Chapter 17 ALEX
ALEX
Theo and I have reached a weird detente where he pretends we’re dating, and I pretend that I’m not afraid of him. I’m still sure he’s going to kill me, but I can’t keep living in fear every moment of my life, so I do my best to ignore my feelings and pretend nothing is wrong.
I spend my days at work trying to think about how to get out of the trap he’s set, but it seems impossible.
Bailey and Catherine don’t seem to notice that anything’s wrong, but I think Suzie can tell.
She’s asked me out to lunch more than once in the last two weeks, but I keep finding reasons to put it off.
I don’t want to ask her for more help until I figure out what type of help I need, or if Theo’s a danger to anyone else.
He’s a danger to me, even if he seems to buy his own lie that he won’t hurt me. I know it’s bullshit, but his insistence means I can push him hard enough to figure out the boundaries of his delusion.
So far, I’ve found that anything that challenges his delusion is either ignored or twisted to suit it.
He does not like being called a stalker.
He hates that I flinch when he touches me.
He likes it if I’m nice to him or if I act domestic with him in any way.
He seems to be able to tell when I’m lying and doesn’t like it.
Any time he notices anything about us that seems similar or complementary, he seems really excited.
Those moments are concerning because they seem to drive him deeper into the delusion, and they happen often.
Since he thinks we’re dating, I mostly see him before and after work.
He texts me during the day, but I’ve found that acknowledging a few texts throughout the day makes him likely to text less.
There’s no point in trying to avoid him.
I don’t tell him where I’m going, but I’m no longer surprised when he shows up.
He always shows up.
My biggest concern is that he’s stopped having sex with me.
He touches me, he kisses me, he holds me in bed, but he doesn’t fuck me.
I can tell he wants to, but he doesn’t, and it makes me nervous.
I don’t want to initiate sex and play into his delusion that we’re together, but I’m concerned that if we don’t start having sex soon, he’s going to change his mind about hurting me.
I won’t initiate sex, but if I did, it would just be to make sure he didn’t hurt me.
No other reason.
***
Theo’s up early, making me breakfast and rifling through my things.
I try to ignore him and go back to sleep, but the smell of coffee and bacon makes it hard.
Once I give up and get out of bed, I see he’s in a good mood, smiling at me and buzzing around the kitchen, telling me he has plans for us this weekend.
He might kill me.
He might fuck me.
He’s definitely going to cook for me.
I doubt it’ll be anything else.
We spend the day driving down the coast, listening to the classical station on the radio.
I haven’t been down the coast that much since I don’t have a car, and it’s beautiful.
It’s different from Cape Cod, with large cliffs visible down the shoreline and craggy rocks jutting up through the water off the coast. It’s cold and overcast, a soft drizzle turning the beaches a dark grey.
The first beach we go to is particularly windy, and Theo pulls a slim red puffer jacket out of the trunk of his car for me. He says it’s an ex-girlfriend’s and that I can borrow it, but it’s new and it’s my size. I let him lie and I take it, grateful to have it.
The beach looks familiar, even though I’ve never been here before. Theo tells me it’s where they filmed The Goonies, and I laugh, telling him my dad loved that movie. I get quiet for a moment, a sharp pang of grief piercing through me, and Theo seems to register that I’ve used the past tense.
I wonder, not for the first time, how much he knows about my life in Boston.
He walks close to me but doesn’t touch me, waiting for a while before he starts in on his normal bullshit of asking me questions about myself.
I give him short, vague answers, and when he asks something I don’t want to talk about, I redirect the question to him instead.
He gives me a knowing look when I do it, but he plays along anyway.
I don’t like showing interest in him, but I need to get to know him better to deal with him.
I’ve been trying to ask him about himself more lately, but for all his expecting me to be open, he’s cagey in his own answers.
Most of them are so vague that I’m sure he’s lying about pretty much everything.
By the time we get back to the car, the only new thing I’ve learned about him is that his dad also died when he was a kid.
We keep driving down the coast, and I watch the scenery pass by in silence.
Theo seems relaxed, which is new. When I met him at the bar and again at my office, he seemed laid-back, but in reality, he’s very high-strung.
He seems calmer today, more like before, which makes me feel less nervous around him.
I know it’s a mistake to get comfortable with him, but I can’t help it.
After a couple of hours, we pull into a small town and park along the two-lane highway, which serves as the main street through town.
Theo grabs two pairs of binoculars from the trunk, and we walk down to a lookout point with a squat, concrete building.
He hands me the binoculars, standing behind me and pointing out seals on rocks, and birds, and boats in the distance.
It’s beautiful.
Theo swears excitedly at one point and turns my head slightly, directing my sight farther out into the water.
I’m amazed as I see the slick back of a whale push up slightly from the water, another following a second later.
I see the very tips of their tails break the surface, and I’m awestruck for a moment.
“Oh my god,” I whisper as I lean forward. I try to follow them, but they don’t surface again. I pull the binoculars down and look over at Theo, finding myself blushing at how he’s looking at me with open affection.
“Have you ever seen whales before?” I shake my head, and he grins.
“This time of year can be iffy, so I’m glad they were here.
” I smile at him for just a second, then look away quickly when I realize what I’m doing, training my binoculars back out on the water.
We stay there for a while, waiting to see if any other whales appear, and I berate myself silently for letting my guard down for a second.
Theo puts the binoculars back in the car before leading me down a little path by the whale-watching building to a cluster of tide pools.
I’m able to forget the situation entirely for a moment as I peer down into the pool, and nothing exists to me outside of the slow march of a sea star across the rocks until I hear a camera shutter.
I look up in horror at Theo, phone in hand.
“Delete that, now,” I snap. Theo seems taken aback.
“It’s just a photo.” I debate with myself for a second, figuring out if I want to push it, but my anxiety wins out.
“Theo, please. I don’t want any photos of me taken, ever,” I beg.
He considers me, frowning for a moment before he unlocks his phone and hands it over.
He’s got one photo in his camera roll, and it’s me crouched down on the rocks, looking into the tidepool.
I almost feel bad when I delete it, but I can’t risk it.
“No photos, I promise,” he says quietly as he slips the phone out of my hands, being careful not to touch me. When I look up at him, he seems earnest, and I nod at him, feeling a little too vulnerable.
We stay there for a while, Theo mostly watching me, occasionally pointing out something that he thinks I’ll want to see, and trying to keep me from slipping on the rocks in my sneakers. Things feel less awkward eventually, and he seems excited by how much I’m enjoying myself.
“I thought you might like this, but I didn’t know you’d be so into it.” I shrug, squatting down to watch a cluster of anemones sway gently.
I shrug. “I loved tidepooling as a kid.” He crouches down next to me close enough that our shoulders brush together, and I can see out of the corner of my eye that he’s looking at me.
“Me, too,” he says softly.
“Thanks for bringing me,” I say, trying hard not to look at him.
“Yeah, of course. There’s a million places on the coast, and we can go whenever you want.”
I want to do that, just not with him.
When it starts to get dark, he helps me back up the steep path and leads us back to the car. When I try the handle, the door is still locked, and I look up at Theo, suddenly nervous.
“Can we go back now?” He shakes his head, and my stomach sinks.
“Uh, we’re not going back to Astoria,” he says slowly, and panic shoots through me.
He fucking kidnapped me, of course he did. Maybe he’s going to murder me here.
“I thought it’d be nice for us to have a weekend away, so I rented us a house down here. I booked a whale-watching tour for tomorrow, too.” His voice is quiet, and he seems almost shy when he looks at me.
I think this still technically counts as kidnapping, but I don’t think most kidnappers do things like this. I don’t know whether to be anxious or touched, but I’m kind of both.
“Um, okay. That sounds…good?” He smiles, one side of his mouth picking up a little more than the other, and he seems relieved.
***
The house Theo rented is tiny, with wood-paneled walls and rooms decorated with tacky beach-themed items, but the back deck and the master bedroom overlook the beach, and we can hear the ocean in every room.
We drop our things off and walk down the path to the beach, not talking much, but the silence is somewhat comfortable.
For a moment, it feels like I’m on a weekend trip with someone I’m dating, but I push the feeling away.
That’s probably what he thinks this is.