Theresa was in no hurry to leave the bookstore. She had nowhere to be. Nowhere important. And she wasn't as excited as she'd expected to be about Order of the Phoenix, which was finally tucked in the bag along with her receipt under her arm. All this time waiting and now she didn't want to leave. She still found herself gravitating toward the magazine rack out of habit.
She wasn't in the mood for a Cosmo. The last thing she needed right now was more men in her life. Her hair was in a ponytail today, and she was wearing her baggy Les Mis t-shirt and jeans and flip-flops. She wanted to feel unattractive; god, did she ever. But it wasn't working.
She picked up a copy of Future Today and stared at the illustration on the cover. In it, a towheaded blond child sat slumped in front of a TV, oblivious to the sight of a too-happy couple behind him. She glanced at the headline. "TODAY'S BLENDED FAMILIES: How we can help our children cope with modern-day relationships."
Her interest piqued, Theresa flipped through, looking for the article. New Issues in Special Education, The Demise of Social Security, Over-Population in Urban America...
"Miss? You gotta buy that."
Theresa's head shot up, annoyed. "Can I fucking decide first?"
"Either buy it or keep moving," the kid said crossly.
Prick. She shot him a sneer and replaced the magazine, scanning the rack with her eyes only until he drifted away.
She checked to make sure no one was looking before sliding the magazine casually into her shopping bag. She waited a few innocent moments before making her way out of the store. Served them right, having such obnoxious employees.
She watched that night for the light to come on in Ryan's room, barely visible above the chain-link fence separating their houses, before she slipped outside, into the Atwoods' yard, and over to Ryan's windowsill.
She peeked in. Behind the blinds, she could see Ryan lying on his bed, his eyes open, one arm flung across his chest as he stared at the ceiling. He was used to her coming in through the front and would never guess she was watching him. But she didn't want to go through the front door now. Not with AJ.
Hesitantly, she reached up to knock on the window. The Atwoods didn't have screens. Trey had destroyed them a few years before – Theresa was never clear on the circumstances – and they had never been replaced.
Ryan sat up, looking perplexed for a minute before walking over to open the window. He stared down at her. "Theresa?"
She held up the bag from the bookstore. "Look what I got!"
"A book."
"Not a book, jackass. Order of the Phoenix!"
"What's that?"
She stared at him, not comprehending. "Harry Potter?"
"Oh."
"I thought you liked Harry Potter."
He blinked. "The movies were cool."
"The movies?" she asked, aghast.
"Did you want something, or...?" His thumb motioned behind him.
She gave a resigned sigh. "Can I come in?"
He paused and glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah, hold on." He moved to lock the door, then returned. "Okay."
She handed him the bag then swung herself onto the windowsill in what she hoped was a graceful manner. He hesitantly offered a hand but she braced herself on the window frame and hopped down by herself.
"Since when did your door get a lock?"
"Since always," he said. "I just thought-"
"Right." She nodded. Of course. It wasn't the same household anymore. AJ was in charge. She fingered the Playboy bunny stickers on the wall. "Trey never came back for these, huh?"
"They kind of don't... come off," Ryan admitted, looking away. He passed the shopping bag to her.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, peeking inside. "That reminds me. I almost forgot. I got you something." She pulled out the magazine and Ryan stared at it.
"I give up. What do I need a copy of Future Today for?" he asked skeptically.
"I thought you might like the articles. Okay, so it's not a porno." She rolled her eyes. "I nicked it!"
He sighed. "Theresa..."
"What? The clerk was being a little bitch. When was the last time I nicked anything for you?"
"Today, apparently."
She grinned and smacked him, but he caught her arms as she contacted his shoulder, holding her tightly.
"Ow!" she snapped, half-annoyed.
He leaned over, kissing her before she was even aware. It had been too long. She heard the book, magazine and bag all fall to the floor separately. Slam... crackle... plop. She had to giggle at the absurdity of it.
The absurdity of it all-"No, wait!" she said, pushing him off, his tongue sliding out of her mouth.
"Uh?" he asked, his eyes still fixed on her mouth.
She sighed. "I can't..."
For a moment, he looked desperate. Then, resigned, he settled himself onto the bed.
"This about the Mike thing?"
She started to say no, it wasn't about the Mike thing. But wasn't it? Really, hadn't it started with Mike? So she sighed. "Kind of..."
Ryan looked dejected. "It's okay, I get it," he said.
"Ryan-"
"I mean, you gotta do what you think, uh, feel, uh..." He was struggling for the words that were supposed to fix it. But there were no words that could fix it. None that Ryan Atwood was willing to say.
"Ryan, I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry I didn't stop that sorry son-of-a-bitch earlier," he said grimly.
"Ryan!" She grabbed his shoulders. "It's okay. I'm. Okay." She dropped her hands and straightened back up. "I just..." Just what?
I can't do this when Eddie is...
When you and Lily are...
When I don't understand...
"No." He tilted his chin up. "It's okay. I get it."
But he didn't. But she couldn't say that.
She turned away and her eyes fell on the gold chain hanging from the window latch. "Oh, wow," she said, moving over to touch the cross dangling from it. "Hey, I remember this." Her hand dropped and she looked up at him. "You used to wear it all the time."
Ryan shrugged. "I stopped."
"I see. Decided the bling-bling was a little too much?"
"Bling, what bling?" he snorted. "My mom bought it for, like, five bucks at the discount store." He grew serious again. "I guess I just decided I didn't like it anymore."
"It made you look tough," she said.
"I look tough without it," he said immediately.
"Right, of course," she said automatically. "Sure you do."
He eyed her, suspicious. "Anyway. Maybe it's just the cross thing. It was too much. I don't know."
She turned to finger it again. "Yeah. I know what you mean. It's hard to believe in stuff right now. With everything."
"Yeah. Guess so."
Was that why he seemed so empty lately, so lonely? She bit her lip. She'd stopped believing in those things a couple of years ago, and yet she didn't think she looked as lost as Ryan did. Maybe she was wrong. She studied the cross, remembered how she used to stare at it as it sat on Ryan's chest all through math class. It looked more expensive than it was. It looked more convincing than it was. But Theresa had never been fooled, she had spent countless hours hiding in the church basement with Ryan, playing cards or smoking or gobbling potato chips when they were supposed to be in Sunday School upstairs. Gold cross or no gold cross.
What did she believe in now, anyway? She didn't believe in the cross anymore, that was for sure. She didn't believe in herself too much lately, either. And she couldn't believe in Ryan anymore, either. Not now…
"Read the magazine," was all she said. "Please? ...For me."
He squinted at her. "Sure. Okay."
"Promise?"
"Yeah, no. I swear. If you promise you'll take it back when I'm done."
"Ryan-" He raised an eyebrow at her and she relented. "Fine. Sure. Whatever."
She paused, swinging the bag, the oversized blue hardback bouncing mindlessly. "I would make you borrow my Harry Potters, but you won't give them back."
"Will too."
"Will not. How long have you had my Great Gatsby, anyway?"
Ryan snorted, opening his sock drawer and rooting through. "Here! Geez." He tossed the paperback at her and she caught it by a corner, holding it away from her in disgust. She didn't know what had happened. Ryan used to take such good care of her things when he borrowed them, and now...?
"Did you drag this thing through the fucking mud? You are so not touching my Harry Potters. Jesus."
"Yes, my child?" he asked with a somber expression.
Theresa bit her lip and closed her eyes as the silent giggle came. She hurled Gatsby back at him. "Damn you! Keep it!"
Sometimes she wanted to kill him. And sometimes she wanted to do what she did now, which was to jump on him, hands on his shoulders, knocking him backwards onto the bed, pinning her knees on either side of him and assaulting his mouth with her own. He responded almost instantly, ready and waiting, his body meeting her own, arms pulling her in to place, reaching, cupping...
Her own voice cut through the sound of Ryan's heavy breathing. "No!"
He struggled to follow as she sat up. "But – but – you started it!"
"I know, I – but Jesus, and leaning, and I gotta go."
She grabbed her bag, scrambling for the window.
"Wait-"
She shook her head. "I'll see you later." Not in a locked bedroom. Alone. With Ryan, and his slightly dank scent, the tank top sculpting his muscles. It was no use. She couldn't resist. She bounded over the window.
"Theresa!"
He was leaning – leaning! – out the window now, his arms propped on the sill, that look of concern on his face. She drooped her shoulders. She was helpless before him.
"Just – when you feel ready. You know. Or – whatever." He licked his lips. "Your call."
She couldn't look at him. She couldn't understand him anymore. Nothing about Ryan made sense anymore.
"Call me?"
She relented, glancing over her shoulder. "I got your number." She paused. "I memorized it. In seventh grade." And he still thought he had to write it in her yearbook. She looked around. "I gotta... go."
She crashed through the brush, through his littered yard, around the fence to her own neat and ordered lawn.
She would spend the night reading Harry Potter by herself. Because that was easy and it made sense and she didn't have to decide anything. And something like that sounded like a very, very good idea right now.
Theresa's third date with Eddie was to dinner at El Bandito. This time she feigned a headache to return home early, even though he was making her laugh. Theresa didn't want to laugh. She wanted to brood. She wanted to be miserable.
"Can I call you tomorrow?" he asked, looking into her eyes hopefully as they sat parked a block from her house.
She sighed. "After ten."
"Why?"
"Mama and Turo will be at work."
"Theresa," and now it was his turn to sigh. "How long are we gonna do this?"
She knew the answer right away: until she was sure it would last. But she shook her head. "Eddie..."
"I know, I know. Give you time. Well." He looked around. "From where I am? We got all the time in the world."
We. The word echoed in her mind as she trudged down the street, the taste of Eddie's breath mints still fresh on her tongue. She licked her lips.
We. She used to think of herself and Ryan as a unit. Inseparable. But now? They were separate all the time. She just couldn't think of herself with Eddie. She couldn't think of Eddie as being a constant force. Eddie… Eddie, the guy who used to hang out in Arturo's room whenever he fought with his dad, Eddie who used to steal her bras and hang them up on the front fence for kicks, the jackass.
"-Dude, it is her!" Trey and Arturo were leaning against the Atwoods' fence, Trey pointing at her, astonished. "Told you!"
Arturo ignored him. The look on his face was one of slowly dawning realization, and it frightened her down to her core. "Where'd you come from?" he demanded.
"Out," she said, avoiding eye contact with either of them. "Let me through?"
"Hey." Arturo blocked her. "Was that Eddie's truck?" Now she looked at him, fearful. No. Not here. Not in front of Trey. Not in front of Ryan's house.
"He gave me a ride. 'Scuse me."
"Nice skirt," Trey said, the words rolling off him, a challenge.
She shrugged, looking past him. "Huh. Thanks."
"Did Eddie like it?"
Her shoulders fell. "Trey."
"What? I'm just asking."
"So ask him already. I don't know." She started to shove her way past them.
"Hey." Arturo grabbed her arm. "We ain't finished."
"So finish already." She shook him off violently and took a quick step backwards.
The guys exchanged a look that gave Theresa a feeling of utter dread.
"We know what you're doing, don't think we don't," Arturo said.
"Tramp," Trey muttered under his breath.
"I said shut the fuck up, Atwood," Arturo snapped. "Theresa. What do you think you're doing here?"
There was no point denying anything or lying to Arturo. She could lie to Ryan, or Becca, or Eddie or Trey. But not Turo.
"I don't know," she said, hearing the helpless tone in her own voice. Why did he have to do this in front of Trey, of all people? "Okay? I. Don't. Know. All I know is, something's going on between me and Eddie, and nothing's going on between me and Ryan. I don't know."
"Does Ryan know?" Trey spat at her. "Or should I just ask him?"
"You can't," she said clearly. "You can, but – you can't tell him about Eddie, Trey. Not yet."
"So you are a lying whore."
The punch caught all of them by surprise, apparently even including Arturo, who had thrown it. Trey staggered back against the fence, hand clapped to his cheek where Turo had decked him.
Theresa's hands were clapped to her mouth, where they'd flown in astonishment.
Arturo, for his part, was staring at his fist, not quite comprehending what had just happened.
"God, oh god. Shit. Trey, I'm-"
"Don't apologize to me," Trey said to Arturo. "Apologize to Ryan. You're supposed to be his friend." He turned to Theresa. "And so are you."
"I am his friend," she said, outraged. She didn't know why she was so much more bothered by an insinuation of disloyalty to Ryan than she was at Trey calling her a whore. "But just his friend! And what he doesn't know won't hurt him."
"She's got a point, man," Arturo said. "He don't need to know. He don't want to."
Trey turned back to Theresa. "You'd lie to my brother."
"You lie to him all the time."
"Yeah. But you don't," he said immediately.
She took a step back. "Trey."
"Think about it," Arturo pleaded. "You know how he gets, man, he'd flip out, he don't need no reason."
Trey looked back and forth between them, doubtful. "Maybe somebody should be flippin' out."
"He's under enough pressure as it is," Theresa pointed out. "He doesn't need this. I want him to be happy." She took a deep breath. "It's not like he didn't hit on Lily last week. I heard him." She looked around. "He'll be fine. Without me."
Arturo looked worried. "We're not telling him. He don't need to know. She's-" He stopped. "She's right."
Trey only nodded once. But he looked anything but happy.
Theresa sighed. "You guys..." But Arturo was already shaking his head. "...Thanks?"
Trey turned to her suddenly. "Just get the fuck out of my sight," he sneered.
She was only too happy to comply, running into the house straight to her bedroom, where she rid herself of the skirt and top as quickly as possible.
She pulled on her baggiest, most unattractive pajamas and settled herself cross-legged on the bed. She reached for the music box and turned the key, then held it up to study the slowly twirling dancers.
But I must depend on a wish and a starAs long as my heart doesn't know where you are
He'd be fine without her. She knew the truth.
She was the one who couldn't be fine without him.