Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Now he sits on the edge of the bed and looks up at me. “You don’t need to stay.”
“Are you asking me to leave?”
“Never.”
“Well, if you’re worried that I’m about to share your bed when you really aren’t in the mood to do anything about that”—I lean in to whisper—“neither am I.”
“I know.” He rubs his face and looks toward a narrow dresser.
“You want to change into something appropriate?” I ask.
A tired smile. “You’ve got the wrong guy if you think I’m even remotely worried about that.”
“May I stay?”
“Of course. Just…” He looks up at me. “I’m not sure I want you to see me like this, Lil.”
“I want to see you like everything, Theo. Nothing’s going to scare me off.”
He pauses. Then he says, “Can you do me a favor?”
“Name it.”
“That drawer.” He nods toward the one he’d been looking at. “Open it.”
When I do, he says, “Reach in and pull out what’s in there. Left-hand side.”
My fingers touch cool glass, and I try not to react as I pull out the bottle. It’s bourbon. Three-quarters full.
“Dump it down the sink.”
I bite my lip. “If you want a drink, I’m not going to judge.”
“Well, maybe you should. Dump it, Lil. Please. Because I do really want it, and that’s a problem.”
I linger there, uncertain.
“It’s a problem,” he says firmly. “You know it is. Having a drink for fun is one thing. Needing it is another. Dump it.”
While I’m doing that, I hear him moving around the room. When I return, the light is dimmed and he’s in bed.
“I’m wearing sweatpants,” he says. “Call me vain, but the first time you see me how I normally sleep? I kinda want to be in the mood to enjoy it.”
I smile. “I definitely want to be in the mood to enjoy it.”
“I pulled out a tee. You can wear that or, obviously, grab something from your room.”
“This is good.”
I slip back to the bathroom, where I scrub my face using his cleanser and moisturizer, and realize that’s what I’ve been smelling on him, not aftershave. I drink in the scent and then change into his T-shirt, which comes down to near my knees.
When I come into the room, he wolf-whistles, which makes me laugh and relax. I slide into the bed.
“You’re probably too tired to talk,” he says.
“Never too tired to listen.”
Silence. Then, his voice softer, “I know I keep saying I fucked up, Lil, and I keep apologizing, but I don’t know what else to say.”
“Maybe you don’t need to say anything.”
He’s beside me, a couple of feet away across the huge bed. He props himself up on one elbow and gingerly touches my bandaged arm. “How are you doing?”
“They gave me a painkiller. I don’t feel a thing.”
“And otherwise? How are you holding up? Do you want to talk about what happened in the alley? To you?”
“I’d rather not.”
My voice sounds so small, and he reaches out, hands going to my hips, tugging gently, a question implicit there. I move closer until I’m in his arms, my cheek against his bare chest.
“I think I should cry,” I say. “And I actually want to. But I just feel…numb.”
“That’s shock.”
I nod against his chest. “Can I not talk about what happened? For now? If I do, I’ll feel like I should analyze it and start detecting, and I’m not ready for that.”
“We can talk about anything you want. Or nothing at all.”
I look up. “What Isolde said. She was in shock. You know that, right?”
His gaze drops as he nods. “Yeah, it was just…” A deep inhale.
Then he looks at me. “If you think I’m overdoing the guilt, it’s because I was flying so high tonight, Lil.
The gala was a mess of good and bad, and tonight seemed to be all good.
Me, at my best. And I was so damned proud of myself.
Such a good boyfriend. Driving the car. Giving you space.
Jumping the queue without being the jerk who jumps the queue.
The red carpet without a red carpet. You’re with Theo Dubois, babe.
This is what you can expect. First-class treatment.
Then you kissed me in public, sealing the deal.
Officially my girl. I was soaring. Hey, babe, go dance with your friend.
Huh, where’d she go? Well, I should look, but stay chill, nothing to worry about, she’s just in the restroom or grabbing a drink… ”
He squeezes his eyes shut. “I can be such a self-centered asshole, Lil. And you got hurt because of it.”
“Uh, none of that sounded self-centered, Theo.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t get it.”
“Try me.”
He hesitates, and when the words come, they don’t stop.
“I’m selling something, Lil. I’ve been selling it since I was a baby.
The myth of Theo Dubois. Smart. Handsome.
Athletic. The boy with everything. But that’s not enough.
I’m expected to be more. Tough, confident, manly.
But also compassionate, humble, sensitive.
And even when I think I am all that, in my own way, it’s not enough.
I don’t stay off social media because I can’t be bothered with it.
I stay off so I don’t see the shit people say about me.
Ugh, he’s too pretty. Real men don’t look like that.
What do people see in him? Is that eyeliner?
He’s one of those. Dating a girl, dating a guy; he just can’t make up his mind.
Oh, he’s doing a film? Of course he is. Just like Daddy.
Is he getting Mom to star in it, too? I met him once, and he was a jerk. I met him once, and he’s so fake.”
When he stops for breath, I kiss him. I can feel him shaking, and when I ease back, he says, “I can’t win, Lil, and I’m so fucking tired of trying, and then I’m disgusted because, what the hell is this?
Theo Dubois, whining? I never need to stand in line.
Cameras flash wherever I go. Kids scream my name, excited just to see me. And I’m whining?”
“I can’t imagine what that’s like,” I say softly. “I don’t think I could handle it as well as you do. It’s exhilarating, but it’s also exhausting.”
A faint smile. “I meant all that attention—cutting lines, getting photographed, being recognized—is the privilege of being Theo Dubois.”
“I know, but it’s also the hell of being Theo Dubois. Living your life illuminated by a camera flash.”
“I wanted tonight to be perfect, like I wanted the gala to be perfect. And when things went wrong, I had another meltdown.”
“Um, Isolde claimed you attacked her—and me—in an alley. That’s not just ‘things going wrong.’ I’d have melted down, too.”
I tuck my fingers under his chin, looking into his eyes.
“Where you see a meltdown, I see a few cracks in the veneer. But half of that anger and that stress? It’s you beating yourself up, thinking you should be better.
You aren’t a normal guy, Theo, and that’s great and it also sucks.
If a barista gives you cold coffee, you need to smile and accept it or it’ll be all over social media that Theo Dubois is a demanding asshole. ”
I move closer, eyes nearly to his. “Cut yourself some slack, Dubois.”
“You sound like Maddox.”
“Then consider this a second opinion and take our advice.”
He stretches his arm out, head dropping onto his bicep as he looks up at me. “I let him down.”
“No, you—”
“Lil? Just listen to me, okay? I couldn’t ever say this to him, but can you imagine how it feels, knowing he thought he had to keep an eye on you because he couldn’t trust me to do it?
And then to have him proven right? I blew off his concerns.
When I did watch over you, it was mostly just to humor him, and now I feel like shit. ”
I could say I did the same, but this is about them, so I only nod.
Theo continues, “I fuck up so much with him these days, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” When I nod, he ducks to catch my gaze. “But you do know.”
“I would never presume that, Theo.”
“If you see something I’m doing wrong, tell me. Please.”
“It’s not my place—”
“Lil. Please.”
I exhale a slow breath and drop my head down by his. “I know you don’t like the edibles.”
He shuts his eyes. “They’re prescription, so I shouldn’t say anything.”
“It’s not that as much as…He takes other medication. For depression. And you also question that, which is either questioning whether he has depression or whether it’s a real thing needing real medication.”
“I don’t mean it that way.”
“I know.” I reach to touch his face. “But taking that medication, admitting he needs it, that’s tough. You have to support him.”
Theo exhales. “I do support him. Totally. I just want…I want him back.”
“The way he was before? I didn’t know him then, obviously. Was he a lot different?”
Theo goes quiet and then sits up and grabs his phone from the bedside charger. “You want to see the old Maddox?”
“Please.”
He flips through and then cues up a video. When it starts, I have to smile. It’s Maddox at about twelve. He’s sprawled on the grass, book in hand, all long gangly limbs and shaggy dark hair.
When Theo’s voice comes on, I choke on a laugh. It’s high and reedy, and he points a finger at me. “Do not mock the twelve-year-old-boy voice.”
On the screen, Theo says, “Observe Maddox Moreno in his natural environment.”
“Fuck off.” Maddox’s voice is deeper, already postpubescent. He doesn’t lower the book.
Theo continues from behind the camera, “I offered this young man a part in my movie, and what did he say?”
“Fuck. Off.”
“Exactly. The chance to be in the premier Theo Dubois film, and he’d rather read his book.”
“I’d rather read this chapter. Which you promised I could do.”
“Keep going. I’ll just film it.”
Maddox slaps down the book with a scowl that’s so familiar, I really do laugh.
“Fine,” Maddox grunts as he sits up.
“You’ll be in my film?”
“No, I’ll help you fix the script, like you asked. Then I get to read my damn chapter. Right?”
“You could write the whole script.”
A snort. “No, and don’t you dare credit me for helping. Now turn that damn camera off.”
The video ends, and Theo turns to me. “He used to be so different, right?”
“Uh…”
“That was always Maddox. Nose in a book. Quiet. Moody. Sometimes cranky. Cursing me out while still doing what I asked, eventually.”
He sets the phone down. “I can say I want the old Maddox back, but that’s bullshit. He’s still my Mads. What I want is for him to be well. So I tell myself he is and that he doesn’t need those pills, but if he stops taking them?” Pain flashes over his face.
“If he stops, he’s not the Maddox you know.”
“Sometimes yes, but other times…I can’t reach him, Lil.
It’s like we’re on two deserted islands, surrounded by sharks, and I can’t get to him.
I’m shouting, and he can’t hear me. So obviously the pills help, and I shouldn’t be an asshole about them.
I want him to not need them. I want him to be happy. ”
I’m quiet, before I finally push out the words. “Am I part of that?”
“What?”
“Making Maddox happy.”
He frowns, then he blinks. “You mean, did I make sure Mads got the girl he really likes, in hopes that’ll be the magic that make all his problems go away? If I thought that’d work, I’d have pushed you on him and backed off myself. I’m not that deluded. Or that generous.”
He pulls me into a hug. “You do make him happy, which I want, but I understand that what he’s going through can’t be fixed with a girlfriend.”
“It might not be able to be fixed at all,” I say softly. “I know it seems to be connected to Jenna’s death, but that might have just exacerbated something that was already there.”
“I know.”
“And if this is how he’ll always be, taking medication, seeing a therapist, needing an edible now and then…would that be okay?”
He pulls me to him, so tight the breath flies from my lungs. “The only thing that wouldn’t be okay is losing him.”
I hug him back tight, and we stay like that, wrapped together, breathing and holding each other, until we drift off to sleep.