Theo’s Epilogue #6
For fuck’s sake, Theo.
Be normal for once in your goddamn life.
Oh god, he’d fucked up, hadn’t he? He was weird just now, that was weird, that was abnormal, people didn’t tip that much, oh god. Before she could thank him further, Theo retreated, claiming a table in the corner as swiftly as he could and only darting up once from his chair to grab his order.
He made it exactly forty minutes before leaving.
Extra credit indeed.
But it was because his hand was busy doodling that tiny curl at the base of her neck over and over and over in his sketchbook.
He had to keep stealing glimpses of the gorgeous woman at the register the entire time, just to make sure he got the curves of it right.
It had to be perfect. He had to get it right.
He couldn’t do much.
But he could sketch that.
Audrey.
Her name was Audrey.
He went again to the café the next week.
And then three times the week after. He went five times the week after that, but two of those were in the afternoon and someone else was working behind the counter, some dumbass named Steve who forgot to make his coffee extra hot and also left room for cream when he said he didn’t want that, which was how Theo discovered Audrey only worked the morning shifts.
Every time he saw her, she was more beautiful than the last.
He, meanwhile, remained an inept, bumbling idiot.
He stumbled over his words, stuttered, forgot what he wanted to order even though it was the same goddamn thing every time, felt fuzzy in his head and unsteady on his feet.
It was like his brain and his tongue had joined forces to lock up and fuck him over and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it except keep trying.
Meanwhile, she beamed at him and remembered his name and his order for him, and while it sent warmth surging through his body, while he wanted to feel special, he was sure he wasn’t.
She probably had a boyfriend—she was far too pretty not to.
She was also good at her job and he was just another customer, even if he tipped well, but he had no idea how to talk to her and didn’t want to bother her while she was working.
And even if he did, every time he went home and caught even the barest glimpse of his reflection, the warmth he carried back in his stomach with the perfect coffee she made him would suddenly leach away.
She had no idea who and what was really beneath the mask.
It didn’t seem to stop her from trying to talk to him, though.
Her smile was radiant, and she was funny and sweet. She was trying to get him to smile back, to laugh with her, he knew that. But every time he came close, his scar pulled across his face and his heart wrenched in his chest, another constant reminder of the life he’d had ripped away.
But he did start drawing again.
His dad would have laughed.
A girl, huh?
A girl got to you, Teddy?
You’re a chip off the old block after all.
(There he is.)
(That’s my boy.)
Theo wanted to draw her, to keep something of her for himself. There was no way he’d ask for a picture or take one in secret, oh god no. No, no. This was bad enough. He didn’t want to be a weirdo—or, well, more of one than he already was. But maybe if he could sketch her from memory…
He started practicing again.
He tried to draw more than a single curl of hair, and ink flowed onto the paper to sketch the lines of her face, shaky and misshapen at first.
But over the weeks, it began to change. He got better.
It started to look something like his style again.
He began drawing other things, and painting too, with watercolors.
They were easy to use and it didn’t matter if his hand slipped or shook.
The vibrant shades of it brightened up his life a little, made it less gray, chased a fraction of the gloom away, beat back the voice in his head that said hateful things to him. At least a little.
And one day, he had an idea. He took the coffee Audrey made him and he laid a brush to paper, filling in the shadows and lowlights of his portrait of her with the art she’d made for him.
Every time he brought home her coffee he added to it, layering the fresh brew atop the old, deepening the stain, enriching the image, adding depth and dimension, just as he was getting to know her better, even if only by the tiniest of measures.
Whenever he held the portrait to his nose, he closed his eyes and could feel himself there with Audrey, the scent of coffee—of her—overwhelming his senses and filling him with warmth.
He loved the café now.
It was another safe place added to his short but slowly growing list.
Until it wasn’t.
One year, seven months, and twenty-two days ago was a bad day.
That nasty blond woman ripped his mask off and revealed how grotesque he was to the world.
To Audrey.
She saw.
She saw him for what he really was now.
DISFIGURED.
UGLY.
MONSTER.
He didn’t leave the house for a month after his mangled face went viral. The comments online about his appearance and the calls from reporters weren’t even the worst part of it all. They were bad, but they only confirmed the things he already thought about himself.
The worst part was that he’d lost his little leather sketchbook in the ordeal.
It wasn’t his plans for the charity benefit and sketches that he mourned.
It was that he’d lost his portrait of Audrey.
The only good thing he’d made since the accident.
The only piece of her he’d been able to keep, just for himself.
The tiny bit of light he’d found had slipped through his trembling fingers.
Diego found him sobbing in the middle of the living room floor that evening, his house torn apart around him, papers strewn everywhere, storage boxes overturned and emptied, clothes ripped out of his dresser and flung about carelessly.
All hopes of having mislaid his sketchbook somewhere at home were gone.
It had to have fallen out of his pocket, maybe even at the coffeehouse.
He’d been keeping it close to his chest.
He couldn’t go back for it now.
Yes, you can.
Get your ass back there, kid.
Go get her.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can, Teddy.” Diego knelt on the ground and grabbed his shoulders. “Just go back and ask if they have it, for god’s sake.”
“Audrey saw my face, Diego. My goddamn face.” He’d just had his final scar revision surgery last week, and with it, new stitches, new pain, new pulling and tugging and wrenching and aching, all of it a fresh reminder of what he was.
It was still raw, and the salt of his tears burned as they rolled along it.
“So what? You said she was nice! If she really is, I don’t think she’d care! No one who cares about you gives a flying fuck about a stupid scar!”
“I’m not going back. I can’t go back. I can’t face her again.
Not like this. Not now.” He dove within himself, covering his head with his arms as he collapsed into his lap, sucking for air while he sobbed.
It felt like fingers had wrapped around his throat.
He couldn’t breathe. The thought of going back and facing Audrey now was too much to bear.
Nothing Diego said could change his mind.
It was over.
Well.
That’s disappointing.
Of course it was.
That’s what he was: a disappointment.
You’re the shame of the Redmond legacy.
The biggest disappointment this family has seen in generations.
His father’s voice in his head faded.
The little sliver of peace he’d stumbled upon was gone.
And something inside him died all over again.
In the end, Audrey found him.
It took her nearly two months, but she did.
The next day, Theo sat across from her at the café, staring at her in disbelief while she smiled at him, while she touched him by sliding her tiny hand over his and keeping it there.
He watched her mouth move, and her lips were telling him that she liked him, that she liked his drawing, that she’d seen it and didn’t think he was a stalker or a total creep.
What?
He’d spent those two months fixated on that little Post-it note on his mirror.
TRY NOT TO KILL YOURSELF TODAY
He thought about it. He thought about it every day.
You’re not dead yet, Theo.
Stop acting like it.
Get busy living, or get busy dying.
Just fucking pick one already.
Make up your goddamn mind.
I’m tired of this shit.
But the truth was, if he had, then he really never would have been able to see Audrey again.
Part of him clung, white-knuckled and straining, to that tiniest glimmer of hope. He didn’t know why.
And now he was here, sitting at a table with her, their two coffees between them. He couldn’t believe he’d almost forgotten how stunning she was in person.
His face ached. The stitches were long gone, but he swore he could still feel them most of the time.
His plastic surgeon told him his nerves were healing, and that increased pain was actually a good sign.
His cheek was full of pins and needles and tiny lightning shocks beneath the silicone scar tape whenever he brushed it by accident or winced too quickly or sometimes from nothing at all.
It burned now, odd and electric, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of Audrey’s skin atop his, cool and soothing against the back of his scorching hand.
That was a different kind of electric.
He’d spent two months driving himself mad trying to recreate the part of her he thought he’d lost while the artistic flame she’d lit within him struggled to survive.
He never wanted her to know how many half-finished drawings of her face he’d angrily crumpled and then recycled at home, how much ink he’d wasted trying to recreate the soft curves of her smile, the waves in her hair, the light in her eyes.
He was right to throw it all away.
Every one of his sad attempts paled in comparison to the real thing.
Maybe he was something of a hack after all—his uncle certainly thought so, and plenty of critics too. But maybe it didn’t matter anymore. Not if what was happening now was real.