was enough. Like it was actually too much. You had nothing to gain from acting that way, and that’s how I knew it was real. I fed off that, Noelle. I had your voice in my head long after high school ended.”

I’m so shocked that he thought about me at all, never mind carried my voice with him, that I can only mouth words in return.

He runs his hands through his hair, blowing out a breath. “When we started on this trip, though, and you kept talking about all of my achievements, what I was doing, that damn profile—I was about to lose everything I’ve worked for these past six years. Can you understand why I wouldn’t want to tell you?”

“No,” I choke out, standing, too. “I can’t understand. Yes, I admire all of the things you’ve done, and yes, it pissed me off as much as it made me proud. But given our situations, why would I, of all people, judge you for that? I have no right to, and even if I did, I wouldn’t.”

His jaw locks. “Our situations aren’t the same.”

His words, said so stonily, hit their mark. “Right. Because my job was shitty and yours was important.”

Surprise flashes in his eyes—and panic. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

For a beat, he doesn’t say a word. Then he looks away, the panic receding into what looks like defeat. “You know what? It doesn’t matter.”