Red String, Blue String

Chapter 4

Just as I took my last bite of soup, Theo had finished too, I had just realized that if we started at the same time, we would finish eating at the same time. It was yet another thing that my brain fixated on before I could tell myself it had been a coincidence. I went to grab Theo's plate right as he went to grab mine, so that we could put them away, our hands brushed for a second and my face flushed slightly before I grabbed the plate from him and brought them to the sink.

"Luna..." I turned back around, "yeah?"

"We should talk again."

"Okay, I think I'm ready," I told him as a weak smile appeared on my face. He looked at me for a second before nodding, and placing a comforting hand on my shoulder. Theo sat down at the dining room table and put the paper with our plan on it in front of him. I rinsed off the plates and sat down in one of Theo's creaky chairs. The wood felt sturdy against my back, I sat up straighter, normally we sat on bar stools at the kitchen island so this was a new phenomenon. I brought my chair slightly closer to the table and set my gaze down on the paper.

"Alright, let me explain a bit, so here," he said as he began pointing to one section of bullet points. "Basically it's just the main points, less important stuff or more details are further down." He looked at me to judge my approval, I smiled and grabbed the pen from him. I crossed out a random point and added one about emptying our bank accounts. I look back up at the sight of my anxiety, 'fake being a newlywed couple', I put, in my smaller handwriting, "maybe". Theo looked at it before slowly opening my hand to take the pen, his fingers lingered there. He smiled before crossing out the maybe, "it's required," he joked.

"If we must," I said, with laughter engulfing the sudden silence. Theo was the only person who could make something so anxiety inducing into something so funny. We joked about how our fake wedding would be, bright flowers and pizza, no cake of course, as it was too sappy for us. We were having fun but the logistics still weren't worked out.

"What has your boss been saying?"

"I wouldn't know...my phone is dead and I chose not to charge it," I told Theo, he nodded, "don't you need to be in work on Monday?"

"Yeah...."

"It's Saturday...I guess we need to leave tomorrow," he said as he picked the pen back up again. Tomorrow. That's all the time I had. To change my life completely.

* * *

I was as calm as possible for the next few hours as we worked out some details, Theo made some quick sandwiches and we ate them just as we both decided we'd keep our first names and just use a random last name. We would make up a story about taking my mom's maiden name when we had gotten married, so we could get new IDs once we got to New York. The current plan was to first look for a new apartment online, then for me to get out of our current lease, though I'd have to pay for the rest of the month. Another thing we needed was plane tickets

* * *

The past few days had been so weird and anxiety ridden that I hadn't had time to think about all of this. About the things I didn't like, like the sound that Theo's keyboard made when he typed, and about the things that would just never work. My brain let me think that this guy actually cared, but in all reality I had almost murdered him, and watching him, scrutinizing prices, I kind of wish I had but I pushed that thought away. I thought I was better than that, better than a murderer.

Theo stood up and I assumed he had gone to grab his wallet, I put my head in my hands, this was all too fast, and too insane, even for me. I thought through the last few years in my head and all that had gone down and about how screwed up I was but no matter how much I tried rationalizing the insanity of the predicament, I thought back to the house. The food that I could savour every bite of. And of Theo.