Teddy shrugs. “Then you don’t have to see any of them again after this summer. What does it matter?”
Oof. It feels like the words skip my ears and go straight for my solar plexus.
“Maybe I … do want to see them again.”
“All of them?”
“Is that weird?”
Teddy stops short in the street. We’re at least two blocks from the geocache and we’re on a timer, so I know when he looks me in the eye and commits to the stopping, he means business.
“No, I don’t think that’s weird. But now the rest of it might be. Do you really think any of them would want to get tangled in this precollege business?” Teddy asks. “And if they did—do you really think it would change Coop’s mind?”
The truth is, for all the bullheaded planning I’ve done to orchestrate all these meetings—the internship, Broadway Bugs, the dance classes—I’ve never really thought the scenario all the way through to its end. I got as far as figuring out which one of them is my mom and just skipped ahead to the part where I got to go to the precollege.
I also skipped the part where I suddenly know who my mom is for the rest of my life. And the part where maybe two of the other women who aren’t my mom don’t get to be in it.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“I don’t either. Which is why I think you’re not trying to find them for that, or you would have just asked them by now.” Dammit. Between hunting for knickknacks and shoveling Goldfish into his mouth like it’s his last snack on earth, Teddy is eerily perceptive. “You’re a lot of things, Millie, but subtle’s never been one of them.”
It is perhaps a little on the nose that I am wearing a pair of glittery rainbow bangles so bright they could blind passersby right now.
“It’s just…” I take a breath, and it’s like the words I wrote this morning breathe right back out of me. “Maybe it’s true. That I need people to like me. And maybe I have to be sure that—whichever one of them she is—she likes me.”
“What do you mean, maybe it’s true? Who said that?”
Oliver did. And probably other people before him, but for some reason things Oliver says to me always stick longer than most. And anyway, just because it was a cheap shot doesn’t make it any less true.
“I mean, it would track,” I say quietly. “I know it started out as a way to get into the precollege, but I think…”
I pull myself back from the end of that sentence like I’ve gotten too close to a fire, but it doesn’t matter. Teddy knows exactly what I meant to say.
“Hey,” he says.
I tug on his arm. “We’re gonna miss the geocache.”
“Let someone else beat us to the punch for once. Listen.” He puts his hands on my shoulders, holding me in place. “You don’t have a thing with being liked. Trust me, I’d know if you did. Half of Stone Hall is still terrified of you from when you bit their heads off for making fun of my tie at homecoming freshman year.”
“I hope they see me in their nightmares.”
Teddy cracks a grin. “See what I mean?” He lets go of me but leaves the big puppy dog eyes on mine. “I’d say you’re ambitious. That’s different than needing to be liked. You kind of go through the world like you’ve got something to prove.”
He says it like it’s a fact, like it’s something he’s proud of. But maybe he shouldn’t be. Maybe he’s just hit the nail on the head: whoever my mom is, I want to prove her wrong about me.
“I think there’s something else behind this.”
“Maybe,” I concede.
But even as I say it, I know it’s more than just a maybe. It wasn’t just the precollege that changed things. It’s like something took hold of me once I saw those LiveJournal entries—once this imaginary gray figure in the back of my head became a living, breathing entity. Not a possibility, but a reality. One close enough to touch.
Teddy tilts his head like he’s trying to think of something comforting to say, but neither of us is really good on that front. We’re just good at being there for each other.
Speaking of: “C’mon.” I yank him by the arm. “We’ve still got two minutes to beat those other kids to the geocache, and I’m going to spend them all yelling into your ear about why you’re entirely crushable.”
“You really don’t have to do that.”
“You’re very tall and also symmetrical!” I yell, taking off.
Teddy’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm, scrambling to keep up with me.
“You always share your Reese’s Puffs!”
“Millie—”
“YOU ONLY SNORE MEDIUM LOUD!”
“Curse your impressive lung capacity,” Teddy grumbles, and then we’re off, and for a little while leave the rest of it in our wake.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I’m up early the next morning, determined to put yesterday behind me. I blow out my hair and find a bright red flared dress in the back of my closet, throw on Heather’s boots, and march myself over to the CVS, where I spend the next fifteen minutes deliberating over which notebook and set of colored pens to buy. If this whole “writing stuff down” thing can stop one Millie Mood in its tracks, it’s worth the future investment to see if it stops others.
I settle on a sparkly one, deciding that if I’m already being slightly reckless with the internship money, I might as well treat myself. I reroute myself to the bakery I love so much, wondering if I’ll run into Oliver there. When someone calls my name, I don’t even blink, whipping around like I expected it—only it’s not Oliver. It’s Chloe.
“Hi hi hi,” she says, running up to me, her phone extended in her hand. “Good morning! What are you doing up so early?”
“My internship,” I say, barely muffling an oof as she throws her arms around me. “What are you doing up so early?”
She presses a finger to her phone to dim the screen and shoves it in her pocket. “Just, uh—it was nice out, I wanted to go for a walk,” she says quickly.
It feels weird to just “hi” and “bye” her, even if we did see each other two days ago. I tilt my head toward the bakery. “Wanna split a croissant?”
“Um, yeah.”
I keep an eye on the time as we stand in line, getting a croissant, an iced Americano for me, an iced vanilla latte for Steph, and a frozen hot chocolate for Chloe. She slurps it so fast it’s a miracle she doesn’t get a brain freeze all the way down to her toes, and tells me about the flying monkey costume she’s putting her dog Seymour in for the Wizard of Oz–themed meetup.
“Why do I have a feeling you named that dog after seeing Little Shop of Horrors?” I ask, splitting the croissant.
Chloe, right on cue, says, “Feed me, Seymour,” as I hand over her half. I laugh and she goes bright red, pleased with herself.
“So…” Chloe frowns at her hot chocolate, that nervous expression back on her face. I brace myself, thinking she’s about to ask about Teddy, but she says, “Is the musical theater department at Cornelia like, super competitive? I’ve heard some things.”