James 14
James
I’m stunned.
I rock back, cold astonishment chasing the rage from my body. I turn to look at Nazeera, hoping she’ll tell me this is some kind of a joke, but she’s standing there with her eyes squeezed shut, like she wants the ground to open up and take her.
“No,” I breathe.
“Yes,” says Kenji, his eyes like steel. “I asked her to marry me, and she said no. And then she left. Put the entire world between us just to get away from me.”
The ramification of these words has a physical effect on all of us. Everyone, even Warner, takes a step back.
“That’s why we can’t be together,” Kenji explains. “Because I was ready to commit, and she wasn’t.”
Warner looks struck.
He studies Kenji with patent disbelief. “You never told me you proposed to her,” he says. “Why didn’t you tell me you proposed to her?”
“I wasn’t ready to talk about it,” Kenji says.
“It’s been five years!”
“Yeah, and I’m still not ready to talk about it.
” Kenji turns away, focuses his eyes on the floor.
“Look, whatever, I wanted a future, okay? I wanted all the hard, messy, complicated shit that comes next. She didn’t.
” His voice gets tighter. “And I think I deserve to be with someone who wants what I want. I think I deserve to be with someone who actually loves me and isn’t going to bail the minute things get hard—”
“Kenji,” Nazeera whispers.
He shakes his head at the ground, then takes a breath. “I don’t want to try to work things out because I don’t trust her not to break my heart like that again. I can’t do it a second time,” he says, looking up. “I won’t.”
Then he leaves.
No goodbye, no explanation. He heads to the door, yanks it open, slams it shut behind him. The sound echoes through the empty rooms.
In the aftermath, there’s perfect silence.
Midday light slants through the windows, illuminating geometric patterns of dusty hardwood across the house. Sounds from the street filter in from the outside. There’s a distant, muted rush of laughter, then the rumble of the breeze, the chirp of a bird.
“How could you?” Nazeera cries.
I look up to find her staring at me.
“Why would you do that?” she says, sounding tortured. “I told you those things in confidence. You weaponized privileged information. You broke my trust. You just made everything worse—”
“Me?” I raise my eyebrows. “You’re blaming me?”
My unbothered response seems to stun her.
“You’re unbelievable!” she says. “You’re not even sorry, are you? You just blew everything apart and you’re not even sorry—”
“Why should I be sorry?” I argue. “I’ve been trying to understand the messed-up situation between the two of you for years, and now I finally find out that he asked you to marry him and you ran away?
What the hell is wrong with you? You were just crying over him last week, like there was nothing you could do to fix your life, but it turns out you’re the architect of your own fucking problems.”
“Oh my God.” Her jaw literally drops open. “When did you turn into such an asshole?”
“Why aren’t you going after him?” I counter. “Why are you just standing there looking offended?”
“I—What?” She blinks at me, then at Warner, who’s crossed his arms tightly against his chest. He looks angry. Really angry.
At her.
“Because,” she says haltingly. “Because Kenji doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“Yes, he does,” Warner and I say at the same time.
Warner and I lock eyes from across the room; our surprise is mutual.
“Wait, why are you both mad at me?” she says, glancing between us. “I’m not the one who just threw a fit and ruined Kenji’s day.”
I roll my eyes. “Says the woman who ruined his life.”
“Nazeera,” Warner says quietly. “If you tell me right now that you said no to his proposal because you don’t want to be with him, I will never bring this up again.
But if you said no because you’re a coward, terrified of your own feelings, more willing to destroy two lives than to sort out your fears, we’re going to have a problem. ”
Nazeera seems suddenly fascinated by the wall.
“So which is it?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t—I’m not—”
“I see,” Warner says softly. Lethally. “It looks like we’re going to have a problem.”
I look over at him and I almost laugh.
Warner is so angry right now he’s practically vibrating. He cares about Kenji way more than he will ever admit out loud.
Man, I’m going to hold this over his head forever.
“Do you love him?” Warner asks her.
Nazeera draws back, stunned. “Of course I love him.”
“Do you want what he just described—marriage, a future, a real, committed life together?”
“I—I lost my chance,” says Nazeera, looking shattered. “I don’t think he wants that anymore—not with me—”
“Just answer the question,” Warner says, cutting her off. “Yes or no?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
I swear under my breath. “You’re unbelievable, Nazeera. Five years of this bullshit—”
“I know—I know it’s all my fault,” she says in a panicked voice.
“I freaked out and did something stupid and I regretted it almost immediately, but it was already too late. It took me months to work up the courage to finally say something, but by then he wouldn’t speak to me.
He wouldn’t return my calls or messages.
” She shakes her head. “He didn’t talk to me for an entire year.
He wouldn’t even look me in the eye when I came back into town—”
“We know,” says Warner. “We were there.”
“No one feels sorry for you,” I add.
“I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me,” she says, flustered. “I’m just—I messed up, okay? I made a huge mistake. But I’ve tried to fix things and he’s not—He’s not interested. He’s the one still pushing me away—”
“How?” Warner asks.
Now she stills. “What do you mean?”
“How is he pushing you away?” Warner clarifies. “How have you tried to fix things?”
“We want concrete examples,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen as she looks between us. “I mean, obviously, I’ve tried talking to him.
Twice I asked him if he’d be interested in grabbing coffee, and both times he said he was busy.
And I’ve sent him other messages over the years, trying to be friendly, but they never go anywhere.
I’m the one who’s always trying to start a conversation with him, and he barely responds to me. ”
I frown. “Wait, when have you tried to start a conversation with him? I’ve never seen it.”
“All the time,” she argues. “I said hi to him at the coffee shop a couple of weeks ago and he just left the shop. I said hi to him that day at your house and he just walked out the door. He’s clearly not interested in talking to me!”
“This is your body of evidence?” Warner’s voice is frayed with disbelief. “You’ve said hi to him? You’ve sent him friendly messages? You asked him to get coffee? Twice? Over a period of five years? You think these examples qualify as effort, given the magnitude of the situation—”
“I’m clearly trying to make a connection!”
“That’s bullshit,” I argue, “and you know it. You make half-hearted attempts and take the first easy out. You’ll say hi to him and the minute he panics you just let it go. You want him to do all the work. You act like you have no power or control.”
“I’m not going to force him—”
“Force him?” Warner looks like he might be on the verge of an aneurysm. The veins on his neck are dangerously pronounced. “Nazeera, have you ever apologized to him in any of these messages? Have you ever told him that you made a mistake? That you still love him? That you want to marry him?”
She swallows. “Isn’t it—I mean, isn’t it implied? If I’m reaching out, trying to see him and talk to him—isn’t it obvious that I’m sorry?”
I stare at her, horrified.
“Nazeera.” Warner drags a hand down his face. “I think I might have to kill you.”
“What?” She looks suddenly crestfallen. “Why?”
“I’ll help,” I say to my brother.
“Look, we spent the first five years doing long distance,” she says in a rising, reedy voice.
“And it was really, really hard for me. It took me the past five years to understand that I don’t know how to communicate.
That deep down I’m insecure and afraid of my own feelings, and that I lash out and break down the most when I’m feeling vulnerable, because growing up I was always punished for being soft.
I’ve learned that I have no emotional tool kit—but—guys,” she says, panicking, “I still don’t have any emotional tools—”
“All right,” I say, exhaling. “All right, fine. I’m starting to feel sorry for you.”
“Thank you,” she says earnestly.
“Look, if you want him back, you’re going to have to work for it,” I explain.
“Right now, you need to go after him, and you need to tell him everything you just told us, and he’s not going to forgive you right away, and it’s not going to be easy.
But saying hi to him for the rest of your life will get you nothing. ”
She looks up at me, terrified. “How do you even know all this stuff?” she whispers. “You’re still so young.”
“Great, more of this bullshit,” I say, faking a smile. “I’m twenty-one, Nazeera. I’m not a child.”
“Yeah, I know,” she says, considering me. “But you’ve never even been in a serious relationship.”
“I’ve never been in a serious relationship because I’m looking for something really fucking specific,” I say to her. “I don’t need practice. I already know what I want, and I’ve never been willing to settle. You can blame this jackass.” I nod at Warner. “Thank you for ruining my life.”
Warner doesn’t smile, exactly, but he’s watching this exchange in silent amusement. “You’re welcome.”
Nazeera, meanwhile, just stares at me.
Like I’m an alien.
“Look, it’s not complicated,” I go on. “I might not have an extensive romantic history, but I’ve been in plenty of normal human relationships. These are the basic rules of being a decent person in any situation where you’ve fucked up, romantic or otherwise.”
Nazeera is still staring at me, but now there’s something almost like respect in her eyes.
“Now go,” I say, irritated, pointing at the door.
“What?” She startles. “Right now?”
“Yes.”
“But—”
“You have no idea what you did to him when you left,” Warner says to her, his voice tight with residual anger.
“Kenji was destroyed. Rebuilding trust takes time, and he needs reassurance that you’ve changed.
That he’s not going to get hurt again. This is typically the part of the story where you have to make a grand gesture. ”
I do a double take at Warner. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”
“In a love story,” he says.
I raise my eyebrows.
“Juliette has been reading a lot of novels lately,” he says by way of explanation. “They often follow a typical dramatic structure.”
I’m fighting a smile. “Are you reading these books together?”
“Shut up,” he says.
“Help me,” Nazeera says desperately. “I don’t know what to do. I’m really, really bad at this. We literally fell apart because I’m an emotional idiot. What’s my dramatic gesture supposed to be?”
“Grand gesture,” I correct her. Then, looking to Warner: “Right?”
He nods.
I mimic his nod, crossing my arms, but I’m quietly dying inside. I’m imagining him picking up one of Juliette’s books and reading it with the same thoughtful intensity he emanates while reading an oven manual.
“We’ll discuss a grand gesture later,” I say to Nazeera. “For now, just make a basic effort. Kill your pride. Go find him and tell him you care, that you’re not over him. That you’ll never be over him.”
She wrings her hands. “Isn’t that a little stalker-y?”
I frown at her. “Didn’t you tell me you once broke into his room in the middle of the night just to watch him sleep?”
“He was injured!”
“Whatever.”
“We are giving you explicit permission to go to him,” Warner says to her. “You’re stalling.”
“Okay.” She swallows. “No. You’re right. I will. I just—”
“Now,” I say. “Right now, before he literally disappears. If you hurry, you might still be able to find him glitching somewhere down the street.”
“Okay,” she says again. “Okay.”
She shoots us one last nervous look as she crosses the room, but then she pauses at the door, her hand on the handle. I can sense she’s about to turn back and say something else but Warner beats her to it.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he says quietly.
“I’m just”—she hesitates—“I’m just supposed to tell him everything I’m actually feeling?”
“Yes,” says Warner.
“All of it?”
“Yes,” I say.
She groans, banging her head against the door. “This is so embarrassing.”
Warner sighs. “If you’re unwilling to endure pain in the pursuit of change, you’ll achieve nothing and die in distress anyway.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” she says, her voice muffled by the wood.
“You’re welcome.”
She finally leaves the house with a salute of her middle finger, the front door slamming shut behind her. Silence descends in her wake.
Slowly, Warner and I turn to face each other.