When did she start crying?
She didn’t know.
At the sound of her voice, Theo straightened and slowly turned to face her.
Horror.
Horror was written in his eyes.
He heaved and dropped the keys his mother had left him as he clamped a hand to his mouth. They hit the floor with a clatter and skidded across the tile.
Theo followed.
His legs finally gave out, and he fell heavily to his knees. He only just managed to stop himself from completely collapsing by bracing his left hand against the hard floors.
“THEO!” Audrey rushed over to him and threw herself onto her own knees, brushing his hair away from his face. Tears still streamed from his eyes as he trembled, and he took deep, gasping breaths while he lowered his head and tried not to vomit.
“Please don’t leave me,” he finally choked out. “Please don’t.”
“Oh god, no. No. I’m not going anywhere,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around his head and pulling him into her chest. “There’s no way I’m leaving you.” He clung to her while he shivered and buried his face in her sweater, still gulping for air, as though what had just happened suffocated him.
She held him on the floor until he calmed enough to pull away.The sky outside was gray and darkening by the second, and Theo still looked like he was about to be sick.
“I-I just need a—a minute. Give me a minute,” he mumbled, pushing himself to his feet. Audrey rose with him, helping him steady himself until he was able to stumble over to the staircase. “Let me clean myself up. I’ll—I’ll b-be…I’ll be right back.”
He gripped the banister so hard, his knuckles turned white as he mounted the stairs, his eyes glassy and unfocused.
What she’d just seen with his mother had been so raw, so anguished, it had left her feeling empty inside.
She could only imagine what he was feeling right now. She made her way to the couch and curled up in the corner, drawing her knees to her chest and trying not to cry.
When thirty minutes ticked by and Theo still hadn’t come back down, she got even more nervous.
Audrey slung her bag over her shoulder and made her way upstairs. He was in no shape to be left alone for too long, and she was starting to feel a little afraid of what he might do. Fear prickled at the back of her neck at the eerie, empty silence of his house in the aftermath of the argument, and when there was no sign of him on the second floor, she wandered up to the master suite on the third.
As soon as she mounted the landing, she heard the hiss of the shower coming from his bathroom. Light spilled beneath the door, and she pursed her lips while she entered the bedroom.
All right. One mystery partially solved. Some of the unease in her stomach ebbed, but it didn’t completely disappear. Perhaps she could settle in while she waited—he certainly hadn’t wanted her to leave, and she’d promised him she wouldn’t.
But as soon as she saw his bedroom, she stopped in her tracks.
Theo had made some changes.
It wasn’t just that Roo sat waiting for her on her nightstand, looking almost comically out of place against the sleek, modern,monochrome design aesthetic of grown-up Theo. It was also that two small black cylindrical machines sat plugged in on both nightstands, standing guard on either side of the bed. Across from them on one of the bookshelves was a new black essential oil diffuser, pumping a steady stream of lavender-scented mist into the air, and on another shelf glowed a beautiful salt lamp. Soft, soothing light in striped tones of amber and orange, pink and gold filtered out from the bulb inside, spilling across the floor and gently illuminating the room in the dark of freshly fallen evening. It was on a dimmer switch, cranked up to maximum brightness.
When she turned on a bedside lamp and clicked the button on one of the new black machines, a steady, droning white noise poured forth—and she clamped a hand to her mouth, suddenly fighting back tears.
She’d told Theo she was afraid of the dark.
She’d told him she had trouble sleeping.
And he’d gone and given her light and sound and scent to help.
He’d tried so hard to make her feel comfortable here, in his room, his house, his home.
He’d made those changes, rearranged his life forher.
She let the bag fall to the ground and hurried over to the bathroom door, knocking softly once. “Theo?” she called.
