He’d been acting strange since our argument a week ago and I didn’t know whether to be concerned or if it was just normalweirdness from the pills. He was still Theo but…more. Like the dial was now cranked up too far on everything that made himhim.His virtues and his faults, all magnified to an overwhelming degree. It was a bit jarring after the last two weeks of his moodiness and disinterest.
I was still in my head when we stepped off the bus at the practice facility, but the buzzing in my pocket brought me out of it. I swiped to answer the phone call, bracing myself for what I knew was coming and I was honestly shocked it hadn’t come sooner.
“Hey Grandpa, now’s not a good time. We just got back to campus.”
“Well, that’s too bad because we need to talk about what happened today after the game,” he scolded. “Why on earth did you blow off Mike Hancock? Your father asked him to make time specifically to meet you while you were up there and he told me you spoke with Mike barely five minutes before dashing off.”
I drew a calming breath into my lungs, trying not to snap that I had no damn interest in talking to the sports agent he and Dad had corralled into meeting with me without my knowledge or permission. He’d been waiting for me outside the visiting locker room, all smarmy smiles and hard handshakes like I was selling my soul to him already. I feigned nausea from the exertion of the game and ducked out of the conversation, knowing it would get back to both Dad and Grandpa fairly quickly.
“I didn’t feel well. I wasn’t really up to talking with anyone,” I said, holding back my surly attitude.
“This is your future we’re talking about. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t necessarily want to do, but that are?—”
“Gramps, I can’t even sign with any agents before the season is over. I didn’t see any reason to waste his time and I didn’t want to violate any NCAA rules,” I said, but my flimsy excuse didn’t work.
“You know there is no violation if he’s there simply to meet you and give you information, and in any case, you still should comport yourself like the professional athlete you’ll soon be. If you’re seen as difficult or flighty, that can count against you when agents are signing with players ahead of the draft.”
A headache started to form behind my eyes from the pressure of holding in this secret for months on end. It shouldn’t have been so damn hard to talk to them about it, but that didn’t matter when the fear took you. Irrational or not, it had a way of digging in and poisoning the blood, whispering the worst case scenarios in your ear like a foregone conclusion.
“Yes sir,” I ground out, only wanting to be done with this pointless talk and get back to my guy.
“Good. I’m sending you his number so you can call to apologize and maybe fix up another get together with him one weekend coming up. I’ll see you next week for Thanksgiving and you can fill me in. You played very well today, Dawson. I’m so proud of you.”
I hated how much the little bit of praise warmed me inside. I couldn’t even fucking say why it mattered so much to me, especially knowing football wasn’t in the cards after this season. We ended the call and now I needed Theo more than ever, no matter what mood he happened to be in.
“Baby, I’m home!”I called out as I let myself into Theo’s apartment. I heard the sound of his shower running and decided it couldn’t hurt to join him. The stupid, insecure part of me just hoped he wouldn’t shoot down the idea. I was aching to be with him intimately again, but I was a little gun-shy after weeks of distance between us.
As I made my way towards his bedroom, my gaze snagged on his pill organizer in the middle of the island. A small niggle in my brain said something was off, and when I drew closer, I recognized why.
I knew Theo refilled his organizer every Sunday and seeing as it was Saturday night, one pill was all that should have been left. But the wells for the last four days were still full, the pills sitting there like little drops of betrayal. I tried not to assume anything, but anger and disappointment ripped through me. I was stuck in a trance, so I didn’t notice Theo waltzing into the room with only a towel around his trim waist.
“Hey beautiful, I didn’t know you were back yet! Why didn’t you text me?” His cheery voice penetrated the fog I was in and I twisted to see a bright grin on his face. It was such a far cry from the Theo I’d experienced the last few weeks that my nose stung and my eyes blurred the slightest bit. This Theo was all I had wanted to see for nearly a month, but now I worried what the cost had been to get him back.
“Are you skipping your pills?” I croaked out, the question bursting forth before I could stop it. Theo’s face fell and a gamut of emotion ran across his features. Guilt, anger, embarrassment, sadness, and finally resignation.
“Yes, but it’s not what you think.”
My stomach plummeted and my lids slammed shut against the stab of pain from his admittance.
“You promised me,” I whispered roughly.
“I didn’t break it! Not like you’re thinking,” he rushed out. “I haven’t stopped taking them, I’ve just started…staggering them.”
“Staggering them? Theo, you can’t screw around with your medication like that!”
Theo let out a frustrated grunt. “I had to do something. I was fucking drowning again! Do you think it’s easy for me to be thisdead inside? To not feel things like a normal person? I’ve seen how much I’ve hurt you the last few weeks. And it fucking hurts me too!”
He closed the distance and gripped my face, his sad eyes flaying me alive with their intensity.
“I didn’t want to slip further away from you. I wanted tofeelsomething again.” He leaned forward, growling the next words over my parted lips. “I needed to get back that uncontrollable desire that makes me want to tear off your clothes and bury myself in your tight heat until the world around us no longer exists. But I couldn’t do that while I kept taking that fucking poison everyday.”
My hands were wrapped around his wrists so hard I worried I’d leave bruises, but it was all that was tethering me to the earth right now. I felt so damn helpless. I wanted all the things back that we’d lost the last month, but there was a pit in my gut that didn’t feel right about this.
“You told me you didn’t want to try new meds because you were scared it could make things worse. What do you think this will do? You’re not supposed to just…pick and choose when you take hardcore pills like this. What if?—”
My voice failed as a dozen horrible possibilities buzzed in my head.
What if you become manic? What if your sex drive becomes too much to control? What if you become suicidal? What if you get into trouble?
