Chapter 20 #3
“Yes, it is,” he cuts in. “I saw how you were with her. Gave her attention when she was right in front of you and forgot about her the minute she walked out of the room.” His voice tightens, just enough to betray that this is personal.
“You never appreciated her. Not once. You used her, and that’s messed up. ”
The space between us feels smaller now, thick with resentment.
Flashes from the past crowd in—Anthony showing up at the bar whenever Gina worked, disappearing early on nights she spent in my room, drinking heavier afterward.
Things I never thought twice about now fall into place like pieces of a picture I should’ve seen years ago.
“How long?” I rub my forehead.
“What?” His tone is hard, defensive.
I drop my hand to my side, my fingers twitching to scratch my leg, but I can’t. Stupid cast. “How long have you liked Gina?” I ask softly.
“I don’t—” His voice cracks mid-denial. His mouth closes. He looks away. That’s all the answer I need.
“Fuck,” I mutter, dropping my head into my hands.
Guilt swirls around me. How could I have not seen it?
Anthony’s feelings for Gina? How could I have not wondered if there was someone better for her?
Who could give her more than a couple of random hookups a week?
Someone who wanted to show her off rather than hide her?
Does this make me the asshole? Am I the asshole in this situation?
Damnit. I think I am.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Anthony. “I should’ve realized. You liked her…and I…” I exhale hard, guilt churning in my gut. “I’ve been selfish. Wrapped up in my own crap.”
He waves me off with a sharp, dismissive flick of his hand, face still flushed.
“Anthony—”
“Forget it,” he says. Then, almost like a plea, “Just leave her alone, all right? Let me have a chance. I know her better than you ever did.”
I hang my head and sigh, accepting that he’s right. “Okay.”
A long silence settles, thick and heavy as concrete, the kind neither of us knows how to break. My thoughts churn. If Anthony’s been carrying this crush all along and I never saw it, what else have I missed?
Jamie clears his throat, the sound abrupt in the quiet. “So,” he says after a pause, with his voice soft, too casual to be unplanned, “you hear they filled your spot at the bar?”
I look up, recognizing the deflection, his attempt to pivot the conversation, but still his words make my pulse skip. “What?”
“Yeah. Gina.” He flinches slightly, like he’s worried just saying her name will set Anthony off all over again. “She said a new guy started yesterday. Some dude named Keith. Looks like you if you did CrossFit and had a man bun.”
“Keith?” I repeat, the name sour on my tongue.
The couch is suddenly less comfortable. The realization that I’m so easily replaceable is a sharp jab to the ribs.
I thought I had a place at the bar. That I mattered, but it turns out that I vanished and no one even came looking for me.
“No one from the bar called. None of the managers.”
Jamie winces, like he hates being the one to confirm it. “They needed someone to cover. It’s been over two weeks.”
I run a hand through my hair, then hiss when my fingers hit the tender spot at the back of my skull. “I figured they’d wait. I was going to go back once this,” I point at my cast, “comes off.”
“Guess not.” He raises a brow. “Now what? Live here with your sugar momma?”
“No.” I know he’s teasing, but it lands wrong. Not the right thing to say, not after everything else. “I’ll leave after my cast is off. In the meantime, I can do school online. That information technologies class I need just started.”
He purses his lips and nods. “Cool. You still want to do communications?”
I scrub a hand over my face and groan. “I don’t know. It’s more boring than I thought.”
Anthony leans forward, his voice flat. “So you’ll change majors like you always do.”
My head lifts, defensive. I half-rise, my fists balling. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Chill, Teddy.” Jamie plays peacemaker. He gives a loose shrug and says, “You know what you’re like.”
I clench my jaw but sit back down. “No. Why don’t you tell me what I’m like?”
“You know, you don’t like it when things get hard.” Jamie laughs, easy but not unkind, almost like he expects me to agree. “You take the easy way out.”
Ouch.
At my glare he holds up his hands. “Hey, it’s no big deal. I’m the same way.” He says it like that makes it better.
It doesn’t.
I want to argue with him. To point out how I’m working and going to school while he’s given up any pretense of doing that.
He’s just cruising along, living off his parents’ money.
The picture-perfect cliché of a trust fund baby.
But can I really argue? Just because I’ve managed to hold down a job and take a couple of classes?
The fact is that most of the time I’m like a bottle floating in the ocean.
Occasionally bumping into something solid but never anchoring.
Jamie stands, stretches with his hands on his back. “Well, we should get going. You’re coming home for Thanksgiving, right?”
“No,” I say, already bracing myself. Jamie likes to think of us as a tribe with him as the chief. He’s going to hate what I have to say next. “I told Helen I’d go to her parents’ place in Laguna Beach.”
His jaw tightens. “Seriously? First Halloween, now this?”
A flicker of guilt. But the truth is, I didn’t even miss Halloween. The party. The people. I barely thought about it.
“Helen’s mom is sick, and I told her I’d go to, you know, support her.” I debate telling him the whole story, about Helen’s mom having cancer, our fake dating arrangement, but discard that idea, not wanting to go into all the details.
He gives me a disgusted look, then turns to Anthony. “Can you believe this? Teddy’s bailing on us again.”
Anthony, still clearly pissed at me, shakes his head like I’ve just proved his point.
Guilt twists my insides. I hate letting them down, but Helen needs me more. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Forget it,” Jamie says without looking at me.
“Thanks for the clothes.” I try to stand up and walk them to the door, but Jamie motions me down.
As he passes, he claps my shoulder, the weight heavy, deliberate. “Just remember, Teddy. We’re the ones who have your back.”
Anthony passes behind me and mutters, “Yeah. Always,” but there’s a hollowness to how he says it, like it’s the opposite of a promise.
Jamie’s words echo long after they’re gone, louder than the slam of the door, louder than the crash of the waves outside.
If my friends have my back, why was I drowning?
***
An hour after Jamie and Anthony leave, Helen comes home from ballet. “Teddy?” she calls from the small entryway behind me. I turn to find her standing with the door still open. She stares at the side of it that faces the outside hallway. “Did you get this wreath and put it on the door?”
“The one with scenes from Frozen? Like the animated Disney movie? Umm, no. I love Olaf the snowman as much as the next guy, but that was all your mom. She had it delivered while you were gone. I put it up per her very specific instructions.”
“What is going on with her?” Helen says, releasing the door so it can swing shut. “She’s always been Christmas crazy, but usually she kept it to her house. Now it’s like she’s trying to infect our place with holiday cheer.”
Our place?
I try not to read too much into that, knowing it was an innocent slip up. Just a placeholder word.
“Frozen is her favorite movie,” Helen continues, kicking her shoes off by the door. “I’m lucky I was born before it was released. Otherwise, I’d be named Anna or Elsa.”
Grumbling about animated snowmen and meddling mothers, she walks into the room, wearing her leotard and the short flowy skirt that I can’t help but find adorably sexy. I’ve had some very impure fantasies about that skirt.
Swallowing through a suddenly dry throat, I ask, “How was it? Did you talk to Lindsey?”
Helen slinks closer with her head down, her hair covering her face. I know her answer just by that gesture. She likes to hide behind those glossy strands when she’s embarrassed or feeling guilty.
“Helen?” I repeat, drawing out the word.
A loud sigh from her as she peeks at me. “No. I know I should’ve but…I chickened out.”
I push down any disappointment at her confession.
This isn’t about me. It’s about her. I know she was working herself up to talk to Lindsey.
That “listen” sticky note has grown worn from Helen rubbing her thumb over it every morning.
The more time I spend with her, the more I realize she doesn’t see herself the way the rest of the world does.
She gets insecure. Overthinks. Self-sabotages.
I hate it.
“Come here,” I say, patting the cushion right next to me, not caring if I sound bossy.
She slumps down like a teenager who missed curfew. “What?”
I shift awkwardly to face her, cast and all. “Let’s practice.”
“Practice what?” she asks, and there’s a flatness in her eyes that tugs at something deep in my chest. Ever since the suspension, she’s carried this shadow around, like she’s already half-convinced she’s failed, even though I’ve seen her spend hours hunched over her laptop, digging through research, building arguments to give the hospital committee.
I know how much being a doctor means to her, how it’s part of her identity.
Having it ripped away, even temporarily, is like tearing out a piece of her.
“Listening,” I reply.
She gives me a skeptical look.
Good thing I’m stubborn. “How did you get to be such a great doctor?”
“According to the hospital, I’m not a good doctor,” she says sullenly.
“That’s not what they said,” I counter, watching her closely. I wish she’d tell me the whole story about why she got suspended, but for now, I’ll take what I can get. “You studied. You practiced. That’s how you got good at it.”
“So?” She stares at her hand, tapping nervously against her thigh.