33. Hadley
Hadley
Katie: He’s okay.
I release a sigh that has my shoulders sinking several inches. “He’s okay,” I relay to Evelyn as we sit across from each other at The Spiced Chai for our Monday lunch.
Me: Where was he?
Katie: I don’t know. I didn’t ask.
I wish she had. I want to know where he’s been and why because the relief has my anger melting away faster than the frost on my windshield this morning.
“I just got a voice message from Hudson,” Evelyn says, putting her phone to her ear.
Me: Is he okay?
Katie: He’s fine.
I nearly shriek with frustration. Fine is the vaguest of vague responses she could give me right now.
“Hudson says they found him at Lenny’s. They were both passed out and didn’t even know what day it was.”
“Seriously?” Anger sparks inside of me. “He was in the dorms the entire time?”
Evelyn shakes her head. “I think so. Hudson says he’s fine.”
“I don’t understand.” I grab my glass of eggnog and eye the vegetable frittata I’d ordered. “I don’t even know what to do. I’m so frustrated with him.”
Across from me, Evelyn cuts into her cranberry bar with cream cheese icing. “I’d be furious with Hudson if he disappeared for a full day.” She shakes her head again. “It’s just so unlike Nolan.”
It’s unlike the version of Nolan I know, too, but it’s exactly like the version Katie had painted him.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I dragged you guys into this and I’m sorry I’m such a downer.”
“No. Don’t be. This is what friends are for.”
An hour later while on my way to class my phone buzzes with a call from Nolan. My heart feels like it’s lodged in my throat, impossible to breathe or swallow as I come to a stop. I wait until my phone stops ringing before I continue walking.
Nolan: I am so unbelievably sorry. Can we talk? Please? I know I don’t deserve it, but I just need to apologize.
Me: Where were you?
Nolan: We went bar hopping until they all closed, then ended up at a house party where I got wasted.
Lenny called a cab that brought us back to the dorms and he paid a freshman to help get me up to his room.
I woke up there sometime yesterday and passed out on his bathroom floor until Grey and Hudson found me this morning.
His honesty doesn’t ease the fear that this will become a constant. That a bad game or future loss or bad grade could lead to something just as stupid, reckless, and selfish. I can’t think of a response that doesn’t end in something I know I’ll regret, so I pocket my phone and head to class.
It’s impossible to hear anything the professor says, just as it was for my public speaking class this morning where I had to tell Professor Hawkins that I wasn’t prepared to give my speech and took another hit against my grade.
I blankly stare at my professor while trying to discern what happened between Thanksgiving and the following day when Nolan came home distant and defensive, then left the following morning without a word and remained gone.
When I leave class ninety minutes later, I have four more texts from Nolan.
By the time I get home, I have two more.
I turn my phone off to keep myself from reading them or replying and go upstairs to my room.
While Nolan was missing, I’d slept on his side of the bed, finding the scarcest of comforts in the scent of his cologne.
Even when I clung to anger to avoid the fear he might be hurt, and I told Katie that if he was okay, I didn’t want him living with us, I laid on his side of the bed.
This afternoon, I lie on my side of the bed. The myriad of emotions that have built like a volcano over the past couple of days erupt, and I cry big, ugly tears that have me gasping and howling, and my nose running.
I’m still sobbing when my mattress dips with the weight of someone else.
I know it’s him even before he wraps his arms around me and rolls me to face him.
Everything about him is so familiar, from his scent to his warmth.
Nolan tucks me under his chin and holds me while I cry, releasing all the fear, rejection, and anger I’ve felt over the past couple of days.
As much as I don’t want him here—don’t want to see him—I need to. Having him here allows that tiny gap of doubt that remained unbelieving he was truly okay to finally close.
I cry, and cry, and cry until I have nothing left and my eyes are gritty and dry.
“I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.” I feel the sincerity of his words. I know he’s sorry, just as I’d known that April had been sorry last year when our friendship broke from her indiscretions.
My cheeks feel tight and sticky, and my lips are tacky as my breaths slow. I roll to my back and stare at my darkened ceiling. I’ve always struggled with the winter months because it gets dark too early, but tonight, I appreciate the anonymity it provides.
“I’m not sure how I feel right now,” I tell him, my nose stuffy from crying. “I’m not ready to talk to you.”
“I listened to your message.”
I left dozens, but I know which one he’s referring to.
I’d left it shortly after I’d awoken after my migraine had finally passed and Nolan still wasn’t home, forcing me to relive Saturday night all over again.
I had spoken with anger and betrayal heavy in my heart as I told him I was done and didn’t want to see or speak to him again.
I regretted leaving the message as soon as I’d hung up, fear consuming my thoughts as I imagined the worst of worst-case scenarios.
I don’t try and explain the roller coaster of emotions I’d been an unsuspecting and willing passenger for. I also don’t apologize.
“I hate that I hurt you. You didn’t deserve any of this.
I want to make this better. I want to be the guy you deserve and want to be with.
But I also want to give you the time and space you asked for.
” His hand wraps around mine. “When you’re ready to talk, let me know.
Anytime. Day or night, and I’ll be here. ”
Fresh tears stream from the outer corners of my eyes. I hate that I’m forgetting why I’m mad at him already. Like a rainbow, I’m mesmerized by him and have already forgotten the storm endured. “You broke a part of my trust this weekend,” I tell him. “A really big part.”
“I know,” he says.
“You didn’t even tell me where you were going or what was going on. You just left.”
“I know,” he says again.
“And I don’t understand why you didn’t message me and let me know you were fine when you woke up yesterday at Lenny’s. It was a two-minute call; a thirty-second text.”
His hand squeezes mine. “If I wasn’t so hungover, I would’ve.”
“I’m sorry for what happened. I know that game wasn’t fair to any of you, but especially not to you, Palmer, or Hudson, but,” I roll to face his shadowed face.
“If that’s how you’re going to respond when things get bad or go wrong, I can’t do this.
I can’t sign up for just the good days and pretend to exclude the bad ones. ”
“I only want to give you the good days. I hate the idea of giving you my problems or issues. Look what happened Friday night when I got home. I hate that side of me. I hate that you saw it. And I hate confrontation, especially with you.”
“Relationships don’t work that way. Friendships don’t even work that way.
What you’re describing—only seeing people at their best and when they’re not vulnerable–is an acquaintance.
I’m mad at you because you’re way more than an acquaintance to me, and when you’re ready to have this fight—and all the others that will come, then we can talk. ”
“I’m ready to talk now. I am in this, Hadley. I’m here.”
I shake my head. “No. This isn’t a decision you can make here and now. You need to spend some time reflecting on this and what will happen the next time things get turned upside down.”
He nods slowly. “All I know is I want to be with you.”
“That’s a good place to start.”
He sighs. “I hate leaving you.”
I sit up, needing to feel the coolness of the room instead of the warmth that always radiates from Nolan. “You didn’t hesitate on Saturday.”
He flinches at the reminder. “Can I call and text you?”
I nod. “No matter what happens—what decision you make—I hope we remain friends.”
Nolan shakes his head. “You and I have always been more than friends. That will never change.”
My heart beats unevenly with confirmation.
“I’m truly sorry for what I did, and I hate that I broke your trust. I’m going to work to get it back.”
I’ve never hoped so hard for someone to be right as I hope now.
“If you need anything—a ride, a spider to be caught, an audience for your final speech—anything, I’m here.”
I don’t respond.
Nolan climbs to his feet. I follow him downstairs and to the front door where he slows, seeming as reluctant as I am about leaving.
“I’ll see you soon, Cutlass.” I think he’s debating kissing me.
“Drive safely.”
He looks back twice before the door closes behind him. I lock it, a new weight heavy on my chest as I sit on the couch, unable to go back to my room with the ghost of Nolan still there.
More than an hour passes before someone arrives home. It’s nearly eight.
“Hey,” Hannah says, her voice a combination of relief and sympathy. “I brought home some pizza.” She nods to the boxes in her hands.
I should be hungry, but I’m not.
“Katie’s on her way home. We thought we should get the tree set up.”
“I think I’m going to go to bed,” I tell her.
Hannah shakes her head as she sets the pizzas on the table in front of me. “I know you’re hurt and sad, and you deserve to feel both, but you need this. We all do.”
I want to object and tell her I’m feeling more Grinch-like than jolly, but my words to Nolan about good and bad days ring in my ear.
Katie and Hannah have been there for a lot of my good days, many of my okay days, and they’ve tried being here for some of my worst and I’ve continued to shut them out just as I did last year when discovering Ezra and April had been sleeping together.
“Thanks for picking up pizzas,” I say.
She offers a compassionate smile and sits next to me. “Nolan called and apologized to me on my way home.”
I nod. “He stopped by and apologized to me, too.”
“How are you feeling?”
I shrug. “A little numb and really tired.”
Hannah wraps her arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to her.
“I was ready to make up with him and just excuse the weekend. I wanted to, but I don’t want this to be our norm.
What if something happens next month—what if I make him mad or something I do disappoints him?
Is he going to leave and just disappear for another couple of days?
” I turn to Hannah. “My sister walks on eggshells around her husband because he always leaves when he gets mad. He goes and stays in a hotel or at his parents, and so instead of talking about things or fighting, they just glaze over it—and I don’t want that.
I don’t want to be afraid to discuss when something’s bothering me and I don’t want him to feel that way, either. ”
“Did you tell Nolan about this?”
I shake my head. “I will, but I didn’t want to make it about my brother-in-law because even if he wasn’t that way, what Nolan did would have upset me.”
“Did he say why he did it?”
“He didn’t want me to see him mad and upset. I don’t know. It’s probably that whole pre-frontal cortex crap you were telling me about.”
Hannah shakes her head. “God, I regret telling you about that.”
“Why? It helps me realize that this is temporary. That he’s temporary because sometimes I forget.”
Hannah swallows. “These past few months have taught me a lot. Not only about who to trust but also about love and friendship. I know we’re going to remain friends way past the time we’re twenty-five.
Fuck pre-frontal cortexes and expectations.
Forget what I said. Maybe there’s never a right time or an easier time.
We’re always going to have a million things vying for our time and attention, responsibilities and obligations.
Nolan messed up because he didn’t want to look weak in front of you, but I don’t have a single doubt that he’s in love with you and would do anything for you.
” She stares at me a moment as though ensuring I’m listening to her, then hugs me tight.
Tears clog in my throat. Though Nolan’s only been in my life for a few months, it’s become impossible for me to to consider any part of my future without him in it.
The front door unlocks and Katie appears, Carsen behind her, holding a pastry box.
“I know you’re not big on sweets, but these cupcakes are so good, you have to try at least one.
And they’re all so cute. They decorated them for Christmas.
There’s a snowman, and a Santa’s hat, and these cute little gingerbread men…
” She takes off her coat and folds it over the banister. “Tonight’s going to be great.”
It feels forced and a little too blatant as they join us in the living room, voices too chipper.
We each eat a couple of slices of pizza and then move the furniture around so the tree can be centered in the living room. Carsen brings the tree down from the utility room and we help him set it up and straighten the branches.
At home, in Vegas, our tree is filled with an eclectic combination of ornaments that Geoff, Lanie, and I made over the years, combined with different ones that have been gifted to us and a few we’ve purchased, but our tree is themed with snow—a decision we made last year with April after joking how we’d never have a white Christmas here in Oleander Springs.
Snowmen, icicles, snowflakes, a penguin on a snowflake—every ornament is centered around snow.
I try my damndest to smile and remain present, even when my thoughts wander to Nolan and how I’d imagined him here with us decorating the tree.
I try to ignore the niggling thought of sitting with him in the living room, curled up on the couch with the Christmas lights glowing as we created our own memories and traditions as we had with Thanksgiving.
By the time the decorations are all set up, the house looks joyful and bright, and I’m exhausted both physically and emotionally.
“I think I’m going to head to bed,” I tell them.
“Are you sure?” Katie asks. “We still have cupcakes. We could put in a movie.”
“I have an early class tomorrow and I haven’t been sleeping well.”
Katie winces. “Would you be up for going to lunch tomorrow?”
It’s the last thing I want to agree to, yet I do because I know she’s making an effort and the least I can do is accept.