Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“I said I don’t want to talk about the couch right now.” I step into the shower, yanking the curtain.
“And when will you want to talk about the couch?” Jackson asks sharply. “Tomorrow? Next week? In five years?”
“I don’t know.”
He lets his breath out, an annoyed grunt. “There it is.”
I stick my face in the water, pushing my hair back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You never know, Har. It’s your answer for everything.”
That stings, more than I expect. “That’s not true.”
“Then let’s talk about the damn couch.”
“Not now.”
He makes a frustrated sound. “You’re impossible, you know that? I honestly don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I give
you space. I ask you nicely. I make suggestions. I offer options. And you still don’t know.”
By the time I finally escape the bathroom, my jaw hurts from holding in the urge to scream at him, and the corners of my eyes
are hot and prickling. I bundle up my dirty clothes and head for the bedroom to throw them in the laundry pile.
But when I grab the doorknob, I can’t get it to turn. It’s completely jammed. I twist at it with one hand and then the other.
For a horrible second, I think I might actually scream after all.
Finally, I wrap my hand in my dirty T-shirt and wrench as hard as I can. The door flies open.
And standing by the open window, a measuring tape in one hand, is the other Nathan.
He jerks as the door bounces back on its hinges, looking over with wide eyes. When he sees me, he relaxes, his shoulders slumping. He pushes his Red Sox hat back on his head. “Hey.”
I feel an odd flood of relief, seeing him, even though he’s not the same Nathan I left in the outside world. “Hey.” The door
swings closed behind me as I fling my dirty clothes into the laundry pile. “What are you doing here?”
He points at the window. “Dina thinks we need to replace these. I guess they leak sometimes. So I’m measuring.”
“Oh.” I glance at the window. I don’t remember it leaking, but then again, why would I? This window is probably the new one
Dina’s about to buy in the year the other Nathan is living in.
“After this, I’m done.” Nathan turns away, toward the window, and I notice there’s a tense line to his shoulders—the same
tense line I saw in the Nathan I just left. “I’m not going to do any more jobs around the cottage, so I won’t need to bother
you anymore.”
“You don’t bother me,” I say.
He gazes back at me, and I realize, suddenly, just how tired he looks. His face is thinner than it used to be. There are dark
circles under his eyes.
“That’s nice of you to say,” he says, “but I told Dina I’m done.”
“Why?” I ask.
His shoulders hitch up toward his ears. “I just am.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I feel like my skin is tingling. This feels important. “Did something happen?”
He pulls the measuring tape out, just a little, and lets it snap back. Pulls it out and lets it snap back. “It doesn’t matter,”
he says, but his voice sounds unsteady. “I’m gonna get a job at the new coffee place in P-town instead. It’s fine.”
“So you’re really not going to pursue marine biology, then?” I already know the answer, of course, but I ask anyway. I want
to know what this Nathan will say.
“There’s no point.” He says it easily. A foregone conclusion. “I didn’t graduate. I dropped out in April.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. All I can do is stare at him and wonder why Nathan—the real Nathan, my Nathan—never
told me. Did he think I would care? Did he think it would bother me because I spent so much time getting a PhD?
And then something else hits me.
The date that was scratching in the back of my mind—it hits me like a bucket of ice water. Nathan’s parents died in April.
I saw it in the obituary I found.
“I should get these measurements to Dina.” The other Nathan pockets the measuring tape and slips past me, heading for the
door.
“Wait,” I say, even though I have no idea what to say next.
But he doesn’t wait. He walks past me, hand closing around the doorknob.
“See you around,” he says.
And then he pulls the door open and steps out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind him.
My brain stutters. He’s not supposed to be able to leave the bedroom. The thought registers, faintly. Sure, he’s not always
here, but none of the uninvited roommates have ever left their rooms and wandered around the rest of the house . . .
I grab the doorknob and yank the door open. “Nathan!”
The hallway is empty, but I think I see a shadow move in the living room. I hear a creak, like a door opening.
But when I reach the living room, it’s empty too. The front door is closed. When I look out the picture window, there’s no
sign of him. He’s just gone.
How is he gone?
How did he leave the bedroom?
Dina told me to be careful with the bedroom doorknob. Maybe I did something. Maybe when I wrenched it really hard, I somehow broke the doorknob and that’s how he got out.
Or maybe he’s been walking in and out of that room this whole time and I just never saw it until now.
I dig my fingers into my hair and turn around, stalking back to the bedroom. The wind picks up, blowing back the curtains,
scattering a few loose dollar bills off the bedside table. I pick them up and close the window, but the wind rattles the frame.
I can practically feel it pushing on the cottage. The walls and roof creak.
I sit down on the bed. “You know, one of these days, you could consider giving me some answers,” I say to the house around
me.
The wind whistles in response.