Rend (Riven 2)

He gave me a sweet smile, and I could almost see the boy he must have been, before Caleb. Before he was Theo Decker, Rock Star.

“Anyway, I don’t know that much about your story. Good old Rhys told Caleb it wasn’t his business. But I think maybe you know what I mean? And if you do, I just wanted you to know that I get how hard it must be to have Rhys be gone. People say it’s weird or . . . I dunno, codependent or whatever, to need someone. But sometimes with Caleb, I get this panic if he’s not there. I don’t believe something has happened to him, or that he’ll never come back. But I kind of feel what I imagine it would be like if he never did. You know?”

I nodded slowly, his every word landing like a bullet.

“I am okay without him. He is okay without me. But when I told him about that, thinking he’d say it was silly, he got this relieved look on his face. He said sometimes he would pretend I was there when I wasn’t, so he didn’t feel alone. Kinda like the idea of me there watching him made him feel safe. For him, it’s safe from using again, or safe from wanting to. But still. I just—yeah, I don’t think it makes us less . . . grown up or functional or whatever to need each other.”

He bit his lip and finally looked at me.

“It also doesn’t make you less whatever if you’re not quite doing okay without him. Okay?”

I sighed and slouched over to the couch. I flopped into my nest and put my head back. The ceiling was plastered unevenly in the corner. In the kind sunlight of the morning it was invisible. At night, the lamps I lit against the darkness made it glaring.

“My best friend, Grin?” I said finally. “He says I’m freaking because I was abandoned so much as a kid and now my stupid brain thinks Rhys abandoned me. Even though my regular brain knows he didn’t.”

Theo came and sat next to me, tugging one of the blankets over his knees.

“Makes sense. Does Rhys know?”

“No.”

“You gonna tell him about your stupid brain? And also your regular brain?”

I’m already so much work. He could be with someone so much easier.

I shook my head.

“He gets so sad. I know I should tell him . . . things. But sometimes . . . I just can’t. I can’t tell him that the world’s not a shiny place. You know? His world is so shiny.” And, fuck, I didn’t wanna be the one to disillusion him. “Besides, he’s having a blast. I don’t wanna mess up his tour.”

Theo nodded. “Yeah, I hear you, and I get it. That’s the wrong answer, though.”

I looked up at him, and he smiled slightly.

“You can’t protect Rhys from the whole world, Matty. Because you’re his world, and that’s your world.”

I swallowed hard, and Theo gracefully pretended he didn’t notice.

“The thing about tour,” he went on, “is that it feels really alienating. Even when it’s good, even when it’s fun. There’s always this sense that you’re not a part of real life. That people are doing things without you and you’re left out. Or things are moving forward and you’re, like, up in space somewhere. So, no matter how good a time Rhys is having, probably he’d want to know what’s going on with you. Otherwise he’ll feel cut off from you.” After a pause, he added, “And obviously you feel cut off from him. But he’s your husband. You should tell him.”

I closed my eyes, and the sun burned red from behind them.

Husband husband husband, I tried to soothe myself.

“I still can’t believe he married me. I don’t know why he did,” I whispered, then clamped my mouth shut. Jesus, I must still be sleep-deprived.

“Probably because he loves the pants off you,” Theo said lightly.

“You and Caleb love each other but you’re not married.”

“I would marry the fuck out of Caleb if he wanted to, but he doesn’t care and it’s not a big deal to me either.”

“I’m just saying. Loving someone isn’t the same as marrying them.”

“No,” Theo said slowly. “It’s not. But you know Rhys. I bet you do know why he married you if you really think about it.”

* * *

—

Rhys and I had been driving in the country on a cold Saturday in February. It had been a little over two months since we met. The night before, we’d had the kind of explosive sex that I was just learning wasn’t anomalous with Rhys, and we’d fallen asleep tangled up together and woken up murmuring I love you and other things I’d never thought I would hear or say.

Rhys pulled over to piss, and I saw something past a copse of trees and tugged his hand. We walked toward it, Rhys teasing me about being such a city boy that I thought a half-crumbling barn was a tourist attraction. I’d hip-checked him and run toward what had, indeed, turned out to be a half-crumbling barn.