Pumping the Breaks

Chapter 5

[ Summary: Theo helps sickly Pari with medicine and learns more about Odette. Then, he's given a mission only he can complete]

Theo

“O-Odette forgot something in her room,” said Amanda, rushing over to excuse Odette just moments after the accident.

She grabbed Odette by the shoulders, pulled her out of Theo’s reach, and wasted no time in spiriting her away. Theo was completely stunned as the two disappeared down the hall.

“W-Wait!” Theo said, deeply concerned but several seconds late. He spun and saw Odette turning over her shoulder to look at him before she disappeared around a corner. Shortly after, a door slammed, making a picture crooked on the wall.

Theo didn’t follow.

Instead, he sighed and checked his phone. He felt crazy and had to confirm what had happened from the beginning to make sure he wasn’t misremembering what had led to his being ditched.

First was the text from Amanda not sixty seconds prior: “Report to the garage immediately. Groceries don’t buy themselves. We’re burning daylight”. Sounded urgent; like he was who the others were waiting on.

So Theo minimized the gacha game he was playing on his phone and made haste from his seat in the den toward the garage, obedient and repentant. He expected to find the others sitting in a started car, waiting for him to hop inside and take the wheel. He’d made them wait, so he crossed the house with intention.

He was at the garage door in ten seconds. He took five more when he got the knob to think of how he would apologize for his tardiness.

Then, throwing open the door, he crashed chest-first into Odette’s body. Her entire front pressed into his.

At that point, time slowed. He was permitted ample time to be surprised and to come to terms, to be enamored by Odette’s closeness and to thaw after being frozen in fear by it, to be aroused by her and embarrassed to be and so, so ashamed that he didn’t first think to be worried about her before noticing that her boobs felt fantastic.

And then to worry about her, because fantastic boobs couldn’t distract him from Odette’s bug-eyed unease forever.

There should have been time for all of that. . . but there wasn’t.

And his hands were barely on her shoulders to console her when Amanda appeared and told Theo to ignore the urgency of the prior text message, and the trip to the grocery store, and Odette’s discomfort. In so many words, and a few concise actions, she told him he’d have to wait a little longer.

But why?

Lady problems, he thought, remembering the conversation in the den. The blanket term for anything he wouldn’t understand.

And he understood that.

But. . .

It felt like there was more going on—things he wasn’t part of that weren’t just “lady problems”. Not excluded from, of course. The girls always made a point of including him.

But sometimes, his inclusion didn’t feel complete. There were moments—like this one and the previous ones—when he felt like the extra: the younger sibling at the big kid party. The dog on the leash. The boy in a group of women.

It usually didn’t bother him. It was even a point of pride sometimes.

But today. . . it was just a little too much—too real, too alone, too separate from whatever was going on.

From whatever Odette was clearly going through.

He pulled out his phone and opened another game, hoping to check his dailies as he had started to do before when he felt a little less terrible.

But then, he heard a voice.

“What’s going on in here?”

Theo looked to the other side of the house where he saw Pari, limping weakly away from her bedroom. She was supposed to be sick and resting, but he wasn’t sure how sick she actually was until he saw the way she had to hobble about her own home. He rushed over to her, hoping that she wasn’t delusional or dangerously feverish.

“P-Pari? Sh-Shouldn’t you be in bed? You look so. . .” Theo began, then trailed when he knew that nothing truthful would sound appropriate. Her eyes were wrinkled slits, sensitive to the midday light. Her whole face looked puffier than usual, and sweat had made her clothing heavy and wet. “You should be in bed.”

Pari paused, glancing down at Theo. Even with half-open eyes, she managed to squint even further at him. “What are. . . you doing in my house?”

Theo panicked. “Right. Uh, Odette let me in—. . . Erm, us. She let us in. She invited us, actually,” he blabbered, throwing out puzzle pieces he hoped Pari would put together. “She wanted help making lunch for you because you were sick. I-I guess you already knew you were sick. I didn’t know you were th-this sick, though. Umm. . .”

Pari coughed, a dry battery of wheezing that seemed to rattle something around in her chest. Even while arrested with a coughing fit, she still angled herself away politely. Theo threw up his hands meaning to try to help, but Pari stopped him by holding up a hand of her own.

“I heard a lot of commotion. Then, I heard my car honking, and just now a door slammed,” Pari said. “And now, I’m awake and my head is throbbing. . .”

“It’s a lot to explain,” said Theo, unsure. “I could, uh, get you some meds.”

Pari took a moment to roll his answer around in her head before her expression softened. “Sure, thanks. They’re in a cabinet in the kitchen.”

It was only his second time in the house, but Theo remembered the kitchen well enough. It was a wide open room with a range and counter space and a sink with a fancy filter on it. It made his kitchen look like a closet.

He went through cabinet by cabinet until he found a large, clear container with a number of prescription bottles in it. He immediately felt better for proving himself useful, especially after rambling pointlessly to Pari, explaining nothing. He silently resolved himself to speak as little as possible until he could get Pari something for her headache, careful not to burden her further.

Only, he couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was looking at.

He began to rummage through the tub. He’d been sick before, of course, but in his twenty-something years of life, he’d never actually shopped for drugs. Whenever he was sick, his mother would usually leave the box with him and he would take the required dose—which seemed childish now that he needed to make the decision himself. How was he supposed to know which one was good for headaches?

The more he searched, however, the more he got the sense that there was a lot of medication being kept in the big, clear container. A lot of drugs—like, the five liter tub was full from corner to corner. Every bottle had some long, clinical-sounding name. The kiddy drugs like “cough-be-gone” and “sniffle stopper” were nowhere to be found. It dawned on Theo what the implication of having so much medicine was and the pit of his stomach sank all the lower.

Lady problems?

“Blue box at the back.”

Pari appeared at the entryway of the kitchen and gestured with a finger before leaving Theo with the medicine container. She went around to the kitchen table and slumped into a chair.

Theo thanked her, found a blue box hiding at the back, and showed it to Pari for confirmation before bringing it to her with a glass of water. She thanked him with a smile and a nod that looked far too effortful for him to feel good about. Then, he stood awkwardly over her, not knowing what to do.

It felt wrong to start up a conversation—because what would he have to talk to Pari about? But it felt wrong to leave a person that was clearly as sick as Pari on her own. Like, he should be there if she needed something, right?

He found himself looking over her as she measured out two small, white pills and swallowed them. Then, he saw the bulge of her swallow travel down her throat, race past her brown collarbones, and disappear behind her breasts which were largely exposed in her slinking tank top.

He took a step back to loom over the chair next to Pari instead of directly beside her.

God he hadn’t meant to do that. He really didn’t. He just wasn’t sure what to look at and was awful at choosing what to look at when he was aware of what not to look at.

Now, he was thinking about what he had looked at: Pari’s boobs. And he was thinking about how stupid it was he was for thinking about Pari’s boobs, and how he ought to stop thinking about Pari’s boobs, but also about how stopping boob thoughts was, in a way, still thinking boob thoughts.

Like trying not to imagine a pink elephant. Same concept.

And, frankly, Pari’s boobs were prominent but they were nowhere close to the elephants of the house. The award for “elephant-sized boobs” belonged to Odette. . .

God. Boob awards, Theo? Really?! Now?!

“You wanna sit, Theo?” asked Pari, sympathetic.

Theo felt awful for needing Pari’s sympathy. He had five or ten quick thoughts about why he ought to feel bad for being catered to by the sick person, then finally said, “Sure”, and took the seat next to hers. The old, light oak table was a long rectangle. Pari was at the head and Theo sat at her right hand.

“Thanks for the meds,” said Pari.

“Sure. Glad I could help.”

“So, if I understood you, Odette asked you to come over to help her make lunch?” asked Pari. She took intermittent sips of her glass of water, usually before she spoke.

“Yes. But, uh, not just me. It’s me, Amanda, and Janet.”

“So you three healthy people are in the house of a sick person to make lunch?”

“Sounds bad when you put it like that.”

“And where’s the lunch, Theo?”

“Th-There wasn’t enough stuff in the kitchen, so Amanda decided we should go to the store to buy more stuff to make lunch.” It sounded even worse now. He took a moment to try cracking his knuckles. They wouldn’t pop. “Should we just. . . leave?”

“Nah, my fever’s broken. I don’t think I’m contagious,” Pari said. “And honestly, I was sort of looking forward to whatever lunch Odette was going to put together. I wish she didn’t get all you guys involved, though. I’m sure you were busy.”

“Nah, I was off today.”

“Bookstore, still?”

“Yea.”

Pari wiped away some of the condensation on the side of her glass with a finger. She was thinking of what to say next. Theo was also thinking, but he was thinking about how he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound cheap or shallow; which was a step better than ranking his female friends by cup size.

He knew almost nothing about Pari. The last time he’d seen her was the LAN Party where they barely talked. Before that was the bookstore, and a few moments in ForeverAge 2. The two were guildmates, but they still mostly spoke through Odette in-game.

He watched her think and dip water out of the corner of his eye, realizing that he had looked at Pari even less than he had spoken to her directly. She wasn’t nearly as old as she acted, though she was clearly older than him, possibly her mid-twenties. If she wasn’t sick, or in pain, or struggling to entertain him, he would have been deeply intimidated by her—much like he was around most attractive women his age.

Of course, with the raw luster of her femininity hidden beneath the cowl of disease, she was infinitely more approachable—which was unfortunate and true, and probably truer because it was unfortunate.

“You like it?” Pari asked, at last. “Your job.”

“I don’t like the pay,” Theo answered, finding the answer easily. “Or the retail part. Or stocking—I-I’m not exactly all that athletic.”

“So, you don’t like it.”

“Oh, uh. N-No, I guess I don’t. I hadn’t exactly noticed.”

“You didn’t realize you were miserable?”

Theo put his hands beneath the table and laced them, thinking. “My high school friend, Neveah, got me the job, then she transferred to a University out of town. I stuck around because I didn’t want them to lose two employees at once and, well, I’m still there.”

“I get that. Felt obligated,” Pari said.

“Right.”

“And you feel like your obligation is hanging you.”

“Guess so? But it sounds bad when you put it that way. Like, I need a change badly.”

“What way would you put it?”

Theo shrugged.

“No shame in being noble or kind. But those are meant to be good things, so don’t let them become things you hate about yourself.”

“You’re smart, Pari.”

“Odette’s conditioned me to lecture people younger than me. It’s a vice, not a virtue. I oughta quit one of these days,” she said, nodding, smiling. She coughed again, but spoke before Theo could make much of it. “I’m fine. I’m going back to bed, though.”

“Good idea.”

Pari rose from her seat and, seeing the sluggishness with which she moved, Theo rose and followed her at a distance. She never needed his help with the door or with walking or with getting into bed. She did get on all fours as she crawled across the large bed though, and Theo decided looking at her room was a little better than watching her backside while on all fours.

Until Pari let fly a series of heavy coughs.

Then, he had to look in her direction to confirm if she was fine, which she was.

Quite fine.

Very “fine”.

God, it was like a set of moons made out of peanut nut butter cups. Her ass was better than her tits. . .

He only redeemed her absurd amounts of “fineness” for a few moments, and not without a great deal of remorse. By the end, he was pretending to clear his throat while focusing on literally anything in the left-hand quadrant of Pari’s bedroom, careful not to let her see the heat in his face.

He found two pictures sitting on a bookshelf that stood to the left of her work station.

“You can have a closer look, if you want,” Pari said.

Theo pretended to fix the messy waves of blond hair while using it to cover as much of his face as he could manage. “O-Oh, uh. Sh-Should I? Are you sure it’s okay?”

“It’s just pictures.”

“R-Right. Of course. Just. . .pictures.”

He hadn’t cared at all about the pictures, but couldn’t say so now. He played along and stepped into Pari’s room—a woman’s room.

There were three pictures. The one that drew his attention immediately was the center image. It bore a familiar face: Odette, beaming a massive grin while sitting in a doctor’s office. Beside her was an old Indian man, managing an even brighter grin, unashamed of his yellowed teeth.

“That’s Odette and my dad. Must’ve been years ago at this point,” Pari explained. “He was her doctor before I was.”

“Wait,” Theo said, turning before he could remember that looking at Pari was still dangerous. Fortunately, she was already under the covers, sitting up with her hands around the glass of water in her lap. “You’re a doctor? Like, that kind of doctor? Odette’s doctor?”

“Yup. See the mirror on the left?”

Theo looked closer. At the edge of the image was a mirror and in said mirror was the reflection of a younger-looking Pari, scowling as she used a smartphone to take the picture. She was wearing a lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck. A lab coat and stethoscope didn’t make her into a doctor anymore than wearing a badge would have made her a “sheriff”. Still, the expressions seemed genuine, and Theo couldn’t imagine her pretending to be anything she wasn’t.

This meant the Odette in the picture was really Odette. In the picture she was smiling, but fragile-looking. The chair she sat in was standard size for an office but it all but swallowed her because she was really thin—downright gaunt, in fact. It painted a terrible picture.

The bucket full of prescription medication.

The regular “lady problems”.

A picture of Odette looking like a bag of bones with breasts attached.

Theo wished Odette was there, then. He wouldn’t have ever had the courage to do so otherwise, but he felt the need to hold her—even if acting like she was still that tiny, weakened girl was entirely wrong.

What the hell had she been through?

“She would hate it if you felt bad for her,” said Pari after Theo stared at the image silently for a while.

“I can’t help it,” replied Theo.

“She’d hate to know that you spent so long staring at her picture, too.”

“S-Sorry!”

“Relax. I didn’t mean it like that. Though, it’s a little obvious. . .”

“Wh-what is?”

“You. Odette. You. Mostly you, though.”

“Uh,” Theo panicked. “These other pictures look nice too.”

Pari chuckled and explained the other two images succinctly: on the right was the oldest picture chronologically, featuring Pari and her best friend, Priyal, celebrating Pari’s admission to medical school. The picture on the left was a group shot in which Odette and the entire Holiday family—Odette’s sister, brother, and father—surrounded Pari and her father in the front lawn of the house.

Theo couldn’t help but linger on Odette’s family. He always imagined her with Pari, living together, their own sort of family. It was weird to see her flanked by a bunch of other people that bore an uncanny family resemblance.

He found himself looking at the woman that must’ve been Odette’s older sister, finding his blond friend’s features refined to perfection. He didn’t know her name, but she looked like Odette 2.0, like all the parts of Odette that were cute, small, and compact were redoubled and stretched into a taller, fuller figure.

Would Odette look like that in a few years? Maybe when she was Pari’s age?

Part of him hoped not, since he already struggled to talk to Pari and would be a babbling idiot if ever faced with Odette’s nameless big sister.

If Odette herself wasn’t such an approachable dork, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself around her. . .

“I didn’t really have any pictures in my room for the longest time,” said Pari. “Never been much for taking them or having them taken.”

Theo turned toward Pari, a light playfulness in his voice. “Y-You are sort of scowling in every picture. Even the celebratory one.”

“They surprised me with that one.”

“So, uh, does that mean you don’t like being a doctor?”

“Hmm?”

Theo took a step back, leaning against the wall next to the door, hiding himself in his hoodie as he spoke. “You asked if I liked working at the bookstore and I thought I did, until you helped me understand by asking about it. I hadn’t put it together until you said something. So I guess I’m wondering if you’re sort of stuck as a doctor, just like I’m stuck at the bookstore.”

Pari tilted her head.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you with the question—. . .”

“You’re a smart kid, Theo. I mean, I knew that. You’re really good at ForeverAge, quick with math and resource management,” Pari nodded. “But you’re smart, too.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“You deserve more than a bookstore clerk job.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. You knew that. The question is: what are you going to do about it?”

Pari asked the question with such expectation that Theo knew right away that his deflecting would do him no good with her. He knew her type. She was going to keep plugging ahead, forcing him into a boxed future based on whatever arbitrary answer he threw out. She would ask him about it from here on out as if the flippant response he gave, spur of the moment, was supposed to recontextualize his entire life.

Or maybe he was projecting a bit. A lot of people thought he had “smarts”. Those people seemed to have plenty of ideas for what he should do with it.

They didn’t ever try to help him get to the bottom of what he might actually want to do.

More leashes. More pandering.

“I’m not sure,” he answered, finally. “Seems like a little too much to think about right now anyway, doesn’t it? I’ve got my whole life ahead of me. Like, how could anyone—. . .”

“. . .—decide on something they want to do for the rest of their life in their twenties. I know, I know,” said Pari, the person who was a doctor in her twenties.

“It’s kinda nice that you found the thing you like so early. And you’re good at it—and it pays well, too.”

“Yea, sure,” Pari replied.

“And you at least seem to enjoy it here sometimes. No idea if you feel trapped or not,” he rambled, his goal to fill the air with words.

“Hmm. . .”

“I wish I could be lucky like you though, y’know? Like, I can barely decide what to eat for breakfast. I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere near where you are at your age, driven and decisive and—. . .”

“Ugh. . .” Pari grabbed her face with the whole of her palm, squeezing both temples between her ring finger and thumb. A heavy groan moved her entire body, then she placed the water glass aside and abruptly bundled up under the covers. “God, forget it. I can’t right now.”

She was clearly annoyed—or in pain, or both. Without her stimulating the conversation, the sense that Theo was snooping around a sleeping woman’s room increased to uncomfortable levels. He uttered a word—“Uh, sleep well, I guess”—and made for the door. He was on the other side of the threshold and reaching for the knob, in the middle of thinking how suddenly the amiable dialogue had come to an end.

Then, he heard Pari’s vulnerable voice.

“Theo? I need you. . .”

He rushed back into the room. “P-Pari? I’m here. Are you okay? D-Do you need more meds? I—. . .”

He was already at her bedside, stooped lower than usual to get as close to her as could be managed. Her eyes were closed. She looked peaceful as she rested, but was she resting in peace or simply a sleeping beauty? Should he be worried about how romantic her sickness made him? Definitely. But it was tangled into a stronger connection, one that hoped that she would be okay, and that he’d dutifully do anything it took until he could know she would be.

“I need a favor,” she whispered. “And you’re the only one in this house who can do it?”

“I-I hardly believe that to be the case, but—. . .”

“Stop. The. Bullshit. Nothing more unattractive. . .”

Theo frowned. “Uh, what?”

“Gimme your phone,” she said, peeking out from the heavy blanket. After Theo fished it from the pocket of his jeans, he extended it to her and she snatched it up, only to turn it to face him when it asked for his pin number. “Listen. I need someone to keep an eye on Odette. I love Janet, but she’s a pushover. Amanda might be a good chaperone, but she can be a little reckless—put in your pin.”

“Could you tell me what this has to do with me?”

“Are you hiding porn on your phone?”

Theo’s frown deepened, a snarl the shape of a horseshoe.

“If you are, I don’t care. I just want to put my number in. I need you to promise to watch Odette and to keep me posted on how things are going.”

Theo reluctantly drew the pattern that unlocked his phone. He then watched Pari’s finger to make sure she found his contacts rather than one of several social media accounts he cycled through.

It wasn’t porn, but what straight guy didn’t have one or two well-endowed influencers mixed in with the gaming and tech news that composed his feed? Knowing his luck, and the number of people he followed that posted regularly thirsty selfies, he had a right to be off put by having his phone in anyone else’s hand—even if they didn’t “mind him hiding porn”.

“Umm, I-I can do that, I guess. But for you to ask me. . . this must be very important.”

Pari continued her work on the phone without looking up. What she said next was jarring, especially after she’d got him thinking about porn. “I actually liked the idea of being a doctor at first.”

“Uh, what?”

“I like the scientific aspect. I’m a researcher first, a good one if I say so. But I’ve never liked treating people or nursing the sick or any of that stuff. I suck at it. And stubborn patients are, well, stubborn. That’s why I was scowling in all of those pictures—I dislike having my picture taken, but I hated having to be anyone’s doctor. So imagine my disdain when family obligations meant that I would put my goals as a researcher on the backburner to become the sole caretaker and doctor of some troublesome little girl.” Pari’s eyebrow twitched and she paused, but then handed Theo back his phone. “But I’ve grown very fond of Odette since then. In fact, I was wrong in almost every way about her. But I wasn’t wrong when I called her ‘troublesome’ and since I can’t be there to keep her out of trouble, I need you to keep an eye on her and alert me at the first sign of trouble.”

Theo could hardly understand how Pari could so succinctly and genuinely convey her entire story. He hadn’t known any of that about her and based on how she and Odette carried on now, one never would have guessed that Pari had ever objected to it.

He wanted to know more, but knew she was pushing it just talking to him now.

“I can try. But, uh, Pari?”

“Yea?”

Theo slowed, frightened by what he was about to ask. “Is Odette’s life in danger? Like, how serious is—. . .”

“Take it seriously, but it’s not life or death. Just. . . text me.”

“Sure.”

Theo glanced at his phone before he put it back into his pocket. He somehow felt a little better about all of it, not the phone but something else. Knowing Pari’s background made him feel less like an outsider, and having a mission entrusted to him, possibly one related to the elusive “lady problems”, was a sign of him being included in a manner that wasn’t so superficial.

Theo scrolled through his contacts, wanting to double check that Pari typed in the correct number, but found no one by the name of “Pari”. He checked again before speaking. “I don’t see your name here.”

Pari pulled the blankets up to her chin, eyes closed. “It’s under ‘Neveah’.”

“Wh-What?!”

“Your high school friend, right? Neveah? Except, hers was in there as ‘Nev’ so I spelled out the whole name and put a heart after it.”

“You remembered her name?!”

“Of course.”

Maybe she hated being anyone’s doctor, but picking up on and remembering names so easily showed an impressive talent for the role. “But why choose her name?”

“If Odette saw you texting ‘Pari’, she’d never forgive us for working together to snoop on her. But if she thinks you’re texting a friend, she won’t think twice about it.”

“But why the heart?”

Pari was quiet, as if suddenly asleep. After a minute, she mumbled, “If it looks like Neveah’s your girlfriend, all the better. It’ll explain why you’re so excited to respond to her messages. Helps our case.”

“Oh.”

“You’re smart, Theo. You just have to remember to use your brain.”

Her teasing made him feel a little lighter.

“I need to rest,” admitted Pari. “Just text me every hour or so. I’ll ask Odette to do the same.”

Theo nodded and rose to leave Pari’s room. It felt like he was swept up into this situation, but now he was swept up for what felt like the right kind of reason. It still annoyed him a bit how it seemed like he was pushed and pulled by people around him.

But given the past twenty minutes, he could make an exception. He’d learned so many intimate details about Odette and Pari and their relationship, so many that he felt a little guilty now. At least he had a way to work off his guilt by working with Pari for Odette’s benefit.

He could help Odette even without her having to know.

Theo left toward the den to wait, then remembered something and passed it by. He instead went to the crooked picture in the hall from before and, feeling useful again, he righted it. He then looked over it, expecting another family portrait only to find the plain filler paper that likely came with the frame. Nobody had ever replaced the boring old paper. After seeing Pari’s array of scowling faces and charming personality, it felt like a waste not to put something in the frame.

He wondered what he might want to see it filled with, if given the choice.

Then, his phone buzzed with a message and he managed to stop thinking so that he could fish his phone out and check it.

Nevaeh <3: Oh, and if you put that big brain of yours to good use, I’ll be sure to have a fitting reward ready when you get back. It’ll be much better than a shift at the bookstore, too. Promise! Text me, sweety ;)

And even if it was fake, Theo’s heart fluttered.

A reward? Better than a bookstore shift? What is she. . .

This was going to be a complicated grocery trip.

His phone buzzed once more in his hand.

Nevaeh <3: P.S., whose car are you taking?