“Nope,” Theo said.
Auggie squirmed around until he was under the covers.
“I said no.”
Auggie propped himself up against the pillows.
After another moment, Theo blew out a breath. “Fine, I’ll move. I said no and I meant it.”
Auggie caught his arm and pulled it around his shoulders. The skin was warm and soft; Auggie smelled like motel soap.
“Auggie, we just talked about this.”
“Please,” he said. “I won’t make a move, I won’t do anything. But some guys just tried to kidnap me, and they were probably going to kill me, and I had a panic attack in the car. My brain feels so fucked up right now, and I started crying in the shower and couldn’t stop. Now there’s this huge knot in my chest.”
Theo blew out another breath, about to tell Auggie that this was exactly what making a move looked like. Instead, he shifted around until Auggie fit inside his arm perfectly and tried to pretend he was reading.
“So, I told you about that accident, right?” Auggie said.
“You did.”
“That kind of, um, came back tonight.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I just wanted you to know. I couldn’t keep driving. I was going to spin off the road or hit another car or something. But I know that’s a bad topic for you, so I don’t want to dwell on it.”
“I can talk about it,” Theo said. “I think you want to talk about it.”
“I just . . . do stupid things. It’s like this pressure builds up inside me, and finally something blows, and I can’t help it. I do something stupid. I get so tired of everyone looking at me, seeing this . . . this human poster that I’ve made out of myself, and not having any fucking idea who I really am, and I do something stupid.” Auggie rested his head on Theo’s shoulder; his hair, wet and still warm, dampened Theo’s shirt. “That’s a really first-world-problem kind of situation, isn’t it?”
“It’s not exactly on the same level as having a warlord attack your village,” Theo said, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not real, and that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. It sounds like it hurts a lot.”
“My mom was dating this guy, Jordan, and he had this insanely cool Ferrari. A 458 Italia. And my mom wasn’t really there for us a lot, which I kind of told you about, and it’s fine, it’s not a big deal, but it used to bother me a lot. So I grabbed his keys, took his car, and crashed it into the wall of this car wash. Oh my God, my mom almost killed me. But at least she was paying attention to me, the real me.”
“I’m sensing a theme with cars.”
Auggie laughed into Theo’s chest. “Yep.”
“And the accident, the one last year?”
“I’d gotten in this fight with Logan and Devin. They’re the guys—”
“From your videos. Your friends from home; I remember.”
“Well, that’s kind of the thing. We had this video get crazy popular right before Thanksgiving. And we decided to celebrate. So I got Logan tickets to a concert by this band he’s obsessed with, and I got Devin this sweet Buddhist prayer bead thing because he thinks he’s Buddhist. And do you know what they got me? They got me a fucking camera. It wasn’t even a good camera; the ones on our phones were better.”
Dropping his book, Theo combed fingers through Auggie’s wet hair. “And the problem is that they only saw you as . . . this guy who makes funny videos.”
“Yep. And now I feel really shitty because that is so stupid compared to what you’ve been through.”
Theo hushed him. After a moment, he said, “What would you have liked them to get you?”
“Tickets to Disneyland so we could hang out together. A book of Japanese poetry. A sex doll of Robert Pattinson.”
Theo laughed so hard he almost fell off the bed.
“What?” Auggie said, punching him. “He’s hot.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not exactly the kind of gift your buddies get you. You might have to buy that one yourself.”
“And they definitely won’t buy it for you if you’re super secretive about who you are,” Auggie said.
“You shouldn’t feel bad about that,” Theo said. “You’re allowed as much time as you want to decide who you are and what you want to share with people.” Grabbing up the pocketsize Lear, he said, “In the future, though, if you feel the urge to show everybody the real Auggie, please do not ask to borrow my car.”
Theo couldn’t see it, but he could feel Auggie’s grin. “Deal.”
“I’m more worried about how we’re going to get home. If both of us have panic attacks when we get behind the wheel—”
“I’ll be ok.”
Theo grunted.
“No, I will. It’s just—the gun, and the adrenaline, and then we almost went off the road. I feel better already. We’ll just take it slow tomorrow, and it’ll be fine.”
“We’ll see,” Theo said. “Maybe I’ll call someone to pick us up.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Theo grunted again and tried to get back to Lear.
Auggie shifted against him, and then one hand came up and ran through Theo’s hair.
“You have really pretty hair,” Auggie whispered.
“Thank you.”
“Does that sound super gay?”
“Not as gay as telling me Robert Pattinson is hot and you want to own a sex doll of him.”
“It’s nice to be able to say something like that. It feels good to say something like that out loud.” Auggie swallowed. “You’re beautiful. You’re handsome, I mean. And hot. But you’re so beautiful.”
Theo put down the book again. He slid out from against Auggie and turned to meet his gaze. A heartbeat passed, and Auggie squeezed his eyes shut and turned into the pillow.
“I’m going to shower,” Theo said. “And then I think we should get some sleep.”
Auggie nodded.
“Could you switch over to the other bed
