So I thought I had some angst but the stories posted this week are ANGSTY. Damn. And I understand, because this story is proving really hard for me. Inspiration is in short supply, so thank you for your reviews, because that support is carrying me through.
"So…" Tim linked his hands in front of him, rubbing his thumb nervously. "Are we going to talk about last night?"
Paige had been on edge waiting for that question for the last forty minutes. It was late, almost eleven, and she was just about to say goodnight and sign off. But clearly he wasn't letting her off the hook.
"Yeah," she said uncertainly. "I'm sorry about that."
"Hey, don't apologize. That's not what I was looking for. I just want to make sure we're on the same page about this."
I'm pretty we're not. Paige had forgotten how to breathe—and not in a romantic sense—when Tim ended their previous Skype session with goodnight Paige, I love you.
She'd muttered goodnight and shut the laptop before he could answer. Which was immature at best, and rude at worst, but she assured herself that she just needed time to process the words. Even a full day later, though, she couldn't quite categorize how it made her feel. She knew how she should feel, or at least how she'd felt in the past, but none of that was present now.
Tim had been in Jordan for just over two months. It wasn't exactly a rushed declaration, but somehow it didn't seem like a natural progression of their relationship either.
She would have to analyze later.
"It surprised me, is all." Paige bit her lip and crossed her legs under the desk, leaning forward. "You know I care about you, Tim, but, uh…I think I need more time before I can say something like that and mean it."
Tim huffed out a laugh that was meant to put her at ease, but it wasn't working. "Paige, you don't have to say it back. Not until you're ready."
She sighed. Of course he'd be accepting. Sometimes she wished he would get angry, challenge her, so maybe she'd have some basis to figure out why she wasn't aching to return the sentiment. "Thank you."
"Is it okay if I keep saying it?" he asked, his voice calm and slightly hopeful. "Or do you want me to wait?"
Please stop asking me to make decisions tonight. I don't know, okay? I don't know what I want from you. "Can we wait? I just…you know…I want to make sure we're not rushing things."
Truthfully, she didn't think she'd be able to hear him say he loved her every day without feeling pressure to reciprocate. Paige winced as guilt washed over her. Shouldn't she be letting him tell someone that was ready to hear it?
"Yeah, of course. I know it's been a while and you need to go slow."
Paige coughed. Not as long as you think. "Goodnight, Tim. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Oh my," Veronica murmured, biting dramatically into a barbecue chip before handing Paige the bag. "Seems like he took it okay."
The liaison pressed her head back against the beige couch, willing it to swallow her whole. "He always does. I'm taking it less well. I'm the trainwreck in this relationship."
Veronica smiled at her daughter's miserable expression. "Good to know you don't have it all together." She nudged Paige's shoulder with her own. "I'm glad you called me, though."
She had to admit that Veronica's new apartment was nice, as long as she didn't think too hard about where the rent or any of the furnishings were coming from. Right now, though, she found herself in the strangest need of a mother, and she wasn't surprised when Veronica greeted her midnight text with open arms. It was honestly the least she could do.
"Was it different than you imagined?" Veronica prompted after a few minutes of quiet brooding. "Something about the way he said it, maybe?"
Paige furrowed her eyebrows. "I don't know. I never thought about it."
"Really. You never thought about it? Ever?"
Everything with Tim still felt so new to her. She didn't dwell on what it would be like to move their relationship forward because she was content with where they were. Paige crunched another chip. "I just wish I could tell if I can't say it back because it's too soon, or if I'm never going to be able to. Because if I can't ever say it back, then Tim doesn't deserve that, right?"
She made a noise of agreement and kicked her feet up on the ottoman next to Paige's. "You just need a point of comparison. How long did it take you to realize that you loved Walter?"
She choked and reached for her wine glass, taking a long sip until she could breathe again. There was no way Veronica knew that; she was fishing. And if this got back to Walter somehow she was going to kill them both. "That's in the past and definitely has no bearing on this."
"I wasn't saying that," she insisted with mock innocence, thought her tone suggested that was exactly what she was implying. "I merely meant for reference. You can use Drew if you like."
Paige rolled her eyes. "Ugh. I don't want to think about Drew."
"Well, I'm pretty sure that's the beginning and end of your romantic experience as an adult, so you'll have to meet me halfway here."
Really? That's everything? Granted, she'd been too preoccupied to worry about men for ten years of her son's life, but still. "Great," she snorted, draining the rest of her wine. "Of course I can't commit to Tim. I have no idea what a normal relationship looks like."
Veronica moved to refill the glass, but Paige waved her away. Even though Ralph was with Sly and she didn't need to rush home, the liaison didn't want to lose too much control around her mother—she was liable to wake up on the wrong side of the legal system.
"The kid's right. You worry too much about being normal." Veronica turned sideways, tucking her left leg underneath the right and tapping her long fingernails against her glass. "You used to embrace the unusual. Weird is good, and all that."
"Wait, Ralph told you that?" She sat up, frowning when her mother nodded in response. Paige knew early on that her son would never be normal. Encouraging him to fit that ideal was one of the first things Walter warned her about. He wasn't normal, he was extraordinary. She'd tried to praise that, not just in her son, but in all the geniuses, so that Ralph would get the message consistently. "Does he think I don't feel that way anymore?"
The older woman shrugged. "You'll have to ask him. But you know," her lips curled up, "I wasn't really surprised to find you here. In the midst of all this chaos. With a son like Ralph."
"Really?" Because Paige had certainly been surprised and sometimes, when she was outrunning an explosion or dodging bullets from a drug dealer, she still couldn't quite believe where she'd ended up.
"Yeah. Even when you were a kid, I knew you wouldn't be boring. I hoped your life would be a little more stable than mine, I guess." She smirked. "But you were always destined for something bigger. I'm glad you found it. Or that it found you."
Bigger was one word for it. But she couldn't deny the sense of purpose she experienced working for Scorpion. She couldn't deny that it felt like home. Most of the time. Maybe less so lately.
Veronica reached up and curled a strand of Paige's hair off her face. It was the type of motherly action that usually made the liaison cringe, but perhaps she'd consumed just enough alcohol to combat that reflex. "Look, if you want my advice—." Paige glanced at her skeptically. "Fine, maybe you don't. But you're trying way too hard, honey. There's only so many times you can push yourself to stay on a path that doesn't feel right." She clinked Paige's glass with hers. "We're a family of rebels, honey. Get used to it."
Eleven months.
She deflected successfully enough while she was with her mother, but in the absolute quiet of her apartment, she turned the question over and over in her mind until she fell asleep.
Eleven months. That was the first time Paige had ever entertained the concept of love when it came to Walter. She had a hunch it might have taken less time, but he was so adamant that romantic love was a flimsy fantasy, and she was determined not to be the only one in love. Unrequited love was for teenagers and Shakespearean tragedies.
But he didn't feel that way anymore.
Sometimes she would look up from her desk and see him on his laptop, or working on a project with Ralph, or—worse—staring back at her, and she would remember every detail of that day. Exactly how it felt to hear him say that he loved her. That he thought they'd be together. Then she would recall that he didn't know, he didn't remember, and he had never said those words to her consciously. And she would barely resist the urge to bang her head on her desk, because this had all drifted so far out of her control.
It was only fair to give Tim the same amount of time, right? But she couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't the same. She and Tim were together, he was actively wooing her, they were talking every day and he seemed certain that he was in love with her. She'd had to fight for every emotional interaction she had with the genius and it still only took less than a year.
When Walter was hypoxic, when he poured his heart out to her, she'd been terrified. Overwhelmed. Shocked. More than a little swept off her feet. Even thinking about it, months later, sent a bolt of adrenaline rushing through her. And then Tim said the same three words to her—wanted to keep saying them to her—and somehow it felt empty. She felt empty.
That couldn't be right. She had feelings for Tim. She was attracted to him and she enjoyed spending time with him. She'd missed him while he was gone. She should love him.
You're trying too hard, honey.
Paige was starting to understand what her mother meant. Why was this so important? Why was it killing her to know that this was the best thing for her, and it wasn't enough?
If Ralph was struggling, she knew exactly what she'd tell him. That it was okay to be different. That it was okay not to want something, even if everyone else did, even if it seemed like he should.
So why couldn't she take her own advice?
"Mom? You almost hit a cone."
Paige blew out a deep breath and refocused her eyes on the road, cursing herself for her terrible mothering. What if Ralph got hurt because she was distracted? "Sorry, baby. I've just got a lot on my mind." But while he was here, there was a least one issue she could unpack. "Can I ask you something?" she started tentatively, unsure if she was ready to hear his response.
He glanced through the front windshield, then his side window, and then back at her. "You can speed if you want. All the cops are going south. Probably an accident."
"Uh…thanks." Though tempted, Paige decided it was better not to test his theory while she was already driving with half her brain. But she did file it away under Ralph's special skills for future reference. "Actually, it's something else. Something Grandma said yesterday."
"Oh boy."
She laughed despite herself. Ralph always knew how to cut through her anxiety and he wasn't even trying. "No. It was something you said to her. That…that I used to think it was good to be weird, but now I'm worried about being normal." She sank her teeth into her lip and chanced another look at him. "Is that how you feel?"
The young genius slumped down in his seat, physically deflating in front of her as if he was trying to disappear. "I'm sorry, mom. I didn't mean to make you feel bad."
There was an immediate pang in her chest and she rushed to correct him. "No, honey, I know you didn't. And you should never hold back something you need to say because you're worried it'll hurt me. I'm your mom. I can handle it." She offered a hasty smile to reassure him and reached out to stroke his hair, realizing somewhere in the back of her mind that he was long overdue for a cut. "I'm only asking because…it's important to me that you know I'm proud of you. And I love everything that makes you different. So if you ever feel like I-I'm expecting you to be something you aren't, I need you to tell me."
Ralph was quiet for a few miles, and Paige bit her tongue to resist filling the silence. This was still a balancing act for her. Sometimes she thought, however illogically, that one wrong word could make him shut down and revert to his days of silence. And she was confident she wouldn't survive that again.
"It's not that, exactly," he replied eventually, frowning in concentration. "It's more like…the way you treat the team. You used to like that we were weird. And now that stuff seems to annoy you."
Paige's vision blurred and she quickly blinked back the beginnings of tears. How did she not know that Ralph saw her that way? We. He was identifying with Scorpion, and she was on the outside. "I love the team, Ralph. And you. This is our family."
"I know you love us. But it's just the stuff you say sometimes. Like that we're mold. Or we're not human. I don't think you really mean it, but it's different now. You understood us better before."
The liaison was grateful to reach the school because she knew it was dangerous to drive when her heart was crumbling. She found a spot in the lot instead of pulling up to the front and pushed the car into park, twisting around in her seat to face her son. After a second of hesitation, she placed her palms on his face, surprised when he didn't pull away. "Nothing has made me happier than starting to understand you, Ralph. I know I never will completely, but I promise I'll try harder, okay?"
He placed his fingers on her wrists and gently tugged them away, shaking his head. "Not just me, mom. All of us. You're the translator and we need you."
"Okay. I promise." Paige leaned in and kissed his forehead, smoothing his hair back into place before reaching behind her to unlock the doors. "We'll talk later, okay? We'll get dinner. Anywhere you want."
Ralph mumbled something incoherent and jumped out as she was urging him to have a good day. Instead of leaving immediately for the garage, she shut off the engine and bent her arms on top of the steering wheel as she watched him, overwhelmed by equal senses of pride and colossal failure. He was disappointed in her. She'd been letting him down for months and didn't even recognize it. Just like she'd let him down when she used to call him challenged instead of realizing how rare and brilliant he was.
And it wasn't just him. Ralph seemed adamant that her attitude toward all the geniuses had suffered. It hurt her to admit that he was right. She'd been holding them up to an impossible standard. A standard that wasn't meant for people like them. She never used to do that. Before. Though he didn't say it, Paige had a hunch her son meant before Tim.
And she'd been the hardest on Walter. The man most like her son.
If she really wanted Ralph to know that she accepted him, for everything that he was, Paige knew where she would have to start.
