When Teddy returns he has a white plastic bag dangling from one hand, and he swings it in circles as we start walking again, turning left at an intersection and heading up a road lined with trees and houses and the occasional streetlight.
“That’s not it,” he says, as if he didn’t just disappear without any sort of explanation, and it takes me a moment to remember exactlywhat’snot it. We’re nearly at the soup kitchen now, and my anger is starting to subside, replaced by something more desperate. The truth is, I hate fighting with Teddy. All I want is for things between us to be normal again. The way they were before the lottery. Before the kiss. Before all of it.
“I didn’t get scared,” he says. “I just had work to do.”
“At the library,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Yeah, you mentioned that.”
He stops again. “Well, it’s true.”
I can see the church just up the street, its spire a navy shadow against the purple sky. There’s a line of people along the side of the building waiting for the soup kitchen to open for the night. I’m too far away to make out any of the regulars, but I can see someone cup their hand and light a cigarette, the red dot rising and falling in the surrounding dark.
“I’m late,” I say to Teddy, but when I look up at him I realize I’ve finally managed to barrel right through all his good-natured patience. At long last he looks annoyed with me too.
“If it felt like I’ve been avoiding you since we got back,” he says through gritted teeth, “that’s probably because I was.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “O-kay.”
“But it’s not what you think. I was just trying not to put any pressure on you, okay?”
“About what?”
He groans, impatient. “About Stanford. Or…not Stanford.”
“What?” I ask, confused.
“I mean, we saw what happened with Max and Leo, and I know it came from a good place—I know Max just wanted them to be together—but sometimes it shouldn’t matter what you want, you know?” He says this so aggressively that it’s hard to tell whether he’s angry with me or Max. “It’s what the other person wants. And yeah, I can admit now that I’m glad you won’t be all the way out in California next year. Because being that far away from you for the next four years would be…I don’t even know. Kind of unbearable, I guess. But I was just trying to make sure you had the space to figure that out on your own, so I’m sorry if that—”
“Teddy,” I say, and he stops, blinking at me.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever yelled at me.”
In spite of himself, he laughs.
“Being that far away from you would’ve been kind of unbearable too.”
“It wasn’t just that, though,” he says, his voice softer now. “And it wasn’t just about the library or the nonprofit. I had work to do for myself too.”
“You keep saying that, but I have no idea what—”
“It means,” he says, a little impatiently, “that I don’t think you’re breakable. But your heartis.”
“What?” I ask, not expecting this. I stare at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Look,” he says. “I’m…well, I’m me. I screw things up. That’s what I do. And I’m reckless with people. I don’t mean to be, but I am.”
I nod, though I still have no idea where he’s going with this.
“But with you, it’s different. I mean, even putting aside the whole friendship thing—which is a big thing to put aside—you’ve gotten pretty banged up, you know?”
“No,” I say promptly. “I have no clue what you’re—”
“You’ve been through a lot,” he says, then before I can protest again he hurries on. “You have. It’s pretty hard to deny. And I didn’t want to be just another thing that hurt you. I didn’t ever want to be someone who does that to you.”
Does what?I want to ask, though I’m too afraid—not because I know what the answer will be but because I know what I want it to be.
A car turns up the street, the headlights sweeping across Teddy’s face. “So that’s why I didn’t mention it, what happened that morning after the lottery,” he says, and I think he means the kiss, but everything is so jumbled right now it’s hard to tell for sure. “But then we had that fight and I felt even worse, because the whole point was not to hurt you, and somehow I ended up hurting you even more.”
