Theo’s Epilogue #7
Of course, the fact that Audrey had found him at his therapist’s office was mortifying.
Lisa winked at him when she handed him the note, and when he read it, he almost threw up before hurtling back upstairs to pound frantically on Amelia’s office door.
He nearly gave her a heart attack, but he was convinced he was having one himself.
At least he’d been the last client that day. She probably wouldn’t have extended their session otherwise.
Now he held his sketchbook again, safe and sound. All his pre-accident plans for his upcoming projects were recovered.
But none of that mattered, because the most important drawing he’d ever made was back in his hands.
And with it, the most unexpected confession.
He went home, stripped off his hoodie and the sweat-soaked shirt beneath it, and laid his bare back down on his kitchen floor to stare blankly at the ceiling in wonder, letting the cold tile soothe his burning, feverish skin.
He’d been sweating profusely under all those protective layers during that entire encounter. But he could deal with it.
You see?
You got the trademark Sullivan charm after all.
I was beginning to doubt.
Because for some reason, Audrey liked him. She actually liked him. She’d even touched him.
Despite his limp. Despite his horrifying, butchered face. Despite his shyness, despite it all—
She asked him out.
She wanted him to come back to the café, to sit with her and talk with her.
He actually had a date.
It was literal years since he’d been on a date. He hadn’t been out with anyone at all since he’d broken things off with Kendra, and that was five years ago now.
It was a goddamn miracle.
Maybe God was real after all.
Maybe she’d finally decided to give Theo a break.
It was one year, five months, and twenty-five days since Theo decided to try to see Audrey every day.
It was one year, five months, and twenty-three days since Diego yanked Theo’s favorite hoodie off over his head without even having the propriety to unzip it first and shoved “real clothes” at him and did his hair before Theo ruined it with his black baseball cap and then spent the next thirty minutes yelling at him about it.
Diego made him get ready so early, Theo had time to go all the way to Levain and back to bring Audrey cookies, and also pick up flowers before he met her at the park.
It was one year, five months, and twenty-three days since they went for a walk, and saw Casablanca, and ate birria, and she demanded that he kiss her and she was wonderful and amazing and smelled like strawberries and honey and her lips were so, so soft and so was her hair and her skin and her taste, oh god, she’d felt and tasted so alive and it had taken every bit of willpower inside of him to stop himself from devouring her right then and there on her stoop and it was the best day of his entire fucking life and he knew.
He knew he was a goner.
He knew he’d never met anyone like her and never would again.
He knew no one else was for him.
He knew he was already falling so deeply in love with her, he would do anything for her. Absolutely anything.
And that feeling only grew over the following weeks.
There he is.
That’s my boy.
It was one year, five months, and seventeen days since he sort-of-voluntarily showed her his face and she called him handsome.
Audrey called him handsome, and smoothed her thumb along his scar, and kissed away the tears tumbling down his cheeks at her words and at the way she looked at him, and he realized she wasn’t lying. She really did think so.
Her touch there felt like lightning.
It shocked him to his core.
Not so bad, huh?
This whole living thing?
Good choice, kid.
I’m proud of you.
It was one year, five months, and two weeks since she stayed with him after getting drenched in the rain, and he made her hot chocolate with trembling hands and they danced poorly in front of the fire and held each other in the dark while confessing some of their deepest secrets.
She fell asleep in his arms, and he slept better than he had in months with her warmth curled against him now that he wasn’t alone.
It was one year, five months, and two weeks since Audrey told him she would hold his mugs for him until he could again.
Since she said she wanted to be his girlfriend.
Since he woke up with her in his arms, and promptly tumbled out of bed because of what the hands attached to those arms had been doing in his sleep, and that was how he discovered she was the most ticklish on the spots roughly three inches above her knees and halfway down her ribs and where the curve of her left shoulder met her neck.
It was one year, five months, and two weeks since he got to make her coffee for once.
It was one year, five months, and thirteen days since Theo went back down to his studio. He grabbed a broom and a dustpan and swept up all the shattered dreams he’d left strewn on the floor, and then he fired up his burners and chose a length of glass tubing.
His hands shook, and they shook horrifically.
There was nothing to be done about it now, nothing more than he was already doing with only marginal improvement.
But this time, he leaned into it. Instead of fighting it, he let his new state guide the vision—because Audrey seemed to really like his hands just fine the way they were.
And if she liked them, maybe he could grow to like them again too, flaws and all.
He started to make things again.
Yes, get back in the shop.
Working with your hands will clear your head.
It always did mine.
It felt good.
It was one year and five months since he posted an ungloved photo of those hands Audrey liked so much on Lightm4st3r’s Instagram, wondering if she might see, if she might know. And she did. So he took a chance, and let her into his soul, and showed her his studio—and, with those hands, the stars.
But it was one year, four months, and twenty-seven days since he saw his mother again.
Since seeing her shattered him completely, all over again, straight to his severed soul.
Since he felt like he lost his father all over again.
Since he remembered what he was:
GARBAGE.
Your fault.
Your fault.
YOUR FAULT.
His voice in your head isn’t real.
It’s wishful thinking, a lie, a dream.
Dad’s dead and it’s your fault.
You killed him.
It was one year, four months, and twenty-seven days since Audrey was there to hold him together when he nearly came apart completely.
Since her words actually managed to penetrate his soul—because she was beautiful and honest and good, and she couldn’t lie, and if she said it, it had to be true.
It’s not your fault, Theo.
It was an accident.
He tried to save you.
You’re alive because he sacrificed himself for you.
Your dad loved you.
It was one year, four months, and twenty-seven days since he confessed that he loved her, truly, madly, deeply, with every fiber of his being.
Since she confessed the same.
It was one year, four months, and twenty-seven days since they made love together for the very first time.
Since his world was completely changed because of it.
Since he started to feel whole again.
Since he started to live again.
Theo knew because he’d been counting the days.
It was one year, four months, and three weeks since Theo met up with his mother for their first joint therapy session.
When she arrived and sat with him in the waiting room while Amelia finished up with another patient, she took a little dark green velvet box out of her purse and set it gently on the arm of his chair.
“Here you go. Nana’s ring, as requested.”
When he opened it up, his heart leapt into his throat.
There it was: his grandmother’s ring, a beautiful antique emerald cut in the shape of its name, set in a band of smooth, delicate yellow gold and surrounded by a halo of small baguette-cut diamonds in an art deco style. It looked like a starburst.
It looked like Audrey.
“Thanks, Mom.” He snapped the box shut and tucked it into his interior jacket pocket for safekeeping. He was glad she followed through. It was what he’d asked for, written on the back of Amelia’s business card he gave her the day he went to her office:
I want Nana’s ring, the antique emerald one from the 30s.
I’m going to ask Audrey to marry me.
She’s the one.
“Are you sure, Theo?”
He glanced at his mother out of the corner of his eye. She hadn’t said it with judgment—only curiosity.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t ask me for a ring for Kendra. You bought hers,” she pointed out.
Theo heaved a deep sigh. “Well, she never ended up finding out I even got her one, did she? And honestly, that should have been an indication. If it was real, I would have asked you. I was an idiot. I’m glad I could return it.”
“You were young.” Eleanor reached over and took his hand. He looked down at it, but didn’t stop her. She was here, after all. That meant something. “You’re still young. And so is she.”
“I’m not that young.” And neither was she. Theo hadn’t really looked at his mother in a long time. The sight of how small his mother’s hand was against his—and how much older it seemed, how much more frail she was now than when he’d last thought about it—made him ache.
Kid, she’s not gonna be around forever, you know.
Someday, I’ll have to come get her.
You need to take care of her until then.
I still love her a whole helluva lot.
I always have, and I always will.
Someday, she’d leave him for good.
Someday, he’d lose her too.
He turned his hand over and gently squeezed her palm.
The gesture wasn’t lost on her. Her face softened, and he saw himself in her eyes. “You’re still my kid. You’ll always be my baby. No matter what.”