Page 97 of Cross the Line

What hurts the most is how Alec walked into this thing with Theo with eyes wide open. Everything that happened feels like his own fault because he knew exactly what Theo was willing to offer.

Fingering the coin that hangs from the chain around his neck, he closes his eyes and tries to calm his nerves. The metal is cool to the touch as he zones out, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. He hasn’t taken it off since yesterday and he has no plans to take it off anytime soon. All day, the weight of the chain around his neck, the tang of metal on his tongue when he’d put it into his mouth, had been a sharp reminder of the two people he loved most. The two people he lost.

If he thought the distance Theo put there at fifteen was bad, it’s nothing compared to the way it hurts now. At fifteen, Alec had been in love with Theo the way you love something beautiful from afar, like looking at a painting in a museum and knowing you can never have it. Loving him up close is so much fucking worse. Now he knows the feeling of Theo’s bare skin beneath his hands, knows the feeling of Theo’s lips against his own and the memory is there every single time he closes his eyes. Alec had laughed and touched and he was never going to get over this man.

Alec knows all of Theo’s flaws and shortcomings now, he knows the shape of his smile and the shadows of fear that haunt him, and somehow he adores him all the more for it. Theo is far from perfect, but Alec loves him. Always has and probably always will.

Love is a painful, beautiful, terrible thing, and Alec is pretty sure that loving Theodore James will be the thing that breaks him.

When there’s no reply from Theo after a day it stings, but Alec tries not to read into it too deeply. Theo might just need some time. He’s a thinker, a worrier, and he might come around. Except one day becomes two and two becomes three and after a week, Alec knows there is no message coming. The finality of the lack of reply is like a physical wound. As the days pass, the hurt doesn’t lessen but grows like a weed, wild and unwanted, digging roots into Alec’s heart and lungs until he’s suffocating.

Desperate to numb the pain, Alec throws himself into school and the team, convinced if he works hard enough that somehow he can be good enough to forget. His goal is to keep himself too busy to think about Theo or being rejected, which isn’t very difficult considering his course load combined with their five practice days and two to three games a week. It all barely leaves him enough time to piss.

If he’s not in class, he’s at practice or a game and if he’s not busy with either of those, he’s trying to force himself to study to keep his grades up so he can continue to play. In the past maintaining his GPA was never a problem. Despite his disinterest in his major, passing classes hadn’t been too difficult because his motivation to stay on the team surpassed his boredom with the subjects. This year, that’s not enough and every class, every assignment, is like dragging his brain through the mud.

Days turn into weeks, and as more time passes, Theo never reaches out. It’s clear at this point that Theo is ignoring him. His disregard is so deeply triggering to Alec that it makes him want to scream, but doing so would shatter the image he’s upholding where he pretends he’s perfectly fine. Every day that passes without a word from Theo makes it harder and harder for Alec not to be angry, despite how badly he doesn’t want to be.

Desperate to forget, he pushes himself harder until he’s nearly collapsing at practice or close to puking after a game. He plays like it’s the only thing he has left, and maybe it is. At least on the field Alec knows exactly who he is supposed to be.

All in all, Alec thinks he’s coping pretty damn well, considering his body is exhausted and his mind won’t shut the fuck up. When his body screams at him to slow down and rest, Alec pushes himself harder. When the coach finds him in the gym long after practice ends, he jokingly tells Alec to cool down but in the same breath also praises his work ethic. It reaffirms Alec’s need to hide his real feelings. When Alec’s jaw aches from chewing too much gum and his knuckles have calluses from biting them, he continues to push because he doesn’t know how to do anything else.

Weeks of sleepless nights and gnawing sense of deregulation lead Alec to making an impulse purchase in the middle of the night, where he uses his emergency credit card to buy a fancy pebble ice machine. The serotonin is short-lived, but the euphoria of having unlimited access to crunchy ice has its benefits. Alec eats so much ice he might as well become a goddamn penguin. His roommates threaten to hide the ice machine if Alec doesn’t stop crunching all the time, but what he doesn’t tell them, any of them, is that he can’t stop. He can’t bring himself to admit that every second he’s not biting or chewing on something or fidgeting, he feels like he’s going to crawl out of his skin.

Everyone has always looked at his inability to stay still or his oral fixation as a quirk, not something he has to do to feel sane. If he told them, he knows they’d stop teasing him or getting annoyed, but telling them feels too close to admitting he’s not okay, so Alec bottles up the feelings and packs away the ice machine.

All the while his classes continue to get harder and the workload increases to the point he can’t keep up with the reading and homework. As pressure from the team and the relentless practices mount, every day Alec is reminded of who he’s supposed to be and all the ways he couldn’t be what Theo wanted.

He bites the ends off all his pencils, develops fresh calluses on his knuckles from chewing on them, and pushes himself so hard in the gym he nearly passes out. No one notices. The worst of all is that none of it quiets the storm raging inside of Alec, because the harder he tries to pretend everything is okay, the worse everything feels.

The biggest problem comes when he can’t run himself to the bone anymore, when classes and practices and games pile up so high, Alec feels like he’s drowning. Suddenly, he’s too tired to keep using the weight room in the gym to avoid studying. Only when he tries to study, Alec’s dread grows, as does the hatred for his classes. He hates his major, hates every second of his business classes, and his damn brain has decided that his lack of interest means he is no longer capable of mustering the will to study.

For the first time in Alec’s entire college career, he fails a test. It’s only a practice quiz that barely counts for any of his grade, but panic takes hold anyway. After class, his professor holds Alec back to discuss his progress, reassuring him that this won’t affect his ability to play as long as he studies hard for the next test. What Alec doesn’t say to his professor is that he had studied, but the words went in his brain and right back out, like waves succumbing to the changing tides.

Walking out of the classroom and back to the quad, something inside of Alec crumbles. It’s not a crack or a break, not something that can be fixed with some strong will and stubbornness. It’s as if something inside of him disintegrates into a thousand pieces, shattering like a windshield.

The rest of the day passes in a blur and Alec hardly pays attention to his classes, only peripherally aware of his teammates’ worried looks as he runs himself ragged at practice, all but bolting when practice ends so he won’t have to face Antonio. He knows if he has to look at his best friend, he’s going to let it all out. Scrambling to maintain control, he realizes he has none, and in a moment of utter weakness a thought calls out to him, unwanted and suffocating but true nonetheless: he’s angry at Theo.

Anger is Alec’s least favorite emotion. He’s gotten mad at bullies or bad ref calls, but those were fleeting feelings about injustice, not about him personally. Getting mad at someone when all Alec’s wanted his entire life is to be liked by people was kind of counterproductive. Hell, he can’t even really get mad at his brothers for more than an hour without guilt churning in his stomach. He hates being mad at people, so he tries to let the growing fury fade away, and tries to remind himself that Theo didn’t make him any promises.

Except that, well—he had made Alec a promise. Theo promised Alec he wouldn’t hurt him and that’s exactly what he did. He hurt Alec. He hurt him so much he can hardly breathe. The hurt twists inside, offering his brain something to focus on besides his practice and his classes, and how painfully out of control everything feels. Thoughts spinning, Alec starts to walk and doesn’t stop with no idea where he’s going. Eventually the sun sets and after a long trek around the city, instead of ending up back home he arrives in front of Theo’s house.

The lights are off, and a glance at his phone tells him why. It’s after ten on a weeknight. Fuck, how long did he wander around town? Hours. Hours of mindless movement that did nothing to dull his pain. Of course Theo is asleep, because he’s a man with a life and a job and a routine. A routine in which there was apparently no room for Alec.

Before he can think through what he’s doing, he’s on the porch and knocking so hard his fist hurts, banging over and over until the door swings open, bringing him face to face with a sleepy, confused Theo. He stares at Alec like he’s never seen him before, and the last bit of Alec’s heart is swept away with the tide.

“You sent me away.” His voice cracks, dropping to barely above a whisper, but the broken look in Theo’s eyes lets him know he’s loud enough. “You sent me away.”

“Alexander.”

Alec chokes, unable to stomach the way Theo says his full name like it’s important. Like he is important. “How could you?”

“You know I’m not good at this.” Theo sags, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I told you, I wasn’t going to ever be the guy who could give you what you need. Maybe this was better. You can go find someone better for you.”

“Bullshit,” Alec cries, refusing to let him get away with excuses.

“Alec.”

Theo steps closer and something in Alec’s expression shutters.

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