Heroes Are My Weakness(86)

Annie didn’t move. Theo nudged a rusted metal bolt with the toe of his riding boot. She didn’t think he’d say more, but he went on, his voice barely audible. “She’d always been possessive, but then so was I, and it wasn’t a problem until we were around fourteen, and I started paying attention to girls. She hated that. She’d horn in on my phone calls, tell me lies about any girl I showed an interest in. I thought she was just being a pest. And then things got more serious.” He crouched down on his heels to check out the mess at the bottom of the pool, but Annie doubted he was seeing anything except the past. He went on—coldly, without emotion. “She began starting rumors. She made an anonymous call to the parents of one girl telling them their daughter was on drugs. Another girl ended up with a broken shoulder after Regan tripped her at school. Everybody believed it was an accident because they all loved Regan.”

“You didn’t believe it was accidental.”

“I wanted to. But there were more incidents. A girl I’d only talked to a few times was on her bike when she had a rock thrown at her. She fell and was hit by a car. Fortunately she wasn’t badly hurt, but she could have been, and I confronted Regan. She admitted she’d done it, then cried and promised nothing like that would ever happen again. I wanted to believe her, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.” He stood back up. “I felt trapped.”

“So you gave up girls.”

He finally looked at her. “Not right away. I tried to keep Regan in the dark, but she always found out. Not long after she got her driver’s license, she tried to run down one of her best friends. After that happened, I couldn’t take any more chances.”

“You should have told your father.”

“I was afraid to. I’d spent hours in the library reading about mental illness, and I knew something was drastically wrong with her. I even came up with a diagnosis—relationship-based obsessive-compulsive disorder. I wasn’t that far from the mark. He’d have had her institutionalized.”

“And you couldn’t let that happen.”

“It would have been the best thing for her, but I was a kid, and I didn’t see it that way.”

“Because it was the two of you against the world.”

He didn’t acknowledge what she’d said, but she knew it was true. Saw the helpless boy he’d once been.

“I thought if I made sure she never felt as if anyone was coming between us, she’d be fine,” he said. “And I was right, up to a point. As long as she didn’t feel threatened, she behaved normally. But the most innocent remark could set her off. I kept hoping she’d get a boyfriend, and then it would stop. They all wanted to go out with her, but she had no interest in anyone except me.”

“Didn’t you start to hate her?”

“Our bond was too strong. You spent a summer with her. You know how sweet she could be. That sweetness was genuine. Right up to the moment the darkness took over.”

Annie pushed the photos into her coat pocket. “You burned her poetry notebook. You had to have hated her to do that.”

His mouth twisted. “There was no poetry in that notebook. It held all her most obsessive delusions, along with some venom-filled pages directed at you. I was afraid someone would look in it.”

“But what about her oboe? She loved it, and you destroyed it.”

His eyes held a weary sadness. “She burned it herself when I threatened to tell Dad what she’d been doing to you. She saw it as a kind of sacrifice to appease me.”

Of everything he’d told her, this seemed the saddest—that Regan’s twisted love had compelled her to destroy what had brought her so much pleasure.

“You wanted to protect her that summer,” she said, “but you also wanted to keep her from hurting me. You were in an impossible position.”

“I thought I had it under control. I’d turned myself into a regular teenage monk—not talking to girls, barely looking at them for fear of what Regan would do. And then there you were, living in the same house. I’d see you running around in your red shorts, hear your chatter, watch the way you played with your hair when you were reading a book. I couldn’t avoid you.”

“Jaycie was a lot prettier than me. Why not her?”

“She didn’t read the same books, didn’t listen to the music I liked. I couldn’t get comfortable with her. Not that I would have let myself. I trashed her to Regan. I tried that with you, too, but Regan could read my mind.”

“It was all about availability, wasn’t it? That’s what’s so ironic. If you’d met me in the city, you’d never have looked at me twice.” Theo belonged with beautiful women. He and she were lovers only because of proximity. She tucked her cold hands inside the front of her coat. “After everything you went through with your sister, how could you have fallen in love with Kenley?”

“She radiated independence and self-confidence.” He made a mockery of his own words. “Everything I was looking for in a woman. Everything Regan lacked. We hadn’t been together for six months when she pressed me to get married. I was crazy about her, so I ignored some misgivings and went along with it.”

“Which put you in virtually the same predicament you’d been in with Regan.”

“Except Kenley didn’t try to kill anyone but herself.”