“Whitney?” I call out as I walk into our bedroom. I hear her rustling around in the bathroom, and then she emerges with a toothbrush stuck in her mouth.
“Yeah?” she asks, her voice muffled as she brushes her teeth.
The penthouse has been a mess since she officially moved in. All of her items and special memories haven’t all found their home amongst my things, either. While she was getting ready for the day, I had been going through a box of some of her desk things, hoping to find a way to turn my office into a shared office space for the two of us.On accident, I swung around too quickly and knocked the box over. It crashed to the floor and I hurried to pick everything up.
But as I was doing that, I came across something entirely too coincidental. I didn’t mean to stumble across it or invade her privacy, but when the notebook fell on the floor, it landed halfway open. When I picked it up caught sight of my own name listed on the top, curiosity got the best of me. I stared at it blankly for a few minutes, flipping between the pages with different names at the top then down to the same list over and over, but each having different boxes checked off.
I hold up the small, pink, leather-bound notebook and look at her with a raised eyebrow. Whitney stops mid-brush, her face morphing into an expression of alarm. She spins around and spits out her toothpaste in the sink before stepping back into my bedroom.
“Where did you find that?”
I let a long silence fall between us before admitting, “I was trying to set up your office things and it fell out and landed open on my page, conveniently. Want to explain what this is?”
Panic is evident in her blue eyes as she steps closerand holds out her hand like she plans to take it from me. I yank it away, keeping a firm grip on it. “It’s nothing, Theo. Just something silly.”
“Number one,” I start, and Whitney looks like she’s about to throw up. “Trustworthy. Number two?—”
“Theo, stop,” she protests and takes another step forward.
But I don’t, too riled up to stop.
“Honesty and integrity. Oh, or my favorite,Number Eight: Attentive in the bedroom. It looks like I’ve checked off more boxes than just about anyone. Good for me, I guess.” I laugh dryly. “Except for this one guy,Daniel. He’s got just one or two less than me. So what, did he just not meet your expectations and you eventually said enough was enough?” I look up at Whitney standing over me, her face flushed red. Dropping my arm, I stare at her, feeling hopeless, the worst parts of myself raging to the surface and reminding me just how worthless I am. “What is this, Whitney?”
“It’s just some dumb thing that I made forever ago,” she says.
“Forever ago, huh? Then why do you still have it? Why am I in it? From what it looks like to me, it seems like you’re meticulously waiting for me to satisfy your requirements so you can check it off in your little notebook.”
She presses her lips together and slowly shakes her head. I push myself up off the mattress and start to pace the room. With a frustrated growl, I turn on her. “I don’t want to be measured up to some unattainable expectation. I don’t want to go through this relationship with you wondering how I’m ranking against your idea of a ‘perfect boyfriend’. How do I know I’m not the nextDaniel?Are you just going to wake up one day and realize I haven’t met enough boxes and then you’ll just be done with me like that too?”
“Theo, just listen?—”
I hold up a hand and stop her. I’m quickly losing the battle against my irritation and the last thing I want to do is say something to her that I regret. “No. No, we’re going to have to do this later.” She looks as though I’ve just slapped her. “You know, I have a board meeting in an hour, and didn’t you say something about a dentist appointment this morning? I don’t have time to dig into this with you right now.”
Her eyes narrow at me. “Then why did you even bring it up?”
I raise an eyebrow at her in response. I did go back and forth, mulling over whether to let it lie or to bring it up. But ultimately, I knew I couldn’t just ignore it without knowing what her motive was. “How could I not?”
Now, her expression morphs into one that’s pleading. “Theo,” she says my name, hesitating as if waiting for me to stop her again. When I don’t, she says, “It’s just some stupid thing I’ve always done. It means nothing.”
That sparks a small flame of irritation inside of me, and I can’t help but frown at her. “Somehow, that makes it worse. So you’re saying I’ve checked off almost every single thing on thisstupidlist, and I’m supposed to believe it means nothing? This makes me feel cheap, Whitney, to see my name stacked up against these guys of your past. As if everything we’ve done so far is only to meet the requirements of your expectations.”
Her eyes widen again, and she shakes her head. “It’s not.”
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m just not really sure what to do with this right now. So please just—Let’s just get through the day, and we can talk about this later, alright?”
When I open my eyes, I note that Whitney looks the complete opposite of alright with my suggestion, but she nods her head anyway, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle in some sort of show of defense. It makes me grit my teeth thatshe’s feeling so vulnerable about this, but I can’t find it in me to comfort her just yet.
I will.
I swear I will. I’ll spend my whole life doing exactly that.
I just need to stew over this for a minute.
Am I allowed that much?
Closing the distance between us, I lean down and press a kiss on her cheek. When I pull away, she’s looking up at me with wide eyes that seem to rip my heart right out of my chest. I have to turn away from her before she brings me to my knees.
“We’ll talk later, okay?” I tell her, my voice softening.
