“So,” he says. “He didn’t call.”
I shake my head. “I swear…”
“Before you get annoyed—”
“I’m not annoyed,” I correct him. “I’m mad. And you should be too.”
“You know how he is.”
“That’s the whole point,” I say. “I do know. He’s been doing this to you for years now, and it sucks. If he wants to disappear the other three hundred sixty-four days, that’s fine. But on his son’s birthday, he could at least—”
“Al.”
I shrug. “I’m just saying.”
“I know,” he says, looking almost amused. “And I appreciate it.”
“Well, I bet he’s thinking of you today, wherever he is.”
“Sure,” Teddy says with a bitter laugh. “Probably in between hands of poker.”
“You don’t know that,” I say, but he gives me a stern look.
“Let’s not kid ourselves. He’ll probably remember he missed it next week and send something ridiculous to make it up to me, then ask for it back the minute he stops winning and needs to cover his debts. We both know how this works.”
“Maybe it’s a good sign,” I say, because I can’t stand to see him looking so dejected. “Remember last year, when he sent all those honey-baked hams?”
“Yeah,” he says with a frown. “And the set of knives the year before.”
“Exactly. He only sends stuff when he’s on a hot streak,” I say, remembering the way, when we were little, that Charlie McAvoy used to burst through the door with bags of presents for Teddy, telling Katherine about all the overtime pay he was getting for his job as an electrician. It wasn’t until later that they discovered he’d been at the racetrack most of that time. “So maybe this means things are better. Maybe it means he’s getting help.”
Teddy doesn’t look convinced, and I can’t really blame him. It’s been six years since Charlie gambled away their family’s entire life’s savings during a three-day bender in Vegas. They haven’t seen him since.
“But,” I say, shaking my head, “it’s still not fair.”
He shrugs. “I’ve gotten used to it.”
“Teddy,” I say, turning to meet his eyes, because I want to make sure he knows this, really knows it: that it’s okay to be upset, that he doesn’t always have to pretend everything’s fine. “That doesn’t make it any better.”
“I know,” he says quietly.
In the whirl of snowflakes and the blur of the lights behind him, there’s something almost dreamlike about him right now. His eyes are very bright, and his hair is flecked with snow, and there’s a quietness to the way he’s looking at me. I realize we’re standing very close and I’m shivering, though it’s not because of the cold. Just now the cold feels beside the point. It’s because of the jumbled, chaotic thought that’s working its way through me: all of a sudden I want to tell him about the card, about all those things I said in it and just how much I meant them.
But then the door opens behind us, and the light from the hallway comes spilling out to reveal a group of sophomore girls, all standing there giggling in their stylish coats and fancy boots. “Hi, Teddy,” one of them says as they step outside. “Okay if we join you?”
He hesitates, just for a moment, before pulling his eyes away from mine, and all at once the spell is broken. “Sure,” he says, giving them a smile, and before he can say anything else, before he can mangle my heart any worse, I clear my throat.
“I’m gonna go find Leo,” I say, but Teddy’s attention has already shifted, already started to wander off in some other direction. Just as it always does.
Just as it always will.
Back inside, as I search for Leo, I trip over a garbage bag near the kitchen. I pick it up automatically, dragging it back through the crowd and out into the empty hallway. For a moment I just stand there, looking around at the dirty linoleum floors and the flickering lights on the ceiling. To the left is apartment thirteen, where the crooked brass numerals on the door always seem to be watching me, and to the right is the fire escape, where Teddy is still outside with those girls.
I should’ve said something to him about the card before we were interrupted. I should’ve figured out a way to make him see me, really see me, to come to his senses and realize he loves me too. Sometimes it feels like if I wish for it hard enough, it might just come true. But I know that’s not the way it works. Life doesn’t bend to anyone’s will. And it doesn’t run on credit either. Just because the world stole something from me doesn’t mean it owes me anything. And just because I’ve stockpiled a whole lot of bad luck doesn’t mean I’m due anything good.
Still, it doesn’t seem like all that much to ask: that the boy I love might love me back.
With a sigh I haul the garbage bag over to the chute and listen to it clatter all the way down. Back inside I find Leo sitting on the old leather armchair in the corner of Teddy’s bedroom, his head bent over his phone. He’s shed his green sweater and is now wearing the Superman T-shirt I gave him for Christmas, though with his thick glasses he looks more like a rumpled version of Clark Kent.
