1. Chapter 1 #2
“Oops!” Theo cries, covering his mouth. “Sorry,” he murmurs with a giggle.
“Anyway, look, Ollie! Look,” he says, bouncing again, pointing up at our 85’ flat-screen hanging on the wall, the game paused, displaying his new high score.
I question myself how hard it could be for a grown man to only gain twenty points in four rounds of racing, whereas Theo, a six-year-old, was able to gain fifty.
Increasing the probability that Min-Joon, most likely, did cry in embarrassment, he was a lot more in touch with things like emotions, compared to me.
That, and I’d never had much interest in games; I had learnt a fair bit about them thanks to Theo, I knew Min-Joon would have had to be in around eleventh place for at least three rounds out of four to get that score.
A smile creeps onto my lips, and after congratulating Theo on his big win, I prepare to rip into my best friend for losing to a six-year-old, but knowing that’s coming, he yells the words “Dinner’s ready.”
Which is delicious as always. The perks of having a best friend who makes traditional Korean food once a week and various other dishes the rest of the week. I mean, who could complain after being served a massive bowl of bibimbap, enough for the three of us to enjoy.
We ate it with gusto as always. With me occasionally explaining to Theo that there is only so much rice and kimchi a child his age could fit in his mouth before he started choking, but until it happened, he chose to ignore me; it did make him look like a cute chipmunk preparing for winter, so I could let it go this time.
I lean over to grab a napkin and wipe the gochujang sauce off his chin, and I drift off into thought.
I’d wanted to get this junior partner position since my first day at K before that time, it had been almost a decade since we saw each other.
Why? Because every time my mother and I were in the same room, it always ended badly.
I remember that night vividly because I’d just returned home after hours of clubbing and hooking up with a girl I met in said club. I’d just rested my head on my pillow when my doorbell rang.
I’d been in London for a month, with plans to move on to the next city in a week. Therefore, very few people knew where I lived, so it wasn’t common to have people come looking for me at a hotel. I was angry and hungover, ready to roar at the person who dared to bother me.
I’d lugged my boxer-clad body to the door, half a sock on because I was too tired to remove it, as the other just slipped off somewhere in the room. But given how much I’d drunk that night, I was lucky to be standing.
I ripped the door open. I was ready to unleash my rage on whoever it was, but a little person was shoved towards me, throwing me off. Suddenly thinking I was seeing double, looking down at a child who resembled a younger version of myself.
A toddler, no older than three, rubbing his eyes, had been woken up abruptly. Wobbly on his feet till I caught him, and there she was, my mother. Standing in the doorway, I declared a sentence that changed my life forever.
“Theo. This is Ollie, Ollie. Meet your brother Theo!”
No explanation, no remorse. Something that still grinds my gears: the fact she showed up out of nowhere wasn’t a shock, but she still could have mentioned she had a fucking child - my little brother, no less.
A child who’s at an age where they attach themselves to their parents the most- she just left him on my doorstep.
If I remember correctly, she recited something along the lines of “I’m too old to raise him, and he’s nothing like you were; I want to continue travelling in peace.
” That was the moment I’d instantly sobered up, focusing on the poor little guy who was so tired, he could barely stand.
I’d turned my back on my mother for a moment to put him to rest in the bedroom of my suite.
I’d then prepared to discuss with my irresponsible mother, but the only things that awaited me in the lounge area were a child-sized suitcase and backpack. Followed by a stack of papers on the cabinet by the door.
Mother? She was long gone.
I’d also known there was no use in running after her; the one thing that woman was good at was disappearing, nor was I going to leave a vulnerable child alone in my hotel room to chase our mother down the street.
Instead, I spent a few minutes using every curse word under the sun to ride out my frustration, then dialled Nigel’s number, waking him in the process. Words were exchanged, and he hung up, declaring he was on his way.
I remember the way my blood ran cold, how my heart pounded in fear, and the little boy would wake before I had time to compose myself. The panic coursed through my body from being placed with a burden I didn’t know how to bear.
All I could do was wait for Nigel, but something inside me compelled me to check on the child regardless. So, I did peek into the bedroom. Spying on the tiny human who’d barely made a dent in the super-king-sized bed.
It only took one glance at the bags under his eyes and the fact that my weight sitting on the edge of the bed, or was it my fit of rage just now, was enough to wake him, told me everything I needed to know.
This child was me.
Carrying a form of exhaustion, I knew all too well. The unwanted memories of my troubled childhood crept up to haunt me.
The countless times I’d wished my mother would abandon me, in exchange for rest and a normal childhood. A thought alone that told me I was far from capable of raising a child.
I wasn’t capable of being normal or of bringing up a child the right way, hence why I don’t have children myself and the exact reason my mother, of all people, shouldn’t have gone for round two. The thought that seared through my mind that day was how my mother needed to get her fucking tubes tied.
Despite that, I’d done my best to hold it together till Nigel arrived.
The next morning, Theo had woken mute and petrified, not knowing who I was or where he was. It took a week for him to talk to me to figure out if he could even speak English. With no idea where my mother had been or what country he was born in, it came down to Nigel doing some digging.
Turns out he was born in Alhambra in Spain.
He could speak a little Spanish, but he was better at understanding it and slipped into using it when he got shy.
The first month together was the toughest; you wouldn’t think it once he and I found a way to communicate, but it was. There were days when he wouldn’t eat, then days he would only eat the same thing repeatedly.
Every attempt to find him a nanny had failed miserably.
Theo hated being left alone with anyone other than me, which is why I had to opt into working from home.
He refused to sleep and struggled to stick to a routine.
The two of us were exhausted, and I’d become accustomed to sleeping where I could; what with a regressing child and a full-time job, it was no easy battle – Believe me.
My stress levels were through the roof, and I had briefly considered putting Theo into care, arranging for him to be raised by two parents who knew how to show love and wanted nothing more than to have a child to call their own.
But after the adoption was a step from being complete, I couldn’t for the life of me sign those papers.
Though Theo adored the couple, and Nigel had done everything to carefully pick out the person contenders, the issue was me.
During the time we spent together since that night, however difficult.
I couldn’t follow through with putting Theo in the system.
Something ached in my stomach at the thought of him growing up to hate the world because his mother – our mother abandoned him; that his father was a deadbeat rotting away in jail for embezzlement; and that his only other existing family, me, his brother, had abandoned him too.
I knew all too well what an unstructured environment did to a child, and though I was far from qualified, I’d concluded that Theo was better off with me, and that meant sacrifices.
God knows what would have happened to Theo had I not existed; maybe he would have ended up in care after all. Yet another thought that made me feel sick because God forbid, I am anything like my mother.
Deciding to keep Theo only came with its own pile of concerns. For instance, I was widely known within my field. The press release of having a secret love child would be the scandal of the century.
You’d think that lawyers could keep their lips sealed, but no, only when they were paid to do so.
Not to mention, my firm had been convinced in that tedious Forbes Magazine article labelling me the most eligible bachelor of the year – twice.