Chapter 6
kelsey
The cold porcelain of Teddy’s bathroom counter bit through my wet clothes, but at least I’d stopped shaking. Mostly. My feet dangled like a child’s as he rummaged through the medicine cabinet, muttering about hydrogen peroxide and where the fuck he’d put the good bandages.
The overhead lights were softer than I expected—a warm golden—nothing like the harsh bulbs that had lit up every one of Sky’s skinned knees and Addie’s split lips from soccer headers gone wrong.
“Found them.” He emerged with a rectangular white box that looked untouched, probably bought during some optimistic grocery run where he’d convinced himself he’d take up mountain biking or whatever men did when they moved to Colorado to forget their ex-wives.
The bathroom was exactly what I’d expected from bachelor Teddy—utilitarian but clean, a single toothbrush in the holder, one towel on the rack.
No decorative soaps or coordinating bathmats.
Just the essentials, arranged exactly how he’d kept them when we lived together.
Even his razor sat at a perfect right angle to the sink edge.
“This is gonna sting,” he warned, dabbing a cotton ball with antiseptic.
“I’m not five, Teddy. I can handle—”
I hissed through my teeth as soon as it touched my skin, the burn drowning out my ability to think rationally—
I was back inside the SUV, metal crumpling as the pine tree caught the hood. The airbag exploded, powder burning my throat, my eyes, coating everything in a chalky white film. Blood slid into my lashes, warm at first, then freezing as snow drifted in through the broken windshield.
The seatbelt locked, cutting into my ribs like a vise. I jabbed at the release repeatedly, but it wouldn’t budge. And help wasn’t coming.
My thoughts turned sluggish, drifting to Addie and Sky—imagining them arriving only to find me gone. To Teddy, wishing I could take back every word from the night before. And finally, to Levi. Had he been this scared? Had regret clawed at him in his final moments, the same way it clawed at me now?
Then Teddy’s face appeared, snow tangled in his hair, eyes wild. And for one horrible second, I thought he’d turn back and leave me to the elements. That he realized saving me wasn’t worth it. That I wasn’t worth it.
The terror of abandonment had been worse than the crash itself.
“Hey.” Teddy’s thumb brushed my cheek, pulling me back to the present. “You disappeared on me. You okay?”
I blinked, finding myself not in the SUV but in his bathroom, fingers locked around his wrist, tears streaming down my face. Great. Just what I needed—to fall apart in front of the man who’d already seen me at my absolute worst.
“I’m fine.” I let go and wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. “Just the antiseptic. Zero out of ten, do not recommend.”
He didn’t call me on the lie but worked more gently. This close, I could see the concern etched deep in his hazel eyes.
I watched his hands. Broad, calloused, the same hands that had cradled our children, braided hair, built dollhouses. The same hands that had struck his youngest brother in the funeral home parking lot after Dane took the blame for Levi’s death.
I’d hated Teddy for that—for losing control when I needed him to hold me together. But as he worked now with the same care he’d once used on splinters and scraped knees, I wondered if maybe I’d rewritten our history to make my pain easier to carry.
Memory was selective like that. I’d told myself Teddy had checked out, had chosen the club—and the club girls—over family.
But other memories surfaced, too. His thumb tracing lazy circles on my hip at club gatherings, claiming me even in a room full of leather and testosterone, as if the Property of Crow patch embroidered on the back of my tank top hadn’t been enough.
The kisses he’d press to my neck while I cooked, arms wrapped around my waist, swaying to whatever was on the radio.
The way his arms quieted the chaos and anxiety in my head, wrapping around me like a promise that we’d get through it together.
Only we hadn’t.
“Bleeding’s slowing some,” he said, frowning at the cut. “You anemic again?”
Three viable pregnancies, three battles with iron pills and medium-rare steaks grilled every single night because Teddy had read somewhere that red meat helped.
He’d hover while I ate, making sure I finished every bite, even when morning sickness—which had lasted all day with Sky—made everything taste like copper pennies.
“Blood thinners.”
His hands stilled against my temple. “Blood thinners? Why?”
“Oh, you know. The usual middle-aged woman stuff.” I waved a hand, trying to deflect with humor the way I always did when things got a little invasive for my liking.
“Next thing you know, I’ll have a house full of cats and be watching murder documentaries in my bathrobe.
I mean, I’m already halfway there. Just need a couple more cats and—”
“Kels,” he said with a pinched expression, silently demanding the truth.
“AFib,” I said, like it was nothing. Like I hadn’t spent three months terrified my heart would stop working. “Couple dizzy spells, one spin class face-plant. Very graceful. I took a header into the mirror in front of a bunch of twenty-somethings in Lululemon.”
He scanned me head to toe, like he could fix it by sheer will. “When?”
“I don’t know—a year ago?” Which was also coincidentally the last time I’d been in a gym.
His jaw ticked. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“You know, I meant to include it in the Christmas card I sent to your lawyer. Must’ve slipped my mind.”
“I thought I lost you!” The words burst out of him, raw and jagged.
“Teddy...”
“When I saw that guardrail torn apart, when I found you covered in blood and half-frozen—” His voice cracked. He turned away, rinsing the bloody washcloth under the faucet.
I wanted to joke. Deflect. But nothing came.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” I said finally, forcing lightness into my voice.
He didn’t smile. Didn’t even offer the signature half-smirk that used to drive me crazy.
“Hey, I’m okay,” I added, even though we both knew it was a lie. I was a lot of things—frozen, confused, slightly concussed, having feelings I’d specifically forbidden myself from having—but okay wasn’t one of them.
His hand cupped my cheek as he placed the bandage over the cut. “You’re always okay.”
I fought the urge to lean into his touch; to pretend we were still the people who knew how to love each other without destroying everything in the process.
Teddy went quiet then, turning back to the sink.
Blood—my blood—had dried in the creases of his knuckles, under his nails, streaking up his forearms like abstract art.
Our eyes met in the mirror—once, twice, a third time—each glance loaded with all the things we’d never say.
This was his way. He never spoke when he was angry, never raised his voice when grief threatened to swallow him whole.
He’d just... disappear. Pull away until I was left grasping at shadows, trying to hold onto something that was already gone.
My therapist once said the people closest to us were mirrors, reflecting the wounds we refused to face. At the time, I’d rolled my eyes at the fortune cookie wisdom, but maybe she was right.
Maybe we’d both been drowning, but instead of reaching for each other, we’d clung to our own lifeboats—his made of motorcycle exhaust and clubhouses, mine constructed from treadmill miles and perfect meal prep—neither particularly seaworthy.
Perfect Kelsey—that was what he’d called me. But Perfect Kelsey was just scared Kelsey in designer jeans, terrified that if she showed even the slightest cracks, he’d confirm what I’d long suspected—that I wasn’t worth saving.
The water ran pink, then clear, but Teddy kept scrubbing, cleaning under each fingernail as if he were prepping for surgery. “The meds in your purse?”
I shook my head, feeling stupid for having ventured out in a blizzard without an emergency bag. How many times had I harped on the kids about having a plan… about using their brains and thinking things through?
“I’ll take the snowmobile as soon as the storm eases up and get whatever you need.”
“Or you could just drop me off—”
“Need to get you warm,” he interjected as if I hadn’t spoken. “You’re shivering again.”
I hadn’t noticed. The bathroom wasn’t cold—if anything, the steam from the sink had made it humid—but my body couldn’t seem to regulate temperature anymore.
The same way it had forgotten how to do basic things, like stay warm or maintain a steady heartbeat or not fall apart the second my ex-husband touched me.
He helped me down from the counter, pausing to grab some clothes from the dresser in his bedroom before guiding me toward the living room, his palm steady and warm against the small of my back.
The living and kitchen areas opened before us, all exposed beams and a massive stone fireplace I’d admired on the way in.
But where the rental cabin had been cozy and cluttered with holiday charm, Teddy’s place felt hollow.
No twinkling lights here. No festive wreaths or mismatched holiday mugs.
The cabin was spotless but utterly impersonal, like he’d been living in a very expensive, very clean purgatory.
His boots stood in a perfect line by the door—work boots, motorcycle boots, the ancient cowboy boots I’d bought him for his thirtieth birthday.
Everything exactly parallel, toes aligned like soldiers awaiting inspection.
A single coffee mug sat upside down in the dish rack in the open concept kitchen.
A tree stood in the corner, half-wrapped in a single strand of lights that hadn’t even been plugged in, boxes of ornaments stacked beside it. Waiting. Unfinished. Abandoned. Even Charlie Brown would have shaken his head and told Teddy to get his shit together.
It was the loneliest thing I’d ever seen.