15. Teddy #2
Mrs. Morris smirks, waving with one hand while the other dials her house phone to gossip with one of the other neighborhood women. It’s what my mother would do in this situation if it were anyone else. But it’s me—her baby boy—so she can’t abide by the humiliation.
It doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters anymore.
Because Indie is fucking gone.
And it really shouldn’t be that surprising because what did I even expect to happen?
That she would hang around after I was backing out on the move? That she would come back from vacation totally fine with doing the long-distance relationship thing for a bit?
Just until things settled down. Just until Mom was through her grief. Just until I could get this guilty voice out of my head telling me that I was abandoning my family, just like my sisters.
Just until I was sure Mom wasn’t going to…
And you know the most fucked up thing is?
Yes, I was.
I was expecting Indie to just bend and go along with it, because Indie was the most caring and accommodating woman I have ever met. She would do anything for me.
But I wanted Europe so bad, ever since she first spoke about it to me. I wanted Cape May—that fixer-upper that made her eyes shimmer with want. I could work on it bit by bit while she was at work, and she could come home every day to one piece of her dream being made real.
I want Indie.
Forever.
After Nana died, I started thinking I had to choose between Indie and my family. I didn't realize there was no real choice.
It’s Indie.
Always.
But saying that is a hell of a lot easier than actually doing it, especially when the person making you feel like you have to choose is your mother.
“Theodore James, get in this house. Now!”
Mom’s voice is a low hiss behind me, edged with an anger I’ve never heard from her before.
I turn my head and look at her, really look, and her smile looks painfully stretched across her face.
Her green eyes bore into my skull, twitching around the edges.
The lines around her eyes and mouth are pulled tight.
Nana would tell her to lighten up, or she was going to give herself wrinkles.
Because those were the things Mom worried about.
How we appeared. How we acted. What other people thought, and how to keep them from looking too closely.
Mom couldn’t let people know that Dad barely comes home most nights anymore, let alone that he doesn’t even sleep in the same room as her when he does.
Mom brags about Danielle and Stephanie’s careers because saying they have lucrative careers in Ireland and Arizona is better than telling people your daughters moved as far away from you as possible.
Mom always told me it was bitterness and jealousy because I was her favorite.
She said it in that tone where you think she’s joking, but there’s an underscore of truth.
Mom’s always cared about appearance first and foremost, and every little accomplishment of mine, she made sure to highlight and broadcast to the world.
Honestly, when I brought Indie home to meet my family, I thought Mom would love her.
Hell, I even joked to myself that Mom would finally have something new to brag about to her friends.
My Theodore brought home a doctor.
But instead, when I saw Mom the next day and excitedly asked what she thought of Indie, she paused for a long time before speaking.
“She’s a little… cold,” she said, sounding hesitant.
“Cold?” The word gutted me. Indie was warmth, pure wildfire.
“I’m not sure, Theodore. She just seemed a little detached. She barely talked to anyone besides Mother. She didn’t try to get to know any of us. And she looked… well… she could have stopped home and changed out of her scrubs first.”
“Mom, she worked all day, and she still came to dinner—”
“—and it’s not exactly a hardship to come to a free dinner and look a little more put together,” she huffed.
“Mom,” I said, adding some firmness to my voice, feeling defensive. “I love her. She’s always beautiful to me.”
Her mouth pursed before she put on a bright grin.
“You’re my baby, Theodore. I just want what’s best for you.”
“I know,” I nodded. “And what’s best is Indie.”
“If you’re sure,” she sighed.
“I’m positive.”
I wanted them to love Indie, because I’m pretty sure I fell in love with her the moment we met.
And she’s… everything.
Kind, brilliant, and devastatingly beautiful. Wonderfully awkward, so sexy it makes me feel stupid. When she laughs, the world changes to Technicolor.
I thought my mom would come around and grow to love Indie the way I do, the way Nana did, the way Stephanie and Danielle do. My dad and my uncles didn’t pay much attention to her, but they weren’t exactly men overflowing with emotional warmth.
Pop was.
I’ll always remember that. Nana would say something from across the room, and Pop would quiet everything around her so she didn’t have to raise her voice. Her word was gospel to him.
I had that kind of love.
And I let it slip right through my hands because I’m not Pop, and Nana isn’t here anymore. I feel lost except when I’m with Indie, and now she’s gone because I didn’t fight for her.
“So, what are you gonna do about it, Teddy? Are you gonna sit there and mope all day, or are you going to get your little bird legs up and move?”
Nana’s voice strikes my mind like a thunderclap.
Get up.
Find her.
Apologize.
Beg on your knees.
Crawl on broken glass.
But just get the fuck up.
Move!
Pulling myself off the grass, I storm past my mother back into the house.
“What has gotten into you?” She hisses as I brush by, grabbing for my arm. I yank away from her grip before she can get hold of me. I don’t care about being gentle with her anymore. Not when Indie is gone.
“I did not raise you to be disrespectful—” she tries to reach for me again.
I snarl right in her face, not bothering to temper my tone.
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
She squawks, but I ignore her and head up the stairs, taking them three at a time. She huffs behind me, trying to keep up, and I don’t wait for her.
Not when Indie is out there somewhere.
I’m not losing her without a fight.
“And you should have fought for her when she was still here, Teddy. You’ve got a mountain to climb. I’m talking Everest, little bear. Up and down.”
“I know, Nana,” I mutter out loud, her voice so sharp and clear in my head it feels like she’s standing right beside me.
“Theodore James—” I slam my bedroom door shut behind me and click the lock.
Hurrying to my own bag, I grab a pair of jeans and a fresh t-shirt, and yank them over my head. Balancing on one foot, I pull on my socks and tripping over my own feet, falling and stubbing my fucking toe again, pain radiating up my leg.
“Goddamnit!” I growl.
Mixed with the pounding in my skull, it sends my patience over the edge. Roaring, I punch the hardwood enough to leave a dent, and again, and again. My knuckles open and sting, and I want more.
Anything to flood out this agony as my heart shreds itself raw—Indie, Indie, Indie.
My phone lights up on the side table with a notification, and I practically dive for it before seeing that it’s just a social media notification—a photo tag from Lily on her social media.
Cursing, I press the notification, and it opens to a photo of Lily and me at the park yesterday. It’s a shot of us waiting in line for a ride, burning under the sun.
The caption makes me feel sick.
He’s the grumpy, I’m the sunshine.
“Fucking Christ…”
Grumpy doesn’t even begin to cover my expression in the photo. I look completely empty—my eyes dead, my mouth set in a hard line, my shoulders slumped. I looked as bad as I felt, guilt tearing me open for leaving Indie behind.
And still, I convinced myself that if I kept the peace for one more day, I could fix everything later.
Always later.
I've told myself that for months; now it feels automatic. Meaningless too, because later never came, and never will.
I quickly remove the tag from the photo, and then, for good measure, I remove myself from every single photo my Mom tagged me in, including the ones from fucking Easter.
“Looks like you had a good dinner,” Indie had told me the next day when I came to Indie’s apartment from work.
“It was alright,” I shrugged, coming up behind Indie, folding laundry, and wrapping my arms around her waist. “I missed you, though.”
She wiggled out of my arms and dropped the scrub pants she was folding, reaching for her phone. Tapping a few times, she pulled up the picture my Mom posted of Lily and me.
“You sure?” she huffed. “You seemed cozy with your high school sweetheart.”
“She’s nothing to me, honey—”
She whipped around, blue eyes blazing.
“Then act like it!” she snapped, throwing her hands up. “Say something to your mother for once, Teddy. Defend us, because your mother seems to think I’m just holding the place that belongs to Lily.”
“I’ve tried! She just—” I cut myself off, because Indie stomped around me. A million excuses rise in my throat, and not one of them is worth the breath it would take to say it. Because Indie is right. “I’m sorry, Indie.”
“It’s embarrassing to be tagged in a photo of your mother wishing you and your ex-girlfriend would get back together.”
“That’s all she is—an ex-girlfriend,” I snorted, walking toward her and pulling her into my arms. She resisted for a moment, and I didn’t push, keeping my grip loose enough in case she didn’t want me to hold her.
But, like always, Indie slotted into my arms like a puzzle snapping into place.
“I don’t want her. I don’t need her. She’s nothing to me, Indie. You’re everything.”
“Pretty words.”
“Truthful words,” I countered, seeing her expression soften slightly. I brushed my nose against hers, and she grinned. “I love you, Indie. I want you, and you only.”
“I love you, Teddy,” she said, her voice too quiet and soft.
And now I hear it for what it was—resignation.
Lily has been an annoyance ever since she came back home.