Lost King by Piper Lennox (best self help books to read .TXT) 📕

socked feet nudge my bag, drowning my phone in a sea of sweaters. “It’s about Callum, right?”

Theo sits, too. “How’d you know?”

Maybe I’m getting better at ignoring those reflexive urges to lie to him. Or maybe Callum’s texts have just drained me of all creativity. Either way, I tell him the truth without even having to think.

“I heard you and Wes talking.”

The mattress shifts. He straightens his back, cracking his neck. “How much?”

“A lot.” I turn my head just enough to keep him in my periphery, the way he’s doing to me. “Enough to know how you’re feeling, and that you don’t want to feel like that.”

“That makes this talk a lot easier, then.”

The air in the room unwinds. Breathing doesn’t feel half as hard, anymore.

“Callum and I are done, Theo. I promise.”

“Then why is he still texting you?” I see his shoulders flinch. He hates how jealous he sounds, which makes getting mad at him over it downright impossible.

It’s not his fault. It’s not even Callum’s. It’s mine.

“I’ve set really piss-poor precedents with him, over the years.”

He gives a quiet laugh. The tension eases up a little more.

“But that’s over, too. The only reason I’m humoring him today—and trust me, it’s not much; I’m just texting back, like, the bare minimum—is because I’m not in town, and I don’t want him to know I’m not in town.”

“He’d really go to your place if you ignore him?”

“Yeah. Or bother my friend Frankie, or other people from my work...it’s just not worth the hassle, right now. I know that’s not the answer you want—”

“The answer I want,” he says, catching his volume and quieting with a sigh, “isn’t exactly fair for me to ask of you.”

“And what’s that?”

I already know. Any sane person would want it.

“That you’ll be completely done with him.” He leans with his forearms on his knees and stares at his hands. “That he’ll be out of your life for good, starting now.”

“That is fair for you to ask of me.” I stretch out behind him. “I’ve been trying to do it slowly, for his sake...but for mine, and ours? I know I need to just cut all contact.”

I trace the strong peaks in his spine with my finger. He shivers, back arching involuntarily.

“Just not today,” I add softly.

Theo bites the inside of his cheek, then nods.

“Feel better?” I ask, when we’ve folded ourselves against each other under the covers, steadily losing clothes as the house grows quieter around us.

“Yes. It helped, getting it off my chest and hearing your side.” He leans his head into my palm, when I push back his hair. “But something’s still bothering me. And I don’t want you to take it how it’ll sound.”

I promise him I won’t. This honesty thing gives me a kind of high, like when you finally get to set down a heavy backpack or take off tendon-snapping heels. You don’t realize the burden until you give it up.

I’m even thinking I can tell him the truth about us, now. After a few days for this Callum stuff to die down, I can cook Theo dinner at my place, pour some wine....

“Sometimes,” he starts, then stops and shakes his head at himself.

One tiny trickle at a time, I feel the tension fill the room again.

“What?” I whisper.

Theo scrubs his mouth with his hand. “I get this feeling you’re hiding things from me. I don’t know how to explain it. Some of it, I get. Like your mom being sick—that felt like...like you were telling me at your own pace. You had to be comfortable with it.

“But then other stuff, like how you used to be overweight, or a ‘loser?’ Those things feel like you blurted them without meaning to.” His eyes travel between mine a moment, then blink as he seems to snap to. “God, I sound so fucking crazy right now.”

No truth-high is strong enough to fix the guilt tearing through me. I should have known it wouldn’t stay away for good.

“I’m sorry.” He kisses my forehead. “Forget I said anything, I’m being paranoid. It’s just....”

“You have a hard time trusting people.” I nod, my voice sounding too high-pitched to my own ears. “I know.”

I know his mother and so-called friends left Theo just as untrusting as he and all my childhood bullies left me. The only difference is that he didn’t grow jaded and remake himself in response. He turned himself into an island.

I also know, if I tell him the full truth now...he’ll never trust me again.

Tucking myself against his chest, I ignore the guilt. This is how it has to be.

I was hiding it for my own protection, before. Now, I know I have to hide it for his. He deserves to trust someone again. Even if I don’t deserve to be trusted.

My text alert sounds just before I’m fully asleep. I look up; Theo’s out cold, arm deadweight over my shoulder.

Gently, I untangle myself from him and the blankets, scoot to the foot of the bed, and fish my phone out of my bag. It takes me a minute to decode the message; it’s full of typos.

Callum: Don’t forget what he did to you, ok?

I stare at it until the backlight singes my eyes.

Then I turn and look at Theo, who’s sleeping so peacefully next to the space where I belong.

Ignoring the message is best, but I don’t want to risk Callum calling if he doesn’t get an answer. I send a thumbs-up, filled with sarcasm I know he wouldn’t catch even if he were clean and sober.

I haven’t forgotten, I would text him—if he were actually my friend, instead of some landmine-riddled chapter of my past