The woman who had asked if I needed help, left to report my answer to the others.
I continued searching through the sweaters. It took Teddy less than ten seconds before he was in a friendly Everything About Surfing conversation with the three young men who worked there. There was an animated looking at charts, a descriptive discussion of surf spots, a bitch-session about the weather, and a respectfully competitive piss-match over which locale had better surfing. I guessed California would win, no contest. But I had stopped listening because Teddy’s dark brown hair curled against his neck, his jawline angled, and his back stretched as he ripped the tags off his new coat’s sleeves. He put on the coat and it fell in angles across his wide shoulders. I shook my head to clear it as he said, “. . . she charges down the line.”
I strode over and asked, “Who does?”
He said, “You. I was telling them about your surfing.”
Oh.
Me.
Teddy was talking about me.
See that was the thing about Teddy, he was an amazing surfer and yet he bragged about me. I blushed. One guy asked what kind of board I rode. I answered, “A five-eleven thruster.”
He nodded. Then he said, “You know I hope you pressed charges on the bloke that broke your face.”
I nodded and turned away toward the windows looking out over the street.
Teddy said, “If you ever get the chance to come to LA, me and Sid could take you out.” He had made friends. Ten minutes in and he had friends he hoped to surf with.
He pulled out his wallet and his credit card. “Sid, did you find a coat?”
“No, I couldn’t . . .”
“What you’re wearing doesn’t look warm enough.”
“I know I just—I bought a coat, just a few days ago. It feels weird to buy another one. I don’t know . . .”
Everyone was looking at me and my face was hot and my nose throbbed, actually my entire head throbbed, and I kind of felt like crying again. Trouble was: penance. I needed to not buy myself a coat because I had already caused so much aggravation. Spent too much of everyone’s good will and energy. I needed to make do. Maybe go sit in the corner, near the umbrellas.
Teddy blinked and paused, like he was trying to figure my whole thing out. Then he nodded slightly. “An umbrella though, you need an umbrella.” The guy behind the cash register pulled one from a bucket and placed it on the counter. Teddy spun for a second, stepped to a table of knit hats, and picked up one that was a pale gray, fluffy, wool. “Try this.” I pulled it over my head; it was crazy soft. He said, “Matches your eyes. Let me buy it. Christmas present.”
“Teddy you already flew to London to rescue me.”
He squinted his eyes, “You can’t argue with Christmas presents, do you like it?”
I looked in a mirror.
I did. I liked it, and if I pulled it way down to shadow my darkened eyes, it helped me not look so obviously tragic. Plus it would probably look pretty on me once I healed.
Teddy bought me the hat and the umbrella. Then I layered his older coat over my coat from home, and we raced to the hostel, through the rain, but not nearly as wet and cold this time.
One Hundred Fourteen
Teddy
The lounge was full. The rain made it so that no one should go outside unless they were committed to going out. Sid and I stood for a second taking stock. I pointed, “We need chairs, grab that one.” She beelined for an easy chair near the bookcase. I walked to the other side of the room, asked a group if we could take one of theirs, and then hoisted it over my head and carried it across the crowded room, the pillow slouched down almost over my eyes. I tried to look cool, but probably looked like an idiot wrestling an easy chair.
I dropped mine right beside Sid’s, creating a triangle with the bookcase. “So what do we do now? Spotify is playing . . . what even is this?”
Sid grumbled, “I think it’s Justin Bieber. England has so much great music and the hostel’s playlist is American pop. She looked around the room. Can’t tell who has the remote, I think we’re stuck listening to it.”
Outside the windows it was rainy and dark. “We’ll be stuck here all day, apparently. I should look up passport offices. The US embassy?”
She winced and gingerly rubbed her temple and asked, “Can I have some of your water?” She dug through her bag and unscrewed the lid on what looked like pain meds.
“Head hurt?”
“My whole everything hurts.” She swigged down two pills and leaned back in the chair. “I keep wondering what my mom would say, she’d probably be totally disappointed in me.” She closed her eyes.
“I don’t think she’d be disappointed at all, maybe sad. Maybe worried. This is not your fault.”
Sid opened one eye. “What do you know? Nothing. You don’t know anything. This is all my fault, I flew to London to be with a guy that did this to my face. So unless you know what you’re talking about you—”
“Ouch, Sid, that was rough—I get it, your face hurts, but don’t be a dick.” I stuffed the water bottle in the bag. “The thing is, the reason I don’t know anything is because my closest friend didn’t tell me anything. Ever. For years. You can keep secrets, but don’t use it against me when I don’t know them.” I zipped up my bag and when I looked at her, she was watching me quietly.
“I’m sorry.”
“You get a headache pass. This time.” I tried to cut the sting with a smile.
“No I mean I’m sorry that I never told you about Mom.” Her fingers wrapped around the bottom edge of her shirt. “I just . . . at the time it was too hard to talk about. Cameron said—”
I interrupted, “Cameron knew?”
“He would see, when he spent the night. He was my boyfriend, remember?”
“Yeah. I remember, I’m just surprised.” I brushed an imaginary speck off my pants. “You could tell me now.”
“Or I could just keep it all inside and let it erupt later, when I can afford the psychiatrist.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “How’s that working out for you so far?”
She nodded.
“I don’t think it’s okay to keep it inside. I loved your mom. She was great, possibly the best, and I don’t know, I think I can hear the bad and still remember how awesome she was.”
Sid chewed her lip. She nodded slowly. “It’s hard to explain. It was like life, you know, everyday life, but then Mom kept getting worse and worse. And she would have these moments—Dad called them her freak outs—and they were . . .” Her eyes went far away and her arms folded across her middle. “I don’t know how to describe them—her freak outs sucked. When we were inside them it was like a terrible storm, but then it would pass. It would be Mom. Just Mom. And I could forget that the storm was even there.” She looked at me with her brow knit, and I nodded so she would keep going.
She leaned down and yanked at her laces until her feet were freed from her boots. Then she pulled her feet up under her and rested her cheek on her fist studying the threadbare arm of the chair. She said, “This is what it was like—I was treading water in a pool and I was good at treading water. I was proud of it, and she was proud of me, and my head was up, and everything was okay. I’m smiling and everyone is smiling and what I didn’t know was that more water was pouring in. It was getting deeper, Teddy. There was no way I could keep treading. And I got tired and there wasn’t any way to get to the wall. But that’s the thing—I didn’t notice until it was too late. That’s the worst part. Nothing seems that bad until everything is awful and now you’re drowning. And guess what? You know who should pull you out of the water? Your Mom.” A tear slid down Sid’s face.
I asked, “Do you know why she drank so much?”
“Dad said she was abused as a kid. And she never dealt with it until somehow she stopped wanting to deal with anything.” She collapsed down, her arms wrapped around her head.
“Oh Sid. I’m so sorry.”
She said, “I’m crying in the
middle of everybody.”
“It’s okay.” I pushed the arm of her chair so she was facing the shelves, her back to the room. I turned my chair to face hers, close. “It’s okay, no one is even looking.” I lied. Lots of people were nervously glancing our direction.
She sniffled and then softly, quietly, from underneath her arms said, “I loved her so much and she was so mean sometimes, and I said some awful things to her and I hurt her feelings and now she’s gone—”
“Aw Sid.” I didn’t know what to say. This was all so big. I put my hand on the arm of her chair, wanting to hold on, keep her from floating away.
“I don’t know where to put it. I loved her and sometimes I hated her and when she was slurring, I felt ashamed. I had to hide it from you. I couldn’t bear it if you knew—” She stopped talking, her body wracked with quiet sobs. I wanted to hold her, but the best I could do was hold her ankles, her wool-sock-covered feet. It was the closest thing and the least disruptive. I held Sid’s feet while she cried.
Again, me and Sid, we never did things the normal way.
One Hundred Fifteen
For instance
My trip to the UK (that I had planned months and months ago) with Sid was going to be different from this.
It would be early spring for the best waves.
We would fly Virgin first class. Together.
We would stay in London for two nights and go see Westminster Abbey, the burial place of Mary Queen of Scots.
Then we would ride the train to Edinburgh and stay four nights and go do all the Mary stuff.
Then to Thurso, Scotland for freezing cold surfing. Three days.
Then we would take the train south to Cornwall, Fistral Beach, to be exact, and stay three nights at the Surf and Stay Lodge, surfing.
Then we would fly out of London home.
One Hundred Sixteen
Teddy
Sid said weakly, “I don’t know what to do with it all.”
“I know, I don’t either. That’s big Sid, and scary and—you have to figure out how to forgive.”
She sniffled. “I know, but it’s hard. I do forgive her, but she’s gone, I can’t tell her.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant. I mean you have to forgive yourself. You. Sid. You’re a kid, barely grown up, and you have a right to be treated kindly. You’re also human, you get to make mistakes, you get to stick up for yourself, and you have to do your best, right? You do. You have to do the best you can, and when the best you can do sucks, you have to forgive yourself and do better next time.”
“With my mom there aren’t any more next times.”
I nodded, “That’s true, but that’s also the whole point of this life. You have to grow up and forward. Your next times have to be with new people, new relationships. The people who love you who are still here.” She nodded again, pulled one arm off her head. Still curled, she looked at me with lidded, saddened, beaten, swollen eyes. “I can’t ask her if she forgives me.”
“She does, she did, I’m sure of it.”
“How can you be?”
“Because I saw your mom forgive you for some really bratty moments. You argued with her about everything yet she always saw the best in you.”
Sid smiled through her tears. “Thank you.”
She straightened and wiped her eyes with her sleeve, being careful of the bruises. I jumped up and grabbed a box of tissues and handed it to her. “What did she say to you, the last time you talked to her?”
“It was in the hospital. I told her you kissed me right here.” Sid tearfully smiled as she pointed below her belly button. “And she said, ‘It’s about time.’”
I chuckled. “She was my biggest fan, I miss her greatly.”
Sid nodded, gingerly wiped her eyes, and gently blew her nose with an, “Ow.” Then she settled back in her chair and fiddled with the Kleenex box. “So, I have to forgive myself.”
“Yep, for everything shitty that you said, for all the hate that you felt, the shame, the fear, you have to give yourself a fucking break for it. All of it.”
Sid gave one of the saddest smiles, a smile that pushed aside a swollen cheek under a broken nose inside of a sob and covered in tears. “I have to forgive myself for letting a rock star beat me up?”
“Especially for that—and heads up, Cassie is headed over.”
Sid groaned, “Man, I don’t want her to see me crying.” She tried to wipe her eyes with her wadded up wet tissue, but then jumped up, overturning the Kleenex box to the ground, and pushed by Cassie, with a quick, hi, and crossed the lounge to the stairs.
One Hundred Seventeen
Sid
As I fled the lounge Cassie said, “What’s going on with Sid? I thought you two were planning to keep it light, play games, or something.” I sprinted up the stairs, turning away my splotchy-traumatized-beaten-up and crying face as I passed people in the halls. I shoved the door open on the bathroom, checked under the doors of the stalls for feet, and found myself alone. I leaned on the counter and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked like hell. I needed to pull myself together, but there weren’t many solutions for this much drama.
Using a paper towel I gingerly wiped warm water on my cheeks, careful not to get the bandages wet, and then cool water compresses on my eyes. Again gingerly—ouch—touching hurt. I looked again. Still awful.
What I needed was makeup. Some coverup. My mascara, scratch that, eyes were too swollen and wounded, but maybe some brow pencil. Some lipstick in deep red, to draw the eye down to my mouth, the only non-wounded place on the whole face.
This is what I needed to do:
Go to the drug store or whatever they had here in London and buy makeup. Also rubber bands for my hair.
Go to the embassy or wherever it is one goes to get a new passport made.
Buy a new phone.
Get Dad to buy me a plane ticket home.
Crap. This all sounded like a lot of work.
Unless . . .
When I returned, Teddy jumped up. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m better, thanks Teddy.” I sat down in the chair and he perched on the arm.
I chewed my lip. “I decided I want to go get my stuff.”
His face darkened. “You don’t need to, I was just researching about your passport. We can leave right now, replace it.”
“It’s not just my passport though. I can call my phone and tell Gavin to put my stuff outside in the hallway. Plus I ought to—”
Cassie sighed.
Teddy said, “Wait, you ought to what?”
I ignored Teddy’s question. “He’ll give it to me, if I ask.”
Cassie squinted her eyes, “I know I’m new here, but that’s not the issue . . . we should go to the police. File charges. Have them get your things for you.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t want him arrested—it’s just—”
Cassie said, “Filing charges is the only thing that makes sense, it protects you, ends your relationship, makes it so that this won’t happen again.”
“He won’t hurt me.”
Cassie blew out a big gust of air and dropped back in her chair.
I continued, “And it would be so much easier than replacing my passport, my makeup, my phone, my clothes. My backpack belonged to Mom. I want it.”
Cassie said, “Here’s the thing, when a guy is like that, he’s going to be all apologetic. He’ll say it’s because he’s a victim. He might blame you. He might get angry again. He might beg you to give him another chance.”
I glanced at Teddy. He was flexing his hands on his knees staring at the bookcase. Listening, not saying a word. But his face said a lot, he was uncomfortable, pissed. I did not want to talk about Gavin in front of Teddy. At all.
I took a deep breath. “It won’t work. He can beg me all he wants. I know why he’s the way he is, and it’s no excuse, because my mom taught me one thing with her whole life, and it’s that people don’t have to be that hard and mean and s
cary. I don’t want any part of it.”
Cassie said, “We ought to go with you then, right Teddy?”
He stared straight ahead, “Absolutely.” His easy smile was gone. His eyes were focused and his jaw set.
“I don’t think—seriously, I should go on my own, this is my mess.”
Teddy was already shoving his arms in his coat.
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
Teddy shook his head like that stung, “I won’t do anything to him if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Cassie said, “You’re under control, right Teddy?”
“Yep.”
One Hundred Eighteen
Sid Texts Her Own Phone
Gavin, this is Sid.
I want you to put all of my stuff
in my suitcase
so I can pick it up.
Sid, listen, can we talk?
I need to talk to you.
No. Just put my stuff in my bag.
Put it outside your door.
I have nothing to say.
One Hundred Nineteen
Sid
We stowed all of our things on our bunks and left to walk down to Gavin’s apartment. I was scared, shaky, and couldn’t think of anything to say. Like this moment was grave. Cassie didn’t speak either, maybe she felt it too. And Teddy was . . . it was hard to describe—he had gone silent, his face impassive. His fists jammed into his pockets; he had turned to stone. It was scaring me that he was gone like this. Going like this. Was he mad at me? Was this a huge mistake?
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