Chapter 14
There are levels to his headaches that Theo uses to classify the level of misery he’s feeling. It goes from only an annoyance all the way up to oh shit, I’m fucked.
Right now, he’s flying past that final destination into whatever new layer comes after.
In all the years he’s suffered from this affliction, it rarely reaches the point where he wants to bash his own head against the nearest wall.
It’s gotten close a few times, but he’s had medication to dull the ache enough to avoid self-inflicted harm.
Cluster headaches are what the doctors call them.
Another mark left over from his time in the wilderness with his brother, as if the mental ones weren’t enough.
No one knows how exactly it happened or if it’ll ever be resolved, but he’s suffered with it for so long that he’s given up hope by now of ever living a normal life.
One fateful day at the river changed everything for him. Now all he can do is try to keep surviving.
It’s difficult to focus now that his vision has blurred and everything blends together into a mottled mess.
He can feel the mattress of the cot under his back and smell the dank air of the police station, but when he opens his eyes in between throbs, everything in front of his face is unrecognizable.
When he’s even able to open his eyes. Which isn’t often.
He twists on the bed, wishing for the sweet relief of the wall against his skull.
For a moment, the extra pain eliminated the source of the problem in favor of another, but Nora said he couldn’t do that again, or she would be angry with him. He promised he wouldn’t.
He can’t go back on a promise.
Nora.
He can’t remember where she went or when she left.
He only knows that she’s gone. Suddenly, that knowledge hits him as hard as his head splits at the base of his neck, and he curls in on himself, yanking at his hair with a trembling groan, wishing for her touch, her voice, any part of her he’s granted again.
Maybe she left him for good, like everyone else.
He knew it might be coming. Did he tell her yet that he has no money left?
That his trust fund is gone, and he can offer her nothing but the fractured pieces of his heart?
If he did, then that might be why she left him, since it was enough for his last fiancée to do the same.
He is nothing without the family wealth at his back.
Nothing that anyone would want to keep around.
He should have made it all clear from the jump, he thinks, sinking his teeth into the dirty pillow in a silent scream as another wave of agony rushes over him.
He should have told her every detail of his breakup so she knew that he is nothing and no one.
Little pieces of his brain start to shuffle, moving his memories like cards in a deck before plucking out one of the worst to revisit as the agony shatters his thoughts.
One moment, he’s in the sheriff’s office, and the next, he’s on the riverbank with a torn shoulder and blood cascading from his temple.
* * *
“Father won’t leave you here,” Oliver says, kneeling in the muck beside him, his own clothes torn from a similar rush through the water. “I can’t wait, you know I can’t. But I’ll tell him where you are and he’ll send someone. I promise I’ll hurry.”
Theo grabs him by the arm, hauling him back down. “Don’t. Please don’t go, we can make it back together.”
They could. It might even be easier to traverse the rugged landscape of the forest by leaning on each other, but that was never the plan, and they both know it.
“I can’t,” Oliver says.
“Let him be the one who loses. Why must we play his games? Let’s just go back together. What can he do anyway?”
“He could disinherit us both. You know that.”
“And would that be so bad?”
Oliver scoffs, getting to his feet again to tower over his brother. “Maybe not for you. You could make it on your own. I couldn’t. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take. I’ll hurry so they send someone fast. Stay here.”
“Don’t leave.”
“I have to.”
And then he’s gone, leaving Theo writhing in the dirt with a dislocated shoulder and a concussion from being swept into the rocks as he slid down the river.
It’ll take twice as long to get medical care.
Twice as long for pain relief. Twice as long to get a drink of water that isn’t contaminated since they both lost their packs.
He is dehydrated and hallucinating by the time the rescue team finds him, seeing shapes between the forest trees, covered in bug bites and leeches.
His brother values his trust fund more than his family, and this is the first time he’s been forced to come to terms with that.
Sure, he had suspected before, but their previous battles like this had never ended in such extreme bloodshed.
There had been trickery and mild violence. Enough to gain the upper hand, which they would trade back and forth as the years wore on, but they always made it within a few miles of the helicopter zone together until all hell broke loose to be the first to reach it.
‘I expected more resilience from you by now,’ is all his father said once he was hooked up to an IV back in his own bed again, his voice full of disappointment as if he didn’t send both his children into the wild alone on purpose.
* * *
Now, on the cot, with pain carving lines through his vision, he sees Oliver’s face more vividly.
The memory of his brother’s eyes, apologetic but slightly relieved to leave him behind, burns hotter than the headache.
That look was branded into him like a scar.
The betrayal stung worse than the river water in his lungs or his shoulder hanging loose from its socket.
Blood could be just as merciless as strangers, often worse.
Some part of him believed he could trust Oliver more than his father. After that day, he accepted that he could trust no one but himself.
Not his brother. Not his blood. Not the woman who claimed to love him. And now, not even Nora, who abandoned him in a dusty jail cell to head to the wildlife center alone.
That had to be where she’s gone. He would only hold her back.
Maybe he can’t even blame her for shucking him like trash.
Maybe he shouldn’t be devastated even as his heart twists like the parts of his skull that rub together.
She is better off without him anyway. He would rather she make it out of this alive than stay back to tend to him.
But god, the ache in his chest is almost worse than the one splitting his head open.
He remembers the warmth of her palm against his cheek, the way she scolded him in that quiet, fierce voice about smashing his skull against the wall.
Especially the way she had looked at him like he was worth something more than money or the lifestyle he could offer to anyone who latched on.
For the first time in his cursed life, he had almost believed it.
He lets out a groan, rolling until he falls from the bed onto the floor, dragging himself toward the cinder block wall.
If she’s gone, then he has no reason left to stay either.
He isn’t breaking a promise if she isn’t here to check that he kept his word.
So he lays a hand on the cool wall, presses his face there as his head breaks apart from the inside out, and tears stream down his cheeks so hot they burn.
At least she won’t find him after. At least he won’t turn into one of those things.
He only wishes for the sweet sound of her voice one more time.
To feel the soft touch of her hand or the gentle caress of her arms as she holds him.
It’s weakness that his father would insist he let go of, but nothing matters now and so he replays their interactions best he can through waves of nausea, pulls his head back, and slams it into the wall once, twice, three times in a rhythmic swing that finally cuts through the pain in a blissful all all-encompassing wave of relief.
It’s only when his vision blackens instead of blurs that he sees her again.