“Come over here and tell me again.”
Producing the plastic case again, Dylan climbed onto the bed. He held out the pill.
Auggie’s phone rang.
“Sorry,” Auggie said with a nervous laugh, pulling out his phone to silence it. Theo’s name was flashing on the screen.
Dylan sat back.
Auggie thought of Theo’s face, the horrible attempt at a smile.
Dylan shifted his weight. His hand slid up to Auggie’s dick again.
“I’m sorry,” Auggie said. “I’m really, really sorry, but I’m worried about this friend. Can you just give me a minute?”
“Yeah,” Dylan said, kissing Auggie’s neck. “Of course, little bro.”
“Theo?” Auggie asked. His voice was too high, on the edge of cracking, and he struggled to bring it back down. “What’s up?”
“Can’t.”
His voice was wrong. Too thick. The single syllable was almost unintelligible.
“Theo—” Auggie pushed Dylan away. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“Can’t stop spinning.”
“What can’t stop spinning? Where are you?” Auggie slid off the bed, grateful he still had on his high-tops, and cast about for his wallet and keys. “Theo, I need you to tell me where you are.”
“What’s up?” Dylan said. “Something wrong?”
“Are you in a car?” Auggie said. “Did you get in a car, Theo?”
“In the car,” Theo said in that drowned voice. “Can’t stop spinning.”
Then the line disconnected.
24
When Theo got home from the Sigma Sigma house, his clothes were soaked with sweat. He stripped in the kitchen, the lukewarm air from the window A/C like sandpaper against bare skin. Then he stumbled into the shower. His knee wasn’t hurting, but he had trouble walking, as though his joints had locked up. He ran the water cold and stood under it, letting the spray needle his back.
The gun. And Auggie. His mind came back to those two things again and again. He tried to build out from them: Evans had pulled a gun on Auggie; Auggie could have been killed. But his thoughts kept collapsing into those two irreducible facts. The gun. And Auggie. Auggie. And the gun.
He left the shower, the water still running, and went back to the kitchen. He got a White Rascal from the fridge and drank it over the sink, water puddling around him. The house felt cold now, and a part of his mind recognized that it was because he was naked and wet, but even that barely registered. When he’d finished the first can, he crushed it against the counter and got another. Through the glass set in the back door, he could see the line of oaks at the edge of the property, the gnarled limbs, the still-green leaves, the network of branches and twigs. Behind it all was the blue of the September sky. Yes, he thought. Think about that. Twig, branch, tree. Blue sky. He crushed the beer and went back to the shower.
Warming the water by degrees, he felt better. The beer was already rounding off the edges. He could look at the whole thing from a few steps back. He ran the bar of soap across his chest, noticed the way it glided until it got to the chest hair. And then he thought about those little hairs sprouting on Auggie, which was a reminder that Auggie was, when you got to the bottom of it, still a kid. And maybe that was why Theo had come unmoored. Auggie was young. Auggie was just so damn young. And he still loved life, still didn’t understand all the ways it came at you, again and again, until it broke you. He still smiled without even thinking about it. He said what he thought, without layers of self-protection, without the extra decade of social conditioning that would make him rethink, reword, rephrase. He still saw the future like the Serengeti, wide and untrammeled, pick your path, when really it was a rut in the ground that just got deeper, year after year, until you were shooting down a ravine and couldn’t turn back.
Theo hammered the water off. He dried himself with a towel. He had a third beer.
And—he was realizing now, with the help of that third beer—Luke. He mustn’t forget about Luke. That explained why Theo had reacted so strongly today. He had seen Auggie in danger, and he had spent so much of his life trying to keep Luke safe, and Luke had died. So it made sense that Theo would react. It made sense that he would feel a terror so vast that he was close to shitting himself.
Except, a little voice said. Except you’ve seen Auggie in danger before. And it scared you—when the guy tried to kidnap him at the Frozen King, and it felt like someone had knocked the wind out of you. When Jessica slashed at him with a knife, and you knew it was better to die than to let him get hurt. You’ve seen him in danger, you’ve seen him hurt, you’ve seen it all already, and you didn’t react like this.
Still drying himself with the towel, Theo made his way upstairs, a fourth beer in one hand. His nipples were hard. His balls ached. His face felt too warm, and he let the towel drop and finished the stairs naked.
Who could explain why the brain did anything, he wanted to know. In the mirror over the dresser he had shared with Ian, he asked himself: who can explain one fucking thing about how the brain works? Can somebody tell you why you wake up every day next to the same man, year after year, and then he’s dead and you keep waking up and for an instant, you don’t remember that he’s gone? You roll over to bitch at him about stealing the covers, or to tell him it’s his turn to get up with Lana, or just to see his face, and then you remember.
Dropping onto the bed, Theo stared up at the ceiling, the cracked plaster, the nail pops, the signs that the house was shifting, that everything was shifting.
Who could tell you why you woke up one morning, one totally normal morning, just another day, and you’re already reaching for your phone to text him, because he makes you laugh, because you saw something that reminded you of one of his goofy videos, because you can hear his voice in the words? Who could tell you anything about yourself? And if nobody could tell you something like that, if nobody could tell you anything about why you sit differently on the couch to leave room for him, or why you stock Doritos, or why some nights you think crazy things like where you could go on vacation, that cabin at the lake maybe, and what it would be like to sit on the porch, just let him talk until he ran out of things to say—he could talk all night if he wanted, and you wouldn’t mind—if nobody could tell you anything like that, Theo wondered, why should I have any idea why I’m freaking the fuck out?
His breath was coming faster. The room wobbled. He got out of bed, pounded back the beer, and made his way downstairs, almost tripping on the towel. The fifth beer he drank at the table; his naked ass peeled away from the wood when he stood and tossed the empty at the recycling. Miss.
When Theo opened the fridge, the White Rascals were gone. He made his way up to the bedroom. This time he did trip on the towel, and he started laughing as he lay on the stairs, laughing until he couldn’t breathe. His knee hurt, though, and he had to drag himself the rest of the way to his bedroom. Sitting on the floor, he unscrewed the outlet plate. Then he pulled the outlet out of the box. Then he pulled the box out of the wall.