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Summary
Theo doesn’t go back in the cage. He’s allowed to hose himself down and drag himself with a small meal back to his cot in the cell. The door is closed, but the lock doesn’t click into place.
Theo doesn’t eat. The bowl of meal sits on his trembling knees as he presses his hands flat under his thighs and rocks back and forth on the edge of the cot, mouth opening and closing, eyes distant and cold as glass.
You crouch in front of him.
“Theo,” you try again, the first time in years.
“Tara,” he says, shocking you. Your eyes widen. “I wish you were here.”
But he’s not looking at you. Through you, perhaps, but at the wrong angle.
“It wasn’t worth it,” he says. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t. It wasn’t.” His breaths are wet, but his lashes stay dry. “Not for your heart. Not for it to be treated this way.”
“Theo,” you cry out.
It’s his twelfth birthday. It feels cruel that now, in more ways than one, you'll never be his big sister again.
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Or: Five times Tara and Theo tried to hurt each other, and the one time they finally realized they were not each other’s enemy.
Series
- Part 3 of The Outtakes