Элисон Скотч - The Theory of Opposites

I watch him for a moment as he pounds something into his phone, solving some sort of crisis for someone much more important than me, and I try to consider what would have happened if I’d just said “yes,” back in the car when he asked me. At the time, I spoke impulsively, but once I did, I couldn’t take it back. And when he didn’t try to convince me — I had expected him to convince me, and then of course I would change my mind and go with him — I couldn’t exactly beg.

He sees me now and smiles. “I was sure you were going to bail.”

I walk toward him. “I’ll be honest, I considered it.”

Though I hadn’t. I hadn’t considered bailing for a moment. That was the unfiltered truth, the one I’d share with him if I had the guts to. But I never had the guts, so I just step closer and then kiss him on the cheek.

He pulls me in for a hug. “You look nice.”

“You’ve only seen me hiking up a mountain and in a bathrobe the next day. Oh, and doped up at the ER.”

“True.”

“So I could only go up from there.”

“You looked great before.” He grins and nudges up his glasses.

“You are such a bullshit artist,” I reply, and he grins bigger.

“Nice cast.”

“It’s rainbow!” I wiggle my hand in front of his nose.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s walk.”

“Where to?” I say. “I’ve never been here.”

“Let’s go anywhere.” He loops his elbow in mine. “Let’s get lost.”

There’s a secret passage on the UW campus, or so Theo tells me. This might just be how he woos me, how he charms me, and leads me down the figurative path again so quickly. Because it’s not really a passage, not really all that secret. We wind through the deserted back roads of the campus, past the administration buildings, past the intricate gothic halls of learning, until it is just the two of us, everyone else having faded away. Occasionally, a student or a TA walks by and nods, but mostly, it’s just us. He tells me how he discovered his cancer (“one morning while washing myself in the shower”), and I tell him about how I don’t really know what I’m doing with my life (“I don’t really know what I’m doing with my life”). How much has changed for him, and how little has actually changed for me.

We don’t speak of Shawn, and I don’t dare ask him how he came to propose to his now ex-fiancée when he wasn’t supposed to ever believe in marriage.

I want to ask:

Is it because you loved her so much more than you loved me?

Is it because it wasn’t marriage that you didn’t want — it was me?

Is it because you didn’t think you could love someone forever but it turned out that if it were someone less needy, less uncertain, you could?

But I say none of this because for now, it’s so much easier not to. I’m still married, after all, and we’re only taking a walk. We wander until we find ourselves down on the waters of Lake Washington.

It’s dusk now, the sun illuminating the water in ways that transcend the imagination: pinks and reds and blues and greens, all blended together, all magic. Two scullers row past, and then behind them, the UW crew. The coxswain’s voice booms out, too large for her body, the oars and arms synchronized following suit. We linger on the railing overlooking the water, not saying much, just taking in the perfect moment of bright air and sunny heat and optimistic uncertainty.

A motorboat cruises in through the passageway leading to the open channel that lies ahead — three guys drinking beers, enjoying the evening. One of them looks up, spies us and shouts:

“Hey dude! Don’t just stand there! Kiss her.”

“Naw,” Theo yells.

“Definitely!” he hollers.

“You think?” Theo responds.

“Go for it!” another one of them bellows.

“I’m okay!” I shout. “I’m fine!”

“But you could be better!” the second one roars as they cruise by.

“No, really, I’m good!” I yell. But I can feel my cheeks redden, my heart race ahead.

“Do it, do it, do it!” the three of them chant in unison.

And so Theo leans in and shrugs. And then he grins. And then he kisses me. And because he does so, and because I am resisting inertia, and because if I’m really being honest with myself, I want him to — I let him.

Later, he takes me to Husky stadium, to which he has private entry (“I worked with the football team on a situation,” he says) and we sit on the fifty-yard line just because we can. The lights are on and the sky is dark, and I feel like I’m back in high school, though in high school, no one ever did this for me. I stare up at the sky and think of Shawn every once in a while, but then I remember the rules of our break: that there are no rules, and that I’m free to act on impulse, to act on whatever I damn please. Then I think of Vanessa’s theory of opposites, and how impulse is exactly what we’re aiming for, that our instincts — my father’s philosophies be damned — are really all that we have to change our fate.

So I sit on the fifty-yard line, and I try not to do anything to ruin it.

Eventually, we run out of small talk, so Theo examines his hands, and I examine his hands too, which are slim and somehow beautiful. Then he takes my chin in his palm and says:

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier.”

And I deflect: “Don’t say that. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He drops his palm. “Who does?”

“You. You always know what you’re doing, which is why you’re so good at it.”

“Good at what?”

And I say: “Life. You’re good at life.”

And he says: “I wasn’t always good at life.”

I know him well enough to know that he means his complicated childhood with his miserable parents and their frigid home and the endless afternoons he was left to closed doors and quiet space. Eventually, he filled that space himself, by helping his elderly neighbor with her errands, by single-handedly implementing a neighborhood ice cream truck. By now, Theodore’s left his childhood so far behind that it’s not even a glimpse in his rearview mirror anymore. It’s another time, he’s another person. I’m surprised he even remembers it, much less references it. But I suppose our childhoods are seeds inside of us that plant roots forever, even when we’re certain their life cycles have long since been extinguished. How long will it take for my own roots to loosen their grip?

“Besides,” Theo continues, “I’m better at life with you in it.”

And I can’t think of anything to say to that, so I just sort of crunch up my shoulders, but he doesn’t accept that because he’s Theo. Instead, he weaves his fingers into mine, pulls me up, and says: “Follow me.”

And because it is what I do best, I do.

Theo lives on a houseboat on Lake Union. It takes a moment to adjust to the ever-so-slight sense of motion, the rocking back and forth, like you’re ready to set sail. He brings us both beers, and we sit on his deck and watch the motorboats lazily glide across the water, moving onward to wherever they call home.

I try not to look at him because if I look at him, I’ll betray myself. I’ll spit out everything that I am thinking, things like:

This is where I would have lived with you?

This could have been our home?

I can see how much I could have liked it here.

So this is the road not taken.

Why didn’t I say Y.E.S.?

Eventually, he sets his beer down on the patio table, and he reaches for my good hand. So I take one more swig of my bottle, and clasp his hand and let him lead me wherever he wants to. That’s what Theo always did. He stood in front of me, so I never had to face the wind. Shawn does that too, I presume, though not as well and not really any longer. Or maybe Shawn and I together turned our backs on the wind and walked in the opposite direction. We spent so much time moving away from whatever challenged us that life, for him at least, grew dim, too calm to be a life worth taking interest in.