Theo’s Epilogue #2
“Because I deserve to feel it.” The truth didn’t hurt as much to say as he thought it would, but he clutched at his chest all the same. His heart always ached now, ever since his father’s had given out. Ever since Theo had been the one to break it.
It was almost unbearable.
“I need to feel it.”
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t, I’ll forget. If I…maybe if I feel the pain, I’ll still feel him too. I don’t want to be numb.”
Amelia sat quietly for a moment. “Do you really think you’ll forget your dad?” she finally asked.
“Yes. No.” He shook his head before resting it in his left hand.
“Well, not just Dad. Everything that happened. There’s already so much I can’t remember.
” He’d lost two whole months, some of that to a medically induced coma, the rest to a haze of pain and medication.
It was an unsettling feeling, knowing why things were fuzzy and still not being able to grasp them.
Who knew what he might have said or done when he was in recovery?
“Right.” She narrowed her eyes. “But why else?”
He hesitated. The last thing he wanted was another hospital visit of any kind—but this was the other reason he’d chosen Dr. Amelia Harper over other therapists.
Because while she was soft and kind, and an established, respected leader in her field, she was also sharp and incisive while still being understanding.
When he needed answers or counsel, she usually had it, whether he liked it or not.
A tough-love approach with a gentle delivery. And he trusted her immensely.
“Because I don’t have them anymore.”
Both eyebrows skyrocketed. “Why?”
“I was afraid of what I’d do with them. Sometimes I thought about taking too many all at once, so I flushed them down the toilet.
And then I felt horrible because I should’ve properly disposed of them, but I didn’t want to leave the house to do it.
And Diego wouldn’t have done it for me. He would have made me take them.
Or…I don’t know.” Theo drew in a deep, trembling breath.
“Either way, I didn’t want him to know.”
Amelia pursed her lips and looked down at her notebook. She scribbled something and then tapped her pen on the paper. “When was the last time you left the house?”
“Today is the first time I’ve left by myself for anything but doctor stuff. Diego went with me to my other appointments and took me to my most recent surgery. But I don’t remember that. I don’t remember going. I still have trouble with my memory sometimes.”
He glanced at the door, already dreading going outside again now that he’d thought of it.
The walk here was bad enough. People on the street stared at the gauze on his face and gave him a wide berth like he was some kind of monster.
Like they knew he’d been disfigured. Like they knew he was trash.
And then a kid had pointed at his cane and he and his mother both gawked in wide-eyed horror at Theo before darting quickly in the opposite direction while he limped down the street.
He must have looked horrible, even with his hood up and his face covered as best he could manage. But scaring women and children while he lumbered around? That was a new low.
Well. He was basically sewn together like Frankenstein’s monster, wasn’t he?
The walking dead.
Maybe he should just put himself back in the ground and be done with it.
“What about your art? Have you gone back to your neon projects?”
He blinked. An image flashed in his mind: shaking hands, loud, angry music, his chest full of rage, the rippling heat and whirring sound of flames and feeling of sweat dripping down his brow, soaking into gauze. Nothing was working. Nothing was steady. He saw red through one eye.
And then he saw it on his hands. Everything was shattered, lying broken on the ground in jagged shards, blood dripping from his palms and tainting the crystal scarlet.
“No.”
It was all still there in his studio, hidden behind the door, a graveyard of creative corpses.
There was that same irony again: he worked with glass, and now he was shattered himself, broken into a million pieces, left lying on the floor.
He didn’t appreciate the symmetry.
“What about sketching? Painting?”
He shook his head. Touching a pen or a paintbrush was out of the question right now. He’d rather die than have to witness how his skills had crumbled and deteriorated.
The one thing he was good at, gone.
Why are you even here?
“What do you do all day, then?”
“I sleep. A lot. I walk—hobble—on the treadmill. I try to lift weights, poorly. I stare at the TV.” Staring was more accurate a word than watching.
Watching implied attention, absorption. But the shows only sounded like static in his brain, white noise whirring in the background of interminable days and restless nights.
He couldn’t even say what he usually put on.
Some baking show, maybe. That was his best guess.
“Are you talking to your mom?”
“No. I told her not to contact me when I left for home. She’s tried to call, but I haven’t answered. Diego lets her know I’m alive so she doesn’t freak out enough to actually come over.”
“What about your other friends? Have you been seeing any of them?”
“Diego comes over every day.”
“Anyone else?”
“I don’t want to see anyone else.”
“What do you and Diego do?”
Theo shrugged. “Sometimes I order dinner, sometimes he brings it. I miss cooking, but don’t trust myself with a knife.
He offers me a beer or a cider or a Coke, I have water instead, and we watch movies.
He tries to get me to talk, I don’t say anything, and after he helps me change my wound dressings, he goes home and then comes back again the next evening. ”
Her expression softened. “He sounds like a good friend to me.”
“I guess.” He hung his head. “I don’t deserve him either.”
“What makes you think that?”
Wasn’t it obvious?
“Because I’m broken.” Theo threw up his useless hands. “I was defective before, but now I can’t do anything anymore. I’m a barely ambulatory shell of a man, hardly existing, and even then for what? It’s my fault my dad’s dead, and while he might have loved me, I don’t deserve it from anyone else.”
“We’ve been over this, Theo. You are not responsible for your dad’s death.”
“It doesn’t change anything.”
“Where’s your evidence for that? Or for your earlier statement?
” She tapped the pen on the pad, more forcefully than before.
He could tell she disagreed with him, though her expression stayed neutral.
“Where’s your empirical evidence for being undeserving of love?
Why do you think others merit love and care, but not you? ”
Theo quieted.
“Did your dad think that? Because from what you’ve told me, I don’t think that came from him.”
You’re the shame of the Redmond legacy.
The biggest disappointment this family has seen in generations.
“I don’t want to go there today.” He might have snapped at her with that, but he didn’t apologize, and she didn’t ask him to.
Amelia glanced down at her notebook again before reaching for a nearby file folder. What was she getting? He started to get nervous. He should have kept his mouth shut.
“You’re not going to recommend me for inpatient treatment or anything, are you?” The thought of having to go back into the hospital made his heart race and his stomach churn. He wanted to stay home. He wanted to be alone, where it was at least safe. Where no one could see him like this.
Amelia shook her head. “No, Theo. I know you. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t actually want to be.
You came out of your house today to talk to me, after all, and I know that was hard.
It speaks to your resilience. You’re still trying, and you’re still talking, so you must want to live, despite everything. ”
It was true. He hadn’t managed to completely quash that pesky will to survive.
His left eye twitched a little at the reminder.
She rifled through the folder, plucked a page out from one of the sections, and leaned over to give it to him.
It was a pharmaceutical information sheet.
“But what I am going to do is call in a prescription for antidepressants to your pharmacy. We’ll try Lexapro first. I want you to pick it up, start taking it regularly, and then tell me how you’re feeling next week.
And the week after that. And the week after that.
And if we need to adjust things or try a different kind, we will. If you’re game for it, that is.”
He stared down at the paper.
“All right. I’ll think about it.”
“And I want you to start going out in public.”
Theo jerked his head up at her so fast, he grunted in pain when his stitches pulled at the movement. He covered his eye with his stupid fucking piece of shit hand and tried to hold it there. Pressure through the gauze sometimes helped with the pain. “You want me to do what? Looking like this?!”
“Has your doctor told you that you can’t go out?”
“Well, no.”
“You’re here now.”
“Sure, b-but I’m going in for my follow-up appointment next week. I’ll know more then,” he gasped.
“Then I want you to try afterwards if your surgeon clears you for it.” She pointed at him with her pen.
“Theo, the last time you were out in public was in early April. That was over three months ago.” She eyed the double-walled insulated stainless steel mug he always brought with him.
He liked having something in his hands during sessions. Or…hand. “You like coffee, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”