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He simply looked at her, his eyes tortured, ashamed. Sudden panic took her.
It was finally sinking in: he was in earnest. He had said it so many times, and had laughed none of them. Impossible as it sounded, he was deadly serious. She had never known fear like this.
She was losing him; it was final.
“Teddy?” she hated how utterly frightened her voice sounded.
He looked down. He never looked down.
“Lord Lowry,” Jo said, and enjoyed watching him flinch at the use of his title. She never addressedhim by it, but these were extenuating circumstances. “When did you start having these… disgustingly inconvenientfeelingsfor me?” she spat it as if it were a vulgar word. “Tell me now!”
“Since I was fifteen,” he said, head still down.
“Since… You… What?”
“I see you are bereft of speech,” Laurie said, and there was something ugly in his voice. “No one has managed it since you learned how to talk, so I guess I have accomplished something today.”
“Fifteen?” Jo sputtered.
“Yes,” Laurie replied quietly. “Do you remember that day on the ice?”
She nodded, mutely.
“I—” he closed his eyes as if it was painful to even remember. “That day, as I watched the water closing over your head, I knew. I could not deny it any longer. I screamed myself hoarse as I fought to bring you back to me, and I still have nightmares about not managing… about not…” His words trailed away, and he took a deep breath. “I went home that day with a violent cold—well, it was nothing compared to what you and Amy went through, but still—and the terrifying realization that I simply could not live without you. If I hadn’t pulled you out, I would have jumped in after you and died with you.”
She shuddered. Would he stop already? She was beginning to feel ill.
How was it possible that he could have been suffering through all these intense feelings without anyone being aware? Without her being aware?
“I have adored you since we were children,” he continued, “you know this, but when we got older, and without me realizing, it grew with me. And now, it is not a boy who loves you, but a man. And this is not a boyish infatuation. It has turned into this fire, this burningthingthat is swallowing me whole, that won’t let me breathe, that…”
“Stop, please, I’m going to be sick.”
He laughed once, harshly.
“Oh, lovely. That is entirelybeautifulto hear from the lady whose hand one is hoping to win,” Laurie said. His mouth had gone flat, and his lips were trembling. She had not seen that expression on his face since he was a little boy: it was one of utter despair.
“Teddy…”
“I didn’t say anything until now, because you were too young…
“You were too young as well,” Jo said. He was barely twenty. “Are.”
“I know what I want.” His eyes were burning as if with a fever. “I know what I want,” he said again. “It’s the same thing at twenty as it was at fifteen. You.”
Dear Beth,
Did these words come out of his mouth?
Obsessed
Torment
Worship
Jumped in after you
Died
