Chapter 21 #2
“Because no sane sort of person would,” she said.
“No person that has any sort of integrity would. And you have integrity, Nolan, so it doesn’t make any sense to you.
It doesn’t make any sense to me. Because we fought to be this good.
Yeah, maybe we’re rough around the edges, you and me.
But we fought to figure out how to be better people than the ones that abandoned us.
You fight for it every day, and I watch you do it.
Look at the way that you took care of me. ”
Right then, it all made sense. It made the most beautiful sense. Because she felt like she was evidence of the fact that he was worth it.
The care that he had given to her. The care that he had always shown her.
Because one thing she knew for sure, there was nothing wrong with him. He never should have been left. He deserved more. And so did she. She could see it so clearly in him, and he seemed to be able to see the same when he looked at her.
He was the only person she had asked that terrible question that lived deep inside of her.
If they had been abandoned because they were fundamentally unlovable. If they had been the ones that were wrong in some way.
But if they were, then she supposed at least they were wrong in a way that fit each other.
Maybe that was better than being right. Having there be a person who understood you regardless.
Finding another person that you fit with.
“I shouldn’t have come.”
“You should have,” she said. “Because you deserved to know. You deserved to know where you stood, you deserved to try, and to trust. You didn’t deserve to have that trust violated. You didn’t deserve to be used that way.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I just... It’s amazing to realize that you actually have a little bit of hope inside yourself. That you’re maybe a lot more naive than you thought.”
“Is it wrong, though? Is it bad?” She didn’t want to believe that it was. She wanted to believe that there was something bright and beautiful in the fact that they could hope. She wanted for him to be able to hope for something more with her. Between them.
And maybe that meant she needed to be brave, but she couldn’t do it right now. Not when it needed to be about these feelings. Not when it all needed to be about this moment.
“Maybe not,” he said. “Maybe we need it. And maybe I needed to have that feeling of inadequacy so that I could make something of myself, I don’t know. But this is just a real fucking shit show.”
“I agree. And you deserve better. You deserve so much better.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Well, Nolan, I know you. I have known you for most of my life. For the best parts of it. Screw everyone who doesn’t realize how great we are, honestly.”
She took a deep breath and walked up to the very edge of the lookout, and sat down, legs dangling over the side. Then she picked up a rock and threw it. It landed a little ways down the side of the mountain, and rolled.
Nolan sat beside her. He bumped the edge of his cowboy boot against the edge of hers.
It made something bloom in her chest. Made hope grow, like wildflowers out in a field.
They didn’t ask permission, they didn’t wait for the perfect weather or soil.
They just were.
There were no estimates of probability, there was no master gardener tending to them and making sure they grew their best and yet they did.
Untamed, and a bit divine.
Which was about as poetic as Lila had ever been about a damn thing.
“It’s a pretty funny metaphor,” she said.
“All that trailblazing we did. We made a path in the woods that was never there before, one that other people could walk on now. Real work. And I want to believe that in our lives, we’re going to keep doing that for other people, in literal and metaphorical ways, all because we got dropped off in a place that didn’t have signs, didn’t have a way forward.
We went through it, yeah. But I guess we had the tools.
And where we didn’t, we made them. And when I needed it, you helped me.
And Cody and Walker, obviously. We all helped each other. ”
She touched his tattoo. Traced each of the mountain goats there, forging a way up the mountain in spite of how steep it was.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is... I think you’re better.
Than those kids that were born in a mansion with a perfectly paved driveway, and every bit of their path laid out in front of them.
And you don’t need to be like them, you don’t need to be accepted by them.
You’re the best of them. You were given nothing, and look at everything you did with it.
And if they can’t see it... Then that’s on them.
You keep telling me that I’m amazing. That you admire me, my brains, my work ethic.
Nolan, you are my hero. If I was ever trying to be like anyone else, it’s you. ”
She wondered if he would pull away. If all of this would be too much.
If he would retreat behind that pain. But she could feel years of it welling up between them.
Of fights they’d had, of disappointments they’d shared, letdowns they’d witnessed, and she could also feel the moment he decided not to pull away.
But lean in instead. He kissed her, slowly and deliberately.
Some kind of promise, even though there were no words spoken.
“Thank you,” he said. “I think you’re the only person in the world that really understands it.”
“I’m sure that Cody and Walker—”
“I’ve never told them half of this. You’re the only person who knows I was doing this today. You’re the only person who knows.”
That last sentence held a wealth of information. She was the only one who knew him. At his deepest level.
That he was telling her that, that he was sharing that, that was a real gift.
They sat there for another forty-five minutes or so, and then stood up.
And that was when his phone rang.