But there’s more to it than that. There’s a reason Teddy doesn’t usually have people over, even though his mom works nights as a nurse. Their whole apartment is only two rooms—three if you count the bathroom. The kitchen is basically just a small tiled area tucked off in the corner, and Teddy has the only bedroom. His mom sleeps on the pullout couch while he’s at school, a detail that makes it glaringly obvious they don’t have the same kind of money as most of our classmates.
But I’ve always loved it here. After Teddy’s dad walked out on them, they had to give up their spacious two-bedroom apartment in Lincoln Park, and this was all they could afford. Katherine McAvoy did what she could to make it feel like home, painting the main room a blue so bright it feels like being in a swimming pool, and the bathroom a cheerful pink. In Teddy’s room each wall is a different color: red, yellow, green, and blue, like the inside of a parachute.
Tonight, though, it feels less cozy than crowded, and as a cluster of junior girls walk past us I hear one of them say, her voice incredulous, “It’s only a one-bedroom?”
“Can you imagine?” says another, her eyes wide. “Where does his mom sleep?”
“I knew he wasn’t rich, but I didn’t realize he was, like, poor.”
Beside me I can feel Leo bristle. This is exactly why Teddy never has anyone but us over. And why it’s so strange to see dozens of our classmates crammed into every available inch of space tonight. On the couch, five girls are wedged together so closely it’s hard to imagine how they’ll ever get up, and the hallway that leads to Teddy’s room is clogged by the better part of the basketball team. As we stand there, one of them comes barreling past us—his cup held high, the liquid sloshing onto his shirt—shouting, “Dude! Dude! Dude!” over and over as he elbows his way toward the kitchen.
“Dude,” Leo says in a voice that makes me laugh, because it doesn’t matter what season it is, whether it’s soccer or basketball or baseball—we always feel slightly out of place among Teddy’s teammates. Sometimes it’s like he has two separate lives: the one where he spends Friday nights hitting game-winning shots in front of the whole school and the one where he spends Saturday nights watching stupid movies with me and Leo. We always go to his games and cheer him on and show up at the parties afterward because he’s our best friend. But I like it better when it’s just us.
“There he is,” Leo says, and I close my eyes for a second, keenly aware of the card in my bag, a secret still lit with possibility, like something about to bloom.
It’s only Teddy, I remind myself, but then I spin around and there he is with that enormous grin of his, lifting a hand to motion us over.
The thing about Teddy McAvoy is that there’s nothing particularly exceptional about him. If I had to describe him, it would be difficult to find something defining enough to pin him down. He’s average height: a few inches taller than me and a few inches shorter than Leo. And he has ordinary brown hair that’s cut in a completely ordinary way. His ears are normal-sized, and his eyes are plain brown, and his nose is unremarkable. But somehow, taken as a whole, he’s beautiful.
“Hey,” he says, his face lighting up as we squeeze past the girls who have positioned themselves at the edge of the kitchen. “You’re late.”
I open my mouth to say something, anything, but before I can he sweeps me into one of his bear hugs, my feet parting ways with the sticky linoleum floor, my heart flying up into my throat. When he sets me down, I blink at him.
“Aren’t you gonna wish me a happy birthday?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows, and something about his teasing tone makes me snap back.
“Stop fishing,” I say with a grin. “I’ve already said it a million times today.”
“Yeah, but that was at school. Not at my party.”
“Well then, happy birthday,” I say, rolling my eyes. “About time you caught up.”
Without warning he loops an arm around my neck, putting me into a friendly headlock. “Just because you’ve been eighteen for ages now—”
“Weeks,” I correct, trying to squirm away from him.
“—doesn’t mean you get to act like you’re so much older and wiser than me.”
“It’s not acting,” I say, laughing now, and he lets me go.
“It’s tough being the youngest,” he says with an exaggerated sigh. “Especially when I’m obviously so much more mature than you guys—”
“Obviously,” I say, shaking my head.
Leo reaches for a handful of M&M’s from a bowl on the counter. “So I thought this was gonna be at Marty’s tonight.”
“His parents’ flight got canceled because of the snow,” Teddy says, “and there were no other options. So I figured we might as well move it here.”
He flashes a smile, but there’s an effort behind it. Even six years later, he’s still embarrassed by the run-down building, the single bedroom, the absence of his father.
“So,” he says, clapping his hands. “Since neither of you greeted me with balloons this morning—which was a real letdown, by the way—and there wasn’t any confetti when I opened my locker, I know you must’ve brought me something tonight.”
“You make it sound like our presence isn’t enough,” Leo teases him.
“Really, what do I get?” Teddy asks, looking between us. “Actually, wait. Let me guess. Leo probably made me something computer-y—”
“That’s not a word.”
“Maybe a cartoon about the adventures of Teddy McAvoy? Or a pixelated portrait? Or a website of my very own?”
“Sure,” Leo says, nodding. “You can find it at www.TeddyIsAnIdiot.com.”
“And Al,” Teddy says, turning to me, “I bet you went out and bought something really amazing, then promptly gave it away to someone who needs it more.”
“You know,” Leo says with a grin, “she was at the soup kitchen earlier tonight.”
“And probably the nursing home too.”
“And picking up garbage in the park.”
“And walking dogs at the shelter.” Teddy laughs. “She totally gave my birthday present to a dog. Was it at least a cool dog? Like a Doberman or a basset hound? Please tell me you didn’t give it to a poodle or a Chihuahua.”
I roll my eyes at them. “You guys are the worst.”
“Here,” Leo says, pulling the pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and handing it over to Teddy, who stares at the box in his palm.
“What’re these for?”
“You’re eighteen now. Just one of the perks.”
“What,” Teddy jokes, arching an eyebrow, “no Playboy?”
“I figured you were probably pretty well stocked in that department.”
He laughs, then turns to me. “So what else do I get?”
Just over his shoulder, the refrigerator is covered in photos from when he was little, smiling to display a missing tooth or half-buried in a pile of leaves, and I try to remember what it was like when I knew him then, when I could look at him without feeling this way, without loving him so desperately. I’ve very nearly managed to capture it again—the flatness of it, effortless and uncomplicated—when I raise my eyes to find him watching me expectantly, and I give up.
It’s different now. And there’s no going back.
When I take his card out of my bag, I notice that my hand is shaking, and I realize—swiftly and suddenly—that I can’t do this. How in the world did I think I could?
This envelope—this small, thin rectangle of folded paper—is heavy with hope and possibility. I’ve tucked my whole heart inside of it. There’s no way I can stand by and watch him open it. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever.
But before I can change my mind, before I can make up some excuse and shove it back into my bag, Teddy snatches it out of my hand.
“For me?” he says sweetly. “Thanks, Al.”
He’s the only one who ever calls me that, and he always has. But hearing it now, I’m overcome by a panic so strong I think I might tackle him to get it back.
&
nbsp; “No,” I say, my voice a little choked as I reach for it. But Teddy holds it high with one long arm, oblivious to the look on my face. Out of the corner of my eye I see Leo register what’s happening, and to my relief he points at the card.
“I think that’s the wrong one, actually,” he says, and Teddy lowers it with a puzzled expression.
“But it has my name on it.” He runs a finger underneath my tiny handwriting. “See? Ted E. Bear.”
It’s my old nickname for him, one I haven’t used in years, and something about seeing it there on display, clutched in his hand, makes me go queasy.
“I forgot to sign it,” I say, trying to push the alarm out of my voice, but he isn’t listening anymore. He’s too busy opening the envelope.
I glance over at Leo, who gives me a helpless shrug, then back at Teddy, who is now flipping open the card. I’m so nervous about what I’ve written that I’ve actually forgotten about the lottery ticket, which is right there on top of my words—my awful, misguided, humiliating words—but Teddy holds the ticket up with a smile.
“Hey, look,” he says. “I’m gonna be rich.”
“Really rich,” says one of the basketball players—an enormous guy wearing a bow tie that may or may not be ironic—as he tries to elbow his way past us to get another drink. “They were just talking about it on the news. It’s a monster jackpot.”
As he continues to push toward the makeshift bar, he manages to bump into Leo, who stumbles into Teddy, who then drops the card, and for a brief, frozen moment I watch it happen as if in slow motion: the way it falls from Teddy’s hand, sailing to the floor, where it slides underneath the refrigerator with all the grace and purpose of a paper airplane.
We stare at the spot where it disappeared.
“Nice shot,” says Leo, raising his eyebrows.
“Sorry,” says the guy, backpedaling away from the scene.
“Oops,” says Teddy, dropping to his knees.
I stare dumbly as he crouches on the floor, his hand scraping at the thin gap between the bottom of the refrigerator and the tiles.
“Someone grab me a fork or something,” he says, still hunched over.
“A fork?” Leo asks. “Are you planning a meal down there?”
“No, but I think if I could just—”
“It’s fine,” I say, placing a hand lightly on his back. “Really. It wasn’t anything important.”
Teddy looks worried as he springs to his feet. “You sure?”
“Yes,” I say, trying not to sound as relieved as I feel.
He wipes his hands on his jeans, then stoops to grab the ticket, which came to rest on the floor near my shoe. “Better the card than the ticket, right?”
“Right,” Leo says, laughing at this. “I’m sure that refrigerator was the only thing standing between you and the jackpot.”
Teddy tends to be the center of attention even when it isn’t his birthday. So tonight it’s almost impossible to get any time with him. He’s surrounded by other friends, and there always seem to be more lingering off to the side, waiting to say hello or give him a hug.
I watch from across the room as he bends his head low to say something to Lila, his ex-girlfriend. They only broke up a few weeks ago, after dating for nearly three months, which is right around when it usually happens. There’s a method to Teddy’s madness when it comes to girls: after winning them over, they date for a little while, then when he’s ready to move on he starts acting so distant, so frustratingly unavailable, so entirely checked out, that they eventually break up with him.
“You’re awful,” I said over Christmas break when he told me Lila had finally given up on him.
“Or am I kind of a genius?” he said with that trademark grin of his.
I’m not anything like the parade of overly perky girls who usually go after him. I’m supposed to fall in love with someone like Nate from my advanced calculus class, who is going to MIT next year, or David, who volunteers with me at the nursing home, or Jackson, who writes poetry so beautiful my heart speeds up when he reads it aloud during our English class.
The truth is, Teddy McAvoy isn’t my type at all. He’s a little too smooth, a little too confident, a little too pleased with himself. He is—basically—a little too Teddy.
Even so, I watch miserably as Lila rises onto her tiptoes to whisper something in his ear and he throws his head back in laughter.
“You know,” Leo says, following my gaze, “the traditional way to pass the time at events like this would be to talk to someone.” I open my mouth to respond, but he holds up a hand before I can. “Other than me.”
“I know,” I say, pulling my eyes away from Teddy. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I promise I’ll be more fun.”
“Let’s try for something more realistic,” he teases, giving me a pat on the shoulder, “like mildly talkative or even just mostly present.”
“What’s that?” Teddy asks, coming up behind us. “More presents?”
I roll my eyes.
“I’m going out to see the snow,” he says. “You guys wanna come?”
“Too cold,” Leo says, and I’m silently grateful for this as I turn to Teddy with what I hope comes off as a casual shrug.
He holds out his arm to me. “Shall we?”
As soon as we step outside the apartment, the party feels distant, the music muffled and far away. At the end of the dimly lit hallway, Teddy pushes open the heavy door to the fire escape and we’re met with an icy blast of air. Outside, the snow is still coming down hard, the wind tossing it around like bits of confetti. I tuck my hands into the sleeves of my sweater and walk over to the railing.
There isn’t much of a view from up here, just the windows of the buildings all around us, which are mostly dark at this point. Below there’s a single set of footprints in the snow, and even those are quickly fading. It’s nearly midnight, and the world is quiet.
Teddy bends down and scoops up a handful of snow with his bare hands, leisurely packing it into a perfect ball. Then he winds up, adopting a pitcher’s stance, and looks out toward the street as if to launch it over the side of the fire escape. But at the last minute he spins around and tosses it at me.
“Hey,” I say, giving him a look of mock outrage as I brush the snow from my sweater, but he just smiles.
“Had to be done,” he says, stepping up to the rail beside me. He leans in and bumps my shoulder gently with his. “It’s tradition.”
I can’t help smiling at this. My face is already stinging with cold, and my hands are frozen, so I shove them into the pockets of my jeans, trying not to show it. Because the last thing I want right now is to go back inside, to step out of the snow and the dark and the stillness. Below us the door to the building opens, then closes, and a few people spill out, their voices hushed. In the cone of light from the streetlamp the snow falls steadily, and Teddy turns to face me, his smile slipping.
“So,” he says. “He didn’t call.”
I shake my head. “I swear…”
“Before you get annoyed—”
“I’m not annoyed,” I correct him. “I’m mad. And you should be too.”
“You know how he is.”
“That’s the whole point,” I say. “I do know. He’s been doing this to you for years now, and it sucks. If he wants to disappear the other three hundred sixty-four days, that’s fine. But on his son’s birthday, he could at least—”
“Al.”
I shrug. “I’m just saying.”
“I know,” he says, looking almost amused. “And I appreciate it.”
“Well, I bet he’s thinking of you today, wherever he is.”
“Sure,” Teddy says with a bitter laugh. “Probably in between hands of poker.”
“You don’t know that,” I say, but he gives me a stern look.
“Let’s not kid ourselves. He’ll probably remember he missed it next week and send something ridiculous to make it up to me, then ask for it back the minute he stops wi
nning and needs to cover his debts. We both know how this works.”
“Maybe it’s a good sign,” I say, because I can’t stand to see him looking so dejected. “Remember last year, when he sent all those honey-baked hams?”
“Yeah,” he says with a frown. “And the set of knives the year before.”
“Exactly. He only sends stuff when he’s on a hot streak,” I say, remembering the way, when we were little, that Charlie McAvoy used to burst through the door with bags of presents for Teddy, telling Katherine about all the overtime pay he was getting for his job as an electrician. It wasn’t until later that they discovered he’d been at the racetrack most of that time. “So maybe this means things are better. Maybe it means he’s getting help.”
Teddy doesn’t look convinced, and I can’t really blame him. It’s been six years since Charlie gambled away their family’s entire life’s savings during a three-day bender in Vegas. They haven’t seen him since.
“But,” I say, shaking my head, “it’s still not fair.”
He shrugs. “I’ve gotten used to it.”
“Teddy,” I say, turning to meet his eyes, because I want to make sure he knows this, really knows it: that it’s okay to be upset, that he doesn’t always have to pretend everything’s fine. “That doesn’t make it any better.”
“I know,” he says quietly.
In the whirl of snowflakes and the blur of the lights behind him, there’s something almost dreamlike about him right now. His eyes are very bright, and his hair is flecked with snow, and there’s a quietness to the way he’s looking at me. I realize we’re standing very close and I’m shivering, though it’s not because of the cold. Just now the cold feels beside the point. It’s because of the jumbled, chaotic thought that’s working its way through me: all of a sudden I want to tell him about the card, about all those things I said in it and just how much I meant them.
But then the door opens behind us, and the light from the hallway comes spilling out to reveal a group of sophomore girls, all standing there giggling in their stylish coats and fancy boots. “Hi, Teddy,” one of them says as they step outside. “Okay if we join you?”