Sid and Teddy Read online

  Sid and Teddy

  H. D. Knightley

  Contents

  Part 1

  1. Sid

  2. Sid

  3. Sid

  4. Mary, Queen of Scots

  5. Teddy

  6. Sid

  7. Teddy

  8. Sid

  9. Mary

  10. Teddy

  11. Sid

  12. Sid

  13. Mary (Sid, a year earlier)

  14. Teddy

  15. Sid

  16. Hospital Diary

  17. Teddy

  18. Hospital Diary

  19. Sid

  20. Hospital Diary

  21. Sid

  22. Texts

  23. Hospital Diary

  24. Sid

  25. Mary

  26. Teddy

  27. Sid

  28. Teddy

  29. Texts

  30. Teddy

  31. Instagram

  32. Sid

  33. Sid

  34. Mary

  35. Teddy

  36. Hospice Diary

  37. Sid

  38. Sid

  39. Teddy

  40. Sid

  41. Texts

  42. Sid

  43. Sid

  44. Sid

  45. Texts

  46. Sid

  47. Teddy

  48. Teddy (about a year earlier)

  49. Teddy

  50. Texts

  51. Sid

  52. Mary

  53. Sid

  Part 2

  54. Sid

  55. Sid

  56. Sid

  57. Texts

  58. Sid

  59. Texts

  60. Sid

  61. Mary

  62. Sid

  63. Sid (Two years earlier)

  64. Texts

  65. Sid

  66. Mary

  67. Teddy

  68. This is what I knew

  69. Sid

  70. Teddy

  71. Sid

  72. Teddy

  73. Sid

  74. Notes and Texts

  75. Sid

  76. Teddy

  77. Sid

  78. Sid

  79. Teddy

  80. Teddy

  81. Sid

  82. Sid

  83. Teddy

  84. Sid

  85. Sid

  86. Teddy

  87. Sid

  88. Teddy

  89. Sid

  90. Teddy

  91. Sid

  92. Texts

  93. Sid

  94. Sid

  95. Lori calls Sid

  96. Teddy texted

  97. Sid

  98. Mary

  99. Sid

  100. Sid

  101. Sid

  102. Sid

  103. Sid

  104. Sid

  105. Cassie

  Part 3

  106. Teddy

  107. Teddy

  108. Teddy

  109. Sid

  110. Sid

  111. How far Teddy traveled

  112. Teddy

  113. Sid

  114. Teddy

  115. For instance

  116. Teddy

  117. Sid

  118. Sid Texts Her Own Phone

  119. Sid

  120. Teddy

  121. Teddy

  122. Sid

  123. Sid

  124. Mary

  125. Sid

  126. Teddy

  127. Sid

  128. Teddy

  129. Sid

  130. Sid

  131. This happened

  132. Sid

  133. Sid Skyped her dad

  134. Teddy

  135. Sid

  136. Teddy

  137. Sid

  138. Texts

  139. Teddy

  140. Sid

  141. Teddy

  142. Sid

  143. Teddy

  144. Sid

  145. Teddy

  146. Sid

  147. Teddy

  148. Mary

  149. Mary Screenplay. Int shot. B and B

  150. Sid

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  My beta-readers rock!

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by H. D. Knightley

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To the Moms, for sharing your dreams, hopes, and wishes with me.

  (You know who you are.)

  Part One

  One

  Sid

  My chair was freaking cold and hard. How long had I been sitting here, staring at this bed, the machines, the steel table with two cards, a bouquet of flowers, and that sink—oh yeah and my mom. I tried not to look at her too often though because of what might happen. Collapse. But not in the good Lack-of-Feeling way. When I looked at her face, quiet, sleeping, unconscious, blood rushed to my head and the surge of pain that came with it was so awful, so frightening, I wanted to fall down and cower. To buckle under. Oh, and my ears hurt. Really badly.

  I pulled a bottle of aspirin out of my bag’s side pocket and took out two and swallowed them down. I shoved the bottle in my bag.

  I was clutching my phone in my hand, had been for hours. I opened messenger and read Teddy’s latest texts again:

  What’s happening Sid?

  Do you know anything?

  Call me

  Did I know anything? Dad and I had been waiting for the doctor for hours. I knew nothing except the diagnosis: liver failure. When I Googled it, there was a chance of recovery. Also, a chance of non-recovery. Google was pretty vague with their predictions.

  I kind of figured a lot of survival depended on mom wanting to survive, and that didn’t seem—

  I wrote a text:

  I don’t know anything yet.

  Can you come?

  Please?

  I really

  . . .

  He couldn’t come. He wasn’t family. He could only come during visiting hours and what time was it even? I deleted the text.

  I wrote another:

  Can you come?

  To the waiting room?

  I need to talk to

  . . .

  I deleted that one too.

  I couldn’t leave. Even if he came, even if he stood in the waiting room and held me while I cried, I couldn’t leave long enough for that. Could I ask Teddy to drive to the hospital to hug me for two minutes? I couldn’t. And my ears hurt. Trying to figure this out sucked.

  I wrote:

  I need you.

  And then I deleted it, pulled my chair to the foot of my mother’s hospital bed and put my head down right beside the lump that was her feet and cried.

  Two

  Sid

  Sid. That’s what she named me, thinking it was cool to give me a boy’s name (the runner-up was George) and I’m pretty sure the Sex Pistols were part of her reason. My mom was a lot punk rock. And she loved anything British. But not Australian, she took offense when people assumed I had been named after their city. She would say, “Not a shortened Sydney with a y, Sid with an i.” Come to find out my name was French, anyway. But whatever. My mom’s gone. I can’t ask her what in the world she was thinking.

  My mother died hard.

  Really hard. The way most women die, laid low by the Ache of Tears Behind the Eyes. Not physical pain, but that emotional crap. The tears you stuff down, the fear, the anguish, the loss, the meanness of the world.

 
; All that pressure and pain you stuff into that spot right behind the eyes, the place of suppression and oppression, the emotional dam. That hidden place that feels tight and heavy and threatens to burden you to the ground. That heavy place.

  All women have it and if you don’t care for the spot with tenderness and consideration that dam will break and once it does—oh man, you’ll feel it—the Ache.

  That burden, that heaviness, those stuffed feelings, that spot behind the eyes, it’s all menacing is what it is. The Ache grows with stealth, patience, and a particular brutality, the kind that takes your breath, then your strength, then your life. With a crush. And a crash.

  That’s how my mother died. She was a spectacular, singular, independent and innovative force, and she died a very sad woman. Soul crushed. It would be heartbreaking if it wasn’t so common, so expected. So damned woman-like.

  And broken hearts are exactly the point, don’t feel it dear friends, gulp it down, laugh it off, ignore it, lest the Ache comes.

  But then and also, I hate to say it, but I must. You can’t hide from it. So there. The sadness first then the Ache will come and after, everyone who ever loved you will have the tears to prove it.

  And so it goes. The Ache runs in families. Because: love.

  Three

  Sid

  Teddy was on his way to pick me up to go surfing. We had been living three miles from each other for years and years and three miles is close in Los Angeles, practically next door. To live that close to your best friend in LA was a miracle and Teddy had been my best friend since we were two. Earlier if babies in the same Mommy and Me playgroup can be friends. Teddy’s mom liked to tell a story about how one day, I was screaming my head off in the back seat, in my turned around car seat, a literal baby, and Teddy, whose car seat had turned to the front already, put his hand out and held mine. While I cried. Apparently we had chubby little fingers and it was so cute that both our moms will never forget how cute it was.

  It means something, how cute it was. Or so our moms said. All the time.

  Our mothers were close, and Teddy and I had always been together. All the time.

  Our interest in being friends hit a low point though, when he was seven years old. He learned to despise me because Lou Daniels predicted we would be married someday and Letitia Sanders sang a song about how much we loved each other. Teddy hated to have his romantic interest predicted and definitely not five years before puberty. He scowled. Sometimes he screamed. Once he cried. Then he got smart and played exclusively with the boys, shunning me, sometimes with name-calling.

  My mom would ask, “Does it bother you?” No, it didn’t. His interests in those days included Nerf guns, Lego, and Super Smash Brothers on his PlayStation, and don’t get me wrong, those things were cool, but he had a serious obsession with them, culminating in costume wearing—All. The. Time. We barely tolerated being in the same room together

  That period must have been a tough time for our moms. Teddy and I were homeschooled so getting us together was a priority. For socialization’s sake, but mostly because the Moms wanted to socialize too.

  So when we were nine years old, the Moms created a twice-a-week Project Club, gathering all the crafting supplies, wacky recipes, and games they found or invented and forcing us to comply. Urging us to enjoy. And soon we became friends again.

  By the age of ten we were inseparable.

  By twelve he was like my brother.

  Around that time I became fascinated, kind of obsessed with Mary, Queen of Scots, and you know what Teddy did? He listened. He asked questions. Maybe he pretended, but he was interested enough.

  Because we were so close I needed to show an interest in something he liked, and Teddy loved surfing. So I learned how to join him in the lineup. After that our moms met twice a week at the beach break near Teddy’s house, El Porto. A lovely beach, with a consistent surf break and easy parking (sometimes), Southern California style, in the shadow of industrial towers and oil tanks.

  Between the beach days and Projects Club we spent most of every week together. And any other chance we got.

  No one joked us about dating or love or marriage anymore. It was clear to anyone who met us we were that better thing, best friends. We joked and laughed and teased and behaved in a way so familiar and comfortable that love was out of the question. It’s hard to love someone you grew up with. Complicated.

  So that’s why, when I turned thirteen, I let Jason hold my hand. And when I turned fifteen, I let Marcus, in all his sweaty-palmed, nervous glory go to third base. And when I turned seventeen, I let Cameron go all the way. Because he was hot and made my heart go pitter-patter when he looked at me, and Mom and Dad let him sleep over. So we did stuff, lots of stuff, under the covers, fumbling and awkward, but it was fun.

  Teddy had girlfriends too, some were mutual friends, others were Strange Girls that appeared and glommed on, like his scent said: available. He was handsome, in that athletic surfer way, wide shoulders, lean, tan, dark brown hair that was curly enough to tousle. His girlfriends probably ran their fingers through his hair, but I tried not to think about that, because they were ridiculous, too in love to get that this was My Teddy. The guy who had always been my best friend. Not their boyfriend only. Mine, mostly.

  Teddy once asked, “Is it okay if I bring Sarah along surfing on Tuesday?”

  And I screwed up my face. “Does she even like surfing?”

  “She likes to boogie board, so it’s kind of the same thing.” Which was not true and the fact that he said it made me roll my eyes, because if he was willing to say that, to conflate boogie boarding with surfing, then he was in deep, and sorry, but no. He said, “Come on, you’ll like her once you get to know her.”

  And so I tried. But here’s the thing about me and Teddy, we would paddle out together into the lineup and giggle and talk and float and surf and dream, and there was no way someone boogie boarding in the beach break could compete.

  My Marcus, or My Cameron never even came to the beach. They saw my friendship with Teddy and faded away without attempting to surf, without letting me push them into the waves. Their inability to compete with Teddy’s ease on a board kept them from even trying.

  Not that it was a competition. It was simply complicated and if our boyfriends and girlfriends couldn’t wrap their minds around the spiral that was me and Teddy, our wrapped lives and conjoined orbit, they spun out and away. Leaving me and Teddy to our trajectory, and that’s how our story begins.

  Four

  Mary, Queen of Scots

  So imagine this. You’re a young girl in Scotland, not just any girl, a princess. Your father goes away to war and never returns. This changes your fortune drastically. You had castles and security and food and now your mother is worried, terrified, but also calculating and political. You are a queen. She bundles you away to live with southern relatives you’ve never met. They are richer. Their palaces are sprawling extravagant examples of their power. They plan to create in you the perfect match for their son. You are five years old and your whole life is decided.

  You travel south by ship. Because, and you’re still imagining, there are no cars or trains or definitely not phones. You’ll write home, once you’ve learned to write. The letters of love and news will take weeks, or months even, then they’ll be translated, because you’re being educated in another language.

  The people who accompany you are strangers and you arrive in a place that is foreign. To live forever. Imagine how scared you would be to live in a new home, among new people, in a new world? Stripped of everything and then new things piled on top. Would that pile crush you? Possibly.

  Unless you learn to climb and grasp and balance. To make do. To adapt.

  You remind yourself every day that the weather in France is nicer.

  Five

  Teddy

  Today was the day with Sid. I knew it. She knew it.

  I rolled up in my car in front of her house and she bounded out, because that’s how she
moved, with leaps and bounces, leggy and wild. She shoved a cooler into the trunk and flipped her hair over her shoulder and let me rescue the board under her arm. I put it on the racks and strapped the front while she strapped down the back.

  When she dropped into the passenger seat, she sprawled, every limb at an angle, her knee on the center console, a foot on the door. Then she sat up straight, excited, and drummed on the glove compartment, and as I started the car, proclaimed, “Mali-BU here we come!”

  I said, “Headed to the Bu!”

  She slumped in her seat, strapped her belt, and in one brisk movement wrapped her hair up in a bun. She shifted to face me, a long pale, sun-kissed lock swinging loose by her cheek, and counted on her fingers. “I brought tons of sandwiches: snack sandwiches, they have a smear of mustard and ham; lunch sandwiches, smear of mayo, mustard, cheese, ham, lettuce, and avocado; afternoon snacks; and dinner sandwiches. Those are roast beef.” She grinned.

  I was past knowing anything she said, because of the way the curve of her neck met her shoulder, and I only got glimpses from the corner of my eye over my driving arm. She might have said, “Liver and onions,” and I would have answered the same, “Sounds delicious.”

  I rolled the car onto the highway. Sid fished a book out of her beach bag, pulled her bare feet up to the seat, and leaned on the door, the book open in front of her face.

  From the corner of my eye I read the title, Bittersweet Within my Heart. “Let me guess, the poetry of the Queen of Scots?”

  She said from behind the book, “I thought I’d read all the poems to you while you drive.” Then she dropped the book to her lap with a grin. “I’m kidding.” She giggled. “I’ve been planning that joke all morning.”

  “Besides, you read the entire book out loud when we were twelve.”

  “Yep, I see you pay attention. Seriously though, I might be obsessed, but even I get she was more a personality than a poet. Now Willy, he’s a poet.” She pulled a thin copy of Macbeth out of her bag and held that up over her face.