Page 47 of Come Back to Me

“Hey, Ted, it’s me, Jack. Sorry I missed your call. I’m at the station tonight but call me if you want to talk. Love you, brother.”

I head upstairs to brush my teeth and decide to nap in one of the recliners instead of in the bunks so if Teddy calls me back, it won’t wake the other guys.

Seven and a half hours later, I wake up in the same recliner, stiff and surprised to find that we didn’t have any emergency calls over night. I also didn’t get a call or text back from Teddy.

I’m pretty sure Ted was working overnight in the ER last night, so hopefully we can connect today. I shoot him a text to see if he wants to meet for breakfast over at Pat’s,since he should get off work any minute. When he doesn’t respond, I call him, but it goes straight to voicemail again.

Feeling a little worried, I text Annie. I know she gets to work by seven a.m., so she’ll see Teddy before he leaves after his shift.

Me: Good morning, “bae”. Can you ask Teddy to call me when he’s leaving work? I want to see if he wants to get breakfast.

Annie: Morning. Miss you. Sorry, hon, Teddy’s not here. He called off work last night.

My stomach drops when I read her text. Something feels wrong. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but I’ve worried about Teddy for enough years to know I need to pay attention when I get this feeling.

Shit, you should have hung up with Annie and taken his call last night. You know he needs you to be a better friend than that.

I leave the station and rush to my car, deciding to go to his and Emily’s house and check on him. Maybe he’s just sick and not answering the phone.

When I pull into their driveway, I turn off the ignition and jump out of my car, then jog to the front of the house. I ring the doorbell, and no one comes for a few minutes. Just as I’m considering using the spare key, sounds of faint shuffling make their way through the thick wood of the door then it opens.

Emily stands in front of me in sweats instead of her work clothes, and her eyes are rimmed red. She’s been crying.

“Hey, Em, sorry to barge in so early. Is Teddy here?”

Emily shakes her head, sighs, then moves to the side and motions for me to come in. I almost can’t bring myself to step over that threshold because I have this sick feeling in my stomach that I’m about to hear some bad news involving my friend. Maybe the honeymoon’s over and Teddy has gone off the rails with drinking. Or maybe I’m going to have to go pull him out of some dive casino where he’s convinced himself if he just stays a little longer, he’ll win big.

I follow Emily to the living room and sit on the couch next to her.

“I’ve been trying to call Teddy. I missed a call from him last night.”

I feel guilty, which I know in theory I shouldn’t. Still, I don’t share that I missed his call because I was on the phone with Annie.

“Do you know where he is? Annie told me he called off work last night.”

Emily tries–and fails—to keep her voice from trembling when she says, “It’s probably because he’s with her.”

Fuck. Did she just say what I think she did?I can’t even get myself to speak, so I just stare at her. I want to leave. I want to get up and pretend that I never came here. That I didn’t just hear that my best friend might have screwed up his life… again.

“Em, I’m sure whatever you’re thinking is wrong. You know Teddy. He’s a flirt, but he loves you. We will find him and?—”

“I’m not wrong. I got a phone call yesterday from a man who said that he needed to meet me to talk about Teddy. It’s pretty bad, Jack.”

She delivers that line like I need the warning shot before she goes on.

The thing is, Emily knows how bad it can get. She’s known and loved Teddy almost as long as I have. She’s been there for the ups and downs, and we’ve both been there, trying to help each other hold on when we’ve pulled him from the edge of his various screw-ups in the past.

“I met the man at the coffee shop on Main. He… he told me everything,” she says. She’s staring so hard at the floor she could bore holes in it with her eyes.

“I’m sure whatever this guy said, he can’t be right. You just got married. Ted wouldn’t do this to you again.”

Emily sighs and then lifts her head to focus her eyes on mine.

“He’s not wrong, Jack. The woman works in the ER with Teddy. The guy is—or was before this—her boyfriend. Hefound texts and pictures on her phone. Showed me screenshots… Her name is Sadie…”

Shit. What the fuck was Teddy thinking? Emily has stood by him through so fucking much since they were sixteen years old and he’s going to throw that away for a quick lay? Especially after fighting so hard to get her back last time…

“We can fix this. He wouldn’t do this. Maybe he isn’t taking his medications. He just wouldn’t do this…”

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