CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We stood in the middle of the high school football field, lit only by the glow of the cracked, faulty scoreboards.
I’d spent the bulk of those four years here—training sessions for soccer in the freezing air, warm Friday nights watching Teddy and Wes from the bleachers while Georgie, Serena and I gossiped over a box of candy.
I stooped down, brushing my palm over the grass with a smile. Some days, school felt more like home than home did.
“Turns out they’re going to rip it up soon,” Teddy said. “Finally replacing it with turf.”
I frowned and glanced up at him. “But that’s half the appeal.”
“Something about the massive influx of town funds. They’re even forming a chamber of commerce.”
Rising, I arched a brow at him. “You discovered all this in a week?”
He grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ve kept tabs.”
For a second I wondered what, exactly, he meant by that.
Then my eyes fell on the grass just behind him, where he’d been waiting for me to notice why we came.
A thick, gnarled blanket spread on the ground, not unlike the one he always stole from his mom’s closet when we’d sneak out for the beach at night.
On top, two Styrofoam cups waited, red straws peaking at me in the dull light.
Wordlessly, I stepped forward and dropped to the throw, rubbing the fabric between my fingers. “Is this…” My voice trailed off.
“Yup,” he replied, folding onto the blanket beside me. “Found it in my Jeep. Can you believe that?”
If I closed my eyes, I could see the secret evenings spent stargazing, waves crashing as we whispered ridiculous thoughts and childish dreams to each other. The very threads were woven into the fabric of our history.
“You’re ridiculous,” I murmured, chest tight as he offered me a cup. “What’s this?”
Teddy waited for me to take a sip before smiling. “Orange soda,” he said.
“From the gas station?”
“The best kind,” he replied.
I remembered the day: during a home game my mother never showed for, Teddy appeared wielding an orange soda.
He said it was the closest he could find to Gatorade, then it became a running joke, and he proceeded to bring it to every game after that for the rest of high school.
What he didn’t know was that he’d firmly established a permanent place in my heart with that goofy smile behind the chain-link fence.
The pesky spark reappeared, glowing brighter than before, filling my thoughts with a bothersome amount of irrational hope.
I set the soda down and pulled my knees to my chest. “So, you… kept tabs,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear the wobble in my voice as I stared at the distant gleam of the bleachers.
“Yeah.” Teddy cleared his throat and leaned back on his palms. “I just— I think you might’ve misunderstood me earlier, M. Of course I missed you—how could I not? Our friendship was one of the most important things in my life. I can’t just… forget that.”
That maddening word again—friendship.
I snorted. “Right. Well, if that’s all, I really need to get back to editing.”
Teddy grabbed my wrist before I could stand. Something urgent, the same as a few days prior, flashed in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay?” He dragged both hands through his hair with a groan. “I know what I’m going to say, and then I get around you, and everything comes out wrong.”
“What do you mean?” I whispered, flushed despite the frigid breeze.
“I mean that—” He paused, rising to his feet and beginning to pace in front of me.
I cocked my head and watched him curiously. He acted the exact same when Wes broke his leg trying to dive off Bluebell Point at fifteen, and we were all waiting to find out if he’d ever play lacrosse again. The moment flashed red in my mind. He was nervous.
Teddy Bowman was nervous.
“It’s just—” He hesitated and rubbed his eyes. “It’s ridiculous that, after all these years, you make me feel like a high schooler with a crush.”
The words forced a rush of air into my lungs. My thoughts tangled, colliding until they made no sense at all. He always had that effect—turning me into a jumbled mess.
I stood, knees swaying a fraction. Teddy’s hands shot out to my arms to steady me, then dropped away as if I burned him. Our gazes met for a moment before he swallowed and looked away.
“After all this time…” I said, unable to complete a sentence.
“I know,” he groaned, “Everything’s different—but somehow it still feels the exact same. And you probably think I’ve lost my mind.”
The wind picked up, and I hugged my sweater closer. All I could manage was, “I don’t think that.”
I could barely hear it myself, but he perked up, eyes widening as he took a step forward.
Every cell in my body screamed at me to run.
It was the same Teddy who met me under the lighthouse and acted like none of it mattered.
The one who played on repeat every time my fingers itched to reach out over the years.
But he was also a hundred orange sodas in Styrofoam cups, a shoulder for the tears no one else saw, and the Teddy who pushed me to dream just as hard as he did.
There were always two people in a relationship. What parts had I been leaving out of this one?
“I need you to say it out loud,” I said, my voice sounding small and seven years younger.
Teddy’s gaze searched my face. I allowed myself to be swept up in the sparkling blue of his eyes, the way his hair seemed permanently windswept, and the lilt of his lips as he smiled at me as if nothing else in the world existed.
The spark hummed in my chest, buzzing like a firefly and ramming into my heart until that lit up, too.
I smiled back at him, tentative at first, wavering on the boundary between hope and despair.
“I’ve never stopped thinking about you, Margot Wade,” he began, every syllable immortalized in my memory. “Not when I was sure you hated me, and not when I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
Teddy reached forward and brushed a hair behind my ear, pulling me toward him in the process. I drew closer as a moth to flame.
“And then I saw you again, and all the years spent wondering fell into place,” he murmured, warm breath fanning across my cheek.
My pulse slammed against the base of my throat, his hand having taken residence at the back of my neck as the other settled at my waist. I needed to hear it, loud and clear.
I teetered dangerously close to the cliff, finally ready to accept my fate after so long spent fruitlessly running from the inevitable.
The confession was destined to be my catalyst—the gust that would push me tumbling over the edge. I didn’t know yet if I’d fly or smash against the rocks.
“We’re like magnets,” he said. “We pull apart, but it’s never permanent.” He huffed out a laugh, more self-loathing than amused. “And what matters is, I’ve spent years kicking myself for letting you go.”
I swallowed hard, every muscle in my body screaming for him to keep going. “Then why did you?”
His hand dropped from my neck. He looked out over the empty field as if the answer might be written there. “Because if I didn’t, you never would’ve left.”
My throat tightened. “What are you talking about?”
“You got into NYU, Margot—your dream school. You were ready to defer, for me. And I couldn’t—” His voice cracked. “You had the whole world waiting, and I was terrified I’d be the reason you stayed.”
For a second, everything in me went still. The success, the paychecks, the name I’d built—it all shimmered like a mirage compared to the truth I’d been running from since I was eighteen. He was always my dream.
I was falling. Whatever happened next, I knew that Teddy held my entire heart.
Breathless, I whispered, “I thought you said everything comes out wrong around me.”
A wide smile appeared on his face as he dipped his chin. Just as our lips were about to touch, our foreheads collided, and I recoiled a few inches with a grimace. If he hadn’t been holding me, I would’ve doubled over with a burst of nervous laughter.
“Did I hurt you?” I asked, rubbing my head. There would probably be a bump tomorrow.
He tugged me closer. “I’m used to the Margot-hazards. Verbal or not.”
I rolled my eyes, but let him draw my lips toward his again.
Then, because the word Margot was now synonymous with hot mess, the heavens opened overhead and began dumping an amount of rain tantamount to an apocalyptic disaster.
It pelted the bleachers like a chorus of windchimes, soaking our clothes in record time.
Teddy’s gaze flew wide, lurching away to scoop the blanket and our drinks.
I watched him, fingers curled over my mouth to hide my smile, as he frantically gathered our things and froze when he looked back at me.
“Your clothes!” He half-shouted over the rain, strands of hair dripping across his face.
I glanced down at the half-sodden fabric. “What about them?”
“Don’t you want to get back to the car?”
A ridiculous laugh burst from my chest, and I threw my head back, wet tendrils sticking to my cheeks. Teddy stepped closer, eyebrow raised as if he was concerned for my sanity.
I finished with a sigh and said, “Just kiss me, Teddy.”
He didn’t waste any time.
Dropping the bundle and our drinks, his hands shot out, pulling me to him as if he was the sun and I was the moon.
I melted into his kiss, warm and familiar but different all the same.
Beneath the crackling scoreboards, our shoes sticky with orange soda, I realized home wasn’t a place at all.
It was this—imperfect, soaked through, and exactly enough.