Chapter 26 Natalia
Natalia
The plushie I bought years ago is still in her room—Zero from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I’ve seen it on her bed, except now it’s on the floor, mixed in with piles of clothes. I never ask about it, or mention the topic, because I’m terrified she’ll just hide it every time I go to her place.
Natalia isn’t used to her vulnerability—not like that. She wears her strength differently, and if that falters she pulls away.
She used to do it with the girls until they had something sort of an intervention.
The girls are the only people she’ll allow her strength to fade with, and I’d give anything to be another person she does that with.
With her, I feel defenseless—like I’ve stripped myself of everything I’ve ever built and handed her my heart.
Does she know she holds my bleeding heart in the palm of her hand?
If she doesn’t then I’ll just have to tell her—shout it from a rooftop like someone in the movies would. Hold up a boombox outside of her window, or pierce my heart with a dagger.
We lie here, side by side, naked and slicked with sweat. Her hair is in the new half-up and half-down look, all frizzy and curly. Ever since she’s started doing that I can’t help but love it because it showcases her face. The constellation of freckles, bright hazel eyes, and face of an angel.
Her eyes look right into mine.
“You’re staring.”
“It’s a bad habit of mine.”
She huffs, amused to say the least.
Her softening eyes somehow turn sad. “Why?” she murmurs. “I can’t be that pretty.”
“You’re the prettiest girl in all the land.”
“Shut up.” She giggles and shoves my shoulder.
“What.” I laugh. “I’m serious.”
“Stop it.” She barely smiles as she mumbles, “I can’t be that pretty.”
“You’re not,” I say. “You’re even prettier than pretty.”
“Shut up!” She shoves me, her nails tickle my side. “I’m serious.”
“The only ten I see.”
“Get out,” she says. “Just for that one, you need to leave.”
Our laughs merge into one song.
“Rowan?” she murmurs.
“Yeah, sweetheart.”
She adjusts the pillow beneath her head. “How are you always so happy?”
I shrug. “I’m not always happy,” I say quietly. “I have my moments too.”
“You don’t let me see them.”
I scratch the side of my head, wrinkling my nose.
I don’t talk about it much—it’s easier not to.
I just keep it to myself. I replay the moments that were sad and daydream about the good ones.
I think of my mom as the thing that keeps me happy.
I picture her as a guardian angel, still roaming the streets of this town, putting up signs and volunteering for everything.
The day of her service, I kept my head down and pretended to accept everyone’s apologies, prayers, and condolences. It’s exhausting every time someone comes up to you, all of them in a single line, repeating the same lines: I’m so sorry for your loss. She was lovely. You still have us. Stay strong.
I remember wishing I could shout at everyone to shut the fuck up and leave us alone.
People we hadn’t seen or spoken to in years had shown up and I hated those people even more.
Fuck, I miss her and I’d give anything to hug my mother right now.
To feel her body in my arms and her hands on my back, rubbing gently with whispers of, “I love you” and “It’s going to be okay.
” I can’t even remember the way she felt.
The last time we hugged, she felt so real and I never really thought about her simply disappearing from existence.
But death is funny like that.
Inhaling deeply and shakily, I rub my eyes with my finger tips and release a long exhale.
“Tell me,” Natalia whispers
“It’s nothing.”
“Okay.” She sighs. “But don’t get upset the next time I say it’s nothing.”
A weak smile draws at the corner of my lips. “Touché.”
I can’t bring myself to look at her. If I’m barely breathing right now, I’ll suffocate the moment I see her eyes.
“Hey,” she says as she kisses my stubbled cheek.
“Sorry, I’m just…thinking about my mother.”
“You miss her.”
I nod. “She keeps me happy,” I say. “Every day, I pass the church we had her service in and I get sad for a bit. Sometimes it ruins my day.”
“I’m sorry,” Natalia croaks. “But she still visits, right?”
I nod again, half-smiling thinking of my mother’s ghost. “She does.”
“It hurts,” Natalia says, drawing shapes on my chest with her finger tip. “Missing someone.”
“It does.” It burns.
She rubs the skin over my heart with her hand. “I miss people too.”
“Yeah?”
I move to steal a quick glance at her, but I don’t look away when I find her eyes waiting for mine. They snap into her like magnets, two halves of a whole. Me and her, fused together.
“Yeah,” she murmurs. “It hurts.”
“I know.” I sigh, the burning in my chest intensifying..
“What else?”
“I miss my dad,” I rasp. “I miss my brother. They moved away from this town, and I guess it’s okay now. But for a long time I pretended I was fine with it. It wasn’t okay. It felt like…It just felt like—”
“You lost everything.”
“I did,” I whisper. “I did lose everything. I hate saying it or thinking it, because I’m grateful for everything I have.
I worked hard, but my dad sent me to culinary schools and cosigned on my business loan.
I’m grateful to him and for everything I have.
But I’m still processing the grief I’ve had since I was a kid. ”
Natalia hums in understanding, her fingertip drawing shapes again.
“But then what?” I breathe. “The grief is gone and so is everything else? If that’s the case I’d rather feel like this forever if it means keeping attachments to her.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” she says quietly. “Grief is… it’s horrible, but I don’t think you need to suffer the feeling of it just to feel attached to her, Rowan—she wouldn’t want that. And grief isn’t the only proof of love.”
“Then what is?” My voice cracks.
“You have things on your menu named after her,” she says. “You have her photo in your kitchen. You have a handwritten note in your car tucked into your visor. Grief doesn’t just disappear, but it turns into something else, I think.”
“Maybe, yeah,” I say. “I cry a lot, you know?”
“You?” she jokes. “No way.”
“Yeah, me.” I chuckle. “Sometimes, if I find a candle that smells like what she used to smell like, I have to buy it. But I never burn it. I have a collection of candles in the cabinet under my TV. I have a collection of her favorite perfume too. In our old bathroom, I found an old bottle of it so I bought a bunch online that day.”
“Is it discontinued?”
“No, I just didn’t want to risk it,” I tell her.
“You see?” she insists. “Grief is just a form of love.”
All the things that were left behind, I keep now as evidence, I suppose. Evidence that she was here once—she existed—her soul had a form that allowed me time with her.
“I think,” she whispers, “if I ever see you cry, it’ll kill me. Is that what it feels like for you?”
“Yes.”
She kisses my chest. “I hate that your mom died.”
“I hate it too,” I say and kiss her head. “But now it’s your turn.”
Natalia lifts her head to face me. “No, this is about you,” she says. “Keep telling me things.”
“Am I making you fall in love with me or something?”
Very, very quietly, she whispers, “Or something.”
And that’s enough for me.
“I was a mama’s boy—you know that.” I laugh. “Everyone knows that. But I kept wishing it had been me and not her.” Her arm wraps tight around me. “I wanted it to be me, Natalia.”
“No, don’t say that,” she breathes.
“My dad was still out of it for a while. He didn’t know what to do with two kids and I don’t blame him.
I wouldn’t have known what to do either.
But… I had to get some help eventually. I wasn’t doing well in school, and I didn’t even quit the soccer team, coach kicked me off it. And I was so tired.”
“I know what that’s like,” she rasps.
“I know you do.” I turn my hand beneath hers and her cold fingers effortlessly slip between mine. “And I wish you didn’t.”
Her hand squeezes mine once softly. The second slowly. And the third after a beat. “I wish you didn’t either.”
My first squeeze is tight and long.
My second is a gentle pulse.
And my third is my confession.
“What’s your confession?” I rasp and bring her hand to my lips.
Natalia huffs a laugh that is followed by a silent pause. She adjusts herself so she’s closer to my side, her thigh melting into mine. “I didn’t realize we were trading them.”
“Secrets,” I say. “I’ll trade you a secret.”
There’s a small smile on her soft, pink lips. “I never saw myself getting married in a church. A lot of it is because of what people put my dads through, but also… I don’t know,” she says. “Well, to be fair, I don’t think I saw myself getting married at all.”
“Ever?”
Natalia shakes her head on my shoulder. “I didn’t think I’d make it this far to begin with. You make a plan in your head and it just…” Her quiet laugh is merely a huff and she sniffles as she uses her sleeve to wipe her face again. “I just…”
I squeeze her hand.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Commiserating and loving.
Natalia is often brusque, anomalous. Stubborn and strong. It’s everything I love about her. But now, she’s placing the key of her prison in my palm and allowing me to unlock the creaky door. And I’ve let myself in.
In here, she’s bare, with raw, open wounds and in the corner is a first aid kit that she can’t reach. So I grab it and hold it out to her. Natalia isn’t the girl to just take it from me though, not without insisting she’s fine for minutes on end before she relents.
But instead of letting her do it, I take out the needle and thread to get started.
“You just what, sweetheart?”
She swallows. “I just thought I’d be dead by now.”
I give her hand another squeeze. “You were always going to make it this far,” I whisper, lifting her hand to my lips again to brush them over her skin—to feel the warmth brought on from the blood in her veins to solidify the image of her beating heart. A proof of life.