Page 83 of Perfect
“You got it.” I stare at him, thinking hard. I need some answers or I’m going to completely freak out.
“Um, Theo, can I ask you some questions?” He sets the drink down in front of me, looking a little nervous.
“Yeah, anything.”
“Did you and your mom ever get along?” He freezes and swallows hard, nodding once and turning away from me, walking back towards the food on the stove.
“Yeah. She, uh…we were best friends when I was little. Jason went from logging to driving a long-haul truck, so it would be these long stretches of just me and Melissa, but then he’d comehome, and it was a fucking nightmare.” I feel a pang of sadness for him and try to quash it. He’s going to kill me, so I don’t need to feel sorry for him.
I sort of do, though.
“Was it ever good?”
He shrugs. “Sure, maybe sometimes, but in general, having a meth head for a dad fuckingsucked.” I frown. That sounds like an understatement.
“Why’d you kill him?” He shrugs again, his shoulders tense.
“He gotreallyhigh and threatened to kill Melissa, and I fuckinglost it. He was waving his gun around in her face, so I got it off him and shot him in the head.” My eyes widen, and I stare at him in shock. He did that attwelve?
“And she just left you?” Theo raises his eyebrows, shaking his head and sucking in a deep breath.
“Yeah. Never came to visit or answered any of my calls, and then Nana and Boss showed up and told me they’d be adopting me and that I’d be living with them.”
“Fuck.” He crosses his arms and nods his head at the pan in front of him, his eyes wide.
“Mmhmmm.” Something about the rigid set of his shoulders tells me I need to drop this line of questioning, so I pivot.
“Why’d you go for Kevin and not Ashley?” He looks up at me with a serious, pained expression.
“Comeon, Alex. Ineverwould have hurt her.” I can’t tell if I believe him or not.
He seems to believe himself, but I’m pretty sure I don’t.
“Do you feel bad about almost killing Kevin?” He looks away from me again.
“It’s…complicated,” he says, laughing humorlessly. “Honey, can we talk about something else now? I try not to think about this stuff.”
“I think I get to ask you these questions,” I say, trying to keep my voice even.
He lets out a harsh sigh. “Youdo, but I’m only talking about this shit because you feel like you don’t know me. I hate thinking about it, and I’mbeggingyou to change the subject,” he says, the last words brittle.
“Don’t you have to talk to your therapist about this stuff?”
“Fuck, no. I talked about it in the past, and I’m fine now,” Theo says, his voice clipped and tense.
“You know that talking to a therapist doesn’t mean that you’re actually dealing with anything, right?” My tone is sharp, but the laugh that he lets out is sharper.
“How the fuck wouldyouknow? You don’t talk to anyone about anything, especially not your fucking feelings,” he snaps, and my anger flares in my chest.
“I don’t need to talk about my feelings. They’remyfeelings, and I’m the only one who needs to know about them,” I say, and he shoots me a dirty look.
“That’s so fucking unhealthy,” he scoffs. “It’s also a shitty attitude to have in a relationship.” Anger and stress coil tightly in my chest and I snap.
“This isn’t a fuckingrelationship!” Theo closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling and shaking his head.
“I know you’re upset with me right now, sweetie, but thisisa relationship,” he grits out through clenched teeth. He lets out an aggravated sound and stirs something in the pan in front of him. “Whether you like it or not,” he mutters under his breath.
“I don’t!” I scream at him, jumping off my stool and stepping towards him. “If you ever fucking listened to me, you’d know that!” He rounds on me, his face frustrated and his jaw clenched.
