by Jessica Roe
“Of course.”
“Thanks, Heather. I'll see you later.”
My shoulders slump as I make my way back to the car. I close my eyes and thump my head back against the headrest when I climb inside, feeling hopeless.
“So what now?” Nathan wants to know.
My eyes snap open. “Now I keep trying. And I don't give up until I've got her.”
He slaps me on the back with a wide grin. “Hells yeah!”
Chapter 22
Ivy
“He's gone,” Heather chirps, gliding back into the living room where I'd hid the second I'd spotted Nash through the window. Just the sound of his voice is enough to make me all weepy and pathetic. “Car's just disappeared around the corner. I hate lying. And it's weird how good I am at it, don't you think?”
“Thanks, sis.”
She chews on her bottom lip, looking troubled. “Are you sure you don't want to see him? He seemed so lost out there, so forlorn.”
I nod. “I can't see him right now. Or, you know, ever.” Rocking Daisy on my lap, I bury my face in her wispy blonde hair and inhale that sweet baby scent. I've recently come to discover that baby snuggies are actually the only thing in the world that will ease a stomped on, mutilated heart. So if Heather thinks she's ever getting this kid back. . .well, she's got another thing coming.
We sit in silence for a while. Heather keeps saying that she's going to get up any minute to tackle some ironing, and she does shift every now and then as if she's about to stand, but then she seems to think better of it and slumps back into the armchair instead. I get that. If I had a baby that I had to look after constantly then I'd take every opportunity to rest that I could too.
My phone beeps, startling the three of us. Daisy does the cutest little blinking thing that just makes me want to kiss her drool covered face all over. Heather picks up the phone for me because I've been refusing to touch it all day, avoiding the thing like it's going to set my fingers on fire. I should probably just man up and turn it off, but I can't bring myself to do that.
“Another video,” she tells me. “You want me to play it.”
“No.”
She ignores me and plays it anyway, holding it up for me to watch.
“So I'm outside your apartment again. Please come home,” Nash begs. There are dark rings under his eyes and he looks horrifyingly exhausted, as if he got as little sleep last night as I did. “I don't know where you are so I can't come find you. Please come home so I can see you. I just need to see you, Ivy. I'm not leaving here until you do.”
A tear escapes, rolling down my cheek. Daisy sees it and bats curiously at it with her chubby hand. I sniffle and kiss her fingers. How could I ever have not wanted to hold her?
Oh God, I've turned into an emotional, hormonal wreck. Is this what love does to a person?
“He really seems like he's seen the error of his ways,” Heather says softly. “Or at least like he's truly sorry. Maybe you should just talk to him? It might put you both out of your misery.”
“I can't.” I shake my head. “I just. . . He crushed me, Heather. He didn't mean to and it's not his fault, but I can't let him do that again. I can't watch him tell me that he loves me but that he's not in love with me. It's too hard. It hurts too much.”
Heather's eyes fill with her own tears as she comes to sit next to me. She pulls me into her arms and I lay my head on her shoulder. “I hate to see you so upset. You've always been the strong one. Seeing you weepy makes me weepy.”
The pair of us are so pathetic right now. No wonder Daisy is looking at us like we're batty.
Giving a half hearted shrug, I let more silent tears fall, unable to comprehend how I've become one of those girls. The ones with emotions and stuff. “Nash and I were never right for each other anyway. I don't know what I was thinking. I was so stupid.”
“Are you kidding?” she disagrees, pulling back to look down at me. “You and Nash have been right for each other ever since you were kids. You were just the last two bozos to see it.”
I shake my head, because it doesn't matter now. It's too late. It's all too late.
+++
The videos from Nash keep coming for the rest of the day and well into the night until he must eventually have fallen into an exhausted sleep. Most of the videos beg me to come home or to at least tell him where I am, though some are of him calling me a stubborn bitch and telling me that he's going to pick the lock into my apartment and murder all of my houseplants if I don't come back to stop him – I don't have any houseplants and he has no idea how to pick a lock, so that doesn't really worry me. For the rest of the videos he just rambles on about a lot of crap, either to annoy me or because he's finally losing his mind from lack of sleep. I watch each and every one of them, even though it makes my insides hurt to do so.
Rather than going home to face him, I do the cowardly thing and I literally just buy myself some new clothes so that I don't have to go back to my apartment. Fortunately I actually do go away for a few days with my family – a surprise trip to Florida for my mom's birthday – because my grouchy old neighbor, Alice, calls me every couple of hours to report that Nash has practically set up camp outside my apartment door since I've been gone. She complains about how she had to let him use her bathroom and that he had the audacity to get pizza delivered, but I think she secretly loves all the drama.
Thankfully he's gone by the time I finally drag myself home. Mom tells me it's because Oli threatened to fire him if he didn't start getting his butt back to work.
Oran called to ask me out on another date. I almost said no, what with the constant raw feeling swamping me, but I. . .I think I need this. I need to date. I need to start the process of getting over Nash before it's too late and I end up a sad old cat lady like Alice who only dates her. . .you know, cats.
Maybe I should introduce her to Dr. Ormand.
Standing in front of my full length mirror, I take a deep breath and straighten out my little white summer dress. It's too soon in the year for summer dresses, but it's my newest creation and I wanted to try it out. Besides, this time Oran is meeting me here in Fortune so a slightly more casual look is okay.
My phone rings. I don't bother to check who it is before answering, assuming it'll be Oran calling to tell me he's waiting downstairs.
Turns out that was a mistake.
“Ivy,” Nash breathes. “You answered.”
I gulp at the sound of his voice, my legs failing as I drop down onto the edge of my bed. “I-”
“Are you at home? I'm coming over right now – I can be there in twenty minutes. No, ten. I really need to see you.”
“Don't come over,” I protest. “I won't even be here. I have a date.”
“A date?” He sounds tortured by the very idea. “With who? No, it doesn't matter. I don't want to know. Just don't go.”
“Nash-”
“I'm not with Bambi,” he tells me quickly, before I can argue further. “We were never. . . That's all done with now, I swear. Everyone was right about her.”
If I hadn't already been sitting, I think my legs would have collapsed on me at that. I clutch a hand to my chest as my heart does a weird twisty/jumpy/squishy thing inside my chest. And then a swell of grief almost drowns me all over again. I can't. . .I just can't go there with him again. It's too painful. “It doesn't matter, Nash. I've had time to think things through these last few days. You were right before to back away from the idea of us – we never would've worked out.”
“Ivy!” he argues furiously. “Are you insane? I l-”
I hang up before he can continue, holding the phone to my chest for the briefest moment as I squeeze my eyes shut tight. It rings again immediately, and I drop it to the bed in fear, watching until it rings out.
A silent minute goes by where I find I'm unable to move, and then it beeps with a new video message. I shouldn't open it up, I know that, but I do it anyway because obviously I'm a fan of self torture.
“It's supposed
to be me and you, Ivy,” Nash utters into the camera, looking as broken as I feel inside.
I want to curl up in a ball and cry until I shrivel up from lack of fluids. I want to scream my freaking throat out and punch things and have a full on emo rage on my apartment. I want to dig a hole into my brain and yank out all of the Nash parts until I forget he ever existed.
But I don't do any of those things (especially not the last one, because I'm not a mad scientist). Instead, I do what I should have done days ago and I switch off my phone, then I push down that crushing, suffocating ache in my chest as best as I can and gather my clutch so that I can go downstairs and wait for Oran.
Because Oran, he won't hurt me. He'll never have the power to hurt me the way Nash does.
+++
“I was surprised to hear from you after I bailed on you like that last time,” I admit to Oran across the table in Merry Fairburn's. The owner, Eli, keeps waggling his eyebrows at me from behind the bar because he thinks it's funny that I've brought a fancy city guy here. This town is way too small for a private life.
Oran smiles easily, unaware of Eli's douchebaggery. “You kidding? There was no way I was giving up on you that easily. Besides, it's not your fault you were sick.”
He's so nice and sweet and genuine, it makes me feel like a real butt head for lying to him. “Oran, I should tell you. . . I wasn't exactly. . . It was complicated.”
“You weren't really sick?” He raises a questioning eyebrow.
Pulling a face, I answer, “Kind of, I guess.”
Something knowing passes over his face. “Ah, a guy?”
“Sort of. Well, yeah.” I can't bear the disappointment on his face. “I'm sorry, that's so lame of me to admit when you've driven all this way to see me. I just didn't want to start things off with more lies.”
“Are you uh. . .involved with this guy?”
I shake my head hurriedly. “No! No, definitely not. I mean, I thought. . . It doesn't matter what I thought. But no, we're not involved.”
“But you're still. . .upset about him? Or angry, maybe?”
“Upset,” I confirm. “But I really want not to be.”
“Well then.” He smiles again. It's a really nice smile, so open and easily given. I really wish it made me feel something. “Let's see what we can do about getting your mind off this guy.”
I let out a little half laugh. “You're kind of awesome, you know that?”
“I do. It's what I plan to have engraved on my headstone,” he jokes.
Behind him, Eli has started making kissy faces at me. I want to punch him, but that guy is so packed with muscles that I'd probably just end up bruising my poor little fist. But then he stops paying me attention as his eyes focus on the door of the restaurant behind me, his eyebrow lifting.
“Ivy!” I spin around in my seat quicker than I even knew possible at the sound of Nash's voice. He pauses in the entrance for just a moment, taking me in, before he strides towards our table, a look on utmost determination etched into his face. His body is fraught with tension, practically thrumming with desperation.
My mouth drops open as he approaches. I want to yell at him for having the freaking nerve to show up here while I'm in the middle of my date, but the words get caught in my throat. I look to Eli for assistance, but he just shrugs and continues to watch the show like every other person in the restaurant has started to, clearly waiting to see how this all plays out.
Man, the people of Fortune love their drama.
“Nash!” I object, finally finding my voice. “What the heck do you think you're doing here?”
“Is this the guy?” Oran asks.
I nod silently as Nash stops at our table, folding his arms across his chest stubbornly. He's in jeans and a dark green tee so he must have already changed from work – unless he's just stopped bothering to dress up now. The tee has a little rip in the collar, and for a moment that's all I can focus on.
“He's big,” Oran says apprehensively. “I mean, I'll still defend your honor and all if you'd like, but he is big.”
“You know what I'm doing here,” Nash bites out, ignoring Oran. I don't really understand what he has to be so pissed about, but whatever. “I'm fighting for you.”
I don't even know what to say to that, except, “How did you know where I was?”
He actually has the audacity to roll his eyes at me, the jerk. “Please, this is Fortune. There's not that many restaurants – it wasn't hard to find you. Also, Deb kind of told me.”
The traitor! “Damn it, Mom!”
“Hey, don't go damning your mom, she's on my side.”
“Exactly.”
“Uh-” Oran starts, but Nash interrupts him like the obnoxious, stubborn, annoying a-hole that he is.
“Hey, man.” He turns to Oran. “Sorry about this. I know I'm interrupting your date-” For some irritating reason he uses air quotes on the word date. “-and I'm sure you're a nice guy and all. Though to be honest I do kind of want to pound your face in right now – no offense”
Oran shrugs. “Meh, what can you do.”
“But you can't have Ivy,” Nash continues. His earlier anger is all gone. “Because she's mine.”
Fury rises in me at the absolute caveman in his words. “You-”
“She's always been mine,” he carries on, unwilling to let me get a word in. Though he's still speaking to Oran, his eyes are focused solely on mine with such an intensity that it's impossible for me to look away. “Just like I've always been hers. She's owned me ever since we were kids.”
He just. . .he just. . .makes it hard for me to breathe. I try to hold onto my fury, but it seeps away slowly like the tide drifting gently from the shore. “Nash, please. . .”
“This guy will never know you like I do, Ivy.” He glances up at the ceiling for a moment and shakes his head, letting out a huff of air before looking down at me again. “No one will ever know you like I do.” Taking a deep breath, he steps even closer until he's right before me. “I'm into you, Ivy, and I don't care who knows it. Hell, I want everyone to know it – yeah, I'm talking about all you guys in here watching us right now.”
They don't even pretend to look away.
“I'm into you in a way this guy will never be. I'm into your laugh, your adorable fucking sneezes – like you're a little kitten who's just been rained on for the first time. I'm into your smile, your angry glare, the way you wear your Christmas underwear in August-”
“What, am I only supposed to get them out during the holidays?” I demand sullenly, when really my insides are melting into a pile of bubbling goo.
He chuckles, then drops down to his knees before me. “I love that you hate jelly on sandwiches but like it on toast, and that you wear odd socks to the gym because you hate sorting laundry. I love that you don't like shopping and can't cook for shit and think housework is for suckers. I love you, Ivy. I just. . .I love everything about you. I'm so in love with you it hurts.”
I hadn't realized, until this very moment, that I'd still been clutching my fork in my hands. I've been holding it so tightly that the edges are digging painfully into my skin, but I can barely feel it because he. . .he keeps saying all these things and. . .I can't. . .I. . .
My fist opens and the fork drops to the ground, clattering against the wooden floor. Neither of us move to pick it up.
He loves me?
He loves me.
“I just. . .I want us to be together all the time.” There's something so earnest about the way he says it. He snorts at himself with a little smile. “So often that we get unbearably sick of each other, but then we still miss each other like crazy when we're at work. I want to never do the dishes with you and to. . .to pick out dumb towel sets with you because I've ruined all our nice ones again, and to paint the walls of our place together like we did for Zac but, you know, at our house. I want to hold hands with you and kiss away your tears until they all dry up and laugh at jokes with you that no one else understands because they're not us.
I want a life with you, Ivy. That's all I want.”
My lip trembles dangerously. I never knew my heart could feel so conflicted. It's agonizing. “Stop it,” I whisper. “You can't do this to me now, Nash. Not when I've decided that I have to get over you.”
“Ivy-”
“It would be weird, anyway. We know too much about each other. It would-”
He takes hold of my quivering hands in his and I lose my voice. His hands are shaking just as much as mine, and I can feel how fast his pulse is racing beneath his skin. As fast as mine is. Faster. “I love that we know everything about each other,” he carries on relentlessly. His eyes are watery now, like he's on the verge of tears. Like he needs this. Like he needs me. Grinning playfully, he adds, “Besides, who else is gonna know all my dirty secrets and love me anyway.”
Behind us, Oran shifts uncomfortably. I'd forgotten he was even there. He's probably regretting driving almost four hours down from the city for me now, the poor guy.
Nash is serious again. “But you know what, there's still so much about you that I want to find out. Like what you'll look like in five years. In twenty. In fifty. I want to grow old right next to you. I want to fall in love with every gray hair you grow and every line that develops on your face. I want to know what our kids will look like. Whether they'll have your hair or your laugh or my eyes.
“Loving you, it isn't a choice, Ivy. It was an inevitably. But you know what? If it was a choice I'd make it every single damned time. I love you because I can't help myself. I love you because it's what I was born to do. But mostly I love you because I want to, more than anything in the whole fucking world. Just. . .tell me I'm not too late.” His voice cracks as his composure finally slips. “Please tell me I'm not too late.”
A tear finally slips free, cooling a path over my burning cheeks. I want to say something. I need to say something. But. . .I can't. I can't do this. He's too. . .he's too frightening. He's too everything.