by Noelle Adams
When I see Nate hesitate, I roll my eyes. “Well, I’m going to ask him.”
I walk away before Nate can argue. He doesn’t like to ask for directions. Just another one of his annoying habits when he’s lost.
The man is very nice, but his accent is so thick that I can barely understand him. It takes a while for him to figure out where I want to go since I pronounce the name of the village different from him. But we finally work it out, and he gives me directions accompanied by a series of gestures and hand motions.
I thank him profusely before I return to Nate. The man grins and waves at Nate before he moves on with his sheep.
“Was he laughing at me?” Nate asks.
“No. I don’t think so. I couldn’t understand him very well, but I think he said that my lad didn’t look very happy.”
“Your lad?”
“He might not have said that. He was hard to understand. But he was very nice, so you don’t need to be sneering in his direction.”
It looks to me like Nate is trying to suppress his bad mood, and his voice is less curt as he asks, “So what did he say about getting back?”
“He said we can keep going this way and we’ll run into a road. Then we turn left, and it will lead directly into the village.”
“Okay. Good. Let’s go.”
We walk for a long time before we finally reach the road. Nate stops and looks at it. Then he looks left and right. He sighs. “This is the road we took into town yesterday. We went way out of our way.”
“Oh, who cares, as long as we get back?” I take his arm to get him to walk.
We’ve been walking for a few minutes when a car speeds past, giving us a honk as it goes on.
Nate scowls.
“He was just being friendly,” I say.
“He was probably honking because you’re hardly wearing a top.”
I gasp and look down at myself again. Since I’ve been sweating some, the fabric is more transparent than before, and the lace of my bra is clearly visible. “You’re the one who told me to take my shirt off.”
“That’s because I thought I’d be the only one to see you like that.”
I peer up at him, trying to pinpoint what’s provoking his tone. It’s almost like he’s being possessive, like he doesn’t want anyone else to see my boobs.
Irrationally, I kind of like this idea.
“Well, it’s too hot to put the shirt back on,” I say at last. I kind of want to put it back on, but it would feel like a defeat after Nate’s grumbling. “So you’ll have to deal with it.”
“Did I say it was a problem?”
“Actually, yes you did. You just said that—”
“Okay, fine. Whatever. Let’s just walk.”
“We are walking. You’re the one who keeps snapping my head off. I already said I was sorry about making us go to that lake and getting us lost.”
Nate gives a soft groan. “I never blamed you for that. I just don’t like getting lost.”
“I know you don’t. And, believe me, I don’t like getting lost with you.”
We walk the rest of the way back in silence. By the time we reach the village, I’m about to collapse with exhaustion, and we still have half a mile to go to the cottage. I really need to stop and rest, but I refuse to say so. I just press on, no longer having enough energy to even speak.
When we get to the cottage at last, I limp inside, heading immediately to my room.
I go to the bathroom and then splash water on my face. I’d like to take a shower, but I don’t yet have the energy, so I fall onto my bed, on top of the covers, and try to catch my breath.
I don’t know what Nate’s doing, and I don’t really care. He’s been a jerk all afternoon.
I haven’t yet recovered enough when Nate taps on my door. It’s not closed all the way, so when I don’t answer, he pushes it open.
“Are you okay?” he asks after taking a quick assessment of my condition.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’m tired.”
“You should have told me you needed to rest.”
“I didn’t need to rest. I needed to get back.”
He’s frowning as he walks into the room, closer to the bed. “You look terrible.”
I scowl at him. “Same to you.”
He looks hot and tired too, although he’s obviously not as winded and exhausted as I am. His face is flushed, and he’s been sweating and his hair is doing some crazy flips and kinks.
He still looks adorable. I wish the same could be said of me.
He groans and lowers himself to lie beside me on the bed. I stare up at the ceiling while he turns his head to look at me.
“I’m sorry,” he says at last.
“For what?” If he says he’s sorry for getting us lost, I’m just going to have to give him a shove.
“For acting like an ass.”
I turn my head to look at him now too, and our faces are only inches apart. “Are you?”
“Am I an ass?”
I give a breathless huff of amusement. “Are you sorry?”
“I am. I know I was a jerk. I knew it while I was acting that way. I tried to stop myself, but I guess I didn’t try hard enough.”
I smile at him, feeling better about the world in general.
He smiles back. “I’m sorry it turned out to be a crappy day.”
“I didn’t think it was a crappy day until the last hour or so. I had a good time with the rest of it.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” After a minute, he adds. “Me too.”
We lie in silence for a minute, and I feel the ridiculous impulse to hold his hand. Fortunately, I manage to resist the urge.
After a while, Nate murmurs, “I want you to have a good time on this trip.”
“I am having a good time.”
“I’ll try not to mess it up for you again.”
“You didn’t mess it up. I mean, I don’t want you to get all mean and cranky again, but it didn’t mess up the whole trip. I don’t have to be happy every minute for it to be a really good trip.”
Nate shoots me a quick look, and I can’t figure out what he’s thinking. “Where did those words of wisdom come from?” he asks at last.
I don’t know how he always seems to know when I’m paraphrasing something from Rochester, but he does. “I might have read them in a note from a friend this morning.”
Nate groans. “Don’t tell me.”
“Well, you’re the one who asked.”
“He’s full of all kinds of crap, isn’t he?”
“It’s not crap,” I say, feeling defensive. I haven’t thought much about Rochester today at all, but that doesn’t mean I want Nate to insult him. “He’s really... I don’t know... wise.”
Nate groans again.
“Don’t act like that,” I tell him. “He’s really kind and thoughtful, and he has a beautiful way of thinking.”
“A beautiful way of thinking?”
I ignore the sarcasm. “He does. He’s written the most beautiful things to me.”
“Well, you need more than beautiful words for a relationship to work.”
“I know that. But he really seems to get me. I don’t think it’s all talk.”
“It seems like a lot of empty romantic babble to me.”
“That’s not what it is. It’s not empty.”
“How do you know? You don’t even know the man behind the words.”
“I do know him. I really think I know him. You don’t understand.”
“I guess not.” Nate has been looking at me as we talk, but now he stares up at the ceiling. “But love is more than words, you know.”
“I know it’s more than words. But words are nice sometimes, you know.”
“Sure they are. If they’re proven by actions. You don’t need a guy who just talks pretty to you and conjures up romantic notions. You need a guy who believes that you’re the
most important thing in his world. You need a guy who is always there when you need him. You need a guy who’s willing to rearrange his entire life for you.”
I stare at Nate in breathless astonishment. I’ve never heard anything like this from him before. He’s usually so dry and clever. Almost never earnest like this.
And I like it. I like it a lot. It makes me feel full and rich and confused and tangled up inside.
He darts a quick look over to me, evidently feeling a little self-conscious at his outburst. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
“Don’t be sorry,” I say. “The truth is, I don’t think any guy will ever be that way with me.” I sigh as I admit the truth to myself. “No one but you.”
I reach over to pick up his hand and hold it the way I wanted to earlier.
He tightens his hand around mine, and he suddenly feels full of tension, like something is about to release inside him.
I wonder what it is, and then I’m all breathless and excited, waiting to find out, even though there’s no reason for me to think that something important is going to happen.
But then I remember that this is Nate. Nate. The boy I used to seesaw with for hours as kids. The boy who helped me with my math homework year after year, all the way up until college algebra. The boy who has always been the bedrock of my life.
Him and my mother.
I’ve lost my mother, and it was almost too much to take. There’s no way I can lose Nate too by messing things up between us.
I’m suddenly terrified—terrified by all the horrible possibilities—and I scramble out of the bed. “I need to take a shower,” I say, trying to sound casual when Nate sits up, looking astonished and concerned. “I’m sure I stink.”
I’m in the bathroom and shutting the door when Nate replies in a voice that sounds almost resigned, “You don’t stink.”
Four
AFTER WE SHOWER AND rest, we take a bus to Steventon, which isn’t far away and is the birthplace of Jane Austen. We walk around the village, look at the various sites connected to Austen and her family, and then have dinner in a pub.
Things are back to normal between Nate and me, and I have a really good time. I think he does too although I occasionally catch him looking at me with a strangely watchful expression. I hope he doesn’t suspect that I’ve been feeling things for him I shouldn’t be, but he’s always been sharp and observant.
I’ll have to do better about hiding it. I’ll have to do better about not feeling that way.
Since we’re both tired after a long day and an extended walk, we decide to just take it easy this evening. I soak in the hot tub, but tonight Nate doesn’t join me. He sits by the fireplace and messes around on his tablet.
I assume he’s doing email, but I don’t actually ask him.
It’s probably good for us to have a little time apart, but I feel strangely lonely as I sit in the hot water and think about Nate.
I should write to Rochester tonight, but I’m not sure I even feel like it. I don’t know what happened over the past two days, but my enthusiasm for him has definitely dampened.
I feel relaxed but a little depressed as I finally get out and go to change into my pajamas. When I emerge from my room, Nate has disappeared, and his closed bedroom door tells me where he is.
I sigh as I stare at his shut door and encourage myself with the idea that things will be normal again tomorrow morning.
After I go into the kitchen to get a bottle of water, I notice that things are scattered around the living area, so I automatically go to pick them up and return them to their places. I pick up Nate’s empty coffee cup and his tablet.
He must have just gone to his bedroom because his tablet has dimmed but not gone to sleep. As I carry it with the mug to the kitchen, I can’t help but notice the word Jane on the screen.
I’m not a particularly nosy person. I try to respect other people’s privacy—particularly Nate’s. I would never read his email or personal messages without his permission.
But my name is right there on his tablet screen, so I find myself tapping the surface to brighten it enough to read.
I freeze when I see the message I wrote to Rochester this morning.
It’s right there, next to the name Jane and the icon of Jane Austen’s portrait that I use on the dating site. The most obvious explanation is that he’s somehow snuck on to my profile on the site so he can read the messages between me and Rochester, but I don’t believe that for a moment.
Nate would never do that.
So I scan farther down the screen and blink when I see Rochester’s name and a text box, in which are written a couple of paragraphs.
This is not a message that Rochester has sent me. I’ve never seen it before although it’s obviously his style and personality. It’s only partly finished. In fact, the last sentence has been left hanging.
It takes me embarrassingly long before I figure out what is going on. In my defense, it’s such a bizarre notion, so far from the way I’ve ever understood the world, that it’s not a conclusion I would ever come to if the evidence hadn’t been clearly leading directly there.
I click on the profile button for Rochester, still unwilling to believe what seems to be happening here. I read over the profile—some of which I’ve seen before and some of which has been hidden from me until the two months’ communication period is over.
There’s no doubt about it. Nate is Rochester.
I’m paralyzed with shock and pain and bewilderment, and I can’t move from where I’m standing in the kitchen with the tablet in my hand.
Even when I hear Nate coming out of his bedroom, his footsteps in the hallway, I can’t move—not even to keep him from knowing I’ve been invading his privacy.
My invasion isn’t half as bad as his invasion of me.
“What are you doing?” he demands, sounding surprised, slightly outraged, as anyone would be if they saw someone snooping on their tablet without permission.
I’m finally able to look up from the screen, but I can’t really see Nate’s face. My eyes are blurred over. “He’s... he’s you?”
As inarticulate as my question is, Nate obviously understands it. He takes a step forward, reaching out a hand, “Jane—”
For some reason his saying my name like that breaks through my stupor. I drop the tablet onto the counter like it’s burning my hand. “He’s you,” I hiss, backing away as Nate approaches me. “You did this to me? What is it? Some sort of spiteful... trick?”
“No!” He’s trapped me against the opposite counter, and he reaches out toward me, his face twisting with strong emotion. “That’s not what it is. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“But you did!” My voice is shrill, out of control, and I hate the sound it. But there’s nothing I can do to stop it. It feels like my whole world—everything I’ve built my hope and faith and affection on—is crumbling down around me. “You tricked me. You lied to me. You... you took advantage of me! All this time I thought I was... We were... I was opening up my heart, and you were just laughing behind my back!”
It hurts so much that I can’t stand it anymore. I jerk out of his grip and stumble out the kitchen, trying to reach my bedroom.
Nate is right at my heels. He grabs my arm before I can reach my room and swings me around to face him. I’ve never seen him like this before—urgent, demanding, incredibly intense. This is not my sweet, laid-back Nate. I don’t even know who this man is.
“I was not laughing at you,” he says roughly. His startlingly blue eyes are deep and full of emotion I’ve never seen there before. “How can you think I would do that?”
“How can I think—” I’m almost choking as the hallway spins dizzily around me. “You’ve had this whole underhanded scheme going! I have no idea what you would do. I took this seriously. I was completely vulnerable. And you—”
“I was vulnerable too.” he interrupts, moving one of his hands from my arm to my shoulder. “Listen to me. I was vulnerable too. Everything
I wrote to you was real—”
I can’t hear any more of this because what he’s saying right now feels true to me, feels authentic. I desperately want to believe it. But that simply doesn’t match with what I’ve just learned about him. I jerk away again and make a dash for my bedroom door. “It was not real! You pretended to be someone else!”
He’s coming after me again when I slam the door in his face. I fumble with the lock until I get it closed, just as he’s turning the handle.
“Jane!” he bellows.
“I can’t talk to you right now.” I try to sound firm, but I’m starting to cry, so the words are garbled and broken.
“Jane,” he says again, softer now, his voice cracking.
“I can’t talk to you,” I say again, feeling irrationally guilty, even though I’m the wounded party in this scenario. It doesn’t feel fair to run out on an argument with Nate, but I’m about to fall apart, so I really don’t have any other choice. “You know how much I... I love you—”
“I love you too, Jane. You know I do.”
I have to pause a minute to control the sob that’s strangling in my throat. “You know how much I trusted you.”
“You can still trust me. I promise you can.”
“I can’t. I... can’t. I can’t believe you did this to me. You had to know what you were doing. You had to know how bad it was. I just don’t understand why...” I have to stop talking now. I’m leaning against the door, covering my face with my hands as my whole body shakes with tears.
It sounds like Nate is slumped against the other side of the door now. His voice is thick, resigned. “Because I wanted to say things to you I was never able to say in any other way. Because I wanted you to see me... to think about me... like I could be the hero of your story.”
It’s simply too much to take in. There’s no way I can possibly process it. I try to stop crying but can’t do it.
“Oh God, Jane.” he rasps. “Please let me in. I can’t stand for you to cry like that.”
He wants to comfort me—the way he always has. I can hear it in his voice. And I desperately need that comfort.
But it’s impossible now. He’s not the boy I’ve always known, and I don’t know if he can ever be again.
