Page 188 of Perfect
Oh,Theo.
“What do you think is real right now?” I ask gently. He blinks once, slowly, looking a little lost.
“Alex, I’m not delusional anymore. I know what’s real. I know I fucked everything up, I know you hate me, and I know this is the last time I’ll ever see you.” I can hear the unspokenI love youhanging in the air between us, and it breaks my heart that he doesn’t say it.
He’s still in deep shit with me, but I think he needs a lot of reassurance before he can handle my anger.
God, he’s so fucking fragile.
I don’t know why that’s so endearing, but it is.
“You’re still delusional,” I tease softly, but he just blinks at me in confusion. Theo can’t hide any of the emotions flashing across his face as I thank him, and I watch his face transform from despair to confusion to despair again the longer I speak. He seems baffled when I forgive him, and I can almost see the moment he starts wondering if what’s happening is real.
“I don’thateyou, Teddy,” I say softly, my heart pounding in my chest. “Iloveyou.” Theo stares at my mouth with a look of intense confusion, and I know for a fact he doesn’t believe me.
I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure he never doubts that again.
“This isreal,” I whisper, and he looks desperate and unsure as he reaches for me.
Our lips barely meet, but something intangible starts passing between us over and over on an endless loop, solidifying more and more each time, linking us tighter and tighter together until all I can feel is the unbreakable, invisible thread connecting us to each other.
Time seems to stretch and distort, and I spend a lifetime in that moment with him, back where we belong, where everything makes sense, where we’re two halves of one inextricable whole.
***
I hardly make it out of the visitation room before I break down, trying and failing to keep myself from sobbing as I check out and hurry back to Bailey’s car in the parking lot.
She looks deeply concerned the second I open the car door. “Babe, are you okay? What happened? Do I need to kill him?” I wipe my face and choke out a laugh as I shake my head, catching my breath.
“Please don’t,” I say, my voice watery and faint as I start crying again. “It’s…we’re good. Everything’s okay.” Bailey smiles at me and squeezes my knee.
“He really loves you, you know that?” I nod, wiping away my tears.
“Yeah, he does,” I say quietly as we pull out of the parking lot. “More than I realized.”
***
Elise’s firm is located on the seventeenth floor of a large glass and steel building in downtown Portland, and she greets me warmly and ushers me back to her large corner office. It’s stylishly decorated in cream and rose colors, full of large, lush houseplants, and has an expansive view looking east over the river.
I sit in a plush chair as Elise makes coffee with a small espresso maker in the corner, and I slip a bottle of Xanax out of my bag and take one quickly while her back is turned. She hands me my coffee and sits in the chair across from me, crossing her legs and looking at me, obviously intrigued.
“So,” she says slowly, “do I get to ask why you’re sitting here instead of in the district attorney’s office? Your phone call Saturday afternoon was a surprise.” I look down at my coffee, smiling a little.
“Yeah, well, Theo surprised me. Um, how much has he told you about our relationship?”
“Essentially nothing.” I laugh nervously and look out the window, taking in the view of Mount Hood as I take a deep breath, trying to push down my anxiety.
“How much do you need to know to get Theo out of prison?”
“You’re his entire case, so pretty much everything.” I turn back to Elise and stare at her apprehensively for a moment.
“Is this all confidential?” She nods once. “Well, you’re either going to think I’m a fucking idiot, or you’re going to understand why I’m sitting here. Maybe both.” Elise leans forward, resting her elbow on the arm of her chair and cupping her chin in her hand in a way that reminds me of Jessica when she listens to gossip. I laugh and look back out the window, taking a shaky breath.
“Um, so Theo’s not just my boyfriend, he’s mystalker.He, um,he kind of forced me into a relationship because he was delusional and thought we were together, or that we belonged together, anyway.” I flick my eyes back to her, and she’s seemingly unfazed. “And then I fell in love with him.” Elise doesn’t even blink. “Please don’t judge me.” She shakes her head.
“I’m not judging you, Alex,” she says softly, smiling at me, “but now I have alotmore questions for you.” I laugh and shake my head before I take a long sip of my coffee and answer every question she asks.
***
