‘In the same way my life to this point has shaped me, so too has yours. It’s incredibly naive to suggest that you can just shirk the bits of yourself you no longer want.’
‘It’s amazing what willpower can achieve.’
‘Don’t be glib.’
His nostrils flared. ‘Did we come to lunch to examine my biography in detail?’
‘Partly, yes,’ she said honestly.
‘Damn it, Annie, this isn’t our deal.’
‘It’s not expressly prohibited by our contract,’ she pointed out, then tried a different tack. ‘What are you afraid of?’
‘Nothing,’ he denied.
‘Then why not answer my questions?’
She’d laid a trap and he’d stepped right into it. She could see him weighing that up, considering it and she just hoped and prayed the waiter wouldn’t come and interrupt, giving Theo an easy excuse to change the subject to something banal like the quality of the olive oil.
‘I was in foster care from when I was three until I was seven, when I ran away for the first time. After that, I was mostly on the streets, except for a few occasions when I was arrested and returned to care. It never lasted long. By then, my manners were not particularly conducive to being looked after,’ he said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘That I was very difficult. Aggressive, defensive, untrusting, angry. On the street, those qualities served me well, but in someone’s home, it didn’t tend to go over too well.’
‘Oh, Theo,’ she said, her heart breaking for the little boy he’d once been. ‘Why did you run away, when you were only seven years old?’
For the briefest moment, she could have sworn he looked afraid. Desperate to end the conversation. And she was tempted to take pity on him and let it go. But this was all so crucial to understanding him, to understanding the decisions he made, even now, that she held her ground.
‘Why do you think?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘It’s better to leave it.’
‘Why?’
‘There’s no advantage to reliving that time.’
‘Were you hurt, Theo?’
His eyes stayed locked to hers. ‘It was not the first time I was hit, but it was by far the worst.’
She gasped, tears filling her eyes.
‘See, Annie? Sometimes the truth is not really what you want.’
That was accurate. She didn’t want this truth for him, but the fact it had happened made her ache to comfort him. She pushed up out of her chair, going around to him, uncaring that they were in a restaurant. She needed to be close to him, and perhaps he felt that too, because she wouldn’t have been able to sit in his lap without Theo pushing back from the table a little.
Her heart was splintering apart for that boy. Seven years old. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, catching his face in both hands, staring into his eyes. ‘You should never have known that pain.’
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Nobody should.’
She dropped her head forward and pressed her lips to his forehead.
‘I can’t imagine what it was like,’ she said, after a beat. ‘Living on the streets…’
‘For a start, that’s a very sanitary euphemism for what it was like. Every day was a baptism by fire.’