Windfall, Page 3

  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.

  I nod at the phone. “Max?”

  He shakes his head, but not before a smile crosses his face, the same one he gets whenever anyone mentions his boyfriend. They’d only been together about six months when Max left for college in Michigan at the end of last summer, but they’d moved swiftly from I kind of like you to I think this might be something to I’m completely in love with you. And along the way I’d fallen for Max too, the way you do when you witness someone discovering all the amazing things about a person who means a lot to you.

  “No,” Leo says, looking up at me. “Just Mom.”

  “Let me guess. She’s panicking about the snow?”

  My aunt Sofia has never exactly adjusted to Chicago winters. She spent her childhood in Buenos Aires before her family moved to Florida when she was eight, and this type of weather is pretty much the only thing that ever slows her down, sending her straight into hibernation mode.

  “She’s worried about the roads,” he says. “She thinks we should stay over.”

  It’s been a while since we’ve slept here. We used to do it all the time, the three of us. When we were younger and Teddy still needed someone to watch him while his mom worked nights, we’d convince Mrs. Donohue, the old woman from next door, to let us stay too. While she snored on the couch, we’d line up the two sleeping bags on the floor, and then Teddy would hang over the edge of the bed, his face looming above ours, and we’d talk until our eyelids grew heavy and our words started to taper off.

  “I can’t exactly tell her everyone else is leaving,” Leo says with a sheepish grin, “because she thinks we’re the only ones here. So…”

  “So,” I say, looking around the room at the piles of discarded clothes, the books stacked on the dresser, and the lone sock sticking out from under the twin bed.

  Teddy’s bed. The place where he sleeps every night.

  I swallow hard. “I guess we’re staying, then.”

  Which is how—a few hours later—we end up traveling back in time.

  Teddy offered me the bed, but I refused, so we are—once again, after all these years—arranged in our old familiar formation: Teddy lying with his chin propped on his hands, peering over the edge at me and Leo, who are curled up on the floor beneath a random collection of blankets.

  “You guys,” Teddy says, a hint of laughter in his voice. “You guys, you guys, you guys.”

  This was twelve-year-old Teddy’s never-ending chorus, and hearing it again now gives me a jolt of nostalgia so strong that I feel a little light-headed.

  Leo chimes in with his typical, slightly weary response. “Yes, Theodore?”

  “Remember when we convinced you to draw us a mural?” Teddy thumps a fist against the wall beside his bed, which was once white—a perfect canvas, it seemed to us when we were eleven—but is now painted a dark blue. “I paid you in lollipops.”

  “Best commission I ever got,” Leo says. “Even if we did have to paint over it the next day.”

  “You can still see the outline of the penguins in the corner,” I say with a smile. “And that fish you drew on the back of the door.”

  Teddy is quiet for a moment, then his voice—uncharacteristically tentative—breaks through the dark again. “So do you think it went okay tonight?”

  “It was great,” Leo says, the last word swallowed by a yawn. “I think you might’ve set a world record for most people per square inch of space.”

  “It was a little crowded,” Teddy admits. “Do you think people noticed there’s only one bedroom?”

  “No,” I say firmly. “They were much too busy having fun.”

  “Someone broke my mom’s vase,” he says. “I’m hoping she won’t notice, since there’s no way I’ll be able to afford a new one till I start working again this summer.”

  “We’ll chip in so you can get one now,” I say. Then before he can argue, which I know he will, I add, “You can pay us back later.”

  “I take Visa, MasterCard, and lollipops,” Leo says.

  This makes Teddy laugh. “Thanks. You guys are the best.”

  Leo yawns again, louder this time, and we slip into silence. I stare up at the plastic stars on the ceiling, the familiar constellations they make. The faint light from the windows is bluish, the snow still falling outside. After a few minutes I hear the soft whistle of Leo’s breathing, and I reach out in the dark and gently remove his glasses, setting them on the floor between us. From above, Teddy watches me.

  “Hey,” he says. “Remember when—”

  But I put a finger to my lips. “Don’t wake him.”

  “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.”

  “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, like Today’s the day! and Look 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 broken glasses.

  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.”

  “Design stuff?”

  He shakes his head. “Applications.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Michigan,” he says without looking at me. “It’s due Monday.”

  This is a bit of a sore point between us. Ever since Leo’s art began to migrate from his notebooks to his computer, the graphic design program at the School of the Art Institute here in Chicago has been his drea
m. But now that Max is at Michigan, his focus seems to be shifting.

  “Well,” I say, my voice a few octaves too high, “I think that’s great.”

  I’ve been trying to keep my feelings on the subject to myself, since it’s obviously a decision he needs to make on his own. But we know each other too well for that, and my disapproval keeps shining through in spite of my best efforts.

  “No, you don’t,” Leo says. “But it’s fine. I’m just keeping my options open.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not like I don’t still want to go to—”

  “I know.”

  “It’s just that I really miss—”

  I smile. “I know that too.”

  We’re both quiet for a second.

  “Okay,” he says, standing up. “Want to head back with me?”

  I look around the room, which is a disaster. There are cups everywhere, half-eaten bags of chips strewn around, and a bottle of soda tipped over on the counter, still dripping down the cabinets. Pretty much every surface is covered with sticky ring stains, and the overflowing garbage bin is surrounded by dented cans and balled-up paper towels.

  “I should probably help him clean up before his mom gets home,” I say, glancing at the clock; it’s almost eight, which means she’ll be back soon. “Just to make sure he gets to see his nineteenth birthday.”

  “Don’t worry,” Teddy says, padding down the hall behind us. I twist to look at him, then flick my eyes away, remembering again. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants, a green T-shirt tossed over one shoulder, and the sight of his bare chest is almost too much to take this morning. “My mom just called to say she has to cover the morning shift. I guess the snow’s screwing everything up down there.”

  “Best birthday present you could’ve gotten,” Leo says as he grabs his coat.

  Teddy tugs his shirt on, then ambles over to the kitchen counter, lifting the tinfoil off the cake his mom made for him. They had their own celebration last night before she left for work, and what was left over was pretty much demolished at the party last night. But he scrapes some crusted frosting off the side of the dish with his finger, then walks over to drop onto the couch beside me.