Chapter 49 THEO
THEO
“What I’m hearing you say is that you started this new version of your relationship with a serious breach of Alex’s trust. Is that correct?
” I nod once, running my hands through my hair and looking at the clock instead of at Dr. Mills.
I don’t know why I’m telling her about this situation. Maybe I’m just trying to punish myself.
I certainly fucking deserve it.
“Are you being the partner you want to be for Alex?” I shake my head slowly. “Do you think Alex deserves to be lied to and manipulated like this?” I drop my head into my hands and stare down at my boots, shame coursing through me.
I’m definitely trying to punish myself.
“No, but I can fix it,” I grit out.
“How do you propose doing that?” My knee starts bouncing quickly as I think about how I have to take the tracker out tonight and how I know it won’t fix anything.
I still don’t know what to fucking do.
“I’ll figure it out. I can fix it, I know I can fix it. It’s all going to work out.” I don’t bother looking at her.
We both know I’m lying for my benefit, not hers.
“Theodore,” she asks hesitantly, “can I ask you if you think you’re capable of loving Alex?” I snap my head up and glare at her.
“How fucking dare you?” Dr. Mills frowns and holds up her hands in a placating gesture.
“I’m not questioning your feelings for Alex, I’m asking if you think you have a genuine understanding of what love is,” she says, her voice calm and gentle.
“What the fuck kind of question is that? Of course I do.” She blinks and purses her lips, and anger courses through me.
“Are you familiar with bell hooks at all?” I shake my head, and Dr. Mills’s eyebrows raise slightly, as if to indicate she’s not surprised.
“She proposed a definition of love that goes beyond sex and desire – one that’s based in care, respect, trust, and honesty.
Importantly, she makes the point that love and abuse can’t coexist. She said that most people will cling to a false notion of love that makes abuse acceptable, because embracing a definition of love without abuse would mean people may need to accept that love wasn’t present in their families.
” My knee bounces faster as I stare at Dr. Mills, her words ricocheting around in my brain.
“What do you think about that?” She watches me patiently as I process what she’s saying.
I get angrier the longer I think about it.
“What the fuck are you trying to say to me?” Dr. Mills sighs a little and leans forward in her chair, speaking gently.
“From what you’ve told me, I’m not sure you had real love modeled to you, so I’m not sure you know what it feels like.” I’m instantly nauseous and much angrier. “I know you care very deeply for Alex, but do you think you can love her by the definition I’ve provided?”
“I do love Alex,” I snap.
“You said earlier that, by her own definition, Alex can’t love you because you’re lying to her and manipulating her, right? How is the inverse not true?” Panic tightens every muscle in my body.
“You’re fucking wrong.” Actually, she might have a point, and I hate her for it.
“Do you think Alex wants to be in another relationship where she isn’t treated well?”
“Don’t you dare compare me to her piece of shit husband,” I spit at her. “I’m not a pedophile, or a cop, or a wifebeater. All I did was lie to her.”
Among lots of other things.
“I think you’re missing my point, Theodore.
Don’t you think Alex’s husband believed he loved her?
I’m sure he tried to fix things with her at one point or another.
” I shoot her a warning look, and she gives me a piteous frown.
“People don’t always want to acknowledge the way they abuse others, especially if they believe they love them.
” My eyes widen, and Dr. Mills raises her eyebrows at me and says nothing.
I stare at her for a long moment, a low, angry buzzing starting in the back of my brain, the edges of my vision getting red.
Oh, shit. I need to get out of here, right now.
I shoot up out of my chair and grab my coat.
“Theodore, please sit down.” I take a step towards her, bending down quickly and getting in her face. Dr. Mills leans back in her chair, her eyes widening in fear.
“Fuck. You.” I storm out of the room before I lose my shit. I won’t do that, no matter how much I hate her.
I’m only this angry because she has a point.
I throw myself into the car and try hard to keep myself from having a panic attack, try to regulate my breathing, try to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do now.
Goddammit, I know what I have to do.
Dr. Mills might have a point, but she’s fucking wrong about me. She has no idea how much I love Alex. All I want is to make her happy, and to do that, I have to give her back all her options, which is what I should have done in the first place.
I’m going to go home, pull her out of work, tell her about the tracker, take it out, relentlessly apologize, and fucking beg her to stay.
She’ll probably never forgive me, but I love her enough to tell her the truth, and I’m miserable enough about lying to her that killing myself will be a fucking relief if she leaves me.
Still, she might forgive me. She might even understand why I lied in the first place and give me another chance. I don’t deserve it, and I don’t deserve her, but maybe she sees it differently. She spent all morning telling me how much she loves me and how wonderful she thinks I am.
She’s the fucking delusional one now, but that might work in my favor here.
I call Alex the second I’m on the road, but she’s not answering because she’s at her stupid fucking Pilates class.
I know she’ll be done soon, but I keep calling her anyway, texting her between unanswered calls, getting progressively more upset the longer she doesn’t respond.
I need to talk to her, need to hear her voice, need to tell her I love her and hear her say it back one more time before I ruin everything.
Theo, 12:35 PM:
Sweetheart, please answer the phone.
Theo, 12:39 PM:
I need to talk to you, Alex.
Theo, 12:42 PM:
I love you so fucking much.
Theo, 12:45 PM:
Honey, please pick up.
Theo, 12:48 PM:
Call me back as soon as you can.
Theo, 12:51 PM:
Sweetie, I know Pilates is over.
Theo, 12:57 PM:
Alexandria Marie Shearer, answer your goddamn phone.
Theo, 1:02 PM:
Sorry, I’m upset. Please pick up.
Theo, 1:06 PM:
Are you okay?
Theo, 1:09 PM:
Alex?
By one-fifteen, Alex still hasn’t called me back or answered any of my texts, and I’m getting increasingly nervous. I call her five more times, but I keep getting her voicemail. I call the office several times and get the office voicemail, and I start to lose it.
I wish I still had those fucking cameras, because I just need to see that she’s alright. I think about checking the tracker, but Dr. Mills’ words are still bouncing around in my brain.
I’m not going to check it.
I need to control myself for once in my fucking life.
I can prove to Alex that I can love her however she needs, no matter how wrong it feels to me. I have to give her the option to actually love me, and if I’m extremely fucking lucky, she might still want to.
I struggle to focus on my breathing, but all that goes to shit when I get a call from Catherine fifteen minutes later. I answer the phone, and she starts talking before I can.
“Theo, have you seen Alex?”
“I’ve been in Salem. What the fuck is going on?” I hear her swear softly.
“She’s been gone since noon, and all her things are here. Normally, she’s back around one, and we’re getting worried.” Panic races through me.
“I’m coming back right now. I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”
I know Alex’s phone is at the office, but I call her anyway before I look back at our texts.
There’s nothing to indicate something’s wrong.
I call the hospital, but no one matches her description.
I call the police station, but I get nothing from them.
I call the rec center, but no one even answers.
My thumb hovers over the tracking app, but I stop myself. I don’t need to check it. I won’t have it after today, and I can handle this situation without it.
I drive as fast as I can, but it still takes me an hour, and I’m panicking when I run into Alex’s office and see Catherine, Suzie, and Bailey all in the front room, their faces nervous.
“Where the fuck is she?” Suzie startles at my tone, but I can’t help it.
“She never came back,” she says somberly. My mind starts spinning, and for one very brief second, I wonder if she ran from me.
My hand twitches towards my phone.
“Can I look at her desk?” Suzie nods, and I rush over and look closely.
There’s a cold cup of coffee, a small stack of cards from the flowers I sent her on Friday, a polaroid of me and the Christmas ham, half a muffin, and her phone with fifty-seven missed calls from me.
The heeled boots she wore this morning are under her desk, and her running shoes are gone, but she left her gym bag and purse.
This doesn’t make any goddamn sense. Did she run from me?
I open her desktop, and fear hits me like a freight train.
There’s a photo of her online.
Danny.
“MOTHERFUCKER!” I scream, hurling the coffee cup across the room.
It shatters against the wall, and Suzie flinches, making a terrified whimper.
“Sorry! Fuck, I’m so sorry,” I say as I frantically look through Alex’s inbox.
I see an outgoing email to the rec center begging them to take down the photo at 11:57 AM.
Alex just found out about this, so she probably went down there to ask them to take it down. I look through the website quickly and see it was updated a week ago, and my blood starts boiling. I exhale hard, running my hands through my hair, pacing rapidly as I think.
“Theo?” I ignore Catherine.
How long has he been here? It can’t have been more than a few days, and we were out of town this weekend, so maybe he doesn’t know anything about her life here yet. Nothing weird has happened in the last week, so that means he’s probably just –
Wait.
“Theo, what’s going on?” I barely hear Bailey because I’m thinking about the floodlight camera that went off in Yachats this weekend.
Oh, shit.
I drag my hands over my face and try not to throw something else. Danny knowing Alex is here is one thing, but him knowing about us is another.
“It’s her husband,” I choke out. “He found her.” Catherine wraps her arms around Suzie, and Bailey lets out a strangled gasp. I rush for the door, but Bailey gets in my way, standing right in front of me and looking like she’s going to cry.
“Wait! Shouldn’t we call the cops?” I can feel my temper flaring.
“Fuck, no, the cops won’t help her. He’s a cop, and they stick together.” I reach for the door, but Bailey is still there, blocking me from leaving. “Bailey, I need to go,” I grit out.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to go get her, so I need you to move.” She doesn’t, and my hands are shaking from the effort it takes to restrain myself from shoving her out of the way.
She’s getting in between me and Alex.
“How are you even going to find her? I think we should -” Fuck this, I’m done being nice. I lean down quickly, getting in Bailey’s face as I reach around her and grab the door handle.
“Get out of my fucking way,” I snarl at her, but my voice sounds wrong to me, too venomous and cold. Bailey’s eyes widen with fear, and she scrambles away from me as I throw the door open and sprint out of the office.
I pull out my phone and open the tracking software as I get in my car.
Alex is close, twenty minutes away down the Youngs River, but I know I can make that drive in half the time.
I start speeding, constantly checking my phone, but Alex’s location isn’t moving.
She went missing between twelve and one, which means she’s been there for at least an hour, maybe closer to two.
Danny’s dead either way, but he better not have fucking hurt her.
This is all my fault. I can’t believe I fucked up this badly.
I didn’t want to let Alex out of my sight this morning, and I should have paid attention to that.
I should have taken more precautions to protect her, namely killing Danny the second I wanted to.
I should have checked the tracker the second she didn’t answer the phone.
The fucking tracker.
Lying about it was the right thing to do.
Fuck everything Dr. Mills said to me today.
Honestly, fuck everything Dr. Mills has ever said to me.
She’s a fucking idiot, and I never should listened to any of her bullshit in the first place.
I never should have let her get in my head or make me doubt myself, especially not when it comes to Alex.
I did everything for a reason, even if I didn’t understand it at the time. I listened to my fucking impulses, and they were right, again, because Alex and I are connected. I never should have tried to convince myself that we weren’t connected.
Not that I tried that hard.
I’m not sorry about anything I did anymore.
I was right to do all of it. Every impulse I’ve ever had about Alex feels completely rational and entirely justified now.
Even my delusion feels justified, because I was absolutely right about us.
Honestly, the delusion is kind of how we got together, so it served a purpose.
Tight knots of guilt inside of me start to loosen and unwind as I realize that I’m not the awful person I thought I was.
Me stalking Alex isn’t wrong, or crazy, or abusive.
It’s how I show love.
Fuck trying to be a different, better person to convince Alex to love me. She loves me anyway and she needs me exactly how I am, which she’s about to realize. I know she’ll understand everything when I explain it to her, which I’ll do right after I kill Danny.
I’m going to find her, I’m going to save her, I’m going to keep that tracker in her, and I’m never letting her out of my fucking sight again.
Everything is going back to the way it was.
I’m putting back all the cameras, all the trackers, everything.
Fuck it, I’m adding more. She can be angry with me if she wants, but it’s not like she’s going anywhere.
We’ll get back to where we are right now, even if it takes us years.
I’ll spend the rest of my life begging her to forgive me if I have to.
I’ll be able to, because she’ll be alive.
Unlike Danny, who will be very fucking dead.
I’m two minutes away from her when I realize I don’t have anything with me that I can use to kill him. Not a knife, not a gun, not a screwdriver, absolutely nothing.
Whatever, fuck it. I’ll kill him with my bare hands if I have to.