Chapter 42
Teddy
I woke with the dull awareness that my body had never really shut down.
There had been stretches of darkness, of drifting, of my thoughts thinning out just enough that time slipped past me, but sleep felt like too generous of a word for what I’d done. My head ached in that deep, persistent way, and my eyes burned the second I opened them.
Connor was still beside me, propped against the headboard, one arm stretched out where I’d been pressed into him for most of the night, his other hand resting loosely at my waist. He hadn’t changed properly, his clothes rumpled, hair a mess and face drawn with exhaustion he hadn’t tried to hide.
The sight of him still here was heavier than I expected, because it was proof of something I hadn’t dared to rely on.
I couldn’t bring myself to ignore where this was heading, and I didn’t have the energy to face the part where it ended.
“You stayed,” I said, my voice groggy from sleep.
His eyes opened immediately, clear and alert despite the way his body looked like it had taken a hit. “Yeah,” he said, voice rough with sleepiness. “I said I would.”
I swallowed and shifted carefully, my limbs protesting like they’d been filled with sand.
My phone rested on the nightstand where I’d dropped it hours ago, screen dark, quiet in a way that felt cruel.
I reached for it anyway, because some part of me still believed that if I didn’t check, I’d be missing the moment when everything changed.
“It was buzzing a lot while you slept. I made sure to check, but I didn’t read anything,” he said, pressing his lips softly to my shoulder. The touch traveled into my chest and squeezed, much like the sentiment of him being here, checking, caring about me.
No missed calls. No messages from numbers I didn’t recognize. Just the team chat lighting up with concern and love and promises that they were here whenever I needed them. I wasn’t ready to open any of it yet. Seeing their words would make this real in a way I wasn’t ready for.
I opened my mouth to ask if he wanted coffee when there was a knock at my door.
Connor shifted beside me, a subtle change in his weight, like he was preparing to stand, and I caught his wrist without looking, my fingers closing around it once before I pushed myself upright instead. “I’ll go, you stay.”
The room swayed as I crossed it, my body protesting the effort, and when I opened the door, Natalie was already stepping forward.
She didn’t ask how I was. Didn’t pause to read my face.
One look at me was all it took before she pulled me into her arms. Her familiar scent of roses wrapped around me, whispering that I was safe.
I broke again. Hot tears tore from my hoarse throat as she held me through it, closing the door at some point, but she never let me go once.
“I came as soon as Micah called,” Natalie said, brushing her hand over my hair. “I brought coffee. And food. And I don’t care if you don’t touch any of it.”
I managed to stop crying, and she pulled back just enough to look at me properly, her hands framing my face as her eyes searched for damage she couldn’t fix. “My girl,” she whispered.
Then her gaze shifted past me.
Connor had joined us, uncertainty flickering across his face as he took in the scene he’d just walked into.
Natalie looked between us, the picture forming quickly and without judgment. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Natalie.”
She extended her hand, and Connor took it with a soft smile. “Connor.”
And as though I’d been passed the talking stick at camp, I knew I had to say something, but the words that erupted from my mouth made absolutely no sense. “He’s… We’re… It’s…”
“If this man was with you last night,” she said, turning her attention fully to me now, “then I want to thank him.”
Connor blinked, the evidence of him staying awake for most of last night in the shadows under his eyes. And his shirt was inside out. He was as much of a mess as me.
“Because when things fall apart like this, you find out very quickly who shows up. And she needs people who show up.” She pinned him with a look, and he nodded. “So thank you, Connor.”
He straightened, and the corners of his eyes creased. “There’s nowhere else I’d be.”
Everything in my reality felt fragile, and yet here was this man being anything but. I wanted to lean into it, but I didn’t want to know what it felt like when he’d leave.
“Well,” she said briskly, clapping her hands together in a way that felt intentional, “we’re not standing around starving.”
She moved past us and into the kitchen, pulling containers from her bag and setting them out without asking where anything went. Coffee came first. Always coffee. The smell alone made my stomach ache with hunger I hadn’t realized was there.
“Sit,” she told me, pointing to the chair.
Connor gestured toward the bathroom. “I’m going to grab a shower. I won’t be long.”
I nodded, watching him disappear down the hall, and only then did I realize how aware I’d been of him since waking up, like my body had been tracking his presence even when my mind was elsewhere.
Natalie waited until the water started running before she spoke.
“So…” she said carefully, not looking at me as she cut fruit at the counter. “Tell me about him.”
I huffed out something that might’ve been a laugh. “Are you making me mango and kiwi?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t play with me, Theadora Sloane.”
No one else in my life full-named me. I wasn’t even sure anyone else knew it, which had always felt like a small mercy.
“I’m not playing.” I might’ve been a little. Talking feelings was hard, so sue me.
She finally glanced over her shoulder, eyebrow raised. “Yes, I’m making your favorite fruit and yogurt. Because you forget to eat when you’re upset. And because it’s the only thing you’ll tolerate when your stomach’s in knots. Now…” She turned back to the counter. “Talk.”
I leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling, the corners of my mouth betraying me. “He makes me happy,” I said finally, and then winced at myself for how easily it came out. “Which feels like a wildly inappropriate thing to say, given… everything.”
Giving me space, she kept slicing fruit with careful attention. There was something so comforting about this moment; I’d lived it before with her. Listening to me talk as she made me food. It was the way we’d decompress after school. Natalie truly had been there for everything when I’d grown up.
“I don’t think that’s how life works, my darling.”
I swallowed roughly. “I don’t want to be careless…”
Natalie finally glanced over her shoulder then, her expression to the point, eyebrows raised. “You and I both know, you aren’t someone who’s careless with anything that matters.”
That almost undid me more than sympathy would have, because Natalie knew me. I had nowhere to hide with her. The notion both scared and empowered me.
“I remember the little girl who triple-checked her laces before every game,” Natalie went on. “Who packed her school bag the night before and still opened it again in the morning, just to make sure. You never rushed into things, even back then. You thought them through. You always have.”
She turned fully toward me now, resting her hip against the counter. “Careless has never been your problem. Carrying too much on your own is.”
I looked down at my hands, the faint smile gone now, replaced with something much more complicated. Wanting him felt light and dangerous all at once, and I didn’t know how to hold that alongside the fear without dropping one or the other.
Behind us, the sound of the shower shifted, reminding me he was still here, that I still very much wanted him to be.
“Every part of me knows how this goes.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Enlighten me.”
My fingers curled together, knuckles pressing white. “We’ll be together, it’ll be hard, there will be media, opinions, and then then something interferes, and he leaves.”
Natalie laughed, and it caught me off guard. “It sounds like you’re the one with one foot out the door, Teddy, not him.”
Was I? I’d been so focused on the inevitability of his leaving that I hadn’t stopped to consider how tightly I was already holding myself back. How much of this I’d been managing before it ever had the chance to hurt me.
“I don’t leave,” I said finally, more reflex than conviction. “I stay. I endure.”
Natalie’s expression faltered, but she didn’t let me off the hook. “Is happiness something you endure? Is that how I raised you?”
The question lingered between us, uncomfortably exposed.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. No clever answer came. “No, it wasn’t. You taught me everything I know.” It was the truth, and I’d never be able to show her how grateful I was.
“Then you should know that happiness isn’t a weakness we have. As women, it’s one of our strengths. The world is very good at telling women to be smaller, quieter, easier to live with. And I watched too many brilliant women swallow joy just to make other people comfortable.”
She set the knife down and really looked at me. “I wanted you to know early that your happiness isn’t something to apologize for. Life is beautiful and you are strong. Don’t you remember what we used to say before bed, every night?”
I took a deep breath. “Stand tall.”
“And don’t apologize for it,” she whispered. I’d carried those words with me for so long and applied them to my life… I guess at some point, I forgot that standing tall didn’t mean I had to close myself off, and yet, I had.
I stared down at the table. “You don’t think I’m tempting fate?”
She snorted. “Fate doesn’t need your help, sweetheart.
It’s got its own thing going on.” Then she placed the bowl of fruit and yogurt in front of me, and I sighed with relief at her knowing me so intently.
“I didn’t raise you to survive your life,” she added.
“I raised you to take up space in it, the way I’m sure your mama would’ve wanted. ”