Chapter 23
BAILEY
Everything Teddy’s saying makes sense, and I think I hate him for it.
He’s shattering my perception of reality with every word.
Telling me all the guilt I’ve harboured since I was a child was never mine to carry.
And it hurts. It hurts so fucking bad, because until that night I told Shane no, I thought he’d been trying to help me.
That he really was the only one I could trust with it all, because he was my brother, and he said he’d keep me safe.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting on the floor.
Teddy’s leaning against the wall next to me, and all I want is for him to touch me.
I want him to tell me it’s okay. That I’m not too broken to be held.
I’m too scared to look at him, let alone ask for anything like that.
We’ve both calmed down at least. The tears have dried, and the silence is comfortable, like we’re both processing everything that’s happened in the past forty-eight hours.
So even if he isn’t holding me, at least he’s still here.
I push to my feet, and my whole body feels like I’ve gone too hard at the gym. Every muscle is fatigued, and my eyesight feels blurry. I start walking to the stairs when I hear movement behind me.
“Where are you going?”
I look over my shoulder, finding Teddy’s face pinched with concern. “I need to go in to work. That was the whole point of me coming here.”
He grabs my hand before I can start walking again, pulling me to a stop. “No you’re not. Not after all that.”
“I need to do something, Teddy. I’m not going to sit on the floor and marinate in it all. I can’t.”
“Go tomorrow.” His eyes are pleading. I know I can’t say no to him.
“We’ve already wasted one day, the wedding—”
“Fuck the wedding,” he growls.
I frown at him and shake my hand free. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do. The wedding isn’t as important as this. We’re both exhausted, and I’m not driving when I feel this way. I just want—”
“Want what?” I ask, nervous all of a sudden.
“I want us to be okay.”
I suck in a breath. If I thought Teddy being angry at me was confusing, it has nothing on this.
He can’t just turn all that off and start being nice again.
I can’t trust it’s real. Even if it was Shane who hurt him, I started it.
If I’d ignored Shane and told Teddy I wanted to leave to go to Scotland, instead of dumping him, it never would have happened.
I run up the stairs and into the bathroom, locking the door.
Teddy follows, knocking on the door. “Bay, come on.”
I switch the water on and strip out of my clothes. “I-I’m showering, go away.” He doesn’t answer me, so I assume he’s done as I’ve asked. I climb into the bathtub and lean back, letting the hot water hit my face until there’s not a thought left in my head.
The day passes slowly; Teddy forces me to eat toast and drink coffee.
We sit on the sofa together, and he puts some cartoons on.
In a silent agreement, we don’t talk about the past. We don’t talk at all, really.
I’m pressed against the armrest, trying not to draw attention to myself, scared that he’ll bring it all up again.
After a while, Teddy grabs my arm, pulling me until I’m laying against his chest. It’s warm and solid, his heartbeat so familiar. He wraps his arms around me, and I cry quietly while he holds me.
“I’m sorry, Bay,” he whispers for what seems like the hundredth time.
Old thoughts of blaming him for abandoning me resurface for an ugly moment.
I used to hate him for leaving me behind, but now I start to think about how he mistook me for Shane.
He couldn’t tell us apart when it mattered, even though we’d lived together for a year.
He was so willing to believe I’d hurt him that he ran away and never looked back. Never once questioned it all.
I hold the burst of anger inside, focusing on the now. Teddy is here—in my house. He’s holding me, just like I wanted. It wasn’t his fault.
“How did you end up in Cumbria?” Teddy asks, pushing my hair back from my face.
“Jake,” I smile at the memory. He walked into my life, grabbed hold of me, and unlike everyone else in my life, never let go.
“I made it to London but didn’t know where to go.
I wanted to go to Scotland to try and find you.
” I sniffle, wiping my eyes with my sleeve.
“I didn’t have enough money for the ticket, so I stupidly tried to jump the barrier.
A guard stopped me before I could, and he was telling me to leave the station when Jake turned up.
He said I was his nephew and then offered to buy me a ticket to Carlisle so that I could travel up North with him. ”
Teddy shifts under me. “And you let him?”
I frown, not liking his tone. “Yes, I let him, he was very nice. I sat with him on the train, and after talking for a few hours, he offered me a job and a place to stay.”
“Seriously? After everything you went through, you just went off with a stranger.”
I push myself up and glare at him. “You’ve met Jake. He’s fine.”
“I know I’ve met him. But you didn’t know him; anything could have happened, for fuck’s sake.”
“But it didn’t. I moved in with him, where he was living with his brother and nephews. Other than Noah, Jake’s all I’ve got, so don’t judge things you don’t understand. You gave up the right to worry about me when you left,” I snap.
He opens his mouth to argue, but quickly shuts it again, jaw ticking. We fall into silence, a little more awkward than before. I don’t lean against him again, and he doesn’t reach for me. My eyes are on the cartoon, but I’m not taking anything in.
“I should go to bed,” I mutter, getting up from the sofa. As I walk past Teddy, he grabs my trouser leg.
“Can you sleep down here again? I don’t want you out of my sight, not after last night.”
I look at my fingertip, remembering what I’d done—what I’d considered doing if I’d managed to make him leave.
I slap his hand away. “I’m not sleeping on the sofa when I have a perfectly comfortable bed upstairs.
I’ll get you some blankets, or you can sleep in Noah’s bed.
He barely uses it anyway, so the sheets are clean. ”
He stands up, following me up the stairs, into my bedroom. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“What do you mean? You—you can’t sleep in my bed.” I say, staring at him, bewildered.
He nods. “We’ve shared before.”
“I know that, but we were together.”
He just stares back at me, breathing louder, chest rising and falling quickly. Looking like he’s a second away from a panic attack if he’s forced to sleep in a different room.
“Fine,” I mutter.
We strip off our clothes quickly. Teddy gets under the covers before me, and I flick the light off, joining him. We lay still like bookends on the edges of the bed.
“This is weird,” Teddy says in the dark.
“Yep.”
He shuffles closer to me and reaches out until he finds my hand, then threads his fingers through mine, holding them between us.
“Night, Bay.”
I let out a soft breath. “Night, Teddy.”