Page 65 of True Blue

Dawn’s voice slices through his like a hot knife through butter.

“Theodore,” she says with a nervous little chuckle, glancing around the table like she’s embarrassed for all of us. “I think it would be alright for Lily to call you Teddy.”

“Mom,” he says, already shaking his head.

Dawn huffs. “Theodore, come on⁠—”

And that’s it.

That’s the rubber band snapping.

“He said no!” I bite out, slamming my fist down on the table hard enough to rattle the silverware. “Do you people even hear him when he speaks? He. Said. No. Leave him alone!”

The entire room freezes.

Teddy looks at me with wide eyes.

The aunts and Colleen look horrified. Judd and the uncles look… weirdly amused. Lily looks smug.

And for one second, Dawn looks like I just handed her the winning lottery numbers.

Then her eyes fill, her chin wobbles, and she buries her face in her hands and cries. She sobs loudly, theatrically, and it’s like that sound snaps every woman in the room into motion. Robin, June, and Colleen react almost at once, voices sharp, teeth bared, practically hissing at me.

And I just sit there, getting yelled at from all sides, staring at the chaos I unleashed.

Robin points at me with her wineglass still in her hand. “Who do you think you are?”

“Apologize to her—now!” June snaps, pointing at the shaking, sobbing form of Dawn.

“That was so cruel!” Colleen hisses. “What is wrong with you?”

Lily gets up from her chair and rushes to Dawn, wrapping her arms around her. “It’s alright, Mrs. Williams,” Lily says, looking directly at me.

“Stop—she didn’t mean it—Aunt Robin, stop—Aunt June—don’t⁠—”

Teddy’s words barely penetrate over the sound of his aunts, over his mother wailing, over the low muttering of his uncles now talking among themselves. He keeps trying until finally he just turns to me and gives me a smile that is too strained, too tight, to be real.

I open my mouth to apologize, I think, but the words choke in my throat.

What exactly am I apologizing for?

For standing up for my boyfriend when his family wasn’t respecting him?

For saying out loud what he was already saying himself?

Why is Teddy excusing me instead of standing up for himself?

And that’s when I have the thought that he’s never going to actually defend me, only excuse it away.

My hand tightens in his lap like I’m trying to hold on to something already slipping away. Somewhere deep in the back of my mind, a small voice asks whether Teddy would ever truly choose me in a room filled with these people.

I don’t like the answer it gives me.

So I bury it.

12

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