“Then come up here so we can keep talking,” he says, and there’s a rustling as he scoots over to the far edge of the bed. “It’s still my birthday. And I’m not tired yet.”
“Well, I am,” I say, even though that isn’t true at all.
I’ve never been more awake in my life.
“Come on,” he says, patting the side of the bed, but I lie frozen on the floor, feeling stupid for hesitating, for thinking twice. All he wants is to talk to his best friend the way we’ve been doing since we were little.
I rise to my feet, moving carefully so as not to wake Leo, then climb into the bed beside Teddy. It’s narrow, certainly not meant for two people, but when we lie on our sides, facing each other, there’s just enough room.
“Hi,” he says, grinning at me through the dark.
“Hi,” I say, my heart beating fast.
His breath has the minty scent of toothpaste, and he’s so close that I can only bring one of his features into focus at a time: his nose or his mouth or his eyes. I stop there, because he’s watching me with a curious look.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“Don’t recognize me now that I’m eighteen?”
“Guess not,” I say, reaching deep for some sort of witty comeback, the kind of banter that usually flows freely between us. But there’s nothing. My thoughts are scrambled by the nearness of him, and my chest aches with something deeper than love, something lonelier than hope.
Teddy,I think, blinking at him, and it takes everything in me not to say it like that, the way it sounds in my head: like a sigh or a question or a wish.
“Did you have fun?” he asks, and I nod, my hair sparking with static against his pillow. “I thought it was pretty good. I mean, not like my sixteenth, but who has the stamina for that kind of thing anymore?”
“Old man,” I say softly, and he laughs.
“I do feel kind of old,” he admits. “Eighteen. Man.”
“Do you realize we’ve known each other for half our lives now?”
“That’s crazy,” he says, then shakes his head. “Actually, it’s not. It’s weirder trying to remember a time when we didn’t know each other.”
I’m quiet for a moment. It still hurts too much to think about that time before: the whole first half of my life, when I lived with my parents in San Francisco and we ate breakfast together and went to the park and read bedtime stories like a normal family. Trying to remember it feels like staring at the sun for too long. It’s red-hot and flashing, and still, half a life later, it burns like hell.
Teddy reaches out and rests a hand on my arm. I’m wearing one of his sweatshirts, but even through the fabric I can feel the heat of his touch. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No,” I say, drawing in a breath. “It’s fine. I wasn’t thinking about that.”
He gives me a skeptical look. “You can talk to me, you know.”
“I know,” I say automatically.
He shakes his head. His eyes are wide and unblinking, and as he shifts, his foot brushes against mine. “I mean the way you talk to Leo. You open up to him about this stuff. But you can talk to me too.”
I bite my lip. “Teddy…”
“I know it’s really painful,” he says, rushing ahead. “And I don’t mean to push. But I know you think all I do is joke around. That I’m not serious enough. That I can’t be there for you when it comes to this kind of stuff. But I can.”
“That’s what you think?”
“Well, yeah,” he says. “That’s always how it’s been. You go to Leo when you want to remember. You come to me when you want to forget.”
I stare at him, my throat tight. There’s a truth to his words that hasn’t ever occurred to me.
“All I’m saying is that I can be there for you too, if you let me.”
