Page 105 of The Pairing

Theo knew I’d applied to culinary schools all over, includingParis. And so, when I’d gotten into École Desjardins a few months after we booked the tour, I’d had an idea: I would have Thierry sign the pied-à-terre over to me when he moved out. On our tour, Theo would see Paris for the first time, I’d introduce them to all the things they’d fall in love with, and then I’d surprise them. I had secretly rerouted our tickets home from Palermo with a two-day layover in Paris, and I was going to bring them to the pied-à-terre and give them our dream in an envelope. A blooming home in Paris, a new life, everything already prepared. They didn’t have to worry about anything, didn’t have to manage any of the difficult, tedious details. All they had to do was come.

I laughed and shrugged,So much for the big romantic surprise,and the color drained from Theo’s face, and they said,I thought you applied in Paris as a joke.That was when it all fell to pieces.

The first questions were allhowquestions, ones I didn’t expect because I thought we both knew the answers. How would I pay to study pastry in Paris? I’d borrow money from my dad. How would we move all our things across the ocean? The pied-à-terre was already furnished. How was Theo supposed to spend their time while I was at school? They could immerse themself in the French wine they’d gotten into lately, learn everything we needed to keep it flowing at Fairflower one day. How were they going to do that when they didn’t even speak French? I’d teach them. How could it even work, legally? That one was easiest. I said,I have dual citizenship, we’ll just get married.

And Theo said,Do not fucking tell me this is how you’re proposing.

“What were you thinking?” Theo asks. “How could you design a whole life for me without even asking if I wanted it?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to trap all the frustration and grief there. They asked me the same question four years ago, and my answer ruined everything. But it hasn’t changed.

“You weren’t happy, Theo,” I say. “And I was afraid that if you kept doing the same things, you never would be.”

What gives you the fucking right,Theo said back then,to decide that for me?

I genuinely thought Theo would love the idea of no more rent to pay, no more double shifts or getting cursed out in the kitchen, no more rotating through the only five restaurants we actually liked, no ex-hookups to avoid, no credit scores to repair or worry about where they’d get insurance when they turned twenty-six. A limitless life in the most beautiful city in the world, where nobody had to know their family name. And us, together. We could do anything together.

Theyweren’thappy. They hadn’t been since they’d lost swim and dropped out. Timo worked them hard and nasty, made them earn every inch from busser to barback to bartender to bar manager with sweat and blisters and long nights that only made their shoulder worse. They were tired all the time. They picked up new passions and burnt them out in a week. And sometimes, there was a strange, brittle disconnect behind their eyes, like something was living inside them without being tended, something so essential it might permanently empty them if it died of neglect.

And the thing was, they never said I was wrong about that. But they were possessed of a fierce, stubborn conviction that it was their right to be miserable.

I told them,I can’t keep watching you give up on yourself.I said,I can help you.I said,I worry that sometimes you get in your own way.And Theo said,Do you hear how you keep talking about my life in the first person?

“It wasn’t a life I liked,” Theo says now, “but it was mine.”

Then, Theo had more questions: How long had I been planning this? At any point did I wonder if telling them to abandon their life, move to a different continent where they didn’t know the language, and live in my family’s pied-à-terre was actually romantic or just controlling? Did I care that Theo hates surprises? And I thought,Did I know Theo hates surprises?

I reminded them of Fairflower, all the menus we’d thoughtof, all our dreams, and Theo said that’s all it ever was to them: a dream. Something nice to think about, nothing more. I hadn’t known, and Theo wasn’t surprised. They told me that I always think I know better and never leave them room to correct their own mistakes, that I live in fantasies and hear whatever I want to hear. I hadn’t known that either.

We went round and round for hours in those cramped airplane seats, through dinner service and tepid plastic trays of lasagna, letting loose everything we’d ever held back. We’d fought once or twice as kids, but we’d never figured out how to fight as adults in a relationship. We didn’t know when to stop. I told them how many times I’d bitten my tongue and let them make the worst choices, and they told me they’d be embarrassed to let their parents pay for their life the way I let mine. They said I only cared about my own ideas of meaning and success, and I said at least I wasn’t afraid to try for them. I was so sure I could see their exact, direct path to being happier, and they refused to take it.

Sometimes I wonder if that fight would have ended us if we’d had it at home. If we could have aired everything, taken a night to settle, and met in the kitchen the next morning, maybe we would have stayed together. But we had it on a plane to London with nothing to do but implode. The last two hours to Heathrow were silent, and I couldn’t think of anything honest that would convince Theo not to leave me. I wasn’t surprised when it seemed like they did.

“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. Youweremy life. You were always the wholepoint 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 whatIwanted.”

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 Ireallycan’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.

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