Page 45 of The Problem with Falling
I’d been in many houses and around many people, yet not many felt like a burst of love when I walked into them. Not likeMolly and Harry’s, at least. The only place I felt as much love was when I was back at home with my father and sisters.
It was so odd that Theo grew up with those two, yet seemed to be the complete opposite of those who raised him. Nature versus nurture, I supposed. Maybe some kids were just grumpy out of the womb, and there was no getting around it.
Just Theoseemed to be one of those people.
“He’s pretty standoffish,” I said as I cut up some pieces of sun-dried tomatoes. “But then again, I can’t take it personal. He seems to be that way with everyone.”
“Oh yes. My big ole grump-bug. I call him my black licorice. Not the best flavor-wise, but at the end of the day, still a little sweet.”
“When does the sweetness come out?”
“When you least expect it.”
I smiled. “I better stop expecting it, then.”
She reached for some rosemary from the planted herbs sitting in front of her kitchen window over the sink. “You know what, Willow? I think I like that best about you. How you expect the best from everyone.”
“It doesn’t always work out to my benefit. Sometimes I get burned.”
“Ah, yes. I could see that. I had to learn at a young age that just because I love big doesn’t mean the rest of the world does, too. And the problem with loving big is that big hearts could break in big ways.”
“This is very true.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked, turning on her water to rinse off the rosemary quickly.
“I love secrets.”
“I think Theo has the biggest heart of all the people I know. And I think ever since he was a kid, it’s been breaking in big ways.”
That thought alone made my own heart crack. A part of me didn’t believe it. Yet a bigger part of me knew it was probably true. Maybe grumps were born that way, but the world made them cold. Maybe Theo and I both went through hard times, yet his situation caused him to close off his heart, and mine caused me to expand mine even more.
Sometimes life had a way of making people hard.
Sometimes life had a way of making people fragile.
It was a toss-up of situations that led people down different paths.
“We were in town the other day when Peter and Theo had a strange interaction,” I expressed. “Theo left me stranded as he stormed off in a huff.”
Molly frowned. “Ah, yes. Peter is only a few years older than Theo, and they’ve never really seen eye to eye. It’s not uncommon for them to clash.”
“It was pretty bad. Theo got a little tongue-tied. So I tried to help finish his sentences and—”
“Oh no,” Molly said.
I sat straighter. “What’s wrong?”
“You were finishing his sentences?”
“Well, trying, but he grew even more flustered and—”
“And snapped,” she finished.
“Yes! Out of nowhere. It threw me off so much.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, I’m sure it seemed out of nowhere, but it definitely came from a place.” Molly continued and informed me of how Theo struggled with his speech issues as a kid, and one of the things he hated the most was how others tried to speak for him. “It drove him mad. It took him blowing up once as a teenager in front of Harry and me before he broke down sobbing about it. He said it made him feel…broken. Ever since then, we’ve worked our hardest to never speak for him. He’ll get his thoughts out. Even if he takes a little longer than others.”
I felt like such a jerk. There I was, trying to make Theo more comfortable by finding his words, yet instead, I ended up tapping directly into one of his triggers and sending him into a frenzy. It turned out that his outburst wasn’t out of nowhere. It came from a very defined location, especially when you tossed in the cousin aspect of the situation.
