Page 1 of True Blue

PROLOGUE

INDIE

When you know, you know.

When I was sixteen, I knew it was time to run when my stomach cramped so hard from hunger that I couldn’t sleep, and I lay in bed listening to my parents stumble in from the bar after drinking away our grocery money.

Again.

Two nights later, I packed up my things and left after researching emancipation at the library.

In my senior year of college, I knew it was time to put my foot down when the project group I was in thought I would be fine with doing all the work while they took part of the credit. I turned the project in with only my name attached. I got an A. They failed and called me a bitch.

Oh well.

In my second year of medical school, I knew it was time to use my voice when my lab partner with benefits—a catastrophic lapse in judgment on my part—told me he wanted more. When I told him I didn’t feel the same toward him, he called me a heartless cunt and spread rumors that I was a terrible fuck.

I told my professor, was reassigned, and I never had to deal with him again.

And sometimes, I know when it's time to be silent.

When Teddy’s mother calls me Cindy, Bindi, or any other name that isn’t my own. It took me a little too long to realize that correcting her was pointless because she was doing it on purpose. Teddy had stopped correcting her, too.

But the thing I used to be best at knowing?

When to leave.

Truth be told, I should have left left months ago, when I first felt that little seed of doubt that Teddy would never set boundaries the way I needed him to.

I should have done it right after the phone call earlier, when I told Teddy what happened to Andrea. When I cried in his arms, saying I was going to stay home and wasn’t up to a fun-filled day in the sun.

I was half-hoping he would want to stay with me.

Or even just offer, because I needed him.

But he chose to go to the theme park with his family.

“You're around death every day, Indie,” Teddy had said, sounding like he was chewing on the words. “Why is this affecting you so much?”

Andrea wasn’t just a patient in my mind. She was a mother who fought her way out of an abusive relationship for her daughter. She found a lump in her breast and came to me for help. Well, she came to Hyde Cancer Center, but she was my patient under my care. My responsibility.

We got her into remission.

Only for her to die in a car wreck two weeks ago. Her daughter—the only person she had in the world—was so torn up she couldn’t even plan a funeral. But she still called to thank me for the care that I gave her mother.

When people put their lives in your hands, some part of you always feels responsible for what happens to them.

Teddy is back, his face sun-kissed in a way that would be insanely handsome if I didn’t feel a million miles away from him.

He’s saying that he’s not coming with me on the Europe trip. He says he’s not going to move to Cape May with me. Not yet, at least, which means he never will, he just won’t admit it to himself. I know the truth. He doesn’t want to be that far away from his family.

I would have understood if he brought up these concerns earlier. Like when we toured that house in Cape May in January, and he started speaking with definitive words like when and not if. Or when I bought the plane tickets for us to London. Or when I was booking the hotel rooms and making sure to get King-sized beds to accomodate Teddy's size.

What he won’t mention—or is conveniently forgetting—is that he was the one who encouraged me to apply to Bluewater Cancer Center.

Teddy was the one who pressed Enter on my laptop while I sat there staring at the application, terrified to send it. Maybe even back then, I just knew that he would do this.

Teddy was the one who came home with champagne and my favorite dessert the day after I officially signed my Attending Physician paperwork.