Page 54

Forty-One

Stella

In all the years I have known Teddy, I’ve never been truly furious with him. He’s made me mad a million times probably, with his carelessness or his antics. Nothing like this. He’s never hurt me before. But this betrayal rips me in two and fills me with such anger, I feel like imploding.

I find Teddy sunning himself on the deck, hat covering his face. I knock it off with a swift flick of my hand.

He jumps to his feet. “What gives, Stell? Gus said I had an hour to nap before we get back to the salvage site.”

“You said he was fickle and wanted to find his next adventure. That he didn’t care about me. But you lied. You told him to go, didn’t you?” I choke out.

“What are you talking about?” Teddy asks. “What did Huck say?”

“He didn’t say anything! I figured it out…it’s all in the book. I’m Lucky, and he’s Finn…You’re Tim. And you’re the reason he left me behind, admit it.” Even as I speak the words, I can’t fully fathom them.

Teddy hangs his head, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. The guilt in his body language says it all. But I still don’t understand. How much of what Huck wrote was true?

“Why?” It comes out as a wail.

Teddy still doesn’t answer, and rage swells up in me again, lava hot and liquid. It threatens to spew out.

“Tell me why. You owe me that, Ted. Because I’ve been going around and around in circles, and I can’t figure it out.”

Teddy fixes his hat on his head. His face is splotched with red, and his eyes are glassy. I can’t tell if he’s been drinking again or if this is emotion.

I push him. Not hard, just one sharp shove, to snap him out of it. “Tell me!” I yell.

“I was losing you,” he says, voice strained.

The boat pitches slightly beneath us and I have to grab the rail to keep my footing. No. This makes no sense. I think back to the scene from Huck’s book. The confession between the two men. It couldn’t be true. I stare at him.

“Don’t you understand, Stella? I was going to lose you to him, and I couldn’t, I couldn’t.”

Confusion softens me. “You’re my best friend,” I say, “you could never lose—”

“I don’t want to be your friend,” he shouts.

I recoil, and his face twists at my reaction.

He tries to pull back, regaining control of his voice.

“All these years, I’ve tried to let friend be enough for me.

I wanted to be content just being your pal and going on our trips.

Why do you think I bankrolled everything?

Then we went to Iceland and Zoe and Gus got together and I thought, why not, all these years those two were right next to each other, being just friends, like us, and then they were so much more.

It seemed so easy. I thought maybe you and I could have that too.

That Iceland was my chance, I’d tell you how I feel and that would be that.

I went to the bathroom to give myself a mirror pep talk and I send you to the bar to buy the drinks and in comes fucking Sully.

Of all the people who could have been there at that moment, it had to be him.

My friend. You never want to be with anyone, and then you go and fall for him. ”

I wince.

“I swear I tried so hard to be satisfied with just being beside you, and it nearly destroyed me. I wanted…I want to be more than that. I want to be the guy who lights you up from the inside out. That you want to spend the night on the beach with. When we get back from trips I want you to come home with me. And in one day I could see it on your face; you were already gone.”

“Why should I believe you? You were always with a new girl.”

“Yeah, and every time I wished it was you. Every time. But I knew you weren’t ready for a relationship.

Only I knew that. I understood what your family stuff did to you, and I was patient, and I waited.

I was biding my time until you were ready.

And then Huck appears and everything changes.

Suddenly he’s the thing that makes you believe that love isn’t trash. ”

“None of this makes sense. Maybe before, but if things changed in Iceland, you didn’t! You hooked up with our diving guide.”

“Why do you think I got hammered and came home early? Nothing happened.”

I turn from him, letting the wind carry his words away. “And that’s supposed to change things? You lied to me.”

“I’ve loved you as long as I have known you,” Teddy says, closing the distance between us. “I’ve loved you since you snatched my wallet and thought I didn’t see. I’ve loved you since you showed up on that beach.”

I swallow as Teddy takes my hand in his.

I think about how quiet he’s been this trip, the stupid risks, the excessive drinking.

I knew something wasn’t right, but I never would have thought that it would be this.

I feel sick. How could I have missed it all this time?

I turn to peer at his face. He looks the same, but he feels like a stranger, someone I don’t know or understand.

“I’ve always loved you, Stella,” he says.

For an instant, I let myself wonder if there was ever a moment that I loved Teddy like that too.

It’s impossible now. Maybe it always was.

I do love him, but not in the same way, not in the way that he’s talking about, and I can’t get past the lies.

He loved me while he paid for these trips I wasn’t even sure he wanted to go on; while he watched me go off with strangers for a night of fun; stood by as I fell in love with Huck and then told Huck to leave?

I wrestle my hand out of his grip. “You don’t love me. Maybe you love the idea of me, Ted. But you couldn’t. If you did, you would have never asked someone to wound me in the worst way possible.”

“C’mon, Stella, I didn’t—”

“Do you know what I felt like on that beach? As if someone took me up to the top of the world and showed me everything beautiful, everything I could have, everything I’ve wanted, and then pulled the ladder from beneath my feet. I plummeted. I haven’t felt so alone since my dad abandoned me.”

The color drains out of Teddy’s face. “I didn’t think of it like that.”

“Of course you didn’t. You’ve never been left behind.

You’ve never had to face the world entirely alone.

When my dad left, I didn’t know where I was going to sleep or if I could find food or if I was safe.

I didn’t know what would happen. I was so afraid.

And devastated. The whole world was going on with their stupid volleyball and their splashing in the surf like nothing happened, while I lost the only person I had left who cared about me at all.

Or who I thought cared about me. You have a family.

You never have had to worry about food or money.

Your entire life has been this privileged protected existence.

The first time you think you’re not going to get what you want, you blow it all up.

If you can’t have me, no one can, is that it?

That’s not love, Teddy. Not even close.”

“Stella. That’s not true. I lost it.”

“What?”

“My money. I lost it all. That’s why Huck was here—I couldn’t fund the trip.

He reached out and he was focused on his book and he had all this cash, and I didn’t want to let you down.

I didn’t want to risk having him here, but I didn’t want to disappoint you.

I know how much these trips mean to you. ”

“No,” I say. “You don’t get to act like you made some noble sacrifice because of your feelings for me. I don’t want any more of your lies. I’ve heard enough.”

“I’m sorry, Stella. I never meant to hurt you, I swear. I would never do that. I was just desperate.”

“Maybe that’s true. But you did hurt me, Teddy.

” I swipe at a tear that is sliding down my cheek.

“When my dad disappeared, I couldn’t figure out what I’d done.

All I knew was that for some reason I wasn’t even worth saying goodbye to.

Then I met Huck and I felt like I’d met someone who saw me, who knew the dark stuff inside, my doubts and fears, and he still wanted me.

I thought, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I am enough for the right person, that the sun could rise and set with me for him, and likewise.

Then he left me too. It confirmed my worst fears—that I am not someone worth sticking around for.

And then, he came back and we had another chance and I was so close to happiness, I was, it was right there in my hands.

You have no idea what it took for me to risk my heart again.

Now he’s gone. It hurts more than the first time. ”

Teddy’s expression is pained. “I didn’t know that.”

“You’re the reason why he left this time too, right?

You kicked him off the boat.” I shake my head, swallowing my anger.

“I hated Huck for leaving me, and it was so hard to forgive him. He’s not innocent here and he was stuck between you and the person he fell for.

But you, what you did was worse. You made him go.

You forced his hand. You used your connection with him to break my heart.

Every moment of heartache, of blaming myself for not being worthy of sticking around…

was because of you.” I pull in a deep breath.

“But we finally found what we were searching for, Stella! What we’ve been seeking all of these years. We found it.”

“No. I still haven’t found the Heart. Even without it I thought I’d found what I was looking for, but now…I don’t believe anything. We should’ve left it all at the bottom of the ocean. Better yet, I wish I’d never started searching.”

“You don’t mean that. Not now. Not when it’s within our reach!” He turns to gesture at the sea around us.

The boat pitches and Teddy struggles to absorb the motion.

I clench the deck rail tight in my fist. “Actually, I do. When this trip is over, so is all of this. So are we. I never want to see you again.”