“I know.”
“I can be a good guy too.”
“You already are.”
“I’m not,” he says. “But I want to be. For you.”
The words linger there in the dark and I press my eyes shut, wanting to offer him something, wishing it were easier to let him in. He finds my hand, closing his around it.
“Sometimes,” I say after a moment, “it feels like I’m starting to forget them.”
“Impossible,” he whispers.
“When I think of them now, it’s like I’m watching a movie of this happy family. But none of it seems real anymore.”
“It’s because you’re thinking big-picture,” he says. “That’ll knock the wind out of you every time. You have to take it in pieces.” He pauses. “Like, my dad used to draw smiley faces with toothpaste on the bathroom mirror for me.”
“Really?” I say softly, and he nods.
“Or he’d write little messages, likeToday’s the day!andLook out, world!”
The way he says this—sad and solemn and a little bit wistful—it’s almost like his dad is gone too. Which, of course, he is. Just in a different way. But right then I feel a surge of recognition, of shared experience, unknowable to the outside world, and I give Teddy’s hand a squeeze.
“I mean,” he says ruefully, “that was just on the mornings he wasn’t having breakfast at some seedy riverboat casino. But still. I think about it sometimes.”
I take a deep breath, wanting to share something with him too. “My dad used to make heart-shaped pancakes on Sundays,” I say finally, and I feel a spike of pain in my chest at the memory. “They were always burnt on the bottom. But I still like them best that way. And my mom…” I trail off, biting my lip. “My mom used to sing while she washed the dishes. She was kind of terrible.”
“See?” Teddy says, his eyes still fixed on mine. “Little things.”
Our faces are very close together now, our hands still clasped, our socked feet touching. We’re so close I can feel his breath on my face, and for a few long seconds we stay there like that, just looking at each other. I’m not sure what’s happening, exactly; my thoughts are too muddled to make sense of it. He’s just being a friend. He’s just being there for me. He’s just being a good guy. That’s all.
But then he inches a little closer, and it feels like something is short-circuiting inside me. I want so badly for him to kiss me, but I’m terrified of what will happen if he does. I’m scared that everything will change, and scared that it won’t, scared that when the lights come on tomorrow morning we won’t be able to look at each other, scared that it will be a huge mistake and that it might ruin nine whole years of friendship.
Teddy leans forward a bit more so that his nose brushes against mine and it’s like the focus shifts, the lens pulling in tighter so that the edges of the world go blurry, and right here, right now, there’s only us. Outside, the snow is caked against the windowsill, everything muffled and quiet, the storm beginning to settle. Inside, his room is cozy and warm, our own private igloo.
Our noses touch again—a prelude, a prologue—and my heart tumbles toward him, the rest of me desperate to follow it. But just before our lips meet, just before the whole world shifts, there’s a bright crack, followed by a crunching sound, and when we both bolt upright at the same time, peering down toward the foot of the bed, it’s to find Leo, rumpled and not quite awake, fumbling for his brokenglasses.
When I open my eyes the next morning, I’m greeted by a scattered array of red plastic cups. Beyond them the sun is just starting to push through the frosted window, the room still steeped in shades of blue. I blink a few times, trying to remember where I am and how I ended up on the couch, then sit up with a yawn.
Still, it takes a moment for it to come rushing back.
Teddy’s face, so close to my own. The way his nose brushed against mine. The thump of our two hearts loud in my ears.
And then Leo rubbing his eyes and asking what time it was, and me leaping awkwardly out of the bed, and Teddy looking like someone who had been sleepwalking only to snap abruptly awake.
I squeeze my eyes shut again.
Nothing happened. Not really. But in that moment of confusion, the slow and bewildering aftermath, I could see it in the way he looked at me across the darkened room. It had—for him, anyway—been a near miss.
And the worst part is I know he’s probably right to be relieved. Because I didn’t just want him to kiss me. I wanted so much more than that. I wanted him to fall in love with me. And that isn’t Teddy.
Behind me the door to his room swings open and I take a deep breath, steeling myself before turning around to face him. But it’s only Leo.
“Morning,” he says. Without his glasses he looks much younger, but he’s squinting and shuffling down the hallway like someone very old. His snow boots are dangling from one hand, and he drops them on the floor in front of the couch, then motions for me to scoot over. I tuck my legs beneath me, waiting for him to say something about last night, but he only yawns as he bends to tie his laces.
“You’re leaving?” I ask, and he nods.
“I need to get a new pair of glasses. Or at least find my old ones. And I’ve got a bunch of other stuff to do too.”
