Chapter 12 #2
Sage lets out a trembling exhale as she leans back against the pillow.
“I was leaving the pub and slipped on ice.” Despite the circumstances, he arches an amused brow, and her answering laugh is weak and wet.
“It wasn’t like I was drunk. I had gone there to try to write.
I thought maybe a change of scenery might help, but …
” The growing lump in her throat has her trailing off.
Sage tilts her head back and blinks hard against the bright light of the fluorescents and the stab of pain where the pillow brushes the bump on the back of her skull.
The graze of Theo’s thumb across her knuckles reminds her that he’s still holding her hands.
She should pull away. But the touch grounds her against the wave of emotion she can’t seem to outswim.
A tear slips out, and she huffs a bitter laugh at the ceiling. “It’s so stupid. This whole trip was a change of scenery, and I’m still no closer to where I was when I left weeks ago. I still can’t get my head to work.”
“Oi,” Theo cuts in, drawing her gaze to him. He gives her a soft smile. “Go easy on that beautiful head of yours. It already took a beating today.” Another tear escapes, and he brushes it from her cheek. “You’re allowed to have bad days, Sage.”
But it’s not just a day, she wants to argue. It’s weeks and weeks, and what if this isn’t a phase but is proof that she can’t do this, that she never should have tried in the first place?
A year ago, she was scared of never being brave enough to live the life she wanted. Now that she’s done it, she’s terrified it’ll slip between her fingers like sand, and the only thing she’ll have left is proof that who she is and what she wants aren’t viable.
“You’re not what your brain achieves in a day,” he says quietly. “You’re not what your brain achieves at all, actually.”
And that … that is exactly what she is so afraid of. What she has always been so afraid of. Because if she’s not that, what the hell is she? What’s left of her, if not a long list of achievements and the next thing she wants to tick off her to-do list?
But she can’t say all of that to Theo—not when she’s on the precipice of a breakdown so severe it would surely have the nurse forcing her on bed rest for far longer than a few days.
So she tries to fix her mouth into something like a smile.
She’s not sure he buys it, but he doesn’t push.
He just brushes his thumb across her knuckles a final time before he lets go of her hands.
“I apologize for how I came in here,” he murmurs. “I didn’t mean to be an arse.”
Sage rubs at her face. “I thought we weren’t apologizing.”
“You are not apologizing. I, on the other hand, can do whatever I want.”
She lets her eyes flutter shut as she takes a deep, steady breath, the corner of her mouth lifting with far less effort this time. “There’s that movie-star pretentiousness I knew you had in you.”
Theo laughs. “Would now be a bad time to mention your stereotypical traits? There’s something to be said about a Californian thinking she can handle winter in Scotland.”
“I’m from Chicago,” she grumbles.
“You certainly had me fooled.”
Sage opens one eye to glare at him, but it only makes his teasing smile grow. “Aren’t you supposed to be nice to me? I’m injured.”
“Oh, now you’re injured,” Theo scoffs. “There’s no need for anyone to be here,” he mocks in a high-pitched, uncanny American accent.
Both of Sage’s eyes open now, because that deserves a proper glare. “You’re not funny.”
Theo grins. “You are. I’ll walk to my car, she declares, as if she’s not high on painkillers.”
“I’m not high!”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
She shakes her head as a breath of laughter escapes her, wincing as the pillow rubs against that spot.
“I am sorry,” she insists after a moment. “When I changed your contact, I didn’t even consider what that might … bring up for you.”
Theo’s shrug looks casual enough, but she can still see the lingering tension in his body. “How would you have known?”
It’s kind of him to try to assuage her guilt, but … “I feel like any sensitive person would have known that?”
He levels her with a look. “Now you’re just giving me opportunities to take the piss.”
“That expression is so gross,” she says with a scrunch of her nose. Theo rolls his eyes, and it’s a weird thing to find attractive, but it roughens up his typical polish in a way Sage really likes.
“Vile American mind,” he mutters.
The nurse comes back in with discharge paperwork and firm instructions on icing and paracetamol and a far less firm “Have a good evening” that’s mostly directed at Theo.
The tension in Theo’s jaw is gone, and the blue of his eyes is lighter, but there’s still a stiffness in his shoulders as they walk down the hall toward the exit.
Sage nudges him softly. “Say paracetamol.”
“Why?” he asks, blinking down at her suspiciously.
“Because I want to hear it in your accent.” She nudges him again. “You’re not going to deny a distressed maiden her one request, are you?”
He huffs an incredulous laugh. “I’m fairly certain you’re the one causing distress.” She narrows her eyes at him, and Theo smiles that damn smile, his hand broad and warm where he presses it to the small of her back. There’s not a hint of that tension left to be found in his shoulders.
“Come on, you heathen,” he says. “Let’s get you some paracetamol.”
Theo drops her off with a promise to come and get her so she can pick up Hank the Tank tomorrow. There’s an awkward moment where he just sort of … stares at the house, and it’s enough to have Sage stiltedly asking if he wants to come inside.
“No,” he says, blinking as if coming back to himself. “Thank you but … you should get some rest.”
Part of her is relieved. It’s been a long day, her head hurts, and really, she wants to just go to bed and maybe read something on AO3 tagged hurt/comfort so she can cathartically sob into her pillow.
She gets out of the car and moves toward the path, but she looks over her shoulder as she hears Theo roll down his window to say, “Set an alarm on your phone for midnight.”
“Why?”
“So you can call me and reassure me you’re not dying.”
“That’s a horrible joke.”
His lips tip into a sardonic smile. “Who says I’m joking?”
“God, Theo.”
He winks, and with his tousled hair and easy smirk and arm lounging on the frame of the open window, he looks every bit the movie star he is. “That’s dark humor for you, love. Comes with the trauma, I’m afraid.”
Sage tries to trick herself into thinking she feels absolutely nothing about Theo calling her love. He’s English—it doesn’t mean anything. It’s like how she calls Emerson and Margot babe.
The problem is she feels so much about it that she can’t fool her brain even when it’s full of painkillers and emotional angst, so instead, she smothers said feelings beneath soup and the glass of wine she’s sure the doctor would not approve of.
She almost neglects all of the A&E’s instructions and tugs out her laptop, but she knows that’s the equivalent of shoving herself off the fragile edge of composure she’s been clinging to all day, so she refrains.
She ends up in bed on the early side, too drained for the read or the cry, and just barely remembers to set her alarm before she drifts off.
It startles her out of a dead sleep at midnight.
“Fuck,” Sage gasps, her heart pounding as she reaches for her phone. She turns off the shrieking alarm and blearily tries to find Theo’s contact card, eyes burning in the blue light.
“How are you feeling?” is how he chooses to answer. His voice is low and smooth, a balm to her rapid pulse.
“Wonderful,” Sage mumbles, not awake enough to refrain from collapsing back against her pillows. She whimpers at the stab of pain in her head. “Having to wake up from a deep sleep is definitely on my list of top ten evenings.”
There’s a rustling sound, like sheets of a bed. “Care to share the others?”
“Can I go back to sleep now?” she whines.
Theo chuckles. “Humor me.”
“I’m not telling you about my sexcapades while I’m half asleep.”
He must be drinking something, because he promptly chokes. “That’s not … is that how you rank your life experiences?”
“Don’t act scandalized,” she argues. “You honestly expect me to believe that’s not how you’re ranking your experiences?”
His inhale—deep, as if he’s clinging to the last threads of his composure—crackles across the line. “How did we get here?”
“You insisted I wake myself up and call you at midnight.”
“A request I’m thoroughly regretting, I assure you.”
Sage giggles, the sound half-lost to the pillow squished against her cheek. “Now that’s something we should talk about: top ten nights you regret.”
She swears she feels his considering hum. “I think all of those would fall under my uni days.”
“Really? None since you’ve reached stardom?”
There’s a slow grin in his voice as he says, “The NDAs preclude me from sharing.”
“You haven’t made me sign one,” she realizes aloud. Her brow furrows slightly as she turns that over in her mind.
He trusts her.
Something warm settles in her chest at the thought.
“Though I guess if one of us has an embarrassing story they don’t want shared, it’s the one who slipped on ice today,” she adds.
Theo goes quiet for a long moment. When he finally speaks, his voice is soft. Gentle. “I didn’t think that was embarrassing.”
Sage stares into the darkness of her room, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. Her own voice quiets to match his. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”
“No,” he cuts in immediately. “I know. I just … I was happy to be there for you.”
Sage tries to bite back her smile, but it fights its way through regardless.
She nestles further into her pillow, her fingers curling tightly around her phone. “Thank you for coming when they called you. I’m glad you were there.”
Theo takes a slow breath, and she matches the pace of it subconsciously. “As am I,” he murmurs. Sage lets her eyes close. She’s all too aware of how soft their voices have become, as if they’re lying side by side, unwilling to disrupt the quiet of the night.
A comfortable silence settles in, and she’s tired enough that she might just fall back asleep. She’s not sure how long they linger there, but her voice is more of an exhale when she finally says, “Theo?”
“Hmm?”
She wants to be surprised he waited for her to hang up first. She isn’t.
“I feel okay. Really.”
She hasn’t been through what Theo has been through. And though it can’t possibly compare … she knows a thing or two about worry. About anxious brains and fixation and the thoughts that don’t let us sleep.
He clears his throat, but the emotion is there anyway. “Good. Sleep well, Collins.”
“Good night, Theo.”