“I try. But I can’t always.”
“It takes time to figure yourself out,” Christina adds more gently.
“No. It doesn’t.” I fight this common stereotype often. Young girls erroneously believe they shouldn’t be self–confident and strong, or announce to others exactly who and what they are. “You know, even now, what feels right to you. I mean it, Melissa—”
“Missy. Everyone calls me Missy.”
I pause. I know everyone calls her that, but I don’t call her that. In an almost bashful way, she hides her face and mumbles that softly. I can almost feel hot tears pricking my eyes. She wants me to call her by her nickname. That means something. It means something real has started to form between us. My heart swells.
“Missy,” I say while holding her stare. She smiles a girlish, soft smile that instantly connects us. “Don’t let anyone give you doubts when your gut knows something is true. No matter how cute, or pretty the boy is. The old advice that if he doesn’t like you as you are, just screw him, is so true.” I glance at Sam, scowling. She notices and laughs too. She doesn’t know my expression is not just a flirt or banter. I am doing it, in reality, because of what we are now.
Holding my gaze captive, while speaking to Melissa he says, “She’s right, Melissa. Guys are dumb at your age, but when they grow older, they sometimes figure it out. Don’t let them tell you who or what you are.” Sam earns a smidgeon of my grudging respect.
“How old were you two? When you got together, I mean?”
“I was twenty,” I reply while shaking my head. At the time, it seemed like Sam took years to notice me. I thought he would never notice me as anything but his tomboy friend. But looking back, I realize what a baby I was even at twenty. Unprepared for life or adulthood, I was amazed at how fast it all passed. I fell in love when I was still young, and maybe… it really wasn’t all I thought it was. Maybe in the end, it came to this; and we were just too young. For all my tough talk and tomboy ways, I felt so sure life would always go my way back then. I still had plenty of hope and optimism. I didn’t consider all the ways life can beat you down. Or your love. It seemed so simple at twenty. It was all about love. Attraction. Sex.
“What happened to your mom?” I am jolted out of my reverie by Christina’s question, which she asks in a kind, empathetic voice.
“She had cancer. Colon cancer, and it was stage four before she finally went to the doctor, so there wasn’t much left to do for her. She died when I was just twenty.”
“When I was first looking for you, I had a family friend hunt down information about you. I read in the stuff I got from him that your mom had died just a few years ago.”
“No. That’s about when my dad first started to show signs of dementia. Your fact checker had some things wrong.”
“You’ve lost a lot in the last eight years. Both parents? Twenty? Oh, Natalie, that’s so young. That would be me losing mom now. I can’t imagine that. I’m just… so sorry.” Christina holds my gaze with her tiny smile, and her eyes big with compassion. I feel her apology. I sense she really is sorry for me. I nod and accept her sympathy.
“Thank you. It was rough. It was terrible, actually.” And it still haunts me, even today.
“Is that what brought you two together?” Emily asks.
“Yes.” Sam answers for both of us. His gaze finds mine when I turn towards him. He holds it and we share a brief moment of familiarity, like we always used to as we both remember. Together, we are remembering Mom’s unnecessary death. How hard it was to bury her. How I clung to his arm, leaning my entire body against his side to just hold me up. We both cried as after everyone else left, we watched them completely cover her coffin. And Sam let me sit there for hours, in the cold air as I tried to grasp what was right before me. My mother was dead. He didn’t make me leave until I finally said I was ready. We missed all the formal funeral reception stuff. But he got that I needed this cold, harsh reality to start facing my grief more than I could play hostess at my mother’s funeral.
After that summer, Sam was supposed to leave to earn his MBA at UCLA. He left for three months. My mother died just before he left, so we were barely official as boyfriend and girlfriend. During those three months, I lost my mind. I got so depressed, I didn’t get out of bed. Dustin called Sam and told him what I would never have confessed. Even in my depression and grief, my pride prevented me from ever telling him. Sam promptly quit school and came back to the neighborhood. He entered my bedroom and swept me up in his arms. He held me and promised he’d never leave me again. And he didn’t.
His presence, however, wasn’t enough to cure me. He insisted that I see my doctor and I was on antidepressants for a while. It was a real illness. I almost couldn’t physically get out of bed. But until then, I never had a mood disorder. That would have made me look weak. I felt weak for needing the pills to cope, but they worked. I eventually found myself again. And Sam was right there for me. He was there beside me when I buried my mother, and when I tried to pick myself up afterwards. I wasn’t much of a crier. But the sadness weighed on me like concrete being poured through my blood vessels. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me. Sam saw through it, however, and helped ease me into accepting professional help.
Meanwhile, after calling a friend from UCLA, he got a job in San Francisco. It wasn’t at a big or prestigious firm, like he originally wanted, and it wasn’t L.A. either, but it was with me. Or so he said. He and I moved in together not too long after he returned. We lived in a crappy, little studio apartment on the fifth floor of a building. No elevator, and lots of stairs. I was in limbo, wanting to become a cop, but still too young to start. So I worked odd jobs. Finally, the following summer, I began the brutally comprehensive interview process. Later on, I eagerly started with the academy. All the while, Sam worked insane hours, the equivalent of two full-time jobs. Under extreme stress and high expectations, Sam earned his MBA from the University of San Francisco. We were married about two years after our first kiss.
I shake my head now. It doesn’t matter. Not any of this. This history of those two people no longer exists and the relationship they once shared no longer has any future.
I banish all those memories now in my head. We are no longer those two happy, carefree, connected and in love kids.
Chapter Eleven
Natalie
The conversation turns towards more banal things and I stare once more, like I’m in a trance, at the fire. Christina and Max get up and so do the girls; they are ready to leave. We are all quiet as we pull into their parents’ house. I glance around. It feels so surreal still for me to be here. We exit the car and they go into the main house, even Max. Sam and I say goodnight before silently heading towards the side of the house to the apartment. The moon is big and round tonight, providing almost a spotlight effect to guide us. We are walking towards Will’s shop and less than ten feet separate us. Just before the stairs, Sam suddenly stops. I step back, unwilling to get close to him.
“Do you remember that first night we spent in our own apartment? We had no furniture, so we had to lie in sleeping bags on the floor, thinking we owned the world? We giggled like teenagers with our pizza and pop, thinking we were so grown up, and out on our own. Remember that night? How we talked until three about all the things we wanted to do and be?”
Of course, I remembered how it felt to lie on the hard floor as we sat cross–legged, talking until we stretched out. We were so excited to be all alone, we talked for hours on end. We could have sex anytime we wanted! That was a huge revelation for us. Until then, we had to deal with his parents, as well as Dustin, trying to hook up around them without them knowing what we were doing. I step back. “I don’t want to do this. You can’t talk away what happened by bringing up fond memories we once shared. Our past can’t make up for the now.”
“I never thought, not even for a second back then, that we wouldn’t be anything but perfect together. We were such a good team. We were so honest, and we totally g
ot each other. I remember how you so completely understood me. I never had that before in my relationships. You were volatile, and quick to anger at me, but I could trust you to do that. I could always be honest, even if you got mad. Knowing that was freeing somehow. You were the only the person I never had to perform with. Not perform, actually… just…”
“Not be the so-perfect Sam Ford.”
He sighed. “You always got that about that about me.”
I don’t want to be drawn into a conversation of any kind, especially alone with him. He is staring listlessly down at one of the wooden steps. They lead up to a door on the outside of the little apartment.
I sigh and cross my arms over my chest, rubbing my bare skin even though I don’t feel cold. “I tried not to get jealous over all the women who threw themselves at you. I saw how many wanted you. I took comfort in knowing that none of them actually knew you. None of them knew that when you came home from work, or from one of those insufferable country clubs, or formal dinners you dragged us to, you were far from perfect. You fart in your sleep. You dribble pee around the toilet seat more like a squirt gun than a man. You tell me things, both little and big, that no one else knows. I thought I was the one person you felt safe with.”
“You were. You were the only person I was real with. My parents always wanted me to go so much further in life than they did. They knew Dustin wasn’t ambitious either, but I was. I could do it. But to do that, I had to sacrifice my youth and my early twenties. There were no clueless parties that lasted nights on end for me. There was simply work and more work. You managed to break the monotony of it for me. Only you.”
“Let me pass.” I start to step around him. I don’t want to go backwards to remember the Sam I first fell in love with and dated. I can’t forget the way he seemed to grasp me whenever we managed to steal some moments alone. He needed me so much and I reveled in his need.
“We should talk about what happened. We should talk about all of it, not just my infidelity.” His voice sounds low and weary.
I stop and with exaggerated motions I sit a few steps above him my actions jerky with anger. “Okay, fine. How was she? Good, wet pussy? Or dry and small? Did she moan a lot? I don’t remember. Honestly, I was so shocked, I don’t even remember what she looked like. She was blonde though, as usual, until me, of course. I was never relegated to that stupid box.”
I know that’s not what he means. He lets my sarcasm fall like an anvil between us. He doesn’t react and I shift forward, running my hands up and down my leggings. The powerful images that fill my brain are still so distressing. I tuck my hands under my armpits and squeeze my torso.
He sighs loudly, but walks a few steps above me and sits too. “I don’t remember what she was like. I remember looking up and seeing you. Staring at me. Everything else is irrelevant.”
“Oh, my GOD! I don’t actually want to discuss it. I was being sarcastic.”
“I’ll answer whatever you want to know. If you want to talk about it, we’ll talk about it for the next five hours. I won’t hide anything from you. I won’t insult you, or ask if we can just move past it. I will tell you anything you need to hear.”
“Would you have told me? If I didn’t have the pleasure of witnessing you myself? Would you have told me?”
I don’t look up where he sits above me on the stairs, but I hear his shirt rustling as his legs shift. “I-I can’t say. I honestly never considered that until just now. I hope so. I hope I would have told you, Nat.”
“Don’t call me that.” He nods. I can see him through my periphery. “Nat” was my friend name. The name he used when all was good between us.
“And ‘talking about all of it,’ I assume you mean the baby situation? Are you saying that somehow led to this? Is that your theory? Your excuse?”
“Looking back now, I think we were starting to drift before that even.”
“Well, then! Surely, you are justified. After all, any good counselor would first ask how long it’s been since we had sex. And our answer is… what? Six months? I’m sure you have it right down to the nanosecond, and that’s why you needed extramarital sex. Sure, it’s all my fault for not doing it more with you. Why—”
“I didn’t want to either,” he cuts in. I stiffen my back. Well, yeah, great. I need to hear he didn’t want me, but her? Some faceless, blonde bimbo?
“I—”
“I meant—” He interrupts me, his tone now gentler. “I was confused and upset all that time too. I was working insane hours. I wasn’t thinking about sex. I never consciously thought about how long it had been. I knew we needed to talk and work things out… I just kept putting it off. I made excuses. I was busy. We were both busy. It could wait. That night, I was there strictly to work, Natalie. Like every other night of my life. I was working. I was blurry–eyed with sleep deprivation. She came in. Her name is Chantal. She’s a stupid secretary that used to flirt with me during office hours. I never… and I know you can’t believe me, but I never flirted with her or considered her someone I even wanted to have sex with. She was just another pool secretary to me. Nothing I obsessed about. I looked straight past her. I ignored her. She came in, came on to me, and I got up to throw her out. Do you want me to stop?”
“No. Finish. Tell me.” I somehow need to hear his lame explanation. I need to re–experience and hear all about what I saw, except through his eyes. I need to understand that it was real and that’s what I want to see him admit. I glance back to meet his gaze for a brief moment. He nods. His jaw is locked, and his expression is grim. He knows how badly I need details before things make sense to me. Before I can leave and turn my back on him, I need to hear all of this.
“She tried playing coy, asking dumb questions and telling this lame story of why she was there so late. I opened the door and was standing there, waiting for her to leave. She started to go past me and stopped right in front of me. She put her hand directly on my dick, and pressed while using the other hand to pull my neck to her mouth. It was only a matter of minutes before you came in. One moment, I was pushing her out, and the next, she was lying on my desk. I don’t clearly remember any conscious decision to do it. I didn’t stare at her with lustful desire or anything. There was no great moment when I felt any kind of urge or impulse to have sex with her. I didn’t want to. Or at least, I didn’t set out to. I just… Fuck!” He suddenly stands up and leans heavily on the railing as he shakes his head. He runs his hands over and over in his hair, then puts them on the railing and pushes his weight on them. “This is hard. You really want me to say more?”
“Yes.” My voice is glacial. Of course, the picture he paints is nearly tearing my heart out of my chest. He might as well be using a scalpel and forceps to ruthlessly yank it out. He’s painting his side of the story so real, I think he may succeed in making me throw up. But then again, I know I need to hear his side. That way, Sam’s charms, apologies, and circular logic can’t change what the real picture is: the end of us.
“I just remember her being on me. Okay, she turned me on. But it was fast and cold and it could have been anyone. Her voice, her face, and her body? None of it registered with me. She pressed herself on me and wanted me so I responded. I pushed her onto my desk. I ripped off her underwear and she helped undo mine. She had a condom. I was inside her and it was no more than gratuitous sex. It was just sex. It wasn’t even good sex. And then—” his voice catches, but he clears his throat and continues, “and then I looked up and there you were. I felt—”
“Stop. Don’t tell me how you felt.”
He is staring out into the Hendrickses’ farmyard. The night air is cool now. The animals create the only disturbance. Trees loom in shadowy forms beyond us. It’s very quiet and country. I find it almost hard to believe how we can be here now, doing this.
“What do you want from me, Sam? I have to ask. You know what I witnessed. How could you think I’d want to see you again? Or want you here? There is no going back from that.”
His head
hangs. “I want to talk. I want to talk to you. The way I used to. Honestly. For real. The kind of realness we shared when your mom died and your dad went away. But then, isn’t that the start?”
I leap to my feet. “The start of what?”
“The end.” His tone is chilling, and final. “That’s when you started to withdraw. I know what losing both of them did to you. Your dad was your last link to your family and identity. And you felt a large amount of resentment after realizing that I was all you had left in the world, and my family. It made you feel abandoned. And trapped.”
I lean back against the cool wood of the building, my hands gripping the rough–hewn lumber. “You never said that to me before.” He was right. I did feel both things.
“I wanted to give you space. It was so unfair how he faded from you—from us. I loved him too. And then we found out that—”
“Screw off, if you’re going to say what I think you’re trying to say.”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t going to blame you; I was going to say, we never dealt with it. Not together anyway.”
“Because there was nothing to deal with. We can’t have kids. Or more accurately, I can’t have kids. So what, Sam? It makes me less of a woman? Less desirable to you? Because fuck you! It does not. I refuse to let it define me as a woman or a failure. If I can’t have kids, I don’t need kids. I don’t need—”
“I do though, Natalie.”
He stops me dead. His quiet statement is almost a whisper between us, and far more significant than my heated outbursts. “You said you didn’t care that much.”
Right when my dad started getting worse, we thought about having kids. We tried for over a year, and nothing. I always had infrequent, unreliable periods. I casually attributed that to how much I’d always exercised and lifted weights. Sam and I both got physical exams, just to rule out other things, never dreaming there would be anything. We were both so young and healthy. But there was a problem. I suffer from abnormal ovulation, meaning my eggs don’t release. Consequently, there is a significantly lowered chance of pregnancy for me without, what I consider, super–heroic measures. Drugs. Artificial insemination. In vitro fertilization. We considered the available options, and most have forty percent or better success rates for infertile couples, such as we now are. But I wanted nothing to do with any of it. I decided I didn’t need to have kids. Sam was shocked too by the news. For a few days, I felt like a failure, but then I realized it was just how I was built. There was nothing wrong with me. I was merely unable to conceive babies. It wasn’t the end of my world. I figured we could keep having unprotected sex, and if it ever happened, then it was meant to be. I heard stories of couples who did everything they could to have a baby, and then, low and behold, out of nowhere, when they were finally relaxed and stopped actively trying, they got pregnant. That sounded like the best option to me. I wasn’t averse to having a child, but if I didn’t, I was fine with that too. I certainly didn’t want to start a journey down the road of “infertility options.”
Leanne Davis - Natalie (Daughters Series #2) Page 16