by Elias Taylor
“I’m working on it. When the divorce goes through, I won’t have a reason to see Natalie anymore. I’ll have a lot more time to work on business planning.”
Now the Atlantic Ocean was filled with extremely sharp cutlery. Until Brent had said that bit about the divorce, Natalie still had hope. She still hadn’t been sure she was hearing all this right.
Now, there was no hope, only a triumphant, hateful part of her mind screaming I told you so at the top of its lungs.
Natalie didn’t wait around to hear the rest of the conversation, and she didn’t go back to the kitchen for the pepper. She turned and went straight to the door, opening it with exquisite care and shutting it the same way, then marched across the yard to her own front door.
That door, she slammed as hard as she could. She had to release at least a little of this betrayal, anger and self-loathing or she would fall into pieces.
Natalie couldn’t stand still, but she couldn’t move either. She compromised by standing in place on the rug just inside the door and shaking like a leaf. Emotions bounced around her skull, and she couldn’t decide whether she needed to scream at Brent, laugh at her naivety, move to a different state or break things all at once.
She settled for striding into the kitchen, slapping her shoes on the wooden floor as loudly as possible, and throwing every single bit of the meal she had so carefully prepared into the trash can under the sink. The marinated salmon went first, then the salad with all the fresh-cut vegetables and handmade dressing. She emptied the colander of pasta into the garbage next. She even threw the unopened bottle of champagne on top of the mess.
The worst part of Natalie’s helpless, burning anger was she knew she had only herself to blame. She knew she and Brent were going to get a divorce eventually. She knew relationships always ended badly. She always said she didn’t gamble, but she had taken the biggest and stupidest gamble of all by letting Brent into her heart and her life, and it hadn’t paid off.
It hadn’t paid off, and now Natalie would have to pay the price—a broken heart. She should never have believed this could actually work.
But she had. She had genuinely believed Brent cared about her. When he held her hands, looked into her eyes as the sun set on the beach and told her he had deep feelings for her, she believed him. When he spent time with her, she thought they were having a great time. When they had sex, she felt passion—even love, although a fat lot of good that had done her—and she thought he felt the same for her.
She was so wrong. Wrong, wrong and wrong again. Brent must have decided he needed to keep up appearances when she started showing interest in him so that he wouldn’t lose Gideon as a friend. All this time, while Natalie had been falling for him, he had been stringing her along.
Who was he talking to? she wondered distantly. It didn’t matter, but she wanted to know anyway. Natalie had talked about Brent to Jasmine, but they had only said good things. Brent had been shit-talking her behind her back, probably this entire time.
A thought turned Natalie’s shaking hands to ice. What if Brent was talking to Gideon? What if—
She almost sighed in relief when she realized that Brent had mentioned her brother to whoever was on the phone. This was how badly Brent had hurt her—she even questioned the authenticity and truthfulness of the one man who had always been in Natalie’s life. Gideon was only a couple years older than Natalie, but she had always looked up to him, so much so that he had become more of a father figure rather than a brother. Gideon would never, ever do something like this to her, and tears of shame stung Natalie’s eyes for even thinking that for a second.
She could trust Gideon. She couldn’t trust anyone else, especially not Brent. She should have known that from the beginning.
Natalie still hadn’t moved. She didn’t know what to do. Whenever something happened in her life, exciting or stressful, Brent had become the first one she called. She could talk to Jasmine, but what could Jasmine do? She would suggest a girl’s night out to drown Natalie’s sorrows, and Natalie couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do less right now. The tears of shame were slowly turning into tears of anger and sadness, but Natalie didn’t want a shoulder to cry on.
So, what did she want? She wanted to confront Brent, she knew that. Just—just, not right now. If Natalie saw Brent right now, she would devolve into a sobbing mess, and she absolutely refused to let that happen. He would laugh at her, tease her and ask her how she ever thought he could actually care about her. It would be like their old word-sparring matches, but a thousand times more painful than the worst insult he had ever thrown at her and she would have no response.
Natalie needed to think and build a case against Brent, get herself into a better position. The pressure of the tears building behind her eyes told her that clearly wasn’t going to happen tonight. She needed some time—some time to herself. She had been so blinded by Brent’s good looks and honeyed words that she hadn’t taken any time for herself in a while. Maybe that was how she got into this mess.
Besides, she already threw out the food. There was no pressure to invite Brent over and pretend that everything was fine tonight.
I’ll pretend I’m sick. And it’ll be true, too. I am sick, because Brent makes me sick with his lies and his bullshit.
Natalie went to her bathroom mirror and fixed her makeup methodically. She couldn’t handle any questions tonight. Any fake concern. Any token offers of kindness. She had to look the part of a girl who knew nothing so she could convince Brent nothing was wrong. If he thought anything was off, he would barge into the house and demand that she tell him. Once, she would have said he was kind and caring that way. Now, she knew better. It was his personality to grab onto people like a dog with a bone, playing and toying with them until he felt like throwing them aside.
Natalie managed to get her tears in check, refusing to shed them for someone who didn’t deserve them. No evidence of the food remained, because Natalie had washed the dishes and thrown them into the drying rack with varying degrees of anger and disappointment. A champagne glass even broke, but Natalie didn’t bother cleaning up the shards. Why should she clean up shards of glass when her heart was in pieces?
All she had left to do was wait for Brent to come over so she could put on a show as fake as the one he had done for her.
Wait. One more thing.
Natalie went back to the trash can and retrieved the bottle of champagne. After what Brent had done to her and she had done to herself, the alcohol would feel better in her body than in the trash.
Chapter Eighteen: Brent
Despite the conversation with his father, Brent was on top of the world. He skipped up the steps to Natalie’s front porch and tried to open the door but it was locked. That’s odd. She hadn’t locked the door on him in weeks. He knocked and waited for Natalie to open the door. When she opened the door the look on her face drew concern and his smile vanished.
“Are you okay?” he asked, reaching out to take Natalie’s shoulders so he could look over her properly.
She crossed her arms over her chest and stepped out of reach. “Actually, I feel kind of sick. I think I have a stomach bug or something.” she said, cracking the door as he tried to step through the door. “No, I don’t want to throw up on you. I’ll just sleep it off, okay? Sorry about dinner. Next time.”
Brent nodded, but he couldn’t help but feel confused. Natalie had seemed fine just an hour ago. “You sure?” he asked. “Can I make you some soup at least?”
“No thanks. I’m just going to crash.”
Natalie’s face looked a bit pale, and Brent felt terrible. He knew he couldn’t have anything to do with this—he felt fine, after all, so she hadn’t gotten sick from him—but he wished she would let him do something to help.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. See you.” She closed the door, and he heard the sound of a lock turning.
Brent felt like he ought to do something, but he had no choice but to turn around an
d go back to his house. Natalie had never gotten sick during the time they were dating. Maybe she wanted to spend some time alone and recover. He was like that when he got sick. But this stomach bug or whatever it was seemed so sudden. Brent could even have sworn he smelled food cooking inside when he went over to visit before jumping in the shower.
Brent paced back and forth behind the couch, phone in hand. Maybe he should give her a quick call, just to see if she was alright. It couldn’t hurt.
A minute later, Brent shook his head and put the phone down. It could hurt, actually. Brent might wake Natalie up, which definitely wouldn’t help. He would be better off calling her first thing tomorrow—although, he hoped she would come over for coffee like she often did and he wouldn’t have to call at all.
If Natalie came over for coffee, she usually showed up around 9 AM so she could hang out for a while before leaving for work at 9:45. When Brent’s smart watch told him it was 9:30, he decided to go ahead and give her a call.
“Hey.”
“Well, good morning, Sunshine,” Brent said, trying to use his own good mood to put some pep in her unenthusiastic greeting. “Do you feel better today?”
“Yeah. Can I call you back, though? I’m at work.”
Brent felt his eyebrows draw together. “Already? I thought you clocked in at 10.”
“I usually do. I wanted to get started early today, and I couldn’t sleep, so... yeah.”
“Tell you what,” Brent said, switching his phone to his other hand so he could look at the calendar on the refrigerator. “I’m done with my last client at three, so why don’t you come over after work? I can make us an early dinner and then we can have a nap. I didn’t sleep so well either.” Brent didn’t mention the reason he couldn’t sleep was because of his worry for her. It would be enough if he could see her later.
“I can’t, sorry. Mother-daughter night at my mom’s house. And seriously, I have to get to work.”
Brent’s goodbye lingered unsaid on his tongue when she hung up. She had told him she felt better, but somehow, he couldn’t find that encouraging after this conversation. She sounded cold and distant. Something was off, and Brent didn’t know what.
Luckily, Brent wouldn’t be spending the evening alone with his thoughts. Gideon called him while Brent was at the gym, inviting him out to a local Thousand Oaks bar they had visited many times together for beers.
Tonight was Friday night, so the bar was pretty busy when Brent rolled into the parking lot, but he didn’t mind that. The last thing he needed tonight was peace and quiet.
Brent and Gideon had some catching up to do. Gideon had spent most of the last few weeks organizing a video game tournament for his hit game in Los Angeles, and Brent hadn’t wanted to tear himself away from Natalie long enough to even drive to LA for the evening. In fact, the last time the two men had talked was the time that Brent mentioned him and Natalie; Gideon told him that Natalie already told him and had his blessing.
After Gideon went over the events of the tournament and Brent told him some of his new ideas for his dietary health and fitness center, the conversation turned to Natalie. “How’s she doing?” Gideon asked.
“Shouldn’t you know?” Brent sipped his beer, drawing it out since he had to drive home later. “She’s your sister.”
“Yeah, but we’re adults with jobs and lives and you two live next door.”
“I guess. Honestly, she seemed pretty good—actually, great—up until yesterday. We were supposed to have dinner, but she got sick and she’s been acting weird ever since.”
“Did you offer to bring her anything?”
Brent blinked. “What?”
“When she said she was sick. I’m not trying to go all protective-brother on you, I’m just curious,” Gideon promised.
“Yeah, soup. And I asked if she needed anything in general.”
“She wasn’t sick,” Gideon said, confirming Brent’s fears. “She likes for people to take care of her when she’s sick. It’s a comfort thing, I guess.”
“Then she didn’t want to talk to me?” Brent guessed the only other reason there could possibly be for Natalie’s actions, cool words and subsequent standoffishness. “She hasn’t returned any of my calls or texts today, either.”
Gideon sipped at his own beer, peering over the rim of the glass as though he were sizing Brent up. “Natalie isn’t exactly the most open person, if you haven’t noticed. Whenever something comes around to feelings, she shies away. There’s a reason she didn’t have any boyfriends in high school—and no, it wasn’t because she was snooty and stuck-up.”
Gideon laughed at Brent’s awkward smile. “She told me that you said that about her. I told her it was her fault because she acted that way. She wanted to avoid relationships, and she thought coming off as dismissive and too good for anyone would do the trick.”
“Did she have a bad relationship in the past or something?” Brent asked, still struggling to understand.
“She didn’t have a bad one, she just didn’t have one with our father at all. She never met him, but she got to see our mom’s reaction to losing him—and believe me, the first couple years after he left her were pretty bad.”
It was like someone had drawn aside a curtain and allowed the light of understanding to stream into Brent’s mind. “She thinks I would do that to her.”
“She thinks any guy would do that to any woman,” Gideon corrected. “She closes off her feelings when it comes to relationships.”
Brent sat still, his beer forgotten. He knew about Gideon and Natalie’s father—how could he not? Brent had spent hours and hours of his childhood at the Cramer house, and he had obviously noticed the lack of a father figure and as any curious child would do, he had brought it up to Gideon. They had bonded over one absentee father and one grumpy, harsh, and irritable father. Both boys had used each other’s company to shrug off the behavior of their fathers.
Brent knew about Natalie’s father. He just didn’t know it had affected her so adversely and continued to do so to this day. If he had—if he had, would he have done things differently? Taken things slower, maybe? Not pushed so hard? Let her have more space? Neither of them had given the other much space since the day they hit it off in Vegas. Brent could have sworn that Natalie was happy with that, though. She came over to see him just as much as he went to visit her.
“Thanks,” Brent said, grateful Gideon had given him a moment to think. “I guess I’ll... I don’t know.”
“Just give her some space,” Gideon suggested. “That’s probably the best thing to do. She’ll come around when she’s ready, and all she has to do when that happens is walk next door.”
Chapter Nineteen: Natalie
Natalie sat at her desk, entering numbers into a spreadsheet for her plan for her mechanic shop. This particular activity should have been easy. There was no math involved. That was the entire point of the spreadsheet—to do the math for her once she entered all the numbers.
However, she wasn’t used to focusing at 11 PM with nothing but the dim screen of her laptop to light her work, and she definitely wasn’t used to focusing in the face of debilitating heartbreak.
So stupid! Why did I have to tell Brent I was staying at my mom’s? If Natalie had just said she was still feeling unwell, she could at least have her lights on right now. As it was, she knew if she turned any lights on in her house, she would give away the lie and Brent would come over, asking if she was alright and wondering why she was even home.
It had taken every ounce of self-control Natalie had to answer Brent’s call this morning, and she had only done it because she wanted him off her back—off her back, out of her life, gone and forgotten. She knew it wouldn’t be that easy in practice, but she needed a little more time to get to a point where she could talk to him without dissolving into tears or punching him.
Natalie shoved her office chair backward, grabbed her phone and turned the flashlight on the lowest setting. The beam played across the cabinets as s
he went into the kitchen in search of a snack that would take her mind off Brent. Her hands reached blindly into the basket on the counter and retreated as though they had been stung when she pulled out the bag of cookies they had made together last week. Suddenly no longer interested in food, Natalie dragged her feet on her way back to her room. She fastened her eyes on the computer screen, not really looking at the numbers.
A beer would be nice. I don’t have any left. Brent has some. I don’t have any pepper either. Brent does. At least I have coffee and sugar. I guess that’s all I really need. Except someone to share it with.
Until yesterday, that person had been Brent.
Natalie groaned and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. How had she made such a stupid mistake? Look at her now—she didn’t even want to drink coffee alone. She had become so dependent on Brent. She had given away her heart, and now that she knew the truth, she felt a real, tangible ache like half the organ had been snatched away.
That’s not what it is, Natalie reminded herself. She had made high grades on Chemistry in high school, but it didn’t take a student genius to know that her feelings stemmed from chemical reactions in her brain. Eventually, the chemicals would have normalized and she would have fallen out of love with Brent. Wait, out of love. That would mean I was in love with him in the first place. This was more pain that she could handle. Not love, lust. This hurt she felt was because things had ended sooner than she expected. They were going to end sooner or later anyway. She would recover like anyone would after a breakup—by waiting for the pain to go away.
Natalie gazed out of her window with reddened eyes. Damn it, she could even see his house from here, and the front porch light was on, so she could see it clear as day. She knew exactly which rooms were behind which windows, and she could replay memories from her encounters with Brent in all of them.
Her house wasn’t much better, really. She had loved coming out of her room sometimes to find Brent lounging on the couch, ready to greet her with a kiss or a compliment and a joke. Just like her couch, lamps, artwork on the walls or pots and pans in the kitchen, Brent had become a fixture in her house and knowing that she wouldn’t see him in her space anymore just felt wrong.