38. Theo
THIRTY-EIGHT
THEO
It takes me a few days to be able to get away.
Between work, actually having to stay through lunch, and Clara wanting to spend more time together—being able to leave the house without raising any alarms has been tough. What’s even tougher is the conversation Matteo and I are about to have, the one I have a feeling will change everything between us.
Mass is tomorrow, so I know that Marcy is already home after spending the day helping Matteo prepare. Clara’s out with her friends for a wine night, so I finally have the chance to get a few hours to myself. Hours I wouldn’t want to spend with anyone other than my baby, difficult conversation or not.
I step through the door to the rectory, wrinkling my nose in confusion when I’m met with nothing but darkness. There’s a stench in the room that I faintly recognize, and it lingers on my skin as I make my way through the living room to his bedroom. There’s no sign of him in the darkened room that’s lit only by the moonlight pouring in through the mosaic windows. I hear the sound of the shower, so I go there, opening the door with steam billowing in my face as I do. It takes a second for the steam to clear, but when it does, I gasp.
Matteo’s sitting in the shower stall, fully clothed, a nearly empty bottle of something beside him as his head lulls from side-to-side. His eyes barely open when he sees me, a drunken smirk on his lips when I take a step. “ Mi preciosso . What are you d-doing h-here?”
I suck in a sharp breath at his slightly slurred speech. “Matteo? Are you drunk?”
“Guilty,” he snorts, hiccupping as he tries to stand, but ends up slipping on the wet tile. “Oh, fuck. Yeah. Can’t get up. Gonna… Gonna need you to come in here.”
“What’s going on?” I ask him, rushing to his side, not caring that the water is beating on my clothed figure. “Baby, why have you been drinking?”
“Couldn’t stop thinking,” he mumbles, eyes closing as he drops his head against the wall. “Wanted it to stop… Too much…”
“What was too much?” I ask, growing panicked at his state. I take his wet face in my hands, tempted to slap some sobriety into him. “Matteo, you’re not making any sense.”
His amber eyes water, an inkling of clarity in them shining through the drunken haze. “Why don’t you love me?” he cries, burrowing himself in my arms, a deep sob wracking through him. “Why… Why did you tell her you still loved her?”
My heart breaks for him, for the way the strong regal man I’ve come to love is cracking in front of me. There’s so much I want to say to his questions, but I won’t do that now. Not when he’s shitfaced and soaked and obviously not in the right state of mind.
“We need to get you up,” I tell him, hooking my arms under his armpits. He goes slack, feet slipping on the tile, body caving into the floor. “Matteo, come on. You need to help me. Get up.”
“Wanna stay here,” he mutters, trying to wrestle himself out of my arms. “Need to be clean. Feel dirty.”
Tears spring in my eyes, but I push them to the side. The things he’s saying, the way he’s acting, how he’s simultaneously fighting and pulling me in. “Baby, please. I need you to get up. We have to get you dry.”
With strength I didn’t know I possess; I manage to get his unwilling body on its feet. I drag him out of the bathroom, ignoring his pleas to leave him in there, to leave him alone, to leave him to suffer. I take all of it on deaf ears as I undress him carefully, making sure to dry every inch of him.
“Okay,” I say, dropping the towel once I’m satisfied he’s sufficiently dry. “Okay, now let’s get you dressed—Matteo!”
He rushes to the bed, reaching for yet another bottle on the nightstand, holding it close to his chest as he curls into a ball. It’s painful to watch him clutch it like a lifeline, hold it against his naked chest as if it’s his saving grace, quiver as he unscrews the top and takes baby sips.
I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been put in this position before. Do I leave him like this when he obviously wants to be alone? Do I wrestle the bottle away from him and test his rage if I do? I’m not sure what the right answer is, so I do what comes naturally.
I strip, leaving my drenched clothes on the floor as I crawl onto the bed. I wrap myself around his back, bringing him to my chest as he trembles. He smells like Scotch but still feels like the man I love. I might not recognize him right now, but he’s in there.
“You need to stop,” I whisper in his ear, my voice shaking as I lace my fingers over his. “It’s enough, baby. It’s enough.”
He shakes his head, fighting against my fingers, but he’s too weak to stop me from slipping the bottle out of his hands. He lets out one deep sob, sniffling as he buries his face in the mattress. “Why don’t you love me, Theo? Why can’t it be me?”
“I…” No, this isn’t the time to admit it. It might be what he needs to hear, but I know Matteo, and he would hate it if the first time I professed my love for him was when he was like this. “I’m sorry.”
“I would have given up everything for you,” he continues, elbowing my chest, but I take the light blow, willing to shoulder his pain. “I broke my vow to God for you. Why are you still with her? Why ?”
He bursts into tears after his final question, and I just hold him through it. I whisper reassurances in his ear, and try to settle him down, but I don’t know how much it works.
At some point, the alcohol and his sadness get to him, and he falls asleep. I look at the nightstand and see that Clara should be home about now, but I don’t give a fuck. There’s no way in heaven or hell that I’m leaving Matteo like this. Fuck that.
But am I doing more harm than good by staying?
I’ve ruined my marriage with Clara by falling in love with someone else. I’ve ruined Matteo by falling in love with him. I’ve ruined everything I’ve touched in the last few months, causing so much pain with my actions, stupidly thinking there wouldn’t be any consequences.
But I stay. I stay with him. I hold him close to my heart, knowing that every thread in my body longs to bind with his. I’ll wait until he sobers up and we can have the conversation I know we need to have. The conversation that’s been building in the months since we’ve been together.
The conversation that has the potential to ruin it all.
It’s in the early hours of midnight when he wakes up.
Matteo squirms in my arms, a confused groan leaving him as he takes in his bearings. He stiffens, neck craning so he can look at me. “Theo?”
“Hey,” I whisper, rubbing my thumb on his bare hip. “How are you feeling?”
He blinks. “W-What are you doing here?” He looks down at himself. “Why am I naked?”
I sigh because I had a feeling he might not remember. “I came to talk and found you in the shower with?—”
He leaps out of my arms, tumbling out of the bed. He shoots up to his feet, frantically looking around. “Where did you put them?”
“The bottles?” I question, shaking my head when he looks at the nightstand. “Not there.”
“Theo,” he snaps, running a frustrated groggy hand through his hair. “Just tell me where you put them.”
I quirk a brow. “Why? So you can keep drinking?”
I’m not trying to be cruel, and I’m not trying to run his life, but I don’t think he understands that the image of him drunk and crying in the shower is something that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I don’t know much about alcohol, and never have been a big drinker, but I’ve heard it’s supposed to make you have fun and let loose.
Matteo looked like he was doing neither of those things.
He yanks up his sweats as he rifles through his drawers for a shirt. “I’m leaving. See yourself out.”
“Where are you going?”
“The General Store.”
“At—” I look at the clock “—half until one? Baby, it’s closed.”
“I don’t care!” he yells, marching out of his room. I follow, not giving a shit that I’m still naked, as he looks through the bowl by the front door. “Where the fuck are my keys?”
“You mean to the church you never lock?” I inch toward him, my hand gently reaching out. “We need to talk.”
He shakes my hand off as he continues to search. “And we will when I get back.”
“What happened tonight?” I question, desperate now as he puts on his shoes. “Matteo, some of the things you said…”
He snorts, flicking his hair off his forehead as he looks up at me. “Well, I was obviously fucking drunk so you can’t trust any of it.”
His sharp tone is like a slap to the face. This isn’t like Matteo at all. He doesn’t speak to me this way. The only time he’s aggressive is in the bedroom, and it’s not even like… this . “Are you still drunk?”
“Do you think if I was still drunk, I’d be leaving the goddamn church to get something to fucking drink?” he snarls, standing up and grabbing his coat. “Why the fuck isn’t there a bar in this hick town. I—” I rush him. I block his way with my body in front of the door. He narrows his eyes, lips curled in distaste. “Theo. Move.”
“No,” I breathe, shaking my head, body trembling as I grip the edge of the door with white knuckles. “We need to talk.”
“I said we would talk when I got back.”
“And I’m saying we’re going to talk now.” When I see his hands clench into fists by his sides, my breath hitches, but my resolve strengthens. “Are you going to hit me? It’s the only way you’re getting out of here.”
His eyes widen as he takes a step back. “I…I would never hit you.”
“You sure about that?” I ask, still standing my ground. “Because you look like you want to. You want alcohol so badly that you’d hit me?”
“I wasn’t going to fucking hit you!”
“Then stop trying to fucking leave!” I snatch my hands out to cup his face, bringing his forehead against mine, and I cringe at the stale smell of liquor on his breath. “Matteo, please, listen to me. Let’s talk.”
“You want to talk?” He asks the question with a pained groan, nose angrily brushing mine. “Then talk. Tell me why it’s so damn important for me to stay.”
I feel the wet tears I didn’t realize were already spilling down my cheeks. “This isn’t you.”
“This is exactly who I am,” he argues, gripping my arms with a steel force.
“You’ll regret it.”
“There are worse things for me to regret.”
I ignore the way his implication punches me in the gut. “You’ll do it for me.”
“For you?” His eyes snap open, angry amber clouded in pure agony. “What I’ve forsaken for you, the things I’ve done just so we could be together… And you want more?”
It’s selfish, but I do. “Yes.”
“Why should I?” he cries, ripping himself away from me. “Why should I give you any more of my soul if all you’ll do is take without giving yours back? Why should I listen to you when you’ve made it clear where your loyalties lie? Tell me, Theo, why are you worth any of it?”
“Because I love you!”
I end my confession on a choked sob. This isn’t the way I wanted this to go. I never made a decisive plan to tell Matteo how I feel about him, but in my imagination, it was never like this. Confessions of love are supposed to be beautiful and romantic. They’re supposed to make your toes curl and your breath hitch.
We were supposed to be naked in bed, giggling and deliriously happy, unsettled hands grasping for each other as the weight of my words settled between us. We were supposed to kiss, and he was supposed to say it back and I was supposed to slide into him and show him just how much I meant it.
It wasn’t supposed to be like… this .
I feel naked, not in the literal sense like I am, but torn open for him. His unblinking face and slack jaw mock me, and for a split second, I wish I could take the words back.
This is the moment he rejects me. This is the moment he realizes that everything I’ve put him through for my love isn’t worth it. This is the moment I’ll be reminded of what it’s like to be alone.
“I love you,” I repeat, wrapping my arms around myself, eyes blinking back tears as he continues to just stare. “Don’t you love me too?”
It couldn’t have all been in my head. The way he looks at me, the things he’s said to me, the way we are together. He has to love me too, right?
But he doesn’t say anything. He stares. He opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out.
And I’m crushed.
I rush past him, vision blurry as I reach for my still-damp clothes. My fingers shake as I pull up my wet boxers, body trembling when I take my shirt. I don’t get to put it on when a pair of strong arms wrap around me from behind, stopping me from getting dressed. “Please,” I cry, struggling in Matteo’s hold. “Let me go.”
“No,” he breathes against my ear. He spins me around, hands locking on my cheeks as his amber eyes pierce through my vulnerability. “Say it again.”
I shake my head. “Don’t make me?—”
“Again,” he demands, blunt nails now digging into my skin. “For fuck’s sake, Theo. Say it again.”
I drop my head against his shoulder, sobbing into his coat, pain radiating through me. “I love you, baby.”
We both crumble to the ground and in our fall, lips find lips. The sweetness of his touch is cut by the bitterness of our reality, the brutal reminder of the night in his taste, the torturous truth of my confession in the salt of my tears. Like a fool, I cling to him.
Pain isn’t beautiful. The tremendously consuming feeling of heartache isn’t something to crave. The agonizing seconds of bliss aren’t worth the crushing blow that will follow.
But I kiss him anyway.
Because I love him so much.
Like cool water to the barest of soils, I love him like my very existence depends upon it. Like the harness that tethers climbers to the rocks, I love him like I’d fall to oblivion without him.
“Matteo,” I choke out against his lips, pushing him away by his shoulders. “Baby?—”
“We need to talk,” he whispers, running his thumb down my freckles, the touch not as electrifying as it used to be. “Let’s talk.”
I nod, sniffling as we both stand. He turns his back on me so I can get dressed, but I take my time, knowing this might be the last night I spend with him
Because… We need to talk.