Page 68 of What Comes After

Or, maybe it was just all wishful thinking.

Because as I continued to ask myself all the questions about what everything he’d been doing might have meant, Theo was rolling with the punches.

He was sweet to me, but he’d always been sweet.

“Yeah, these are definitely my favorite, too,” he said after he swallowed.

“What?”

“I have to tell you something,” he revealed.

I cocked an eyebrow, silently questioning him, and feeling my body grow rigid. There was an edge of seriousness in his tone, so I felt compelled to brace myself for whatever he was about to reveal.

When he said nothing, I rasped, “What is it?”

He held the bag of gummy bears up between us and shared, “These were the only treats I would get when I had a reason to celebrate or wanted something sweet over the last twelve years. I’d always immediately toss the green ones, save the pineapple ones, and eat the others.”

“What did you do with the pineapple ones?” I asked.

“I saved them until the rest were finished. For a while, I kept them in a sealed plastic bag. My plan was to give them all to you when you came out to visit me, and we could have shared them. But after so many years passed, I had to toss them out, because you never came.”

My heart.

My poor heart had already been through too much turmoil.

I couldn’t handle this. I didn’t know what to do with this information.

“Theo,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

He must have realized how distressed I was, because he quickly shrugged his shoulders and insisted, “It’s okay. It was a long time ago, and I eventually stopped doing it.”

I didn’t know what to say.

For so many years, I’d convinced myself that Theo was the one who left and never knew what it was like to experience the pain and heartbreak I did over it.

Maybe the reason was different, but I had no doubt about it now. Theo understood the disappointment and pain I felt, because every time he’d tried to convince me, especially in the beginning, to go out for a visit, I always declined.

“Isn’t a crazy?” he asked.

“What?”

“It feels like it was a lifetime ago when we sat in that tunnel in the culvert talking about everything and nothing under the sun,” he started. “Somehow, I remember everything we talked about that night. I’d recall it frequently, especially when I missed you. And aside from always finding it amusing that our parents called the police, I think it’s hysterical that neither of us wound up where we thought we would.”

As sentimental as his words made me feel, I was slightly relieved by the turn in the conversation. “You wanted to work in construction,” I noted.

“And you wanted to design and build Legos,” he returned with an amused look on his face.

The tension I’d been feeling was slowly dissipating. “I haven’t built a Lego set since whenever you and I built our last one together.”

“Are you joking?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He grinned at me. “Neither have I.”

I offered him a look of indifference, reached into the bag, and pulled out a handful of bears. I held my palm out to him, and Theo took the red and orange ones, leaving the two pineapple ones in my hand.

I smiled and popped them into my mouth right after I said, “We’re grownups now. I think those days are over.”

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