Any one of those could have been me, and they’re a reminder to stay on track and away from the vices that can rule me.
But with Teagan it’s different. She’s no longer the rich girl from the other side of the lake, and she’s not Bob, whose time in the war has scrambled his brain, and the only way he can survive now is to drown the memories. She’s become part of this town, brushstrokes in a painting that give it light.
She’s getting close to the bottom, and I want to do something to ease the fall.
On Monday I get confirmation that Teagan is on the rocks.
I’m working on the framing for the Wesleys’ outdoor bar. The pool is closed for the season, but their college-aged daughter and her friend have found a reason to prance around in bikinis. They’re taking these thirty-second videos and then jumping in the hot tub to warm up. It’s a special level of ridiculous, but I do my best to ignore them.
Their mom comes out, and I’m hoping she’s going to tell them it’s time to come inside, but she doesn’t.
“Aaron?” She stands at the door, questioning smile firmly in place.
“What can I do for you, ma’am?”
Her left eye twitches once. It happens every time I use the word ma’am. “The designer from Footprint Construction needs a word.”
It takes me a moment to make the connection that she’s talking about Teagan, who appears behind her. I haven’t seen her since Thursday. She looked worse for wear then, but it’s got nothing on how she looks now.
Her eyes are sunken, the hollow dark, and she looks like she’s lost even more weight. Which is saying something because she didn’t have weight to lose in the first place.
She thanks Mrs. Wesley and heads my way, a huge, fake smile plastered on her face. She waves to the girls in the hot tub with a little too much enthusiasm to look natural. “Hey! I’m so glad I caught you!” She gives me a hug, which is . . . unexpected.
I wrap my arms around her, feeling a lot like I’m hugging a potentially rabid bunny. Teagan looks harmless, but I’m very aware of what’s on the other side of that sunshiny smile and what happens when her defenses are up.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” she whispers in my ear.
I release her and step back. I take her in, how exhausted she looks, how her eyes are slow to track. She looks frail. “Yeah, of course. Is this Stitch related or us related?”
“Us related.” She twists her fingers and glances over her shoulder. “I know you’re at work. I probably should’ve waited until you were off today, but I missed you. I know I made a mess of things. I’ve had some time to think, and I see that now. There are a few important things I need to tell you.”
I tuck a few strands of her hair behind her ear, wanting to believe what she’s telling me but worried about her motives. “I missed you too. And you didn’t make a mess of things, Teagan. No one’s perfect, and every relationship has bumps. We can get through this. I’ll be done in an hour. Unless it can’t wait.”
“I guess it can wait. I know I interrupted in the middle of your workday.” She keeps chewing on the inside of her lip, to the point I’m starting to worry that she’s going to break the skin.
“I just . . . maybe I could wait for you at your place? I could borrow your key?”
My house key is in my truck, where I always keep it during the workday.
“I could meet you at your place if that’s easier. Then you don’t have to wait around.”
Her jaw works. There’s a small clear Band-Aid on her chin, and the skin around it is purplish and bruised. She reaches out and links her finger with mine. “I thought maybe I could pick up some of the stuff you took from my medicine cabinet when you were upset with me.”
The small seed of hope that she’s here because she wants to work things out withers and dies. I know that she cares about me, but I also know she’s struggling and that her need to find a way to cope is trumping those feelings. It doesn’t make it hurt any less. I cross my arms. “So this actually isn’t about us at all.”
Her face crumples with confusion. “What do you mean? Yes it is. You were mad at me for not taking care of myself, and now I am. I’m going to see my doctor on Monday. I just need some extra help to get me through the weekend. I have to drive to Chicago, and I’m not getting enough sleep. I always sleep better next to you.” Her hand comes to rest on my chest, and she smiles up at me. “When I can feel your heartbeat.”
I feel like I’m going to be sick as I place my hand over hers. I hate that I didn’t see this sooner. That I didn’t see how hard this all was for her or the path she’d wandered onto. What I’m about to say next is going to determine a lot of things. Like how deep in the hole she truly is. “You can come over, and we can talk, and if after that you still want to stay, you’re more than welcome, but I don’t have any of that stuff I took.”
Her smile drops into a frown, and her cheek tics. “What do you mean, you don’t have it? What did you do with it?”
“I got rid of it all. The prescriptions were a year out of date. They’re not even any good anymore after that. I brought them back to the pharmacy.” That way someone couldn’t dig them out of the trash and use them.
Her lip curls into a sneer, and her eyes flare with ire. “You had no right! Those were mine, and I needed them, and you threw them away?” Her voice rises, scaring a few squirrels and birds in the nearby trees.
“You need to keep your voice down, Teagan.”
“Don’t tell me to keep my voice down! You stole from me!” And now she’s full-on shouting.
I grind my teeth together, fighting to stay in control. I take her hand and pull her toward the gate.
“What are you doing? Let go of me!”
“You are making a scene, and you’re embarrassing yourself.” I drop my voice, but it shakes with my anger and frustration. Anger that these pills have such a hold on her. That they override her logic. Frustration that she can’t see what her addiction is doing to her. How it’s breaking her down. That I’m losing her, and I can’t fix her or make her better.
I throw a glare toward the girls still sitting in the hot tub, eyes wide, phones in their hands, and call out, “Don’t even think about it.” The last thing Teagan needs is someone recording her having a public meltdown and accusing me of stealing from her. I can imagine the kind of gossip that would result.
That seems to stop her, at least until we get to the driveway. “Why would you do that to me? Why would you throw away my prescriptions?”
“They were past their expiration, Teagan.”
“So? There was nothing wrong with them! And it wasn’t your place.”
I raise my hands. “Okay, you’re right. I shouldn’t have thrown them out, but honestly, Teagan, me tossing them isn’t the real issue, and you know it.”