Chapter 28
28
Natalia
senior year
“If you want, I can rough him up a bit,” Tyler offers, half joking, half serious, with his arm loosely wrapped around Yuri’s shoulders. Yuri sits across from me, a large bag of sour cream and onions Lay’s Potato Chips sitting between us.
I finally told both of them what happened after prom when Alex dropped me back at home. I was hesitant, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention. But when all I could think of was Alex’s rough hands gripping my knees open a little too forcibly and his tongue pushing its way into my mouth after I had firmly pursed them closed, I needed to tell someone. Someone that I could trust.
While I knew that Yuri would have held my hand through the whole ordeal, I didn’t expect Tyler, Alex’s friend, to take my side, even offering to use physical aggression to scare him.
“It’s fine,” I say, attempting to reassure them both. I’m starting to move on, relieved that all that came out of it was the gradually fading memory of the incident and the yellowing bruises on my thigh. What bothers me the most, but shouldn’t, are the rumors that Alex is spreading around school calling me a cock tease and that I’m hiding a chastity belt under my clothes. Tina and a small group of her friends didn’t even bother to hide their snicker when they approached me in the girl’s bathroom, asking how I was going to use the toilet without a key to unlock my “celibacy contraption.” I shudder, thinking about the encounter when I scurried off as their laughter echoed off the tiled walls.
“Are you sure?” Yuri asks, her eyes concerned. “I mean, not about Tyler beating him up but maybe talking to someone else about it? Like the police?”
“No!” I gasp. “That’s so unnecessary. Really, I’m over it.”
Yuri’s eyes downturn even further.
“Or…I will. Get over it. Eventually,” I add. Eventually…but for now, I’m making myself sick thinking about those acute details I’ve tried to erase from my mind.
Yuri opens her mouth to say something when Lucy sinks into the seat next to me. She starts opening one of the two frosty Coke cans she brought with her, the aluminum seal letting out a sharp crack as she lifts the tab.
“Oh! We got sour cream and onions today?” Lucy squeals. She giddily reaches for a handful of chips as I eye Yuri not to say anything, my silent plea moving on to Tyler as I give him the same look. So instead of carrying on our conversation, Yuri and Tyler turn to face each other, their doe eyes holding a far-off look as they smile and whisper something I can’t hear over Lucy’s loud chewing and even louder gulping.
I look across the cafeteria and see Hayden walk in, his backpack slung on one shoulder and Jenny following close behind. She struggles to keep up while he doesn’t even bother to look back to make sure she’s still there. His face looks tense, tight, as his eyes level over the crowded room. He sits in his seat along the long bench surrounded by other members of the football team, Jenny still trailing him like a puppy dog as he settles with his backpack on the table.
His deep scowl and clenched jaw remind me of when I told him about Alex in bio class. I didn’t mean to tell him, but it slipped when he kept looking at me with his worried eyes. He coaxed the truth out of me without prodding too deeply, and it felt good to finally tell someone. But then he looked livid, like he was ready to trash the entire classroom. Every fiber in his body tensed right next to me, and I could feel the hardness radiating from his body. We never even brought up our kiss. It was as if what happened between us took a back seat when I told him about Alex, and all I could focus on was the way he consoled me with his warm hands and even gentler touch.
Maybe I shouldn’t have told him. The fewer people who know, the better. But then he got angry for the sake of my well-being. And it warmed me. It stirred a level of safety in my gut knowing that not every guy out there would be like Alex, too eager and reckless. There would be guys out there like Hayden, protective and funny and caring. Ones who wouldn’t push if I pulled away.
I continue to watch Hayden, stealing glances of him rummaging through his backpack and retrieving a bottle of Gatorade. When he smiles at his friends, he does so politely, the irate frown never fully leaving his face. And then his eyes meet mine. The grim frown that set his mouth in a firm line shifts into a relaxed smile, almost as if seeing me, safe and in one piece, is enough to wash away whatever angered him at the moment. I smile back before turning to open the second Coke can that Lucy brought, thanking her as she slides it toward me.
Maybe I should have gone to prom with Hayden.
present
“Do you think I shine?”
“What?” José looks at me as if I just asked if the sky was turning purple.
“Like, do I make—am I a happy person?”
José smiles. “Of course you are, Natalia. Why do you ask?”
I shrug. “Just asking…”
I stop to walk through the doors of Pour Toujours as a gust of wind blows past us. José peers into the restaurant, his hand coming up to wave at a man sitting at a booth before he holds the door open for me.
“Well, make sure you’re that ball of sunshine right now because Shawn is already here.”
Once I walked into work on Monday, José’s relentlessness followed me around all morning. Apparently, he set up a lunch date for me and his cousin, Shawn, that José would be joining to supervise. Without me knowing, he already decided on holding this impromptu setup at Hayden’s restaurant.
Shawn looks exactly like José described. Dirty-blond hair, full beard, and blue eyes that look like someone dipped a ladle into the ocean and poured it right into his irises. He’s a bit older than me. He just got out of an eight-year relationship and moved to the city for a fresh start. He stands as we approach the table and awkwardly brings his hands together in front of him, shifting on his feet as he greets us.
“Natalia, this is Shawn,” José introduces us .
“Hi,” I say sincerely, my smile widening as I look up at him. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” He waits for me to sit before sitting back down. A gesture I don’t miss and one that makes me catalog him into the gentleman category of New York City’s most eligible bachelors.
“So,” I start, my eyes lightly roaming over the menu, “you two are cousins? You guys look nothing alike.”
Shawn chuckles. “I got the blond hair and blue eyes from my mom’s side.”
José rolls his eyes and swats a hand in Shawn’s direction. “I asked my mom every day why Shawn gets to have those pretty baby blues while my eyes look like caca .”
The three of us share a laugh as José looks on approvingly.
“Nat?”
I turn to look and see Hayden standing near the bar. “Hayden!” I walk toward him to greet him. “We’re just having lunch.”
I hook my arm through his and guide him back to my table just a couple of feet away to make introductions.
“Hi, Hayden,” José calls, already comfortable and on a first-name basis with Hayden. “This is my cousin, Shawn.” José gestures toward Shawn, who waves at Hayden with a polite smile.
“Nice to meet you,” he calls, returning the same polite smile. I look down at his right hand and notice that it’s red. And swollen. When he sees me inspecting it, he moves to cover it with his other hand.
“What’s wrong with your hand?” I whisper.
“Nothing,” he whispers back.
His face is serious, his jaw tight and eyes narrow, and he gives me nothing. My smile falters as I continue to look at him, silently willing him to give me answers. Or at least to smile back at me with that easy, relaxed smile that never makes me question a single thing between us .
“It was nice to see you guys,” he says to José and Shawn. He turns to face me. “I have to get back to the kitchen.”
He smiles softly at me, his warm hand gently squeezing my forearm before he breaks free of my grasp and turns to walk away, leaving me to face his backside.
“Is that a friend of yours?” Shawn asks, looking up from the menu once I settle back in my seat.
“Yeah, we went to high school together.”
“Oh,” he exclaims, surprised. “That’s great you two have kept in touch all this time.”
I stay quiet, considering correcting him but not wanting to confirm the inaccuracy in his observation. We continue our lunch as I steal glances toward the kitchen, hoping to see Hayden again. He looked so upset, and it worries me. I wonder if something happened. Maybe something with his parents or here at work. But when we spoke, just briefly, he gave nothing away, leaving the gnawing feeling that I want to right whatever wrong caused the tightness radiating off of him.
José’s sharp elbow to my side brings me back to the table, the mouthwatering scent of bouillabaisse and croque monsieur drifting into the space between us as Shawn’s courteous expression sits across from me. He lets out a short huff of laughter, more from embarrassment rather than something actually being funny.
“I was just asking how long you and José have known each other.”
“Oh!” I exclaim a little too loudly. “Um, we’ve been working together for about…three years now?” I turn to José for confirmation.
José nods, agreeing. “And I’ve been trying to get her laid since her feo ass ex-boyfriend dumped her.”
“José!” I hiss as my face turns hot with embarrassment. Even if he threw in a tacky insult meant for Matteo in an attempt to defend me, this man I just met doesn’t need to know my history of past relationships .
But Shawn politely chuckles, more laughing with José than at me. “It’s fine,” he answers. “I just got out of a long-term relationship, so I get it.”
I smile at him before glaring at José. Unaffected by my silent threat to trash his office and mold his stapler in Jell-O, he smiles proudly. I suppress the urge to flick his forehead and turn my attention back to Shawn instead.
He’s very handsome, just like José said. He’s also very kind and polite. And funny in the way that he knows when to say the punchline and how to gauge the conversation to slip in a witty yet inoffensive joke. He’s perfect. Yet I can’t bring myself to show interest.
Even as we settle our bill after our short lunch, having to make it back to the office before a meeting with Mark, I don’t give into José’s glare urging me to offer my number or a possibility for a future meeting. For some reason, I can’t shake the lingering guilt that settled in the pit of my stomach as José keeps pushing me to go on a date with Shawn.
As we walk out of the restaurant behind Shawn as he hurries back to his office in the Financial District, not too far from our own, I turn back to look for Hayden. I can’t help but wonder if this pang of hesitance has anything to do with him. The reason he remains a constant in my life, only a press of a button to wash away my loneliness, is because we’re both actually lonely. Take that away and there would be no reason for me to call him in the middle of the night to discuss why we both equally adore Winston Schmidt but can’t stand Nick Miller. Or if it was worth it to trudge out of our warm beds and into the late New York City night just so we could meet up over a cup of hot chocolate and fresh donuts. I would have to give all of that up, and I don’t know if I’m ready to let go of my best friend. To let go of the one person that never once thought that I was “too much.”
When I was with Matteo, I did a lot of tiptoeing, always feeling as if I was too much. And maybe having Hayden by my side, reminding me that I would never be too much to him, is the reason I’m finally able to see how preoccupied I was in my relationship .
There were so many things that I masked through the blindness of love when I was with Matteo. When I would laugh a little too loudly, he would roll his eyes and turn the other way out of embarrassment. When I would skip or dance because something excited me, he would tell me to calm down. When I reached out to him affectionately, requesting to hold hands or a kiss out in public, he would deny me. As if my overabundance of affection was out of place for an adult. Now, as I look at the rubble of our relationship from the outside in, I feel freed from being that embarrassed girl who felt shunned from being too happy or excited.
When Hayden told me I shined, I realized that I really did. Without Matteo’s narrowed eyes and pursed lips looking at me, wishing I were different, I turned into someone who didn’t have to hide under a shadow. I don’t have to look over my shoulder when I feel every single emotion course through me, worried that I may be too expressive, too eager. Because Hayden doesn’t force me to stow away that side of me. Instead, he encouraged me to be me.
When I laugh too loudly, he piles on to the jokes, making my laughter ring even louder and longer. When I skip, he joins me. And when I do things that Matteo would normally turn away from like forcing him to blow out a candle when it wasn’t even his birthday or trying avocado-flavored frozen yogurt, he does so willingly. With a smile and words that make me feel like I’m not too much. As if I’m exactly the person he needs in his life.
I’m not ready to let all of that go.
“Natalia,” José scolds when we walk back into our office building. We’re standing in front of a closed elevator door, waiting patiently for it to take us back to the buzz of the workday. “Please say yes if the man asks you to dinner.”
I sigh. “José?— ”
“Just hear me out,” he interrupts. “No pressure. Just a dinner to get to know each other. You two don’t even have to call it a date.”
I throw my hands in the air, giving in. “Fine.”
José squeals, clasping his hands in front of him just as the elevator ding announces its arrival. “I’ll give him your number.”