by Cassie Cross
“I’m sorry,” I say, and it comes out like more of a cry than I intended it to.
She leans back a bit, bringing her hands to rest on my upper arms, giving them a gentle squeeze. “Oh, sweetie. What ever for?”
“For Nate.”
Amy looks at me for a long while, her brows pulled together like she doesn’t even know what I’m talking about. But she does know, I’m certain of it.
“He left early because we had a fight.”
She smiles, looking down at the table. “That’s not why he left,” she says. “Without knowing you as well as I know my son, Callie, I’d venture a guess that you’re both prone to rash decisions when it comes to protecting your heart.”
I sit back in the chair, completely stunned. I try to find some words to tell her that she’s wrong, but she’s not. Even I can’t deny that.
“Trust me, Callie. I don’t pair people up, and I’m not a meddling mother. I want my children to find happiness on their own; I’ll never try to force it on them, ever. I don’t believe that you need to be in a relationship to be happy. And if you, Callie, are happy with your life the way it is, then that’s wonderful. But I’ve seen the way that you look at my son, and I’ve seen the way he looks at you. There’s something there, but you both have to want it. Being alone is great, but sharing your life with someone is great, too.”
I swallow down past the painful lump in my throat, willing the words out of my mouth. “I was sharing my life with someone,” I tell her, although I suspect she already knows this. “He turned out to be a person that I shouldn’t have shared my life with.”
She takes a deep breath, smiling as she sighs. “I think we’ve all been there.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You have?” When I look at her and Jack together, it’s difficult to believe that there was ever anyone else for either one of them.
“Absolutely.”
I wrap my hands around the warm coffee cup in front of me, waiting for her to tell me her story.
“I suppose I should give you an anecdote about my past romantic failings, and somehow convince you that Nate’s the most perfect man on the planet, that he’d never hurt you. My son is a good man, Callie. He could make anyone’s life wonderful, but it’s not my job to convince you to love him,” she says, reaching out and taking my hand in hers. “Life offers no guarantees, so I can’t offer them to you either. But when you meet someone you want to share your life with, the guarantees won’t matter to you. You’ll look at that person and know that being with them is worth the risk, and only then will you be willing to take it.”
I nod, leaning forward and taking a sip of coffee, letting the warm liquid soothe my throat.
“You have a plane to catch in a few hours,” she says, smiling. “And I told Gabby that I’d start planning our trip.”
“Your trip to New York,” I say, completely letting go of any notion that she’d still invite me to come along with them.
“Our trip to New York, Callie,” she says patiently, like she absolutely refuses to let me have any angst over it.
“But what about-”
“It’s going to be the three of us. You, me and Gabby. And you’re going to have the time of your life regardless of who you’re dating. Besides, you’re not the kind of woman who lets a man ruin her fun, are you?”
I laugh and shake my head, even though I should correct her, because for far too long I have been exactly that kind of woman. Somehow, though, I have a feeling that I won’t be for much longer.
IT’S BEEN three weeks since I’ve returned home from Virginia, and nearly everything about my hometown feels different to me since I’ve been back. It’s too bright, it’s too hot, it’s too…everything. Something shifted in me while I was away, and I’m not sure if anything will ever be the way it used to be. Is that a good thing? Is it bad?
Regardless, it doesn’t take me too long to get back into the bland, boring routine of my everyday life here. Every morning I wake up, turn on my computer, and I work until late in the evening. Some people (like Gabby) might call it avoidance, but I call it drive. The more clients I have, the more money I’ll make. The more time I won’t have to dwell on all the ways I know I’m messing up my life.
My mother comes home every night and makes me dinner like I’m still a child. I hate it, but I can’t make myself leave. I’m stuck in this strange holding pattern that I can’t get out of—or won’t get out of—and it’s the most uncomfortable and maddening thing I’ve ever experienced. I hang out with Ben and Gabby a few times after they get back from their honeymoon, and I can tell that they both want to call me out on my jackassery, but they’re not quite willing to do that yet. Maybe there’s a waiting period for calling your friend out on being an idiot. Because the more I think about it, the more I think maybe I was being—am being—an idiot when it comes to him.
When it comes to Nate. I don’t really let myself think of his name that often, because those four letters are what seems to send me into a tailspin of self-pity. Not the thought of his beautiful, smiling face. Not the thought of the way he touched me. Just his name.
It’s not until my mother catches me looking at the wedding photos that Gabby emailed me earlier in the day that she finally broaches the subject. She knows something’s been bothering me since I’ve been back, and she’s enough of a mind-reader that she probably knows it’s a guy. She’s always been over-the-top with her motherly intuition, which is completely maddening (and helpful) at times.
It’s a candid shot that does me in, one of me and Nate dancing, smiling at each other. He’d just said something funny—I can’t remember what it was—and I was looking at him like he was my sun, moon and stars. If I wasn’t one of the people in that photo, I would’ve guessed the two of them were very much in love. Maybe we are, and I just need to let myself feel it, I don’t know. What I do know is that looking at this picture makes my chest ache, makes it difficult for me to breathe. I had him right there within reach, and then I willingly let go.
“Is that him?” Mom asks, casually swiping a dishtowel across the kitchen counter.
“Who?” I reply, no doubt setting off her overactive bullshit detector.
She sighs. “The one who’s got you looking like the world stopped making sense.”
“He’s not the one who made me look like this,” I tell her. My mother looks at me in a way that is uniquely hers. She knows me as only a mother can; she can see all the little idiosyncrasies that make me…well, me. She knows me right down to my bones, which makes hiding things from her particularly impossible, but I’m telling her the truth this time. “I’m the one who made myself look like this, Mom, although he does have something to do with it.”
She tosses the dishtowel on the counter, pulls out the chair next to mine, and sits down.
“His name is Nate,” I tell her.
That’s all I say, and my mom’s eyes widen, waiting for more information. Information that I’m not sure I want to give to her. “How’d you meet?”
Of course she’d ask me that. Of course she would.
I sigh. “I don’t want to tell you that.” I realize immediately that I should’ve just made up a story, but I can’t lie to her. I never could.
“Why not?”
The question hangs in the air around us for a few seconds before I finally answer. “Because I’m afraid you’ll think less of me.”
“Impossible.” She says that word with such conviction that I’m sure she’s right.
“I met him at the airport on my way to Gabby’s wedding. There was a weather delay, and we…spent it together.” I don’t really want to elaborate, but my mom’s a smart woman; she understands what it is that I’m not telling her.
“Oh.”
“I didn’t think I’d see him again, which…yeah, I guess doesn’t make this sound any better. I just…I wanted to put something, someone between Ethan and me.”
Mom nods slowly, taking all of this in. “Why was he at the wedding?”
&n
bsp; “Turns out he’s Ben’s brother.”
Mom’s not as shocked about this development as I would’ve thought she’d be. Instead of offering me a reply, she just looks at the picture, and a soft smile pulls at her lips. “You love him,” she says.
“I only knew him a week.” I don’t even try to deny what she said, because what’s the point?
“If you feel it, you feel it, Cal,” she says, squeezing my hand. “What difference does it make how long it takes?”
“Nate said the exact same thing.”
“He sounds like a smart guy,” she replies, smiling.
“How can I trust it?” I ask.
“Why is a love you feel right away more trustworthy than the one that takes time to grow?”
“Because that love is rooted in something,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t be worried about waking up one morning and not feeling it anymore.”
“Love is love, Cal. It’s not about how long it takes you to feel it, it’s about how much effort you put into it to make it last. Don’t act like it’s something that just happens. It’s something that you have to nurture.”
I sit back in my chair and think about what she just said. My relationship with Ethan fell apart because he wasn’t willing to nurture what we had. If I’m honest with myself, it started to die long before the cheating. But did I nurture it, or did I treat it like something that was just a given once it happened? I liked being with him, I put effort into that, but what did I do to make our love grow? Did I do anything to give it roots? I had list of things that I thought should happen once Ethan and I started dating. We’d get serious, move in together, get married, have children, and then spend the rest of our lives together. But I wasn’t really investing in a life with him, I was checking off a list. I’m not to blame for the way the relationship ended, but I am to blame for not putting more into it. Although now I’m beginning to realize that may be a blessing in disguise.
Maybe Nate was right. Maybe I needed to be with a person who didn’t fit in order to learn the lessons I needed to learn to find the person who does fit.
“I barely know him,” I say, voicing the one niggling concern that pulls at me, stops that bud of feelings I have for Nate from fully blossoming.
“So get to know him,” Mom says like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Maybe it is.
“Is that what you did with my father?” I ask.
Mom knows exactly what I’m getting at.
“Your father was an adventure,” she says a bit wistfully.
“An ugly one.”
Removing her hand from mine, she reaches over and touches my cheek. “Not so much.”
“You don’t regret it?” I ask, wondering how she possibly couldn’t. He left us alone, how could she not hate him for that?
“Not for a second,” she replies. “It was a learning experience. Besides, he gave me you.”
I swallow, somehow managing a smile. “But you’re alone.”
Mom stands, then leans down and kisses my forehead, cupping my cheeks with her hands. “I love you so much,” she says, smiling softly. “But when something bad happens, you retreat. You don’t give it another go, and that scares me. I’m worried that one day you’ll wake up all alone, regretting that you pushed people away and regretting the things you never did because you were afraid. We all fall down, we all fail. The strong ones get back up, and they try again. I raised a strong one.”
“Mom-”
“You only get one life,” she says, interrupting me. “You have to fill it up with all the love and laughter that you can. Run away from those things long enough and you’ll forget how to find them. I’m alone because I’m happy being alone. If you’re happy the way things are now, then keep being happy.” She looks over at the pic of Nate and me that’s still up on my laptop screen. “If you’re not happy, then chase that happiness. If you think you can find some of it with him, then do it. Life’s too short to deny yourself love, Callista.”
I close my eyes and let her words sink in.
She’s right. I know she’s right.
“I’VE GOT my sunscreen, my bikini, and my English-to-Greek phrase book. Saturday can’t get here fast enough,” Jasmine says, stretching her legs out in front of her as she leans back into the soft green grass. She, Gabby and I are eating lunch at one of our favorite parks, and the weather is perfect. The sun is shining and the breeze is warm; it’s enough to help a girl forget her troubles for an hour or two. The talk I had with my mother last night has been weighing on my mind all morning, pushing me to the brink of action. I’m just not sure exactly what to do now. Do I call Nate? It seems like the logical next step, but it also doesn’t seem like it’s enough.
“I don’t think you realize how long that flight’s going to be,” Gabby says, licking a dollop of mustard off the tip of her thumb. “It’s going to be the longest flight of your life.”
I look at Jasmine, who’s looking at me, and I know she’s thinking the same thing that I am. How long of a grace period does Gabby get to talk about her honeymoon before we all put a stop to it?
“Go to Europe once, and suddenly you’re a flight time expert,” I say, winking at her to let her know I’m teasing.
Gabby swats at me, laughing. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop talking about it soon.”
“You get another three days, and then we’re cutting you off,” I tell her.
“Be glad Callie’s your best friend. I’d cut you off two weeks ago.”
Gabby laughs, throwing a balled-up napkin at Jasmine as she stands up and brushes off the back of her skirt.
“I’ve got to get back to the office,” Jasmine says, gathering her trash into a plastic grocery bag. “I’m going to stress myself out to get ready for the vacation that’s supposed to de-stress me, so that’s fun.”
I sigh loudly. “Ah, being your own boss has its perks.”
“So does having company subsidized healthcare,” Jasmine replies with a wink. “I’ll see you ladies later.”
“Have a fun trip!” I yell after her.
She turns towards us, walking backwards as she holds out her arms. “You know I will!”
Gabby and I stand up, and I walk with her to the corner of the park, the one closest to her office.
“Hey,” I say, sounding more nervous than I actually feel, which surprises me. “I was wondering if you would feel comfortable giving me Nate’s number.”
Her eyes widen, caught somewhere between surprise and happiness. “You don’t already have it?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t think it would be a good idea,” I admit.
“But…” she says as she digs in her purse, pulling out a pad of paper and a pencil.
“But I’d like to talk to him.”
“About what?”
She’s so damn nosy.
“About things,” I tell her. Partly because I’m not yet sure what exactly it is that I want to say to him, and partly because whatever it is that I do say, I think he should be the first person to hear it.
Thankfully, she doesn’t press the issue. She just grins at me as she hands me the piece of paper with his number written on it. “He asks about you, you know.”
I WANDER through the park after lunch, walking across the soccer field and over toward the playground. There’s something about the light laugher of the children on the swing sets that helps put me at ease, helps me focus my thoughts. I take a seat on a bench nearby, settling in against its forest-green slats. It’s cool here in the shade, beneath this elm tree’s long, sturdy branches. It reminds me of the trees in Virginia, which makes me think of Nate.
I sigh. Nate.
My mom told me yesterday that if I’m happy with the way my life is that I should keep doing what I’m doing. I’m fully ready to admit to myself now that I’m not happy, not by a long shot. And it’s not just that I’m not happy, it’s that I’m keeping myself from being happy by holding onto the past. By making excuses for myself. By not taking chances.
My life no
w consists of standing on the sidelines, in the safe zone, watching people live their lives. I’ve reduced myself to a casual observer of the world instead of an active participant in it. It’s true that not taking risks saves me from feeling the pain of failure, but it prevents me from feeling the joy of simply being alive. I realize now that I need Nate in my life. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because I can’t survive without him. It’s because he makes me want to do all the things that I’m afraid of, and become all the things that I’m not, but that I desperately wish I could be. He makes me want to open my arms, take a deep breath and appreciate the beauty in the world. What more could I possibly ask from a person? A broken heart seems like a small price to pay in return for the possibility of a lifetime full of love and happiness.
Now I’m afraid that I may have lost Nate without ever really having him in the first place. I haven’t spoken to him since he left the night of the wedding. Even though Gabby said that he’s asked about me, I can’t deny that it stings that he hasn’t tried to contact me. I’m fully aware of what a hypocrite that makes me, thank you very much. I take a look at the number scrawled across the bright-pink sticky note I’m holding in my hand, and the sight of the numbers makes my heart thunder in my chest. All I need to do is dial these numbers, and I can hear is voice. All I need to do is dial these numbers, and I can tell him how I feel. These numbers could lead to so many wonderful things…why are they so scary?
I reach into my gigantic mess of a bag, nearly elbow-deep, fishing for my phone. The sharp edge of something catches the inside of my wrist, and I wrap my fingers around it, wondering what exactly it could be. When I pull my hand out of my bag, I can’t believe my eyes.
It’s a single-serving box of Raisin Bran, with a note taped to the back.
Underneath an address it reads:
For a healthy heart.
It’s from Nate, who always seems to know exactly what I need when I need it. I’ve spent the past three weeks wondering how I could fall in love with him so quickly, and now all I can think is…how could I not?