Theo wasn't Mr perfect and he knew that.
He knew that and he told Naomi that several times before.
But he also knew that he fucked up.
He fucked up badly and he did it by the way Naomi cried out for him to stay but he couldn't, he just couldn't.
He couldn't look at her
Just not right now.
He couldn't deal with her acting like she wasn't a victim. Like she was okay. Like what had happened to her was normal. Like she could just brush it under the rug and act like it was never there - like a stain.
Abusive exboyfriends aren't stains
And they never will be
He marched out of her bedroom and down the stairs, passed the girls and went straight through that front door
He didn't stop
He didn't wait
He didn't even pause when he heard his name being called out again.
How Tiana yelled after him, trying to get him to stay but he couldn't, he just couldn't face Naomi.
He couldn't face anyone, but more importantly he couldn't face Naomi again. Not right now, at least.
Not after what she just told him
He couldn't face the girl he once knew as his beautiful girlfriend - as someone hiding so much deep down from him. He knew she had her reasons but he couldn't right now he couldn't see her, look at her and know she was-
Knocking broke him out of his thoughts
"What?" He called out only for his bedroom door to open revealing Tiana and Elijah
It had been what, an hour or maybe two since he left the girls house and Tiana was already here
"Wow, I guess moodyprick Theo's back - that didn't take long" Tiana hissed, only for Elijah to give her a look to make her stop being so mean
Theo went to smile at the nickname, only to remember who used to call him that.
His girl.
The one who was hurting.
"Theo what the actual fuck!" Tiana yelled - storming towards him - ready to smack the boy for making Naomi sob uncontrollably
He just left.
He really just left her, no explanation, nothing
He just walked away
He walked away after every promise he made. Every promise to Naomi. The promises to take care of her. To be there for her. And finally to never break her.
Had he truly broken her?
Or was he for the first time, just seeing how broken she actually was
"You just fucking left her. She's crying her eyes out after she told you everything. She told you every little detail of what happened to her that she wouldn't tell anyone and you just left!" Tiana screamed
"We let you come into our house to I don't know, sort things out - let you come out of your bloody hibernation and comfort Naomi and then you go and smash several plates out of anger and then all of five minutes later you're storming out of our house. Make it make sense Theo!"
"Who the fuck does that! Why would you hurt Naomi? Why would you even bother to come over if you're gonna make her feel worse than she already did after she's now gone and told you everything. Why-"
"Tiana!" Elijah raised his voice in a warning tone - stopping her just as she had her hand raised in the air, ready to hit Theo - who didn't even flinch
"Fine" she huffed, slowly dropping her hand and exhaling heavily
Closing her eyes and reopening them, she found Theo to still be sat there - frozen, barley even paying attention to the pair of them despite the commotion they'd caused in such a short amount of time
"Ti, look at him. I don't think he's in the right head space to chat to us" Elijah tried to persuade Tiana because he'd never seen his boy like this before
It was so odd
So unlike Theo
Yes, he kept to himself a lot of the time, but god - Theo looked so down, so sad, so frustrated
"Theo, hellooooo?" Tiana waved her hand in front of Theo's face, only for her to gasp at the lone tear which fell down his cheek and onto his lap
"Oh my-" she whispered, never seeing Theo so upset before, not since he came over to her house when Naomi had kissed that boy on Halloween and then Naomi told her everything
"Shit man. I don't wanna see you like this-" Elijah sighed as he watched Theo bury his head in his hands, "I know you're hurting too" he sighed
Sitting down on Theo's bed next to him, Tiana shook her head at Elijah, seeing how hurt both of their friends were over the entire situation.
After a moment, Tiana finally said, "Lijah, can you give us a min?"
Hesitantly, Elijah mumbled, "Ok", because he had already stopped her from almost hitting Theo, but then again he knew his girlfriend and he knew that she had everyone's best interest in mind
Watching Elijah leave the room, Tiana pulled Theo's head to lay on her shoulder out of comfort. "I'm sorry for shouting at you" she apologised
Tiana knew she wasn't Naomi, and she wasn't trying to be, but she knew Theo needed comfort right now and she needed him to tell her what was up with him because it was upsetting her to see him like this.
"Just do it. Cry, shout, scream - do it all" she mumbled as she felt Theo's shoulders shake with the sob he was holding in
She knew Theo was obviously hurting, but for him to breakdown like this infront of her - fuck, she didn't even want to know what Naomi told him.
"Aww Theo" she sighed, as she heard him sniffle, "Just rant to me, tell me everything you're feeling right now. No judgments. I just wanna know that you're okay" Tiana sympathised, knowing she'd come in earlier, guns blazing - ready to shout at him but she didn't realise he needed someone to talk to as well
And she would've left it to Elijah, but she knew him seeing one of the boys he practically saw as a brother cry would've broken him. He would've just told him and Naomi to sack it off - rather than listen to why they were both hurting.
"Fuck Ti" Theo took a deep breath as he straightened himself out, throwing his head back - trying to avoid crying any further
"Fuck" he mumbled again, "I was scared before, but now...Now I'm fucking frightened. And I might've fucked it all up. I might of pushed her away and I don't want that. I want her. I do. I want her cause she's my girl and but I just couldn't be in that room with her. I just couldn't let her keep defending him. I was gonna snap. I was gonna do something I regretted so I had to leave" he rambled, talking a mile a minute because he was scared
He was so scared of what he'd just done and he couldn't go back in time. He couldn't change what he'd done. He couldn't repair the damage that he'd made
It was eating away at him. Just everything- the way he handled the situation, the way she defended her ex boyfriend like what she experienced was normal, the way that everything just hit him at once.
Nodding as she understood why Theo did what he did, Tiana comforted him, "Okay Theo - I get it. You're hurting. You were shocked by whatever she told you. You weren't thinking rationally and you left to make sure you didn't hurt either of you, but you know who doesn't know this - Naomi" she tried to explain to Theo where she was coming from when she originally started shouting at him earlier
Continuing she said, "The same Naomi who you call your girl, is crying her eyes out thinking that you've left her. That you think less of her because of what she's confessed to you. Because she's finally opened up to you about her past"
"Yeah I know" Theo sighed. "She's was, no. She is hurting and I did the worse thing possible. I left her. I know" Theo screwed his eyes shut, hating the fact that he could still hear her cries for him to stay, for him not to leave her.
The fact that merely moments before when he left to go and smash something, she clawed onto his arm, begging, pleading for him to stay and then he did. He did the one thing she asked for him not to and he fucking broke her trust.
He broke her
"Shit!" He cursed, "Shit, shit, shit" he got up from his bed, and began to pace his room back and forth
"She'll never forgive me" he mumbled, "I've really gone and done it now"
"No Theo, you haven't - this is still salvageable" Tiana tried to calm him down because he was gonna get himself into a bad and destructive state and no one needed that
And Naomi definitely didn't need that
Stopping for a moment after he heard what she said, Theo had to ask - "did you know?"
"Did I know what?" she asked warily, not wanting to know Naomi's deepest darkest secrets but also needing to know what Theo was talking about because he was acting very erratic right now and she wanted him to slow down for a second
"Did you know what that bastard did to her? How he hurt her?"
"I only know what she told me, the short version. Some stuff about her being bullied when she was younger and then he was basically her knight in shining armour so she jumped into a relationship with him without thinking" Tiana recalled as Theo nodded - knowing that Naomi clearly trusted Tiana a lot to even tell her that.
"She told me a few months back. It was bad but she seemed so strong that I just thought she was okay-" she trailed off only for Theo's head to snap up at the sound of Tiana thinking the Naomi was just okay in all of this
"Well she's not!" He snapped, "She's far from it"
"He l- He, fucking" Theo began to stumble on his words. He just couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe what Naomi was keeping from him.
Yes, she was allowed to because that's not just something you tell anyone - but fuck, when she used to say stuff like she was broken, he didn't think that she meant her ex did something that bad to her.
Something so unforgivable, multiple times.
"Shit. I can't." Theo sighed, "I can't. I just can't look at her. I can't look at her knowing that I'm the guy she trusts when she's been through so much and doesn't deserve that"
"She didn't deserve any of it"
"I'm not worthy of her...I'm the not the one for her" he trailed off into a whisper, barley audible but Tiana heard it, she heard it all and she couldn't help but frown as she swallowed harshly, knowing that Theo was feeling like this
"Theo-" she tried to get his mind off of just ending it all. Just cutting Naomi off without trying, without understanding
"Nah..." he shook his head, "Nah, Ti" he sighed, "You weren't there - you weren't there when she defended him. When she said - when she said she let him. When she said she let it happen" Theo choked on a sob of his own, remembering how much it just fucking broke him to hear his girl blame herself
To hear her say that she didn't try hard enough. To hear that she felt like she could've done more, but just didn't. That she just let the world swallow her up as Josiah had his way with her
Frowning, Tiana stared at the boy who she knew had a hard exterior and barley cried, crying infront of her. His heart shattering over a girl she believed he loved dearly.
"Theo" she called out, trying to get him to sit down
"Ti" Theo sighed as he blinked profusely, letting tears fall down his cheeks, as red stained his cheeks in heat, "Ti" he shook his head, "she needs therapy and I just-" he crumbled, walking into his en-suite bathroom to avoid her stare
God, he hated people seeing him cry
Following after him as she stood in the doorway, watching him pause when he noticed all the little details. All the little pieces of her in his bathroom. How he had slowly let her take over. From her spare toothbrush, to her shower-gel and body scrub. To her skincare products- it was all Naomi. It all pointed to Naomi
Naomi, Naomi, Naomi.
"Fuck" he sniffled, "she's everywhere"
Interrupting his self deprecating thoughts, Tiana snapped into action - choosing to raise her voice, "She's everywhere because you let her be everywhere! You let her in and she accepted that. You clearly want this to work or else you wouldn't be talking to me. You wouldn't be thinking of solutions for her" she listed off, knowing deep down this wasn't the end for Theo and Naomi, they were meant for each other
"What, therapy?" He raised his eyebrows in shock at that being the one solution he thought of, but he knew that wouldn't work. He knew that because he knew Naomi and he knew that would be the last thing she'd do
"Yes therapy" she said in a duh tone because they both knew she needed it, but it was up to Theo to bring it up if he truly believed, no if he truly wanted to help her. To stick by her. "If you think she needs it, then tell her. Tell her that you want to help her, tell her that you think that's the best solution for what she's been through. Tell her as someone who cares deeply about her that in order for her to get better she should go. Tell her that in order for her not to be broken anymore, she needs to accept the help. She needs to trust you and get the help of a professional" Tiana knocked it into Theo's head that there was always a solution
"She won't even admit the realities of what he did to her. She won't even say the word. How the hell am I gonna convince her to see a therapist?" Theo couldn't help but say as he felt like a child whining when he couldn't get his own way at the fact that Naomi had been hurting herself for a long time not getting help
In a calm voice as she looked at Theo with a knowing smile, she simply shook her head as she said. "You persuade her more than you know... you really think she'd be telling you all of this if she didn't lov- if she didn't want you in her life. If she didn't care for you"
Luckily for Tiana her little slip up wasn't caught by Theo because he was too busy staring at Naomi's hair products he bought for her to use whenever she was at his house
"Theo?" Tiana called out, needing to know he was at least listening to her as he picked up one of the bottles of cream, frowning at it
"Lijah, you can come back in now!" Tiana yelled, making Theo's eyes go wide at the fact that Elijah was about to see him cry for the first time
Hearing Theo's bedroom door click open, Tiana awaited for Elijah's presence behind her as he mumbled a low - "How it going baby?" In her ear
"Baby, I think Theo needs a good brotherly hug from you" Tiana smiled at her boyfriend as Elijah's gaze dragged over Theo's slumped appearance
Elijah stepped into the bathroom, opening his arms wide as he embraced Theo with a frown, hating seeing him like this. "Theo it's gonna be alright. You know your feelings - don't let a little bit of new information change that" Elijah mumbled as he felt Theo's embrace tighten at the fact that he really did need this hug
"Just...just Sort yourself. Go and sleep - have a rest. Got to the pitch and kick a football around, I don't know - just do whatever you need to and then.., Then come over to the house tomorrow. Lay your shit out for Naomi to hear and see what she says - if you think you can work through it, because I think you guys can - then try" Tiana said with a small smile, knowing that the hug was definitely helping Theo
"All you have to do is try" she shrugged, knowing that nothing would come out of this if neither tried
"You're just waiting on eachother"