Chapter Text
Nelson Road is haunted again. Not by the phantom memories of young men gone to war, sent on their way to an untimely end - this haunting is marked not by presence but by lack; by the absence of the man who banished those ghosts with smoke and fire, beginning the process of making the broken parts of their team whole.
The club is unnaturally quiet, every hallway filled with an incongruous hush. Roy swears ever more now, and Rebecca appreciates his angry noise taking up small corners of the endless void. The missing sound of Ted’s Kansan drawl; she hears it in the silence, it plays through her mind at night.
Every day Rebecca still expects him to bound through her office door, a smile on his face and treats in-between his paws. It was easier during summer break, to pretend to herself that he was just away for a while, that everything hadn’t been so final, unfinished between them.
Ted gave her a gleaming trophy, won the whole thing, just as he’d promised those two Mays ago. An achievement etched in the history books, her name beside his, a pair forever twined by the choices they’d got right. She’d never had much faith in men to hold up their end of the bargain; Rebecca wishes he’d been a little worse at his job then maybe he’d still be here, not have blown everything up. Twisted her heart out from under her ribs and to take it with him on a journey across land and ocean, perhaps never to be seen again. She feels like something from a folktale, a story originating in a location cold and dark, because somewhere that heart still beats, not inside her but wherever Ted keeps it.
This August morning, a week into the start of a new season, Rebecca observes a shining package on her desk - a neat and perfectly folded rectangle of aluminium foil sitting just to the left of her MacBook. Her screen open to an Everest of emails awaiting her attention. She wishes they’d just disappear; her head is foggy, the answers to all questions are unclear. Leslie’s been insulating her from the press; she can slap a brave face on, she’s long practiced at that particular skill but she can’t sustain it. She can’t talk about him. The wound is too raw and reporters have never been gentle with her, Rebecca doesn’t expect them to start now.
The small parcel is a present from a newly minted baker. The sight isn’t quite right but she appreciates it anyway. Beard had deposited the gift earlier, his third week of doing so, the occurrence no longer out of the blue. He doesn’t linger - it’s more biscuits for the boss than biscuits with the boss. None of them try and replace Ted, and Rebecca is grateful because she’s not sure there is a single person on this Earth capable of that.
They’d made a schedule, what’s left of her Nelson Road inner circle - Roy, Higgins, and Beard all simultaneously taking up baking as an unlikely trio. She doesn’t receive biscuits every day; the pretty pink boxes are gone, but shortbread in various states of disarray appear on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday like fading echoes, well-intentioned imitations of Ted’s love.
She thinks it was Ted’s idea, they’ve been cagey whenever she’s asked. She loves him for it, she hates him for it; she can’t decide, it varies by the day. No. She doesn’t hate him, just the situation, just the absence, the distance, the lack of his voice, his eyes, his smile, him being the one to prepare the sugary delight that had become essential to her survival. All her remaining boys try, but the flavour will never be the same without the tiny pieces of him folded into every buttery stick.
If anything, she loathes herself for letting someone she loves with deep abiding fierceness slip through her fingers. Loathes herself for failing to give him reason enough to stay. If she were to live the past few months over again, she’d get down on her knees on the Heathrow floor, pride-free and beg him not to leave. Do all the things he’d never ask of her, rip herself open, lay every emotion bare. Prove to him that London is the place where he will always be most loved. Be honest with him in every single way instead of concealing the deepest truths of her heart, all the silence has done has been to scar.
She’d been certain that every road was about to lead to Ted since the start of the year. That every moment together alone meant something wonderful was to come. Rebecca’s never been much of a gambler; perhaps a casual flutter at Cheltenham or Ascot when she attended such things, but she’d have staked a fortune on them ending up as one another’s everything, not their present situation - continents apart.
She’d been tempted one evening - eating steak on a terrace beneath the stars, to be bold, ask if he thought they were dating. It felt like they were, especially when he’d lose his chain of thought and stop in the middle of a sentence, gazing into her eyes with a languid smile that made her feel like the most important woman in the world. He’d go to Friday night team meals and forgo the food so they could go somewhere and eat after. He’d humour her and try new cuisines. Hold hands in the darkness when they went to the cinema in Barnes.
She thought they were in an unspoken agreement, an obvious pact that once the title fight was over then the focus could shift fully to them; they would explore all the uncharted parts. Rebecca didn’t mind the wait when the next stepping stone, an easy hop away, looked like the beginning of their eternity. They’d win and then she’d unleash her every primal urge on him, journey through the sweet and sacred, love his mind and body in ways she’d been plotting for months. She had a million romantic dreams of forevers; mornings, nights, and sunshine reflected in Ted’s eyes for the rest of her life. Rebecca received a neatly typed and signed resignation letter instead.
That piece of paper had been like a lightning strike, but not in the way Roy had meant in his post-John Wingsnight pep talk; it was the type that fries your nerve endings and burns out your synapses and ensures that nothing within will ever be the same again. How swiftly all her hopes had been torn away as he told her with a low crack in his voice, “Believe me, Rebecca— this— it was the hardest decision I ever made. Still don’t know if I’m gettin’ it right, but don’t wanna string this out forever, I’m aware you’re going to have to make plans for next season.”
She wanted to know when he’d made the choice. Two days before, they’d spent a night of celebration joined at the hip - ending up in a club at everyone else’s insistence. Trailing together from the dance floor to the bar, to the outdoor terrace where they could actually have a conversation, ears still ringing. Rebecca had made Ted wait outside the loo for her, worried she’d lose him in the loud and the dark. He’d stood patiently while she sent Keeley, who she had mislaid, drunk, happy texts and attempted to counsel a teary-eyed twenty-four-year-old who was having some dramatic boy trouble, completely unaware she was on the cusp of her own.
Both her phone and his ended up with an art gallery of dubiously lit selfies that have become the subject of endless wistful scrolling. They’d made it home so late that the sun had been rising as Ted piggybacked Rebecca across The Green’s dewy grass, saying that he wasn’t sure that life got better than this. She’d agreed - still tipsy, not thinking - but she wishes she’d told him he was wrong, told him that she thought their happiness could be endless and pulled Ted inside and kissed him, despite the tiredness and the light pounding of her head. She thought there would be time, she hadn’t seen the bombshell coming - dropping those was her job, never his. Then he’d gone and unleashed the biggest of them all landed her at the bottom of a crater with unscalable walls.
Rebecca wanted to fight, wanted to beg him to reconsider, slap down the draft contract extension with the doubled salary number, take him home and let her touch change his mind, but how could she tell Ted he was wrong for going back to his son? Instead, she spent his final few weeks as a resident of Richmond a woman on the run. A half-baked strategy: push him away, protect herself, prepare for a life where she’d live without his warmth. Rebecca was once more a prickly cactus, letting Ted impale himself on her spines whenever he came too close.
He’d come to her office and she’d shoo him away with loose excuses about being busy, and he’d nod and leave, only for Rebecca to see him minutes later through the glass of her large windows; walking the perimeter of the training pitch, hands in pockets, eyes downcast.
“You need to tell him. Babe. He should know how you feel. It would change things.” Keeley encouraged Rebecca through a cascade of her own tears on the Tuesday afternoon before Ted left. The summer sky was a mocking blue outside, nausea and unease permanent sensations settled in Rebecca’s stomach as the day she dreaded loomed nearer like the rusting axe of a medieval executioner. She knew it wasn’t going to be a clean cut when it came but something jagged and rough.
“Tell him what? It doesn’t matter anymore.” She whispered, “He’s made his choice, and maybe the best way I can love him now is to respect that, let him go with an easy conscience.”
Keeley took several sharp sniffs, wrapping herself around her friend like a glamorous platform-clad koala. Rebecca had long given up on trying to prevent shoes on the sofa. “I just think if he knew everything you felt then he’d wanna stay. You’re too good together, it’s like the universe meant you both to end up here. Look where you two came from to where you are now, ok maybe not right now, but before— You just won the whole thing, you two should be happy, you should be going off to shag on a yacht off Formentera. I just thought— the pair of you— you were inevitable.”
“The universe?” Rebecca snorted through falling droplets, “Tish— my Mum’s psychic. She predicts— we can’t be together until one of us has had a near death experience. So dramatic. Ridiculous really.” She scoffed derisively, moving a stray piece of hair that had become stuck to her cheek - glued by the water and salt of her own tears.
“Now you’re scaring me babes.” Keeley pouted, looking up at her, face terribly worried.
Rebecca gave a dry laugh, squeezing the younger woman. “Don’t worry, Tish is— demonstratively full of shit. She knows how old I am, and still she predicts that I’m going to have a family. She tells my mother what she wants to hear. Not that she ever cared about grandchildren before, but now Dad’s dead I suppose she’s bored— Look, I’m going to be rather poor company for a while, but I don’t think my demise is imminent.”
“Crazy things can happen at any time Rebecca— Maybe it will be Ted who has the near-death experience? What if something bad happens and you aren’t there, or he isn’t here? God, that would be so sad.” Keeley still sounded deeply concerned. They’d have to discuss her putting any faith in a fraudulent psychic, another time.
“No, no.” Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut, new droplets pressing themselves out from beneath her lids. “He’s going to go back to Kansas, and be happy and fine— and have the loveliest life, and this time will just be a nice memory, I’ll be his former boss who he used to be fond of— And that will be that, I suppose. I want that. That’s what I want for him— Not to be sad, not to mope around missing me. It’s better we don’t— it’s too late for us to talk about any of this now.” She was trying to convince herself more than Keeley. She worried about Ted, the idea of him adrift from his London based support system, out there alone with his constant friend - Beard, staying behind.
“I don’t think it’s gonna work out like that babe. You’re not the type of person anyone just gets over. He’s going to miss you like crazy. Anyone can see that. Roy says Ted’s been a walking cloud of gloom since he gave his notice. The Manager’s office is all glum and Roy’s crotchety because he worries about the both of you.” Keeley let out a pained exhale and gave Rebecca a suffocating squeeze. “But if you need to get drunk, or cry or run away to Kansas because you just want to see Ted’s face, or kidnap and bring him home call me and I’ll be there. But for the last one, we’re taking the jet and we’ll make an adventure out of it.”
Rebecca gave a series of jolting nods, laughing, almost, at the later options. All seemed like plausible future needs - until she noticed a figure at the door - Ted standing there, shoulders sagged, one hand stuffed fully into his pocket, the look on his face pure despondence.
“Wonderin’ if I might be able to sub in?” He asked cautiously; sad and serious as he caught her eye, the tremor back in his free hand, fingers clenching and unclenching away from the heel of his palm.
Keeley pulled away, mouth rounding, eyes wide “Yeah! She’s all yours.” She told Ted, moving up and off the sofa, mouthing See you soon. Talk to him! and Rebecca didn’t disagree with the sentiment of her being his, as Ted made a slow approach, his jaunty confident walk into her office gone and replaced with a nervous gait.
Ted sat carefully beside Rebecca, gaze in his lap then on her. Desperate, needy from their days without conversation. Looking so bereft she found it hard to bear, “May I?” He questioned falteringly, turning and offering his long arms. She nodded, unable to resist the temptation of touch.
They moved, tangling around one another, seeking every point of contact they could find; she’d wanted to merge into him, let Ted read her mind. Her mind that was saying, nothing feels right about giving this up. You were supposed to be mine. They’d held each other in the same way before, on days where one or both was stressed or tired; or just in need of affection which they both always were. They could sense it in one another; their emotional needs. Two cuddle starved people with insatiable appetites to curl up and find calm via each other’s arms. His body felt designed to be her home, and Rebecca had become accustomed to his shelter - the feel of stubble beneath her lips at the end of the day when she pressed her face into the cradle of Ted’s neck and shoulder. So many times in that very room, and in numerous hotel suites.
He smelled like grass after freshly fallen rain, fingers in a slow glide back and forth, journeying the length of Rebecca’s spine in an endless caress. “I miss you already, y’know that?” Ted murmured into her ear after a minute or more of silence. “I’m so sorry if it felt like I blindsided you.”
“It didn’t feel like— You did blindside me. —What are you going to do?” She whispered back, a hand involuntarily threading into his hair, playing with the strands as if he really did belong to her.
Ted let out a hard sigh. “Honestly— Still not so sure— I’ll take some time. Nothing feels real clear in my mind right now, Rebecca. Guess I’ll spend the summer doin’ the usual, hanging out with the little guy. After that— Going to be hard coming from this— Not sure anythin’ can compete. This has been the most special time in my life, and you— you’re a big part of that. The biggest.“
Rebecca’s breath caught as she felt a fresh burn at the centre of her throat, “There will always be a place for you here. If ever— if one day it makes sense to you to make this your home again.”
Ted didn’t fight that, didn’t say that he appreciated the offer but it wouldn’t be necessary, just dropped a long kiss to Rebecca’s forehead, warm soft lips lingering over her skin. “I keep wondering if I’m gonna look back and see this as the biggest regret of my life.”
“It might be the same if you stay.” Her voice was hollow and the tears had resumed a silent flow. Ted’s arms tightened in a criss-cross around Rebecca’s frame as she continued speaking. “I don’t want you torn in two pieces, hating me for keeping you and Henry apart. I don’t want you to leave, but I can’t be the one to ask you to stay.”
Ted’s breath shuddered as he took a beat to contemplate, “Shoulda’ talked this over with you, there’s so much I haven’t said— So much that mighta’ been important, or maybe not— I just—“
“It’s probably for the best, Ted. It’s a bit late to deconstruct our feelings now. Easier to move on if we’re just two friends.” She attempted to sound neutral, force control into herself but her heart sped to the point it felt like it wanted to burst from underneath her skin.
Wistfulness threaded through Ted’s tone. “Just because we don’t speak about it, doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t there.”
“No, but to tell you— to give you every piece of me, then watch you walk away— Don’t ask me to do that when you’ve spent the past six months giving me hope, just to turn around and leave.” She didn’t mean for it to come out so sharp, so edgy, almost bitter but the suppression could only last so long and the pain was slashing at her like a white hot blade.
Ted tried to pull back, set his wounded puppy eyes on her, but Rebecca turned her gaze downwards as soon as she witnessed his stricken expression, “Rebecca I— I thought most of it— Feelings— were on my side. I didn’t— I didn’t know—” He sounded truly stunned to the point she might have laughed if it hadn’t all felt so incredibly raw.
“You never heard that. Forget it. It’s past mattering at this point.” Rebecca responded cooly, trying to maintain some hold over her emotions. Trying desperately to make it easier on them both. At the same time on the verge of demanding to know what he thought they were doing all the other times they’d cuddled and nuzzled like this.
“Not sure that I’ll be able to forget. It’s all I’ve— Thought sometimes I was just a placeholder for you until something better came along.” Rebecca winced, face pressed back into the warm soft skin of his neck, desperate to ask who could possibly have been better than him. “Seems like I was missing a helluva’ lot of information when I made my decision.” Ted smoothed his lips along the line of her hair, his hands transitioning to a circular caress over every part of Rebecca’s back. “That’s— Well— Fuck.” He growled out.
“See, better to have said nothing because now you’re— conflicted.” Rebecca sniffed.
“Hmm already was. Kinda just wanna know everythin’ else you’re hiding in that big secretive heart of yours. Shoulda’ pooled our info months ago. But you’re not gonna tell me right now are you?” He sighed, fingertips finding their way beneath her hair, touching the nodules along the back of Rebecca’s neck as if he were trying to learn every facet of her, commit each inch to his memory.
“Perhaps one day, but I suspect you’ll get back, and move forward and it won’t seem important anymore.”
Ted let out a small huff. “Think you’re really underestimating how much I feel for ya’ Rebecca.”
“That makes two of us, apparently— Can we just be quiet for a while and pretend everything’s alright?” She asked, heart still racing, her nauseous stomach moving into a full on summersault, like someone had taken her innards and dumped them in a washing machine. Rebecca felt like Icarus on the verge of flying too close to the sun. She wanted to know everything he felt for her, but the timing; it would do nothing but burn them both up.
“Yeah, yeah. Ok.” His cheeks were wet and blotchy, mirroring hers as Ted guided the re-shifting of their position, sprawling them out lengthways across the sofa. Hands bound as they lay nose to nose, kicking off his Jordans so they could be toe to toe. Breathing and existing as if they were one unit, if just for a while, yawning and napping like any normal couple having a restful afternoon rather than the crisis they found themselves in.
It was dark when they woke, groggy and lazy; making no effort to move, remaining laid out in the barely there light, tracing the contours of one another’s complexions like touch could extend their time.
“I’ve always wanted to do that.” She giggled, despite the situation, teasing fingertips through the bristling hair of Ted’s moustache.
“Always?”
Rebecca could see the quirk of an eyebrow and she grazed a thumb over that neat curved line. “Since surprisingly early on in our acquaintance. I’ve never really liked them before, but yours is nice. It looks right on your face.”
“I like your face.” His voice was thick with a nostalgic air, as if he were coming to terms with the knowledge that this would soon be the past; tapping the tip of his index finger to the top of her nose. “I do. It’s very nice. It’s beautiful.”
“You can’t say things like that Ted, not now.” It was barely an admonishment. Despite her earlier protestations, the masochistic part of her wanted to hear it. Wanted to save up every kind word in preparation for the time without.
“I’m sorry. Not sure I’m gettin’ anything right.” He sighed, hand stilling over her cheek.
“Sometimes that’s just how it is. Sometimes there isn’t a wrong or a right. Just the best you can do.” Rebecca gave a soothing whisper because no matter how hard it was on her, she knew he was suffering too. That even if it was him who had made the choice, he was leaving behind the tangible for the unknown. But he’d done it before, and made it work; she didn’t doubt that he would eventually find new people to love who would adore him back, maybe not as much as her but something close.
“Smile.” She asked, and he did while Rebecca touched the crinkles at either sides of his eyes. “I like these, very much.”
“My wrinkles?” Ted sounded amused and the lines deepened as his lips widened.
“Yes. When you smile it’s not just with your mouth, but your whole face. When you arrived, you kept smiling at me and nobody had done that in a very long while. And I knew, or I thought, that one day you would realize it was a mistake. —In the end, I had longer with you than I thought I would. You could have walked away two years ago, but you stayed— we built something wonderful and I’ll try— I’ll always be grateful for that. You changed my life, now perhaps it’s time for you to change someone else’s.”
“We did it all together Rebecca. Leaving— it feels real like building something then throwing away the keys insteada’ moving in. Like it’s just an empty monument when it coulda’ been a home.” Ted’s smile collapsed, taking with it the easy peace of the moment.
Ted’s leaving party at the Crown & Anchor might have been the worst event Rebecca had ever attended, and she’d been to some truly awful functions, filled with abysmal company when married to Rupert. She couldn’t abide the jovial atmosphere, didn’t feel like there was much to celebrate; she’d probably had a better time at her father’s wake. She was glad there was such a big turnout, many players having delayed their summer plans to come down and send Ted off. She wanted him to see it, just what he had meant to the whole place.
Despite thinking Ted’s departure was nothing to fête, Rebecca slapped on her most stoic face, and decided against being melodramatic by donning all black. She chose something soft and casual - a light pale pink jumper and jeans, enough to guard against the remaining chill of the early summer evening. Left her hair down in a loose curl because Ted had shown a preference for it, and while she knew she couldn’t have him, she couldn’t shake off the need for Ted to find her attractive, to have him see her and give that subconscious lick of his lips.
Rebecca spent most of her time that evening sat outside with Roy, indulging in their misery together. Ted mobbed by everyone else.
“Honestly I think him leaving— is fucked.” Roy grouched. “I get it. BUT. We need the stupid idiot. I dunno how we’re supposed to do it without him. I don’t want to be gaffer - I’ll do it, for you, because this team needs some sort of continuity going into Champion’s League. I’m not letting some twat come in and dismantle everything we’ve done. Maybe if I make a pigs ear of it, he’ll come home.”
“Please don’t.” Rebecca snorted, despite herself.
“I’ll try not to. But I was happy doing what I was doing. So no fucking promises, except we’ll try our best. Ted has— people management skills that me and Beard will never have. It’s bloody annoying him walking around being all self-deprecating and shit, saying we’ll be fine with him gone. Because we won’t, not for a long time.”
“You can say you’re going to miss him.” Rebecca encouraged.
Roy growled and snarled with a nod, “You get the point. Annoying fuck making me feel things.”
By nine PM, wine wasn’t cutting it. Rebecca was feeling too much. She was feeling everything crushing above her, closing in around her. She excused herself from Roy who had been joined by Keeley and a bereft looking Jamie. She walked herself over to the George Street Tesco Express, a place she’d never been inside before, and bought a lighter and a packet of Silk Cut adorned with a particularly vile picture of a diseased lung. Rebecca stalked back to the pub, and by-passed Ted who she caught out of the corner of her eye looking concerned. Crossing the street to deposit herself onto the nearest bench on The Green so she could chain smoke her health destroying loot in peace.
She’d made it halfway through the first cigarette in a pleasurable disgust at the smoke burning her lungs before Ted sat silently beside her. “Those making you feel better?” He’d asked after a beat, a heavy note in his voice.
“No.” She admitted, “But I don’t feel any worse.”
“OK. Then can I have one?” The positive front Ted was putting on for everyone else was gone, and Rebecca saw him as he truly was. Still confused, still sad. Struggling with his own version of the same loss.
“No. Haven’t I already drawn you into enough of my bad choices? You’re a coach, you need your lungs.” She told him, stubbing out her own cigarette in ashy amber flicks.
“Was a coach. Not sure I’m anything now.” Ted replied matter of factly, pulling Rebecca’s right hand into his left.
“You’re temporarily, voluntarily in between coaching jobs. You’re a Dad, Ted. A friend. Those are the most important roles.” The love of my life, in this one, and maybe the next, and everything before, and all after. “Do you want me to give you a speech about how employment and productivity don’t define us?”
“Save it for your next cover story in Football Financial Quarterly and send me a copy. I’m just worried that I’m not— leavin’ you well. Or me— All night you’ve been keepin’ your distance. I get it— I do. But what am I— How do we do this long term? What’s it going to look like?”
“Honestly, Ted. I have no idea. I believe that’s something we’ll need to find out over time. We’ve not lived it yet, but we will.”
Rebecca saw Ted off to the airport on a Friday morning. She couldn’t bear to take him there herself, fully watch him go, leave her and the country behind. Stand and see him snake through a security line, inching into a new chapter of his life.
Her and Beard, with him, standing under a sky that was bursting with tears. “Not here.” Ted murmured as they huddled as a pair beneath the same black umbrella. “Exact same spot— me and Michelle— That was a permanent ending, and this— I don’t want it to be. Even if it kinda seems that it could be that way.” He murmured as they shifted to a new location, it was early so nobody wandered the narrow trail of Paved Court, just the three of them in the grey dawn hush. Even the birds seemed sad, as there was not a single song to be heard in the usually cheerful summer air.
“I don’t even know what to say right now, Ted. I’ve never been good at this. Goodbyes.” Rebecca sniffed as Ted’s hand danced over the curve of her hip.
“No— for the first time I think I might actually be— lost for words.” He gave her the wryest smile, taking a deep inhale. “I believe you and me were meant to find each other, you helped me find my way out of a real dark place. Now I may regret this—“ He nodded at the waiting taxi looming in the background, “But the last three years— my whole life changed. I achieved things I never could even have dreamed of without you. A soccer team, winning the whole thing, who’d have thought it?”
“You changed everything for me too Ted. How I see people, how I view the world.” She choked out, “Take care of yourself. Be happy. Don’t be a stranger. Call us when you’re lonely. We’ll always be here.” Rebecca whispered, feeling as if she were having an out of body experience. Even if she knew it was coming, the moment itself felt beyond the realms of her comprehension.
Ted set down the umbrella, letting them feel the beat of the droplets as he hugged Rebecca long and tight, his lips pressing against her cheek, her forehead, everywhere apart from her own mouth. Beard gazing wistfully somewhere between them and the distance.
“You two take care of one another, ok?” Ted instructed with a hitch in his voice when he’d given his best friend a squeeze and a pat on the back too. Beard pulling a face. “—Not like that. I hope. Not really for me to tell anyone to do. You’re both great people. So if that’s what you—”
“Not happening.” Beard stated firmly.
“I’m very fond of him but no.” Rebecca laughed. And it was all so strange and unreal and bizarre.
“Yeah my brains a little—“ Ted gave a whistle, and she could tell he had barely slept at all.
“Get some rest on the plane. Call us when you arrive.” She told him, as the taxi driver indicated the need to get a move on.
“Guess that’s me— One last one? Please?” He breathed, pulling Rebecca in for another hug before she had a moment to think. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
“Ted, you need to go.” Rebecca let out a sob, “—if you don’t go now, I’ll never be able to let you leave.”
His brows were knitted as Ted pulled away, water and doubt and heartbreak in his brown eyes.
Watching him drive away will be a sight forever embedded in Rebecca’s mind. She didn’t do anything overdramatic, she didn’t become hysterical, even if she felt it inside her. Just sat on a sodden bench with Beard as they went through some mutual grief.
“I think Ted’s called this play wrong and he’s in for a rough stretch of the game.” Beard spoke quietly, “Might take him a while to work it out, but he will. He just needs to see and understand it for himself.
Rebecca went home and collapsed into bed for the rest of the day. Keeley showed up with a surprise Sassy and Nora in the evening, along with copious amounts of Chinese food and alcohol. Nora was having her own boy problems, Rebecca finding them a welcome distraction to her own which felt like they were eating her alive inside out.
“Don’t take romantic advice from your Aunt Stinky, who finally found a decent bloke and then let him wander off. What next, back to twenty one year olds?” Rebecca didn’t have the strength to answer, so she closed her eyes and buried her face back in the pillow.
“Oh fuck off.” Keeley snapped defensively at Rebecca's oldest friend, “I love you, but look at her, can’t you see she needs some support right now. ” And Rebecca felt a stab of gratitude amongst her emotional exhaustion.
The summer was a strange blur, so much of which she already can’t remember even though it had barely passed. Rebecca didn’t fall apart, not at first. She kept herself busy, and spent time with Nora without Sassy. She didn’t need to hear about all the fantastic sex she’d missed out on. Her tolerance for her friend’s constant needling was at an all time low.
She did talk to Ted. Once or twice a week, but those calls were her sunlight, Rebecca’s energy. They sustained her through the hard days. They comforted her at night The pair of them kept their chats light and breezy and scrupulously avoided any discussion of feelings. She thought they were both holding up well, finding a way to cope until a 4AM voice note took all the wind from her sails and stranded her in a bewildering wilderness which she’s still looking to escape.
“Now, I’m gonna sound like the biggest coward, Rebecca— and I don’t expect— I just— It’s real hard to adjust to bein’ here. Talkin’ to you— just makes me miss— I just think you and I— Maybe we shouldn’t talk for a while. I know I’m bein’ so selfish asking for this— It’s not forever, just for a little— I just can’t hear your voice and not wanna come home. I can’t settle. It’s kinda like a wound that won’t scab— No. Don’t want to compare you to that. This is my fourth try at this, can you believe it? Not doin’ well with words. Think every version’s gettin’ worse. Maybe it’ll be easier on both of us this way.
She’d recorded at least fifteen separate responses, from an angry tear slaked “Fuck you.” to a devastated, “Please don’t do this. I’m worried about you.”
In the end she decided to give Ted exactly what he asked for, which was no answer at all.
Rebecca didn’t sleep much after that, not that night or any other since. Staring at old pictures Keeley snapped, listening to the voice notes he’d left her when they’d become close. Happy rambling things; silly jokes that wouldn’t have been out of place inside a Christmas cracker. Tears taking over at the thought of Christmas without him.
“I don’t believe that’s the inference you should be taking, that you’re the one he cares about the least.” Beard told her one afternoon as they walked along the edge of The Green. Rebecca had been at lunch with her two remaining coaches and Leslie, and had been treated to a collection of opinions that Ted had recently graced them all with. It was painful, when as far as she was concerned, he might as well have been in outer space.
“How am I supposed to feel when he can apparently pick up the phone to everyone else but me?” Rebecca asked dryly. “I think I might be the only person in South West London who Ted doesn’t want to talk to.”
“If it helps. I don’t think it was a good decision but it was well-intentioned.” Beard told her in his usual matter of fact style.
Rebecca squeezed her eyes and let out a small huff, “Does he ask about me?”
“Yes. Yes he does. Every day.” Beard nodded, and then they changed the subject.
She misses Ted so much that she wonders if this is what it feels like to be sucked beyond the event horizon of a black hole. She’s strung out in pieces, all the love she wants to give him is slowly turning into a burning poison. Rebecca can’t help but think that she’s finally enduring her punishment, that after all these years she’s getting exactly what she deserves. She’d brought him here with the worst of intentions, what right did she have to a happy ending? Especially with him?
“Rebecca?”
She looks up, blinking. Interrupted from painful reminisence. The MacBook screen has turned into a shimmering swirling thing before her eyes, and her head hurts and everything feels a little off. Beard is back, a jacket clutched in between his hands. The same one she’d picked up from the locker room floor one difficult night what feels a lifetime ago.
“You were shivering earlier.” He states simply.
“I was?“
“Yes. You still are.” She is. She wasn’t aware. “Take it. I thought this might help. It was Ted’s”
“Oh.”
“Take it, Rebecca.” He encourages.
“OK. I think I’ll just—“ She gets up from her desk, clutching the phone and walking on shaky legs to the sofa which is welcome softness beneath her as she sinks down into the cushions.
Beard drapes the jacket around her shoulders just as Ted had the night of the sacrificial burning. This time, Rebecca pushes her arms through the holes, and bundles the thick insulated fabric around herself. It still smells like him, evoking memories of all the times she’d pushed her face into his neck, and breathed in. If she closes her eyes it will be so easy to pretend…
“Better?” Beard wonders gently.
“Yes.” She admits, “Much. I must be coming down with something.” She’s felt off for days, nothing specific just an overall malaise.
“Go home. Get some sleep.” Beard urges. She thinks he looks concerned, but she doesn’t have that relationship that she has… had with Ted where she’s come to understand the micro-movements of his face.
“Coaching meeting?” She asks weakly.
“I think we can spare you.”
“No. I’d like to be there. I’ll take a nap and see you at—?”
“We can move it up to midday?”
She gives a nod, kicking off her Louboutins and tucking her feet beneath her. Beard retreats, closing the door neatly as Rebecca buries her chin inside the warmth of Ted’s former jacket. She lets her eyes shut and decides to pretend just for a few moments that he hasn’t gone anywhere, that he's right here soothing her to sleep.