Page 186 of Perfect
I respond by standing up and walking away.
55
ALEX
MAY 17
I’m home for over a month before I’m ready to talk to Theo, and I can’t sleep at all the night before I see him. I lie in bed, trying to imagine what might happen, but every scenario seems wrong.
When Bailey picks me up, she glances at me as I get into the car, concern clear on her face.
“Can I ask?” Bailey’s voice is quiet as she pulls away from the curb, and I sigh.
“I saw him do it,” I say quietly. “I don’t know how I feel about him now.” Bailey doesn’t say anything, but she grips my hand in hers and squeezes hard, and I barely talk to her for the rest of the short drive there. I sit there and bite my nails, which I haven’t done since I was a kid, steeling myself for dealing with him.
I want to take a Xanax because I’m so nervous, but I can’t be off guard with Theo. I don’t know how he’s going to act, but I’m expecting that he’ll lie to me and try to manipulate me to get what he wants.
That’s all he does, apparently.
I’m a ball of nerves as I sit there, waiting. I’m so grateful that he saved me, but I’m also furious and heartbroken, and I can’t even begin to explain how I felt watching him kill Danny. I’ll thank him for saving my life, but after that, I don’t know what I’ll do.
I could leave him here to rot, which is probably what I shoulddo.
The second I see him enter the room, I go numb. Theo looksterrible. He’s thinner, his hair is longer, he hasn’t shaved in days, and he has such defined purple circles under his eyes that it seems like he hasn’t slept in a long time. He moves slowly, his eyes cast downward, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so subdued.
The second he sees me, he jerks in surprise and his face transforms from a drawn, blank look to something almost feral, terrified and upset andwanting. Familiar tension returns to his body instantly, and he freezes in place for a moment before walking towards me slowly.
Everything about him seems sharper to me now, like there’s an edge to him I’d missed.
I don’t move as he sits across from me, and we watch each other warily. I know this is probably the last time I’ll see him, but I don’t know how I feel about that yet. All I can feel is pain as I look at him, and it takes me a long time to pull myself together enough to speak to him without screaming at him.
“You’re not a shitty liar after all.” Theo flinches as if I’ve slapped him.
“I didn’t know how to tell you about the tracker,” he says, his voice hoarse and quiet like he hasn’t spoken much lately.
“You lied in thecar,” I say, forcing down my tears. “You said if I stayed with you, everything would be okay.” Theo freezes, his eyes widening. “Nothing’s okay,” I choke out, and he looks so horrified that I have to turn away from him.
Not for the first time, I wonder if it shouldn’t have listened to his bullshit lies, shouldn’t have clung to his every word and fought to stay with him. I didn’t want to die, but if I’d kept shrinking into nothingness, I wouldn’t have to live with all this pain.
I wouldn’t have to sit here and wait for him to break my heart again.
I force down all my feelings and I watch him closely for any signs that he’s lying or manipulating. I watch the way he looks at me, his hopeless face full of love and concern and longing, and I listen closely to the desperate, resigned tone of his voice as he tells me I owe him nothing.
When he begs to speak, I let him, trying hard to keep my face neutral as I brace myself for his bullshit. He starts speaking rapidly, like he’s expecting me to get up at any moment.
“...I’mgladI lied about it,” he rushes out. “You would have made me take it out, and then you wouldn’t be sitting here.” For just a moment, I want to kill him because he’s such a fucking asshole.
He’s alsoright.
He keeps talking, and his rationalization for why he refuses to take accountability for his bullshit is somewhat understandable. I can begrudgingly see where he’s coming from, and that he wasn’t being malicious, just extremely fucking selfish. None of it makes me less angry, but the more he talks, the more I can tell something about him is different, but I can’t tell what.
He leans towards me, and something about his expression changes from desperate and pleading to smug.
“I’mespeciallynot sorry about killing Danny,” he says, and I freeze, watching him carefully as he tells me he wasalwaysplanning on killing Danny.
Oh, my god.
“...sofucking happy I got to make himsuffer,” he says in a harsh whisper, smiling for a fraction of a second. My eyes go wide at how predatory and unhinged he looks, at how delighted he is with himself, and I realize what’s different about him.
