Chapter 17 Downbeat #2
“No.” She shakes her head, furious at the way her chin trembles and the ache that gnaws at her chest and, god, everything, because how is it that she’s an adult and yet she’s still crumbling like a child before her parents.
“I’m not coming to that. Honestly, at this point, I don’t know that I want to come to Chicago at all. ”
The words slip out before she can stop them, but once they’re out in the open, unearthed from the same place she’s buried years of hurt, she finds she means them.
The last thing she wants is to go back to her childhood home to suffocate even more under the weight of her parents’ disappointment.
She’s doing it well enough from 3,500 miles away.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” her dad scoffs.
“I’m not,” Sage shoots back. “My work you’re so concerned about needs to get finished.
If you’re so worried about my job, surely you understand I need to do what I need to do, right?
” It’s petty, absolutely, and she’ll regret stooping so low when she’s come down from the height of her anger, but for now, there’s a sick sort of satisfaction in twisting his own logic and shoving it right back on him.
“You can’t be serious. You’re coming home.” The words are so resolute, so decided, that Sage immediately prickles at them.
Home.
Even still, she takes a breath to check in with herself, a sweep from head to toe, lingering when she gets to the pit of her stomach. She feels nothing but the certainty of a firm decision.
She is serious. She’ll go back to California, or crash Emerson’s holiday like she did one year in grad school when her parents went abroad, something—anything—that’s not a week of arguing for her right to be who she is.
Her heart is pounding so hard it makes her throat throb, but she forces herself to swallow.
To remember that despite his words—despite the way she feels reprimanded and controlled—she’s not a child.
She can make decisions for herself—has been—and she can do it without their approval or understanding.
Sage closes her eyes.
“I’m serious, Dad. I’m sorry. I just need some time.”
“Sage.”
There’s anger lining his tone now, real and heated, but she’s decided.
For the first time in her life, Sage hangs up first.
Sage feels a bit like she’s been run over by every character in Mario Kart, twice, when she finally drags herself out of bed the next day around noon.
There’s a missed call and a text from her mom. Sage doesn’t need to listen to the voicemail or read the message to know what she has to say.
There’s also a call from Anna, which Sage assumes is to talk about Marie’s email. The silver lining of yesterday’s debacle: She completely forgot that her editor didn’t like her new direction for her book.
Sage forces herself to do one of the at-home yoga workouts on some app Margot made her download before she left and hasn’t opened since she got here.
It should feel good to move her body, but her brain is too fuzzy, her thoughts hopping frequencies and enduring bursts of chatter and static without ever settling on a channel.
She white-knuckles her way through the flow sequence, and she may not be a yoga aficionado, but she’s been to enough sessions with Margot to know that’s definitely not how one is supposed to approach their practice.
She ends up skipping Shavasana entirely and taking a shower instead, hoping the hot water will steady the buzz beneath her skin.
It doesn’t.
The buzzing persists, blurring the minutes into hours as she moves through the day on autopilot until a text from Theo snaps her out of her detached haze.
SOS.
Need your input at the house if you’re free?
Sage frowns, the static cutting off in her mind as a pulse of worry shoots through her, bringing her attention into sharp focus.
Yeah, sure. I can be there in 20.
Everything ok?
She bites her lip and swipes over to the group chat. There’s more of Emerson joking around about asking Taylor for Christmas, and a recap from Margot about a few follow-up questions Theo had about the house, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Oh, yes. Sort of? I’m not injured or anything.
I’m being dramatic it’s fine.
But it is an SOS technically so get over here.
That was the worst reassurance I’ve ever gotten?
I’ll explain when you get here.
Door’s open.
Brace yourself—it’s a mess.
A mess is a complete understatement.
“What have you done?” Sage asks as she stares at the bags and bags of Christmas decor that cover almost every surface of the living room. Theo hums, the sound muffled by the branches of the fake Christmas tree he currently has his head buried in as he tries to secure two sections together.
“I wanted to be sure—fucking Christ, it won’t fit—that there were enough decorations.” The tree gives a dangerous wobble, and Sage lurches, like she’s going to rush across the room and help, but she can’t, because she can’t even see the floor with all the bags and garland and … is that glitter?
There’s a click, and Theo lets out a victorious sound as he emerges from the middle of the tree, which is finally standing upright on its own. “There,” he says, stepping back and dusting his hands on his jeans before propping them on his hips. “That looks all right.”
He takes in the towering tree—which completely blocks one of the windows—before he turns and scans the living room, his brow furrowing at the various bags. “Do you think it’s not enough?”
Sage chokes on the laugh she tries to swallow. She manages to mask it as some sort of coughing fit, but it doesn’t really matter because Theo is still frowning at the decorations as if it doesn’t look like an entire Christmas shop threw up on his living room.
“Theo.”
“Hmm?”
She waits until he meets her gaze before she motions to the mess. “What’s happening?”
His lips part, but no words come. Instead, he gives her a soft, shy smile she’s never seen on him before. He takes a moment and then says, “My dad said he’d come for Christmas.”
Oh. Sage can feel her own mouth forming the vowel, but the sound stays stuck in her throat where a sudden rush of emotion is building. It drips through her, warm and syrupy and achingly tender as Theo, all wide eyes and open features, wets his lips and gives a sheepish laugh.
“I may have gone a bit overboard.” He looks around the room, a blush tinging his cheeks pink, and gives a loose shrug. “I just wanted it to be …”
“Perfect,” she says, her vocal cords finally firing.
She clears her throat against the emotion still clogged there.
There’s an inexplicable burning in her eyes, and she blinks against it, even as her chest aches at the quiet joy—the hope—that’s settled over Theo’s features.
She’s simultaneously so happy and so, so sad.
“It’s going to be perfect,” she clarifies.
“You think so?” he asks, his head tilting back so he can take in the tree again. The question is so soft, so vulnerable, that she can’t do anything but step over the bags, carving a path through the mess and to his side.
She follows his gaze to the top of the bare tree and tries to imagine what it will look like when Theo is done with it. “Yes,” she insists. “I do.”
She wants to say more—wants to tell him how happy she is that his dad is coming, how much he deserves this. But the words are tangled in the back of her throat with her own pain, which feels so selfish, but Theo doesn’t seem to notice.
He’s looking down at her with that shy, hopeful smile. “Help me decorate it?”
His quiet joy presses itself into her skin, raw and aching and beautiful and terrifying. “Of course,” she murmurs, her eyes scanning his features. She thinks this is how she’d like to remember him forever.
At ease. Happy. Hopeful.
Not Theo Sharpe.
Just Theo.
“I’d love to.”
It’s late when Sage finally gets back to the cottage.
She drags herself into the bathroom, scrubbing at the glitter that’s caked on her hands from hanging ornaments all afternoon.
Her tired-eyed reflection stares back at her in the mirror, the energy she’d summoned to be present with Theo long gone.
There had been something soothing about working side by side with him today. Untangling tinsel and decorating the tree and placing random Christmas figurines on every discernable surface had blanketed her heartache with …
Well, not joy. But something far more than a simple distraction. She’d managed to find contentment for a few hours, because Theo was so damn happy, and that made her happy.
There were, of course, moments he caught her staring off, that static crackling in her mind.
The last time, a concerned frown had clouded the easy joy she wanted to keep on his face, so she’d quickly plastered on a smile and reassured him she was fine, just a little tired from so many days of deep drafting, so pass her another ornament, would he?
He hadn’t pressed her on it. But then she’d gotten the text from Noah, and it had her energy plummeting so fast that she knew she had to leave.
She didn’t want to ruin today for Theo. Not when he’d spent hours regaling her with tales of Christmases past, his eyes bright and grin easy as he told her story after story about how he and Oliver used to drive their parents to distraction as they tried to catch Father Christmas, but how he’d always suspected that his mom actually adored it.
Sage lets out a long breath and slumps sideways against the bathroom wall, her temple resting against the plaster as she digs her phone out of her pocket.
Talked to Dad. Call me when you can.
She knows exactly what this is. Noah has been tagged in.
Her parents have been doing more of this over the last year, leveraging her and Noah’s closeness to use him as some warped form of mediation.
It never works. Sage bitches about their parents, Noah mumbles his passive agreement in solidarity, and Sage tries not to be irked by how unbothered he can remain about all of it.
Or how they never ask her to reason with him.
Sage pushes off the wall and pads her way into the bedroom, not bothering to change out of her jeans and sweater as she flings herself onto the mattress and dials Noah.
It rings twice before he answers.
“You’re not coming home for Christmas?”
Sage blinks. That was … abrupt.
“Hi, Noah. It’s so good to hear from you. How’s Cecelia?”
“Cut the shit, Sage,” her brother sighs. “I talked to Dad earlier. He told me everything.”
Sage rolls her eyes, her mouth pinching tight. “Did he? What about the part where he’s trying to get me a job? You know, when I already have one?”
“He told me he wanted you to consider a job, and then you freaked out and said you weren’t coming home for Christmas,” he counters.
Well, that was reductionist of him. Not that she’s surprised. Sage doesn’t bother to point it out to Noah. Instead, she stares at the ceiling and pulls out their dad’s favorite negotiation tactic:
Silence.
“Look,” Noah finally exhales after a few long moments. “I know you guys have your shit, okay? But … can’t you set it aside for the week?”
A phone rings in the background on Noah’s end, the sort of blaring tone that should have been left in the ’90s but somehow still exists in the type of offices where suits are required and pensions are offered. Noah is calling her from work, then.
“Dad and Mom have done nothing but voice their distaste with who I am. Why would I want to subject myself to more of that?”
“Just ignore them, Sage,” Noah urges. Impatience sharpens his tone, and it has Sage sitting up, her body swaying slightly as the blood rushes from her head.
“I shouldn’t have to,” she argues. “You don’t get it. You don’t have to deal with it. You’re not subjected to endless critiques and pointed comments about how you’re a failure.”
“He didn’t call you a failure.”
“It’s fucking implied, Noah!” Why can’t he see that? Why is he taking their side?
“So you’re just going to throw a tantrum, then?” Noah snaps. “That’s really how you want to deal with this?”
Sage jerks back as if she’s been slapped. Noah may show what could be called a mild disinterest in playing negotiator between her and their parents, but he’s never done this.
“I’m not throwing a tantrum,” she says tightly. “And what do you care, anyway? This has nothing to do with you.”
“Like hell it doesn’t. Mom is beside herself.
Who do you think is fielding those texts, Sage?
” he huffs, his own anger mounting. “Who do you think has to deal with the fallout of this over the holidays now that you’re pouting like a fucking child?
You do realize that you’re leaving me to deal with them alone, right?
I have enough shit on my plate without taking on yours as well! ”
Sage is off the bed before she even registers that she’s moved. “You are kidding me,” she snaps. “I don’t remember you having concerns when it was me who was supposed to hold down the fort over Thanksgiving.”
“That was different,” he scoffs.
“Oh, of course it was! It’s always different for you, that’s the whole problem!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
They’re just shy of yelling now, but Sage can’t bring herself to diffuse the mounting tension, can’t think of anything but the words that are flying up from where she’s locked them in her chest and is finally, finally letting them free.
“It means you’re the goddamn GOLDEN child, Noah!
” she yells. “You’re Mom and Dad’s pride and joy, and it’s so fucking sickening to be reminded of it every single time I talk to them!
God, the fact that you can’t see that, the fact that you buy into it by doing their dirty work like this is fucking pathetic! ”
“Oh, fuck off,” Noah bites out, his voice level but edged with a rage she knows he’s forced to keep in check given where he is. “You’re the one who’s pathetic. All you do is bitch and whine about Mommy and Daddy not being fair. Grow up, Sage.”
Noah hangs up, and Sage …
Sage doesn’t realize she’s crying until she can’t make out her phone screen through her tears.
She manages to lock it before she chucks it as hard as she can at her pillows, letting out a frustrated scream that reverberates through the empty cottage.
She crawls under the covers, jeans and all, and hugs a pillow to her chest. She doesn’t bother to try to temper her tears of frustration.
Instead, she lets them flow, lets them soak the pillowcase beneath her cheek.
It’s hours before she’s able to fall asleep.
When she does, the guilt that’s settled in her stomach chases her into her dreams, turning them dark and lonely and bitter. They bleed into her consciousness when she wakes the next morning, and she finds it’s no different—reality.
It feels the same.
It all feels the same.