“Too late,” he points out, the heaviness in his eyes now gone. “Have you ever been to Italy?”
“We visited our relatives near Verona when I was a teen. I’ve never eaten so much pasta or been hugged that aggressively in my life.”
His smile softens. “What were you like in high school?”
“Oh God. You don’t want to know,” I groan, earning a nudge from him. “Fine. I was the overachiever with thick eyeliner, band T-shirts and lots of accessories from Hot Topic. To be fair, I still wear a lot of graphic tees. I was a class president one year and made the honor roll, even if I was once suspended for painting the snowplow pink with glitter.”
A snort slips out before I can stop it, the memory bubbling into a fit of giggles. Teddy’s head tips back against the couch, his brows lifting as he stares my way in disbelief, a slow grin spreading across his face. “You did not.”
“It was a feminist protest. The school was only clearing the boys’ practice field and leaving the girls’ track buried under six inches after a snowstorm. I took matters into my own hands.”
Teddy laughs—really laughs—and it’s the best sound I’ve heard all week. The unrestrained sound fills the empty recreation room until the place feels less like a hospital and more like a safe space.
“It doesn’t surprise me that you’d do something like that. You’re a menace.”
“I prefer the termspirited.”
“Of course you do,” he quips.
The longer I stay here, the harder it is to pretend my feelings are only professional. Sitting beside Teddy, I don’t feel like his nurse anymore. I should pull back, remind myself of the lines we’re not supposed to cross. But instead, I let myself lean intothe connection, half-accepting the truth I can’t deny anymore: I truly am falling for him.
This time, it’s not a passing spark or a harmless teen crush. The feeling is deeper, threaded through every heartbeat and every breath I take beside him.
I’m totally, irrevocably fucked.
24
TEDDY
DECEMBER 27
Outside my family, Em and Jasper, nobody knows about my dead brother. It’s a wound I’ve carried for years, a sore spot I often keep locked down because revisiting it does nothing but bleed me dry. Still, I told Ivy how I grew up under the shadow of someone who never got the chance to live, and how I always felt like the replacement son. The spare who could never measure up to the phantom of aspirations my parents pinned on a little boy who didn’t make it past the first hours of his tragically short life. Every achievement of mine was weighed against what he might have been, every failure confirming the fear that I was never enough.
Now that I’ve said it out loud, I feel exposed in a way no helmet or pads could protect me from. But instead of regret, there’s a strange lightness in me. Like sharing it with her took a sliver of the weight off my chest. For once, I don’t have to carry the ghost of him alone.
Back in my room, the air feels stale compared to the recreation room. Ivy opens the window and helps me settle into bed, fussing with the blanket longer than necessary. The faint chillfrom the open window mixes with the subtle warmth of her presence. She moves around the room, doing everything except addressing the thick silence pressing between us. The fear creeps up my neck, scared she’s upset about what I shared earlier.
“You’re quiet,” I finally say, my voice low.
“It feels like I overshared,” she sighs. “I don’t normally have such deep conversations with patients.”
That catches me off guard.Overshared?I was sure I was the one who’d crossed that line, spilling pieces of myself I’ve kept buried for years. Not her. What could she possibly have said that makes her feel exposed? The idea that Ivy, the woman who seems so steady and in control, feels vulnerable with me…it’s both surprising and strangely comforting. Maybe I’m not the only one letting walls down here.
“Guess I should feel special then,” I tease, trying to coax a laugh out of her.
She doesn’t bite. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Say it straight, Ivy. I’m your friend, not a mind reader. I don’t have time for guessing games.”
Fuck, I hate using that word when talking about us.Friend.I don’t know when it happened exactly, but somewhere between Ivy’s first steps into my hospital room and now, she stopped beingjustmy nurse and friend. But I have no idea what I am to her, and I’m too much of a coward to ask directly. All I know is how everything feels better when she’s near.
“The problem is, I don’t think of you as only my friend, Theodore,” she whispers.
My breath catches.There’s no way she repeated what I thought a moment ago.I turn my head toward where she’s standing, lips parting before I press them shut again, trying to find the right words.
“Good. Because I don’t think of you that way either. Not anymore,” I finally say.
The confession crackles between us. Her voice trembles as she asks, “What do you mean?”
