It was as if nobody truly understood what had happened — nobody truly thought to take a step back and realize just how much of her life had been left in utter ruins in the space of but a few months. The excruciating twist in her throat as Teddy seemed to finally snap — both a relief in the sense that she’d rather he explode than shut her out and enough to shatter what might have been left of her heart beneath the weight of what she’d left him with a year prior. “You say that like I should have calmly accepted the fucking existence of..—” She still couldn’t say it, acceptance of what the man who remained her only other half was one thing, but uttering it aloud was clearly something else entirely. “Nobody in their right mind,” Of which she certainly hadn’t been when he’d told her everything, “would just accept that. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I’d think you’d lost it.” Part of her had done her best to convince herself that it was just that — that she was losing her head, seeing things that weren’t there, but the searing image of his broken skin healing over had warped even that into an impossibility.
Too difficult to consider whether she truly would believe that, despite knowing that Theodore was most definitely not as untouchable as he made himself out to be; a defense mechanism, she knew that it’d been much too hard to believe mostly anything in the weeks after losing Devon and Halloween. Cinda knew what she’d done had been shitty — knew how much it would have affected the people she left behind, Teddy more so than others, but this; the way he bled pain for being left alone was much more than she feared she would find. The glistening of tears that created a softened sheen over crystalline hues begged the brand of forgiveness she so desperately needed for leaving. That he couldn’t see beyond his own need to never be left on his own to see that she truly would never have survived if she hadn’t done what she had. “Tell me.” She spoke, voice much softer under the guise of his raised timbre, “Look at me and tell me if I’d come to you and told you I needed out that you would have been okay with that. Tell me you wouldn’t have found a way to ask me to stay.” The truth was; Lucinda knew that the rejection and the isolation of being on his own were two things that Teddy couldn’t handle. “How was I supposed to ask that of you after everything? After losing Dev?” Features contorted into something agonizing as a broken sob shattered against her lips. “How was I supposed to look at you and find a way to live with myself for leaving you?”
He was leaving; just like that. She could choke on the irony of it and she wondered how long it’d taken Teddy to become so bitter towards her. “This? How this works?” She swallowed back the lump in her throat. This as it it no longer held a label, as if shattered hopes and loyalty had broken across her back as she’d left. “Changed my mind? I’d never had a moment to make up my mind in the first place, your timing really fucking sucked, Teddy.” The bitter taste of a laugh void of humor turned her stomach as she took a few steps towards him. “I left because I didn’t know how in the hell I was supposed to exist in this city anymore. I didn’t know how I was supposed to look at myself in the mirror and accept that I wasn’t good enough to know who my two best friends were? How was I meant to look at myself and not see—-.” Burns and scars and something weakened by a world she knew nothing about; something she almost felt ashamed of. “I left to protect me —- You lied, for years, for the very same reason so you tell me how my mistake is any worse off than you keeping me in the dark for all these years even when it so very clearly did absolutely nothing to keep me alive.”
“I’m sorry I left the way I did. There is nothing I hate more about the choice I made more than leaving you on your own.” How she could so desperately want to reach out again, but never knew how. A single year apart and even after years of being entangled in each others lives, she felt a thousand miles away, even while standing two feet apart. “I loved you.” It broke against her spine like an unforgiving wave as the ache in her chest forced the lingering sheen of tears to spill over darkened lashes, painting tracks through her make up. “I loved you and it turned out that you didn’t trust me with the biggest part of your life so how in the hell was I supposed to trust you with the fact that I was drowning, Teddy.” Furious at herself for breaking, for losing the usually calm nature she could cling to in even the most dire circumstances, she roughly brushed away the streak of tears, hues barely lifting for the heavy weight of embarrassment she found in the vulnerability that trapped her since Devon’s passing. “— You don’t get to keep things like that from me and then be hurt when I deal with it the way I needed to.”
It was like they were speaking two different languages and didn’t even realize it. Maybe he had lost it. Maybe Devon’s death had fucking scarred him for life. But Lucinda had been his best friend. He’d trusted her with the truth and she hadn’t been able to even think it through before her initial reaction to run. To turn away and leave. Yet, even with all of that, Teddy couldn’t blame her. As much as he’d resented her for it, he understood. After all, he’d been the one to leave Harlow high and dry when he’d faced loss. When Ellen had died and he felt like his north star had died in a blinding light. Ellen’s death had been his first encounter with real death and he’d blanched at it and abandoned his best friend at the time. Just as Cinda had with him. He couldn’t blame her. But fuck if he didn’t want to. “Why wouldn’t you want answers then? I would’ve given them to you, Cinda-– I would’ve...” he couldn’t think clearly, head pounding as his heart raced. It felt like he was losing her all over again. “I would’ve done anything. If you’d needed to get out, you don’t think I wouldn’t have asked where? You don’t think I would’ve asked when? You don’t think I would’ve thought for a fucking second of doing anything else other than go with you? To help you get away?”
He knew it was true as he said it. Knew he would’ve packed his bags in a blink if she’d told him she needed to leave. Because the truth was he’d loved her. He’d have done anything for her, except, maybe admit that. At least then. Now? He had nothing to lose because he’d already lost her, hadn’t he? He’d already made it seem like forgiveness was impossible when all he wanted was before. At the end of the day, all he wanted was for them to be okay. He wanted to fucking laugh with her like they had. God. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d laughed like that. The last time he’d fallen asleep beside someone who knew who he was and didn’t hate him for it. Before. But everything was different now. They were different now, except he still saw her as an extension of himself. Cutting her off would be like cutting off his arm and Teddy had always shrunk away from pain. Maybe it’s why even this conversation was tearing him apart. Because he couldn’t shrink away from it. Couldn’t hide from his pain– couldn’t hide from hers.
“We were all drowning.” The city had gone to shit. Devon had been killed. Cinda had nearly died. And before that...he and Devon...they hadn’t known if telling Cinda would be writing her death sentence either. Not with what happened to Matt, not after what happened to Jocelyn or Oliver or Dylan or Robert. How could they have. “And we were wrong, okay? Maybe we should have fucking told you but everyone who died––” and it was like he remembered where they were and he was almost shaking and he couldn’t just keep this in anymore and without so much as a word, he took her by the elbow, pulling her outside of the bar with him, ignoring the onlookers because what was a Saturday night in New York without a spectacle. He didn’t stop until they were halfway down the block and he couldn’t keep walking. He retracted his hand sharply, knowing she’d probably pull her arm away the second she could anyway and turned to face her again, franticness in his eyes as the words came tumbling out. It was probably too late. But she deserved to know. And it wasn’t the fucking time or place but would it ever be?
“Everyone who died,” his voice terse, each word weighing it down, “everyone you heard about–– they were all connected. Everyone. And it wasn’t fucking right, okay? You deserved to know. I get that. I see that. I know that. But we didn’t want you to become one of the people we saw on the news. Matthew, Jocelyn, Oliver, Dylan, Robert, Devon,” All names that had saturated the news cycle that year, “they were all part of this world. And they all were killed. We didn’t want anything to happen to you and I fucking know it’s a stupid excuse but that’s the truth. And you deserve that. I know it’s too late....but you deserve that, Lucinda.”
He meant every word. He should’ve said something. Even if it was about himself. Even if Devon didn’t want to tell her what she was to protect her. Teddy wished he’d been more selfish back then, to avoid all of this. To have just told her everything when he realized what she’d meant. Because it was all too late to fix now and he was scraping at the bottom of an empty barrel of appeals. Nothing could mend what had been broken and all he could hope was that he’d given Cinda another piece to the puzzle of her life she was trying to fit back together. Another piece to stack away with the others he’d left her with when he’d told her the truth. It seemed that, even a year later – standing opposite the one person who’d always meant the most to him, the truth was always going to make itself known, one way or another.
2087
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