Please don't be mad. It's better for you this way. You're too
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good for me. I'm shit for you. You know I am. I love you. I do. But you deserve better than me. So much better.
I just need some time. Some time on my own, away from my parents and all the insanity. You understand. I know you do. You know me better than anyone.
I love you so much, Reed. And I'll miss you. More than you'll ever know.
Love,
Thomas
Relief flooded through me so quickly and with such force that my eyes blurred with tears. I wiped them away, and read the note again. And again. Thomas was all right. He was fine! He wasn't lying in a pool of his own vomit somewhere; he had gone to get help. He was out there trying to get well. He was, in fact, better than he'd ever been.
I took a deep, shaky breath and read the note one more time. Suddenly a new emotion poisoned the relief, causing the muscles in my neck to tense. Thomas had broken up with me. In a note. After I'd promised to help him in any way I could, he'd taken off without so much as a good-?bye and hidden a breakup note in my stuff. What kind of person did that?
Even worse, how could he leave a note in some book and just trust I would find it? I might have returned this thing to the library and never seen the note that was tucked away inside. I might have just gone on worrying forever. He could have just
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called. Just a five-?second call and he could have told me the same thing. Did he not realize the torture he'd put me through?
“Asshole,” I groaned, mashing the paper into a ball and throwing it across the room. Who the hell did he think he was, just deciding we were over? Not letting me have a say in anything. Disappearing and making all of us worry. The boy needed help. Serious, professional help.
At least he was getting it.
Two seconds after tossing the note away, I got up and grabbed it from the floor. It wasn't as if I could leave it around for Natasha to find. I flattened it out on my desk and read it one more time.
That was when a new, even more torturous thought occurred to me.
The police. Should I tell the police about this note? Show it to them? Clearly Thomas didn't want me to. He said right there that he was leaving to get away from the insanity--from his parents-- and if I told, they would track him down and he would never get the time he needed to get better. But not showing the cops would be like lying. It would be withholding evidence. I could get in serious, serious trouble.
God, I just wished I could talk to him. See him. Hold him. Talk some sense into him. Maybe if I could talk to him I could get him to take responsibility for what he had done. Didn't he realize how much trouble he had caused? Was he that scared of his parents that he thought this was the only way?
I imagined Thomas out there somewhere, alone, trying to deal
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with his issues, trying to make himself well, and my heart swelled so fast I thought it might pop. I was angry at him, yes, but I also missed him. I also worried about him. I just wished that I could see him and tell him that everything was going to be okay.
And then, yeah, maybe smack him upside the head for doing this to me.
It really is amazing, how closely hate and love are aligned.
“Screw this,” I said. I couldn't think about it now. I was too tired. Too emotional. Too inclined to violence. I folded the note, stuffed it in the very back of my desk drawer, and slammed it closed.
Okay. Deep breath. At least I knew Thomas was all right now. At least I knew he was out there somewhere. And if he had any sort of conscience, he'd have to call me eventually. This note was not enough. We needed to talk. Big time.
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MORAL CENTER
After a long shower, and an equally long think, I felt monumentally better. Thomas's note, while it had opened up a huge can of worms, had actually absolved me from a couple of things I had been stressing over. First, he had broken up with me days ago, which technically meant that what I had done in the woods with Whittaker wasn't cheating, which made me feel much better. Second, he was gone from school indefinitely, which meant that I wouldn't have to worry about keeping him and the Billings Girls in separate corners. I wouldn't have to worry about that anyway, since he had broken up with me.
Yes. I could be very practical about this. Level-?headed Reed. That was going to be my new, internal nickname.
That was part one of the plan. Part two of the plan was finding out more about this Legacy thing and getting my ass there so that I could track down Thomas, yell at him for about an hour, and then give him a chance to explain. A very brief chance. After all, Dash had said Thomas would be there no matter what. That Thomas was