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On the fourth day I set out for a walk in the morning, needing something that felt like a plan, a destination, a goal. I walked for five hours, my feet torn up and my bad knee throbbing, then collapsed into a chair on the porch and smoked a whole pack of cigarettes, fingers itching for something, brain scratching at everything, mind simultaneously racing and bored.
The facts were these. At some point over the past few weeks, I had begun to live again without realizing it. I’d begun to think about the music again. I’d woken up and my first thought hadn’t always been either craving or fear. The sappy side of me wanted to say that Theo had kissed me back to life, like the prince in some fairy tale. But it wasn’t what he’d done, it was what being around him had made me feel.
Hope.
And wasn’t that just the fucking scariest craving of all.
I started to shake, light-headed, and then I started to pace. I couldn’t stay here. Couldn’t spend another second here, with Theo’s scent still clinging to the pillowcases that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to wash, though I’d manically cleaned everything else from top to bottom. Couldn’t spend the night wedged into the couch prison I’d made myself. Just fucking couldn’t do any of it.
I drove to Rhys’s without calling, without texting. Just knocked on his door in the middle of the night like a fucking mess. He answered with his old baseball bat in hand, and grinned sheepishly when he saw it was me. Then, at whatever he saw on my face, he opened his arms, and for the first time in a long time, he held me as I broke.
Theo had burrowed deeper than I’d realized, dug barbs into me. And when he’d ripped away—when I’d pushed him away—it had felt like they all tore loose at once. But with each passing day, I was finding new ones still lodged beneath my skin, treading on them and wincing, like a dog with a wounded paw. I couldn’t pluck them all out by myself. I didn’t even know how to find them.
Matt came out of the bedroom at some point, still half asleep, hair wild and slender frame wrapped in one of Rhys’s sweatshirts, and Rhys kissed him and sent him back to bed with a low-voiced explanation. I thought of Theo, the sleepy warmth of him in the dark, waking slowly like a night-blooming orchid, his sprawling limbs as tender and sinuous as purple-bruised petals. And I felt a barb I’d missed, lodged somewhere between my stomach and my heart, shake loose, leaving me empty and aching for the shape of him in my arms.
The next morning, I was mortified. Eyes shadowed and hair a mess, I could hardly even meet Rhys’s eyes. Matt stayed in their bedroom until I left, a kindness I didn’t think I deserved, but Matt had a talent for understanding what people needed, even when they didn’t know it themselves. Rhys peered down at me, the familiar bulk of him hovering just in front of me. I tried to apologize but he wouldn’t have it. He just looked at me until I met his eyes.
“You’re gonna be okay,” he said, and squeezed my shoulders. “With Theo or without him, you’re gonna be okay. But you gotta call Huey, and you gotta do it today. Promise me.”
I nodded. He was right. This was what I did. Things got bad, I didn’t want anyone to see me weak and broken, so I decided I’d wait until I was just a tiny bit stronger, and then I’d call. But in the space between shame and a public face lay the ocean of demons just waiting for the drop of blood that would set it churning. And I nicked myself with pride every time.
“I will. I’ll call him today. I promise.”
Rhys hugged me, and just for a second I could pretend things were the way they used to be, when we took on the world together and I fell asleep pressed to this man, fought with him, laughed with him, dreamed with him. I held on tight, testing the pain like a tongue poking at a sore tooth: did this still hurt? Was I still punishing myself? But the pain was centered elsewhere. These weren’t the arms I wanted to fall asleep in; this wasn’t the man I wanted to laugh with, dream with, hell, even fight with. Because he wasn’t Theo Decker.
“Rhys?”
His eyebrows were drawn together in concern, and I felt another surge of guilt for the worry I’d caused him, for barging in here without even calling. But I set my jaw and forced myself to get over it. I’d already apologized and there was nothing else I could do.
