#altbray

    Teddy gave a watery half-laugh. She shook her head as faces flashed across the panorama of her memory. Her father and their scrabble board, her mother gone so suddenly that Teddy had never been afforded the chance to say goodbye. Allison whose last act was to invite Teddy to shirk responsibilities and savor the day together. Henry who had left her in the midst of an argument that they never got to resolve. An argument she never got to apologize for and soothe over. Teddy had said to Cristina that she needed another of herself in that room operating on Henry and that Cristina was the next best thing. The truth was Cristina had been in the OR where her fiance had died when Teddy hadn’t been. Teddy saw Owen’s face too. Her best friend who had chosen someone else time after time after time. Fate had been in her hands multiple times and each time the thing Teddy tried to hold on to had spirited away from her. Like sand. Like petals on the wind. 

    “Everyone leaves,” she said softly. Wiping bravely at her face. “Everyone dies.” She shook her head. “And I know I left you Quinn. For Germany. I know Owen and I conceiving together is a scar for you.” She fought to keep her features from crumbling. “But I don’t have anything to offer you. I don’t have any reason for you to stay.” She lifted her shoulders and dropped them. “I have a lump of scar tissue where my heart should be. And you don’t deserve that.” Teddy wanted so badly for Quinn to save herself. She had her whole life and a brilliant career ahead of her. How could she focus at all on having anything with Teddy? “Hurt people hurt people; and I hurt you. That’s all I know how to do.”