Chapter 48 ALEX
ALEX
I wake up to an empty bed and quiet sounds coming from the kitchen, but when I check the time on my phone, it’s too early for either of us to be awake.
I walk into the kitchen, half asleep and confused to find Theo in running clothes, sweaty and pacing quickly in the small space while he waits for coffee to brew.
“Teddy?” His head snaps up towards me, and he looks pained to see me.
“Go back to bed, sweetheart,” he says, his voice soft. I rub my eyes, trying to wake up.
“Why are you up? It’s three in the morning.” He runs his hands through his hair.
“Um, I’m just stressed about today.” He gives me a tight frown and pours himself a cup of coffee. “I don’t want to deal with any of it.”
“Deal with what?” He shakes his head, not looking at me.
“I’m going to tell Dr. Mills that we’re together and that you love me, and she’s probably going to tell me I’m a piece of shit, and she’s going to be right,” he says quietly.
I step closer to him, but he shrinks away from me a little, and I’m instantly more awake and concerned. I know therapy is hard for him, but I don’t know how he went from ecstatically happy back to this version of himself overnight.
“Teddy, please don’t think like that. You’re a wonderful person, okay? That’s real.” He chokes out a harsh laugh and shoots me a disparaging look.
“You’re fucking delusional if you think that.” I sigh, knowing I need to be gentle with him when he’s like this. I step into him, crowding him against the wall and running my hands over his shoulders, keeping my voice low.
“Baby, I love you, but you’ve got horrible self-esteem. I don’t think you see yourself as clearly as I do.” He makes a pained face and looks up at the ceiling.
“No, I see myself pretty clearly now because of all the goddamn therapy,” he says, his voice bitter. “Dr. Mills is probably right that we shouldn’t be together,” he mutters.
“You can’t let her opinion about our relationship matter more than mine, okay?” He scoffs and shakes his head, shooting me an irritated look.
“Last time I checked, you don’t think we should be together, either,” he snaps, and I step back from him and cross my arms.
“I thought I made it obvious this weekend how much I want to be with you,” I say quietly, trying not to sound as hurt as I feel. Theo crosses his arms and sighs harshly, looking at his feet and nodding faintly.
“Yeah, you did.” I step close to him again, running my hands up and down his arms.
“Is this seriously all because you don’t like your therapist? This came out of nowhere.” He laughs humorlessly.
“Honey, you have no fucking idea.” Maybe I don’t. This is the first time I’ve seen him before a therapy appointment, and maybe he always gets this worked up.
“You don’t have to tell her about us.” He looks down at me, shocked.
“Are you telling me to lie to her?”
I shrug. “You do already, so what’s one more lie? You only need to be honest with me.” He winces slightly and looks away from me.
“I know,” he says quietly. I lean up to kiss him, but he turns away and runs his hands through his hair. I pull back from him, shocked.
I don’t think Theo’s ever rejected affection before.
“I’m going to go on a run,” he says and tries to walk away, but I grab him around the waist and hold him closely.
“I need you to come back to bed.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not tired.”
“You don’t need to be tired to come back to bed,” I say softly, rubbing his back. “I don’t like seeing you upset. Let me take care of you.” He sighs hard and nods but starts giving me that look like he’s trying to memorize me, which makes me concerned.
His mood switched overnight for some reason, and I want to switch it back. I try to make him feel better, and sex always works with Theo, but not this time. He gets very intense and presses me down into the mattress, fucking me slowly, his expression serious.
“I’m so sorry,” he says quietly, “I’m so sorry about everything.” I stare up at him, unsure how to react.
“Baby -” He shakes his head, and I stop speaking.
“I love you, Alex. You’re the best thing in my life, and I don’t deserve you.”
“Theo, what -” He cuts me off with a bruising kiss.
“I’m going to fix it,” he mutters quickly against my lips, his thrusts picking up. “I’ll spend the rest of my fucking life making it up to you if you let me, I promise,” he whispers.
I have no idea how to respond to anything he’s saying, so I nod and try not to let him see how anxious he’s making me. He pulls me impossibly tighter as I start to come, and he just keeps saying please again and again until he’s coming with me.
Afterward, he rolls off me and doesn’t hold me at all, he just lies there and covers his face with his hands, his whole body so tense he’s shaking. I watch him for a moment, horrified and concerned when I realize he’s either crying or trying hard not to cry.
“Teddy?” He doesn’t respond and I have no idea what to do, so I just wrap him in my arms and kiss his hands and wrists and face and hair. “Everything’s okay. I love you,” I whisper into his ear. “I’m so lucky to have you.” He laughs bitterly.
“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about,” he snaps at me, and I unwind from him immediately, lying next to him and staring up at the ceiling, confused and extremely hurt.
After a minute, he pulls me close and apologizes profusely, holding me so tightly it’s almost uncomfortable.
I look into his conflicted, upset face, and for just a second, I wonder if he’s hiding something from me, but I know that’s unlikely. The only reason we’re together now is because we’re honest with each other, and I trust him not to hide anything from me.
At this point, I doubt he could tell me anything that would push me away.
***
Alex, 10:01 AM:
let me know when you get there
Theo, 11:51 AM:
Here.
feeling any better?
Fuck no.
I start zipping the emerald pendant along the chain as I stare down at my phone, worried about him. We barely slept after the weird, upsetting sex, and he was stressed and clingy all morning.
There’s got to be something I can do to make him feel better.
let me make you dinner tonight
You don’t have to do that.
please let me take care of you
I don’t deserve you.
teddy stop it
you’re mine and you’re the best and i love you
I love you, too.
There we go. I knew that would work. He’ll come home from therapy stressed out, I’ll go over after work and make him dinner, he’ll bitch and moan about how much he hates his therapist, and I’ll spend the rest of the night doing my best to reassure him that I love him in every way I can think of.
We need to talk about his self-esteem at some point, but right now I’ll just focus on taking care of him.
I’ll even see if I can take a late lunch and call him after he gets out of therapy so I can spend the hour calming him down. I’m sure that will make him feel a little better.
I forgot to sign up for my workout class today anyway, so I can do that.
I open my web browser and navigate to the rec center website. I got an email that they recently redid it, and now I can sign up for classes for an entire week ahead of time instead of the day of, which is much more convenient. I navigate to the reservations page and stop dead.
There’s a photo of a Pilates class on the website, and I’m clearly visible in the photo.
I start to panic. Who took this? When did they take it? How did I not notice? I won’t even let Theo take pictures of me with his phone, which was the whole point of the polaroids he has hung up all over the fridge. How long has it been up? When did they redo the website?
Fuck, this is bad.
I take a few deep breaths and email the rec center, asking them to take it down immediately.
It’s fine. I’ll go down there right now and talk to the administrator, and it’ll be fine.
You can’t even see all my face, just most of it, but my hair is different, and I’ve gained weight since I left Boston, so I don’t look like Alice Murphy at all.
Everything is going to be fine.
I change out of my boots into the pair of running shoes I keep under my desk and run down to the rec center.
It’s only a fifteen-minute walk, but I need to deal with this right now.
I wonder if Theo could take the photo down if they won’t.
He’s good enough with computers that he might be able to hack their website.
I reach for my phone and realize I left everything at the office in my hurry to get out the door.
I get to the rec center two minutes later and ask to speak to the office administrator, but she’s out sick for the day.
I ask to speak to anyone who can edit the website, but most of the employees are retirees and they contracted it out.
I ask them how long ago they updated the website, and my blood runs cold when they tell me it’s been up for a week.
Oh, fuck.
That’s long enough that Danny’s probably seen it, which means he’s either here or he will be soon.
We were out of town this weekend, so if he’s already here, he hasn’t found me yet.
That’s good, because if he finds out about Theo, he’ll go off the deep end.
He’s always been so fucking jealous, even worse than Theo.
I open my mouth to ask to use the rec center phone before realizing I don’t know Theo’s phone number, so I turn and jog back toward my office.
I’m trying to think if I’ve noticed anything off in the last week when I stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk.
The floodlight camera.
What if that wasn’t a deer?
No, no, no.
I take off for my office in a dead sprint.
I don’t notice the people as I shove past them, I don’t notice the car that stops short and honks at me as I run in front of it, I don’t notice that it starts raining, I don’t notice anything around me – the only important thing right now is me getting back to the office.