Page 100 of Stop and Seek
Theo swallowed, hard. “I—I met him at one of my friend’s parties senior year. He… uh… he offered me a blunt. We got high. He kissed me.”
“There’s—” Noah paused, eyebrows knitting together. “No way. Aaron was the straightest guy I ever met. All he talked about was girls he was screwing.”
Oh my god.
Every time Noahspoke—
“Either kiss me, or back the fuck off,” Theo whispered. “I can’t multitask.”
Noah snorted, finally pulling back—but not far. His hand moved down Theo’s leg to his knee.
“You win. Keep going.”
All the tension left Theo’s body in one fell swoop. Like someone punched out the oxygen and left him stranded.
“Aaron—maybe he’s straight,” Theo started, unsure of how to phrase the rest of it. “Maybe he was going through a phase. I have no clue. He’d tell everyone I was tutoring him in calc, but we’d go to his basement and fuck around and get high.”
He paused, dropping his hands to the blanket to mess with the frayed edge. “Someone caught us in the first-floor bathroom and it—it went bad. Then I snapped.”
That wasn’t the truth, though.
Baddidn’t begin to cover it. None of the words were good enough. It had been one slow, long, catastrophe. Something inside him had split wide open that day, and he’d never been able to find all the pieces.
“Jesus,” Noah murmured, hand tightening on Theo’s knee. “I heard about this. The ambulance—was that you? The police questioned the entire team. We all figured Aaron and Keith knew…something, but they wouldn’t talk. We were told someone tried to...”
There was so much fucking blood. The floor, his hands, his jeans. The damn pocket knife stung so bad. His arms wouldn’t stop bleeding, and he had no idea how it happened, or where the gashes came from.
Theo glanced from Noah, to the blanket. “It’s not a bad word. I just wanted the shit in my head to stop for a second. Killing myself sounded like the easiest way to get that to happen.”
Silence. Louder than the quiet. Louder than anything he’d heard in fucking days.
Then—gently, Noah’s hand caught his jaw. Turned it back to him. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
Too much.
The burning in Theo’s eyes. The way he had to clench his jaw to keep it from shaking.
All he wanted was Noah’s hands on his body, mouth on his. He didn’t have to think about this goddamn nightmare when he was high, or drunk, or fucking.
It was too much.
The silence pressed in hard, like the whole world forgot how to function.
Noah only felt Theo’s heartbeat—fast and panicked under his fingers, trying to punch out of his throat. His own chest squeezed too tight. Too small for the size of the fury boiling inside him.
Aaronmade Theo feel like hurting himself.
Aarongot into that beautiful head and broke it.
No wonder Theo didn’t trust anyone. Jesus, howcouldhe?
His hand stayed where it was—curved around Theo’s jaw, gentle. He brushed his thumb along it, catching a tiny shaving cut. That little stupid thing broke him. Made his stomach flip. Made something huge and helpless crash around inside him.
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that shit on your own,” Noah murmured. It burned on the way out.
Theo didn’t answer. His lashes were wet. Eyes glassy. Pupils blown wide. His lips were parted just enough for Noah to see how hard he was breathing—like it hurt to do something so simple.
Noah’s whole bodyachedto fix it. His muscles screamed for action—do something,say something,be everything. He wanted to hold Theo down and kiss his sadness out of him, fuck all the broken pieces back into place, or wrap him up and never let anyone near him again. He could do either. Both. All of it. Whatever Theo wanted.
