It took her nearly two months, but she did.
The next day, Theo sat across from her at the café, staring at her in disbelief while she smiled at him, while she touched him by sliding her tiny hand over his and keeping it there. He watched her mouth move, and her lips were telling him that she liked him, that she liked his drawing, that she’d seen it and didn’t think he was a stalker or a total creep.
What?
He’d spent those two months fixated on that little Post-it note on his mirror.
TRY NOT TO KILL YOURSELF TODAY
He thought about it. He thought about it every day.
You’re not dead yet, Theo.
Stop acting like it.
Get busy living, or get busy dying.
Just fucking pick onealready.
Make up your goddamn mind.
I’m tired of this shit.
But the truth was, if he had, then he really never would have been able to see Audrey again.
Part of him clung, white-knuckled and straining, to that tiniest glimmer of hope. He didn’t know why.
And now he was here, sitting at a table with her, their two coffees between them. He couldn’t believe he’d almost forgotten how stunning she was in person.
His face ached. The stitches were long gone, but he swore he could still feel them most of the time. His plastic surgeon told him his nerves were healing, and that increased pain was actually a good sign. His cheek was full of pins and needles and tiny lightning shocks beneath the silicone scar tape whenever he brushed it by accident or winced too quickly or sometimes from nothing at all. It burned now, odd and electric, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of Audrey’s skin atop his, cool and soothing against the back of his scorching hand.
That was a different kind of electric.
He’d spent two months driving himself mad trying to recreate the part of her he thought he’d lost while the artistic flame she’d lit within him struggled to survive. He never wanted her to know howmany half-finished drawings of her face he’d angrily crumpled and then recycled at home, how much ink he’d wasted trying to recreate the soft curves of her smile, the waves in her hair, the light in her eyes.
He was right to throw it all away.
Every one of his sad attempts paled in comparison to the real thing.
Maybe he was something of a hack after all—his uncle certainly thought so, and plenty of critics too. But maybe it didn’t matter anymore. Not if what was happening now was real.
Of course, the fact that Audrey had found him at his therapist’s office wasmortifying. Lisa winked at him when she handed him the note, and when he read it, he almost threw up before hurtling back upstairs to pound frantically on Amelia’s office door. He nearly gave her a heart attack, but he was convinced he was having one himself.
At least he’d been the last client that day. She probably wouldn’t have extended their session otherwise.
Now he held his sketchbook again, safe and sound. All his pre-accident plans for his upcoming projects were recovered.
But none of that mattered, because the most important drawing he’d ever made was back in his hands.
And with it, the most unexpected confession.
He went home, stripped off his hoodie and the sweat-soaked shirt beneath it, and laid his bare back down on his kitchen floor to stare blankly at the ceiling in wonder, letting the cold tile soothe his burning, feverish skin. He’d been sweatingprofuselyunder all those protective layers during that entire encounter. But he could deal with it.
You see?
You got the trademark Sullivan charm after all.
I was beginning to doubt.
