by Carrie Quest
“I sort of did deserve it,” she finally says. “I was upset about my parents but—”
“You had every right to be upset about that,” I interrupt. “I should have been more understanding.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I should have too. I could have at least given you a chance to explain.”
“I probably wouldn’t have,” I admit.
Her eyes fill with tears, and I clench my hands into fists because it fucking hurts to see her like this.
“I know,” she says.
“I can explain now,” I offer. “If you’re still interested.”
She pulls a crumpled tissue out of her jacket pocket and wipes her eyes. “Okay.”
I take a deep breath. “I blamed myself for Adam’s accident and his injury. I’ll tell you more about that later, if you want, but the main thing you need to know is I decided I wasn’t going to ride again because I felt like I didn’t deserve it, not after taking away all of Adam’s dreams.”
“So the knee was a lie?”
“I had a stupid accident and I did injure it, but not to the extent that I let on. I thought it would be easier if people figured I was quitting because of a jacked knee.”
“The knee was a lie,” she repeats. “You lied to Piper. And to me.”
I look down. “Yeah. I did.”
“All that stuff you said about quitting and sticking around here to take classes, none of that was real?”
“It was real,” I say, meeting her eyes again. “I meant every word when I said it. I didn’t think I’d ever go back.”
“And now?”
She holds my gaze, but I can tell it’s hard for her. I know her so well now, know her tells and her expressions. Her lips are trembling a little and she sits up a little straighter on the couch and squares her shoulders. Like she’s bracing for a blow.
“Now I don’t know,” I admit.
She swears and looks away.
“Adam gave me his blessing today. He wants me back out there.”
Nat draws in a breath that sounds like a sob. “Adam wants you out there? What do you want?”
“I want it too.” My voice is a whisper, but it’s steady.
She doesn’t answer. We stare at each other across the coffee table, both of us breathing hard, and it feels like there are more than a few feet between us. It feels like I’m so far away that I couldn’t touch her if I tried.
“When?” she finally asks.
“Soon,” I say. “We can leave the day after tomorrow. Brody offered to take Thor until Pipes is back in town and—”
She holds up her hand and I stop. “We?”
“Yeah. I want you to come with me.”
She laughs, and for a split second I think it’s going to be okay, that she’s right there with me, but then I look at her face and my stomach clenches so hard it feels like a cramp. Because she may be laughing, but she’s not happy.
“You want me to go with you. To New Zealand?”
“Of course I do.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose and shakes her head. “And what about my parents? And my book? And school starting up again soon?”
“I thought you’d be glad to get away from your parents,” I say. “This way you won’t have to deal with them. And you can write anywhere, can’t you? I’ll rent us a condo, so we don’t have to stay with anyone else, and you can have your own office. I looked at a couple online and they’re close to town, you can walk in for coffee or whatever. I know you didn’t make it to Wanaka on your New Zealand trip, but I promise you it’s a sweet little town. You’ll love it.”
The look on her face tells me I should stop talking, but it’s like my brain is flooding my mouth. All the shit that’s been running through my head for the past few hours is coming out and I can’t stop it.
“We can take Lord of the Rings tours on my days off,” I babble. “They shot a ton of stuff around Queenstown and—”
“I went to the financial aid office today,” she interrupts me quietly. “To talk about loans, in case my parents cut me off. I already started the paperwork, Ben. I need to get this degree. I need to finish. I can’t start my life as an adult by tagging along after someone else.”
My body is screaming to move, but I don’t want to jump up and start pacing because that seems aggressive, so I settle for rubbing my palms together until they tingle.
“I’m not just someone else,” I say. “I love you.”
The words hang between us, like I’ve put them in one of those foil heart balloons and tapped it over to her, like we can both see them drifting over the coffee table. My stomach drops a little more with every second that passes. I’ve never said those words to anyone before and I had no idea how scared I would be the minute they left my lips.
“I love you too,” she finally whispers, and that’s all I need. I’m out of my chair and over the coffee table and pulling her close, and when she’s in my arms, soft and warm and Natalie, I can finally breathe again.
“I love you so much,” I murmur against her hair. “Please come with me. I know it’s a lot to ask, but please come.”
I feel her start to sob before I hear it. Her body trembles and she buries her face in my chest, shaking her head back and forth as the tears come.
“I can’t,” she chokes out. She pulls away and stares up at me, her eyes big and dark and somehow empty, with tears running down her cheeks. I brush them away with my thumbs and stare back, more lost than I’ve ever been.
She’s not coming.
I’m going to lose her.
I stand up and walk slowly back to the chair, and she lets me go.
27
Natalie
His eyes are denim dark and wild, darting around the room like he’s afraid to look at my face. His leg is bouncing up and down and his fingers tap tap tap on the arm of the chair.
I shiver, cold without his arms around me, and I want badly to give in and say yes. To laugh and kiss him and run up the stairs to drag my backpack out of the closet and start throwing clothes into it. Ben Easton is sitting in front of me, begging me to run away with him. He’ll get down on his knees if I want him there. There are probably Ben’s Babes all over the world fantasizing this exact scenario, and I’m the idiot ruining the scene.
I can’t even speak to try and explain, all I can do is stare at him, waiting until he finally looks at me. When he does, the look in his eyes makes me ache. Totally open. Totally vulnerable.
He’s killing me. I don’t want to speak, because the last thing in the world I want to do is hurt him, but I can’t just stare at him forever. I swallow my sobs and search for the right words, because I need to explain this in a way that won’t break us, but whatever skill I have as a wordsmith is gone. Lost in the storm I see growing in Ben’s eyes.
“Say something,” he finally bursts out. “I’m dying here, Nat. Please say something. Please say yes.” He leans forward, ready to vault over the table again. “I’ll do anything to have you with me.”
“I can’t,” I say again.
He flinches, like I’ve punched him, then closes his eyes and drags in a few deep breaths. In. Out.
“Why not?” he finally says. His eyes pop open, searching my face.
“I have school,” I say, my voice high and reedy. I sound so young and lost, which is ironic because this is the most adult decision I have ever made.
No wonder it’s making me nauseous.
“School?” He sucks in another breath. “I ask you to travel the world with me and you’re saying no because you’ve got school?”
His tone on that last word is so sharp and hard that I can practically feel it cutting into me, flaying me open, exposing my heart. I’ve never heard him talk like that, not to me.
“I need to finish my degree,” I say, struggling to keep my voice calm and even. “It’s not only about getting an agent, or even a book deal. Not anymore. It’s about being a better writer.”
He snorts. “You think taking more classes w
ith clowns like Monique is going to make you a better writer? Give me a break. You’re just scared and looking for an excuse to say no.”
Ouch. I narrow my eyes. “I don’t need an excuse to say no. This is the plan I made for my future. The plan we made, actually. You’re the one who flipped the script with no warning and now you want me to…what? Follow you around? Fit my dreams into the margins around yours?”
“You can write anywhere,” he grits out. “You’ll still be following your dreams. I would never stand in your way.”
In a way, he’s right. I could finish this book in New Zealand. But then what? I’ve learned a lot about the business of writing this summer, and the fact is that getting an agent is awesome, but it doesn’t mean you’ve made it. Plenty of people get agents and never get published. Hell, plenty of people get book deals and never get published again. There are no guarantees and the best way to actually make a career of it is to study the craft and keep getting better.
I clear my throat and push more words out. I need to make him understand.
“I’m signed up for the fall semester already, and you know I’ve got that workshop. That’s a once in a lifetime thing.”
“There will be other workshops,” he says.
I stand, too frustrated and angry to sit, and begin to pace. “You’re not listening to me, Ben. All of a sudden you decide to go back to snowboarding, a sport that nearly killed your best friend, by the way, and I’m supposed to shut up and fall in line?”
“Jesus, Natalie.” He’s on his feet now too, hands on his hips. “I’d never ask you to shut up and fall in line. I love you because you go after your dreams.”
“Yet now you’re punishing me for it,” I say. The rage rips through me and suddenly I’m yelling. “You lied, Ben! I never would have let this happen with you if I knew you going back to snowboarding was even a possibility.”
“Really?” he asks. The snarky tone is back, and his voice gets louder with each word. “That’s bullshit, Natalie! You’ve never asked me directly about going back. Hell, you’ve barely even asked about the knee. You’ve watched me run all summer, watched me kick that fucking brace under the bed and forget about it. You had to have known that something was up, and you blew it off because you didn’t want to know.”
“You should have told me,” I say stubbornly. “I never would have…”
“You think you could have stopped this?” He gestures between us. “Could have cut off this connection? What we have?”
“Yes.” I raise my chin. “I could have stopped it.”
“You’re fooling yourself,” he says. “Nothing could have stopped this. We are inevitable, and we’re so damn good together, Natalie.”
I shake my head. “You’re the one fooling yourself, Ben. If we’re so good, then how did we end up here?”
He drops his head to stare at the floor and takes in a deep breath, then puffs his cheeks out and exhales slowly before looking up.
“We could try long distance,” he says. He doesn’t sound enthusiastic and I don’t blame him. Being a world away from him, hearing his voice on the phone but not being able to touch him, kiss him, wake up next to him? Torture.
“Do you want that?”
“No,” he says. “I want you with me. But you obviously don’t want to be there. Not enough.”
My stomach clenches. He’s still angry and he hasn’t been listening, or, if he has, I’ve completely failed to explain myself.
“It goes both ways,” I tell him. “You obviously don’t want to be with me enough to stay.”
Stay. Please just stay. The words are there, fighting their way up my throat, but I don’t let them out. Some things have to be given freely. You can’t ask for them.
He’s right about one thing: I was a coward this summer—too scared to ask him about his knee because I didn’t want to consider the possibility that he might leave. And no wonder, because this hurts. Worse than my parents’ disappointment. Worse than any rejection letter. Worse than anything I’ve ever felt.
And if it’s this bad now, what will it feel like if I lose him later? When the anger that he’s feeling now has had time to fester and he starts to hate me? I can’t let myself find out.
“We’ll never make it long distance,” I say. “Look at us. You lied to me all summer and I was too chickenshit to call you on it. Neither one of us knows what the hell we’re doing when it comes to relationships, and we think we can make it work while you’re on the other side of the world?” My hands are shaking, and I curl them into fists and cross my arms, trying to regain control.
“This was a mistake,” I continue. “We should end it now, before we start to hate each other. Maybe this way we can still be friends.”
The minute the words are out of my mouth I want to claw them back, but I seal my lips up tight. Better to keep him in my life somehow then lose him completely.
“Friends? Fucking friends?”
I nod.
He shakes his head. “We’ll never be friends, Natalie.”
“That’s your choice.” I press my crossed arms tighter into my body, holding myself together.
“I can get a flight out the day after tomorrow,” he tells me. “I’ll stay out of your way until then.”
Then he turns and walks away.
28
Ben
I stumble away from her, my limbs awkward and unfamiliar, like they don’t understand how to move in this new world without Natalie in it. What the fuck just happened? Less than twenty-four hours ago we were tangled up together. I asked her to travel the world with me and now I don’t know if I’ll ever even talk to her again.
I grab the vodka out of the freezer on my way to my room because right about now I want my mind to be the opposite of clear. I want it to be dark. I need oblivion.
Downstairs I don’t even attempt to clean up all the shit I tossed around when I was waiting for Nat to get home. I just slump on the bed, swig the freezing alcohol straight from the bottle, and replay our conversation, trying to figure out how it all went so damn wrong.
This was a mistake.
I shake my head and keep drinking, but I can’t scrub those five words from my mind. The little fuckers are stuck in there, maybe forever. Does she really think we were a mistake? Were we?
Eventually the vodka does its work and I pass out, only to wake up late the next morning with my head pounding so hard it feels like there’s someone head-butting me from the inside. Fuck.
I roll out of bed and make it to the bathroom just in time to puke up the watery contents of my stomach.
I vow never to drink again, but then I remember last night and crawl back toward the bed, looking for the bottle.
Luckily for my remaining brain cells, it’s empty. So I settle for a scalding shower and head upstairs. My heart is pounding, and I honestly don’t know if it’s because I’m scared Nat will be here or because I’m terrified she’ll be gone.
Thor is sacked out on the sofa and there’s no other sign of life. I consider breakfast, but all my stomach will accept is a huge-ass bottle of ice-cold Gatorade. I collapse next to my dog, who barely opens his eyes. Nat must’ve taken him out to run him this morning, because he’s never this sleepy otherwise.
An image of her smiling down at him as she clips on his leash flashes through my mind and my stomach twists. It hurts to think of her being so close and it hurts even worse to think that I might be on the other side of the world tomorrow. I need to talk to her. Last night was out of control. We were both emotional, we said shit we didn’t mean, and we had a fight. All couples fight, right?
I shouldn’t have walked away. I need to talk to her.
But she’s not here, and when I stumble back to the kitchen later, I notice that she’s left me a note.
Ben,
I walked Thor and I’ll be back tomorrow to take care of him— just leave him inside when you go. I’m staying at Syd’s tonight. I think it’s better we don’t see each other right now. Please don’t co
ntact me. We’ve said everything there is to say.
Natalie
I fist the paper and throw it across the room, which gets Thor up and running. Two seconds later it's in a million pieces and covered in dog spit, but who the fuck cares? Not like I’m going to forget that message in a hurry.
I guess I don’t need to talk to her after all, because she’s sure as fuck making it clear that she doesn’t want to talk to me, and I’m not going to beg. I already offered her the world and she said no. She doesn’t want to be with me.
I’m sorely tempted to lie down and go back to sleep, but I have way too much shit to do, so instead, I haul my ass back down the stairs and pack. I confirm my plane ticket. I text Adam and Piper to tell them goodbye because I can’t face talking to anyone right now, especially anyone who’s going to ask me about Natalie.
By the end of the day I’ve sweated out the vodka, my bags are packed, and most of the mess in my room has been tossed back into the closet. I have no idea when I’ll be back here, and if it’s cleared out, at least Piper can use it as a place for her friends to crash. I’m doing a pretty successful job of shutting all thoughts of Natalie down as soon as they pop up when I glance up and notice the nightstand on her side of the bed.
Her e-reader’s still there, and so is that little Treebeard figure that I left outside her door at the beginning of the summer. There’s also a tube of her lotion and a pile of the note cards she likes to keep handy, in case she has an idea for a story in the middle of the night.
Shit. I sit down hard on the bed and stare at the cards, remembering what it felt like to wake up in the middle of the night and look over to see her scribbling away in the soft light of her reading lamp, knowing that when she finished I could pull her into my arms.
Please don’t contact me.
I take a deep breath and gather it all up, resisting the urge to toss her lotion in my backpack so I can moon over her smell after I leave. I pile everything on the table upstairs where her note was, because I no longer have the right to go into her room. Her space isn’t my space anymore. We’re separate now.
