She lowers her body onto mine and curls into my chest, placing her palm flat against my pounding heart. “Sometimes I think Rich wanted me to be with Heath because he knew it was the only way he could get me back. Heath was Rich’s best friend and partner, and he was . . . Heath was a good guy. He didn’t do anything halfway. He loved me fiercely and made me feel like I was the most beautiful woman in the world. He was passionate about his job, about me, and about his friendships. That included Rich, so I never dared ask him to push Rich away.”
Sadness seems to seep from her pores, and I realize I never saw this side of her until she started opening up about Rich and Heath. Teagan is happiness and sunshine. It radiates from every inch of her. She sags against the weight of the story, curling into herself as if she can defend her heart from the pain of the memory. Seeing her like this is like watching her fade away. And it kills me.
I stroke her back in gentle circles, trying my best to comfort her.
“Rich and I were both a mess after Heath died. I told you losing Heath made me reckless, but what I didn’t say was . . . I slept with Rich.”
I wait for jealousy to ratchet through me, but it doesn’t. There’s nothing to be jealous of. I want her, but I’d never want to turn into a regret, and that’s all Rich is. “It happens. Grief can make us impulsive.”
She swallows. “The night I buried my boyfriend, I slept with his best friend. We were drinking, and I started crying. Rich held me, and the next thing I knew, we were kissing.” She buries her face in my chest and draws in a long, deep breath. “It wasn’t about sex. Not for me, at least. We were lonely and grieving and comforting each other. But Rich . . .
“I knew it was a mistake immediately. Hell, I think I knew it was a mistake even while it was happening, but Rich didn’t see it like that. He thought we’d be back together in no time. I was still a new nurse and I’d come home from work, exhausted from the long days and the demands of a new job, and he’d be there, waiting for me.”
She’s quiet for a long beat, and I can almost feel her sorting through the memories—analyzing them from every angle and trying to find the right details, the right words. “It was fine at first. I mean, I felt so bad for sleeping with him—for leading him on like that when I knew he was grieving too. I put up with his presence in my life for a while. And at first, I didn’t mind. I was lonely, but at least with Rich around, I wasn’t alone. Then things changed—they’d been changing, but so slowly I hadn’t even realized what was happening, and by the time I realized it, I was already under his control again. Like in high school. He’d show up to my house and grill me about who I’d seen that day. Who I’d been with. His cousin saw me at lunch with another guy—was I fucking him? He’d show up to the hospital and sweet-talk my coworkers and feed them little bits of my life and struggles. He’d tell them I was drinking more, but he was keeping an eye on me. That I wasn’t sleeping, but he was working on getting me to take the sleeping pills the doctor prescribed.
“He made my parents believe we’d fallen in love again while comforting each other. He made all our friends believe we had this secret love. He made them believe I was too ashamed to tell anyone I’d moved on. We weren’t even together as far as I was concerned, and he convinced everyone—everyone—that he was the only steady thing in my life, the only thing keeping me from falling apart completely. He worked them so well that if I dared object and say we weren’t involved, they’d give me a lecture about how I was lucky to have him, how it was okay to move on, how they understood how guilty I must feel but I deserved happiness.”
She shakes her head, and some of that sadness I saw in her eyes before burns away into anger. “I let it go on too long. Because I felt bad for him. Because I knew he was struggling with his own guilt and grief, I kept my mouth shut too long. He copied the keys to my house and always seemed to know where to find me. It wasn’t until later that I realized he put one of those trackers on my phone.”