Chapter 39 #2
“You don’t have to be.”
Another kitten lands in my lap.
I know my mom’s hovering. Watching all of this. But she’s not saying anything.
And Theo’s still here, dropping kittens into my lap.
He squeezes my thigh on my good leg. “Want me to leave them long enough that they’ll need their litter boxes?”
“Yes.” I do. I want them here, with me, crawling all over me and making their little meows and licking my chin and climbing on my shoulders to sniff my ear and tickle it with their little whiskers.
I want them here , so he has to come back and check on them.
“Okay. Right back.”
The warmth from just being near him dissipates, and I peek my eyes open as I hear the front door shut.
Mom’s watching me with her fingers to her lips.
“Please don’t,” I whisper while I stroke Widget, who turned three times in my lap and is now splayed across my thigh, purring like the world depends on the strength of his purr.
She blinks quickly. “I—I didn’t know you were serious about wanting cats.”
“There’s so much about me that I don’t even know right now.”
The door opens again. Theo’s back in the blink of an eye with a big box of litter and three pans. I point down the hall. “Powder room, please.”
He nods and disappears.
Mom watches his retreating backside.
I close my eyes and lean back on the couch, six kittens all over me, and belatedly realize I have a kitten on my head, but there aren’t any pinpricks.
Theo trimmed their claws.
He’s a good kitten dad.
I pet Widget. I stroke Jellybean while she licks my chin, and then pull Snaggleclaw off my shoulder when she licks my neck and tickles me.
Blinky and Panini attack each other on the blanket, spilling over my lap.
Cream Puff’s giving me a scalp massage, but he abandons me right before Theo walks back into the room.
“Nice form,” he says to something over my head, “but wrong rocks. We’ll work on that.”
I look up as he pulls Cream Puff off of my curtains and sets him back on my lap.
Our eyes meet again, and if I didn’t have to grab my crutches to get off this couch, I’d be tackling him in a hug.
The last time I saw that much grief and regret shining in a person’s face was his mom’s funeral.
I’ve lost grandparents. An uncle. A friend or two over the years in tragedies.
But the look of complete hopelessness and helplessness on Theo’s face at his mom’s funeral was something that quietly haunted me for years until I managed to make myself forget in high school because he was such a complete dick.
The memory’s roaring back today though.
“Does it hurt?” he asks, dropping his gaze to the cast sticking out from under my blanket.
I shake my head. “Not much. Good drugs.”
“The you’ll forget all of this by morning kind of drugs?”
I shake my head again.
He nods once, and then he’s gone again.
Tucking his hands into his pockets while he strolls back outside.
“He likes you,” my mom says.
She sounds surprised. Like she didn’t think he was capable of liking someone.
Or maybe like she didn’t think he could like someone like me.
“He’s a really good guy,” I say quietly, “and I’m very, very mad at him.”
She eyes me like she’s afraid to ask the question.
The question. The only question.
Are you mad because he’s a porn star?
I’m not, surprisingly enough. I want to know why . I want to know how . But I deeply believe that he has a good reason.
A guy doesn’t get famous for having the internet’s most inspirational penis without having a story.
And I want to hear it. From him.
With an open mind.
No matter where he’s planning to go with his career from here.
“I’m mad at him because he didn’t have enough faith in himself or in me to fight for me,” I whisper to my mom.
She glances at the door as it opens again.
That’s Theo again. Carrying another bag of supplies.
Quietly belonging everywhere he goes, whether he’s causing chaos or setting up kittens with food and toys and litter.
Except I don’t think he realizes how right he looks no matter where he is. Especially here.
Is that why he’s quiet? I wouldn’t think he’d do anything quietly.
But he does.
And right now, he’s quietly hurting too.
I can feel it.
He disappears into my kitchen, and I hear the sounds of food bowls being laid out.
So do the cats.
All six of them perk up their ears and swivel their heads toward the kitchen.
“You are all so adorable,” I whisper to them.
Cream Puff leaps off the couch first with a long jump that took an extra big butt wiggle for confidence, sniffing as he heads cautiously toward the kitchen, slinking like he knows me and the bubble around me is okay, but the rest of this house is suspicious.
Jellybean follows, then Widget, and then the other three all together as a group, tumbling over each other.
Theo pops his head out of his kitchen, spots the kittens, nods, and disappears again.
“He’s odder than I thought,” Mom murmurs.
He’s nervous.
She makes him nervous.
He should be smiling. Cracking a joke. Relaxed.
He doesn’t hide in the kitchen long. And when he returns after running the water in the sink a few times, he’s holding a small brown lunch sack and a hair dryer.
He shoots a look at my mom, then crosses the room and helps himself to the seat next to me, sitting close enough that I can feel his warmth but not close enough for our thighs to touch.
Without a word, he hands me the bag.
I smell what’s inside before I open it. “You’re cheating,” I whisper.
“Expect any different?”
“No.”
My mouth waters.
I want the cookies.
I want them so badly .
But I make myself set the bag aside.
He eyes me like he’s waiting for the yelling to start.
I don’t want to yell.
I just want him to tell me why . Why he’s here. What he wants. What he’s willing to do to get what he wants.
Not tricks. Not kittens and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.
Me .
I want to know what he wants with me .
He looks down at the hair dryer. “They’ll tell you not to scratch down your cast. This one has a super low setting. Blow it down the cast if you itch. It’ll help.”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah. Least I can—anyway. If I break one of my bones again, I might ask for it back.”
“Again?”
He flexes his left arm. “Climbing accident. You were all in college.”
We both fall silent.
It’s the most comfortable awkward I’ve ever experienced.
Or maybe the most awkward comfortable.
I miss him.
I had three days of realizing I knew nothing about who Theo truly is but enjoying every minute with him more and more and more.
I want to go on adventures. I want to see new places. Try new things.
Laugh .
Press boundaries.
Realize life goes on even when it’s not perfect.
And I want to do it with him .
He lifts his gaze to mine again. Takes a deep breath.
And looks away.
I could ask my mom to leave.
But something Claire said is sticking with me. I don’t want to be easy. I want to know I’m worth fighting for .
I love my parents. They drive me bonkers sometimes, but I love them.
And I am head over heels for Theo. I don’t want to be.
Unfortunately, I can’t help myself.
He’s everything I’ve been missing in my life and so much more.
But I don’t want to be easy . I don’t want to bend over backward to make everyone else comfortable. I want to know I’m worth fighting for.
I want to know if he’s willing to fight.
Will I fight for him?
Completely. Absolutely. Without hesitation.
But he walked away .
He walked away without giving me a chance to prove it to him.
If this is nothing more than neighborly guilt or neighborly kindness bringing him by, if he’s not all in, then what’s the point of fighting for him?
No matter how much it hurts?
You can’t make someone love you.
“I started on a dare.” His words come out so quietly that they almost don’t register at first. “It—it was dumb. The dare. The dare was dumb. And it got dumber the drunker I got. But I said I’d do it, so I signed up and posted a video of me knitting a heart, naked, while ripping off something I’d heard some radio deejay say about the double standard of having to be nice to extended family at the holidays while they insult your clothes and your car and your job. ”
I saw that video.
It made me mad.
Mostly because I grew up going to those family holiday dinners and hating them, and I felt like he was talking about me. About what my parents used to deal with anytime we’d see my mom’s side of the family down in Denver.
“I didn’t think I’d get five followers, but people started talking about it in some corners of the internet, and next thing I knew, I had two hundred.
So I posted another video. Same setup. Knitting a heart, dick hanging out, talking about finding where you fit after years of being a perpetual disappointment. ”
My heart hurts.
I saw that video too.
Last night, actually.
I should’ve called anyone other than Sabrina to sit with me at the hospital.
She made me watch more of them.
I was just high enough on the painkillers to not fight her and just sober enough to remember.