Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
Theo
“ H ow many times have you been fishing?” I asked Willow as I helped her into my boat. Before we stepped outside, I told her to bundle up to stay warm. I also packed a backpack of snacks and drinks, along with a few of my favorite novels and headlamps in case she decided she was more into reading than fishing.
“Counting this time?” she questioned.
“Yeah.”
“Well…” She held her hand up and started counting her fingers, seemingly in deep thought. “This would be the first time.”
I let out a small chuckle. “Lucky for you, I’m a solid coach.”
“Is that so?”
“No. Not exactly. I taught Jensen, though. So I got that notch under my belt.”
“It blows my mind how different Jensen and Peter are.”
“He takes after his mom,” I explained.
“What happened to her?”
“H-health complications after childbir-rth.” My voice cracked thinking about it. Thalia was a good one. I hated that life took the good ones away too soon.
When I said those words, I saw a level of hurt in Willow’s eyes that made my own chest ache. “She died after childbirth?” she questioned, her voice low and timid.
“Yeah. It was a hard time.”
“My…” She pushed out a smile, but it wasn’t her normal warm smile. It was dripping with grief. I knew what grief smiles looked like. I was a mastermind when it came to spotting them. I stayed quiet, wondering if she’d finish her words. But she didn’t. She just stayed still, sitting in whatever demons were inhabiting her thoughts.
“Don’t worry,” I said as I untied the boat from the dock. “I get it.”
“Get what?”
“That some things are too hard to talk about.”
Her eyes flashed with emotions, but no tears fell this time. I figured she’d spent enough time crying over whatever haunted her mind. Sometimes the darkest parts of us brought about the least number of tears.
We stayed quiet as I took the boat out on the other side of the lake. Once I found a location that felt right, I turned off the boat and set Willow up with a fishing pole.
“What kind of fish are out here?” she asked.
“There’re some blue gills, northern pike, some perch, a few bass.”
“How did your northern pike turn out? Was it delicious?”
“Didn’t eat it yet. I filleted it and am waiting for the right moment to cook it up.”
“Ah, yes. The prized fish can’t be eaten on a random Tuesday.”
“That is very, very true.”
“If I catch a big one, will you make me a fish fry?”
“Define a ‘big one.’”
She scrunched up her nose in thought before holding her hands double the width of her body. “This big.”
I’d been on the lake we were sitting on for hundreds of hours. I knew the water and the life that lived within it. There was no way in hell Willow Kingsley would ever catch a fish that big on Westin Lake.
Yet the sparkle in her eye made me not want to burst her dream.
“We will definitely have a fish fry if you catch a fish that big.”
“Not an if but a when ,” she corrected, puffing out her chest as she rolled up her sleeves a little. “I got this.”
Four hours passed, and Willow did not have it. After we docked for the night, I helped a deflated Willow step out of the boat. She hadn’t stopped pouting for the past hour or so due to her lack of fish. She must’ve seen her fish fry floating far, far away with every passing hour.
“Don’t take it too hard. The current was shit tonight,” I said, trying to make her feel less shitty about not catching anything but weeds.
“You caught eighteen!” she exclaimed, tossing her hands up in frustration.
“Yeah, but I’m pretty great at what I do. There’s not much that I’m bad at. You should’ve gone out with a shitty fisherman if you wanted to feel less bad,” I teased.
Her brown eyes met mine, and she smiled. “I like when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Joke around. I like your playful side. I didn’t know you had one.”
“It comes in waves.”
Her fingers tugged on the edge of her jacket as she bit her bottom lip. “I hope the next wave crashes into me. Good night, Mr. Grump.”
She started to walk away, her back to me as I snickered. “Good night, Weeping Willow.”
She turned on the heel of her flip-flop, and her smile stretched even farther than before. “I like it when you do that, too—laugh.”
I didn’t say anything because sometimes when I looked at her, all words seemed not to exist.
“Hey, Theo?” she whispered.
I slid my hands into my pockets and tried to ignore my wild heart. “Yeah?”
“Can I go fishing with you tomorrow night?”
The next day, I caught Willow standing on the edge of the dock with a fishing pole in her hands, practicing her casting skills. Her technique was awful, yet she stayed there for a long time, trying again and again. She’d managed to tangle up her line pretty poorly, and I stood in the kitchen window, sipping my coffee, laughing at her trying her best to undo the madness she was creating.
“What are you looking at?” Jensen asked, walking into the kitchen.
I shook myself from the trance I’d been stuck in for far too long, stepped away from the window, and went to the coffeepot to pour more. “Nothing,” I muttered, trying to play it off as if I hadn’t spent the past thirty-or-so minutes creeping on Willow standing on the dock.
Jensen ignored me and glanced out the window. He smirked before opening the fridge. “I told Willow, but she didn’t believe me.”
“Told her what?”
He grabbed a plum and shut the fridge door. He tossed the fruit into the air before heading back toward the direction he’d entered. “That you look at her when she’s not looking, the same way she looks at you.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, but he ignored me and continued on his way. I cleared my throat and shouted. “Hey! What do you mean? How does she look at me when I’m not looking?!”
Willow went fishing with me that night.
She caught not a thing.
“Theo?” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Can I go fishing with you tomorrow night?”
We kept fishing for days, and Willow did what she did best: she talked. She’d tell me a lot about herself, then she’d apologize for talking too much, and I’d ask her to go on.
Her favorite color was lavender, though it changed yearly. Last year, it was burnt orange, and she had a suspicious feeling it would be deep forest green by next spring. She loved butterflies. Like loved-loved butterflies. She once flew off a motorcycle and ended up with a broken arm. Two years ago, she ran a marathon in South America with a man she’d met on a dating app. They were still friends. She had a lot of those—friendships. She also had fourteen tattoos in places people could not see. If I hadn’t been afraid of her dying the first night we met, I would’ve probably noticed more of them.
The only one I could see was the one of the clementines sitting on her wrist. When I asked her if there was some symbolic meaning to the fruit, she smiled and didn’t reply. The way her eyes glassed over was enough for me to realize that there definitely was a meaning behind the tattoo, yet it was too hard for her to talk about.
I respected that.
There were some things in my life that I didn’t talk about, either.
On day four, Willow tossed her hands up in the air in frustration and picked up one of my favorite books. She thumbed the dozens of tabs on the novel, in different colors, and raised an eyebrow. “You like this one, huh?”
I nodded. “It saved me time and time again.”
“I’ve never met a guy who tabs his novels.”
“Well, hello, it’s nice to meet you.” I rested my fishing pole on the floor of the boat, allowing it to lean against the side so the line would stay in the water. The fish were assholes that night, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind the company lately, either, which was odd.
Why didn’t I mind?
“Can I read it?” she asked me.
“You can do whatever you want, Willow.”
She grinned, grabbed a headlamp, and made herself comfortable. A slight breeze brushed past, so I grabbed my extra blanket and tossed it over her lap.
Why didn’t I hate it?
She read the rest of the night, thumbing through the pages I’d thumbed through in the past. After we finished, I walked her back to the house. We didn’t talk, but she still had the book in her hands, saying she’d need to read it into the night. I didn’t blame her. When I started that book, I also struggled to put it down.
As I walked past her room to head toward mine, Willow hugged her doorframe. “Theo?”
“Yes, Willow.” I gave her a lazy smile. “You can fish with me tomorrow.”
She smiled, and I felt it in my chest.
We’d fished together for the next week. We talked a little bit more, too.
She still hadn’t caught a fish, but she didn’t seem to mind.
I didn’t mind either.
After one night on the water, I found an emotional Willow banging on my bedroom door at three in the morning. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I yawned, confused at her standing there. “Willow, what are you—”
She held the book I loaned her against her chest as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Chapter forty-two,” she whispered before she broke into sobs.
Oh right. That chapter.
I couldn’t blame her for the emotional breakdown.
Chapter forty-two did me in, too.
“He didn’t stay,” she said before covering her mouth as she gasped for air.
I leaned against my doorframe and crossed my arms over my chest. “I know.”
“He promised he’d stay.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“It’s not fair,” she sobbed. “They were happy. They finally found each other and were happy, and now he’s left her. It’s so sad.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Sometimes it’s even sadder when people stay. At least that’s what I tell myself.”
Her heartbroken eyes found mine, and for some odd reason, my own eyes flooded with emotions. In an attempt to avoid her seeing me get emotional, too, I cleared my throat and pulled her into a hug. “There, there,” I said, patting her on the back. She fell against my chest as if she’d always belonged there, and I tried my best to avoid her feeling my increased heartbeat pounding rapidly against my chest. “You’ll be fine, Weeping Willow.”
“How do you know?” she cried.
“Well, for starters, you’re only three-fourths through the story. You still have a whole one-fourth to reach a happily ever after. Besides…the plot is just getting good.”
She looked up at me, sniffling, and then fell back to my chest.
I held her tighter and rested my chin on top of her head. “Besides…even if you aren’t okay tonight, you’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because we’re going to go fishing.”