Page 27 of Echoes of Us

“Are you okay, Teagan? What did you do this time, Em? Teagan what did Em do to you this time?” he shouts.

Before I can reply, Teagan looks over at me with tears in her eyes. “She did absolutely nothing…again” My heart sinks. It got around school today that Mills was the one who put the trash in her locker, but she has to know I knew about it and did nothing to stop it. Today, I witnessed her shoved to the ground and humiliated in front of everyone and, again, did nothing about it. I look in the rearview mirror to see EJ looking at her contemplatively. “Okay, as long as Em is being nice to you. You sound stuffy though, I’ll get you meds when we are home. Mom has all the stuff to make me better when I feel sick,” he says leaning forward to squeeze her shoulder.

“Thanks,” Teagan says and turns back to the window.

The rest of the car ride is quiet. EJ works on his homework in the backseat while Teagan and I sit in silence. The moment I park in the garage, Teagan opens the door and heads inside. EJ quickly follows, but I sit in my car for a moment. I should ask her what happened with Kasey and Marie because clearly, it pushed her to tears. Will she even want to talk to me, though? I don’t really want to talk to her, but she is right.While I want nothing to do with her, no one deserves to be treated this way.

Sighing, I exit my car and go inside. EJ is telling Mom that Teagan sounds sick. She is grabbing a few options of medication for him to take up to her when I blurt, “I’ll take them up.” EJ looks like he is going to protest, so I continue, “I have to ask her if she is up for helping me study for my calc test tomorrow. I can give them to her when I ask.”

Mom nods but looks a bit suspicious. She hands me the bottle of medication and I run up the stairs. Hesitantly, I knock on Teagan’s door. No answer. I knock again. Still no answer. Fine. I will just have to force my way in. I go through my bedroom and head into the bathroom. The lock on the bathroom door that leads to Teagan’s bedroom is still broken. My parents never had a reason to fix it because it was a glorified storage room until she moved in. It was originally going to be a guest room, but we put that downstairs, so guests didn’t have to go up and down at night if they needed anything. I forgot to tell dad to fix it the other day when she walked in on me before the shower, which is working in my favor right now.

I take a deep breath, slowly twisting the lock and pushing the door open. Teagan is lying on her bed on her stomach, with her chin resting on her hands. Eli is lying next to her, belly up and already snoring. I laugh to myself. I have no idea how this dog can go into such a hard sleep so fast. He’s only been up here with her for like…five minutes. She has in headphones, so she clearly did not hear me enter. I move toward the bed and tap her shoe. She jumps, whirling around in shock. Her face quickly twists into anger. She has been crying much harder than she was in the car. My stomach drops a bit at the sight. “Teagan. I…”.

“What are you doing in here? I locked the door. How did you get in?” she snaps, rolling off the bed. “You know what, I don’t care. Just get out.” She moves to push me back into the bathroom. Eli jumps off the bed and comes to stand between us. He has never liked when people argue around him.

I hold onto the door frame and pull out one of her headphones. “Look. I don’t know what happened today but if you want to talk about it we can. I am sorry for whatever Marie and Kasey said to you. I am going to punish them for pushing you, if that helps. I want to work through this together before we study.” She looks at me in absolute disbelief. After a few moments, she breaks out into a fit of laughter. What did I say that was funny?

“Of course, you just want something from me. There is no need to mask it with fake concern, princess. I’m not trying to have your parents force me to do any more punishments if I don’t help you. I’ll come down in a bit.” She lightly pushes me back and slams the door in my face. I feel my cheeks redden from anger. Who is she to tell me my concern is fake? I just don’t know how to talk to her. She is so…hostile. Eli looks up at me and begins to whine. “I know bud. I’m sorry we were fighting.” I bend down to rub his ears.

She makes it impossible to be nice to her.

Chapter 31

Teagan

Princess is a lot smarter than she thinks she is. I realize she has more of a confidence issue than a calculus one. She clearly understands math, but something in her is holding her back from thinking beyond the math. People don’t realize that Calculus requires a more abstract way of thinking than algebra or geometry. How do you explain that to someone who has made it clear she would rather swim in cow dung than be sitting here with me? Yeah…she said that when we sat down.

At first, I began by walking through them step by step. “Did you understand why I did that step? You can’t get to this if…” I’d say, pointing at the sheet.

“I get it,” she grunted, rolling her eyes.

I stopped checking in on her after that but once she finally got one right on her own, her attitude totally changed. She started asking me questions and sometimes stopped me to announce she wanted to finish that equation on her own. After two hours of working through equations, I saw the light bulb go off.

She pulls the book and paper toward her. “Let me do this one all by myself. Don’t help me at all,” she says determinedly.

She works through it while I sit silently. She is actually kind of likable right now. When she gets one right, she does this one-sided smile that causes her left eye to squint. It is pretty adorable. WOAH. I did not just call something princess does adorable. The table shakes. I look up, startled.

“Are you listening? I finished. I think I got this one right all on my own,” she says and pushes the paper back to me.

I begin to look over it. Sure enough, she got it right. I look up at her and nod slowly. She lifts the left corner of her mouth, but then it turns into a full-fledged smile. Shit…it is adorable.

“You’re actually a good tutor.” Princess says before dropping her smile after realizing what she just said. “I’m going to do another one,” she says as she looks down, her cheeks reddening. I chuckle to myself.

“So…” Emmaline starts as she continues working the problem, “…. what did Kasey and Marie say to you today? All I saw was Marie push you to the ground. I really was going to come over to confront them as their captain, but then Grace ran up.”

The question took me by surprise. “I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just focus on this.” I reply cooly.

“Look, I know they can be mean…” she begins.

“And you aren’t? Don’t pretend to care now or act like you’re different than them. You and your best friend have been far crueler than anyone else I’ve encountered at that stupid school,” I snap.

She goes pale, her eyes widening. “You’re right. What Mills did was cruel and I…didn’t stop her. I am sorry, Teagan,” she whispers.

I need to step away before I say something I’ll regret. I stand and ask, “Do you want something to drink? I’m going to the garage.”

“Um. Sure,” she replies, clearly deciding not to push me on this. “Sparkling lemon water, please.” She turns back to the equation.

In the garage, I open the fridge and stop for a moment to take a few deep breaths. I shouldn’t have called her cruel. I mean, she has been cruel since I arrived and she clearly has no issues seeing me humiliated, but tonight has been kind of… nice? I always sabotage situations that start turning into something good. Mom always told me that if I kept pushing everyone away, I’d only have her and Sean. At the time, that was enough for me but now I’m not so sure I can survive that way. I decide to go in and apologize for snapping at her. She is not someone I can befriend or trust, but she was trying to make peace. I can at least acknowledge that if I want this living situation to get better. Reaching into the fridge, I grab two sparkling lemon waters.

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