by Seth King
“I’m sorry,” she said soon. “I’ve been thinking lately, too, and…I’m sorry. For not taking your problems more seriously.”
“Um. Wow. You’ve never acknowledged that before.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry. I wanted you to be perfect. I never wanted to let it in.” She paused. “How is it, in your head? What’s it like?”
“Remember in that movie Twister, when Helen Hunt ties herself to that pipe and gets sucked up into the tornado and gets to see the vortex from the inside?”
“Sure.”
“I’m Helen Hunt. Sanity is the pipe. My mind is the vortex. Sometimes I can’t tether myself. The anxiety controls everything. I’m at the bottom of a spinning twister and there’s nothing I can do. It just ravages me. All I can do is wait for the tornado to pass. And being berated for being ‘lazy’ or ‘a hypochondriac’ wasn’t helping me.”
“I’m sorry, Georgie! I really am. I wasn’t raised during a time when people talked about these things. It was all so taboo. When my great-aunt started having her ‘fits’ and disappearing into her room to have ‘fainting spells,’ they sent her to a sanitarium in Massachusetts.”
“What? This is genetic? And you never told me?”
“I didn’t want to…encourage certain things. I was wrong, I see now.”
“Ugh, Mom, that could’ve helped so much…and illuminated things…okay, never mind. Just…thanks, and Mom?”
“Yes?”
“From now on, please let me live my own life. Even when I fuck it up. I’m not going to let a relationship ruin everything. Do you get that?”
“Yes,” she said soon. “I do. But curse in front of me again, and we’ll have some real problems. I may be from New York City, but I have lived in the South for years now. I know moms who spank their kids for as much.”
“Love you, Mom,” I smiled. “Gotta go.”
“Oh, and one more thing. Can I meet him?”
I paused. Then smiled again. “Of course. And you will love him.”
Teddy Martin
At the end of the night I was too tired from traveling to do much beyond fall into that comfortable hotel bed and see blackness. I guess he did the same, too. The next morning we woke up far too late and went swimming with a bottle of gas station champagne bought via fake ID, passing it between us in the shallow end. I needed a tan, so I wasn’t mad about delaying our bookstore trip. All the while, I couldn’t stop marveling at how easy it was to be around him, how natural it felt to just hang out with him. But this was real, adult lovey stuff, not the “love” in books and movies – no rainbows, no sparkles, no circling camera crews while we embraced on a cliff at sunset. We were just learning how to be alive together. That simple.
It was four in the afternoon by the time we made it to Judy Blume’s bookstore – only to find a sign on the front door. Closed on Mondays, it said. Please come back and see us tomorrow. – Judy and company.
“Fuck!” he said. “What do we do now? This was the whole point of coming here! To finish off the grand bookstore tour of Teddy and George…”
“Ugh.”
He turned to me, anger mixing with something else. “Actually, I know.”
“What? What can we do?”
His eyes changed. “Well. You look really good right now.”
“Yes. And I feel so comfortable here.” His voice lowered. “I want to touch you. Touch more of you.”
“I thought we came here for bookish reasons?” I teased, because my pulse was racing and I didn’t know what else to do.
“There are bookish. Let’s just say they’re things that Judy Blume usually fades to black.”
~
I knew exactly what he meant. I wanted it, too. Wherever people were made of, we came from the same factory.
We did those things in the half-light of the bungalow. Some dog kept walking up and trying to get our attention before being shooed away again by hotel staff, so that was a bit awkward. But the rest was amazing. I didn’t know if I was moving too fast or too slow or just right, and I was louder than I wanted to be more than once. (Which was embarrassing, for a lifelong introvert.) But he was gentle and respectful and he felt like home to me. When he kissed me, no matter where on my body he did it, I felt like worth more than I’d been worth before. He made me feel better about being me, and I’d never had that before. Not by a long shot. In the strangest and silliest way, his body was a party I never wanted to leave. I liked him so much he made me feel like an idiot. An idiot wrapped in love, but still, I felt so dumb.
“Theodore,” he kept saying as he twirled a lock of my hair, smiling. “Theodore.”
“What?” I finally asked.
“Your name,” he sighed. “It just sounds like music.”
We spent all the next day in bed – all day. We woke at about eleven and did more fun bad amazing things, then we fell back asleep, woke up, ate some food, and did it again. It was three PM when we realized we probably weren’t going to get out bed at all, so we turned on the TV and put on something mindless. I’d never felt so close to someone. He cuddled me in every position, he kissed me on every inch of my neck and shoulders. I’d never wanted to open someone’s skin and climb inside them, but now I did. Every time he touched me it made me feel like I was soaring through open space. I wanted him to devour me until we had absorbed each other and become one being. All of it was so new, and all of it was astounding.
But we only had one more day in paradise. And then school started. And then he would leave me. How would this dream transition into the real world when we had to wake up?
“What are we going to do with the day?” I asked, and melodramatically he shushed me.
“The new Dan Brown was just delivered to my Kindle app. No talking for approximately four hours. Is that good?”
I leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. He blushed.
“What was that for?”
“For being as much of a piece of Teddy Martin as my right arm is,” I said as I lay back and prepared to sink into my own book while he read.
As I let my leg rest against his, I thought about something. In every way, George appeared to be an extension of me – my perfect partner, my person, my bookend, if you will. But was that a realistic idea? What were the odds that there was a “soul mate” out there waiting for you, and what were the odds that you would find them, even if they existed? And what were the odds that you could keep them around, make it work? What could I do to make sure I never let this windfall slip through my fingers?
I guess I just needed to ignore the fact that I’d found him, and focus on just keeping him. Lord knew I liked to run. I just had to make sure I stayed sane enough to never jog away again.
~
“When did you first know you were a serious bookworm introvert type?” he asked after sunset, his voice small and wavering. We had twelve hours left together here.
“Very early,” I said. “I knew I was really in trouble when I connected with books more than I did with humans. Whenever my parents fought I’d lock myself away all night with Harry Potter and the Boxcar Children, and the scary thing was, I wouldn’t want to come out after that – I was fine in those worlds. It’s been a battle ever since, especially with my dad, with him wanting me to ‘see the world’ and everything.” I sigh. “What about you?”
“Same,” he said. “It’s like I wasn’t on the same wavelength as other humans, and characters were the only ones that could talk to me. I also noticed they were almost like medicine for me – when my brain was spinning and my palms were sweating and there was nothing I could do, Goosebumps would sort of pull me back down and tether me to reality again. I guess both of us sort of…”
“What?” I ask.
“Created reality inside fantasy,” he said soon. “Looked for real life where it didn’t exist. And both of us are a little stunted because of it.”
“I mean, I’m not arguing that. I’m a kid-adult. A kidult. I’m old enough to vote and I eat breakfast with
my dad every day.”
“And my mom does my laundry,” he laughed. Then he got quiet and contemplative.
“What is it?”
“Why do you like me?” he asked. “Just curious. Drinking makes me insecure. You’re so dignified and serious, and I’m so…George-ish. You deserve better.”
“No I don’t! Don’t say that. You’re so weird. I like you because I do. Deal with it.”
He scowled. “You do deserve better, though. What was that link you just posted on Twitter?”
“Oh,” I blushed. “I’m raising money for the Jax Beach library to start a program to reach homeless adults how to read better. It’s just a little thing…”
“Exactly, Teddy. I spend my time doing nothing, and you spend your time on homeless literary campaigns. You’re the best person I’ve met, and this makes no sense.”
I stole a breath from a world that suddenly seemed out of atmosphere. (Thank God for wine.) “Okay, here’s why I like you. I see you every time I close my eyes. I think you’re the best person I’ve ever met, and I want everything to work out for you in ways I’ve never wanted anything to work out for anyone before. You made me excited about being alive again. Basically I don’t wish I lived in a book anymore. You are my book.”
A smile crept its way across his face. “Okay. Okay, I’ll take that.”
He touched my hand, fingertips to fingertips, and it felt like a kiss on the cheek – soft, gentle, shimmery and warm like rain on a bright Sunday morning. Soon he clasped it harder, and it almost felt like I was protecting something with him. Our love was a small miracle, and we had to keep it safe.
“Okay, enough bullshit,” he said soon. “Enough running. When are you going to admit to yourself that you know I’m starting to love you?”
“Excuse me?”
For the first time all night, he looked truly nervous. Like he used to look. It made me want to take him into my arms and squeeze him like a little baby.
“Come on, though,” he said. “I just can’t let myself believe that you’re still missing the signs, especially after today. I mean, how could anyone miss the signs? Especially someone so smart? I am starting to love you, and I’m really bad at hiding it. I am starting to love how you love your books and I am starting to love how you’re sassy with adults and I am starting to love how you’re really really handsome. But you’re nice with your goodness – you wear it like diamonds. You let it shine onto me. So, yeah – you’re pulling me in, with all this great stuff you do. Soon I won’t be about to pull back out. What then?”
I squirmed, but inside I felt warmer than a fresh cookie. “I…I feel like I don’t have to say it back. It’s everywhere. It’s in the air, practically.”
“I’d like to hear the words,” he said, his voice sad. I winced.
“Do I have to?”
“You should want to.”
You are so special to me, I wanted to say. You are bright to me. You are the only thing to me. I think about you all day. More than I would ever care to admit.
But I held back. You had to be careful with feelings, and where you put them. Anything could happen.
“Teddy. What am I to you?” he finally asked.
What am I to you: such a simple question, such a deep message. But I couldn’t say anything.
He sat back. “I’m not going to deal with this forever. Do you want me to go?”
What would we do, if we ended up together, I wondered? I could already see it – the novelty would wear off, we’d spend too much time together, and he’d get sick of me. He would realize what happened to me, how damaged I was, and he would run like everyone else. Just like everyone else.
“Ugh,” I said to nobody. “Stop. Why is this happening? Can’t you just be my best friend?”
“What? Why?”
“Because I can’t date!” Even though being liked by him made me feel somehow lovelier, as horrifically retro as that sounded. I was better and taller and more handsome because he found something in me worth adoring.
“Why not?”
“Because…because I was raised in the ruins of my parents’ marriage and I was shit on by the world and then I was treated like hot garbage by the only guy I’ve ever loved, and I’m not ready to start rebuilding yet, okay?”
He glared. “No. I reject that. This is the part where you say what you feel, Teddy. I’m not going to let you run anymore.”
In my head I saw my mother walking out on me, my first boyfriend phasing me out of his life and declining to even give himself the title of “boyfriend,” even in hindsight. And I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t set myself up for another rejection, even if George was the most magical human being I had ever encountered. He was too good for me. He was too beautiful for this.
I sat taller.
“Teddy,” he said. “Teddy? You’re not leaving, are you?”
I grabbed the wine, stood up.
“I don’t get this,” he said, stunned. “I don’t want to be alive without you anymore.”
I stared down at him. Then I turned for the exit, just as he’d predicted. In my peripheral vision I saw him turn and punch the wall. “Jesus Christ! It shouldn’t be like this, Teddy!”
Finally, I found words. “That’s exactly right. I know it shouldn’t. But it is.”
Books in Real Life
Emergency Phone Update
So: Key West is a disaster and I am hopelessly crazy. Thanks for the prayers and juju, but nothing can save me from myself. That’s all I wanted to say. The end.
PS – I should’ve listened to myself and kept my adventures strictly within the pages of my books.
-T
Teddy Martin
George found me by the pool, crying into a wine bottle, looking extremely handsome and composed, I’m sure.
“Tell me everything you need to tell me,” I heard him say from behind me. “Everything you want me to know. Remember – I fought my way back from the very edge of sanity. There is nothing you can say that will scare me away. Unless you’re a killer or something, because in that case, sayonara.”
I sniffled. I wanted more than anything to tell him everything, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. Being mad at a dead person was so strange. What did you do with that? Where did you send that? Where did you go with that? How did you let it out and not allow it to twist up inside you and burn you up?
I wiped my face and took a breath. “You really want to know?”
“Try me.”
Was this it? Was this the moment? There was so much I didn’t know how to tell him, so much that was holding me back, so much that was keeping me from loving him…
And then I looked at him and realized something I’d never realized before: I trust this person. I trusted him wholly and completely. I trusted him like I’d never rusted anyone in my life except for my father.
I picked up the wine again. I swallowed the entire thing, burped, and turned back to him. “Okay. So. I’ve been lying to you this entire time. My mom doesn’t live here in Key West. She’s buried here. She was born here and when she died, she asked for her ashes to be put in a crypt here. How’s that for news?”
Slowly his lips spread apart. “What? She’s – your mom is dead? I just assumed she ran off or something…”
“Nope, I’m just a liar. She drank herself to death when she was barely into her early forties. She self-medicated her bipolar disorder, and she’s dead. She was a drunk and a bad mom, and she died. She’s gone, and she did it all to herself, and there was nothing I could do but sit back and watch it all happen, watch her abandon me and my dad. And now I can’t love anyone –I drive them away before I have the chance to get left again. I ruin things before they can be ruined. I’m a ruiner. That’s what I do.”
I waited for him to run, screaming. He didn’t. He scooted closer, held me tighter. “Teddy, what? Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?”
And it all ran away from me. “Because I’ve never even said it out loud – to anyone. I hid
it and suppressed it and let it eat me alive. But I can’t stay silent anymore. It was almost suicide, by the way. She was already in partial liver failure from the way she lived, and when the doctors sat her down and told her she would be dead in three months if she didn’t stop, and that she had a son to get better for, she just drank more. She drank harder. She killed herself faster. She even had all these men sneak liquor into the hospital in little water bottles. She knew exactly what was happening, she knew she had a kid to raise and a separated husband to stick around for, and she drank herself into the grave.” He just stared at me, shocked. “And it disgusts me to admit this, but I hate her sometimes. So much. When her best friend spoke at her funeral, she was so angry about her drinking that she just trembled against the podium and could barely speak. I resent her for what she did, and it just makes me feel worse about the whole thing. How can you ever accept that? How can you ever accept being willfully left alone by the one person who was always supposed to be there for you? This has eaten me up inside for ten years and I don’t know what to do about it.”
I felt his hand inch up my arm, even though I’d closed my eyes. “Teddy, keep going. Talk to me about this. Share this. Talking is the first step.”
“No!” I almost shouted. “I know what it would look like. I don’t want to be that kid, the sad kid who shoves his problems onto everyone else and expects the world to shoulder them. Once I think about losing my mom, I can’t stop, and I go to bed for the rest of the day, so I’ve stopped thinking about it. I trained myself to stop caring. The whole thing – I just shoved it aside like it was a box in my closet. I went into the books and I thought they would drown out the noise in my head, my heart. But they aren’t anymore. And you’re making it worse. You make so much noise. You’re so noisy. Everything I feel for you is so noisy. And I’m sick of it. I miss the silence of being on my own, because at least I knew it would always stay that way. But what if you leave, just like she did, and the music stops?”
