“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“It’s good if it works,” Oliver agrees. He doesn’t want to think about what happens if it doesn’t.
“At least you got some trips in,” Theo offers. “You got to see things you never would have seen otherwise. Like that ballet. That’s got to count for something.”
He’s sure it would have, before Beatrix. He crumples onto the counter with a groan.
“What?” Theo asks.
He doesn’t understand. But how can Oliver expect him to, when he has never told him anything about his life, about Beatrix, about what he really gifted to him. Maybe it’s time he did.
Oliver lifts his head from his arms. “I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise me you’re not going to say one fucking word until I’m done.”
Theo looks taken aback. “Okay. Promise.”
Oliver straightens and takes a drink. Theo pulls out the stool next to his and sits. He waits, prepared to listen to whatever it is Oliver has to say.
He tells Theo about the Globe and the woman who tried to pick his pocket. About how, against all odds, he met her again in Venice, one hundred years later, but completely unchanged. How he danced the entire night with her without realizing who she was. How they met throughout history, in moments big and small and only theirs. How leaving her became harder. How she’s waiting for him in 1965, in a little village on the border of Wales that no one has ever heard of. He takes a swig of his beer. It does nothing to dull the ache in his chest at the memory of Beatrix, leaning against her doorframe, watching him go.
Oliver waits for Theo to say something, to talk to him like a child who has had a bad dream, to tell him it’s not real. That Beatrix can’t possibly be real.
“It’s not your fault, Oli,” Theo says quietly.
It is. He should have told Beatrix how he feels, should never have risked leaving her without a goodbye. But Oliver has made the same mistake people always make. He thought he had more time.
“You believe me?” Oliver asks, relieved but surprised at his brother’s easy acceptance.
“Yeah, I believe you.”
“Why?”
“I can tell when you’re lying,” Theo says. “You’re terrible at it. And I’ve never seen you as happy as you were just now, talking about her.” He seems saddened by the thought. He finishes his beer. “I hope you get back to her. You deserve for something to go right in your life.”
Oliver meets his brother’s weary gaze. “You deserve to be happy, too.” If anyone does, it’s Theo. Theo, who was only nineteen when theirparents died. Who had to tell the police the bodies in the car were their parents and had to tell Oliver their parents were dead. Who raised Oliver while he went to college and worked two jobs and applied to medical school. Who put up with all of Oliver’s teenage bullshit—and, if he’s being honest, his adult bullshit, too. Who still opened the door when Oliver showed up on his steps and said he needed him.
Theo slides off his stool. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Why not?” Oliver says. “You worry about me.”
Theo rolls his eyes. “I’m supposed to worry about you.”
“No, you’re not,” Oliver insists. “You don’t have to take care of me anymore.”
“Oli—”
“Let me finish!” Oliver shouts. That stuns Theo into silence. “You don’t have to take care of me. But I’m glad you did. I can’t imagine how fucking hard it was for you to raise me when you were barely more than a kid yourself. And I appreciate everything you did, everything you sacrificed for me. But you can stop. Iwantyou to stop.”
Theo’s eyes shine.
Oliver presses on. “Do you remember that storm that rolled through at the end of the funeral?”
Theo nods.
“You were up there reading Mom’s and Dad’s eulogies, and I wasn’t even listening to you. I was watching the clouds come in.” He had sat on a wobbly chair in the front row, pretending the two closed caskets held someone else’s parents. The sky overhead rumbled with thunder, and a man whose name he had forgotten said something about his mom and dad bowling with the angels. “It sounds so stupid now, but I was convinced you were going to get hit by lightning. Fucking terrified you were going to die right there in front of me, that they were going to bury you all together, and I was going to be the only one left.”
“Jesus, Oli,” Theo says, his voice hoarse.
“What I’m trying to say is I get it. Why you asked Aevum to look up your future. We were both afraid of being left alone.”
