Sophie's Point of View
Two weeks in and Theo was living in her life like he'd always been there.
Sophie watched him from the kitchen while he sat on the floor with Lily, reading her a bedtime story. He was doing voices. Deep voice for the dinosaur. High voice for the tiny bird. Lily was laughing so hard she could barely breathe.
This was their third night of this routine. Theo picked Lily up from school. He brought her home. He made her a snack. He helped with homework. Then bedtime stories.
Sophie should have been at work. Her night shift at the office started at seven. It was almost eight o'clock now.
She called her supervisor and said she'd be late. She'd been saying that for two weeks. She was always late now because Theo insisted on feeding Lily dinner and making sure she was settled before Sophie left. Like those thirty minutes mattered more than money.
They didn't matter more than money. They absolutely did not.
But watching Lily giggle at Theo's silly dinosaur voice, Sophie was starting to understand that maybe some things mattered more than she'd thought.
"What's your favorite dinosaur?" Theo asked Lily.
"Triceratops," Lily said immediately. "Because it has three horns and they're pointy and if someone tries to hurt it, it can fight back."
Theo looked at Lily like she'd just said something profound. "A dinosaur that protects itself. I like that."
He was looking at their daughter like she was a miracle. Every single day. Like he still couldn't believe she existed.
Sophie turned back to the dishes so he wouldn't see her crying.
She'd worked at the office for six years. In that time, she'd eaten lunch at her desk exactly three times. She'd taken a vacation never. She'd let herself feel happy about something other than Lily maybe twice. Her life had been work and sleep and work and sleep and trying to be enough for a daughter who deserved better than what Sophie could give her alone.
Now Theo was here and he was picking up Lily from school. He was learning her patterns. He'd figured out that she had to decompress after school before she could do homework. He knew that she hated vegetables but would eat them if he made exaggerated chewing faces like they were the most delicious things he'd ever tasted. He knew that her teacher said she was quiet but observant. He knew her medical appointment schedule better than Sophie did.
Every day, something shifted inside Sophie's chest.
Every day, her walls got lower.
Yesterday, she'd laughed. Actually laughed. He'd been trying to cook something and he'd knocked over a container of flour and it went everywhere. He'd looked at the mess and started laughing like it was the funniest thing that had ever happened. Lily had started laughing. And then Sophie had laughed because she couldn't help it.
She'd laughed and it felt like betrayal.
This morning, he'd brought her coffee at six AM before her office shift. She hadn't asked him to. He'd just shown up at her apartment with a coffee from the place near his hotel. The right temperature. The right amount of cream. Like he remembered how she took it even though he'd only seen her drink coffee a handful of times six years ago.
Sophie had taken the coffee and drunk it while looking at him and felt something dangerous crack open inside her.
He was making himself indispensable.
That was the thing that terrified her most. Not that he'd be mean. Not that he'd hurt Lily. But that he'd become so much a part of their lives that losing him would destroy them both.
He'd already done that once.
Sophie excused herself and went to work. She arrived at the office at eight thirty and threw herself into spreadsheets and filing and anything that kept her from thinking about how much she was starting to need him.
During her break at midnight, he texted her.
Lily fell asleep asking if you were okay. She worries about you working so much.
Sophie stared at that message and wanted to scream. Lily didn't need to worry about her. She needed to be seven years old and play with dolls and not carry the weight of her mother's sacrifices.
She texted back. Tell her I'm fine.
The next morning, when she got home, Theo had made breakfast. Eggs and toast and fruit. He'd set the table. He'd gotten Lily ready for school. He'd made Sophie's life easier without being asked.
She'd smiled at him. She'd actually smiled.
Then she'd gone to her retail job without saying thank you because saying thank you meant acknowledging that she needed him and she couldn't do that.
By the end of the second week, Sophie was aware of every moment they spent together. She was aware that she was starting to trust him with Lily. She was aware that she let him help her into the car when her feet hurt. She was aware that she'd started looking for him when she came home.
And she hated herself for it.
One afternoon, he offered to move them to a better apartment. Somewhere bigger. Somewhere Lily could have a real bedroom instead of a closet.
"No," Sophie said immediately.
"Sophie, you're living in a space that's too small. Lily deserves a room where she can actually move around."
"We're fine."
"You're not fine. You're barely sleeping. You're working yourself to death. Let me help."
"I said no."
He didn't push. He just nodded and let it go. But later that week, he brought it up again in a different way. He offered to hire a nanny. Someone to pick Lily up from school and watch her while Sophie worked. Someone to give her the breaks she so desperately needed.
Sophie refused that too.
"Why?" he asked. "Why are you refusing help when you obviously need it?"
"Because I don't need it," Sophie lied.
But the truth was she was terrified. If she let him pay for an apartment, she'd be dependent on him. If she let him hire a nanny, she'd lose control of Lily's life. If she let him in any further, he'd have all the power and she'd have nothing.
He'd done it before. He'd had power over her and he'd used it to leave.
Sophie was trying to convince herself that she didn't want him there. That his presence was a complication. That everything would be better if he just went back to Malibu and left them alone.
But she was lying to herself and they both knew it.
It was Friday night. Lily was asleep. Theo was sitting on the couch reading something on his laptop. Sophie was trying to find the energy to go to her night shift but her body wouldn't move.
Theo closed his laptop and turned to look at her.
"Why are you pushing me away when we both know you don't want to?"
The question hung in the air between them like something alive.
Sophie's entire body went still. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. She could only feel the weight of everything she'd been trying not to feel for two weeks.
Because he was right. She was pushing him away. And the reason wasn't that she didn't want him there.
The reason was that she was starting to want him there so badly it was going to destroy her when he left.