Chapter Twenty-Three
Darla
After he drives away, I scramble indoors and collapse on the couch. What a day. He loves me! If I ever had any doubt before, it’s gone now. He said it. He showed it. I feel it.
And I am going to ruin it if I don’t spill the beans. I was close to telling him when he started talking all about Doctors Without Borders. Sometimes, those docs are gone for months, if not years, at a time. That’s the last thing Stella needs.
Another perfect chance to tell him he has a daughter, and I let it slip through my fingers. I could have said, “I love you too, and so does your daughter,” but no, I didn’t say anything. I let myself live in the moment, and that moment was awesome.
After I’ve watched the entire Romeo and Juliet movie that Theo gave me, I drag myself off the couch and toward the shower. I’m not sure why I bother. Five minutes in the Tennessee summer sun, and my shower-fresh feeling will be replaced with sticky, sweaty grossness. I throw on some clothes that won’t stick to my skin in this sweltering, muggy heat and head out the door. If I tell him before Stella gets back, I’ll have time to recover from his possible rejection. But if I wait until she returns, he might not be able to resist that beautiful face of hers. I am driving myself crazy. I need a counseling session with my favorite sassy therapist—Shelby. She always knows what to do.
I zoom across town to her condo. By the time I get there, my hair is already plastered to my sweaty face. But it’s only Shelby; she won’t mind. I rap on the door. No answer. I knock louder. I know she’s here because her car is right outside her building. I text her, and she replies, telling me to use the spare key because she’s getting dressed. I feel around under the mat to find the key and let myself in. Her condo is super classy. She hates all the modern art on the walls, but her mother insisted. But there are hints of Shelby’s personality everywhere, from the herb garden on the kitchen windowsill to the autographed photo of the latest rock star she’s cozying up to these days.
“Shelby?”
“Up here.”
I run up the steps two at a time.
She stands in front of her bathroom mirror, wearing nothing but a towel. When she sees me, she shuts off the hair dryer and adjusts her towel. “What’s up with you?”
I slide onto the counter and fidget with a bottle of perfume sitting next to the sink. “I’ve had the most wonderful, awful day.”
“Not sure if that’s good or bad.”
I put the perfume bottle down before I spill the contents on myself. I don’t think I can afford to buy her a replacement. “I need your advice.”
She throws on a T-shirt and shimmies into a pair of shorts. She takes me by the arm and escorts me downstairs to her living room. After I sit down, she perches on the edge of the couch, facing me, waiting for me to spill.
“Oh, Shelby, he loves me.” I love saying that. I want to say it over and over. I want to get a megaphone and shout it to everyone as I drive down the street.
She adjusts the clip in her hair. “Is this the wonderful or the awful part?”
I cover my eyes with my hands. “Both. It was the most perfect day. He’s definitely a charmer. Took me places I hadn’t been in a really long time.”
She grins at me.
I smack her arm. “Not that.” I sigh. “But almost that.” If his stupid phone hadn’t rung, we would have done that. Stupid, stupid phone. “He told me he loves me.”
“That’s good, right?”
I nod. “And it wasn’t like an ‘I want to get laid’ I love you. It was a ‘forever and ever’ I love you.”
She scrunches up her brow. “I’m still not following the awful part.”
“When Theo finds out Stella is his daughter, I’m going to break his heart.”
Shelby forces eye contact. “You have to tell him. Right now. Today.”
“How?”
She throws her hands in the air. “I don’t know. I think you’re overanalyzing this. Say it, and see how he reacts.”
“Tomorrow.”
Shelby’s face gets red. “No, no, no. You get your butt in your car and drive over to his apartment and tell him this minute.”
“He got called to work a couple of hours ago for an accident on the highway.”
She grabs me by the arm and escorts me to the front door. “He’s probably home by now.” She points to the door. “Go.”
My whole body quivers. I don’t know if I can take rejection again. I plead with my eyes. “Will you go with me?”
She stares at the ceiling and lets out a huge sigh. “If it means you’ll tell him today, then yes.”
I grab her in a big bear hug. “Thank you so much.”
“Give me fifteen minutes to get ready.” She stomps up the stairs. Over her shoulder, she says, “Everything will be fine.”
“You can do this,” Shelby says in the same voice she uses when trying to convince one of her clients to squat two hundred pounds.
I exhale and nod. “I have to do it.”
After my third attempt at knocking, Shelby takes my hand and makes my knuckles rap on Theo’s apartment door. No answer.
I take a step to leave. “He’s not here. Let’s go.”
Shelby grabs my arm as I start walking away. “Maybe he’s asleep. Give him a sec—”
“Can I help you?” A deep voice rumbles from behind us, stopping Shelby and I in our tracks. The smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies wafts out of Theo’s apartment.
We rotate to see a carbon copy of Theo with the same dark-blond hair, the same light-green eyes, and the same facial features. But this guy is about a foot taller. His hair is going every which way, and he’s not wearing a shirt, something Shelby doesn’t miss. She purrs.
“We’re here for Theo,” she says.
“Not home yet.” He motions toward the apartment with his head. “Want to come in and wait for him?” He props the door open with his long arm.
“No,” I almost yell at him.
“Yes,” Shelby screams. She drags me under the guy’s outstretched arm and inside the apartment. “I’m Shelby, and this is Darla.”
His eyes get real big. “Oh. Make yourselves at home, although I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”
Shelby pushes me down on the couch and sits beside me.
“Let’s go,” I whisper to her. “I changed my mind.”
She gives the guy a cheesy grin and speaks to me under her breath. “We’re here. You’re going to do this.”
“I’m Tommy, by the way.”
“Theo’s brother?” I squeak. I can’t tell Theo the news with his hulking brother here to witness it.
He grins at me. “Is that a problem?”
I stand and stare at Shelby. “I can’t do this.”
Shelby pushes me back down on the couch and strides over to Tommy. She holds out her hand. “Nice to meet you.” She glances back at me, and her eyebrows shoot up. “This is a good thing.” She rubs Tommy’s arm.
His expression is priceless. It’s as though he can’t decide if he should let her continue or snatch his arm away.
Shelby squeezes his bicep. “You can… practice on him.”
His deep voice rumbles with laughter. “Excuse me?”
I cover my face.
“You see, Tommy. Darla has something really, really important to tell Theo, and she’s terrified at how he’ll react. Could she practice her speech on you?” She gives him a hundred-watt smile.
He scratches his head, which releases Shelby’s hold on him. “Uh… I guess. Sure.”
Shelby claps. “Good.” She waves an arm toward me. “Go for it. Spit it out.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
She touches my shoulder. “You can do this,” she says in her best Bela Karolyi voice.
Tommy leans against the wall, arms crossed over his bare chest. His expression appears as though he just opened the door and let two crazed females into his life.
“I can’t tell him first. That would be a slap in the face.”
“Tell me or don’t. I don’t care. I’ve got cookies in the oven.” He takes a step toward the kitchen.
Shelby licks her lips. “Yum.” She nudges me in the ribs.
“Well, you see…” I close my eyes and decide to blurt it out. Maybe if I say it to someone that looks like Theo, it will be almost as if I told Theo. Then when I do tell him, it will be a piece of cake. That twisted logic doesn’t even sound good in my head, but what the heck. “We had sex in college, and Theo has a daughter.”
I open my eyes, and Shelby smiles at me.
Tommy freezes mid-stride. He whirls around. His mouth is hanging open, and all the color is gone from his face. “Theo has a kid?” he whispers.
Shelby escorts him to the couch. He numbly points to the kitchen, and she pats him on the arm. “I’ll switch off the oven.” She runs into the kitchen, and she’s back in record time.
That’s when my tears start. I bury my head in my knees. Shelby and Tommy let me wear myself out with my tears while Shelby rubs my back the entire time.
A wave of nausea churns through my stomach. “Oh, Tommy. I’m so sorry.” Whatever made me think I would feel better after I blurted it out, I’ll never know. If possible, the guilty weight is even heavier now.
“Why won’t you tell him?” he asks softly.
“I don’t know how.” I sit up and blink to keep the tears from blurring my vision. As lame as that sounds, it’s the honest-to-God truth. There’s not an instructional manual on how to tell someone he has a child and the baby mommy thought he knew all this time, so I have little to no guidance on the matter.
“We were together right before graduation. I promise I didn’t even know I was pregnant until the end of summer. I was in complete denial. By that time, everyone had moved away. I didn’t know what to do.”
The verbal vomit spews all over the living room. It has been tucked away deep inside me for so long that it was bound to explode eventually. I tell them about the fun games Theo and I played and how he made me feel so special. I tell them how he made sure I made it out of the fire. Tears well up in my eyes again and spill over.
“Oh, Darla,” Tommy says. “I can’t believe this.”
“At first, I didn’t have a name to go on. He told me his name was Romeo.”
Tommy’s laughter fills the room. “That sounds like him.”
“After that, he was with Mallory, my college roommate.”
Tommy flinches. “Ew.”
“All I had was his mother’s name.”
“Stella,” he finishes for me.
I nod, and the runaway freight train of tears leaves the station again. Shelby rubs my back. Tommy takes me in his arms and holds me. This total stranger that is an exact copy of Theo consoles me.
“Shh, I believe you.”
“And when he showed up a few weeks ago, I freaked out. He acted like he didn’t know. I promise you, I emailed him time after time while I was still pregnant because I wanted to tell him, but I got nothing. The last time, I sent him a copy of the sonogram, and he wrote back telling me to stop emailing him. His exact words were ‘leave me alone.’”
Tommy moans. He stands and paces the room; his hands run through his sweaty hair. Under his breath, he mumbles a string of curse words. “Uh… Darla… I don’t know how to tell you this.”
I throw my hands in the air. “Well, it can’t be as shocking as my news. Spit it out.”
His eyes are as round as saucers. Swallowing hard, he makes his Adam’s apple bounce. His eyes ping-pong back and forth from me to Shelby, and a sigh escapes his lips. He stares up at the ceiling. “You sent those emails to me, not Theo.”
“What?” Shelby and I both yell at the same time.
“How can that be?” I ask him. “I sent it to ‘[email protected]’”
He groans. “That was my address.”
Shelby holds out her hands. “Wait, what? Mallory copied you on the email, but not Theo?”
“She didn’t want him to see the shit she was sending to his family.” He snorts. “Like one of us wasn’t going to tell him.”
My heart is in my shoes. I’ve kept him away from his daughter because of a stupid mistake. No wonder he’s so clueless. I am the worst mother in the world.
“I had a friend that kept pranking me, and I thought they were from her. I never in my wildest imagination would have thought the emails were meant for Theo, especially with his diabetes and fertility issues.” He sits down beside me. “I am so sorry. Because of me, he didn’t know about his daughter.” His voice cracks. He buries his head in his hands and tears stream down his cheeks. He wipes his face and stares at me with such grief that I don’t even know what to say.
Shelby taps her finger to her lips. “You didn’t start the email ‘Dear Theo,’ or ‘Hey, Theo, it’s me,’ or anything like that?”
My arms flail in the air. “I thought I’d go with the cute ‘Dear Romeo,’ to spark a memory.” I let out an exasperated groan. “Sometimes, I even amaze myself at how incredibly stupid I can be.”
“I am so sorry,” Tommy says again.
“It’s not your fault. I thought he didn’t want us. Now, every time I see him, it gives me another chance to tell him, and I can’t say the words. He’ll never forgive me.”
“All this time, you’ve kept all this bottled up inside you.” He sighs. “I need to ask you a question, and please don’t be offended. Are you one hundred percent sure it’s his?”
I knew this would come up at some point. I would ask the same thing if I were in his shoes. I nod. “Oh yeah. No doubt about it.”
Shelby wipes a tear from my cheek.
Tommy grabs me again and holds me tight. With my face pressed against his body, I feel his heart beating out of his chest.
“He thinks he can’t have kids.”
“I know that too, and again, I missed a golden opportunity to tell him that doctors don’t know everything. I let chance after chance slip right by.”
“You have to tell him,” he says.
“I know. But the time has to be right.”
“There will never be a right time. You have to do it.”
“You know him better than we do,” Shelby chimes in. “What do you think he’ll say?”
Tommy runs a hand through his hair. “I have no idea. I think he would understand the lack of communication.”
I focus on my lap in shame. “I would hope so.”
“But not telling him now, when you’ve had lots of chances? That might kill him.” He focuses on the floor in front of him. Grief is written all over his clenched jaw muscles. “I don’t know. You have to tell him before it gets worse.”
“I will. I promise. But please don’t tell him. It has to come from me.”
He wipes the tears from my face. “No, I’m not getting in the middle of this one. I’ve messed up enough as it is.”
“Thank you.”
“Tell him,” he says, his voice cracking.
I nod.
“Who all knows?”
“Shelby and Isaac. And they only know because they witnessed the all-out panic attack I had when I saw him for the first time about a week ago.”
I snap my fingers. “Oh, I mentioned it to Stella’s first-grade teacher, but I don’t think that matters.”
He pushes away from me then moans and collapses back on the couch. “If you tell me her teacher is Mrs. Silva, I will shit a brick.”
“You know her?” I ask.
He wipes his face with his hands and groans. He stands to pace the floor again, smacking a couch cushion with his fist. “That would be our older sister.”
I stand and pace the floor with him. With all the tears I’ve shed in the last ten minutes, coupled with the sweat dripping down my spine, I’m going to be dehydrated in two seconds flat. This could not get any more complicated. I know Nashville is a small big city, but this is crazy. I could not have purposefully created a more tangled snarl than what I’m in right now.
No wonder Jennifer was all messed up the last time I saw her. She figured it out. There’s no telling how she’ll react toward me the next time I see her, and I’m sure I’ll be losing her friendship along with Theo.
“Oh my God. I named my daughter after your mother. Of course Jennifer’s figured it out by now.”
He whimpers. “So that’s what her rambling text was about.”
“What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know except say something before she does. I’m telling you, they are tight, and if she’s already put the pieces together, he’ll find out, and it won’t be from you. Since she’s away on her trip, you might still have a little bit of time. I think she comes home this weekend.”
I rock back and forth on the couch. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Shelby and Tommy share some nonverbal communication and step away from me. They give me a minute, and slowly, I am able to breathe again. This situation keeps getting worse.
I drag out my keys. “I have to go.”
“Right now?” Shelby watches Tommy out of the corner of her eye. “I mean… he baked cookies.”
Tommy chuckles.
“I’m going to the hospital to tell Theo. Right now.”
She grimaces but gives me a thumbs-up. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
When Shelby and I get to the front door, Tommy clears his throat. “Uh, Shelby? I can take you home if you want to stay for… cookies.”
I cock an eyebrow.
Shelby stifles a squeak. “Sure.”
She kisses me on the cheek and sends me on my way. I need to do this before I chicken out.
Monica, the ER nurse, waves at me as I pass through the security scanner. “How’s your hand?”
I hold it up for her to inspect. “Much better, thanks. I’m down to a few butterfly bandages now.”
Like the great nurse she is, she assesses my hand for redness and any other signs of infection. “Looks great.”
“I’m looking for Theo.”
“He’s not here.” She must have registered my surprise because she takes me by the shoulders. “He was here, but he left for a break.”
I blew out a breath. I can’t believe I was doubting him. “Do you think he went to the cafeteria?”
She chews on her lip. “I think so, but he’s… not alone.”
My audible gasp surprises even me. “Mallory?”
Her voice softens. “Yeah. She’s become a permanent fixture when he’s working.” She glances around before she continues. “She even paid Carmen to call him in today. We didn’t need him.”
Well, that conniving little…
I have two choices. I can lie down and let things happen to me, or I can control the situation. After the things Theo said to me earlier today, I’m confident Mallory’s visit isn’t his doing. But there’s only one way to find out for sure.
Since the cafeteria is open to everyone, I tell myself I’m not really spying. I bury my head behind a newspaper a few booths away from them. I don’t think Theo is keeping things from me, but before I spill the beans, I want to make very sure things are over between them.
They sit with their backs to me; Mallory is practically sitting on his fricking lap. He chugs from a coffee cup and picks at the lid, while she talks nonstop. His mouth forms a tight line. She reaches out to cover his hand with hers, but he busies himself with more coffee chugging. The nerve of her, scooting even closer to him as if she’s zoning in on her prey. She whispers something in his ear, and I’m going to need some Propranolol to lower my heart rate. He leans back and holds his palms out to her.
She flips her hair off her shoulder, scanning the room. Now that I’m certain he doesn’t want her, I lay the paper down so she can see me. For a brief second, her eyes widen. Then she paints on a smirk and goes in for the kill.
She retrieves a small gift bag from her Louis Vuitton purse. While Theo dives into the bag, she side-eyes me. He laughs as he puts the item back in the bag. He places a hand on her shoulder, and I can’t breathe. Without warning, Mallory kisses him on the lips, and it takes all my willpower not to climb over two tables and rip her hair out. He springs away from her and forces her to stand so he can get out of the booth. I’ve never seen a guy scrub his beard so much, and I’m loving it.
He races out of the cafeteria, away from me. Mallory shoves the gift bag back into her purse and storms off after him. Over her shoulder, she gives me a “this isn’t over yet” sneer.
You got that right. She might have delayed my reveal right when I finally worked up the nerve, but this certainly isn’t over.