Theo #2
“I said it, but I didn’t mean it like that, Brynne.” She scoffed, a fresh wave of tears filling her eyes. “It was just a figure of speech. It’s just something you say— I bet I could do this before you. It doesn’t mean it was a literal bet.”
“Well, he took it that way,” she choked out. “Why would he think it was a bet if you hadn’t made him believe that?”
“I don’t know!” I curled my fingers into my palms. “He’s a fucking idiot. I don’t—I don’t know why he thought it was a bet. I didn’t—I didn’t mean it like that.”
“But you said it,” she murmured, voice thick. “You said that about me, Theo. You whittled me down to nothing but a hole to fuck. Is that how you’ve always seen me? Is that why you started talking to me? Because I was an easy target?”
“ No .” I stumbled forward, and Mason, surprisingly, let me pass. “Baby, no. I—I don’t think that about you. I never have. I—I love you.”
“Don’t say that to me,” she said, sniffing back tears. “Don’t you dare fucking say that to me, Theo.”
“It was a misunderstanding.” I took another step forward, hands up placatingly. “Please believe me.”
She shook her head. “I need time,” she breathed. “I can't—I can’t look at you without thinking that I was nothing more than a bet.”
“You weren’t,” I said. “You were never a bet. You were never?—”
“I can’t,” she cried again, stepping back, putting space between us.
“Tell me what I have to do.” I reached out, but she moved farther away.
“I’ll do anything. Just fucking tell me.
Beg? You want me on my knees?” I dropped to my knees, not caring how pathetic I looked.
“You want me to tell you that it was a fucking mistake? An accident? A slip of the tongue? You want me to say?—”
“I want you to leave me alone,” she said, a sob breaking through her words.
“I want you to go home, lose my number, and forget about the last few weeks. I want you to pretend like none of this happened. Like we never slept together. Like we never went on that stupid fucking date. Like nothing changed. You go back to being nothing but Trinity’s brother, and I’ll go back to being nothing but her best friend. ”
“I can’t do that,” I choked out. “I won’t do it. Because even if you don’t want to hear it, I love you, Brynne. I love you— I love you .”
Her face crumpled at the words, and she gripped the back of the sofa with a shaky hand. “Don’t say that to me .”
“But it’s true.” I got to my feet, knees wobbly, hands outstretched. “Baby, please.”
For a moment, one single, stupid moment, I thought I’d fixed it. I thought everything was okay.
But then she shook her head, her voice thick as she hissed, “ Get out .”
“You’re really going to let Sean ruin this?”
“Sean didn’t ruin anything,” she shot back. “You did. You made the bet—” I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up her hand, silencing me. “You made the bet, and you should’ve known that we never could’ve had anything real because of it.”
“I forgot it as soon as I said it.” I wanted to scream. I wanted to bang my head against the wall. Why was she making such a big deal out of this? I told her I hadn’t meant it like that—why couldn’t she just move on?
“I’m sure you did,” she said, her lips pressed tightly together. “But it still hurts me.”
“That wasn’t my intention,” I said, voice raw.
“Your intent means nothing when pain is the outcome,” she whispered. The air was knocked from my lungs at her words. “Please, Theo, please leave.”
“Don’t give up on me,” I rasped. “We can work through this. I’ll do anything to prove to you?—”
“She said to get out, man,” Mason said thickly. “You should just go.”
I clenched my jaw so tightly I felt like my teeth were going to crack.
Brynne’s eyes never left mine. Something in them was so totally broken, and it was my fault.
I said the words—even if I hadn’t meant them in a literal sense, apparently Sean had taken it that way.
And now Brynne was hurting because of it.
Because of me .
I wanted to hit something. I wanted to run for miles and never stop. I wanted to hold my head under water and scream until my lungs gave out.
I wanted to turn back time and stop myself from ever saying it.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t change the past; I could only fix our future.
Even though it went against every instinct in my body, I turned away from her. A broken-sounding sob pushed from her throat, and it took all the strength I had left in my body not to go to her. To wrap her in my arms. To tell her nothing like this would ever happen again.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I put one foot in front of the other, my vision blurring with unshed tears. If she needed time, I could give her time. If she needed a break, I could give her a break.
But I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t, give up on her—on us.
What we had was too damn real to forget. To pretend like it hadn’t happened. I knew she felt it, too. And maybe that scared her, and that was why she needed to push me away.
But I could take it.
My jaw ached from Mason’s punch, my muscles were sore from holding myself so tightly. But I forced myself to keep walking. To keep a straight face.
To not break.
And I didn’t.
The entire silent drive home, my emotions stayed perfectly in check. I walked into the house, dropped the keys where they belonged, and climbed the stairs to my bedroom.
And then I sank onto my bed, rested my face in my hands, and shattered.