Chapter 26
I walk back, my head still spinning, but with every step I feel myself getting stronger. I can do this. I can be brave. I can let the story play out, even when I don’t know how it’ll end.
But when the elevator opens, I come out to see Eli already standing in front of my door.
“Hi,” I say tentatively, as he turns around at the noise, startled.
“Oh, hi.” He pauses, looking me over, like he’s letting his expression be determined by mine. It’s a shyness I never thought I’d see on Eli.
But I guess there’s a lot I didn’t realize about Eli.
“I’m, um ... I was just dropping George off, and then I was ...” I fiddle with my keys, nervous at his nervousness. “I was going to come back and, um ...”
“I saw your note,” he says, saving me from my inept bumbling.
“Great. That’s great.”
We both stand there, waiting. It’s not uncomfortable the way I might expect it to be when you see someone you’ve slept with in the light of day. But we’re both unsure.
“I, uh ... you were gone a long time. With George,” he says. “So I figured I’d see if you’d come back to your apartment but not back downstairs.”
Ohhhh.
“No, no, I took a long walk. I wouldn’t just ...” I rub a hand over my face. This is all coming out wrong. We’re like two bumbling teenagers, each trying not to say the wrong thing when standing in front of their crush. And I’m suddenly woefully aware of how haphazard I look. I didn’t even brush my hair, and I haven’t changed my clothes since last night. I look like I freaked out and took my dog on an hour-long walk after waking up in his bed. Which is technically true, but not for the reasons he’s probably thinking.
But then he kindly saves me from myself by reaching out and grabbing my wrist. “Nora,” he says with affection.
I half sigh, half chuckle. “I know, sorry. I’m not trying to be awkward. This is just me.” I give him a sheepish look, because at least that much is the truth. “Do you want to come in?”
He nods. “Yeah, actually. I need to tell you something.”
At that my heart drops. Does he know? Has he always known? Oh my god , what if he already knew and didn’t say anything?
No, that’s not possible, because then why would he have my number in his phone under two different names?
But oh shit, then what could he need to tell me? Does he regret last night? Is he going to say Sorry for the mistake before I’ve even had a chance to tell him that I’m Eleonora?
“It’s nothing bad,” he says with a small laugh, clearly in response to the total blanking out that must be registering on my face. “I mean, it’s not good, but it’s not about ... not about last night or anything.”
“Oh, okay,” I say, now fumbling to get the door open while George stares up at me like he regrets having me as an owner.
I push the door open, and George trots away in a huff, clearly ready to get away from me after my walk-detour to Dane’s and then my total meltdown now.
“Do you want a coffee?” I ask, not ready to look at Eli while I don’t have my bearings.
“I have to go back to London,” he says, and I turn around sharply at the words. Thank goodness I don’t already have coffee yet, or I might’ve done a repeat of Dane’s spit take. “I was actually, funny enough, going later this week ... I hadn’t told you, because it hadn’t come up. And ... right, sorry, anyway, I need to go today, though.”
“Um, okay?” I reply, not really sure what the right response is to him; this unsure version of Eli is throwing me completely off.
“My mum just called, and she’s in hospital with, apparently, a broken hip. She fell this morning, a few hours ago her time, and luckily she was able to call an ambulance, but they’re about to do surgery, so I need to hop on the next flight I can get.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, hating that I feel relieved over an old lady breaking bones instead of all the scenarios I had playing in my mind. “So, um ...” I stop, not really knowing what to say. “What does that ...”
But he sees the helpless expression on my face and comes to me, putting a hand gently on my hip. “Sorry, I’m really bad at this,” he says.
I snort, because the thought that he’s failing when I’m internally combusting over information that might make his mind also explode is laughable.
“No, no, you’re not,” I say, putting my hands on his shoulders, like maybe if we can both hold on to each other, we can get past whatever this tentativeness is. “See ... the thing is, Eli ...”
Bad timing be damned, I just need to tell him everything. I want to get it off my chest. But he—like the bulldozer man I know—interrupts me.
“Listen, you don’t have to let me down gently, or whatever you’re about to do,” he says, and I can see him start to pull away mentally before even his body does.
“No, that’s not what—”
“I get it. I came on way too strong last night. I said a lot of things, and I probably scared you. I totally understand why you felt like this morning you had to escape.”
“I didn’t—”
“I mean, you already knew I was inept because of Sarah, and maybe it’s weird that you got a front-row seat to that implosion, but I guess also it gives you sort of a better idea of why I’m so bad at this—”
“ Stop ,” I finally cut in, and he looks surprised, like he’s not used to anyone stopping his particularly terrible soliloquies. “That’s not at all what I was going to say.”
“Oh,” he says, his forehead furrowing in that adorable way that makes him look like he’s lost the plot, in the way that briefly sheds the bravado and makes him look so much more human. “Well, either way, I have to go, and I don’t know when I’m going to be back.”
I was all prepared to tell him that he had it wrong and that my hesitation wasn’t about not liking him, but now I’m thrown off. “You don’t know when you’re going to be back?”
“My father said he’s going to put her into a long-term-care rehab facility, because he doesn’t have the time to take care of her at home.” I wince, because as much as my parents fall short (and probably would hurt each other in trying to be helpful), they wouldn’t ever just leave each other like that. “And I can’t let that happen to her. She’s too proud. She can’t be in a strange place, taken care of by strangers, while she’s in pain and recovering.”
“What about your sister?” I ask.
“She has her kids to handle. It’s not right for me to ask that of her.”
“And so your mom wants you to come?”
He looks at me like I’m asking the wrong questions, as though I’ve missed an essential part of the plot. “Of course she does.”
“So you’ve talked it over with her?”
He frowns, and I can’t help but love all the ways he’s so Eli . Overbearing, know-it-all steamroller Eli on the outside, who I now know—both through getting to know him in the past few months and now suddenly seeing the shades of J all over him—is soft and tender on the inside. Of course it wouldn’t occur to him that he should ask his mother if she wants him to uproot his life. I can see him so clearly as that child standing so small in front of his mother, as the only bulwark against his father. I can see how projecting strength became the coping mechanism for a solitary boy who wanted to be wrapped up in love instead of having to be strong for a mother who let him.
I keep thinking how much talking to a therapist, rather than pushing away the only one he’d ever been forced into seeing, could’ve helped him. But that’s an issue for another day, because I can already tell Eli is about to go back into the defensive mode I haven’t seen from him in months.
“It’s not about talking it over with her,” he says calmly but surely. “She needs help. I’m not going to let my father turn her into some ignored patient. She’s just turned seventy; she’s not a geriatric who needs to get shipped off. I can be at home with her while she recovers.”
All those shades of protective little boy are emanating from him.
And my heart sinks, because I know I can’t tell him right now.
I can’t add confusion to a man looking to take care of his mother. I can’t make this harder on him than it already is. I can’t throw this massive bombshell of intimacy and misunderstanding onto his day and confuse the hell out of him right before he gets onto a plane and enters into a circumstance I imagine his father isn’t going to exactly welcome with open arms.
And while there’s a piece of my heart that’s already hoping that perhaps in a few weeks or months, he’ll resolve things with his family and come back, there’s a more logical voice reminding me that this current dilemma isn’t the only problem. Whatever this thing is between us—and whatever I imagine it is between J and Eleonora—there’s a part of him that hasn’t been open. There’s a part that was hesitant to meet right away, or he would have just come out and said he was in New York when I first texted him. And that lightly lonely man, searching for but scared of connection, needs to come to that realization in his own time.
Or maybe he isn’t capable of it. And I need to not get deluded into forgetting all the reasons why that’s probably the case. And why I certainly can’t be the person to solve it for him. I can’t parent another person. This thing with J/Eli has taken over so much of my mental space for so many months, and I’ve worked too damn hard to let someone else’s inabilities overshadow my peace.
And while I want to believe that’s the main reason, I also know there’s another, uglier thought lurking at the edges. No one has ever chosen me for just me.
I don’t think at this point I could handle being rejected by him, now knowing everything I know. I’m not sure my heart—which I’ve worked so hard to protect and keep safe, to the point where I’ve gone this long without ever getting it crushed—could survive that.
It’s probably better this way, even if the realization hurts more than I would’ve expected.
“It’s good you’re going, then,” I finally say, clearing my throat to stop whatever emotion is bubbling up in me from rushing out. I rub his arm to give him whatever physical reassurance I can, wanting to not have these last moments together be anything but comforting for him. “And just for the record ... you didn’t come on too strong.”
Discernible relief washes over his face, and it makes me ache for him; even with one-hundredth the amount of confusing information, he’s spiraling as much as I was.
“I’m a mess, Nora,” he says quietly.
“Me too.” I shrug, and he gives me one of those slightly curved, one-sided smiles that make him look so boyish and handsome.
“I’m sorry I’m just leaving,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” I reply, and it’s the truth. I hope at least whatever small part of him was homesick will get some relief when he gets back to London.
“It’s probably for the best,” he says sadly. “You’re too good for me.”
I’m about to protest, about to try and dispel his unwarranted acceptance of his own view of himself, but he pulls me in for a kiss so deep I can barely stand anymore. And it’s sad how much it feels like a true goodbye. Not like a See you in a few weeks goodbye, but the kind of kiss I’d imagine soldiers give to their sweethearts before saying goodbye. It’s cataloging a moment and pulling the marrow out of it for safekeeping.
It’s a kiss that turns into a hug, lingering long enough that I can’t help but nuzzle into him, breathing him in and wishing today was somehow different.
So I can’t stop myself from saying the one thing I know I shouldn’t say. “Whatever pin there is in ... whatever this is ...”—the words stumble out—“we’re still friends. You can call me or text me anytime, even if we’re far away from each other, you know?”
He pulls back and looks at me, his gaze so intense it’s almost like he’s looking through me. “I’m not sure I could ever just be your friend,” he says with the saddest version of that perfect crooked smile.
And then he squeezes my hand and walks out the door.