22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
Now
“Hey.”
I groan.
“Nina.”
“What.”
A hand closes over my shoulder and shakes gently. “Wake up.”
“Whaaaat,” I whine, flopping onto my back. It must be early; there’s only muted light coming into the room, and the sky outside the window is still gray. Theo stands over me in his work clothes. “What do you want?”
“Mornin’ to you, too.”
“I’m sleeping.”
“Do you want to go to work with me?”
I squint up at him. Slowly, I push up onto my hands, blinking a few times while I let my brain catch up. “Why?”
He shrugs, thumbs casually slung in his pockets, as if it’s no trouble either way. “It seems like you might be bored of hanging around here.”
He’s right; I have been getting restless. The chicken incident from yesterday proves that much. However, I am also not in the habit of getting out of bed before ten. “It’s way too early for this, Theo.”
“I’ll take a long lunch and come grab you later, then.”
“But I don’t have anything to wear,” I protest—although, the more I regain my consciousness, the more enticing I find the idea. I’ve never been particularly outdoorsy, but hands-on, tangible work is what feels natural to me. Taking care of Mrs. Wilson’s yard last week reminded me of that. “I don’t want to ruin any more of my clothes.”
“We’ll take it easy. Just wear something comfortable.” Theo turns his wrist, checks his smart watch. “I need to get going, but I’ll be back at eleven thirty. Be ready.”
He lopes out of the room, leaving my door ajar behind him. I sputter for a few seconds, then clamber out of bed and poke my head into the hall. His footsteps are retreating down the stairwell, but I call after him: “So you do want me to earn my keep!”
“No,” he hollers back, sounding completely unbothered. “I want you to get out into the world again.”
I let out another pitiful whine, then stagger back to my bed and belly flop onto it.
It’s all a front, though, because when Theo’s truck comes rumbling up the drive at eleven twenty-seven, I’m on the porch waiting for him.
To my relief, we bypass Amity and go into Goldsboro instead. First we stop to eat lunch at a bar and grill, where I order a side salad and water—until Theo stares at me long enough that I get flustered and add a grilled chicken wrap.
“Any sauce or dressing?” the waiter asks me.
“No thank you.”
When it’s Theo’s turn to order, he says, “I’ll have the sirloin burger with steak fries. And extra ranch on the side, please.”
“You don’t like ranch,” I say when the waiter leaves.
“No,” he replies, unrolling his silverware, “but you do.”
“Restaurants in New York don’t usually have it.”
“Luckily,” he says, “you’re back in the land of more sophisticated tastes.”
As expected, Theo immediately slides the giant cup of ranch over to me when our food arrives. I sigh, but as I look down at my pitiful, plain salad, I figure a little flavor wouldn't be the worst thing I have going for me lately.
When I take my first bite of ranch-saturated lettuce, an involuntary “ohhh” comes out of my mouth and sends Theo’s eyebrows flying upward.
“Jeez, Sass,” he says. “We are in public.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I mutter. Theo guffaws, and I can’t help laughing a little, too, as I shovel another forkful into my mouth in a way that would definitely be frowned upon in both Michelin-starred restaurants and my mother’s dining room.
After lunch, he drives a few blocks over to a supermarket. I’m expecting to get supplies for a job; instead, Theo leads me into the main part of the store, grabs a cart, and walks to the women’s clothing section.
“What are we doing here?” I ask, eyeing the racks of garments priced at five, eight, twelve dollars. I haven’t paid so little for clothes in three years—maybe even longer, since Travis used to give me a pretty nice allowance when I still lived with him and Mom.
“Get some clothes that you won’t have to worry about ruining.” Theo pushes the cart toward me, and I stick my fingers through the wires to catch it. “I need a couple of things from the garden area for this afternoon. Come find me when you’re finished, okay? I’ll pay.”
My first instinct is relief, because while I really could use some clothes besides the stuffy ones I brought for meetings at the country club, I need to save every measly penny in my checking account for my next steps—whatever the hell those are.
Then, it’s like a lightbulb goes off over my head. My life flashes before my eyes; not a compilation of my best memories, but rather the chain of events that took me from Amity to Raleigh to New York to right here. In my entire life, I have only made two decisions on my own that had any real consequence: running away with Theo and deciding not to marry Daniel. The first led to such heartbreak that I didn’t dare step a toe out of line for ten years. The latter—the latter happened so suddenly, and yet I didn’t feel an ounce of regret when I threw that ring out the window of the truck. Nothing has ever been as exhilarating as the sensation of my left hand in those first moments it was bared. It was freedom. It was a new start.
A new start in which I have continued to be completely dependent on another person.
The lightbulb above my head burns brighter as I arrive at the third major decision of my life: I’m not doing this again.
Theo steps forward, appearing alarmed. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I hedge. “But I’ll buy my own clothes.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not a big deal. You can save your--”
“Not a big deal?” I laugh in a humorless way that sounds foreign to my own ears. People mill by us in the main aisle, and I push the cart further into the clothes, trying to get some space. My lunch—that Theo also paid for—sits heavy in my stomach. “Yeah. I’m sure it’s not a big deal to you.”
Theo squeezes into the cramped space, slipping between me and a table of graphic tees. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Theo.” I lean an elbow on the handlebar of the cart and prop my other hand on my hip. A lady and her preteen daughter are browsing nearby, so I lower my voice to keep it between us. “We had the same childhood, but we wound up in completely different places.”
He makes a big deal of twisting around to look at our surroundings. “Looks like we’re in the same place to me.”
“You know what I mean,” I snap. “I’m not trying to be a bitch, okay? I know you and your family. I know you’ve worked hard. Nobody deserves success more than you and Cecil. And Randi, of course. But that doesn’t mean it feels good to be your little charity case.”
“Yeah, I famously spend my time searching for people who are down on their luck to live in my house,” Theo quips, his sarcasm tinted with real irritation. “Come on, Nina. Charity is the hundred bucks I send to the children’s hospital every month. Anything I do for you is...” He trails off, shaking his head as words escape him. “It’s you .”
I hear what he’s saying, and I hear what he’s not. There are a thousand little meanings wrapped up in that single stressed syllable, but if I dwell on them—if I dwell on all the things I want to say in return—I'm going to lose sight of myself. As usual.
“I know,” I say, forcing my voice to soften. I move a little closer to him, making sure only he can hear me. “I’m just realizing, literally right this second, that my mother was right. Which sucks.”
“It always sucks when Kelly’s right,” he agrees.
“I’m codependent.” It feels like a huge admission, but Theo just looks at me, waiting for more. “I got used to it, growing up with you, and then I just stayed that way with whoever was around: my mom and Travis, Daniel, and now you again.”
“Sass—”
“Actually, wouldn’t co dependent mean both people are dependent on each other? That's not it. You don’t need me; you were doing fine before I came back to town, and you’d be fine if I left. I’m the one who would be shit out of luck without you.” I thread my fingers through my hair and tug lightly at the roots, feeling unhinged. “How can I be twenty-seven years old and have nothing ? No job, no career, nowhere to live, no money, no friends. I mean...what the fuck?”
Theo turns his hat backwards, taking his face out of shadow before stepping into my space. He wraps his long fingers loosely around my wrists and gently draws them out of my hair, back to my sides. “Okay,” he says, placating. “Hold on.”
“You knew me,” I say. “When I was a teenager. I may have been codependent--”
“I think you’re really overusing that word.”
“—but I did have plans for myself. Right? We talked about the future. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted yet, but I had ideas. Then we left Amity, and it’s like...” I trail off, my eyes wandering over Theo’s shoulder and landing on a shirt that reads Shell Yeah! That’s what I’ve been over the last ten years. A shell. “Like I was so focused on not thinking about you, I didn’t think about anything else, either.”
Theo is still holding my wrists, his hazel eyes piercing as his thumbs press lightly against my pulse points. “Listen. I've said some things to you since you got back that I shouldn’t have, about your birthmark and stuff, and I’m sorry. You were coping with no support from anyone around you. Nobody should fault you for that. Especially me.” He slips his fingers down into mine, squeezing quickly before stepping back and taking his touch with him. “And shit, Sass. When we were teenagers, I felt like I was the one being clingy. I had deferred my UNC acceptance, remember?”
“That was stupid of you.”
“My parents agreed. That was the silver lining of all the shit that went down, I guess—there was no reason not to go.” He slips his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, looks around, and sighs. “Okay. So what I’m hearing is that I’m not buying you clothes.”
“Right.”
“Not because I don’t want to,” he verifies. “And not because I can’t.”
I blink, a little taken aback by that. Theo’s success is obvious; he doesn’t have to prove it to anyone, least of all me, and it’s uncharacteristic that he would feel the need to. Theo has always brimmed with confidence; rarely have I been in a position to reassure him. But for some reason, I can sense that he needs it right now.
“I know,” I tell him. “It’s not about that.”
He gives a resolute nod, and just like that, we’re back on the same page. “Got it.”
I reach out and touch a pair of pink corduroy shorts hanging nearby. They’re seven dollars, and a month ago, I wouldn’t have even worn them to bed. But they although they look cheaply made, they also look exceptionally comfortable, and I decide that they will be the first purchase— my purchase, with my own scarce funds—of my new life.