Page 46 of The Problem with Falling
I owed Theo the biggest of apologies.
Later that day, I walked into Theo’s place, hoping I would catch him before he went out on his boat for the night. I knew if I didn’t see him before he got on the water, I wouldn’t be able to apologize to him until the following morning. The pressure and guilt of the situation were sitting heavily against my chest, and I knew I needed to express myself to him as soon as possible.
I needed him to understand that sometimes I was an idiot and misread situations, even if I was trying to bring peace.
I caught him just in time. He was sitting in his brown recliner chair, tying up his shoes.
“Hey, Theo. About to head out?” I asked.
He glanced up toward me for a split second before turning back to lacing up his shoes. “No, Willow. I always put on my shoes to stay in the house.”
“Sarcasm, ha, I like it.” I awkwardly giggled. “I’m picking up on your style of communication. You know when you first meet someone, it’s hard to know what does and doesn’t bother them because you are in a whole new situation with a whole new person. And sometimes wires cross and things get lost in communication due to different styles of expression and—”
“What do you want, Willow?” he growled, seemingly growing upset with the wordiness of my speech.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out, my cheeks heating from nerves. “For speaking for you the other day.”
He paused for a moment and then pushed out a slow breath. “You were at my grandmother’s.”
“Yes, for a little bit.”
“She talks too much.”
“She talks just enough.” I took a step toward him. “I really am sorry, though, Theo. In an attempt to make things better, I made them worse, and for that, I apologize.”
He tilted his head up toward me as he sat in his recliner, then pushed himself up to a standing position. “All right.”
He brushed against my shoulder and started in the direction of the kitchen.
“That’s it?” I called out, following his footsteps. He opened the fridge and bent down to grab something. I hovered over him. “That’s all? Don’t you want to talk about it more?”
He fully stood and went back to being the one who hovered over me. “What’s there to talk about?”
“Uh, the whole situation.”
“Why? You apologized. It’s over.”
“But what about yourfeelings?” I cried out, hoping he’d give me a little more space to open a realm of communication where we could no longer misunderstand one another. I just wanted to know what Theo’s heart was like and what made it beat.
He stared at me as if I were a crazed person who grew three heads. “Not everyone has to feel everything, Willow.”
“I’m not saying you have to feel everything. I’m just stating you have to feelsomething.”
“What makes you think I feel nothing?”
“Well, come on, Theodo—Just Theo. You don’t present yourself as a person who feels much of anything.”
“That’s just your opinion, and I learned a long time ago that I don’t give a shit about others’ opinions.”
“And why’s that?”
“People are flaky. They shift their thoughts as quickly as the wind redirects.” He snatched a six-pack of beers out of the fridgebefore closing it, then started for the back door to head toward his boat.
I trailed after him. “Theo, wait!”
He released a deep growl and turned to face me. “What?!” he spat out, annoyance dripping from every fiber of his being. “Don’t you get it, Willow? I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to get to know you. I don’t want to do this,” he said, gesturing between us. “All I want to do is go sit on my fucking boat and be left alone! I get that everyone else tends to love this overly bubbly fake persona that you’re putting into the world, but it simply annoys the living shit out of me. So how about we don’t do this back-and-forth thing anymore, all right? I’m not interested in your silly banter games.”
“Fake persona?” I questioned, somewhat stung by his word choice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
