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I could tell the conversation was going to turn into another chaotic one, so I quickly asked, “Where’s everyone else?”
Ford seemed grateful for the distraction. “Cam took Riley to the library and Theo left a little while ago to take a walk.”
“Whatcha think, Nurse Man? Our girl looks okay, right?”
The hint of worry in Walter’s voice kept me from running out the door to find Theo. I went to sit on the coffee table across from Walter and Lenny and patted my lap. The little white dog jumped right into it. I knew shit about heart rates and such about dogs, but the animal didn’t seem in any kind of distress as I ran my hands over her body. “I’m not a vet like Sawyer, Walter, but she doesn’t seem to be in any kind of immediate danger. Is she having any symptoms?”
“She can’t jump on the bed like she used to,” Walter responded.
“So no vomiting or diarrhea?”
“No, thank God,” Ford responded. I knew he loved the dog as much as everyone else in the family did, but I could only imagine who’d be the one who’d have to clean up after any kind of accidents the dog had in the house.
I carefully handed the dog back to Walter. “Let’s see what Sawyer says, but she does seem like she’s gained some weight.”
My comment got the whole Dorito debate going again, so I quietly excused myself and hurried from the room. My need to get to Theo had me rushing through the woods as fast as I could. Since there was no actual trail to the stream, I couldn’t really run since there were too many trees to weave around and the footing wasn’t exactly flat.
I slowed as I neared the stream because I didn’t want to startle Theo, but when my eyes searched out the spot we’d been sitting at the day before, my stomach fell out.
He wasn’t there.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’d just assumed he’d go to our spot.
Ourspot.
I almost laughed out loud. He and I didn’t have a spot. What we had was a fucked up, albeit brief, history that was leaving me more and more confused every day.
I was about to turn away from the stream when I heard leaves rustling. It took a moment to find the source because of the dense canopy of trees and all the light and shadows they cast over the forest floor. I finally saw a flash of color several dozen yards downstream. The relief of knowing I’d found Theo nearly took me to my knees. I began to make my way toward him but stopped when I saw that he wasn’t alone.
The black dog I’d been trying for weeks to coax into approaching me was lying next to Theo, his big head on the young man’s lap. Theo was staring off into the distance even as his hand stroked over the animal’s head.
I crouched down as slowly as I could and just watched the pair.
Both so alone and broken and yet they’d somehow managed to find one another.
I watched them for several minutes until a branch cracked somewhere, probably from a deer roaming through the woods. The sound made the dog lift its head and the moment it saw me, it took off. It was gone within seconds. The dog’s abrupt departure appeared to jerk Theo from his trancelike state. He turned his head in search of whatever had sent the dog running. The second he spotted me, he drew his legs up against his chest and wrapped his arms protectively around them and as much of his upper body as he could.
God, how many times had he sat in that position in that hellhole he’d been imprisoned in?
I made my way to where he was sitting. He was once again looking across the stream at nothing in particular.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “I think it was a deer or something that made the noise but when the dog saw me…”
“It doesn’t matter,” was all Theo said in response.
I sat down next to him but made sure to keep a few inches between us. Several minutes of silence passed. In all honesty, I had no idea what to say to him. I doubted anything I did would reach him anyway. I could tell just by the emptiness in his voice as he’d responded to my comment about the dog that he’d already rebuilt that place in his head where he could hide everything away.
At some point he’d removed the hoodie he usually wore around other people. The white T-shirt he had on made it easy to see his arm and since he’d removed the bandage from the night before, I could see the new cuts he’d inflicted.
They were long but not nearly as deep as the one I’d had to treat. There were four of them, all the same length and the same distance apart. They were in the process of closing up on their own.
“Want to check me for any new ones?” Theo asked without any kind of emotion. When I didn’t answer, he continued with, “No, you want to talk about last night.”
“I want to be whatever you need right now, Theo. Right now, in this moment,” I responded.
He nodded slightly and an amused smile briefly graced his lips. But it wasn’t a real smile. Nothing about him was real. My Theo was safely tucked away in a place where nothing could hurt him, not even me.
