Page 145 of Stop and Seek
From the corner of his eye, he saw her scramble to take the phone off speaker.
“What’s going on?” she squeaked. “What happened?”
Theo slowed at the light. He wiped his hands on his jeans, half-listening to the conversation. Half-afraid he was going to accidentally crash his car when it turned green.
“No, I’m—I’m with Theo. No, I’ll come. I’m coming now. Right now.” Alyssa hung up and turned to him, her eyes wet. Pleading.
“You’re like, my second best friend in the world,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t do this any other time. My family—”
Theo didn’t want to hear it.
“Go.”
When she didn’t move, he tried again.
“Seriously. Go. I’m not mad, Alyssa.”
“Swearsies?” she whispered, pinkie held out. He latched on.
“I promise. Go handle your shit. I got this.”
Alyssa pulled him into one of her infamous spine cracking hugs. “Text him and cancel.”
The door slammed before he could answer.
And then Theo was alone with the wheel, the silence, and a pit in his gut.
Theo circled the parking lot.
Twice.
A third time for good measure.
He had debated on canceling, went over all the pros and cons in his head. There was one pro and a hundred thousand cons.
Finally, he parked.
“I can do this,” he told himself as he unbuckled the seat belt. “It’s a public place.”
Still no texts from Noah.
Instead of swiping the screen closed like he’d been doing for days, he left the thread open. Forced his eyes to stay on the white block of text sitting heavy on black.
His fingers trembled as he typed.
Theo
call me l8r
There.
There!
He did it.
One step in the right direction. One text he couldn’t have sent yesterday. His heart didn’t stop racing, but it tripped over itself in a different way—chest hollowing out just enough to let in air again.
It wasn’t pretend anymore.
