Chapter 33
Theo satin the chair opposite his grandmother, Georgie, in her formal living room. The slurp of the straw in her strawberry milkshake broke the silence.
“Rummy!” Georgie slapped down her cards for him to inspect.
“Well done.” He scooped the cards up to shuffle. “Up for another round?” He shuffled the cards deftly. It was Sunday morning, a week after the gala. Theo had spent a sleepless week working until his eyes burned and running for miles until his body was sore and exhausted. Still, he heard her words, over and over again.
I quit.
Even louder, he heard what she didn’t say. No ‘I love you’ from Amber.
He concentrated on shaping the cards into submission.
“No,” Georgie said. Theo looked up. Georgie hadn’t been up for meeting him out at their usual breakfast spot when he called. Theo had picked up take out and came to her instead. She looked ever tinier than usual across from him. “It’s no fun to beat you when you look like a wounded puppy. What happened? Everything was so lovely when I left you two last week, and then everything imploded.”
Imploded was a good word for what happened this week.
The morning after the gala, Pippa released the photo of Amber, Neal, and Theo, along with a headline: ‘Campaign Chaos: Mayor Theo Clairmont’s Alleged Love Triangle Shocks Northfield.’ When word got out that Neal had been fired for his inappropriate conduct toward Amber, his fall was steep and swift. Professional contacts, family, and friends distanced themselves until he fled the state in disgrace.
The rumor mill continued speculating, and more articles hit the news cycle. Someone, Theo was almost certain it was Addison, came forward with a “tell all” about Theo’s dating life. It was mostly nothing, but the town Facebook page had been buzzing about it nonstop.
To round out the shitstorm, Puddin’s owner came forward to lodge a complaint that Theo had stolen his dog. He didn’t actually want Puddin’ back, Theo was darkly amused to learn, but he “wanted it known what kind of man the mayor was.”
The campaign’s trajectory had taken a nosedive ever since. Charlotte and Todd were working overtime to manage the PR crisis, but Beckerman’s polling numbers had skyrocketed while Theo’s were solidly in the toilet.
It was everything Amber had feared happening, yet Theo found himself indifferent to the chaos.
Georgie walked to the piano and began to play. The music filled the room, and he drifted in the notes for a while.
“I’m sorry, Georgie,” he said after a while. “I might have ruined my chance at being reelected.”
Georgie’s fingers stilled. “Oh, Theodore,” she said tenderly. “Don’t you know that doesn’t matter in the long run? All we’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy. That’s your legacy more than anything else.”
Theo nodded. He knew that. He supposed he always did. Falling in love with Amber had been the easiest decision he’d ever made. And the most fulfilling.
He had never been happier in his life than in the months since she came to work for him. He could see their future so clearly, and whether or not that included being the mayor, Amber was there next to him. But he had done what he could to show her, and he failed.
“I lost her.” Theo blinked. He didn’t intend to burden George with anything more than lifting her fork to her mouth, but never in his life had he wanted anything more than Amber. Not his job. Not the respect of the town. He loved her so much it hurt to breathe.
Georgie continued to play. “Do you love her?” she asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“Does she love you?”
Theo didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” He knew it, even if she had never said it. The look on her face, the joy that lit her up from the inside out whenever he told her he loved her hadn’t lied. She loved him. “But she’s scared.”
“Fear is a powerful thing. Sometimes love needs space to breathe and grow,” Georgie said gently. “Continue being the man she fell in love with and let her find her way back to you when she’s ready.”
Theo went home, threw the ball for Puddin’, gave her belly scratches, and an extra treat. He answered more emails from his largest donors about his next steps, assuring them of his commitment and strategy moving forward despite the recent setbacks.
He thought about every run they had taken and every time she didn’t believe in herself, and how he had believed enough for both of them. She needed to believe in herself now.
He made dinner and gave Puddin’ her bone, and stood on the back patio and watched the sunset.
He picked up his phone and sent a message.
Theo
I love you. P.S. Eat a vegetable.
She didn’t even recognizeherself.
Amber lengthened her stride when she hit Main Street and concentrated on her breathing. Running for the hell of it. Who would have thought? But every day for the last three weeks, she had woken up, put her sneakers on, and dragged herself outside to run knowing that if she stopped, it would be so much harder to start again.
She was so tired of starting over.
In the weeks after she left Theo, she had looked for something, anything, to distract her. She went back to the pub and picked up some shifts to pay the bills, even though Theo paid her a bonus in her final check that made her gasp. She wasn’t going to be eating ramen and bananas for dinner for a long time.
She considered calling Lucy about a dozen times to experiment with a new color for her hair. She went out with Johnny and Charlotte a few times, but being around their new love was more painful than she could handle.
She looked for anything to distract her, but in the end, she found herself lacing up her sneakers instead.
God, running still sucked. But Theo had been on to something. Sometimes you just had to suck it up and push through.
Tears pricked her eyes at the thought of Theo, but she’d had enough crying in the last three days to last a lifetime. While she ran, she thought about patterns. Hers.
How many times had she been on the cusp of something good in her life only to sabotage herself? For so long she had thought it was just her thing. She was just flighty and irresponsible, despite being surrounded by successful women. She was the odd man out.
But every time her sneakers hit the pavement, her thoughts became clearer.
Flightiness wasn’t a personality trait. It was a defense mechanism she had perfected. She wasn’t the flawed one in her family, she was afraid. Afraid of failure, yes. But she was even more terrified of success. Every time she got a hint of it, she did something to ruin her chance of happiness. Her lungs burned and sweat dripped into her eyes. It stung, but she welcomed the discomfort.
The runs were never easy. Maybe they never would be, even after consistently training, but she wasn’t afraid of the work anymore. Today, her lungs were tight. The band of her sports bra dug into her shoulder painfully. She welcomed the physical pain. Used it to push farther.
Main Street was waking up when she ran down the sidewalk. She waved to several people but didn’t stop to talk. Theo’s office light was on. She didn’t look to see if he was inside. But she wondered what suit he was wearing today. Did he sleep last night, or had he lain awake until the early hours like she had? She missed Puddin’s kisses. She even missed Theo’s green juices. She missed him.
Theo
I love you. P.S. Eat a vegetable.
She didn’t respond, but she looked at the text a million times a day. And she thought about patterns.
She ran past the newspaper stand, barely glancing at the headlines. Theo’s name was still plastered on the front page, just as she feared.
She didn’t spare a single thought for Neal’s scandal. She chose not to press charges when she found out he was leaving town. He had brought that on himself, and was paying the price, but Theo’s years of hard work and dedication had been reduced to tabloid fodder, undermining everything he had worked for. It was everything she had feared would happen, and she didn’t know how to fix it.
Annette’s interior design studio lights were on when she ran past. Impulsively, she jogged up the stairs and found her mother in the back office looking at her computer screen with her glasses perched on the end of her nose.
“Hey, what are you doing here? Don’t you have to work—?” Annette started, but when she looked up, she stopped and half stood. “Oh, honey. What’s wrong?”
Amber collapsed in the chair across from her mother’s desk. “I’m fine,” she said automatically. Smiled, even though her breath came in fast pants, making little puffing noises like she couldn’t get air deep enough in her lungs. Theo would tell her to slow down, control her breathing. She panted harder.
“Here,” Annette said, walking around her desk with a bottle of water. “Drink this. What’s going on? And stop smiling, for the love. It’s just me.”
The smile dropped from her face. “I don’t know,” Amber said. “I just...I feel...God, I’m so tired.” She bent her head and rubbed her eyes.
Annette sat on the chair next to her. “What are you tired of?” Annette asked gently. Knowingly. She rubbed Amber’s back in light, soothing circles like when Amber had a nightmare as a little girl.
Amber was quiet a long time. “Everything,” she finally said. “I’m scared to chase my dream because I might succeed.” She paused. “I’m afraid to love because I might fail. I’m so tired of being stuck.”
Annette sighed. “I know, honey. I see so much of myself in you.”
“You do?” Amber looked at her disbelievingly. “But you’ve never run away from anything in your life.”
“Oh, I have. When your father left, the fear was paralyzing. Alone with four girls depending on me and no job, no money, no education. Those were the scariest years of my life. I didn’t know which direction to go in or which career to go back to school for, but I didn’t have any other choice except to move forward.”
Amber listened quietly, shocked to her core to hear her mother had felt exactly like she did. All her life, Annette was an indomitable force of nature, almost superhuman in her strength. She felt like Dorothy seeing the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain now.
“I had no idea,” Amber finally said.
“I made sure you didn’t. I wanted you to see me as strong enough to take care of you girls and not need to rely on anyone.” She paused. “But maybe, in teaching you to be independent, I inadvertently taught you not to let anybody else in.”
Amber dropped her gaze. Talking about Theo was still too painful.
“But we can change that, hmm?” Annette said. She reached over to squeeze Amber’s hand. “Like Allie and Davis? You’re allowed to choose happiness too.”
“Do you ever see that for yourself?”
Annette looked out through the window behind her desk. “I think I’m too set in my ways now to make room for anyone else.” She shrugged ruefully. “But a mother always wants better for her children, and I think there’s something better out there for you.”
Amber lifted her head and stared at Annette, her smart, talented mother, while something solidified within her. The parallels between her and her mother’s approaches to life and love were stark and suddenly undeniable. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
Annette smiled. “Start with yourself, of course.”