Chapter 26 #2
Ellie smirks—not a trace of offense or embarrassment. Just absorbing it. “Well, points for honesty.”
Robyn straightens, brushes dirt from her hands, and glances between us. She just gives me the smallest nod.
“Be safe out there,” I say, nudging my bike forward.
“Hey, Nate,” Robyn calls as I’m about to start pedaling. “Are you reading tomorrow?”
I nod. “Every Wednesday.” Just like last week. When she didn’t even seem to glance into my apartment.
“Well, maybe I’ll be there this time,” she says, one foot heading in the direction that takes her away from me.
“I’d like that.” I swallow thickly, drawing my eyebrows together as I think of something. “If Zac’s cool with it.” I clear my throat. “Last thing I want is to create problems for you.” I cast my eyes down. Pathetic.
“Oh …” She shifts on her feet, digging her left one a bit into the ground. “That’s not happening anymore. I mean, it wasn’t ever really a thing, but it certainly isn’t now.”
I nod, trying to keep the glee exploding in my chest under wraps. “Well, can’t say I’m entirely sorry to hear that.” I wink. “But I will be reading, for sure.”
Ellie’s brows crease then smooth—maybe she’s pieced the whole thing together. I don’t wait for it though. I just push on the pedals and ride off.
Maybe Ellie needs a friend or company, or someone to fill her time with, but I’m not bothered by it—I owe her nothing.
I’m under no impression that drawing a simple boundary is some big groveling gesture.
But I can do better than conflating need and dependence with love.
I want to honor that Robyn never needed me; she simply loved me.
And despite everything, she’s the only one holding space in my chest and mind as I pedal down the trail.
The next evening, I can’t help but fuss about how the place looks. I don’t even think Robyn would notice I deep cleaned the stove, but well … I have this restless energy that won’t settle. Even after I went on the rowing machine for thirty minutes, I’m still bouncing on the balls of my feet.
Last Wednesday, she didn’t join me, and maybe she won’t today. I distract myself, unfolding and squaring the throw blanket on the couch, then start over because the corner isn’t right. When I can’t stand it anymore, I draw the curtains. I feel stupid that all I have left of us is this useless hope.
Underneath The Tell-Tale Brain on the end table, sits my notebook of half-formed thoughts. The dots I obsessed over until they finally drew the line of why things collapsed. The leather groans under me when I sit in the oversized armchair, then I lift my eyes to Robyn’s blinds.
Her silhouette blocks the light behind the blinds—her hips framed in the glow. I used to kiss and trace her curves with both whim and need. My heart stumbles and shrinks the way it does when you realize you’ve lost something that mattered.
I force myself to look down at the pages instead. Arrows. Crossed-out lines. Thoughts that cut off mid-sentence. My handwriting slants and presses hard when some truths hit low; the ink smudges and bleeds, mimicking this river of regret inside me.
Two lines repeat, each one darker than the last:
I don’t feel loved if I’m put second.
I like feeling needed.
I crossed lines with Tessa because her need for me made me feel important.
And then, boxed in by a square I traced so many times it seems it was done with a marker: I cheated on Robyn.
I hid the kiss and everything else, because underneath all those “harmless” choices, I was entertaining what it would feel like to not compete with Robyn’s career. To be so important to someone I always came first.
Now I know better because “When you mistake need for love, you don’t choose a partner—you choose a wound that knows your name.”
The quote sits inside a squiggled text box I circled more than once. Tessa used my wound—I can’t unsee it now. Right when we were growing apart, she used my pain to feign helplessness. And still … my mistakes aren’t hers. They’re my own.
I trace the indentation the pen left, thinking about how I at least got this right. Waiting to come after Robyn until I got my head straight. Because if you don’t understand your wounds, you repeat them.
My father proved that.
He told me once, right before he left us for good, that if I wanted someone to never walk out on me, all I had to do was make myself indispensable. “Make sure you always come in first place, and you will if they need you enough,” he’d said.
And my childish brain thought I can do that. I can make myself needed so it never hurts again.
I didn’t realize how flawed the advice was—or how flawed the man giving it was. I spent years trying not to become him, only to find myself sitting across from him nine months ago, in a poorly burnished coffee house. His cognac eyes looked at me as I would a mirror.
The café smelled of burned espresso and overstated pumpkin spice, but Martin, Dad, sat there with a victory smirk. He looked older, sure, but not sorry.
“You called,” he said, leaning back, hands folded behind his head.
“I wasn’t ever planning on it.” I kept my voice neutral, steadying the cup between my palms, then putting one flat against the grainy wood. “But there’re some things I need to understand.”
Martin smirked. “Oh, Natey.”
“Don’t call me that.” I clenched my left hand into a fist on top of the table. “I haven’t been Natey since you left us.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “So what’s this about? Didn’t take my advice and now you’re in need of some fatherly wisdom?”
I frowned. “You mean that bullshit about coming in first place, like love’s a competition?”
He gave me that disappointing look he used to point at me when I forgot to thank him for signing my report card or showing up at a softball game he made me play in the first place.
And it pinned me to the spot, bringing me back to being nine and an absolute failure to one of the two people who made up my world.
He hitched a shoulder, his eyes fixed on the waitress cleaning the table on our right. “Your mother … well”—he waved a dismissive hand—“people don’t come in first for her. It was always her stupid school.”
I shook my head. “Maybe you didn’t, but I always did.”
He snorted. “That’s a lie. I had to pick you up most days because she scheduled late meetings.”
Something inside me tightened. “You left.”
“In Rebecca’s eyes, I couldn’t get one thing right.
Even though she was the one who was consumed by work, she abandoned me, staying up writing reports or whatever the fuck every night past two in the morning,” he corrected, as if that was the part I kept forgetting.
“She said I didn’t bring anything to the table, and that’s the glue, son.
You give ’em something they can’t get anywhere else, you’ll be the first thing in their mind. That’s what makes relationships solid.”
I cringed. Solid. “You chose not to bring anything meaningful. Chose to give it to other people.”
He leaned forward, pride glowing in his eyes, the chestnut in them going warmer, in contrast with his tone of voice.
“Is that what happened with that girl—Tessa? When I visit your grams … People in that town can’t shut the fuck up.
Something about a girlfriend who doesn’t come around town anymore.
” He smirked. “You’re no better than me. ”
Heat climbed up my neck, anger at first, then something colder, sharper. “So that’s your fatherly advice even twenty years later? Find someone who needs you more than they love you?”
“It works,” he said, shrugging. “My woman now can’t do shit without my credit card. And let me tell you, she won’t leave me.”
The realization came with a sick drop in my stomach: he hadn’t changed. And even worse, I’d been running his playbook. Playing savior to avoid being left then making reckless choices out of stupid fear.
“You’re disgusting.” I set my cup down. I’m disgusting. “You know the difference between us?”
Martin raised an eyebrow, amused. “Enlighten me.”
“I had a partner. Not a project. Not someone I could keep small so I’d feel big.” My voice didn’t shake, it cut. “You weren’t overlooked. You overlooked us the moment someone stopped worshipping you.”
His smile faltered—just slightly, but enough. Until it came back up. “Is that why you gave up your partner for that Tessa girl?” His lips tugged at the corner, all smugness. “Seems to me, you’re preaching to the choir, son.”
I stood. “And I’m nothing like you. Because I’m going to become a better man, a better partner.”
And to that, he didn’t have a comeback. Which was fine because the memory stops still and dissolves the second Robyn pulls her blinds up and stands in her apartment across the courtyard from me, holding a book. My heartbeat thumps, knowing which book it is.
She pulls the closest armchair to the window and sinks into it, opening the book.
I mirror her, and for the next thirty minutes, we read.
Well … maybe she reads. The letters dance across my page; her company, even from a different building, distracting enough.
When I focus, I’m captivated by this organ Robyn’s studied so deeply, and I want her to know I’m paying attention.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out, heart thumping.
Robyn: Summarize what you just read for me. No ChatGPT.
I glance in her direction, catching the tilt of her head at the window. The light grazes her cheek, and for a second, our eyes meet. My fingers drum lightly on the page before I type.
Me: Quirks and “wrong” connections our brains make. I really liked the bit about synesthesia and delusions. How empathy, art, and self-awareness are misfires but also what make us human.
The three dots appear. Then stop. I glance up toward her building, and it’s impossible, but I swear the gold ring around her pupils catches the light, shining the way it does when she’s deep in thought. She dips her chin, pulls down the blinds, and says nothing.
It isn’t until an hour later when I’m tossing and turning in bed that another text arrives.
Robyn: Let’s do that again next Wednesday.
Stupid hope blooms inside me. And I know now—thread by thread, realization by realization—I can be a better partner. If I’m patient, persistent … maybe she’ll see it one day.