Star's Crossing

38: The Girl She Was

Mare was hypnotized, bewitched by the shape and touch of Teddy Bridge's lips. No book could be held responsible for upholding such a sensation as this. Mare was at a loss so many years and words were wasted on love when there was kissing to be done.

"Mare," Teddy whispered against her lips. In the moments since that first brazen touch, they'd moved, somewhat mystically, to the conspiratorial embrace of the bur. Teddy's hands were upon Mare's hips, his breath in her mouth. She thought she could die happy.

"Don't," she said back simply, taking his collar in her fingers and pulling him closer. "Don't make it end, Teddy."

He bowed his chin, traced Mare's bottom lip with his thumb. "But I must, Ms. Atwood."

Mare balked, drawing back as if she'd been slapped. Teddy did not look at her. Ms. Atwood? He was distancing himself from her. He was running. Regretting. This...

"It means nothing," Mare whispered. She meant it to be a question, but the words emerged a declaration. A gutting truth.

"It means everything." Teddy's eyes lifted and bored into hers, torches once more. His hand returned to her hip, as though holding her there, blocking her escape. "You, Mare, mean..."

But he did not finish. Could not, perhaps. The notion in his mind was so unbelievable, so impossible, it had not the strength to uphold so simple a sentence. You mean everything.

Mare waited an interminable moment, but Teddy merely pressed his lips together. Mare remembered his father in the wood, saw the memory of the man in the bruise upon Teddy's clenched jaw.

There were a thousand things she might have said then. But all she could manage was, simply, brokenly: "You will marry her." She could not keep the tears from springing to her eyes.

Teddy merely furrowed his brow and lifted his chin. "And you will marry Camden."

Was he so foolish? Did he not see? "I do not love him."

"It can't matter."

"But it does! You have said so yourself, Teddy. We must..."

"What, Mare? What must we do?" Teddy pulled from her, turning his back and running his hands agitatedly through his wet curls. The rain had at last passed, leaving the glen drenched, eager to shine soon as the sun emerged. It did not. "My marriage has been set to Lilith since we went away to school. If I jilt her, I will..."

"What?" Mare crossed her arms. "Lose your inheritance? God forbid you live a life of simple happiness, of, of—"

"Suffering!" Teddy wheeled back, stricken, his eyes huge and shining. "A life of poverty. Of abandonment and alienation, the guest uninvited, the fool—"

"No, I am the fool. For believing you better. For—" Mare bit her tongue.

Teddy gazed at her, one brow furrowed, mouth twisted. "For what?"

Mare shook her head.

"For what, Mare?"

For falling in love with you.

"For believing you different." Mare knelt and pulled her boots from the mud, grabbing Teddy's ruined hat from its perch nearby. She passed him, pushing it against his chest and holding his eyes. "The truest masks are the ones we craft ourselves."

Teddy's nostrils flared. His eyes were bright with tears. "I am not alone in this."

"No. But mark my words. You will be alone in love."