Thirty-eight
Teagan
Back home and almost a week later, my wound still feels fresh. I didn’t see this coming. I thought that chapter with Heath had ended and that I could hide my heart behind sex and vitriol. What I didn’t see was that the resentment only existed because the love did too.
I had nowhere to put my sadness but inside myself until it came out as anger. It takes time to learn that, and to be able to recognize it when it’s happening in real time. I’m almost there.
Back at my parents’ house for Sunday dinner, I walk past the library. My graduation pictures hang in the largest frames, my decade-old trophies line the top of the mantel and cast shadows over Levi’s hard-earned medals. Had I seen it earlier, maybe I could have said something—pointed out how fucked up it all was. But, deep down, I know my fear would have stopped me like it always has. I couldn’t even choose my own way in life without feeling like their disappointment would be the death of me.
“There you are.” My father’s voice sends a shiver up my spine. “Dinner is ready, sweetheart. Come on.”
I sit in my place next to Levi. Mom passes me the dish of steamed vegetables I promised myself I would eat.
When I hand it to Levi, he quirks an eyebrow. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
Levi laughs but stops when I don’t return it. His brow creases with concern. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out,” I answer.
I return my focus to my plate and my glass of wine, letting myself zone out while the table conversation goes along its monotonous trail. My mind is elsewhere, back on the island, going through every word I said—every word I didn’t say. Did I protect my heart? Or did I run away again?
“I’m sorry,” I hear Rowan say. The slight tremble in his voice matches the emotion I’m trying to suppress.
“You must do better than that! A thirteen fifty is nowhere near where you need to be,” Mom chides.
“Leave him alone, Mom. It’s just a test,” Levi says.
“It’s a very important test. Rowan can do better—he should do better.”
Rowan looks down, but I can still see his chin quiver. The scolding continues, and I watch him edge closer to tears—closer to the breakdown I’ve had too many times. Anger burns in my chest.
“We’ll have to get you into classes again. Or maybe Teagan can help you. If she got a perfect score, surely she can raise yours to an acceptable level. You just need to try harder.”
“Oh my god, leave him alone!” I don’t realize I’ve yelled the words until they are out of my mouth. My parents’ eyes on me rein me back in but embolden me at the same time. “Rowan is going to be fine. It’s just a test.”
“Teagan, please. You know this test sets the foundation for the next. If he doesn’t do better—”
“Shut up, Mom. Seriously. Shut up.”
“Teagan! Do not speak to your mother that way!”
“I will when you both accept the fact that we’re not perfect. We’ll never be exactly how you want us to be. Rowan is a good person—a rare, genuinely good person. He’s kind, gentle, and so smart. He’ll be just fine whether he does everything to your standards or not.”
“What has gotten into you?” my mother asks. “We only want the best for all of you.”
“No, you want what you think is best for us,” I correct her. She leans back in her chair in offense. “So what if he doesn’t get into an Ivy League school? And what if he doesn’t want to go to college at all?”
“ Teagan ,” my father scolds me.
“You can’t see what you’re doing. Reminding us how you gave us this privileged life of comfort most of the world will never experience—comfort we wouldn’t have unless you saved us—it makes me feel like I have to make my life seem worthwhile to you.” Even thinking about it makes my stomach twist. Saying it aloud is even worse. “The fear that I’ll disappoint you has seeped so deep into me I’ve accepted living in a constant state of anxiety. But I wasn’t born like this. You raised me to be this way.”
My mother looks concerned, but my message clearly doesn’t click. “Maybe we were hard on you, but only because we want you to succeed. Look at all you’ve accomplished in your life!”
“All I’ve accomplished?” I repeat with disdain. “You want to know what I’ve accomplished? I’ve been unable to eat—starving myself off and on since I was eleven. I’ve mastered the art of having panic attacks in closets or bathrooms so I don’t make a scene. I—” The fearful pounding in my chest stops me.
After all the courage I built up to confront them, admitting it is terrifying. But it has to come out. I can’t have Rowan go through something even worse.
With a quivering breath, I say it. “I had an abortion because I knew you would never forgive me if I compromised my college career.”
My parents’ expressions fade from anger to shock. “What? When?”
“The summer before freshman year of college,” I answer. “I told you we were going on a graduation trip with our class, but we didn’t go. I went upstate to a clinic so you wouldn’t find out.” I can barely look at my mother’s face.
“But why? Why didn’t you tell us about this?”
“I was scared! If I had told you—if I had ruined the perfect image you had of me—tell me the truth. Tell me you wouldn’t have been disappointed in me.”
Their eyes fall from me. They don’t deny my claim, and it doesn’t surprise me at all.
“That’s what my fear of your disappointment has done to me. It was easier to get lost in school, to keep slowly killing myself while pretending I was still the kid who never made a mistake.” The tears in my eyes are angry, not sad. “I have done everything you wanted me to do, and it came with sacrifices I never should have had to make. Do not do to Rowan what you did to me.”
The gaping look of shock remains on their faces. A tear rolls down my mother’s cheek. “Teagan, I am so sorry. I didn’t know we were making you feel that way.”
“We are so proud of you. Of all of you,” Dad says. “We love you more than anything in the world. No matter what you do.”
Their words choke me. They are what I have wanted to hear them say all my life, and in this moment, I can’t accept them. “If that’s really how you feel, you have a messed-up way of showing it.”
I leave the table before they can see me cry.
My brain doesn’t reconnect to my body until I’m outside the front door. Too many emotions crash together in my head, leaving me with my heart feeling like it’s trapped inside a fist. I want to flee to my car and drive away, avoid it all, but my bag and keys are still inside. I sit on the front steps and hang my head in my hands.
After a pitiful minute of crying, I hear someone behind me. I know it’s my brothers without looking. Rowan sits next to me on the step. I take his hand in mine, knowing he isn’t capable of expressing more. I made it awkward and painful for everyone.
“I’m sorry for what I said to you when I was mad.” His voice is just a whisper.
“It’s okay, Rowie.”
“I didn’t mean any of it.” I understand how his emotion made him think the worst and made him use all the wrong words to explain it. I did the same. He’ll have to process being seventeen in his own time, just like I had to.
“I know.” I squeeze his hand and give him a teary smile. “Now go back inside. Mom and Dad are the ones who need to apologize.”
He gives me a little nod, then gets up to follow my direction. Levi climbs down from his chair and takes Rowan’s place. “Are you gonna be okay?” he asks.
“I’ll be fine. I always am.”
He wraps his arm around me. “I had no idea you went through all that. I’m sorry I was too wrapped up in my own shit to see it.”
“You have no reason to apologize. You were busy staying alive. That’s the most important thing you could do for me.”
We sit quietly for a moment. I’m thankful for his company.
“It was Heath’s, right?” he asks timidly.
“Of course it was.”
“Is that why you broke up?”
My breath comes out in a pained sigh. I wipe my eyes with the backs of my hands. “It wasn’t like that. We made the decision together and he was there with me through everything. We were just stupid teenagers and let it all fall apart afterward.”
“You still love him.”
“Yeah,” I say through my tears. “I do.”
“You should tell him that.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
Fuck, this hurts . I sniffle. “There’s no going back to what we had before.”
“Who says you’re supposed to go back?” he asks. I look at him questioningly. “Before my accident, I had a whole plan for my life. Not once did I see this coming.” He gestures to his legs and his chair. “But that’s how it is. You can’t go back to before everything happened, but you learn to accept it, and move forward.”
The broken pieces of my heart swell with pride. “I’m the big sister. I’m supposed to be teaching you shit about life, not the other way around.”
“You did teach me this, Teags.” He grips my hand. “You and Heath were the only ones who made me look ahead at what my life could be rather than thinking it was over. Now stop being a couple of dumbasses and do that for yourselves. Go talk to him before he leaves tonight.”
“Before he leaves?”
“He’s moving out of the city. He didn’t tell you?”
“No!”
“You might be able to catch him if you leave now.”
“But—”
“Go!”
“My keys and phone are—”
He reaches up to his chair and plops my bag into my lap. “Come up with one more excuse and I will throw your ass across the lawn. Go!”
I hug him as tight as I can, then I race to my car.
~
It’s official. I’ve lost my goddamn mind, and it is time for grippy socks.
I couldn’t find parking on his block, so I resorted to parking at my place and running down the sidewalk in five-inch heels. A moving truck sits just outside, so I run up to find him. My pounding heart drops when I find his door open and his apartment empty. Just then, I spot him through a window, walking up the sidewalk.
I fly down the stairs, wondering how I’ve managed not to fall yet. “Heath!”
He turns and looks surprised to see me. I come closer and realize I’m completely out of breath.
“Did you just run here?” he asks with a chuckle.
“Yes. Shut up.” I lean my hands on my knees and try to gain enough oxygen to speak in full sentences. Say the thing. Just say the thing .
“Would you—” “Do you—” we say at the same time. We look at each other.
“What?” I ask.
“What were you going to say?”
“Nothing,” I lie. “What were you saying?”
“Nothing.”
Still flustered and not quite knowing what to say, I spot an iced latte from my café, a T written on the side, dripping in his hand. “What is that?”
He glances down at it and stammers, “It’s an almond milk latte. I, um, I got it—”
“For me?” I finish for him.
He looks at me with hesitance in his gray eyes. “Yeah.”
Caffeine is my love language. I lean up, smiling when I see we’re in the same grippy-sock boat. “Were you coming to say goodbye to me before you left?”
“Kind of the opposite.” Nerves stitch his face and make him fidget. He straightens up with a breath and finally says everything I’ve needed to hear. “I was going to tell you I don’t want the summer to end, that I don’t want to wait and see if next year life won’t pull you away from me again. I was going to tell you I want you back—I want us back. And I guess I was hoping your favorite drink would make you tell me you feel the same way.”
As I look at him, my heart calms, and breathing seems optional. He is everything to me, and I have no intention of running away again. “Heath . . .”
I step closer to him and pull his face to mine, savoring the feel of his lips as if it would be the last time I’d taste them. His arms wrapping around me are the only things keeping me standing.
My lips leave his slowly. When my eyes open, I look into his and say, “I love you.”