17. Theo Glass

Chapter 17

Theo Glass

I no longer cared that my judgment calls were as bad as if I’d downed a bottle of tequila before this impromptu date. Fuck it. You only lived once, after all. And I was quite aware of how short that life could be. It could be taken from you in the flash of a slightly serrated butcher knife. It could be forced out of your hands by someone else, or it could be your own hands holding the blade that ended it. One way or another, the game always reached the finish line.

So why not have some fun before then?

And fucking hell was Jace fun.

We left Chelsea Market and stopped at a bar for a few beers. There, I had learned all about Jace’s love for Broadway and his hate for theatre kids.

“They’re just stuck-up, you know? In a way that’s hard to define. But they’re also fascinating people. Whenever I talk to one, it’s like I’m watching some documentary on Hobbits or something. ”

He said he hadn’t been interested in fantasy books, but he referenced them quite a bit. I found that interesting. I found a lot about Jace Holloway interesting, and I felt myself wanting to find out more. I wanted to study and dissect his life.

“What’s your favorite play?” I asked, leaning on the bar. It was a cozy little spot, with warm oak walls and two tiny windows that made it feel much darker than it should have been at five o’clock in the evening.

“I love Chicago.” Jace put up a finger gun and aimed it at the collection of liquor bottles on the mirrored wall. “He had it coming,” he said in a terribly singsongy voice.

“Now I see why you hate theatre kids. You’re jealous of them.”

Jace narrowed his gaze at me, cracked a smile. He had some stubble growing in, darkening his face, his beard as black as his midnight-colored hair, as dark as his bushy, expressive eyebrows. All of it framed a pair of hazel eyes that appeared to have flecks of gold inside the light green and brown. I wanted to paint him, and I wasn’t even a painter. But then I’d be able to stare at him whenever I wanted. I’d be able to keep him in my home, locked inside of a gilded frame he’d never escape from.

We closed up our tab and continued on our aimless way, deciding to take a stroll down the High Line. It was one of my favorite parts of the city, a walkway of trees and plants above a tangle of concrete sidewalks and roadways. It was also the perfect place to people-watch. I’d sit on a bench and watch the foot traffic flow by me for hours, completely invisible to everyone absorbed in their own little worlds.

“This is a weird thing to say, but I’m going to say it anyway: you kind of remind me of my first—and only—boyfriend.”

“Oh?” I asked.

I’d already drawn that conclusion. He didn’t know that, of course.

A few days ago, I went on a deep dive, searching through Jace’s digital footprint. It wasn’t the easiest task I’d ever completed. The guy seemed to avoid social media like the plague, but I was a persistent guy. I’d found a couple of dead profiles that hadn’t been active in years. One of them still had a few photos of Jace and this boyfriend of his.

He’d been tall, with buzzed dark brown hair, tattoos up and down his left arm, icy blue eyes, and a slightly crooked nose.

Yeah. The guy looked like a fucking replica of me. No wonder Jace had that thought.

“He looked like you, but he also kind of acted like you, too. He gave off this aura of dark and mysterious, but when you talked to him for more than five minutes, you’d realize he was a lot softer. Goofier than you’d expect.”

“You think I’m goofy, huh?”

“I think I’ve seen flashes of your humor. Of the way you joke and tease.”

“I can be goofy, yeah.”

“I like that about you.”

I gave him a side glance. “What else do you like about me? ”

“That you aren’t him,” he answered quickly. “That’s a big one. That guy fucked me up. Bad.”

Anger flared in me again. Unreasonably hot, earth-shatteringly strong. “What did he do?” I immediately began to imagine the worst. The guy was abusive. He sexually assaulted Jace. He manipulated and used him.

“He was a douchebag. He left me when he found out I couldn’t cover rent and had overdrafted. It was a few months after my dad died, when I couldn’t work as a police officer anymore. I had racked up so much credit card debt, so much bullshit. He’d been talking to someone else—I had no idea about it, and he left me for him. A plastic surgeon living out in Salt Lake City.”

“Fucking asshole,” I said.

“Yeah. It was the darkest time of my life. I’ve got to admit, I hit rock bottom around then. I’ve always had a minor case of depression—clinical, not like, ‘Oh, it’s been raining all day, I’m so depressed’ kind of thing. But during that time of my life, it just kind of exploded. I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t shower, brush my teeth. I’d lay in bed for days on end. And…” He slowed his pace. My heart beat hard in my chest. “I tried to end things. I attempted suicide. It was my breaking point. I wanted the noise in my head to end. I downed a bunch of pills and chased it with vodka. Passed out. Woke up in the hospital. Apparently, my neighbors had a pipe break, and maintenance had to rush inside my place to get to it. If it weren’t for that, I may have been found days later. Or ended up brain-dead. Or—I don’t know.” He leaned against the railing, looking out at the ci ty underneath us. I swallowed. Ice formed in my veins. My stomach twisted, clenched. I felt the urge to lean over and vomit on whatever poor souls were walking past. It came up my throat.

I forced it down, tasting the acid bile.

“I got help. Inpatient at first, then found a psychiatrist who gave me a great combination of medication with a therapist who helped me set things straight. It’s still a struggle sometimes, but I’m in a much better place.”

I wanted to reach out and hold him. Tell him he really was in a better place, but I couldn’t move. Frozen to the spot. Suicide. Too much. Hit a nerve. Couldn’t think.

Marielle.

No one found her until it was too late.

When I found her.

I found her.

What if no one had found Jace? His body would rot, bloat. His apartment would begin to reek. They’d notice the stench first. Find him on his bed, covered in vomit and piss and shit. No one deserved that. Even I made sure to have more respect for the lives I took. The ones who had taken my sister’s. Not by their own hands but by their actions. They had done it. They may as well have tied the rope around her neck themselves.

“Sorry, I rarely ever talk about this.” Jace still had his gaze turned to the horizon. He hadn’t noticed how pale and sickly my complexion had likely turned.

“It’s okay,” I managed to get out. I put my hand on his, my fingertips grazing the cold railing, my palm pressed against his warm hand. “You should talk about it. Takes the power away from those thoughts.”

“It is scary how everything can seem so dark that the only answer in the moment is to end it. But that’s never truly the answer. The sun always comes up. Life will get better. It could take hours, days, weeks, years. And it may circle back to being shit again, but it’s never enough to kill yourself over. Never.”

It felt like I’d swallowed a handful of razor blades. He was right. He was wrong. He was right. Marielle. She’d done it. My poor sister. My poor Jace.

I vowed in that moment to never allow him to feel like that again. To protect him in a way I had failed to protect Marielle.

“I think there’s power in smiling through the darkness, too,” Jace continued. He turned to look at me. I looked away. “That sounds a little psycho, doesn’t it? But there’s some kind of mental effect in finding something good during the bad. I dove into books around that time. I went to comedy shows, improv shows. Even though I was by myself, I found the cheapest things to do in the city and tried to find joy again. Slowly, it was working. The sun came back out again. And I experienced things that made me realize how much I would have missed if I wasn’t found in time. Missed experiences, stories, places. People.”

I forced my gaze back on his. He smiled.

“I don’t think that sounds psycho at all. I think that sounds perfectly reasonable.”

“It’s also lucky I found myself some good help. My mom, she suffered from the same thing as me. Still does, I guess. I haven’t really spoken with her. But she never believed in medication or therapy. Just alcohol.”

“I do agree that the right treatment makes a difference.” Ironic, considering my treatment plan consisted of drugs and alcohol. “Where’s your mom now?”

“I’m not exactly sure. I saw her for my dad’s funeral, and then that was it. I think she’s somewhere in Jersey. She couldn’t handle raising me when my parents split, so my dad took full custody.”

“Would you ever reconnect with her?” This was better. Safer territory than the suicide.

Suicide, fuck. Marielle. Needless. She should still be here. She had called me before she’d done it. Left a message. Crying. Needed to talk. I didn’t get it until after.

Maybe I could have saved her. Stopped her.

She should still be here.

“Maybe. I don’t necessarily have bad feelings towards her. I understand, especially after what I went through, how fucked-up a bad mental state can make a person. It does make me sad that she’s suffered for so long. I used to be resentful that she wasn’t there to help me through it when things got rough, but I understand that’s just how life works sometimes.”

Jace took in a deep breath. I could hardly get air into my lungs. The panic was beginning to bubble up in my chest. My forehead started to hurt.

But then something odd happened. Jace’s fingers threaded through mine. He squeezed my hand. He smiled again, bright as the fucking sun and moon and stars all merged together. The world faded around me. The anxiety went out like a candle being held out in the rain.

I could breathe again.

“Thanks for hearing me out, Theo. Seriously. Crazy to me how I feel so open around you. I don’t know what it is. It’s like you already know everything about me.”

“I don’t,” I said. “But I’d like to.”