Page 116 of Try & Resist
She glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t play with me, Theadora Sloane.”
No one else in my life full-named me. I wasn’t even sure anyone else knew it, which had always felt like a small mercy.
“I’m not playing.” I might’ve been a little. Talking feelings was hard, so sue me.
She finally glanced over her shoulder, eyebrow raised. “Yes, I’m making your favorite fruit and yogurt. Because you forget to eat when you’re upset. And because it’s the only thing you’ll tolerate when your stomach’s in knots. Now…” She turned back to the counter. “Talk.”
I leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling, the corners of my mouth betraying me. “He makes me happy,” I said finally, and then winced at myself for how easily it came out. “Which feels like a wildly inappropriate thing to say, given… everything.”
Giving me space, she kept slicing fruit with careful attention. There was something so comforting about this moment; I’d lived it before with her. Listening to me talk as she made me food.It was the way we’d decompress after school. Natalie truly had been there for everything when I’d grown up.
“I don’t think that’s how life works, my darling.”
I swallowed roughly. “I don’t want to be careless…”
Natalie finally glanced over her shoulder then, her expression to the point, eyebrows raised. “You and I both know, you aren’t someone who’s careless with anything that matters.”
That almost undid me more than sympathy would have, because Natalie knew me. I had nowhere to hide with her. The notion both scared and empowered me.
“I remember the little girl who triple-checked her laces before every game,” Natalie went on. “Who packed her school bag the night before and still opened it again in the morning, just to make sure. You never rushed into things, even back then. You thought them through. You always have.”
She turned fully toward me now, resting her hip against the counter. “Careless has never been your problem. Carrying too much on your own is.”
I looked down at my hands, the faint smile gone now, replaced with something much more complicated. Wanting him felt light and dangerous all at once, and I didn’t know how to hold that alongside the fear without dropping one or the other.
Behind us, the sound of the shower shifted, reminding me he was still here, that I still very much wanted him to be.
“Every part of me knows how this goes.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Enlighten me.”
My fingers curled together, knuckles pressing white. “We’ll be together, it’ll be hard, there will be media, opinions, and then then something interferes, and he leaves.”
Natalie laughed, and it caught me off guard. “It sounds like you’re the one with one foot out the door, Teddy, not him.”
Was I? I’d been so focused on the inevitability of his leaving that I hadn’t stopped to consider how tightly I was alreadyholding myself back. How much of this I’d been managing before it ever had the chance to hurt me.
“I don’t leave,” I said finally, more reflex than conviction. “I stay. I endure.”
Natalie’s expression faltered, but she didn’t let me off the hook. “Is happiness something youendure? Is that how I raised you?”
The question lingered between us, uncomfortably exposed.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. No clever answer came. “No, it wasn’t. You taught me everything I know.” It was the truth, and I’d never be able to show her how grateful I was.
“Then you should know that happiness isn’t a weakness we have. As women, it’s one of our strengths. The world is very good at telling women to be smaller, quieter, easier to live with. And I watched too many brilliant women swallow joy just to make other people comfortable.”
She set the knife down and really looked at me. “I wanted you to know early that your happiness isn’t something to apologize for. Life is beautiful and you are strong. Don’t you remember what we used to say before bed, every night?”
I took a deep breath. “Stand tall.”
“And don’t apologize for it,” she whispered. I’d carried those words with me for so long and applied them to my life… I guess at some point, I forgot that standing tall didn’t mean I had to close myself off, and yet, I had.
I stared down at the table. “You don’t think I’m tempting fate?”
She snorted. “Fate doesn’t need your help, sweetheart. It’s got its own thing going on.” Then she placed the bowl of fruit and yogurt in front of me, and I sighed with relief at her knowing me so intently. “I didn’t raise you to survive your life,” she added. “I raised you to take up space in it, the way I’m sure your mama would’ve wanted.”
I nodded, grief wandering around me like a fog but sitting with her words for a beat, when my phone started ringing from the bedroom. I shot to my feet, the chair legs scraping loudly against the floor as adrenaline flooded my system, already moving before I thought about it. My heart thudded hard enough that I felt it in my throat.
