'Cl- clothes Teddy. You, um, you need clothes. Well, pants. Put, pu- put some pants on. Yeah, put pants on before she gets here.' I fumble through my room and all my drawers trying to find a pair of bottoms to slip on. My hands tremor and my breathing and still shallow and sporadic while I stand at the door, waiting for the knock and in just under 10 minutes there is a tap. Before she has time to tap again, I pull open the door and throw my arms around her.
I feel Addison's arms quickly return the embrace, "Teds? What happened? What's wrong?" her silvery voice soothes over my frantic body.
Tears stream down my face as my nightmare continues to linger in my both my visual and auditory memories. At a failed attempt to breathe, a coughing fit forces me to pull out of Addie's warm, comforting embrace and buckle over on the floor.
"Okay. Okay." Addie quickly kneels beside me and rubs my back, "Babe, you need to sit up so that your lungs can get air. Okay? Can you do that?"
I shake my head.
"Please? It's really important Teds."
I try to stop coughing as I slowly sit back on my heels.
"Good. Now I need you to take as deep of breaths as you can without coughing, and I'm going to go get you some water."
I take a couple shaky breaths to show her that I understand and then she leaves. I continue, and try to clear my mind of what happened prior in the night. She returns with an orange plastic cup half full of tap water, "slowly drink this."
I comply.
"Better?"
"Yeah," I nod.
"Are you ready to talk about it?"
"Not really." I whisper, staring into the empty cup between my hands.
"Teddy, you need to stop bottling everything up inside. I love you, so I'm going to be blunt with you. What you're doing isn't health. You're destroying yourself from the inside. All the feelings that you keep shoving deeper and deeper down are eating you away, they're showing up in your dreams for fucks sake Theodora." Her use of my full name really caught my attention, it was EXACTLY like getting a lecture from Arizona. "They're detrimental to your health. So if you don't want to talk to me, then, at least, talk to a therapist or one of the schools counselor/therapist people. Damn. Please don't go down this path." I can see the tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes. Then it happens, she blinks, and a clear droplet rolls down each side of her smooth ivory face. I reach up and wipe them away, and without hesitation, I did what I have wanted to do since I met her, I closed the gap between us.
YOU ARE READING
Life After You
FanfictionIt's been a year since Arizona's death. Teddy and Maura have gone their separate ways, but have come back together to remember the life that they shared with their best friend. Second book to "The First Cut is the Deepest". It was a year ago that...
