Chapter 17
“He did.”
Nathan looked toward the front door.
“The worst part was realizing how much of my life was built around the certainty that you would be there.”
There it was.
The truth beneath everything.
Nathan had not consciously decided I was unimportant.
That might have been easier to hate.
He had simply made me permanent in his mind.
Permanent enough to neglect.
Permanent enough to lie to.
Permanent enough to leave waiting.
“I’d come home and the hallway would be dark,” he continued. “No lamp. No shoes beside the bench. No coffee ready in the morning.”
I started to speak, but he shook his head.
“I know how that sounds. Like I’m mourning chores.”
“A little.”
“I was, at first.”
His honesty surprised me.
“I missed everything you did before I understood I missed you. That’s ugly, but it’s true.”
I said nothing.
“Then I started remembering things that had nothing to do with what you did for me.”
He smiled faintly.
“The way you’d sing the wrong lyrics to songs. How you always stole the crispy potatoes from my plate. How you hated when people clapped when airplanes landed.”
I laughed.
“It is unnecessary.”
“It drives you insane.”
“Yes.”
His smile disappeared.
“I remembered who you were after I lost access to you.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Not because it tempted me back.
Because it explained so much.
Nathan had stopped seeing me as someone he could lose.
“I should have remembered while you were still standing beside me,” he said.
“Yes.”
No comforting lie.
No “we both made mistakes.”
No rewriting.
Just yes.
Nathan looked toward the house.
“Do you remember that night before you left? When I said don’t wait up?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t stop hearing it.”
I leaned against the car.
“You shouldn’t torture yourself forever.”
“I’m not. I just understand it differently now.”
“How?”
“I thought I was telling you not to worry about me.”
He laughed softly.
“But really, I’d been telling you not to expect me.”
That was exactly right.
Nathan had been training me to live without him before either of us understood the lesson.
The difference was, eventually I learned.
He slipped his hands into his coat pockets.
“Are you happy?”
I thought carefully before answering.
Happiness felt too simple.
I had bad days.
I still cried sometimes.
Certain songs hurt.
The first time I saw someone wearing Nathan’s cologne in an elevator, I had to step outside and breathe.