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I’ve never known horror like this.
I can’t even comprehend how I’m supposed to listen to this and believe any of it. If I could, I’d get up out of this bed and run for the door, but I know my legs wouldn’t carry me. I wouldn’t make it three steps before I sank to the floor and burst into tears.
“How long…supposedly…was I Catherine for?” I whisper numbly.
“Seven miserable fucking months,” Theo replies. “You hated me. You were angry. Depressive. You’d break out of the hospital and get fucked up with strangers. Drink too much. Take drugs. You were still you, though, underneath all of the anger and the pain. I could still see you in there. So I stayed. I tried to help you remember. I tried to be more patient that time. More understanding. But Catherine…” He laughs shakily. “Well, she nearly fucking killed me if I’m being honest. In the end, you nearly overdosed at a party. The EMTs took you to a hospital down in Seattle. They pumped your stomach and dosed you with Narcan, and by the time I’d driven down there to get you, you weren’t Catherine anymore. You were suddenly Rachel.”
I don’t…
No.
I screw my eyes shut.
That’s not right.
It can’t be.
“They think that trauma causes these shifts. Stress. Your mind’s been through so much that whenever it encounters a really difficult experience or it can’t quite handle its surroundings, it just...” He makes a flicking motion with his hand. “Your old doctor, Doctor Perez, explained that it’s kind of like changing the channels on a television. The viewer doesn’t like the show that’s playing, so they see what’s on the other side.”
“And I’m the viewer in all of this?”
“Your subconscious,” Theo says. “The animal part of your brain that detects danger has been so triggered since the accident that your subconscious is trapped in this fight or flight cycle. And it takes flight every time things get hard. And you become someone else. And I—” His voice cracks. He stops short.
He looks more angry than upset, but I feel like I should comfort him somehow. Still, the furious cyclone of emotion in my gut that tells me I should despise him persists. How am I supposed to make him feel better if I want to make him suffer for what he did? If what he’s saying is true, then why can’t I shake this terrible fury that seems so set on poisoning me?
“You should get some rest,” Theo murmurs. “I’d say right now qualifies as one of those times when things get hard. If I push any further...” He rakes his hands back through his thick waves, letting out a defeated chuckle that contains no humor whatsoever. “Who am I kidding? It’s probably too fucking late already. God…just seriously. Fuck my life.”He gets up from the chair, groaning as he puts his sneakers back on. I hadn’t even realized he’d taken them off. From the looks of them, the rain soaked them all the way through. He shivers, grimacing as he shoves his feet into them and begins fastening his laces.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
His head snaps up. “What?”
“Don’t go. I still hate you. I think you’re the literal worst. But…I don’t want you to go,” I admit.
“I can’t answer any more questions. I can’t tell you any more than I already have. Not right now—”
“I don’t want to know anything else. Not yet. I just…please? Stay?”
“You want me to sleep with you? Here?” Something catches in Theo’s throat. “After all of this?”
I’m so fucking tired. So frayed around the edges. I’ve exhausted myself, trying to keep pace with the information as Theo relayed it to me, but processing each little detail has cost me something, and it’s more than just energy. It feels like, whatever it is that I’ve lost, I won’t be getting it back. “I feel like I might just slip away if you go,” I confess. “Please. Just stay with me. Lie next to me? Hold my hand?”
This version of Theo is unrecognizable. He’s nothing like the guy that I met here on my first day of Toussaint. He looks…happy.
My head is throbbing so violently that I can’t think straight, anyway. If this is some ploy to trick me into forgiving him, then fuck—it’ll be easily disproved, won’t it? I’m heading straight to see Principal Ford in the morning. One conversation with her will confirm or refute Theo’s claims. If he’s lying to me about this, I will cut the bastard’s throat. It would be such an evil, terrible lie to tell, and he’d deserve everything I did to him for it.
I already know the truth, though.
There really is no point in Theo lying about something as outlandish as this. Where would it get him in the long run? So that means he’s telling the truth.
I just don’t understand any of it. None of this will make sense, at least until the morning.
Theo approaches the bed slowly. The mattress dips as he pulls back the covers and gets in beside me, fully dressed. I don’t ask him to strip. We aren’t here to fuck; this isn’t about that. I just want to feel safe, and to have the warmth of another body next to mine. And honestly, I’m scared. If all of this is true, then I might not even wake up myself tomorrow, and that thought is terrifying. I can’t stand to even think about it. I don’t want to lose myself. But if I do, then at least this way I’ll wake up in Theo Merchant’s arms.
18
THEO
THREE YEARS AGO
