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My eyes widen. "Really?"
Teresa nods. "That boy is always running off and never tells anyone where he's off to. And he's been keeping secrets from me for far too long, acting like I'm fragile while I go through...well, all this."
She takes a sip of her coffee, her eyes never leaving mine.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't mean to cause any trouble."
Teresa gives me a small smile. "I know you didn't, hon'. But now that you're here...we gotta figure out what we're gonna do about this."
I nod, feeling a sense of relief that she's not freaking out like I thought she would.
"What do you want to do?" she asks.
"I want to stay here," I say, surprising myself with the words. "Just for a little while," I add quickly. "I need to figure things out."
Teresa considers me for a moment, then nods again. "I'm not gonna kick a pregnant girl out of my house," she says. "But you need to tell me everything."
I think back to what Jesse said last night--that I should explain my history, the things that only he knows. Things I always kept secret from Caleb because I was afraid he would judge me...
"Can I start from the beginning?" I ask.
She nods.
"Well..." I pause. "I'm sure Caleb told you I had a problem, right?"
"I wasn't ever clear on the details," Teresa says.
"Heroin." I put my hand on my belly, swallowing hard, still afraid that my past mistakes will hurt my baby. "I got clean two years ago when Caleb left...but I was an addict for a long, long time. My parents...they were alcoholics. They beat the hell out of me. I was broken."
Teresa doesn't hesitate to reach out and take my hand, squeezing gently. I resist the urge to cry.
She lets me keep going.
"I ran away at seventeen and fell in with the wrong crowd. I started using heroin, and it was like...everything else just faded away. It was just me and the high. I did things I'm not proud of, things that I still have nightmares about.
Teresa's grip tightens on my hand, and I can feel her silently urging me to keep going.
"I met Caleb after a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. He was so kind to me, even though I was a mess. We started dating, and he helped me get clean. He was the reason I got better."
I take a deep breath, trying to steady my voice.
"But...I never told him everything. I was afraid he would leave me, that he would think I was too damaged. So I kept it a secret. I went to therapy, I went to meetings, but I never told him...or anyone, really. Not the full extent of it, with the drugs, the abuse, the homelessness..."
Teresa nods, her expression sympathetic. "And then he left and met Reagan."
"Exactly," I nod. "And don't get me wrong--I'm so happy for him. He deserved better than me. Jesse does too."
"But Jesse loves you."
I meet her gaze. "What?"
Teresa shrugs. "After I got sick...he was sad, but there was something else wrong. I could see it, of course, because a motheralwaysknows. That must have been because he stopped speaking to you?"
"I thought he didn't want to be with me."
Teresa shakes her head. "Jesse has a hard time opening up after everything that happened with his daddy and with his sister. His father wasn't a good man. Jesse took the brunt of it, so I left and took the kids. Caleb was already grown."
I bite my lip. "I had no idea. He never told me."
