Theo laughed, but it was not a genuine laugh. It was the kind that escapes when no other response is left.
"A while," he repeated. "You’re sitting here telling you love soone, in front of my grandparents, in front of , and all you have to say for yourself is a while?!"
"I wasn’t aware I owed you a tiline," Diana said.
"Diana." His jaw tightened. "We have known each other since we were seven years old."
"I’m aware of that."
"Seven years old." His voice climbed a step. "And you’re telling that all of it, everything between us, you just... decided it was over, and you didn’t even think to say sothing to first?!"
Diana’s face changed a little. "Huh...?"
"Theo," she said, "I think what you an to ask is why I didn’t wait any longer. Which is a different question."
"I’m asking why you didn’t talk to !"
"Because you never talked to !" Diana said.
The table went completely still.
Theo stared at her.
Diana held his stare with the expression of soone who had said the true thing and was not going to take it back.
"You had years," she said, quieter now, but not soft. "Even decades to say sothing, Theo!"
"Any one of them would have been enough, and I wasn’t asking for much because I don’t want to be a selfish girl!"
"And I was asking for anything."
"Look... I was figuring things out," Theo said.
"For how many years EXACTLY?"
"Diana..."
"How many years does it take to figure out if you want to be with soone?" Her voice was still level. "Because from where I was standing, it looked less like figuring out and more like making sure I didn’t go anywhere while you decided."
Theo’s hands were flat on the table. "That is not what I was doing!"
"Then what were you doing?"
"I was being careful!" he said. "I didn’t want to ruin what we had!"
"What we had was important to , and I didn’t want to ruin it by moving too fast, and I thought you understood that!"
"I understood it at eighteen," Diana said. "I understood it at nineteen..."
"I gave you that understanding for a very long ti, Theo, and you used it as a reason to keep doing nothing."
"So what, you just gave up?" His voice cracked on the last word. "That’s just it...?"
"After everything, you just gave up on us and ran to the first person who paid attention to you?"
Diana’s calm broke.
"Don’t," she said.
"Because that’s what it looks like from here, Diana! It looks like you just—"
"Don’t you dare say I ran to soone," Diana said, and her voice had a sharpness in it now that cut through the dining room. "Don’t you dare make it sound like I was so desperate that I grabbed the first person who showed up to !!!"
"That is not what happened, and you know it."
Rex couldn’t hold back a smile, and Elaris noticed it.
’Oh fuck yeah... this shit is more peak than any drama I’ve seen on television back in my previous life.’
"Then what the fuck happened actually?!" Theo shouted. "Tell !"
"When that guy didn’t show up, everything was fine, and now you’re sitting at my family’s table telling you love soone else, so I think I deserve to know what the fuck happened here!"
"What... HAPPENED," Diana said, loudly now, her composure finally gone, "is that I stopped waiting for you to choose , Theo!"
"That’s what FUCKING happened! And I stopped waiting!"
"I would have chosen you!"
"WHEN?!" Diana’s voice filled the room.
Theo opened his mouth.
And then nothing ca out.
"When?" she asked again, and this ti her voice was quiet, which made it sohow harder. "Give a year."
"Give a specific point."
"When were YOU going to do it?"
Theo’s jaw worked. His eyes were bright with sothing that wasn’t anger anymore.
"I was going to..." He stopped.
"And there it is... the sa old you were going to," Diana said. "And always the going to."
"It’s never actually going to."
"Oh my god, Theo, do you even hear yourself?"
"I was scared!" Theo finally spoke, and his words erged like sothing that had been trapped behind a wall for a long ti before finally breaking free. "Is that what you want to hear?!"
"I was FUCKING scared! I didn’t know how you’d react," Theo shouted. "This is my second life, and in my previous life, I didn’t have any experience confessing to a girl or even talking to one...! I was a goddamned loser!"
Rex thought. ’So he really was a loser in his previous life... that explains it all.’
"I didn’t know if it would change everything, and yes, I waited too long, I know that, but that doesn’t an you get to just erase everything we had because soone else showed up first!"
"I’m not erasing anything," Diana said. "I rember everything we had!"
"I rember it exactly, and that’s the problem, Theo!"
"I rember every single ti I thought you were going to say sothing and you didn’t..."
"I rember every mont where I sat across from you and waited and you looked away!"
"You think I forgot all of that?! I built my entire patience out of all of it!"
"Then you should know how much it ant to ," Theo said.
"It ant enough to keep but not enough to act on," Diana said. "And eventually those two things stopped being compatible."
Theo shook his head. His voice ca down, but the weight in it went up.
"You should have told ," he said. "If you were done waiting, you should have told ."
"Why?" Diana asked. "So you could make another promise you weren’t going to keep?"
"So I could spend another year thinking that this ti it was actually going to happen?"
’Sheesshhh... go get ’em, Diana.’
"Because I deserved to know!" Theo said, and his voice raised again. "Diana, I deserved to know that you were done, I deserved the chance to fix it, and instead you just, what, you decided on your own, and now I’m supposed to sit here and accept that?!"
"Yes," Diana said. "That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do."
"As a man, if you want to call yourself that at least."
"I’m not going to JUST accept that!"
"Theo." Her voice went flat and clear. "You didn’t give a chance when you had one."
"Don’t ask to give you another chance now that you’ve decided you want it."
Theo’s breath ca out hard. He looked at her across the table with the expression of soone standing in the wreckage of sothing that had been entirely avoidable and knew it.
"You waited for him," Theo said, and his voice broke on the last word. "You’re telling you had no more patience for , but you had patience for him."
"I didn’t wait for him," Diana said quietly. "He didn’t make wait."
The distinction landed exactly where it was aid.
Theo looked at Rex.
Rex t the look without moving, without expression, without offering anything that could be used as a target.
"You." Theo’s voice went low again. "You knew...!"
"You fucking knew all of this when you decided to pursue her."
"I knew she was available," Rex said. "Which she was."
"She was not available, she was—"
"She was what?" Rex asked, his tone neutral, not aggressive. "What was she, Theo?"
"What was your claim on her, specifically? Because I’d like to hear how you describe it."
Theo’s mouth closed.
The table was silent.
Therion had not moved, and neither had Elaris; however, she appeared quite interested in the situation, as evidenced by her persistent smile. They watched with the specific stillness of two people who had decided this was not their conversation to join and were committed to that decision.
Theo looked back at Diana.
"You could have told ," he said, one more ti, more quietly. "That’s all I’m saying..."
"You could have told yourself."
Diana looked at him for a long ti.
"I did tell you," she said. "Every ti I showed up."
"Every ti I stayed."
"Every ti I kept coming back."
"I was telling you the whole ti, Theo."
She picked up her cup.
"You just never listened," she said.
User Comments
0 comments from readers