Sorry, I Love You.

3.04

(2 months later)

"This one's good." Carmen said approvingly as she took one sheet of homework off the stack and placed it in front of Teddy. She licked her finger to pick up the next piece of paper and examined it and the letter grade given by his teacher at the top. "This one's very good."

Teddy took each paper Carmen handed him and stacked them neatly in front of him, trying not to show how relieved he was to have Carmen's approval. Ever since Zoe left, things had been rocky around here. There was a lot of arguing, a lot of crying, and ten times the stress. Teddy didn't want Bailey and Malik to be in that environment though, so he made sure not to raise his voice when they were in the room and had even taken an extra step in correcting his stress, to the best of his abilities, so that there was no more yelling at all.

Not only had Teddy almost ruined his relationship with Carmen over all of his stress and outrage, he had also been neglecting his schoolwork. Mr. Peterson was a lot of help in that department. Teddy didn't do any work while he was suspended and fell very far behind because of it. Luckily, his sessions with Mr. Peterson helped Teddy talk about his heartbreak and his stress and his anger away from everyone else. After some good advise from a firm parental figure, Teddy decided to make some changes in his attitude.

Teddy was still sad all the time. Every class was boring, every day at work was mindless, doing schoolwork did not distract his mind like it used to, and the nights were dreadfully quiet and lonely. It was improvement, though. Teddy was no longer taking his anger out on everybody and destroying the life he had been blessed with recently. Instead, Teddy maintained a calm energy in the face of other people and only broke down in tears when he was alone.

Even though these sheets of homework all had good grades on them, finally, for the first time in weeks, Teddy still frowned at them. They didn't have flowers drawn on the edges in pink, glittery pen that Zoe would do whenever Teddy looked away for long enough. The littlest things, like those stupid flowers, hurt so much. Waking up in the morning and walking to school without Zoe shivering by his side sucked. Going to the library without her sleeping next to him or chatting his ear off sucked. Returning to those dirty fantasies when he found some alone time instead of simply taking Zoe in the flesh was an absolute nightmare.

"These are so good, Teddy! I'm so proud!" Carmen exclaimed and put a hand on Teddy's shoulder in an attempt to shake some affection into him. He did not react, which made Carmen frown. "What is it, Teddy? You've been doing so well. Why do you look so sad?"

"Same reason as always." Teddy muttered, his head down and hands mindlessly straightening his papers.

Carmen sighed and gently caressed Teddy's face with the back of her hand to comfort him. "Give her time."

"You've been saying that for over two months.." Teddy said lowly, his eyes lifting to Carmen with a glint of annoyance swirling in them. "She's not coming back."

"We don't know that. I really doubt we would still be in this house if Zoe didn't want us anymore."

"It makes sense to me. Zoe's too nice to kick us out. Even if she hates me, she's not heartless."

Carmen shook her head but didn't say anything. She was worried that Teddy might actually have a point. Carmen knew Zoe was too nice since the very moment she met her. Maybe Zoe was simply waiting for Carmen to buy her own house, like she had talked about doing before, and then a bunch of Rin's men would swarm this place to clean it out. That worried Carmen. She didn't want Zoe to extend herself for people she didn't actually care about, even if that put Carmen in that bubble.