Teddy #2
There’s a sick sense of satisfaction when the color drains from his face. I put my face right in his, my teeth bared, my eyes feral and wild.
And for the first time, he cowers in front of me. His shoulders rise to his ears, he won’t meet my eyes, and he tries to lean back away from me as much as I can.
I remind him that I didn’t get my size from him; I got it from Pop.
“Who’s the sissy now, Dad?” I move my head to meet my father’s eyes, forcing him to look at me. He flinches from the look on my face before averting his gaze once more. I spit, “You should see yourself right now. Because you look weak and scared.”
Then I turn around to the women. I chuckle, the sound empty. “Look at Judd Williams, everyone! Patriarch. Successful business owner. Big alpha man cowering in front of his little sissy son.”
My uncles don’t even try to say anything.
My cousins are surreptitiously pointing their phones at me, recording this.
I don’t even care.
I just look at my family.
“I can’t believe I let you ruin this. I can’t believe I let you ruin the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Indie.” I say, my voice breaking. “I can’t believe I never stood up to you people.”
Because this feeling right here—defending Indie, defending myself—feels fucking amazing.
What was I so scared of?
Because the worst has already happened—I’ve lost Indie. I could lose every single person in this room and move on just fine.
But the thought of having to live the next hour, the next minute, the next second without Indie is making me insane.
And it’s my reality because I didn’t choose her.
Lily then steps toward me, her voice so sweet it grates on my nerves. “Teddy—”
“Don’t call me that!” I snarl, and she snaps her mouth shut. “How many fucking times do I have to tell you that only Indie can call me Teddy?”
Lily pouts, puffing out her bottom lip.
I roll my eyes. “When we were kids, do you know why I asked you out, Lily?”
She opens her mouth to answer, but I don’t let her.
“I felt sorry for you because you couldn’t fucking see that I didn’t like you.”
She pales, looking at her mother and my mother for them to deny it. And at that moment it might occur to me that we both have been following the leads of our mothers for too long.
“N-No, you—”
“You just couldn’t see that I would never like you,” I point to my mother and Colleen. “But they kept fucking pushing, and like always—I gave in! Because I was weak. I am weak.”
“That’s not true—” Lily shakes her head stubbornly.
“Every time you kissed me, I was trying not to throw up because it felt like kissing my sisters,” I grimace. “Wrong.”
“You were falling for me again, your mother said—”
“Christ—No, Lily,” I sigh, exasperated. “I was not falling for you. But you know what—that’s on me for making you think that I was, by not correcting you when you treated Indie like shit.
And you know? Because again, I was a coward, and I felt sorry for you.
My girlfriend is a fucking doctor, and you’re still stuck on a high school relationship that meant less than nothing to me. ”
“You don’t mean that,” Lily sniffs. “Mom said—”
“Oh, for fucks sake,” I groan, cutting her off. “Lily, I’m going to give you a piece of advice that I ignored—let go of that shit. Stop listening to your three-time divorced mother, who is too busy competing with my mother to give a shit about you.”
“How dare you—” Colleen squawks.
“Be your own damn person, and most importantly, for the love of God,” I raise my voice to emphasize, “Let go of me!”
Lily blinks, her face collapsing.
I feel nothing.
“Theodore, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Mom says, striding over to me, her eyes wild and voice desperate. “You’re just upset because Indie broke your heart—”
“I broke hers first! I broke her heart,” the words are hard to say through my closed throat. “Over and over again, and she just kept putting it back together. Only for me to break it again. Mine was well deserved.”
“Whatever it is!” Mom snaps, her composure melting. “You’re not thinking rationally, Theodore—remember what I said—I can’t lose you, you’re my baby boy—”
"For fucks sake, I'm not a baby, Mom! I'm a man. I'm a man in love with a woman named Indie, and for some fucked up reason, you hated that," I growl. "Is it because she encouraged me to actually live my life the way I want? Made me strong? Were you threatened by her?"
Her jaw tightens.
“God… you were,” I whisper. “You were threatened by Indie. By her intelligence. By her kindness.”
Mom laughs. “Threatened? By that insignificant little bitch—”
I stomp up to my mother and hiss, "Don't call her that. You don't have the fucking right to speak about Indie. She's worth more than you ever will be. And the sad part is that it's all your fault. Because you had Nana, and Nana would have done anything for you, to support you—"
"Your Nana," Mom sneers, and the venom dripping from her voice makes me pause. "Nana was a sad old woman who didn't know her place. Who couldn't stop butting into business she had no part of. 'Go to college, Dawn. Get a job, Dawn. Don't rely on any man, Dawn.'"
June and Robin try to stop my Mom, but she shoves them away.
"I wanted to be a wife and mother, and I did! I made my dreams come true, and she looked down on that! She told me I was too young, that I was making a mistake marrying your father, she told me we could go to the clinic if I wanted to—"
She slaps her hand over her mouth, like she didn't mean to make that slip. And that, oddly enough, makes sense. I knew Danielle was born quickly after they got married. I didn't realize how quick it was, though.
And Nana, like always, was looking out for her.
Robin and June look shocked, but the uncles actually look entertained by this. Dad is still pale, but one hand is over his face like he's annoyed she let the truth slip out.
“She didn’t look down on you, Mom,” I shake my head. “She wanted you to be happy.”
“I am happy,” she snarls. “I am!”
I let that hang in the air. The saddest part is that I think she wants to believe that she is happy.
“I’m done,” I rasp, hefting my bag up over my shoulder. “With this family. With this life.”
“And where will you go, huh?” Mom snarls, her voice trembling with fury. “Back to your little whore girlfriend? That little slut who’ll let it spread for anyone and everyone?”
I just look at my mother—this monster who raised me.
Last June, Indie posted something in support of Pride Month, that Hyde Cancer Center was LGBT+ inclusive, and alluding to her bisexuality.
When Mom brought it up to me out of concern, I told her it was part of Indie, and I love Indie, so it wasn’t an issue for us.
“What if she cheats on you with a woman?”
“She’d never cheat on me.”
“You don’t know that for sure, Teddy,” Mom said, her nose wrinkling. “She has options.”
“And yet she chose me,” I grinned proudly and joked. “So it looks like I’m the best of the best.”
The best of the worst, it seems, as I look around at my family.
“Maybe if you say that you’re happy enough times, it’ll actually be true,” I tell Mom, who flinches at that. Looks like I struck a nerve. I step over the cake mess on the ground, some satisfaction sliding through that they’ll have to clean that up, and head to the door.
I open the door and stop.
“Oh, and I honestly can’t believe I have to say this because it’s fucking sick that you even asked me, but you were never my number one girl, Mom.”
Her face goes red and furious.
“It was Nana,” I smirk. “Then I met Indie. She’s my number one girl. Forever.”
The door slamming behind me cuts off her indignant scream.