Eddie fumbled for his keys. He looked nervous. He paused at his door, not breathing, not moving, almost as if he didn't want to disturb anything. "You sure you want to come in?"
She took a deep breath and nodded.
He looked down at her feet all of a sudden, blinking in surprise. "What the hell are those?" She had almost forgotten herself, with everything else to worry about.
"Hospital booties, I – I forgot my shoes."
After a moment, he gave a wry grin. "Only you."
"Fuck that shit-" she began.
"C'mon. You can borrow a pair of my mom's."
She nodded and followed him into the house. She stepped out of the hospital slippers, leaving them tucked in a corner by the door. There was a blinking message on the machine in the hallway.
She took his arm. "You don't have to-" He walked over to the machine anyway.
"-Eddie? It's Trey. I'm down at the station, they got the other guy, but now they're charging me with assault, and it's bullshit. It's bullshit, man! And nobody's around, I dunno what the fuck is going on, but somebody better come get me out..." Theresa felt her toes curling in the hospital shoes. She knew that Trey had no idea what had happened, clearly, but she still couldn't help but blame him. Blaming Trey was too easy sometimes. Trey didn't think about what other people were going through. Trey didn't think about anybody but himself. Still, somebody had to help Trey.
Eddie took a deep breath. "I can't, I can't handle this-" He was close to hyperventilating.
"Let me. It's okay." She gazed up at him. "Know what? You need to take a shower. Go do that. I'll make the calls."
It wasn't hard. The hard part was listening to the shower running, knowing that Eddie was naked in there, baring every bit of his flesh, washing off the dirt and sweat and tears and blood, hearing the running water as it dripped away into the drain. The easy part was calling the hospital and talking to Ryan, who resolutely agreed to deal with the Trey situation before she hung up on him, and talking to Arturo, who had started panicking when she and Eddie vanished, and talking to Eddie's mom, who was barely coherent, to promise her that they'd keep an eye on the house for a little while if she needed to deal with things at the hospital. What was there to deal with, anyway? He was dead. There was nothing left to do. She called her house, where no one picked up, and left a message for her mother just in case. Eva would worry when she heard there was a fight and she couldn't find either of her children. Eva did worry like that.
She hung up the phone just as Eddie emerged from the shower in a clean t-shirt and shorts, barefoot. She didn't usually see him looking so comfortable. He never wore shorts in public. Which was for the best – his legs were scrawny and hairy.
"Hey," she said softly.
"Hey," he barely replied. He looked so fragile right now. So vulnerable. He didn't know what had happened, and she didn't either, but she knew that she had power. Eddie was hurting, and now she could help, alone in the house with no one around.
She stood and walked over to him, standing on her toes and closing her eyes. He took the bait and leaned in for a gentle kiss. His skin was still warm from the hot water of the shower. His damp hair dripped a little on her shoulder. She pulled him closer to her.
Theresa wound her leg between his scrawny hairy ones, and he broke off the kiss with a gasp. "What-?"
"Shhh," she whispered, pressing him towards his bedroom. "C'mon."
"What are you-?"
"Make you feel better," she said softly.
He walked backwards, letting her guide him in the direction of his bed. "But – are you – you're sure?"
She caught a whiff of something. A scent still on her. Ryan's bourbon and sweat and blood and milk. She swallowed and looked back at Eddie.
Maybe he couldn't smell it.
"Never surer," she whispered, her face just inches from his as she backed him into his room and closed the door behind them.
She tucked her head against his chest, letting him pull the blanket up over the two of them as if for modesty's sake. Of course he would want to cover her up. The sun was starting down, but the room was still flooded with light. Every image of the past few minutes was stamped on her brain, framed in time. Forever.
"Thank you," Eddie whispered. "For – for – thank you."
"I know." She tucked her hand near her face, against his chest, which was still beaded with sweat from his exertion a few minutes ago. All of his anger, his fear, his shock, his fury, his grief, all of it had been poured in to her. And she had absorbed it all and let it flow through, and now it felt as if they had both been cleansed of something larger than either of them. She inclined her head to glance up at his chin. "Feel better now?"
"Whoa," he said in a laugh. "Yeah?"
"Good."
His smile turned to a frown. "I don't know what to do. I feel so good right now, and everything that just happened – god, am I a bad person?"
"It won't last," she promised him quietly.
His breathing stopped for a moment. "No," he finally agreed.
He resumed breathing, and her head rose and fell with every breath he took. Eddie was with her. He was so much more with her than Ryan was their first time, so much more with her than Ryan had ever been. Becca had asked her to compare? Now, at last, she could. And she knew. There was no comparison. Even in his egotistical grief, Eddie had been worried about her.
"We should... get dressed. Go see if Trey's okay. Go find your mom."
"Yeah," he breathed. "Yeah. We should."
They lay there another minute, silent. She watched the room rise and fall as Eddie slowly inhaled and exhaled. She felt at peace. She wanted to stay here. There was no choice in here, there was only Eddie, warm and breathless.
"Eddie? Guys? Anybody here?"
She sat up in a flash. No. What was Ryan doing-? Dammit, the door had been left open, of course he would just barge in to Eddie's house, he always had, and there had never been any reason for him not to...
She glanced at Eddie, who was at a loss for words as he struggled to sit up with her. Neither one of them hurried to respond. Afterwards, she would think of the million things she could have done – scrambled for clothes, hidden under the bed – but in the moment, none of the brilliant ideas occurred to her. Instead, she felt trapped in the headlights, knowing what was about to happen, but unable to do anything to stop it.
Then the door to the bedroom opened, and she felt her heart fall out of her chest.
Ryan stared at them, unable to process. Blinking. Confused. What he saw made no sense in the world as he understood it.
"Ryan! Hey! Sorry, I-" Eddie moved aside, and Theresa pulled the blanket up over her breasts, scooting over him so that he would at least be next to her, not under her, naked, flushed, and covered in the sweat that made it so obvious what had just happened. For a moment, she wanted to thank him profusely for the blanket, but she realized that she needed far more than a blanket right now.
"What?" The word barely emerged from Ryan's lips.
"Ryan, it's not-" Theresa let her voice trail off. There was no denying it. There was no excuse. She glanced down at the blanket covering her lap.
Ryan wasn't much of a talker, and never had been, and after five years, Theresa was used to reading his face for the words he couldn't come up with. And now, as he stood in the doorway, silently staring at her in bed with Eddie, she could feel his emotions as though they were her own. The pain. The betrayal. The way his eyes crunched slightly at the corners, and his head tilted to the side just so, and his nose wrinkled at the smell of something he couldn't comprehend.
He turned around as if to go, then whirled back. "Trey's at the precinct, I thought maybe you guys would wanna go, cause they still want to talk to Eddie, and you hung up on me, but... maybe later." He was talking too quickly, too nervously, staring at some point off in the distance, far beyond the walls of Eddie's room.
"Ryan, wait," she said as he started out, and he stopped automatically.
He turned back around. "Wait for what?" he demanded.
"I didn't – I mean – "
"You lied to me," he said, his voice low and shaking. "All this time. I thought we were friends. You lied to me."
"It's not like that," she insisted.
"Then what is it?" he asked, his voice rising a little more, his head tilting to the side, challenging her.
She fought for the words, trying to tell him the truth now. If nothing else, she owed him the truth now. "I wanted to tell you – but I didn't want to hurt you-"
"Oh, that's great," he said, now ice cold. "That's real great."
"I tried-"
"No, you didn't," he snapped. Then he laughed, a short, frustrated laugh that made Theresa uneasy. "I should have figured. Sixteen years and I should have learned by now."
"Learned what?" she cried out from the bed.
He scoffed at her now. "Learned better."
"No." She felt tears brimming up in her eyes. "No, that's not it-"
"Look, man," Eddie said, interrupting all of a sudden. "Give us a sec to put some clothes on, all right? We can talk about this in a minute."
"It's not like he hasn't seen me naked before," Theresa whispered to Eddie.
"Hush," Eddie hissed at her. "You're not helping. Look, man. You're right. It was shitty. Both of us are shitheads. We shoulda said something, cause I mean, you're my friend. And you're her friend. And if we're all friends-"
Ryan was shaking his head, moving back and forth in the doorway. "God. No. I'm sorry. I don't have the right – no. What was I thinking?" He took a deep breath. "I overreacted. I'm sorry."
"Ryan-"
"God, Eddie, I'm sorry. I mean, the last thing you need right now is me, goin' off..." He was still looking away, but now he looked ashamed. And maybe still a little angry, too.
"You have every right, man," Eddie said seriously.
"No," Ryan said firmly. He looked up. "No, I don't. Look, you guys get dressed, or do – whatever. I'm just gonna go. To the precinct. Try to sort Trey's stuff..." He took a deep breath again. "I'll see you later. Eddie, I'm real sorry, man."
"No worries," Eddie said, slightly befuddled as Ryan backed out of the room, hurrying for the door.
Theresa let the blanket slip down a little as she turned to look at Eddie. All of a sudden she didn't want to be naked next to him anymore. The moment had ended long before, and now she was struck by her nudity and the fact that here was Eddie, and he had to deal with things because his father had just died... what was she thinking? She was a horrible, awful, terrible person.
They both heard the door close, and Theresa turned away. She wanted to pretend that it hadn't happened. That everything was still okay.
"You know something?" Eddie asked, and his voice sounded unusually tired.
"Mmmm?" Theresa asked, frowning over the edge of the bed at Eddie's floor.
"You smell like him."
She was silent, and pulled the covers back up over her chest. She felt as though she should be crying for some of this, any of this, but she wasn't feeling quite sad enough to. She only felt confused. She didn't know what had just happened.
"C'mon. Let's go. I'll..." He stopped. "I'll drop you off at home."