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“I was there! I was with you!”
He nods, as if taking all of this in. “You were in the backseat then?”
“Where else would I have been?!”
“And you weren’t hurt when the car crashed? You walked away unscathed?”
“God, what the fuck are you doing, Theo? You think you’re gonna undermine me by playing twenty questions? I was there,” I say firmly. “I know what happened. I know what I saw.”
He stands there, unmoving, watching me warily as I scream at him. “All right, then.”
“All right then? What the fuck is ‘all right, then’supposed to mean?”
“I’m sorry. I’m deeply sorry for killing her. I never meant for that to happen. I hate what happened to her just as much as you do, believe me.”
“So youdoadmit it, then? You admit that you killed her? That it’s your fault that she’s gone?” My emotions claw at the back of my throat, my voice thick with it. My eyes burn with unshed tears. I didn’t think I’d feel this way when he finally took ownership for what he did. I figured I’d feel vindicated. Victorious. Not this…this…painful sense of loss and panic that has ahold of me now.
A harrowed, bleak look flickers across Theo’s face. He’s the picture of devastation. “Itismy fault that she’s gone. I’d do anything in my power to change that…”
“YOUCAN’TCHANGE THAT!” I roar. “SHE’S FUCKING DEAD!”
He rocks back. It’s as if I’ve hit him a hundred times harder than Sebastian did earlier, and the force of the blow has shaken him to his core. “I realize that,” he says quietly.
“And now, of all the people in this entire school, you’re chasing afterme. Her best friend. Someone who hates you more than anything else in the entire fucking world. You’ve got some fucking nerve.”
“I can’t help how I feel,” he whispers.
“And you think that just showing up here, owning up to what you did, and saying you’re sorry for it will make it all better? That I can just forgive you for what you’ve done, and I’ll fall into bed with you like none of it matters anymore? What kind of person do you think I am?”
His eyes are full of pain, the complexities of the tawny, rich browns and golds shifting and twisting together as he watches me steadily. He inhales deeply as he says, “I think that you’re a human being. That you can’t help how you feel any more than I can.”
A lump aches at the base of my throat. Why can’t I swallow? Why are my eyes burning so badly, so full of tears? Why do I want to go to him so badly, when I need to be as far away from him as possible? “It doesn’t matter, Theo. None of this matters. I should never have come here. It was a mistake. I can’t make anything better, staying here. Hurting you won’t help. And being around you is a fuckingpunishment—”
“You can leave, but it won’t change anything. I promise you, it won’t,” he says. “You won’t just stop caring about me.”
“Why do I even give a shit about you in the first place?” I could scream the words. Yell them into his face. It would feel like a release. The question comes out as a whisper, though, full of pain and a desperate longing that I feel down to the roots of my soul. I can’t understand it.
Theo looks so torn. His jaw is set, his eyes hard, but his brows pinched together over the bridge of his nose. His hands clench, as if he’s at war, ready to fight again. Fight me? Fight himself? Who the fuck knows. He runs his tongue over his teeth, narrowing his eyes at me. “I don’t have all of the answers. I only know what I know. That I want you. And you want me. Everything else pales in comparison to that.”
My heart physicallyhurts. “Just go.”
Slowly, he shakes his head. “I can’t do that. I can’t leave you now. You know I can’t.”
“I’m not asking you. I’mtellingyou. I want you to go!”
His voice is soft and full of agony when he says, “If you want me to go so badly, then why are you crying?”
A sob bursts out of my mouth right on cue. I haven’t noticed that my tears have overflowed and are streaking down my cheeks. The outline of Theo’s face swims as my eyes flood, these strange, unwelcome emotions swelling in my chest to the point that they overwhelm me.
“Fuck. Come here.” Theo shoves away from the door jamb, taking his hands out of his pockets. He attempts to draw me to him, but I push him back, stopping him. “Jesus, Voss. Just stop fucking fighting me! I’m not going to hurt you!”
Something inside me breaks. Just shatters into a million pieces. I’ve been doing my best for so long, trying to hold myself together, but there are limits to what I’m capable of. This is my threshold. I’ve reached the point where I physically can’t keep all of this tamped down anymore, and so it comes spilling out. My strength leaves me. My fury and my anger depart in a rush, leaving behind only confusion and the need for Theo’s arms around me.
I let him hold me. He pulls me to him, crushing me against his chest, and the storm inside me quiets. This is bitter medicine; it’s unfair that it takesthisfor me to feel better. Anyone else. Literallyanyoneelse in the world would have been better than Theo, and yet it’s him who calms my racing heart and soothes the panic in my veins. In his arms, I feel anchored down, safe in a way I don’t think I’ve ever felt before, and the relief that comes with that? It’severything.
I bury my face into his t-shirt, breathing in the scent of him. Mint and bergamot. Winter rain and the promise of snow. So familiar now that it stirs something inside of me, kindling it to life. Theo’s muscled chest flexes beneath my hands as he tightens his hold on me, lifting me from the ground. I don’t object. Not even when he dips down and picks me up properly, cradling me in his arms like a child, and carries me into my bedroom. I lace my arms around the back of his neck and cling onto him for dear life, sobbing into his shirt, letting it all go, as bit by bit all of the hurt and the suffering I’ve endured and carried with me recently finally cracks, comes loose and falls away.
Theo sits on the edge of my bed and holds me. Doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t rush me into recovering myself. He gently rocks me, back and forth, occasionally resting his cheek against the top of my head. After a while the air in his lungs starts to vibrate, resonant, filled with bass, and he begins to hum.
