35. Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
W ith each day that passes, Brooks takes up more and more of my mental space. It’s both good and bad—bad because I have a harder time focusing on all that pesky adulting I have to do. Fantastic, because it provides an easy escape from my ongoing anxiety about talking to Kent and Rachel about my future.
At this point, I’m 95 percent sure that I want to pursue teaching next year. But I’m 100 percent sure that I don’t want to have that uncomfortable conversation with them.
So, I focus on the delirious happiness that is my relationship with Brooks.
On the second Sunday of February, I’m getting ready for a date with Brooks. He’s cooking me dinner to show off his new culinary skills. “Beautiful Things” has been playing on loop while I apply makeup, but the music is interrupted by a calendar reminder.
Call Dad.
Ack . I’m supposed to be at Brooks’ apartment in half an hour. I don’t have a lot of time, but I know I’ll forget altogether if I don’t call him now. Hence the calendar reminders.
I dial my dad on speaker phone, thinking we’ll keep our conversation brief.
“Hey, Dad!” I greet when he answers. “How are you?”
“Hi, hon,” he replies. “I’m doing great. What about you?”
I give a short but sincere response, including an assurance that Brooks and I are doing well .
“I’m glad you called because there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk with you about,” Dad says, voice slightly tense. “Would you be able to come to Kansas City next weekend?”
“Ummm, I’ll need to look at my calendar to know for sure. Why?” I ask, setting down the tube of mascara in my hand.
“I had hoped to talk with you in person when you were here a couple of weeks ago, but, um, there’s someone I want you to meet.” The tone in his voice has my blood coagulating. I take the phone off speaker and sit on the edge of my bed.
“What do you mean?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even, though I know it’s a higher pitch than what could be considered “even.”
“Teegan, honey, I’ve met someone. Her name is Sonya,” Dad begins. My blood stops flowing altogether. “We met several months ago, and we’ve been seeing each other since then. Things are getting pretty serious—serious enough that I think it’s time for you and Logan to meet her. I want you both to know her well before I’d think about proposing.”
Silence.
“Teegan?”
Silence.
“Teegan, did you hear me?”
My frantic energy finally shatters the silence. “You can’t be serious!” I exclaim, standing up to pace the room. “You and Mom have always been so friendly with each other, even after the divorce. Neither of you have dated anyone all these years. We’ll never be a whole family again if you get married to someone else!”
Silence.
I pace, my breath shallow and my vision blurring at the edges.
“Honey, your mom and I were never going to get back together. We loved each other once, and we still respect each other, but our time is over. Why would you think that we were going to get back together?” Dad asks, voice strained.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! I just thought it was possible—it could happen! You’ve never dated, she’s never dated, you always get along so well, and you were so complimentary to her at Thanksgiving. I thought it was possible to be one family again!” My voice is shrill, words pouring out of my mouth faster than I can truly comprehend what I’m saying.
“I don’t want to meet her. I can’t meet her. I’m not ready for that, Dad,” I huff out, fighting tears. I know I’m being completely selfish. I know I’m being so hurtful to my dad. I know I’m being immature to think they were ever going to get back together, to act this way about it now.
I know those things. But my brain is incapable of stemming the hemorrhage of emotion bleeding out.
“Teegan—” Dad’s voice is cut off when I hang up.
Pacing the room, I try to imagine myself above the ocean. I try to fly my mind away on the sea breeze, the pink sunset, but my ankle is tied by reality, holding me captive. Trapping me as bar after bar snaps into place.
Disbelief. Bitterness. Betrayal. Fear.
Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.
Hands shaking, I open my texts with Brooks.
Sorry I need to cancel tonight
I can’t. I can’t.
brOOKS
Are you ok? Did something happen?
I’m fine, just can’t come tonight. I’m sorry about the food
I pace, then sit on the edge of the bed, then slide to the floor. My head drops to my knees.
It hurts. I can’t. The pain. What if . . . I can’t.
“Teegan?” Brooks voice snaps me back to the present. “What’s wrong?”
“How’d you get in here?” I ask, ignoring his question and jumping to my feet.
“The door was unlocked,” Brooks says, eyes assessing me. “What’s wrong, Sneaks?”
“Nope, don’t, please don’t call me that right now,” I say, frantic. The pacing starts again. “I don’t think . . . I can’t think. ”
“Teegan, tell me what happened,” Brooks says, voice calm.
“My dad, he . . .” I trail off. Brooks’ eyes widen with panic, and I realize the fear my half-formed thought induced in him. “No, he’s fine. He called to ask me . . . he’s been dating someone. He wants me to meet her. He wants to propose to her someday, maybe.”
Brooks looks visibly relieved but also confused. I know I’m being confusing. Ridiculous. But knowing isn’t stopping it.
“If he marries someone else, he can’t be with my mom,” I state.
I hear my own absurdity. The childishness.
“I know it’s dumb to think they were going to get back together. I’m not ten years old. But still, I . . . I wished for it. When neither of them ever dated or moved on all these years. When they stayed friends. They used to be so in love. I remember it. And I wished for it again. But there’s no second chance.”
Brooks’ face is blurry now, thick tears welling up in my eyes but not spilling over. He strides toward me and reaches to take my hand in his. I snatch it back.
“I don’t think . . . I think this may not be a good idea,” I say, voice wobbly. “We rushed into this, fell into each other again because it was so familiar. But I didn’t really think through what this would mean, what it could mean, being together. I don’t think we—”
“No, Teegan,” Brooks cuts me off, voice commanding. He takes both of my hands, not allowing me to pull away. “No. Stop it. We’re not doing that.”
He takes my face in his hands. His firm touch grounds me, but I still struggle to breathe.
“You forget that I know you, Teegan. That we’re practically the same person. I know what you’re doing because it’s exactly what my first instinct would be,” he says, voice gathering strength. “You’re trying to avoid the potential pain of us not working out, of me someday leaving. You’re trying to avoid it by pushing me away now. But you’re not doing that. We’re not doing that .”
I gasp for air as the tears finally spill out. Brooks’ thumbs gently brush both of my cheeks. He continues, “We’re going to face whatever future pain may come. You were there with me in the thick of my grief remembering my mom, and your presence made me realize I didn’t have to face it alone. That I could face it since I wasn’t alone. So, we’re going to face all the pain together. Because we were always meant to be together, Sneaks. I’m not going to let either one of us run away from each other out of fear of heartache. It’s us against the pain, together. Forever.”
His words breathe oxygen back into my lungs. His confidence slows my runaway heartbeat. His assuring eyes pull me back to what’s true.
Us against the pain. It’s us. It’s everything.
I lean into Brooks and let myself cry. My mind stops trying to escape, stops the attempts to flee. I stand in his arms and let myself feel it. All of it—every bad emotion I’ve been suppressing the past few months floods over me.
The dejection from my dad’s news, as immature as it may be. The deflating reality that their relationship is concretely, forever over. The terror of the unknowns. The possibility that I could be hurt like that by Brooks someday. The fear of being honest and experiencing Kent and Rachel’s disappointment in me. The unease that it could be a mistake to leave Arrow staff to pursue teaching, that their disapproval would prove merited.
And it hurts .
But also . . . Brooks’ firm embrace around me prevents my knees from buckling under the weight of the pain. The gentle scratch of his fingers on my back reminds me that I have things in my life that feel good. His kisses on the top of my head and whispered “I love you's” scream at me that I’m not alone in this.
Us against the pain .
“Here, drink this,” Brooks says, handing me a glass of water. In his other hand, he’s holding a mug of decaf coffee that he brewed and doctored with creamer. I try to reach for that.
“No, water first,” he says firmly, pulling the mug away. “Hydrate.”
After I finally stopped crying (duration unknown), we moved to the living room. Brooks sat me on the couch and cocooned me in fuzzy blankets while he made coffee, which he hands over after I gulp down half the glass of water. He sits down next to me, pulling me close to his side.
“I need to call my dad back,” I mumble. I feel Brooks nod against my head, which is tucked under his chin. I switch to a falsely deep voice, mimicking Brooks. “No, Teegan, you don’t have to do that right now.”
Brooks chuckles, but he doesn’t speak up. I sigh. “I know, I know.”
I reach for my phone right as a call from Logan lights up the screen.
“Ugh,” I groan. Brooks reaches over to tap the answer button, not letting me out of this. I bring the phone to my ear.
“I know what you’re going to say, Logan,” I answer.
“Well, I sure hope you know that you need to call and apologize to Dad,” his voice huffs. “You try to tell me that you’ve matured enough to be in a different kind of relationship with Brooks, and then you have the most immature reaction possible to Dad.”
“I said I know, Logan! Lay off!” Now I huff. “Honestly, I’ve been bottling up a lot of emotions recently, and it all exploded on Dad. I swear I was just picking up my phone to call him back. Brooks helped me work through everything, and now I’m going to make amends.”
“Murph is there?” Logan asks.
“Yes. He talked me down off the ledge of insanity. That’s why I was about to call Dad back,” I tell him.
Logan grunts some manner of approval.
“By the way—you don’t seem very shocked by this news. How long have you known?” I ask.
“Dad told me several weeks ago. Although I already had my suspicions even before he said anything. I’m driving to KC from St. Louis next weekend to meet her. It’s supposed to be all of us together. Had you not jaunted off to D.C., Dad would have talked with you about this a couple of weeks ago too,” Logan says.
I sigh. “He did say that. But how was I supposed to know he had life-altering news to share with me? He didn’t give any kind of hint! How the heck did you suspect already?!”
The eye roll is practically audible in Logan’s voice. “Why do you think he changed Thanksgiving dinner to lunch, Teegan? Because he was having dinner with Sonya’s family. And he was so distracted at Christmas—it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together.”
It does make sense now that he’s spelled it out for me, but I never would have faced the possibility long enough to piece the clues together on my own.
“I’m hanging up now so you can call Dad. Tell Murph I said thanks for bringing you to your senses,” Logan says. “And hey—I love you, sis.”
“Love you too,” I murmur, then hang up.
Sitting still on the couch isn’t an option for my conversation with my dad. I pace between the living room and the kitchen as I apologize and listen to his perspective. Brooks stands in support at one of my pivot points, offering smiles of encouragement every time I meet his eyes.
Although I’m sure my dad still feels the sting of my initial reaction, I’ve mended the bridge as well as I can. Hanging up, I collapse on the couch. Brooks sits down on the floor next to me, pressing his forehead to mine, lacing his fingers through my hair.
“Well, I’m meeting Sonya next weekend,” I state.
“ We’re meeting Sonya next weekend,” Brooks corrects.
I half-smile. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll be okay.”
He shakes his head, forehead still against mine, then leans back to meet my eyes.
“The good and the bad, the exciting and the devastating—I’m facing it all with you, Sneaks,” he says. He leans forward to brush a kiss to my lips, then whispers, “Us. Everything. Always.”