“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.”
The frustration of him slamming down the wall again makes me want to scream.
“Of course it matters, Theo. What you say or don’t say matters to me, and you’re standing here holding back again. Why aren’t you giving me a chance to see all of you? To prove that’s enough for me?” I take a step toward him but keep the space between us. If I step any closer, I’ll want to touch him. “I laid out everything with my job—and more. I trusted you with that, and you gave me all these sweet words back about how stumbling wasn’t an indictment on my character. So was that bullshit?”
He has the audacity to look insulted. “No.”
“Are you sitting there laughing at me? Thinking that I’m not worth your time because I’m in a rough spot?”
“No.”
“Then why is it so pathetic for you to stumble? Why can’t you trust that I l—like you the way you are?” My emotions are running faster than my mouth can keep up with, and my stomach free-falls at what I nearly just admitted. “Why do you think you’re such a special case, that when something bad happens to you I’ll walk away, when you sat there and told me you wouldn’t do that to me? Do you think I’m that big of an asshole?”
“No, Noelle, I just—”
He takes a step toward me. I hold up my hand, backing into a chair. I can’t think clearly when he’s near, and suddenly I’m desperate for the boundary. As we kept getting closer, I slowly stopped protecting myself, while Theo was doing it the whole time.
The realization hurts.
“You kept me at arm’s length because you didn’t trust me, and you did it with intention every time I asked you if you were okay, every time I invited you to be real with me or when I was fully transparent with you.” My mind flashes to the times he stopped himself mid-sentence, how he circled around the full truth, those flashes of anxiety and fear he’d shut down. “I let you know me, and you didn’t do the same.”
He swallows hard, his pulse moving rapidly in his throat. I’ve kissed that exact spot so many times, when his heart raced for other reasons. But now everything feels like a lie.
“Don’t say that,” he says. “You know me.”
“How can I, if you only want me to see the Theo Spencer who has all his shit together? You kept this a secret from me, thinking I’d walk away if I knew the truth.”
He laughs humorlessly. “God, you are so obsessed with secrets.”
“What does that mean?”
“That whole trip was about that, wasn’t it?” he asks, eyes flashing. “About uncovering your gram’s secret love life, when in reality it was probably something she dealt with and moved on from and didn’t think was necessary to drag up with you. Then you started poking at mine, wanting to play that game—”
“It’s not a game. It’s me wanting to know you. Share with you, be vulnerable. You poked at me, too, don’t act like I was the only one trying to uncover secrets. When I did the same, you downplayed it or shut down completely. So, why is that?”
He sighs impatiently. “Not everything is a conspiracy to lie. Why can’t this just be me trying to get through my life before I talk about it?”
“Because I’m in your life!” I exclaim. “You can’t feed me one story, then tell me the same story doesn’t apply to you. You can’t say you want to be with me, be there for me, and not let me do the same. That’s not what I want in a relationship.”
Panic crosses his features again, but like clockwork, he shuts it down, crossing his arms.
I take several calming breaths before trying again. “I’m not your dad, Theo. I’m not anyone else in your life who expects you to be a certain way, then tells you you’re not enough when they think you can’t deliver.”
“That’s what you’re doing right now,” he says flatly.
“It’s not. I’m only asking you to let me be there for you. To be open with me. To trust that I’ll like you, not Where To Next Theo or 30 Under 30 Theo or Gold Star Son Theo. You’ve given me some of that the past few weeks, but I want it all. I’m greedy, okay? I just want you, and all of the good and bad stuff that comes with it.”