I mean, the hotel staff told us he spent a lot of time with you. Late night phone calls, visited you in your room. Did you ever sense he had feelings for you? Saw you as more than a colleague? THE MORNING SHOW 3.10 | The Overview Effect
This is so interesting, though. People who are guarded are afraid that you can see right through them. They run away from vulnerability or they hide between humor or they try to put up walls to look mysterious. Bradley hides behind her past and puts up anger. Cory hides behind humor and his eccentricity. But they know who the other person is. He says she has an anger prism, she goes to him for advice and friendship even though he made it clear to her how powerful he is ("Yo, Jackson, God here"). They also hide behind their work. She chases a story and he focuses on keeping the ship afloat. Stella asks Cory how he's doing and he tells her it's not his problem because that dims the light in her eyes and compromises the overall mission. Bradley tells Laura that her private life has to stay private, she protects Hal and keeps things quiet instead of airing her family's dirty laundry. Shove the feelings down, bury it until it's nothing. She shoves it into the anger prism, he laughs it off and jokes like it doesn't exist. They have both told themselves for years that their feelings don't matter.
Then they meet each other and they can see who the other really is from first hand experience of how they choose to deal with things. What's interesting is how differently they handle this. Cory is fascinated and Bradley is terrified. For Cory, this is a marvel for him to just know that he loves her. It's a fact that he wants in the annals of time because he's never let himself feel it as an emotion before, what a time! She's off to Montana, OK, no problem. There's no real attempt to chase her, he's happy seeing her happy from afar. He's happy taking off his suit at the end of the day and resting for a few hours on the hotel bed. The real estate woman is a distraction he's had a lifetime of them and he's trying to go back to the new normal.
Bradley's terrified because being with someone who can see everything about you and who you really are who can cut through the facade is startling. If it doesn't work out, she'll be destroyed and there's no looking back. Other relationships are safe when you're not 100% yourself. If there's rejection, they're rejecting a projection and not you. But for Bradley, that raw vulnerability is too much to bear.
