Tess #2
“A black woman with a debilitating disease, no less.”
“Oh, Tey. I’m sorry.”
She waved away my concern, though her eyes were as watery as mine.
“You’d think I’d be used to it by now. Every time I’d think we were making progress or that she’d finally say fuck all to her parents and just be with me, they’d come sweeping in with some new...
thing. An event they wanted her to host. Or a charity they wanted her to find sponsorship for, and she’d end up saying it wasn’t the right time.
So we’d break up. Then I’d miss her, and I’d go running back. Or she would. Wash, rinse, repeat.”
I shook my head, not able to bear the discrimination and manipulation on behalf of my friend. “You’re too good for her. She’s selfish and self-centered.”
“She’s really not. If you knew all the things she’s done for me behind your back—”
I cut her off, not wanting to hear her defend someone who’d hurt her so deeply. “She’s a coward, at least. Not able to stand up to her parents? She’s a grown woman.”
“Scott’s a coward,” she countered.
“He is,” I admitted. “And I love him anyway. And you love her anyway.”
“Yep.”
It was a lot.
A lot to absorb, a lot to take in. A lot to feel. I was still extremely hurt about being kept in the dark. And mad about, well, a lot of shit. But mostly I was just sad. Sad for all of us. For me and Tey, definitely, but also for Scott and Kendra and the stupid bind their parents had around them.
I reached out and covered her hand with mine. “What are we going to do, Tey?”
“I don’t know.” She squeezed my hand. Then she let go so she could grab the whole box of tissues this time, placing it between us before taking one to wipe her eyes.
“I’ve said I was done with her before—a million times—and when she showed up fucking engaged…
” She let out a breath. “That was one hundred percent the end. No more. Finished. And then you told me Scott wasn’t going to go through with it, and stupid me.
But I got radio silence from her. Until this week.
She called, and there I was at her doorstep.
This whole time you were away, I spent with her. ”
“You did?”
She nodded. “She told me she wasn’t really going to marry him, said she was sorry for even considering it, but that she had to pretend for the DRF, and after that...after that, she promised we could be together. She’ll tell her parents and everything.”
My chest felt like it was being crushed by an elephant. It was familiar. And being on the outside, I could hear what bullshit it was. “And?”
“And I thought of you,” she said. “I thought about how you aren’t putting up with it. And I realized I’m not that strong.”
“That’s not true.”
She ignored me. “But I want to be. I need to be. For my own sake.”
Ugh. I wanted to be supportive. But I also wanted her to be happy. And I wanted to be happy. And I wanted to be with Scott. Which was why I wasn’t capable of telling her not to be with Kendra. Not yet, anyway. Maybe never.
“Maybe we could double date them. They’ll be engaged, and we can pretend we’re together, and then we just always hang out as a foursome.” I wasn’t serious. But it felt good to pretend I was.
“Bet we’d get to go to some damn good parties that way.”
“And the opera.”
“Box seats. We could stare longingly across the theater at each other.”
We laughed. That oh-my-God-it-hurts-so-I-have-to-laugh kind of laugh.
“What are we going to do?” she asked when we weren’t able to find any more of the humor in our situation.
The obvious answer was live in my pajamas, eat lots of ice cream, and play sad Taylor Swift songs on repeat. When it had just been me who was miserable, that had felt like a perfectly fitting agenda.
Now that it was both of us, I was more motivated to find the road out of despair. I cared more about her emotional well-being than my own, it seemed. Or it was easier to see someone else’s pathway than it was to see mine. Or a combination of the two.
“I think,” I said, still searching for the answer.
“I think we have to choose ourselves. I mean, we could keep being depressed about it. About not being the one that was chosen. Because it fucking sucks that Kendra is choosing her parents’ opinion over you, and it sucks knowing that Scott chooses to let his parents control his life rather than be with me.
I am plenty ready to be glum about that for a long time.
But eventually, that’s going to get old, and neither of us wants to let them break us. ”
“No, we don’t,” she agreed.
“So I think we have to stop waiting for someone else to choose us, and we have to choose ourselves. We have to choose to love ourselves the most, even if they don’t. We have to choose to want the best for us because relying on someone else to do that for us hasn’t gotten us shit.”
I really didn’t know how much of my speech was for Teyana anymore because now I was really talking to me.
I was tired of feeling sorry for myself.
I was tired of blaming my issues on my father and my ethnicity and the men I dated and the woman I worked for.
There were factors against me, yes, but they didn’t have to define the things I could control.
I could change who I dated. I could change my work situation.
I could choose to make myself the priority in my own life.
Maybe this was a better way for me to approach my life than the Sebastian expect-it-to-get-it method.
At least for right now. Because I wasn’t quite sure the things I’d been wanting to get were the best things for me to have.
I needed to make better choices for myself before deciding what to go after.
“I’ve relied on you, and that hasn’t gotten me shit,” Tey said. “But everyone else—you’re right. Like, I have an illness, but if I chose to put myself first and took care of my health preventatively, I bet I’d have fewer POTSie days.”
“And I don’t have to work for Kendra.”
“Don’t think you have to quit because of me. I know you love what Conscience Connect stands for.” She’d spent so much time cajoling me about being loyal to Kendra, it was almost weird to hear her be supportive.
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Though it didn’t really help me decide what I should do.
“I need some more time to think. I’m going to ask K for a leave of absence so I can get all my ducks in a row.
I have more vacation time stocked up, and my mother gave me some money when I visited, so that should buy me some time to make a decision that isn’t based in heartache. ”
“I like that idea.” She considered for a few seconds. “And I’m going to stick to a healthy sleep schedule and actually do the exercises that my doctor prescribed.”
I followed her gaze to my bedside clock. It was already eleven. When I looked back at her face, she was wincing. “I guess that means I need to head to bed now.”
A good friend would encourage her, I thought.
But a good friend also knew the benefits of a mopey girls’ night.
“We’ll choose ourselves tomorrow,” I said. “Tonight, we choose ice cream.”