24. Nellie
TWENTY-FOUR
NELLIE
I wave to my parents until they turn off my street, and still I don’t cry. I should have cried at least six times by now, but my tear ducts remain drier than an academic journal.
I’d insisted they leave before me. For some reason, I wanted them to see me in their rearview mirror rather than me seeing them. It’s a reminder that they’re the ones leaving me behind. I’m just doing a few weeks north of here. They’re the ones moving away.
One more walk around the little Airstream to double-check that nothing is going to open or fall off on my drive to meet with Teddy. Teddy. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about spending time with him. Even if I’m also dreading it. The human heart is an interesting thing, capable of holding great hope and the capacity for immense heartbreak at the same time. After I confirm no doors are going to swing open and dump books on the highway, I slip behind the wheel, reverse out of my driveway, and head toward a new adventure.
Twenty minutes later, Marley calls. She was going to call earlier but must have gotten busy .
“Hey,” she says out of breath.
“Hey yourself. Are you out for a run?”
“No, Jason stopped by.” Jason is the Hores’ bull and the most prolific escape artist since Houdini.
“I assume he’s back home.”
“For the time being anyway.” I can hear her eyes roll from here. “But enough about runaway bovines, how are you? How was the goodbye?”
“Far more painless than I had expected.”
“Still haven’t cried?”
“Nope. Apparently you’ve had more of an influence on me than I realized.”
“Come talk to Bennett, he’ll have you bawling in minutes.” She laughs. Marley wasn’t a crier, but apparently on her first full day with Bennett, she set some kind of personal record for tears.
“If this goes on much longer, I may take you up on that.”
“Deal. He’ll love it.” Her voice has taken on a tinny quality.
“Where are you?”
“The bathtub,” she says as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.
“Why?”
“I’m spying.”
“On who?”
“Teddy.”
“Um… okay. Why?”
“Nell, the guy is a nervous wreck. He has checked the contents of the truck at least eight times today. Did you threaten him or something?”
“Does that seem like something I’d do?” I scoff.
“True. Did Izzy?”
“Not that I know of. Maybe this is always how he travels. You check things a bunch. It’s not unheard of. ”
“Well, that’s because if I forget tampons or something, there isn’t a Shoppers just down the street.”
“Marley, stop spying on Teddy. He probably knows you are,” I scold.
A pfff sound comes through my speakers, most likely accompanied by an eye roll I can’t see. “Seems unlikely. I’m very good at being invisible.”
“Marley, Teddy asked me to come tell you to stop watching him,” I hear Bennett say from somewhere nearby, and I laugh at the visual of Marley being told off while hiding in an empty bathtub.
“I’m just watching to make sure he doesn’t drop from exhaustion. Has he even hydrated during all his trips to and from the truck?”
I hear Bennett chuckle softly then what sounds like a kiss. It’s still weird to think of Marley in a relationship, let alone one where she’s open about absolutely everything. Sometimes too open.
Bennett says something that I can’t make out, and by Marley’s reaction, I’m glad to not be in the know.
“You two are gross,” I grumble.
“You’re just jealous. You could be gross with someone too if you let yourself be. Think you’re willing to try allowing that?”
“Marley, there are nearly twelve years of history I’m going to have to wade through to even reach a place where friendship is possible.”
“Are—” she says at the same time as I say “But—”
“Go ahead.”
I take a deep breath and work up to what I’ve been telling myself since we decided to do this thing. “But I am actually looking forward to trying because when I think back to the before times—”
“BM!” Marley exclaims .
“Bowel movement?”
“No.” Marley snorts. “Before Marley.”
“Oh.” I laugh too. “Yes, in the times before you, before everything went from blissful young something-or-other to shit, I was happier than I’d ever been.”
“And then poof?”
“Then poof.”
We stay silent for a few minutes. Marley, I assume stretched out in an empty bathtub, and me, staring at the near-empty highway in front of me.
“Once upon a time, I was the one who poofed,” she says quietly.
“Yes, I remember. It wasn’t that long ago, you know.”
“Feels like years now.” I can practically hear her smiling. “In a good way. But sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d come back and Bennett hadn’t been receptive.”
“Marley, you had a good reason for leaving. You two also weren’t actually in a relationship.”
“So you were in a relationship with Teddy?” Marley’s voice manages to sit up and take notice.
Shit, I knew I’d have to reveal all this one day, but I thought I’d maybe do it in person.
“For a couple of months when I was twenty.”
“Wait…” She squeals. “Is he the summer fling? How did I not put this together? You just said twelve years of history. Oh my god okay, hold on. No, wait, I’m shutting up, go on.”
“I don’t know what else to say. We just worked, and things were so good, Marley. Obviously too good. He was the quintessential good guy, and I remember thinking, wow, they do exist. Remember, I had just finished my second year at school, and most of the guys I encountered were hoping to sleep with more girls than the guy down the hall. Anyway…” I take a deep breath. “One day he just disappeared. The day after he had ta ken care of me while I was sick, might I add. He brought me soup and watched Downton with me.”
That’s the part that always gets me the hardest. We’d just spent all those hours together, and yet it was so easy for him to just cut me out.
“He watched that boring show with you? That’s love. Did he tell you where he went?”
“No. He did tell me—” The telltale sound of a dropped call fills the car. “Dammit.” I try to call back, but I seem to have entered a dead zone. I’m thankful it’s Marley I was on the phone with, though, and not Izzy or my mother who would immediately think something horrible had happened and would already be googling a disaster in the general area.
Teddy is walking towards the truck when I pull into the driveway, and I have to wonder what trip number he’s on. I’m almost shocked not to see a path worn into the grass.
“Hey,” I say as casually as possible when I get out and walk toward him.
“Hey.” He smiles easily at me, although his thumb is spinning the ring on his forefinger like he’s trying to power the sun.
“Come to walk me to the house so I don’t crash again?” I joke, pulling out my backpack from the backseat.
“Actually I was just double-checking that everything was in the truck.”
“Double-checking?”
“Double times ten. No clue what that would be called.”
“Paranoid, probably.” I give his arm a playful, friendly little push as I pass him. “Come on, let’s give Marley something else to do besides watch you walk back and forth.”
I watch as his head tips back and he releases a deep sigh. “I knew she was watching me.”
He’s probably watched more than he realizes, I think to myself . “Teddy, everything is in the truck, and if it’s not, it wasn’t meant to be. Let’s go.” I turn and lead the way to the house where Marley comes bursting out the porch door.
“I knew you hadn’t been eaten by some giant lizard.”
“There was a close call with a porcupine, but it thought twice.”
“If only they crossed at their designated signs,” Teddy says from behind me.
I can feel my cheeks heat and try to ignore the look Marley gives me. “That would be convenient,” she says, looking over my shoulder to address him. “Drop your bag in the bedroom, and then we’re going to go for a pack walk. All of us.” She looks between us seriously before heading out to the barn.
“She’s so bossy now,” I mumble.
“Now?” Teddy asks.
“Yeah, as in she didn’t used to be.” I don’t mean for it to come out so passive-aggressively. I don’t even know where that came from.
“Okay then. Well, I’ll be.” I look back to see him point back outside. “Unless you don’t want me to come on the walk.”
“No, of course, you should come.” I plaster on the most sincere smile I can muster and hope it comes across the way I intend it to.
His face relaxes but only slightly. “See you out there.”
It only takes me a couple minutes to drop my bag off, but I take a few more to make sure I look decent. I haven’t changed too much in the last twelve years, but I wonder if Teddy sees the fine lines that have started to appear around my own eyes, or the lines across my forehead that seem to deepen with every school year. Does he think I should be dyeing my hair to hide the premature grays that have sprouted? Did he like the little bit of extra padding under his hands that time in my car? By the way he’d responded to me, I can’t imagine any of it was a dealbreaker .
“Friends,” I say to my reflection. Friends don’t care about that shit. I certainly don’t care about how he has filled out. Or how his once-soft hands have turned rough.
“Okay, keep going,” Marley says, tugging on my arm to slow me down while the guys put even more distance between us.
“I’m trying to, but you’re holding me back.”
“Nellie, what did he tell you?”
“His mom died,” I say quietly, turning more toward her and hoping my voice doesn’t carry.
“That’s why he left?”
“She died, and I think he just was caught up in that and then he said he found out something and… I don’t know what that was, but he said he’d tell me while we’re gone.”
“Huh,” she says, stopping mid-stride. “So a metaphorical meteor hit his world, and his strategy was to run away.”
“I guess, but that sounds kind of heartless when you put it that way. His mom died, and he adored her. You should have seen them together, Marley, the way she looked at him. He was her world, but I don’t think I realized just how much of his world she was.” I look ahead where Teddy is becoming smaller with each stride, and I’m struck with the sudden need to hold him.
“You’re crying.” Marley’s voice pulls my attention away from Teddy as I raise my hand to wipe away the tears that have begun to fall. “Did I just help someone else have a breakthrough?” Marley looks elated. “Is this how it feels to therapize someone? No wonder Izzy is so into it.”
“I’m not sure that’s what you did.” I laugh, wiping the remaining moisture from my face .
“Well, maybe I didn’t use the same methods, but the outcome is the same.” She shrugs. “Just let me have this, Nell. It’s so nice to be the one who isn’t a mess for a change.”
“I’m so glad I could help you out.”
Marley shocks me by pulling me in for a hug. “You did help me out, though. You’re one of the reasons I didn’t keep going down that path I was on. You’re one of the reasons I am here with him. Consider my being pushy about sorting shit out with Teddy me paying you back.”
“What if I don’t want to be paid back?” I sputter into her shoulder.
She pulls back and studies me. “Is that what you want? Because if you don’t want to try with Teddy, I’ll make up some excuse why he can’t go with you, and we’ll forget any of this ever happened. Hell, I’ll come visit you all the time instead of you coming here. Because as much as I love you, I don’t think Bennett is willing to give up his new best friend. And it’s nice to see him have a friend that doesn’t live… wait, never mind. It’s nice to see him have a friend his age.” Her face softens, and I brace for what’s coming next. “Teddy, on the other hand… Bennett claims that when he first came he was broody and a bit of a loner. Now he eats with us multiple times a week and is actively involved with the social media stuff and outreach. And I get it, Bennett is amazing, but I don’t think Teddy’s about-face has anything to do with him.”
I look from her to Teddy, who is jumping around with most of the dogs while Bennett plays tug-of-war with Yogurt. Lloyd is standing off to the side, eating leaves off a bush. I don’t want to not come here anymore. This place is like Disney World for animal lovers.
“I’ve had months to come to terms with Teddy being back. I’m not mad at him anymore. I’m just scared that we won’t work as friends. ”
“Why do you think you won’t work as friends?”
I watch them for a few minutes more. I’m in a constant battle with my feelings when I see Teddy. The urge to touch him is always there. The need to be closer is at war with the barricade I’ve put up around my heart. I go back and forth between thinking of how amazing it is that of all the places he could be, it’s here, and cursing the universe for doing this to me.
Finally, I pull my attention away from him and focus back on Marley.
“Avocados,” I murmur.