17
They went to the hospital first. It didn’t matter what Theo said, how he tried to explain that they needed to focus on Auggie; the nurses skillfully separated them, placing Theo in a treatment cubicle of Wahredua General’s emergency department. They went about their work—checking his pupils with a light, asking him questions, cleaning the cut on the side of the head, shaving a patch of hair, and then, after the cool prick of anesthetic, stitching him up. The doctor, a woman Theo didn’t recognize, patted his arm once, when he brought up Auggie for the hundredth time, and said, “How about you let me do my job?”
But eventually, after Theo had declined anything stronger than Tylenol and—in a general sense—made a total nuisance of himself, after he had answered questions from a uniformed officer and then, again, from Detective Upchurch, one of the nurses led Theo past several cubicles, and he found himself with Auggie. The curtain slid shut. The sound of rubber-soled shoes moved away. A child was crying in the distance, the heartsick wails of frustration and incomprehension and pain. Yeah, Theo thought, lowering himself shakily into one of the bedside chairs. Me too.
Auggie lay under the thin sheet, dressed in a hospital johnny that had slipped forward to expose his collarbone. Fresh bruises, still starting to purple, marked his neck and shoulder. Theo didn’t remember those. He wasn’t sure when they had happened. Aside from that, he looked fine. Really. His eyes were closed. His head wasn’t bandaged. The doctors must not have been worried about a concussion because otherwise they wouldn’t let him doze like this. Auggie’s hand lay on top of the covers, palm up, the fingers slightly curled. Someone, a nurse, had applied one of those specially shaped bandages between his fingers. Where the cross had cut into his hand, Theo understood, from the force Auggie had used driving it up into Trace’s eye.
Although, that wasn’t the real damage. Theo sat, for what felt like a long time, looking at Auggie in the johnny. He knew it was silly, being half-convinced that the worst part for Auggie would have been here, the doctors and nurses looking at him, the invasive examination, the questions. It was silly because the physical damage might be the worst part. He wondered if he’d need stitches. He walked himself through it, again and again, everything from the moment Imogen came up behind him at the party and caught him by surprise, the gun nuzzling up against the small of his back, and then, when Trace found them, the blow to the side of his head, the handcuffs, the slow march up the stairs to that hellhole above the garage. Watching as Trace put Auggie on that bed. Watching as he tugged his trousers off. Watching. Why the fuck had he just sat there and watched?
Warm fingers found his arm and skated up to where Theo held his head in his hands. Auggie tugged and made a sleepy noise.
“Hey.” Theo’s voice was rough. He blinked and wiped his face with his free hand.
“Are you ok?” Auggie peered at him through half-open eyes. “The doctors said you were ok.”
“Am I ok? Jesus, Auggie. How are you—I mean, I know you’re not ok, but did they—Christ, why is this so hard?”
“I’m ok,” Auggie said. He laced his fingers through Theo’s. “Detective Somerset talked to me.”
Theo nodded.
“Hey, Theo?” Auggie swallowed, and his eyes filled. “I kind of want to go home.”
That undid Theo, and for a moment, all he could do was look away and struggle against that vast, implacable thing moving through him. When he had mastered himself, or partly anyway, he cleared his throat, nodded, and squeezed Auggie’s hand. Then he went to find a doctor. And, just to be safe, Detective Upchurch.
It turned out, they were allowed to go home. After collecting Auggie’s prescriptions—an ointment for the cut on his hand, and pain pills for his head—Theo got them a cab, and they rode home in silence, Auggie’s head on Theo’s shoulder, the cab’s worn suspension bouncing him until Theo put an arm around him to steady him. Theo went through the keys on Auggie’s ring while Auggie leaned against the doorway. When he let them inside, the apartment was dark, and it smelled like too many shoes that belonged to college-aged boys and frozen pizza and, probably unsurprisingly, beer. Theo ditched the prescription bag in the kitchen and navigated the darkness until they reached Auggie’s room. Once they were inside, he shut the door and turned on the light.
He sat Auggie on the bed, and then he went about removing Auggie’s clothes, his movements careful, as steady as he could make his hands. Auggie’s nice clothes had been neatly bagged and tagged at the hospital, and the blood and DNA evidence would be used against Trace and Imogen, along with the video that Trace had been recording. It was easy to get Auggie out of the sweatshirt that he was wearing now.
“Somerset’s,” Auggie said as Theo tugged the Wahredua High sweatshirt over his head. “He had it in his trunk.”
“That was nice of him,” Theo said, smoothing a hand over the goose bumps that sprang up on Auggie’s shoulder. He lowered the sweatpants as he knelt and popped off the Reeboks. “These too?”
Auggie nodded. His eyes drooped, and he hugged himself, shivering.
“Under the blanket,” Theo said, and he followed the words by bundling Auggie into bed. After toeing off the oxfords he’d worn for his caterer disguise, Theo grabbed one of the pillows and tossed it onto the floor. “Do you need anything? A drink of water? A granola bar, something small? When was the last time you ate?”
Auggie shook his head. He looked at the pillow on the floor, then at Theo.
“I figured tonight, you probably don’t want anyone touching you,” Theo said. He couldn’t meet Auggie’s eyes when he spoke. “But I don’t want you to be alone, either.”
Auggie swallowed. Then he put his arm over his eyes. Then, after a long moment, he shook his head.
Every second was like a match burning Theo’s fingers. Finally, when he couldn’t stand it anymore, he turned off the lights.
“I’ll be right here.” He lowered himself to the floor and stretched out. The pillow wasn’t where he’d expected it, and in the process, he bonked himself on the built-in desk. Then he found the pillow, and he got settled. The apartment was colder than it had felt a few minutes before, and he crossed his arms, wondering if he should put his shoes back on. “If you need anything.”
No answer came from the bed. The bedsheet over the window let in the light of the occasional, early morning car, and the sound of tires on pavement came intermittently, a low, quiet sound that gave the silence an edge. Theo closed his eyes. He thought he could still hear a child wailing. That’s just your imagination, he told himself. Go to sleep.
He did, but it was a keyhole sleep, the kind he had to twist and contort to slip into, and the dreams were wild and kept him racing. Auggie chained to the bed. Trace forcing his legs apart. That tiny, hidden room, and the feel of the rough edge of the drywall against Theo’s cheek, the broken plaster, the gypsum dust coming in on each breath to coat his tongue. In some of the dreams, he got shot, and all he could do was bleed out while he watched. In others, he got free of the small room, but he was too late. Those dreams were full of blood too.
A shrill noise woke him. Theo sat up, disoriented, carried on the darkness like deep waters. He flailed, caught the built-in, and steadied himself. He took a breath and tried not to feel like he was spinning.
The noise came again—a stifled cry that never quite became a scream because it was buried under sleep.
Theo got onto his knees, found Auggie in the dark, and stroked his arm. “Auggie? Auggie, wake up. It’s just a dream. Wake up. Come on, open your eyes.”
The noise cut off. Silence echoed.
“Theo?”
“That’s right.” Theo had to stop, his throat clenching. “You’re in your room. You’re ok. You’re safe.”
Auggie turned onto his side, and Theo’s hand slid with him, following his arm, the lines of his chest, his shoulder.
“My head hurts,” Auggie whispered.
“I’ll grab you one of the pills. Are you ok if I leave you alone for a minute?”
“Turn on the light?”
Theo flipped the switch. Auggie was small and huddled under the blankets, one hand shading his eyes. Theo hurried to the kitchen. The dreams came after him, strings of tin cans he couldn’t shake off. He found the light above the stove, dumped the paper bag out on the counter, and grabbed the prescription vial, opened it, and shook out one of the pills. Then he stopped, went back, and read the label.
Tylenol with codeine.
He folded his hand around the pill. He stood there, staring at the stove, the drip pans wrapped in foil, the dim yellow light crackling against all the wrinkled edges.
It was just tonight.
He chewed the first pill. Then, because he didn’t want to get stupid, he swallowed the second whole. He shook out two more, recapped the vial, and turned off the light. The bitterness in his mouth made him want to vomit, so he turned on the water in the dark and drank from the tap until the taste faded. He filled a glass with water and carried it back to the room.
Auggie looked at him.
“What?” Theo asked.
Auggie shook his head.
“Couldn’t find the bag,” Theo said.
It might have been his imagination, but he thought Auggie gave him a strange look.
At Theo’s urging, Auggie started with one pill, and they left the second on the desk with the glass of water. Auggie lay down again. When Theo reached for the light, Auggie said, “Theo, please don’t sleep on the floor.”
The light was softer now. Everything was softer now. And it was easy to nod and start undoing the buttons on his shirt.
When Theo climbed into bed, Auggie turned, pressing his back to Theo’s chest, and Theo looped one arm around Auggie and got the other under Auggie’s head. Their breathing evened out in the darkness. Theo felt himself starting to fly.
“Thank you,” Auggie whispered.
“You don’t need to thank me,” Theo said. Even that was easier right now, the self-hate chemically stripped away. “You took care of yourself. Like you said you would.”
“I meant thank you for trusting me. And thank you for being there for me. And thank you for—for being here tonight. I know you hate sleeping here.”
Theo nosed into the dark bristles of hair on the back of Auggie’s head. He smelled his shampoo, the faint medicinal hint of the hospital. “There’s an easy solution to that, you know.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Theo said. He was really taking off now. Really starting to soar. Something dragged on his eyelids. He raked his fingers lightly over Auggie’s belly, the kind of pleasant scritching he knew Auggie liked. The last fetters were starting to snap, the last things holding him down. His eyes slid shut as he murmured, “You move in with me.”
Auggie said something to that, but what Theo heard was the wind in the darkness carrying him higher.
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