The Valentines

XXII

With a sigh, Theo gave up. There was no point in trying to work on her dissertation today. She'd spent the morning at Mona's shop and her present for Esmé was almost finished now. All that was left was polishing and some other finalising bits that Mona said she'd take care of.

When she'd gotten back, she thought she could get some more work done on her dissertation, but all she'd done was stare at the screen hopelessly. Too much had happened and she needed to decompress from it.

Really, what she'd like to do was sit quietly at Esmé's feet and let the woman's dominance wash over her. She hadn't thought she'd crave submission like this, but there was something freeing about handing over her problems until she felt she could sort through it all.

Esmé wasn't there though, which meant submitting to her wasn't an option. Instead, she picked up her phone and video-called William.

"Good afternoon," he answered cheerfully, "hold on, lemme just, ah! There we go." Theo waited for him to set up the phone so she could see what he was doing.

Sitting cross legged on the sofa, he was surrounded by bits and bobs that Theo couldn't quite see.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Clearing out some old things," he explained. "What's up?"

"I'm guessing you already know about everything that happened last night?" Theo started and he nodded.

"How're you feelin'?"

"Stressed," she admitted. "So much is going on, I don't even know what we're meant to deal with first, and there feels like there's going to be no time to work on our family and our relationship, and that really annoys me."

"Unfortunately, it is what it is," William replied. "You've got to do the really hard stuff before you can do the fun stuff."

"But all it ever is, is really hard stuff!" Theo protested. "We haven't had a break!"

"And we're not going to have a break for a while," William stopped sorting and looked at the camera. "All we can do is focus on one thing at a time."

"How? When there's this ever present bomb hanging above our heads? And now it's not just two people acting separately, it's three people working together. Three people we really don't want to work together."

"Your graduation is happening soon."

Theo groaned and looked up at the ceiling.

"Work towards that first. It's only a couple months away."

"How?" Theo asked him, "I can't concentrate with everything inside my head!"

"Then don't keep it inside your head," William said, as if it was the simplest answer. "Talk to me about it."

Theo did. She told him about how it was unfair that the minute she felt that things were improving with them, something had to come along and ruin it. That all the things that had been planned for Esmé to do with Theo before they came home was now scrapped because they just had to get home.

There was no time left for fun and games, for learning and exploring each other more. She felt cheated out of strengthening her relationship and learning to be okay with certain sexual things again.

Not to mention her relationship with William, which she wanted to grow and build, but now wasn't going to be able to because there wasn't going to be time. And she was worried that if she didn't grow a relationship with him soon then she'd lose the opportunity to do it.

All of this because of three people who couldn't keep themselves to themselves. Who had to get involved with other peoples lives and ruin wonderful things because seeing other people happy was the worst thing in the world. What was the point? What would they gain?