Exhaustion.
Emptiness.
Hopelessness.
I craved to go to him, hug him to me and demand he tell me what put that look in his eyes. What was he hiding that he couldn’t trust me with? As he emptied his drink and reached for another one from a cooler, the thought struck me. Was it that obvious and I just missed it?
The drinking, the drugs at my party, the overdose in high school that came out of nowhere?
His erratic behavior and mercurial mood made sense now. I could even trace moments back in high school, like pins on a timeline where Theo had started to change. Staying up later each night, not sleeping as much, his grades slipping from A’s to C’s, becoming more temperamental and irritable between weird bouts of happiness and energy. Everyone assumed it was his ADHD, but medication had never seemed to help and it just got worse the older he got.
Fucking fuck, how had I missed that? Was this all stemming from an addiction? How is it possible that I hadn’t noticed how much he was struggling back then? He was my best friend, my boyfriend, my fuckingeverything. Why hadn’t I seen?
The realization sank in like a weight on my lungs. The answer was simple. He hadn’t wanted me to.
Or maybe it was because I hadn’t wanted to see it.
Chapter 16
Theo
My gaze was pinned on Dawson’s. I thought I was crazy (probably because I fucking was), but I caught the shift in the way he looked at me. It was subtle, but it was like someone slotting a puzzle piece into place. That lightbulb moment when a solution finally hits you. I felt dizzy and panic sizzled in the back of my brain that he’d figured me out. That he knew I was nothing but a ticking time bomb.
Then the look slowly melted into one I recognized very well. Disappointment and pity. I couldn’t stand seeing Dawson look at me like that.
Does he know? Does he really see now? How did he figure out that I’m…
I slammed the door on that train of thought before it sent me over the edge. It was impossible. There was no way he knew.
He can’t…I’m not ready to lose him again.
I spent the next couple of hours like a social magician, conjuring up smiles and creating illusions of joy. Drink after drink gave me power, but it didn’t stop my brain from firing off in a million directions.
“Hey man, you alright?”
I focused back on—shit, what’s his name?—the lacrosse dude I’d been talking to earlier. I had tried to enjoy the conversation, but I was just so damn tired. It never ended.
“Yeah, sorry. Zoned out. I’m gonna grab something to eat real quick.”
He waved me off with a smile and I stumbled quickly up the stairs to the deck where the food was. I wasn’t really hungry, but I needed an excuse to get some space. I leaned up against the railing, looking out at the myriad of boats, paddlers, and kayaks dotted across the water. I used to love coming out to the lake, but I always had Dawson by my side then.
I let myself get lost in past summers spent out here when we were kids, eating way too much junk food and using way too little sunscreen. My thoughts drifted to later times, when we were much older and things had shifted between us. I had touched Dawson’s dick for the first time out here. Under the water, I’d snuck my hand into his swim trunks and gave him the world’s most inexperienced and shortest handjob before he blew his load.
And it had been fucking epic.
That was the summer I’d first kissed him, when he’d played my favorite song because for him, there was no better way to tell me how he felt. That was the summer that changed everything for us. We had always known we’d have a lifetime of friendship, but it was then that we promised each other so much more. There had been no doubt in my mind that Dawson was my forever.
And now my future was uncertain, unstable in a way that left me doubting whether I’d have one at all.
The dark cloud threatened to invade my head, but I refused to let it in. I spun around and ran smack into someone I actually recognized.
“Oh shit, I’m sorry! I swear I usually have better depth perception, but my brain’s a little scrambled from the jetski,” Dawson’s friend apologized with an embarrassed smile.
“Ahh, not your bag?”
“Probably would have been if I hadn’t been flung overboard when Bash took a corner too fast,” he said with an exaggerated eye roll. “So I’m gonna blame any faux pas on the gallon of lake water I unfortunately ingested.”
“Should also give you a nice parasite or two. I bet you could blame a few offenses on that.”
