i only ever cared for ------
teresa doesn’t know what it’s like to love and be loved in return. not for any extended period of time, at least. for her, attachment is something that’s fleeting at best; heartbreaking at worst.
after watching her mother and father succumb to the flare, she was ridiculed and abandoned by the remainder of her village because she was immune. even her brother, ricky, fled with the villagers, claiming teresa ( deedee ) was a demon. we can’t be certain how long she was left alone with the rotting dead bodies, but it’s inferred she was alone for weeks? at a time. think about the despair she felt. the fear. the overwhelming sense of loneliness.
then, her rescuers arrive. specifically, trina. they decide to take teresa with them, as trina has immediately grown attached to her and can’t imagine leaving such a little girl behind. over the course of their time together, trina and teresa grow very close. teresa is observed multiple times to cling onto trina like a mother/big sister figure. she’s someone she can depend upon and trust ---- that is, until trina contracts the flare and goes mad right in front of teresa’s eyes. thus, this is her second sense of attachment and loss, as every one of her rescuers succumbs to the flare. her new family is gone.
then, she becomes property of wicked. emphasis on property. though teresa and thomas were considered special, they were isolated. for a time, they were even isolated from one another. they were treated like subjects --- they attended class and completed assignments for wicked, but that was it. that was the extent of it. teresa is a smart girl, and she was well-aware of her status in wicked. she wasn’t there to bond with the psychs and doctors. she wasn’t there to make friends.
and yet she did. with thomas, she found her best friend. the first person her age she was allowed to met, and the person she shared a mental connection with. the person who she worked closely with to build the maze from the ground up, and the person who made her feel less completely alone in the world. while the rest of the gladers got to sleep, eat, and hang out in common areas, teresa’s only source of comfort was thomas. he was, truly, her best and only friend.
tl;dr --- you can’t underestimate how much teresa really did love thomas. he was the only person more important to her than finding a solution to the flare. she would sacrifice herself or any of the others for the sake of humanity, but not thomas. did she do some messed up things? absolutely, but everything she did revolved around keeping him safe and finding a cure. whether on a friendship level or more, she genuinely did only ever care for him. so much so that she died to protect him :/
