Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
Helen
I’m on my way to ballet, the streetlights casting warm puddles of light across the sidewalk, when I hang up the phone with Gwen.
She sounded lighter today, happier. Carter is doing better since he got the ear tubes.
He’s finally eating and gaining weight. The relief in her voice was unmistakable, and it lingers in me, leaving a quiet smile on my face as I tuck my phone into my pocket and keep walking.
I’m three blocks away from home when a dark-haired woman steps directly into my path.
She’s beautiful, tall, and striking with full lips and perfectly drawn cat-eye eyeliner. Her look is polished in a way that says she either wakes up like this or spends hours watching makeup tutorials, which I never have the time or willpower to get through.
It takes me a minute to recognize her, which isn’t surprising.
I only met her once before, and that was over a year ago.
On the night I met Teddy, Gina worked in the bar with him.
She’s his ex-housemate, and I assume from the way they interacted that long-ago night she was, maybe still is, something much more to him.
The flare of jealously is so sudden it knocks the breath right out of my chest.
“Gina?” I ask, second-guessing myself. This will be so embarrassing if I get it wrong.
As unsure as I am of her identity, she doesn’t share that same hesitation.
“Helen, right?” she says, with the kind of smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, like she already knows the answer and is impatiently waiting for me to catch up.
I nod.
“Teddy’s staying with you?” she asks, coolly confident. Another question she already knows the answer to.
Another nod from me, slower this time.
I wonder how she got here? Is this a coincidence, or was she waiting? That can’t be right, that she’s deliberately waylaid me?
Her eyes flick over me, her mouth in a thin line like she’s not impressed by what she sees. Self-conscious, I glance down at my leotard and gauzy pink ballet skirt.
Oh god, what if she thinks I dress like this for fun?
Like I have so little fashion sense that I walk around like this all the time, dressed in pastel tulle like I’m some sort of sad adult fairy-tale princess. An off-duty sugar plum fairy.
“I’m on my way to dance lessons,” I blurt as a way of explaining, way too quick, too loud.
“Oh,” with a small shrug, like the details of my life are so insignificant she can’t be bothered with them. “Whatever. I wanted to talk to you.”
So she was waiting for me?
“Okay…” I trail off, uncertain how to handle this situation.
“Just because Teddy and I aren’t together right now doesn’t mean he’s available.” Her hands go to her hips.
My first thought is a giddy, they aren’t together!
Followed by a quick, it doesn’t matter. He’s not mine anyway.
Didn’t I just get off the phone with his sister? My friend Gwen? The same Gwen who asked me to keep an eye on her brother and who has no idea that I already crossed a line I swore I wouldn’t with that little morning slip-up at my parents’ house.
Want you so bad.
Teddy’s words, said in the heat of the moment, and then quickly revoked.
With complete confidence, I tell Gina, “Teddy and I are just friends. That’s it.”
Her eyes narrow suspiciously, and I try not to squirm, to shift guiltily. She doesn’t need to know about our hands and what they did. That’s all in the past. A distant memory, pressed between layers of regret and denial.
“Well, good,” she huffs, flicking her hair off her shoulder.
The movement is practiced, almost regal, but I catch the detail she probably doesn’t want anyone to notice—how her fingernails are chipped, bitten down with the edges uneven.
For a second, I wonder if maybe she isn’t quite as flawless as I first thought.
“He’s not the type to sit still for long.” Her nose tilts up, as if she’s daring me to argue. “Teddy likes parties. People. That kind of life. He likes to have…fun.” Another glance up and down me, clearly implying that I’m not fun. Like I’ve never seen a day of fun in my life.
I bristle at this simplistic explanation of Teddy.
“Sure. He likes fun, but he can be serious too.” I think back to the pier in New York, how we talked about life, death, fate.
And there was his offer to support me as I dealt with my mom’s cancer.
How Teddy said I could talk to him about it whenever I needed to.
That’s not fun stuff. It’s real, messy, but still he was there for it.
She rolls her eyes. “I’ve known him for years, and you’ve what? Spent a couple of weeks with him?”
That shuts me up. She’s right. She knows Teddy in ways I can only guess at…intimate ways given the obvious jealousy, the possessiveness, in her tone.
“Of course.” I lift my hands, palms out. “I wasn’t trying to say otherwise.”
“I’m sure you think you’ve gotten lucky, landing someone like him,” she barrels on like I didn’t even speak.
“He’s good looking and funny and charming.
” Something wistful enters her tone, almost yearning.
“But he’s not the settling-down type. Not a ‘let’s stay in and hang out just the two of us,’ kind of guy. ”
“Really?” I tilt my head, thinking that’s exactly what Teddy’s been doing with me, but maybe she’s right? Maybe she knows him better, and once that cast comes off it’ll be back to his old party boy lifestyle?
“Really,” she says, her voice sharp and certain. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. Just remember who he is and who he should be with…” Her eyes give me one last assessing stare before she finishes with a caustic, “spoiler alert. It isn’t you.”
She pivots, heels clicking, back stiff as she stalks off. I stand there, a grown woman in a pink ballet skirt, watching her disappear. My chest aches, not only from the sting of her words, but from the part of me that wants, desperately, for her to be wrong.
About Teddy. About me. About all of it.