Page 83 of Weak Side

“I’ve gathered as much. I’m not sure how much you know of me—”

I interrupted him. “Brilliant hockey player. You were destined for the NHL but got into a car accident and destroyed the nerves along your spine, and it ruined your career on ice, but you worked up into the position you are in now being one of the most idolized men in hockey.”

Tom’s eyebrows flew up, and he smiled. “Wow, Google search?”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from mirroring his smile because there was nothing to smile about in the moment, but for some reason, I felt the teeniest, tiniest blip of something warm.

“Theo.”

“Ah.” Tom nodded. “I see.” He looked over at me once more. “That’s all true, but you’re missing what happened after the crash.” He rubbed a hand over his face in apparent exhaustion. “I’m not sure how to say this without being insensitive or seeming angry because I’ve been angry for the last twenty years of my life. The anger has been fleeting, but seeing you sitting here looking at me like I left you makes it hard to ignore.” He pinched the bridge of his nose before dropping his hand to his lap. “Your mother left me.” I stared at the little crinkles of age around his eyes. “Right after the crash, while I was in the hospital. She was seven months pregnant with you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she do that?” The number of times I’d had to untangle a mess of words that flew from her mouth that resulted in her cursing my father for pushing her into single parenting and how she had to raise me herself made zero sense if she was the one who was responsible.

I looked up at Tom again after trying to find an explanation. “Did you cheat on her? Did you abuse her? Did you…” I ran every route, and each time I threw out a variation of a potential truth, he winced.

“What? No. Of course not!” He glanced at me briefly.

“I’m sorry.” I shrugged, throwing my arms over my chest again. “Then I don’t understand.”

“She was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to take care of a…cripple…and a baby all on her own, and at first, I understood. I wasn’t in a good place after the crash, and I thought her concerns were valid.”

Wait, what?

“Are you telling me that my mother—who has told me time and time again that you left us because you didn’t love us—lied?”

“Yes.” He threw his hand out in frustration but lowered it quickly, as if he were hiding his anger. “The way it played out wasn’t how it was supposed to go. When Angela addressed her concerns, I told her I understood and that I didn’t blame her for wanting what was best for you. I did too. Before she left that evening, we’d talked things through. I told her she didn’t have to take care of me and that I understood where she was coming from. She was right. I didn’t have much to offer either of you as I was lying in a hospital bed with my future completely obliterated. But Ineverwould have let her walk out that door if I knew she’d take off the next day. She changed her last name and moved into a town that I didn’t even know existed. I didn’t realize she was going to cut me out of your life completely.” Tom took a breath. “I’m sorry it took me so long to pull together the resources to find you.”

I placed my head in my hands, trying to process the information. Anger roared in the back of my mind at my mother’s stupidity. I tore my face from my palms and looked over Tom, who was peeking at me curiously. “She hasnoidea where you ended up.”

Tom’s forehead furrowed, and I prodded forward.

“Otherwise, I wouldn’t have grown up the way I did.”

I stood up with rising resentment. I wasn’t sure if I should have been understanding, or angry, or both. There was no way in hell that my mother would have stayed away from my father this long if she knew that he was as successful as he was. She wasn’t as shallow as it seemed, but money was the biggest obstacle in our life—always. Things could have been so different if she had stayed, or at the very least, stayed in touch. He was my father after all.

Tom stood, holding onto his cane with a strong hand and an even stronger brow line. “How did you grow up?”

“Poor.”

His face fell, and I began to back away from him.

“I have to go to my meeting,” I explained. “And then I need to go home to talk to my mother.” I needed confirmation. I needed to understand my mother’s decisions.

Tom nodded as he watched me head toward the auditorium doors, seeming to give me space. There was a hint of fear there, as if he was afraid he’d never see me again.

“Here.” I quickly walked over to the empty reception area in the lobby and tore off a piece of the sign-in paper. I scribbled my number on it and rushed back to hand it to him, knowing I was late to my meeting, but somehow, it seemed so trivial of me to worry about being the lead soloist in the show at this point. “That’s my number.”

Tom held the piece of paper in his free hand and looked at it as if it were a piece of gold, but I said nothing else as I propelled around and headed for the doors.

“Claire, wait.”

I peered over my shoulder as he stared at the ripped paper. “Theo is refusing to come to the team tryouts unless I fix what I broke between you two.” His eyes flew to mine in panic. “I’m not telling you this so he will join my team. That doesn’t matter to me as much as it probably means to him. I’m telling you this because it's obvious that he loves you, and love is hard to come by in a world like this.”

My eyes welled up, but I only nodded at him before turning my back and heading into my meeting to think of nothing regarding dance and everything regarding my mother, Tom, and the guy who literally threatened to give up his dream for me.

41

Theo

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