Chapter Thirty-Three
“God,” he says, the word coming out as a curse and a prayer.
He pushes his hands through his hair, and I can tell he hasn’t slept since last night.
“What are you ...? What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I got however many hours down the freeway and turned around and came back. Because I can’t ... This is stupid, by the way,” he says.
“What? You? I agree that you’re a little bit stupid.”
“No. This. I don’t want to be in love with you.”
“Great. Thank you.”
“No. You don’t understand. It hurts. Too much, Amelia.” He puts his hand on his chest like it hurts right now. “I was never supposed to have to feel this again. I was never supposed to want something this bad, or to hope this much. But you were there. The minute I checked in that first year, you were there, and I knew you were dangerous, and I should have listened to that feeling. You were dangerous, and I couldn’t ...”
He shakes his head. “Sarah is dead. If I never checked into the motel again, she would never have known. She couldn’t ... she couldn’t make me. You made me. You made me keep coming back. Every year I walked the tightrope between wanting to hang on to how badly it hurt to have my wife be gone, and how much I wanted to see you, and I strung all of it out ... all of it. I let it get tangled around itself. Until I could hardly make sense of it. Dammit. Amelia. After last summer ... I wanted it to be over. I wanted it to be over because I couldn’t keep coming to see you. So I came back, for one last time, and I thought if we fucked, great. I could get it out of my system. But I didn’t. You are in my blood. You are in my breath. You’re in my heart, and that is the most unforgivable part.”
“Nathan . . .”
“Every year, I would see you, and I could feel that there was a sadness about you. I could feel that there was something in you that was like me, but you weren’t ... you weren’t dark. I wanted that.”
“Well, you were. Intense, and terrifying, and I wanted you in spite of myself. Even though I knew full well that I couldn’t afford to take on a project. I did not want you to be my project. I agreed with you. That maybe the sex was inevitable. It wasn’t supposed to be this for me either. You think I’m any happier about it?”
“I thought that if I ... I thought that if I said that there was a love of my life, it meant I wouldn’t have to do it again.”
“Is it so bad? Loving someone?”
“Losing them is,” he says. “It’s so bad. It tears you in half. Amelia, I can’t ... I’m in an impossible situation because if I walk away from you right now, if I never see you again, at least the grief won’t be final. But it will be grief all the same, and I’m so tired of it. I am so goddamned tired.”
I stand up slowly and walk around to the other side of the counter. “Then maybe try being happy. Why don’t we try that?” I raise my hands and bracket his face. His dear, familiar face. I see those lines, all that pain. I want to make new lines on his face. From smiling. From laughing. From loving me. “I love you. I do know what it feels like to love and have it taken from you. It’s not the same. I also know how expensive hope is, Nathan, I do.”
“It’s too much,” he says, his voice gritty.
“Yes. It is. So you can go back home. You can go sit in your office, and you can know what will happen every day for the rest of your life. However long it is. Or we could do this. You and me. I told you I don’t need anything other than just the reassurance that I’ll see you again.”
I find myself being lifted off the floor, enveloped by his arms, and then he’s kissing me.
And it is magical. It is beautiful. It is hope.
It is everything.
“No,” he says. “That’s the thing. I knew. I knew that it was never just a possibility with you. It was inevitable. It could be everything. That’s why it terrifies me.” He closes his eyes. “I love Sarah very much, but it’s been three years. Grieving is comforting. Because it keeps you safe.” It is the exact same revelation I had. I’m glad he’s had it too. “If I let it go, if I accept what happened, then I have to ... open myself up again, and that’s terrifying.”
“Yes. Hope is terrifying. What else do we have? You said it yourself, when you were talking to Albert about romance novels. The work that goes into a happy ending is the hardest work. The world doesn’t value it. The work to be in love, the work to be happy. It’s the hardest work, but I’m willing to do it. I have never felt this way before.”
“Neither have I. I’m going to try to explain it in a way that makes sense because I know ... She was the love of my life. That life. Not this one. This one—the one where I’m a difficult, closed-off, hopeful, wounded man—in this one, it’s you. It could only ever be you.” He tilts my chin upward, and my gaze meets his. “You are the only woman for the man I am now.” He pauses. “That day you read the memoir ... You understand me, Amelia. You don’t just accept me. No matter which world, which life we’re talking about, I’ve never experienced that before.”
I’m warmed by this, all the way through. It’s true for me too, I realize. It’s not just acceptance, but a deep understanding and appreciation. We’ve both lost. We both used creativity to get us through. We both need creativity.
“You are not second in any way,” he says. “I was dying. Slowly but surely. Everything that was good about life was gone for me. My only purpose was writing that damn book for her, and you ... We can get married. We can write books together. We can ... we can try to have kids. If you want.”
“I want everything. I want to hope for everything, and I will love you no matter what.”
I realize that there are logistics. That he has a house in Washington. I live here and ...
“We’ll have to hire someone to work here,” he says. “Because I’m selfish and I’m going to want to bring you back to Bainbridge Island sometimes, but I want to live here with you. Most of the life I have left there hasn’t been great. Though I would love to bring you there. Show it to you. I would love for there to be something happier there for me.”
“It’s a deal.”
Here was a man who had been so badly hurt, willing to give up everything for me. I can hardly believe it.
I wanted to believe happy endings were real. I needed to. I wrote about them even when everything seemed lost. When my whole life was a dark moment I couldn’t see the end of.
I kept dreaming.
It’s finally my turn to have it. All because of the man in room 32.
All because he was brave enough to push through to the happily ever after.
Some people say happy endings are the easy way out. That they’re trite or cliché. That tragedy is what adds value to film or literature. Nathan and I know how wrong that is.
We choose joy. We choose each other. We choose to live.
That’s what a happy ending is.