Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
Willow
“ H ow has my grandson been treating you?” Molly asked as I sat on a stool at her kitchen island. She was folding her sourdough as she walked me through the process of making said dough. Still, I had low confidence that I wouldn’t mess up my own loaf of sourdough.
Coming to Molly and Harry’s house always felt like walking into a warm hug. Their home had such a rustic feel and was vibrant with color and life. They had a collection of antiques passed down through the years from different family members, too. I figured that was what I loved most about the two of them. They weren’t just two individuals; they were the ones who came before them, too. Molly and Harry Langford had history to their lives. That was why their place felt much more like a home than just a house.
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 like Molly 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 Theo seemed 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.
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 your feelings ?” 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 feel something .”
“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 fridge before 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?”
I didn’t understand his cold, distant personality. I came to apologize. I came to try to shift our connection more toward a friendly one instead of our normally oddly tense experience with one another. Yet now he was attacking my character, which made me feel…sad. And misunderstood.
“It means exactly what you’d think it would mean. You’re fake.”
“No, I’m not!” I barked at him. “There’s nothing fake about me.”
“Everything’s fake about you,” he argued.
“Explain how.”
“For starters, you get along with everyone.”
I arched an eyebrow. “And that makes me fake?”
“Yes. No one likes everyone. It means you’re morphing into whatever it is that you think each person will like. Also known as being fake. And everyone in this godforsaken town seems to like you, too. Which means you’re not being real.”
“You don’t like me!” she said, pointing a stern finger my way. “And if I’m honest, you’re making it very hard for me to like you, too.”
“Well, I’ll be.” He snickered, but it wasn’t from amusement. It was a mocking type of laughter. “The first real moment of your life, I assume.”
“Screw you, Theo!”
“There you go, slugger. Let the real you seep out.”
“Why do you want me to be this awful person so bad? Why do you want me to be something I’m not?”
He stepped toward me, his big, broad body making me feel tiny as I tried my hardest to keep my chest puffed out to make myself look as big as I could next to his gigantic self.
“I don’t want you to be an awful person, Willow,” he hissed, stepping closer. His voice dropped an octave, and he locked his piercing eyes with my stare. “I just want you to stop pretending that you’re as happy as you are. Because you aren’t.”
“Then what am I?”
“Sad,” he confidently said.
“Sad?” I huffed. “I’m not sad.”
“Yes, Willow. You are.”
“How dare you assume—”
“It’s in your eyes,” he interrupted. This time, his tone wasn’t as harsh, though. It was gentler. Quieter. A whisper of truths that grazed against my ears.
I slightly shook my head. “What’s in my eyes?”
“Every ounce of sadness you’ve ever lived. It seeps out of you, Weeping Willow,” he remarked sarcastically. Or maybe he wasn’t being sarcastic. Maybe he saw the truth behind my life of pretending.
That left me uneasy.
I didn’t want to be perceived in such a way. I didn’t want others to know that parts of me were so heartbreakingly broken. I didn’t want them to see the nightmares that kept me up some nights.
I wanted to be happy.
I wanted others to think I was happy.
I had to lie to myself and the world because if I didn’t…if I didn’t stop spinning and pretending and living in a false reality, then my feet would touch solid ground, and I’d shatter into a million pieces.
Theo was right.
I was fake.
But it was only due to me trying my best for the past years not to drown.
Yet when I stood there, staring into his blue eyes, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever. Hatred.
I hated Theo Langford because he saw me when he wasn’t supposed to.
I hated him for calling me out, for pointing out my truths that I’d worked for years to keep hidden.
I hated him for seeing me.
The real me.
The damaged me.
An odd feeling began to bubble up in my gut as I stared into Theo’s cold eyes. A feeling that I wasn’t certain how to keep contained. A new, raw feeling. I think it was…rage.
“Fuck you, Theodore Langford!” I hollered, my voice cracking as the aggressive words flung from my tongue. I quickly covered my mouth and gasped to myself. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did,” he said, standing taller with a slight twinkle in his eyes. “Now say it with your chest. Call me whatever you want to call me. Don’t be timid, Weeping Willow.”
“Don’t call me Weeping Willow, you freaking dick!” I barked. My chest heaved as my irritation built more and more. And what did this giant man hovering over me do in that very moment as rage was all I felt within me?
He smiled.
He smiled !
Out of all the times we’d crossed one another…out of all the situations when Theo could’ve smiled my way…he waited until I was on the brink of annoyance to give me one of his grins. He only smiled during fish talk and when he hurt my feelings.
What. An. Asshole.
With a freaking fantastic smile.
I much more preferred his smiles when he gave them because he caught a big fish, not when he was mocking me. His mocking smile pissed me off so much. He should’ve been running around with the ugliest of ugly grins plastered on his face. But no. His smile held so much beauty and charm with pearly white teeth and a dimple on each of his cheeks.
I wanted to slug him right in the face for having such a great grin.
“Don’t smile! Why are you smiling?!” I snapped.
“Don’t know. Maybe because, for the first time, you now feel real to me.” He turned on his heels and started for the back door. “And don’t worry, Weeping Willow. I accept your apology.”
“I take it back! I take back my apology, you freaking jerk!” I shouted.
He glanced over his shoulder and smiled again. Effing A. It was an even more attractive smile than before. The guy smiled so big that I swore I could see his wisdom teeth, which he probably should’ve had taken out ages ago. I bet he was a freaking dental hygienist’s nightmare.
“No take backs, Weeping Willow,” he said.
“Stop calling me that, Mr. Grump !”
He walked outside with a chuckle and a headshake, leaving me standing there like a freaking weeping willow.
Did he just laugh ?!
Three days had passed since Theo laughed at me. I was still licking my wounds from the whole interaction. I wanted to complain to Molly about it all, but I figured telling her that her grandson was a massive dick wasn’t the politest thing I could’ve done.
The only thing I could think to do during my days of simmering rage was try again and again to make sourdough. Maybe I couldn’t make Theo like me—not that I wanted him to because screw him and his annoying, non-ugly face—but I could try to make a perfect sourdough.
And tried, I did.
When I pulled out my third loaf in three days that was hard as a stone, I sighed.
And right on time, Theo walked in to see the ugliest thing I’d ever baked.
He snickered and shook his head before walking out the back door toward his boat.
His laughing at me made it even worse.
I held the rock-hard loaf in the air as I followed him outside. He was already halfway to his boat. “I meant to make it like this!” I shouted.
He didn’t look back but continued laughing, shaking his head as he reached his boat.
“No, really!” I lied, my face heating from the fact that Theo seemed tickled pink by my sourdough failure.
“Don’t worry. I hear that stuff is a pain to make,” a voice said, pulling me away from my stare on Theo. I turned around to see Jensen standing not far away, working in the garden he’d been digging up. We’d met a few days ago when I helped him carry some soil outside. His progress on the space in such a short period was amazing.
I smiled and tapped the hard bread on the palm of my hand. “If there was an award for the world’s worst bread, I think I’d win.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Jensen replied, probably being kinder than he had to be. If only his older cousin had done the same.
Based on Theo’s laughter, he would disagree with Jensen.
I walked over to the garden area and smiled his way. “No offense, Jensen, but I kind of dislike your cousin,” I told him as we stood in the newly dug-up garden area. Ever since I’d heard Theo laugh, I’d been trying so hard to shake the sound out of my mind. I swore I had nightmares of that man’s smile for days after he started calling me Weeping Willow.
Weeping Willow.
Yeah, so creative, you asshat.
I shook my head, trying to brush the insults away. I still didn’t love when my thoughts were so mean toward Theo even though he deserved them. But honestly? I hated that he was taking up any rental space in my brain cells. Yet for some reason, I kept thinking of him even when I tried to stop thinking of him.
“Which one? I have a lot of cousins that I hate,” Jensen said as he tossed down another bag of soil where the tomato plants would go.
“Theo.”
He narrowed his eyes as he looked at me. “Theo? Like… Theo-Theo? The owner of this house, Theo? Your roommate, Theo?”
“Yes. That one.”
“Oh.” He seemed confused by my words and shrugged as he ripped the bag of soil open and poured it into the raised garden bed. “That’s weird.”
I placed my hands against my hips, baffled by his confusion. “What’s weird about that?”
“I don’t know.” Another shrug. “I thought you had the hots for him.”
“The hots? For Theo? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know.” Another freaking shrug. “I’ve been over here for a few days, and I saw you two bickering just like my great-grandma and PaPa. I just always assumed that’s what having the hots for someone is. Plus, there’s the way you look at him when he’s not looking at you.”
“Huh? I don’t look at him any certain way.”
Jensen gave me a “you are full of crap” glare. “Yes, you do, Willow. There’s a normal amount of lookin’ at somebody, and then there’s what you do.”
My cheeks flushed. Did I look awkwardly long at Theo? Did Theo witness me staring? Oh gosh. How humiliating.
Jensen smiled as he stood and picked up another bag of soil. He swung it onto his shoulder. For a fourteen-year-old, he was pretty strong. “If it makes you feel better, he hasn’t been his normal grumpy self since you came around. This is calm Theo.”
“This is a mellow grump?” I remarked, stunned. “There’s no way.”
“Definitely is. It’s almost as if he tamed down his temper for you. This is the nicest, most chatty I’ve seen my cousin in a long time. So whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”
“I’m not doing anything. I’m just being me.”
“So keep being yourself. It’s clear he likes that.”
“That is definitely not clear. You haven’t heard our fights.”
“Yes,” Jensen said, “I have. It sounds like you’re both trying your hardest not to like each other even though you secretly want to like each other. A lot .”
“That’s not it at all,” I lied. I couldn’t speak for Theo, but a big part of me did want him to like me. I wanted everyone to like me. Not the real, hurting me but the character I put into the world day in and day out. Why did it seem to work for everyone but Theo? How was he able to see beneath my exterior? And how could I make it stop?
Jensen gave me a smile. The Langford smile. The same smile Theo gave me when he pissed me off.
Freaking jerk.
I didn’t like him. I just wished I didn’t care about him liking me back so dang much.
Jensen poured out the bag of soil and said, “Don’t worry, Willow. If it makes you feel better, he stares at you, too.”