A broken marriage.
A new job.
She works as a Personal Assistant on the ForNoah Youtube channel.
Noah is on the autistic spectrum and she fixes things for him.
He's a shipwright and creates beautiful works of art.
She's a woman starting over who meet...
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Weird moments of life don't happen at normal speed, it happens in slow motion. As if your mind understands this is a car crash. That you can't get out of the car doors. You're about to drive off the cliff directly into the sea. You may live, you may not, but your mind says here's some slow-mo so you can experience every goddamn frame in 4k glory. You're welcome and fuck you from your brain.
In the small hallway in the Crocker Art Museum with my ex-husband hot on my heels. Trisha's blood-red lips pull away from Noah's neck. Her small pocket camera flashes. She smiles, the smile of satisfaction. Pure triumph contorts her face pretty face. Noah's fingers frantic in a pattern, his fingers the only thing in my mind put at normal speeds. It's out of step with the horror of horrors in front of me.
Noah clenches his fist and steps back. One foot stumbling behind the next. She follows him like she'd been invited to some tryst between the two. That can't be the case, though, not with Noah desperately trying to escape. Theo attempts to get past me.
"What the fuck do you think you're about doing to her," he yells at Noah? It catches Noah's wild ocean eyes. The camera clicks at high speed. Noah turns and storms away. Taking his ocean, taking the sea, taking every single drop of himself, and shutting all of us out like none of us exists. Quickly, I step in front of Theo, blocking him from Noah's escape. Then I grab the collar of Trisha's dress blouse.
"No, this is a restricted area." The bitch I was thinking loudly went unsaid. "How did you get here?" She gives me a blood-red smile. The smile implies some huge relationship I knew nothing about. She looked at me like I was the help and I should know my place. Peering down at me on high. The itch to slap that smile off her face was one of the greatest battles of my life.
Trisha had no badge, and I knew for a fact she wasn't invited to the event. It wasn't an open press event; it was an invitation only.
The point of channels like Drama's Kiss is to out people. It might be relationships, projects, family turmoil, any bit of drama they can get their hands on and turn into clickbait. They are below paparazzi or your common TMZ type organization because they at least don't want to be sued. No, the Drama's Kiss' of the world doesn't give a fuck. The drama of the drama becomes clickbait in itself, growing their brand and channel. This fucking scum bitch was staring her nose down at me like I was trashed. This woman... the scum bitch. Because we both know Noah didn't have drama for her to find. I had his background check myself before taking the job. Since, scum bitch couldn't find drama, she made some.
"Get out," I barked at her.
"Next time, don't get in the way," she purred. I grab hold of my own fist to stop myself from assaulting this woman, who obviously sexually assaulted Noah. She struts past us out the door.
Theo takes a big breath. I cut him off.
"I don't want to right now, Theo," I state. But just like our marriage, the man doesn't listen.
"I am absolutely not comfortable with this situation." Every word from Theo was emphasized and weaponized for maximum effect.
"Do you think I'm fucking comfortable with this?"
"What if this happens around the kids?" You care about the fucking kids now, Theo? Are you fucking kidding me? I grind my teeth, keeping it in. This is my workplace right now and this drama isn't happening here.
"Now you 're Mr. Father of the year?" Virtue signaling bullshit.
"What's that mean?"
"It means what I said it did."
"I'm a good father."
"When you want to be your great father. I just wish you wanted to be a great father more than when you're in front of someone watching." All the show bullshit that went along with our fucking marriage. Where is the goddamn man I married? Who the fuck is this guy? My chest was hot with a riot of emotion. When we were younger, he was so goddamn solid. The cobwebs of that fucked up marriage pull me in. Theo speaks Spanish to a newborn Sim, that smooth Cuban Spanish like his grandfather. Telling her all his hopes and dreams for her. Sim's little finger wraps around his thumb.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Theo yells.
"Something you aren't ready to get," I admitted. Wipe my hand against my hot cheeks and it comes back wet. I hate that I gave him these fucking dumb tears. Theo backs up from me.
He paces back and forth in the small hall, having an entire conversation with himself as his lips move through the unvoiced Spanish. Because some shit doesn't change. He pauses and peers at me for a tiny little second, the man he was staring back at me. Kindness in his eyes because we both knew this fight will not resolve shit in the hallway of a museum. Maybe time will heal it, maybe he'll change, maybe I'll change. We aren't going to fix this, and whatever small semi-functional thing we had going is up in flames. Those flames will burn the both of us in the end if we don't get this resolved. For a second I see the man I knew. Through the confusion and pain of two different fights, battling each other at the same time.
"Teo," I breathed in the Spanish version of his name. I haven't called him that in over three years. The last time I said that name, we buried his grandfather. His tears on my shoulder, me whispering in his ear, "Teo." He takes a step toward me in the museum's hallway. Then he looks past me. Down the hall to where Noah went. Then back to me and knowing crosses his face.
"Teodoro," I call liquid smooth with years and miles of love. To our dead relationship now, but maybe a new beginning into something not together. To the family, we will always be with the kids, but not the same. To something new and to something old. Because even if we were happy once, even the happiest of homes can someday fall into the sea. That doesn't mean we can't make something new. A new equilibrium. To my family.
That tiny bit of Teo I see on the edges of him. I watch it crumble into something else.
Deep knowing. Betrayal.
He shuts me out. The return of Theo with the hard eyes. The Theo that blends in. Not Teodoro, said with his grandfather's beautiful Cuban accent. Gone. It's the show. Company picnic, Theodore. Corrections Officer Theodore Green worried that his kid was going to wear a cape. That his stupid buddy would make fun of him. Yep, that guy.
"Do something about this. I mean it." He walked away without looking back once. As if his decreed has already been executed.
Fuck you back.
a/n: See you soon in 3 Days. I don't know why but this one made me sad. I know yall don't like Theo but I really do. I have so much work in the edits with him. He's complex. What do you think about it?
