27. Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-seven
Nate
It was a long night. A long flight home. A long drive to Louise’s from the airport.
I couldn’t say why I’d ended up there. My cloudy mind had decided to direct my body in that direction, and next thing I knew, I was parking and riding the elevator up to her floor.
My phone chimed with a text. I figured it was my brothers checking in after my flight. If I didn’t answer them, they wouldn’t leave me alone.
Adrian: That was weird, right?
Puzzled by his question, I waited for Ben or Roman to ask what he meant, but no messages came. It wasn’t like Benny not to pounce on Adrian being vague.
Then I realized this wasn’t our group chat.
Me: What do you mean?
Adrian: The tension between you and Sammie on the plane. Care to share what that was about?
I groaned, letting my head fall against the elevator wall. Leave it to Ade to be too perceptive for his own good. I’d done my level best to act normal. Clearly not well enough.
I couldn’t even say how I felt. There was hurt, but it was buried under a layer of apathy too thick for me to dig through. Knowing it was inside me somewhere, festering away with every other buried feeling from the last decade, made it impossible to be fully at rest. Ever.
The elevator door slid open, and I quickly responded to Adrian as I stepped out onto Louise’s floor.
Me: No tension on my part. I didn’t sleep well last night. I was keeping my foul mood to myself. I’ll talk to you later.
He responded before I could knock on our mom’s door.
Adrian: Yeah, you not sleeping is another thing we need to talk about. I’m adding it to the list. You don’t get to hide this kind of thing from us.
Me: Not hiding anything. I’m putting my phone down now. I’ll text you later.
Slipping my phone back into my pocket, I knocked on Louise’s door. Within moments, her nurse had let me inside and I was sitting across from my mother.
She was even more frail than the last time I’d seen her, but smiled like she was the picture of health when she laid eyes on me.
“You’re here,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back.”
“I’m here.”
Some of the sparkle left her gaze as she looked me over and slowly shook her head, tsking. “Oh, Nate, you don’t look great.”
A dry laugh emerged from me like a cloud of dust. “You’re one to talk.”
But as withered as she was, as weak and brittle, she had a lightness to her I found myself jealous of. And it wasn’t often I felt that way.
Feeling jealous of a dying woman…I wasn’t going to examine any more closely. That was dangerous territory.
She snorted. “I’ll get my second wind any day now.”
“Sure. Any day.” I nodded toward her nurse, who was keeping herself busy in the kitchen. “Are they keeping you comfortable?”
She lifted her shoulder, and it took great effort.
“There’s not much comfort to be found anymore.
Most days, I feel like my bones are going to burst through my skin at any moment.
But they’re taking good care of me, if that’s what you mean.
And I’m on enough painkillers to put down an elephant. That’s something too.”
“Good.” I nodded sharply. “That’s good.”
“I’d offer you some to take the edge off, but I kind of need them.”
That had me laughing again. This time, in bemusement. How could she even joke when she was facing her end like a runaway train? “Thanks for the thought.” I dragged my fingers through my hair. “I haven’t been sleeping.”
“That explains the shadows.”
“Yeah.”
We looked at each other, and though my sadness was present, it was dull. Standing behind the curtains, barely peeking out. I’d mourned this woman long ago. Cried and cried, asking the unanswerable question: why hadn’t I been good enough to make her stay?
The person across from me barely resembled my mother. I didn’t know her. But still, I wanted something from her. I didn’t know what, but then again, I’d never been able to keep up with my own thoughts.
“You look like you have a question or something to say,” she said.
“I might. I’m not sure what I can ask.”
She stacked her hands in her lap, shifting minutely. “As long as I’m here, I’m an open book to you.”
The why of it all was always on the tip of my tongue, but she’d already answered that. I wasn’t satisfied with her reasons for leaving and staying away, but I sensed I was at a dead end there. Nothing she told me would ever justify her abandoning us.
So, I settled on—“Did you have another relationship after Dad?”
She rolled with my punches. “I did. It took a lot of healing before I was willing to even try. And in the end, it wasn’t on purpose. She was my best friend. Rebecca. I’d never thought of myself being with a woman…but it had been as natural as breathing.”
I took that in. Not just my mother being with a woman, but that she’d had a partner at all. I wasn’t great at reading other people’s emotions, even when they were written all over their faces, but even I couldn’t miss her wistfulness.
Despite it all, she’d found someone who’d made her feel that way.
“Were you a good partner to her?” I asked.
She chuckled to herself. “She wouldn’t allow me to be anything else. When I tried to ignore the bad stuff rattling around in my head, she shoved me in her car and drove me to my therapist. So yes, I was good to her, but it took work on both our parts.”
There was a lot to process here, but that would come later. There was one glaring part of her story I couldn’t ignore.
“Where is she?” I asked. “Do you have her locked away somewhere?”
She pressed her lips together as she shook her head. “As far as I know, she’s still in California.”
“She didn’t come with you?”
“No. We made the decision to end things on a high note. No one wants to watch their partner go through…this.” She gestured toward her slowly fading self. “We said our last goodbye when I moved back to Denver.”
Finding this too pretty and difficult to believe, I lowered my chin and raised my brows. “A partner like you described wouldn’t just throw up her hands and say ‘farewell’ when you packed your bags to go die.”
Her answering smile was tight. “It might have been slightly less mutual than I’d described, but what does it matter? The result is the same. We’re apart now, and she can move on.”
“How long were you together?”
She grimaced as she swallowed. “It would have been fifteen years in October.”
“And you think she’s just going to move on?”
“I’ll be dead soon, Nate. She really won’t have a choice.”
We stared at each other for a long moment. It struck me hard and fast. She wasn’t as healed as she wanted me to believe. Maybe this wasn’t all a show, but some of it was. Louise wasn’t skipping excitedly into the light. She wasn’t going easy.
She might not have been as screwed up as she had been when she’d run away from her family, but she was still running. I only hoped she’d given Rebecca more of a goodbye than she had us.
“Don’t look at me that way,” she murmured. “I can see what you’re thinking. This isn’t the same. It isn’t like—” She turned her head, drawing in a rattling breath.
“Did you talk to her before you left?” I asked, more gently this time.
“I did. We talked and talked and talked until it was clear we’d come to an impasse.” She dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her robe’s sleeve. “Rebecca wanted to come with me, but I wouldn’t allow it. This time…it had to be for my boys. I owe you four that much.”
“Louise.” I groaned, tugging at my hair. “Mom. That wasn’t necessary.”
Roman had seen her twice. Ben and Adrian never. And my visits were sporadic at best. What did she do in the in-between? Why hadn’t I considered that?
“I get to decide what’s necessary.” She faced me again, resolve in her shoulders.
“There’s not much else I have any say over.
This, I get to choose. I love Rebecca very much.
I shared my heart and life with her. I hope she’ll remember me well, but she doesn’t need me right now.
Maybe you don’t either, but I’m choosing to be here in case you do.
It might not make sense to you, but it doesn’t have to. ”
“No, I suppose not.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is there someone in your life?”
“There was the thought of someone.” I shook my head. “It’s been proven I’m not a good partner, so it’s probably for the best it didn’t go anywhere.”
“How was that proven?”
“There was Rosalie.”
“Hmmm…tell me about Rosalie. I don’t think I like her.”
My laugh broke through the present heaviness clogging the air. “We met in college. Her friends were convinced we were meant to be.”
“But you weren’t?”
“I did love her, but I was never what she wanted, as hard as I tried.”
“What did she want?”
Our fights and disagreements flashed by in fragments.
I hadn’t been enthusiastic enough. Didn’t say “I love you” first. No fancy shows of my devotion like her friends’ boyfriends.
Times I missed events because moving off my couch was too difficult to even consider.
My constant wariness, certain she was going to leave me. My fear, paranoia, jealousy.
I held on too tight, and she’d pull away, making me grasp for her. An endless cycle that went on for most of my twenties.
I didn’t miss it.
I hadn’t contemplated starting another relationship since.
Even I was surprised I wanted to try with Samantha.
“Not me, it turns out.” I spread my hands on my knees. “It’s a lot to love someone like me. As you might imagine, I’ve got a lot of hang-ups, and I brought them into our relationship. It was never easy. For either of us.”
Samantha turning me down had probably been a good thing. Even though it stung, I kept telling myself that. She was better off not being burdened by the storm cloud of my mind. Just because it cleared when I was with her didn’t mean it would remain that way.
“Hmmm.” Her eyes swept over me, assessing. “Did she give you what you needed, Nate?”
I closed my eyes, more of my past flashing in my memories.
Rosalie disappearing at parties she’d dragged me to.
Her telling me she loved me within two weeks of meeting and falling apart when I wasn’t there yet.
Standing me up to hang out with her friends.
Flirting right in front of me over and over and over.
Deciding to move to London for work and expecting me to drop everything and follow her without a single conversation.
“No, she didn’t. I don’t think I ever felt secure.” I leveled my mother with a steady gaze. “I have a fear of abandonment, and she fed it until it became a monster too big for either of us to control.”
Louise’s gaze was just as steady on me. “Then you need to find someone who shuts that monster up and sends it back to the dark corner where it belongs. You, Nate Wells, are worth the effort. Please remember that.”
“I’ll give it a try,” I said, not sure I meant it.
Later, when I was lying in my bed, fatigue settling over me, I picked up the weighted sleep mask Samantha had bought for me. I didn’t really need it—the room was pitch black from the curtains she’d hung over the windows—but I placed it over my eyes anyway.
Lavender invaded my nostrils, and the luxurious sheets and mattress cradled my body.
Samantha had done this for me. She’d gone out of her way to make my bedroom comfortable—optimized—so I would finally sleep.
Lying here, surrounded by all she’d done for no reason other than she cared about me, I understood why her rejection had knocked me sideways. My ego wasn’t just bruised. It was the effort. She had gone above and beyond for me, and when it came down to it, she didn’t want anything real with me.
“Let’s be real,” I whispered, laughing at myself.
I should have kept my damn mouth shut.