The Problem with Falling (Problems #3)

Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Willow

T heo was right.

I wasn’t as happy as I pretended to be, which was why I didn’t like to be alone.

It seemed as though Theo had no issues with the lonely factor. Though I wasn’t certain if lonely and alone were the same thing.

I couldn’t stand to be alone. My thoughts couldn’t handle that self-reflection concept. I much preferred to live as if I were a character in a storybook, writing a fiction script day in and day out. And when things started to feel a little too real, that was when I’d break into act two and start the rewriting process to my made-up story.

Most of my life was spent pretending. Living in a fairy-tale state of delusion to get through every single moment of every single day. That was why I surrounded myself with people; pretending when others were around was easier. It felt like drowning when I was alone with only my mind and thoughts.

I knew I drove around a lot on my own, but most of the time, I had to find other people in other places to experience life with them. That was why I jumped at the opportunity when Theo offered to let me stay with him at his place instead of in Big Bird.

My thoughts would become too heavy when I was alone, and I’d struggle with remaining…happy.

I wanted to be happy. Not pretending to be happy but happy-happy. The kind of happy that a person couldn’t fake, no matter how hard they tried. Maybe that was what I wanted most in the world, but sometimes life felt like such a foreign concept. I’d only met a few truly happy people in my lifetime, and my former best friend Anna was one of them.

I always called her my clementine. Clementines had the brightest burst of joy filled with so much tenderness and sweetness. They were gentle, and I didn’t think enough humans came across clementines in their lifetime. If anything, I felt as if life killed off the clementines, breaking them in ways that were so cruel and cold.

When we were younger, Anna and I loved to dance. It was our favorite thing to do ever since we were kids. Unlike me, Anna was a fantastic dancer. She had dreams of becoming a ballerina and traveling the world on her tiptoes. She was so flawless with her dance moves, each movement appearing like artwork. On the other hand, I danced like a person who just discovered how to walk poorly. I didn’t care, though. I loved how powerful it felt to allow music to move your body in ways it wouldn’t otherwise.

I wasn’t sure what became of Anna after our friendship ended. She still lived in Honey Creek, which was probably why I never liked going home. I didn’t like to cross paths with the shadows of my past. If I saw Anna today, I wasn’t even certain I’d know what to say to her. But still, whenever there was an opportunity to dance, I’d do so, and I’d think of Anna.

The idea of dancing that evening was one of the main reasons I’d agreed to go with Peter. So you could’ve imagined my disappointment when we arrived.

Peter Langford’s house was not a dance party. It wasn’t a party at all, to be honest. As we pulled up to the darkened house, my stomach knotted from the uneasy feeling that rushed over me. There weren’t cars parked outside or people moving about inside the home. There wasn’t any trace of music to be found. Maybe I misunderstood what exactly a dance party had been.

Something was clearly lost in translation.

“Where is everyone?” I asked as he parked the car in front of his home.

He put the car in park. “There was a change in plans. We are going to do a party next week. But since you seemed so excited about dancing, I figured we should still have a dance party for two.”

That was the last thing I wanted to do.

I had a gut feeling earlier that I should’ve stayed home that night. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t always one to trust my gut. I’d rather put myself in situations that would’ve stressed my father out extremely. My current one would’ve probably put Avery into labor.

“Maybe it’s best if we have a rain check on the dancing,” I said with a smile, not wanting Peter to sense my discomfort. “Next week sounds much better for a party.”

“You’re probably right,” he commented, still shutting off his car and climbing out of it. “But maybe we can have a nightcap to get to know one another better.”

“I’m not much of a drinker,” I told him, those gut instincts hitting a new level. He shut his door and walked over to mine to open it for me. I didn’t climb out. “Plus, I’m feeling a little sick. I think I should get back.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Come on, Willow. You don’t have to play innocent.”

“Play innocent?”

“It was clear we had a connection earlier when we met in town.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not—”

Peter’s sinister smile made my skin crawl.

I swallowed hard, not wanting to say the wrong thing but wanting to make it clear that whatever he had in mind, I did not have in mine. “Peter, I think I’d like to go home.”

He snickered and shook his head. His eyes, though the same color as Theo’s, didn’t hold the same light. “Willow. Just come inside.”

Every hair on my body stood straight up from the deep, serious control of his voice. The last thing I wanted to do was push him to a level of discomfort because he was a stranger to me. He was the kind of stranger that I went out of my way to avoid, truthfully.

I’d traveled all over the world since I was eighteen years old. I’d met a handful of people, an array of personalities, yet my least favorite of all types were ones like Peter. The personalities that acted as if they deserved to have whatever it was that they wanted. The ones who expected people to bend over backward for them, no matter what. The ones who flipped the switch out of nowhere.

People like Peter were why my father feared me traveling alone.

People like Peter made my stomach turn.

I climbed out of the car, not wanting to make him angry, and I held my phone tight in my hand. He smiled as if pleased to get his way. I wondered how often Peter had heard the word “no” in his life.

We walked up to his front porch, and the moment I reached the top step, I asked him if we could enjoy the drink on his porch since the weather was so nice. I used my sweet-as-pie voice to make him unaware that I was two seconds away from booking it down the road.

He grinned his goofy grin. “Are you a whiskey or tequila girl?”

I bit my bottom lip and held the railing of his porch, swaying. “Surprise me.”

He rubbed his hands together. “My kind of girl. Be right back.”

The second he stepped inside his house and closed his front door, I turned into Forrest Gump, running down the driveway. I kept running and running as the sky darkened overhead. The second I felt as if I were far enough out of reach, I pulled out my phone to call someone.

Unfortunately for me?

Dead zone.

No service.

One of the perks of being surrounded by nature.

“Crap,” I muttered to myself, walking on the edge of the road, which had no streetlights. I glanced around the road, not seeing any other houses nearby. Did everyone in Westin Lake live on acres and acres of land with no other homes to be seen?

Even though my anxiety was building, I did my best not to get too overwhelmed. With each step I took, I said a silent prayer. I’d been in worse situations. Once, I got lost in the desert while traveling through Dubai. I had sand in parts of my body where sand did not belong. Currently, I had no sand between my butt cheeks, so that had to be a positive.

As I continued down the path, my heart skipped a beat when headlights came from around the corner. As I held my hand up in the air, I prayed that people in Westin Lake weren’t terrified of hitchhikers. Then I said an extra prayer that the driver wasn’t another Peter type of human.

As the truck slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road, my heart skipped several beats as the passenger window was rolled down to reveal the driver.

“Theo!” I shouted, tossing my hands up in celebration. “Oh my gosh! I’m so happy to see you!”

“Never thought I’d hear those words leave your mouth.”

“You and me both.”

“What the heck are you doing?” he asked, leaning toward the passenger window as he sat in the driver’s seat.

“Being lost.”

“And now found, I guess.” He unlocked his doors. “Get in.”

I did as he said, and the moment I slipped into the seat of his truck, my whole body relaxed. I released a weighted breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

I slammed my door shut and locked it instantly. “Thank you,” I said.

“The party was no good?”

“The party wasn’t a party. It was Peter trying to hook up with me.”

Theo’s face went stone-cold as he clenched his jaw. “Tell me what happened.”

I told him about the situation that went down with Peter. The more I spoke, the more I saw the rage building inside Theo. It was a quiet rage, though. A rage that others might not have noticed if they didn’t look closely enough. Luckily for me, all I could do was keep my eyes on him as I spoke.

“I’m going to kick his ass,” he muttered with a deep growl. “When Jensen stopped by my place and said there wasn’t a party, I knew I should drive by and check to make sure you were all right.”

I sat straighter. “Is that why you were heading that way? To check on me?”

“I figured it couldn’t hurt. I didn’t want you to be in a si-si-situation that l-l-left you uncomfortable,” he stuttered, then cussed under his breath as if embarrassed by his own stutters. That was the first time I noticed his stuttering voice since the pizza night situation, and I could see the nerves in his stare. But I didn’t care about him tripping over his words because, for the first time in a while, I noticed the real Theo. The non-grumpy, caring version of him.

My own small-town grumpy Superman.

“Stop it, Willow,” he mentioned, glancing over toward me.

“Stop what?”

“Looking at me like that and crying. Don’t fucking cry.”

“I’m not crying.”

“Tears are s-sliding down your face. You’re fucking crying.”

I lowered my head slightly and wiped away the falling tears. “Sorry. Sometimes I cry without even knowing it’s happening. I just didn’t expect you to care. I was under the impression we hated one another.”

“Hate’s exhausting. I don’t have time for that.”

“Yes, well, but it’s clear that you don’t like me that much.”

He looked at me for a split second before turning his attention back to the road. “I don’t even know you.”

I bit my bottom lip. “Do you want to get to know me?”

He paused. I watched as his inhales deepened and his exhales elongated. He cleared his throat. “Did Peter hurt you? Did he…” His sentence faded before he cleared his throat again as his hands clenched the steering wheel. “Did he force himself on you?”

“Oh no. No, he didn’t.”

He parked his truck in the middle of the road, then turned toward me. His blue eyes locked with mine, and he placed a hand against my forearm. He didn’t move his eyes away from mine as he spoke. “Willow. D-do you swear?”

The worry in his eyes was heartbreaking. It was as if his soul was crying out from the mere idea that Peter hurt me. And there he was—the real Theo.

I put a hand on top of his. The heat from his warmth shot through my system. “I promise you, Theo. Nothing happened. I ran away before it could’ve gotten to that point.”

I felt his body relax as a sigh slipped through his pressed lips. His eyes fell to our touch. My heart rate increased. I didn’t pull away. He didn’t either. Not right away, at least.

Did he feel it, too? A change in his heartbeat?

He slowly retracted his hand from my arm, and I oddly missed the warmth that retreated with him. The moment before his eyes turned back to the road, I saw something that would stay in my thoughts for as long as I could imagine. I saw Theo’s heart. I saw the gentle giant who quietly cared. How silly of me to think otherwise.

His heart simply whispered a different tune than mine.

He put the truck into drive and started down the spiraling road once more. I stayed quiet for a while, unable to take my eyes off him. He must’ve felt my staring, but I didn’t care. He went out on the road, driving around just to make sure I was okay. Then he almost cried at the idea that I wasn’t.

If I could, I’d stare at him forever, hoping to see those kind, gentle eyes locked with mine again. To the outer world, he seemed cold and distant. Yet the reality of it all was he cared, and he felt everything so deeply. Maybe he cared more than most.

That had to be exhausting.

“Hey, Theo?”

“Yes, Willow?”

“I’m glad you’re nothing like your cousin.” The corner of his mouth curved up, but he kept his eyes on the road and didn’t say anything else. So like always, I continued talking. “Hey, Theo?”

“Yes, Willow?”

“Thank you for saving me again.”

“Again?”

“First on the boat when we met and now tonight.”

He glanced at me once before moving those blue eyes back to the road that was only visible due to his headlights. “Let’s not make a habit of you ending up in shitty situations, all right?”

“I promise no promises.”

He laughed.

A real laugh.

It was low and quiet, but I made him laugh.

My heart did a little skipping around. Something that happened a lot lately when it came to that man. Maybe Jensen was right. Maybe I did stare at him a lot more than I stared at others.

“You eat?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“Want dinner? I made some pasta back home,” he grumbled as he turned my way. “Willow. The fucking tears.”

“Sorry! Sorry. Working on it.” I wiped my eyes. “Pasta sounds delicious.”

“Picked up some of my grandma’s sourdough, too, to go with it.”

We headed back to his place, and he told me to sit at the dining room table as he proceeded to warm up dinner for me. He set it down in front of me, along with a glass of ice water with three slices of lemon. Just like I made myself each day.

“Thank you,” I mentioned.

He huffed once and nodded before he started toward the kitchen.

“Are you still planning to go fishing tonight?” I called out, making him pause his steps.

“Yeah.”

“Oh. That’s good. I didn’t ruin your night too much.”

“Didn’t ruin it at all.”

“Hey, Theo?”

“Yes, Willow?”

“Can I go fishing with you?”