Chapter 13
Powerless
“I’ve been thinking about something.”
Sage raises a brow over her mug, the sugar rush not enough to shake how strange it is to see Theo sitting at the bar in the guest cottage’s kitchen.
His arms are folded on the countertop, the sleeves of his navy cashmere sweater pushed to his elbows, a pair of aviators perched on his hair, which is still damp from his shower.
Something has shifted.
She noticed it as soon as she opened the door to the cottage and Theo, with his cold-flushed cheeks and soft sweater, grinned and gave her a simple, one-armed hug that had the crisp scent of his aftershave settling over her.
Something has changed. Something small but monumental and she thinks it’s the type of thing that can’t be undone, because once someone’s seen you in a hospital bed and gotten you the European version of Tylenol and made you call them in the middle of the night because they’re worried about you …
Well, you can’t just pretend to be merely friendly after that.
Oh my god, Sage had thought as she led him into the cottage, trying not to stare at how utterly relaxed he seemed. We’re friends.
She’d immediately blurted out something about finishing breakfast, and Theo had simply nodded and settled at the bar, slotting right in as if spending the morning together is a perfectly normal occurrence.
He looks dangerously good sitting there, and dammit, Emerson may have been right.
Sage glances down at her jeans and thick, olive-green cable-knit sweater and suddenly regrets not bringing more of a varied wardrobe. She was clearly aiming for function, not fashion, when she and Margot packed.
“Sage,” Theo says, the corner of his mouth ticking up.
“Hmm?”
“Did you hear me?”
Sage takes another fortifying sip of her coffee. “Yep. You’ve had thoughts.”
“May I share them?”
It’s so proper, so considerately put, that she finds herself wondering what it looks like when he isn’t. She’s seen glimpses of it—roughened vowels and clipped sentences and a glint in his blue eyes—but she finds herself considering poking at him a bit just to see more.
She waves a dramatic hand for him to continue.
That corner of his mouth goes higher.
“I think we need to revisit your exposure to truly great cinema.”
That’s … not at all what she was expecting him to say, and it’s enough of a surprise that she almost—almost—refrains from needling him.
“That’s what’s keeping you up at night? The fact that I’m not a cinephile?”
Theo props his head on his fist. “Did I say it was keeping me up at night?” he asks lightly.
“There was a we in there, so I gathered it from the subtext. Trust me, I’m an author.
I know words.” He rolls his eyes, and it only encourages her further.
“You should have come to me about this,” she says with mock solemnity, setting her mug down so she can give him her full attention.
“How many nights have you been tossing and turning thinking about how I’ve never seen The Matrix? ”
Theo’s jaw drops. “You’ve never seen The Matrix?”
“Oh, I forgot you didn’t know that.”
“Should I have known that?”
Sage shrugs. “I tend to keep it in my fun-fact reservoir.”
“Trust me,” he mutters darkly. “There’s nothing fun about that fact.”
She laughs and grabs her mug off the counter, taking another long sip as her eyes shift to the windows. The snow had tapered off yesterday and hadn’t ever blanketed the landscape.
“I don’t really do movies,” she reminds Theo as she blinks herself back to the present.
He pinches the space between his brows, a sigh heaving from his lungs. “Please never say do movies in my presence again.”
“So fragile.”
“The fragilest,” he shoots back in a mocking, Valley-girl voice that has Sage readying to mock him right back. She does not sound like that. “And it doesn’t matter that you’re not a cinephile,” Theo continues before she can say anything. “But …”
He hesitates, his gaze dropping to the granite as he rubs a hand across the countertop. “From one artist to another, sometimes a new medium helps when you’re stuck.”
Just like that, he’s flipped the switch on their tit for tat at dizzying speed.
His words are halting, almost like he expects her to challenge him calling himself an artist.
Sage, naturally, wants to press him on it. But not to tease.
She wants to assure him she takes his input seriously—takes him seriously.
But instead, what comes out is “I have trouble sitting still.”
Theo looks up with a quirk of his brow. “Read on a treadmill, do you?”
“It’s different,” she insists. She isn’t entirely sure why she’s resisting. She’s not in any position to reject creative help right now. It’s just …
“I don’t want you to get your hopes up. As I’ve said, many have tried to expand my film literacy. All have failed.”
“Yes, yes, ‘Just ask Emerson,’ I know.” He sighs.
“What’s your solution, then? Tie me up and force me to watch your favorites?”
Theo pauses, his lips parted in contemplation as Sage’s words finally register in her brain.
“Not quite what I had in mind,” he muses, a smirk like sin tugging at his mouth, “but I could be convinced.”
Sage bites the inside of her cheek to keep her face in check as she shakes her head.
She can feel heat crawling up her neck and flushing her cheeks, that charge between them building so quickly that she wonders if she might just vibrate right out of her skin if Theo keeps looking at her through half-lowered lids, as if he’s elaborately imagining what she just described.
Sage swallows hard.
Maybe she should go back to the ER. Maybe her head isn’t okay. She’s having trouble remembering things like friendly and five thousand miles of distance and mistake.
But Theo clears his throat, and the tension snaps. Sage grips her coffee mug tighter, and he shoots a pointed look at it. “You do realize coffee isn’t breakfast, yes?”
“In a rush to get out of here?”
“Not at all, I just can’t help but notice your meal is lacking, you know, food?” She grabs a granola bar from the box on the counter and gives it a little shake. Theo’s nose scrunches. “That’s hardly better. I truly can wait if you want to make something.”
Sage makes a show of opening it and popping a bite into her mouth. “I’m not much of a cook.”
“Noted.”
“So are you going to give me a list of movies or …” she asks around another bite of granola.
“I have a plan,” he says loftily.
“A plan.”
He grins and leans in, his arms braced on the countertop. “If I send you a list, you won’t complete it. But if I tell you one movie at a time, there’s a higher chance you’ll actually watch it.”
“Why?” Sage asks with a frown.
“Because your curiosity will get the best of you. Knowing there’s a single film that you should be watching? It’ll haunt you. Why this one? What makes it special? What are you missing?”
Sage blinks at him. He’s absolutely read her for filth.
There’s something about being seen so immediately that spreads a tingling across her skin, a mixture of surprise and curiosity and excitement. It’s an addicting cocktail of emotions she hasn’t felt in …
God, she doesn’t know how long.
She grins. “You’re weird, has anyone told you that?”
“Many times.” He shrugs. “But I always appreciate the reminder. You ready to go?”
“Are you not going to tell me the film?” She drains the rest of her coffee, and when she lowers her mug, there’s a satisfied smirk on Theo’s face.
“Look at that. She’s already curious.”
Oh, she hates him. She goes to tell him as much, but he says, “Start with Donnie Darko.” And then he hops off the barstool and tugs on his coat, his body already angled toward the door. “Shall we?”
Sage shakes her head. He has no idea what he’s just done.
Sure, she’s driven by her curiosity, but she’s more inspired by her stubbornness, and she refuses to let Theo win, especially because he so clearly wants to.
Her brother can attest that Sage has a lifetime of practice in the battle of wills, and she’s not about to fold to Theo.
He can use his little reverse psychology scheme all he wants.
There’s absolutely no way that Sage is watching Donnie Darko.
Sage watches every minute of Donnie Darko.
As soon as she sees the film features both of the Gyllenhaal siblings, she texts Margot and Emerson.
The 3 Best Friends That Anyone Did Have
Nov 18 10:04 PM
[Picture of the television screen]
Justice for the red scarf.
M
Disaster
Wait why TF are you watching Donnie Darko??
She’s too distracted with—engrossed in?—the film to respond.
She’s pretty sure she hates it. Or maybe she loves it?
She’s starting to wonder if that’s the whole point—these complicated emotions and holding space for both, etc.
etc.—and, well, she has a sneaking suspicion Theo knew she would feel this way, just like he knew she couldn’t resist her curiosity.
And that just adds to the conflicting feelings bubbling up inside of her, because what the hell?
She finishes the movie by some miracle and spends the rest of the night tossing and turning, going in and out of some weird sort of wine-induced fever dream starring giant rabbits and Theo. Taylor Swift makes an appearance at one point, too.
She wakes up the next morning feeling mentally hungover and a little crabby and a lot creatively confused. There’s a text from Theo waiting for her.
So?
She knows exactly what he wants to know, but the thought of that fond exasperation she knows will tug on his face is too good to resist, even if she won’t be able to see it.
So?
Fine. I watched it.
It was weird, but good?
But still weird. Like gave-me-nightmares weird.
She refuses to acknowledge Theo knew exactly how to get her to cave and watch the film in the first place.
Do you know how rare it is to create a film that can continue to be dissected for two decades? People STILL argue over its meaning and whether it has any at all (it does, by the way).