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“It doesn’t matter that you accept me. That you think it’s okay that I have dyslexia. That you understand it’s something beyond my control.” She lifted a hand to his chest, splaying her fingers wide. “You’d never be happy with someone like me. And I’d be miserable knowing that.”
“How can you say that? I’ll never be happy if I’m not with you.”
She shook her head. “You think that now, but believe me, I know what you’re like. You’re more like dad than you realise.”
A muscle jerked in his cheek and Stavros realized how little the comparison pleased him.
“This would never work. You need to go.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t it work?” He pushed, refusing to budge.
“You think you’re okay with this now,” she whispered, dropping her eyes. “But there’s a whole heap of emotions at play. You feel guilty and responsible and you want to help me, because that’s who you are.” She turned her face away, staring out of the kitchen windows. There was no snow, only a bleak grey sky and the rapid approach of Christmas eve.
“I don’t feel any of those things. Wanting to help you, perhaps,” he conce
ded. “But only in the way you should have been helped all along.”
“I don’t want your help. I’m not a project.” She turned back to him, tilting her chin defiantly, her eyes sparking with his. “I’ve had a lifetime to come to terms with my failings. I don’t need your help.”
“This is not a failing,” he said urgently. “This is just who you are. In the same way you have brown hair and dark eyes, and the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard.”
“I would never be able to keep up with you,” she said softly. “We live in different worlds. You’re incredibly intelligent. Business is your life. You love to read for pleasure. I will never be able to take part in any of that. I’d be an embarrassment to you.”
His temper was ratcheting up and he knew he had to control it, to be calm and encourage her to listen. But he couldn’t stand the way she spoke of herself. “I would only ever feel pride to have you on my arm.”
The words sifted through the angst in her heart, but still she shook her head.
“I have been wrong about you all along. But I’m not wrong now.”
“I can’t do it.” She stared up at him, and then turned her back, moving deeper into the kitchen. When he made to follow after her she spun around, holding up a hand.
“Don’t!” It was an emphatic plea. “Don’t come in here. Don’t act as if you know what you’d be getting yourself into. I’ve spent my whole life dealing with this, managing people’s expectations, knowing what a disappointment I am. I know that you’re going to try to fix me and when you can’t – because you can’t – you’ll get over this. Wanting to help isn’t the same as being in love.”
His heart was breaking, but it was breaking for Claudia. Beautiful, kind, intelligent, interesting, funny Claudia who saw herself only as defined by this one single aberration.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she murmured softly. “Functional illiteracy is such a clinical term but it doesn’t explain how isolating it is not to be able to read or write. I can’t read street signs or text messages, I can’t write shopping lists. I watch the cooking channel because recipes are like Sanskrit. I can live with that. But I can’t live with feeling like I have to apologise to someone for it. Like I have to make excuses about it.”
“Why in the world do you think you would need to apologise to me?” He wanted to move nearer to her but she was close to breaking down and he didn’t want to tip her over the edge.
“Because you’re going to get over the novelty and the guilt of all this.” She shook her head angrily. “I saw Miss Burns come into our lessons with the techniques she’d learned, so optimistic, only to see the lack of effect. I saw the way her face fell.”
“And you pretended you didn’t care,” he said softly, moving closer towards her slowly, so that she didn’t frighten. “You began to pretend you weren’t interested in anything academic. That you only wanted to party. Right?”
She bit down on her lip, tears filling her eyes and clogging her throat.
“Dyslexia isn’t … my kind of dyslexia is very rare,” she whispered. “I can’t read.” She stared at him, and he understood then the grief that she’d been processing all these years. It rammed against him. “It’s like I’m locked out of something special and vital. It’s a behavior most people think of as simple – like breathing or drinking water. But I can’t do it. And I’m terrified of that. I’m terrified of books and papers and of having to make up reasons why I can’t fill out stupid bloody forms at hotels.” She squeezed her eyes shut on the wave of embarrassment.
He took his opportunity, swooping across the room and catching her face in his hands, holding her head up high when she wasn’t able to do so herself. “Because you’re hiding the truth. You don’t need to. You think your father wouldn’t sing it from the rooftops? Well, maybe you’re right. But I would. I’d tell the world that you were born not being able to read but that you are the most perfect woman who’s ever walked this earth. I will tell everyone how much I love you for the rest of our lives.” He brought his lips closer to hers, brushing their mouths together gently. “I will read for you and I will write for you.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, shaking her head, salty tears falling from her eyes onto his fingertips. “Don’t say that. You don’t know what this is like.”
“No.” He nodded sagely. “I don’t. I’m not trying to minimize what you’re going through. I have no idea how hard this must have been for you. I want to know, though.” His eyes bore into her. “You need to understand that I am proud of you. All of you. That I don’t see one part of you as broken or damaged. Everything you are is special to me.”
He kissed her once more, tenderly, reassuringly.
“Why is your dyslexia more of a fault than my arrogance?” He smiled against her mouth, but she pulled away, shaking her head.
“This isn’t a joke.” She didn’t meet his eyes and the ground shifted dangerously beneath Stavros’s feet. “I can’t even begin to make you understand… You think I should stop hiding my disease? You want to shout it from the rooftops? You can’t. I can’t. Even though dad is dead, I could never do that to him. I would never embarrass him by coming out as someone who is… dumb.”
