Page 40 of Given Our History

Maybe it’s the long-distance emails. Maybe it’s last night and the unanswered texts and that nagging compulsion to let us both off the hook, because if I’m being honest with myself, I probably need that more than Teddy needs it. He seems to have no trouble ignoring things—I mean, he still hasn’t answered my text—yet here I am, thinking about everything.

I pick up a wooden spoon and stir the pasta, even though it probably doesn’t need stirring. I’m not going to think about it.

I’m not.

CHAPTER15

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO

“What do you think so far?”

I thumbed the corner of the page, trying to decide how I wanted to phrase my thoughts. We were lounging on the hill overlooking the Inner Harbor, boats meandering past the Baltimore skyline on the other side of the water. It was a cool and gray spring day—not ideal for a picnic, but we had stopped by a local café to grab a couple sandwiches to go. Now, post-lunch, we sprawled on a rough, key-patterned blanket on the grassy knoll behind the park benches, swapping books.

Teddy nudged my foot with his, trying to get my attention. He was lying on his back, my own battered and annotated copy of The Wars of the Roses fanned across his chest.

“It’s good, but it feels…” I hesitated, not wanting to hurt his feelings. He’d recommended the book, after all. “I don’t know. Reductive? I just feel like history is more complicated than the author’s making it out to be.”

He marked his page in Gillingham with a finger before propping up on an elbow to look at me, squinting one eye against the blinding gray overcast. “It’s more enjoyable if you remember that it’s sort of interdisciplinary,” he said. “It’s not written for historians so much as for the average reader. Someone who wouldn’t normally pick up a history book.”

“No, I get that,” I said. “It’s just that—well, it’s really broad. I don’t necessarily disagree with him, but…”

“… but it’s maybe not your favorite approach to history?”

I gave him a weak smile. “Maybe not.”

He leaned back against the blanket, folding an arm behind his head. “I’ve thought a lot about what you said that one time. About how you like history because people have always been people.”

“Did I say that?” I flipped onto my stomach so that I could read more comfortably.

He nodded. “I think I like it because they’re all dead.”

“Wow. That’s dark.”

He chuckled under his breath, casting a sidelong glance at me. “I just mean … you can spend your whole life trying to figure people out and they’ll still surprise you. You never know for sure what they’re going to do next. But everybody in here”—he tapped the cover of The Wars of the Roses with his index finger—“their whole lives are behind them. And we’ve got it all in front of us, charters and log books and love letters, and it’s all down to what we make of it. How we choose to interpret it.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “But even dead people can surprise you.”

He hummed thoughtfully. For a moment, we fell silent. A light breeze swept over the hillside, whispering through the budding trees and rustling the pages of my book so that I had to hold them down with a finger.

“I’ve been thinking that might be what I want to study.”

“Dead people?”

“History,” he said, with a slight tilt of his head, like he was conceding that it was more or less the same thing. “I’ve done a year of general ed, I’m overdue to pick a major. And it’s the only thing that really interests me.” He paused again, contemplating. I tried not to feel too flattered that my passion for history had rubbed off on him, but it was almost impossible. “And if I focus on research, I might not have to deal with all that many people,” he said finally.

“Living people, that is.”

“Right.”

“I don’t know why you worry so much,” I said with a sigh. “You get along with me just fine.”

“I’ve told you.” He shifted onto his side again, closing his book and setting it on the blanket between us. He rested his hand there, firmly on the book but mere inches from my waist. “You’re different.”

“I know you’ve said that.” I licked my lips and his gaze dropped to my mouth. “I guess I’ve just never really known what you mean by it.”

“Sort of like—” He hesitated, then groaned and rolled onto his back. “Never mind. It’s going to sound ridiculous.”

“No. Tell me.”