Bad Case of Loving You

by Deborah Cooke

  “We should leave separately,” Lyssa said and Theo ceded to her greater understanding.

  He shook a finger at his son and smiled. “You know where I am, Logan.”

  “And I can call you anytime,” the boy said, dragging out the word before he smiled.

  Theo nodded at Lyssa, and left the restaurant. He felt a little bit unsteady on his feet, as if that conversation couldn’t possibly have happened, as if he’d had a dream in broad daylight.

  He looked back to see Lyssa and Logan crossing the restaurant to meet the other woman. Logan was watching him and raised a hand to wave.

  Theo waved back.

  A son.

  His world had officially been given a shake, Lyssa-style. As he walked, Theo realized he felt vital and engaged, keenly in the moment. His perspective on everything—his life, his work, his plans—was changing abruptly because he knew about Logan. There was no going through the motions with Lyssa around—and he was sufficiently honest with himself to admit that he’d missed that.

  He’d missed her, but he wasn’t sure she’d missed him.

  Why had she been afraid to tell him about Logan?

  It was all too easy to remember the first time he’d seen her fearful. It had been that last day and he still didn’t understand what had been wrong.

  Theo saw the difference in Lyssa immediately.

  He couldn’t have missed it.

  She came into the class after the holiday break with her hair brushed into a sleek ponytail that hung over her shoulder. Her overalls had been replaced with jeans that looked new and a fluffy pink sweater that he would never have imagined her wearing. He was pretty sure she had a manicure and was startled to see that she was wearing make-up. Of course, she was gorgeous, but he’d known that before.

  Now she was polished.

  What had changed?

  She arrived late so that there was no time to talk before the class began. Theo was bursting with questions but had to sit in silence through a lecture on Keats that he didn’t really hear. Lyssa held herself stiffly and a little bit apart from him, avoiding his gaze, and the combination gave him a really bad feeling.

  At the end of the class, she leaned toward him. “Coffee?” she asked, much to his relief.

  He nodded and followed her out of the lecture hall. They walked in silence to the same dumpy student coffee bar and claimed their usual table. It was all wrong, though. Lyssa didn’t sit cross-legged on the bench and when he turned to bring the coffees, he was startled again by the change in her appearance.

  He felt as if he was sitting with a stranger, and their conversation sure sounded like it. They talked about their respective holidays and visits home politely, as if they were meeting for the first time, then Theo couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Lyssa’s gaze flicked to his and away. She licked her lips and for the first time ever, Theo thought she might evade a question or lie to him. Then she frowned and leaned closer. “I have to make some changes. Not easy changes.”

  “What kind of changes?” Theo was pretty sure he knew what one of them would be.

  She was going to dump him.

  The possibility made him feel a bit sick.

  “I have to make money,” she said, to his surprise. “And I have to do it now.” Her determination was familiar but not her desire. “I’ve done some thinking. I don’t actually want to starve in a garret for the sake of my creative vision, which means I need to make some compromises and changes.”

  Theo wondered what had been discussed at her family home at Christmas. “Like what?”

  Lyssa winced. “I’m going to quit school.”

  “What?”

  “It’s an indulgence I can’t afford. Maybe once I find a financial footing, I’ll be able to think about coming back. Right now, it’s about cold, hard cash.”

  “I like the watercolors you’ve been doing, though. They seem more expressive.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I need to make a change now.”

  Something must have happened with her parents, but she was so stubborn and hostile that Theo knew she wouldn’t tell him. “Lyssa! You can’t be planning to abandon your art. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.”

  “Well, maybe that was a bad plan. Maybe it needs revising.”

  “Do you want to borrow some money?”

  Her eyes flashed. “No! I don’t want to have to rely on anyone.”

  Theo was a bit insulted and didn’t care if it showed. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “I want to be able to make my own choices,” she insisted, then took a deep breath. “There’s this guy. He scouts for modeling agencies. He told me last year that if I ever wanted a job, I should call him. He pretty much guaranteed that I’d do well.”

  “Modeling?” Theo repeated with astonishment. It was the last thing he would have expected to interest her, even though she was beautiful. It seemed so superficial and irrelevant compared to her art, which he knew was important to her. “But what about beauty being more than skin deep? What about looking for the whole truth?”

  “Maybe I’ll do that later, when I’m older and less marketable as a model.” She took a deep breath and her voice sounded hard. “Right now, I have to go. I’m catching the bus to Manhattan at four.”

  “But what do you know about this guy? Are you sure it’s safe? And is it what you really want?”

  “It’s not what I really want, but it’s what I can have.”

  “And so you’re leaving,” Theo said. “Will you call? Will you come back?”

  “I don’t know,” she confessed and the first tear fell.

  He reached out and took her hands. “Lyssa, you can stay. I can lend you money. We can figure out a way for you to keep painting.”

  She shook her head, stubborn in her conviction.

  Theo said the one thing that he thought would change her mind. “I love you.”

  “Do you?” she asked instead of replying in kind. It was impossible to ignore the omission. She studied him. “Or do you just love the bit I’ve shown you so far?”

  Theo didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Maybe if you saw all of my truth, you wouldn’t love me at all,” she continued, her tone bleak.

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “I know and that’s the point. I admire how you are, I really do, but I’m not like you. I don’t believe in love and forever and romance. I think we’re too different.”

  “If you don’t believe in love and romance, then what have we been doing?”

  “Having sex,” she said flatly and Theo felt as if he’d been slapped. “It’s just physical gratification, and as good as it’s been, that’s all it’s been.” Her lips set stubbornly.

  “No,” Theo said. “No, that’s not what we’ve been doing. We’ve been falling in love, whether you believe in it or not...”

  “No, Theo.” Lyssa shook her head. “It’s over. Maybe it never started. Maybe you’ve been paying too much attention to your reading for this course.”

  Theo was completely shaken by her tone.

  He’d been sure that they were in love together, that she was the one, that they had a future, but when she looked at him so steadily, he found himself fighting the sense that he didn’t know her at all.

  He remembered how she’d warned him about that very thing and felt cold.

  “We’re complete opposites, Theo. You’re the romantic and I’m the pragmatist. It’s only a matter of time before it all goes bad. Let’s walk away now, when there’s still goodness to remember.”

  Theo didn’t know what to say to that.

  Lyssa stood up with purpose, but she couldn’t seem to just walk away. Theo might have been encouraged by that, if her expression hadn’t been so assessing.

  Had it really all been a lie?

  He couldn’t believe it. He reached out, but she turned, as if she hadn’t seen him, and walked away. He wanted to go after her, but his phone r
ang and it was Kyle reminding him of their meeting about the fitness club they wanted to open after graduation.

  When Theo looked up, Lyssa had vanished.

  And he had a bad feeling that he’d missed his chance.

  He swore and went to the meeting, not wanting to let down his friends.

  He phoned Lyssa afterward, but her number was out of service. When he went to her apartment, he learned that she’d moved without leaving a forwarding address. She really had caught that bus to Manhattan and had no intention of coming back. The troubling thing was that her paintings were shredded and piled in the trash beside the house.

  Except for one painting. Theo discovered a watercolor that he’d admired before Christmas when he went back to his dorm room that night. It had been slipped under the door, and he figured that was the only goodbye he was going to get. That poem was written on the back, the one that still made him catch his breath.

  What had he done wrong?

  The next time Theo saw Lyssa was two years later, on the cover of Vogue magazine. It was Lyssa but not, Lyssa made perfect, Lyssa much less interesting than the woman he loved. When he looked her up online, he learned that her professional name was Angel and that she’d been married to her agent, Justin Young, since three months after he’d seen her last.

  That told him everything and nothing, but it should have been enough for Theo to forget Lyssa.

  * * *

  But he hadn’t.

  More than ten years later, Lyssa was still the woman to whom he compared all others. The way he’d felt on first meeting her, that exciting sense of possibility and destiny, was something he’d been searching for ever since.

  He hadn’t felt it again until he’d seen her at Wollman Rink.

  Once he’d let her disappear, because he hadn’t had a lot of choice. Kyle was right, though: this time, Theo knew where she was. He didn’t have to let her push him away.

  Most people didn’t get a second chance.

  Theo had one, and he was going to make it count.

  His reason wasn’t just the health and welfare of Logan, either.

  Filled with new determination, Theo pulled out his phone and called her.

  Lyssa wasn’t really surprised when her phone rang just moments after Theo had left them. She’d already made one deal with a photographer—offering an exclusive interview on Saturday in exchange for the pictures of her and Theo disappearing from his popular website—and was negotiating another in text messages. She and Logan were in a cab with the real estate agent, heading downtown.

  Theo probably had things to say that he didn’t want Logan to hear. Lyssa knew that was more than fair. She excused herself, braced herself for his anger, and answered. “Hi.”

  “He’s there?” Theo asked, his tone decisive.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you can listen.”

  “Yes.”

  “How could you think that I’d want you to terminate your pregnancy?” he demanded, his outrage clear. “How could you even begin to imagine that I’d compel you to make that choice?”

  Lyssa winced. “I didn’t. Not really.”

  “Then why not tell me? Why keep something this important from me?” His tone became exasperated. “And for ten years, Lyssa! How could you be so selfish?”

  She bristled. “It wasn’t selfish.”

  “It was and is selfish. It’s a willful refusal to trust and I resent that. I loved you, Lyssa.”

  She noticed that he used the past tense.

  “I would have taken my share of responsibility and I would have done it willingly. We created Logan together, out of love. I wouldn’t have forced you to make a choice. I would have been with you, every step of the way.”

  “I know.”

  “You know,” he echoed, sounding incredulous. “I would have asked you to marry me.”

  “I know,” she admitted softly and felt his surprise. “That was the problem.”

  “How could that be a problem?” Theo demanded. “How could it be an issue for two people who have created a child together to get married and raise that child together?”

  “The traditional answer isn’t always the right answer,” she said.

  “And it’s not always the wrong one, either. You cheated me, Lyssa. You cheated me and you cheated my parents and the rest of my family. You cheated us of ten years of knowing my son. You say everything is about him, but you cheated him, too, and if you think you had a good reason, I’d like to know what it was.”

  Lyssa was surprised that he even asked. She momentarily didn’t know what to say and was aware of Logan watching her. He’d probably heard Theo’s voice but she hoped he couldn’t hear the words.

  Theo exhaled. “The irony is that I always admired how honest you were. I always thought you were forthright and open, not one to keep secrets or hide important truths away. I admired how fearless and bold you were, Lyssa, how you just went after whatever you wanted and didn’t worry about anyone else’s opinions.”

  The heat in his words brought tears to Lyssa’s eyes but she blinked them away.

  Then she noticed that he’d fallen silent.

  Lyssa swallowed. “What’s important is how we go forward,” she said.

  “Absolutely,” Theo agreed. “Even if you don’t trust me, you have to trust me with my son. You have to make this right, Lyssa, and that means letting me get to know Logan, even if that prospect terrifies you.”

  “I know.”

  “And I want to know, right here and right now, why you didn’t tell me. Why didn’t you want me to propose to you? Why didn’t you want to get married and raise Logan together? Why?”

  Lyssa took a breath, knowing that she had to admit the truth to Theo now. She had to ensure that he wanted a relationship with Logan and she’d do anything—even surrender a secret—to ensure that Logan had what he wanted.

  “I told you before,” she said, choosing to give him a clue. “That last day.”

  “The main thing I remember is that you walked away, you ended it and I couldn’t understand why.”

  “But I told you.”

  “You’re the romantic and I’m the pragmatist. It’s only a matter of time before it all goes bad. Let’s walk away now, when there’s still goodness to remember,” Theo said and she was amazed that he remembered her words precisely. “It was the most defeatist thing I ever heard you say, Lyssa. When something is precious to you, you fight for it, and you defend it. You do whatever is necessary to protect it.”

  “I knew you’d say that, too.”

  He exhaled. “You were afraid,” he charged.

  Lyssa nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see her. “I was alone.”

  “Even with Justin?”

  “Especially then.” Lyssa took a breath. “You still have the painting.”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you ever figure out what it meant?”

  “No.” His frustration was clear and Lyssa knew that couldn’t be due to a lack of effort. She’d given the painting to him because he’d been the one who encouraged her to confess the truth. That painting was the most honest work she’d ever done, and its very existence worried her.

  It was right that Theo had it, and it was safe with him.

  “Maybe I should take another look,” he said. “I have to get on the subway. I’ll talk to you later, Lyssa.”

  “Yes,” she agreed but Theo was already gone.

  Would he figure it out? The prospect left Lyssa feeling both vulnerable and exposed. Another one of her secrets was going to be revealed and she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that.

  It felt both liberating and terrifying.

  “Okay?” Logan asked, leaning against her and Lyssa smiled down at him.

  “Just fine,” she said, giving him a hug. “We’re making a big change, though, and it catches me by surprise sometimes.”

  “It’s a good one, though,” he said with a conviction she didn’t yet feel. “I like him. Now, we just hav
e to find the right apartment.”

  “Well, I think these four are strong contenders,” the real estate agent said. “This is a nice neighborhood, a little more urban than where we’ve been looking so far, but with an active community...”

  Ten

  Lyssa stood in the kitchen of yet another empty but incredibly expensive apartment and acknowledged that she really did have things to learn from Theo.

  How was it that he hadn’t lost his temper with her in the restaurant? He had every right to be furious, and it was a bit disconcerting that he hadn’t. Of course, he’d been keeping his composure in front of Logan, which was great, but she was amazed he’d been able to do it.

  In his place, she wouldn’t have been able to.

  When Theo spoke that crisply and his accent got stronger, Lyssa knew he was livid. His eyes had been flashing and he’d been taut from head to toe. She’d been sure he would explode like a volcano, but he hadn’t.

  Even when he’d called her back, he’d been more temperate than she’d expected.

  If only she possessed such self-control. He was always thinking of the future, of implications, in a way that she didn’t.

  She couldn’t blame him for his anger.

  She admired his restraint.

  It made her feel foolish for not telling him sooner. And now, he was on a mission to figure out that painting, after all these years. Why had she been so afraid of telling him the truth for so long?

  Because Justin was possessive and demanding, and had filled her thoughts with fears of Theo’s intentions. She’d been so stupid to listen to Justin.

  Young and gullible.

  Easily manipulated.

  Skeptical of good fortune. That was the root of it. It had been so wonderful and easy to be with Theo, yet electric, too, but she’d been afraid to trust that something so good could last. Her upbringing had taught her to look for the shadows and to amplify her doubts, only to have every concern justified. She’d protected Logan to give him a confidence she felt she lacked, and she saw evidence of her success every day.