Page 121 of Stop and Seek
Rachel squeezed his hand gently. “You can’t let him keep ruining your life. We talked about this, Theo. Just—just meet him somewhere public and take someone with you. Hell, I’ll go. I haveplentyto get off my chest.” Another squeeze. “That way you can move on. Be happy.”
If only it was that easy, Theo would’ve done it years ago.
Seeing Jagger at the high school was too much. How was he supposed to have an entire conversation? He’d end up sobbing.
No thank you.
She squeezed his hand one more time before she let go and pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Oh, did you see this?” She scrolled through something, then turned the screen towards him.
Couldn’t she use dark mode?Holy shit.
Theo shielded his eyes and leaned back until the words came into focus. Some headline about a local who had been assaulted outside his place of employment.
“Who gives a flying fuck about a lawyer?” he asked.
“Keep reading.”
“I’m going to puke all over your shorts if you make me do that.”
“It’s not ‘some lawyer’, that’s Aaron,” Rachel insisted. Theo stared at her until she raised her eyebrows, her chin jutting out. “Aaron, Teddy. The hot piece of garbage. Senior year.”
Theo’s stomach rolled over. How was it fair that hisentire fucking pastwas coming back to bite him in the ass? He’d considered himself well adjusted. He wasjusttalking about Aaron, not even a couple days ago. And then the cameras, and Jagger contacting him more frequently—
Theo wanted off the goddamn merry-go-round.
His chest tightened and he kept swallowing until he felt less nauseous. He knew he should’ve felt bad for Aaron, or at least sympathetic, but the truth was uglier than that. He didn’t feel anything, except maybe a sense of screwed up satisfaction.
“It’s fucking Cleveland,” Theo muttered. “How are you shocked?”
“It’s a nice part, not the trashy places you hang out.”
“Wehang out,” Theo corrected, and Rachel flicked his arm. “Did they say who did it?”
Where should I address the thank you note?
God, that was crass even for him.His brain was always one step ahead in the worst ways.
Theo shuddered. Tucked his hair behind his ear.
It was fine.
Aaron wasn’t dead, so it wasn’t as if he was speaking ill but…
Fucked up nonetheless.
“It was a random mugging—no, don’t you dare smile,” Rachel hissed. “That doesn’t mean you’re right.”
“How am I not right? Even if it’s the ‘nice’,” Theo lifted his fingers in quotation marks, “part, it’s still Cleveland. He was at the wrong place, at the wrong time.”
“We, you know, we knew him, though. It makes me feel sick thinking about it.”
“I say we move to Belgium.”
Rachel didn’t say anything. She stared at him like he had three heads.
“For the waffles,” he finished lamely.
Rachel laughed. “Do you think aboutanythingother than food?”
