Page 95 of Stop and Seek
The cold water helped.
The twelve cups of coffee he guzzled also helped.
The little blue pills he found in his dresser were a goddamn life saver.
Literally.
He still looked like shit in the mirror. Eyes blood shot. Knick on his skin from shaving. Dark circles growing. To make shit worse? His hair was curling at the ends.
Great.
Fuck my entire life, I guess.
Truthfully? Healmostfelt normal. Except his brain wouldn’t stay in the same place for longer than half a second.
The car ride was even worse. Driving to work was a shit idea. His hands were shaking so bad on the steering wheel, he almost careened off the road into a ditch.
Oops.
Maybe mixing uppers andlegal-uppers wasn’t the smartest idea he’d ever had. His heart kept slamming against his ribcage like it wanted to break free. But—in his defense—he needed to stay awake and stop obsessing over something he couldn’t fix.
The glass doors squeaked when he opened them, and he was assaulted with the smell of paper and must. At least the library never changed.
It was his one guaranteed safe spot anymore.
Peace was exactly what he needed. Calm, and quiet, and boring as shit.
Any other day, he would’ve been pulling his hair out by 3:00p.m, counting down the minutes until he could leave. The library was silent except for the sound of the air conditioner and Mrs. Rosario’s bad jokes he’d hear from time to time.
Three high school kids came in asking for help filling out their college applications, and that was it.
Theo moved through the routine in a fever-filled daze, either going in slow motion, or in triple speed.
Did herememberwiping down the same spot on the table? Not until it squeaked so loud he fucking flinched.
When he finally got around to checking his phone, the notifications looked endless—a flood of missed messages and calls. More than he’d ever seen.
Rachel had sent him twenty—twenty—fucking texts, each more frantic than the last. She’d called even more times than that. Whatever she was saying about Noah didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, either.Not that his brain would stop mixing the letters around long enough toconcentrate.
He sent her one back
yes, mom. im at work.
Alyssa’s messages had the same kind of tone:are you okay? Do you need anything?
How many “I haven’t dove off the deep end yet, people” messages was he going to have to send?
Even Noah texted him three times.
Theo paused, his finger hovering over the screen.
He didn’t want to think about Noah. Hearing Alyssa say he had a thing for someone… it gave Theo a bitter taste in his mouth. If he was just a blip on Noah’s radar—an easy fuck in Ohio, some stupid conquest—that was fine.
Definitely fine.
He didn’topen the text.
“I’m doing generators. I got no fucking clue what you’re trying to pull.” Theo shoved his hair out of the way and adjusted the headset, one hand on the keyboard.
