Chapter 38 - THEO #2
“I never really liked Danny, you know? We didn’t have anything in common, and I think he sucks as a person.
” She laughs bitterly and shakes her head, looking over at the fire.
“I like you, though. After what you did and how everything played out, it was such a shock for me, but we sort of fit together.” A brief wave of relief calms me down enough to kiss the back of her hand.
She closes her eyes, wiping her face quickly with her other hand before turning and looking up at me.
“Theo, I like you so much. I have fun with you, and I like talking to you and getting to know you and spending time with you – all of it. Oh, and the sex,” she laughs and rolls her eyes, her thighs clenching together a little bit.
“The sex is fucking incredible. Everything feels so good with you.”
This is exactly how I want her to feel, so why is hearing her say this so upsetting? It feels like she’s trying to break up with me somehow. She takes a deep breath and pulls her knees tighter, shaking her head as she looks at me with pity.
“You’re a sad, lonely mess of a person, you know that?
You have no friends, no family, no life, no boundaries, and you’re kind of fucking scary.
” I recoil in pain like she’s just hit me, and she gives me this soft, sad smile and lifts my hand to her lips.
“You’re also smart, and funny, and sweet, and you’re so fucking thoughtful.
You’re amazing most of the time, even if you’re so fucking intense about everything, but I like that.
I like you, all of you, so much. You’re my best friend,” she says quietly, looking up at me and squeezing my hand, tears streaming down her face.
Everything’s so confusing right now, but I feel that familiar hum of connection between us, and I cling on to it. She’s my best friend, too, even if she’s hurting my feelings in every possible way. I take a shuddering breath and squeeze her hand, struggling to push down my anger.
Goddammit, this was just getting good, and now we’re right back here.
“Sweetie, I think you’re really confused right now, okay?”
“Can you please just listen to what I’m saying?” she asks, her voice pleading.
“I am listening, and you’re lying to yourself again,” I say, failing to keep the edge out of my voice. She shakes her head slowly, maintaining eye contact with me.
“I’m not lying to myself, Theo. You are.” My temper breaks.
“No, Alexandria, you’re fucking wrong,” I snap, pulling my hand out of hers and running my hands back through my hair.
“Fuck, Alex! I thought we worked past this! I thought we finally got you over these bullshit trust issues of yours and got you to stop fucking lying to yourself. I don’t know why you’re so insistent about pretending this is something other than what it is, but you need to stop.
We’re fucking connected, and we’re supposed to be together.
I know you can feel it, so you need to stop fucking fighting it.
” She stares at me, her wide eyes pitying.
“Oh, Theo,” she says sadly, “That’s the basis of your delusion, isn’t it? You think that we’re connected? That’s not real.”
“You need to stop with your fucking bullshit!”
She flushes angrily and points back at me.
“No, you need to stop,” she snaps back. “Listen to me, Theodore. You’re the one who’s lying to yourself, okay?
You’re delusional. You trapped me here and forced me into this fucked up situation where you get to be in something like a relationship with me, and you want it to be real so badly that you’ve been lying to yourself the whole time, but this is a delusion. ”
What is she talking about? Why is it making me so angry to hear this?
“What the fuck are you saying to me?”
Alex makes a loud, aggravated sound. “You hijacked my fucking life, Theo! I deserve to have my own life, and I worked so fucking hard to build something for myself after I left Danny, and you took it all away overnight! I struggled so hard to get to make choices for myself, and then you fucking took away all of my choices. Don’t you get that? ”
That sounds horrible. I would never do something like that to her. Her words start sinking in deeper, and something clicks a little bit.
What she’s saying seems almost possible.
No, she’s lying to me and manipulating me. That’s what she’s doing. I didn’t do that to her.
“Stop fucking lying to me, Alexandria.” Why does my voice sound like that? That’s not what I sound like. Why does she look scared?
“You know what’s so frustrating, Theo? I really liked you when I met you, and I was so attracted to you, and I would have said yes if you’d just asked me out.
You could have gotten to know me like a normal person, and then this would have been a real relationship for both of us, but whatever this is, it isn’t a relationship.
It never has been.” Nothing about what she’s saying makes sense, except that it seems like it could make sense, like it should make sense, and that scares the shit out of me.
My skin is crawling, and I start to shake involuntarily.
I grab her face in my hands and pull her towards me a little too roughly, and her breath catches. I can tell that she’s afraid of me right now, and I hate it so fucking much, but I need her to stop.
“I’m begging you to stop lying to me, sweetheart,” I say, my voice soft and shaky, and her face contorts in pain.
“I’m not, and you know that. I know you can tell when I’m lying, so look at me, okay?
You did all of that to me. You stalked me, you deluded yourself into thinking this was a relationship, and you trapped me in this situation.
This isn’t real, Theo. You took away the option for this to be real.
” I stare at her mouth in horror as her teeth don’t touch her bottom lip.
Did she learn her tell?
She has to be lying.
“Please don’t do this to me, honey. This is real, okay?
You love me, I know you love me, so stop fucking lying to me, please,” I say, my voice cracking on the last word.
Alex starts crying and reaches out for me, her hands gripping my wrists hard, her face devastated and angry and resigned.
I don’t know why she looks like that, but it scares me.
I want to fix it, but I don’t even know what’s going on. I’m so confused.
“I don’t love you, Theo.”
Time stops.
“I can’t love you,” Alex says quietly, and something deep inside me breaks apart.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, because I do, but you’re so fucking damaged that you needed to take away the option for me to leave you.
If I can’t choose to leave, then I can’t choose to be here.
You chose me, but you won’t let me choose you. ”
She doesn’t love me.
No, that’s a lie. It has to be a lie.
“Teddy, I need you to know I would have chosen you, okay? If you’d given me the option, I would have loved you.
I promise.” She’s speaking quickly, like she’s trying to get it all out as fast as she can, and the resigned tone of her voice makes me instantly panicky.
“I need you to know that,” she says, her words cracking with tears.
She looks so sad and terrified, and everything she’s been saying is bouncing around in my head, crashing into things and knocking them loose.
I don’t understand anything she’s saying, but it starts to seem more and more solid, making everything feel less and less real.
She doesn’t love me.
I try to make eye contact with her and ground myself in her presence, but she’s crying too hard to look at me.
I don’t want to make her feel like this.
I want to make her happy. My understanding of things starts fracturing, and I try desperately to make sense of everything as a black hole opens up in my stomach, pulling in everything good that exists between us.
The only thing anchoring me is Alex, but she’s starting to slip from my fingers, so I hold on as hard as I can.
She doesn’t love me.
I can’t feel my body, and there’s a loud buzzing sound in the back of my head, and my hands are shaking so hard that Alex’s head is moving a little. I think I’m hurting her, and I don’t want to hurt her, but I’m so fucking angry and confused right now that I’m not in control of my body anymore.
“What’s happening?” My voice sounds wrong to me, too quiet and so scared, and Alex finally looks me in the eyes.
Her face is still shaking in my hands, and the miserable, exhausted, relieved look on her face terrifies the shit out of me.
She’s so quiet that her words are barely audible, but I hear them perfectly.
“You’re going to kill me, Theo.” My vision starts to go red, and I panic as my mind spins.
I would never fucking hurt her. I would never intentionally hurt her.
I didn’t hurt her. I did hurt her, though.
She has to be lying. She hasn’t been lying.
I wouldn’t do any of that to her. I did all of that to her.
I didn’t ruin her life. I ruined her life.
What we have is real. None of this is real.
I hurt Alex.
Oh my god, I hurt Alex.
She thinks I’m going to kill her.
Something inside of me snaps, and everything goes red.