Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
NATALIE
Natalie
I need advice.
Tessa
OMG, yes, finally.
What’s up? Whatever it is, that black silk number is the answer.
Natalie
No. That black silk number got me in trouble.
Tessa
What? Spill.
Natalie
I don’t have time to spill.
I’m on my way back to the house from Christmas tree shopping, and well…
I think Cole is into me all of a sudden.
Tessa
I, for one, am shocked.
(That was sarcastic)
Natalie
And I think I might like him back?
Tessa
What???????? THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE LED WITH. FINALLY
Natalie
What do you mean finally, it’s been like three days? How does that even make sense?
Tessa
LOL Natalie, you two have been flirting for years.
Natalie
No?
Tessa
He has been anyway. You? You’ve never known what’s good for you chasing after the wrong Sinclair.
Natalie
Yeah, so about that Sinclair. I think he’s been lying to me about how we met.
Tessa
He lies to everyone, so that’d make sense. I never got how you two were friends.
Natalie
And you’re telling me now?
Tessa
Not my business.
Natalie
That’s never stopped you in the past.
Tessa
I thought maybe he was different with you. Apparently not.
Natalie
Do you think Cole lies too?
Tessa
From what I know of him, and the way Moose talks about him, no. He’s got that rigid Captain America vibe.
Like he’s premed?
Who the hell is premed when they could go pro?
Natalie
Wait that’s real? I thought he was lying to my parents. Fuck me, Tessa.
Tessa
I know, it’s impossibly hot of him. Stop overthinking this, Natalie. Go for it.
Natalie
I need to ask him some questions first…but after…yeah, I think I might.
Tessa
NO QUESTIONS JUST BONE
Natalie
We are not the same.
I narrowly miss walking into a wall as I stall walking from the bathroom back to my bedroom.
Tessa was zero help, which really shouldn’t be a surprise, but I was/am desperate.
Cole is waiting for me in my room and I know I need to have a conversation with him or the next two weeks are going to be unbearable, but I don’t want to.
“Night, sweetie,” my mom says.
The words I’d looked forward to hearing in person all semester—spoken through the phone each night before climbing into my dorm’s bed—bring little comfort tonight. Instead, they only bring me closer to the conversation I’m terrified to have.
I shut my bedroom door behind me, my hands slick from nerves as I wipe them quickly on my heavy flannel pajama pants.
Okay. We’re going to do this. We’re going to ask Cole to explain himself.
We’re going to ask him once and for all if he was the Sinclair brother who I met in the bathroom freshman year—and if he was, why he let Caden take credit for it.
Then, I’m going to ask him where we stand now, because, honestly?
I’m beyond confused. I’m nonplussed. Baffled. Bewildered. And out of synonyms.
My knees buckle. A wave of dizziness crashes over me. My mind turns like a warped record revolving on a high speed, the music a chaotic blur of unintelligible lyrics and jarring notes, a cacophony signifying nothing.
Tessa told me to stop overthinking it.
That’s such a joke. I’ve never known a moment’s peace when it comes to my brain.
A few weeks ago, when I imagined sharing my childhood bedroom with a Sinclair for a week, I expected to feel nervous, but I thought it’d be the kind of nervous that comes with anticipation—the hopeful kind.
Not this… this mess of uncertainty, the kind where everything I thought I knew about the last three years is suddenly in question, and nothing makes sense anymore.
Is it hot in here?
I tug at my thermal pajama sleeves, trying to calm myself, but it’s no use.
My eyes flick to the one spot in the room that isn’t a respite for me.
It’s a poster of a cat hanging on a tree branch that covers the spot where I thought it’d be a great idea to write “Dillon and Natalie forever” in balloon letters with a hot pink Sharpie.
I’ve painted over it a dozen times, but the faint marks still remain.
It feels like a metaphor.
No matter how much I try to cover it up, I’ll always be the girl who wasn’t enough. The girl who needed to be hidden away. The girl who chased after a boy who never wanted to be caught. A boy who never wanted to catch me in return.
My stomach twists. I’m faintly aware of Cole saying something about sleeping arrangements, but I’ve receded far too into myself to respond to any of it. If Cole was the person I ran into in the bathroom…that means the entire foundation of my friendship with Caden is a lie.
Caden. My one friend.
Plus, if Cole was the man in the bathroom—a man I thought I had such a strong connection with for a moment I believed in my mom’s story about soulmates—then he must have been so repulsed by our short time together that he let his brother take credit for it rather than deal with my enormous mess.
His brother Caden. My one friend.
Sweat beads my forehead as “my one friend” cycles on repeat in my mind. Do I even want to be friends with him anymore?
Yes? No. I don’t know. He’s lied to me since day one, and it seems like that’s an intrinsic part of his character.
So no, I don’t want to be friends with who he really is. But I’ll miss who I thought he was. So much.
What will I do when we go back to campus? I love Tessa, but we do great existing parallel to each other, I can’t depend on her like I did with Caden. And I—
I don’t want to be alone again. I’ve been so lonely for most of my life. My chest tightens. My breaths start coming in shallow.
Panic. Panic attack.
“Natalie? Hey! Are you okay?” Cole wraps an arm around me as my vision darkens and my legs buckle under the weight of everything I’m feeling. “Woah, there. Don’t tap out yet. You’ve got twelve more days of being in love with me to go.”
“It’d be a merciful ending if I did,” I quip, wrapping my arms reluctantly around his waist. I listen to the rhythm of his breath, matching mine with his, slowly finding steady ground again as the panic ebbs.
“There’s my girl,” he murmurs into the top of my head.
Smoke from the wood barn at White’s lingers in Cole’s shirt. It mixes with his signature cedar and lemon, and I burrow myself into the smell to steady my breaths some more.
“Sorry for the dramatics, I swear I’m fine.”
“You sure? Because it kind of seems like you’re about to pass out on me.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. Really,” I say, again, even though I’m not. I keep my face buried in his chest, trying to hide the blush creeping up my neck and the erratic thump-thump-thump of my heart. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“And you promise to answer it truthfully? No games. Just a simple yes or no, okay?”
With a feather-light touch, he tilts my chin upward and his warm gaze locks with mine.
It lands on me with a look that’s somehow both soft and intense.
This isn’t the cocky jerk I thought I knew, the one who always made me feel small or the person who barely said two words to me when I saw him in the dorm. “I promise you.”
“Do you remember how I was kind of weird about your glasses?”
His eyebrows pinch together in confusion.
“That’s not the question.” I shake my head. “I mean it is, and yes, please answer truthfully, but it’s not the one I’m worked up about.”
“Okay…yes, I remember.”
“Well—it’s because they’re the glasses Caden was wearing the day I ran into him in the bathroom—except that doesn’t make sense does it?
That he’d have your glasses. It’d make more sense if you were wearing them.
But that would mean that you were the person I ran into that day—the one who did a lot of nice things and took care of me.
So I guess my question is, was that you? There? That day?”
Cole swallows, then nods. “Yeah, it was.”
“Great!” I say, pulling away from our embrace. “Awesome. I mean super cool!” It comes out three octaves too high and way too chipper.
“But I can explain—” Cole reaches for me as I turn and move as far away from him as possible.
“No need!” I squeak. “But just a quick follow-up question here. Why did you hate me? Do you still hate me, and uhm—where exactly do we stand right now, because I’m nonplussed.”
“What? I don’t—” He drags his hands through his hair. “Natalie, how could you have possibly gotten to me hating you from that?”
“I mean, I don’t think you do now, probably. But back then, you let Caden take the credit for our first meeting. I’m assuming it was something you didn’t want to revisit, which crosses off the possibility that it was enjoyable for you. Which, valid. I was unhinged that day. Today too apparently.”
“I didn’t let Caden do anything he—”
I raise a finger up to him as if to say one minute. “Oh no, actually still spiraling here, if you don’t mind.”
“By all means.” Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Cole toss his hands up in frustration, his dark hair sticking out at odd angles from dragging his fingers through it.
“Not to mention the second time we met—which I thought was the first, mind you—you barely looked at me before walking out of the room like I was the last person you ever wanted to see again. Which, I guess fair, considering we were sitting on your side of the room and that was probably rude, but I didn’t know. ”
He opens his mouth, but I keep going before he has time to say anything more.
“And then every time since then, there’s clearly been a tension between us, and until recently it wasn’t exactly pleasant. But now it kind of is, isn’t it? Which only makes things more confusing, because it seems like you like me.”
“I do.”