Chapter 16 #4
The absurd thought has become the dazzling reality.
“Just take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
His words are a shower of rain on desert ground, instantly soothing the dry and cracked wounds of a past life I didn’t even
realize were there.
I nod.
That’s it.
That’s all I can do right now.
I know what I want, I know how I feel, but then, I thought I knew what I wanted for the past eight years and it turned out I couldn’t have been more
wrong.
Because as it turned out, persevering in one direction for the sake of perseverance doesn’t make you successful or mean you’re
doing the right thing.
Being loyal for the sake of loyalty doesn’t make you wise.
Doing everything you thought was right with a blind eye to all the red flags around you, believing “the strongest relationships
are those that persevere to the end,” doesn’t make your life everything you were promised it would be.
I needed time.
And Nash just gave me the one thing Michael never would: the gift of time.
Michael was always rushing me.
Filling my head with ultimatums.
Telling me to choose him or miss out forever.
To let go of that wrong he did or else he’d walk away and I’d regret it for the rest of my life.
To drop everything and cancel every appointment to be with him at a moment’s notice, or lose his trust and ultimately him
forever.
Living with that underlying stress had broken me more than anyone, including myself, could ever know.
I throw my arms around Nash, water cup sloshing and all.
His arms don’t hesitate in wrapping around me back.
In the silence, my face deep within his flannel, I speak. “Thanks.”
He exhales a little.
I’ve surprised him, I think.
But not in a bad way.
Not in a way that makes him angry.
“Of course.”
We stand like that long enough that the lady with the Nash-face T-shirt stops and offers to take our picture.
Several ladies walk by holding plates and settle themselves in lounge chairs as the sun sets.
Steaming broccoli.
Ruby-red lobster on a bed of macaroni and cheese.
“Hungry?” Nash says.
“Headache.” Stars are starting to flash in my vision now. It’s time to lie down in utter darkness immediately. “Correction. Migraine. I’m going to take some medicine and lie down.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. It’s fine. Really. I can make it twenty feet to an elevator.”
But my protest is useless, as I knew (and appreciated) it would be.
I don’t put up a fight.
It’s not pretty, or even remotely romantic, him seeing me this way—blundering around with my eyes nearly shut—nauseously making gentle steps inside the room and urgently hunting through my unorganized clothes for some Excedrin.
The migraines only started after the research dives.
I only brought medicine on this trip in case I ended up in the lower caverns of the ship and something like this happened—and
it precisely did.
And I know my meds are somewhere in here, jumbled in the pile of clothes I keep unfolding and tossing like a fabric volcano.
Somewhere.
I feel Nash reach for my hands. Still me.
“I’ve got it. You just lie down.”
I don’t fight him or his arms guiding me to the bed.
It takes approximately thirty-two seconds for a knock on the door to come and a waiter to drop off an entire silver platter
with ten various brand-new, unopened bottles.
“Geez, Pip, you really picked the Ritz here. This one?”
“Whichever knocks me out.”
He picks one and hands me a glass of water.
“They tried to give me a cooler of bottled water options,” he says with a touch of humor.
And I would crack a joke about it, if I could laugh without my brain exploding.
Instead, I manage a tiny smile before I set the pill on my tongue and chase it with water.
I tuck myself under the covers as soon as possible afterward, pulling the thick white comforter up to my eyes.
I’m otherwise entirely hidden beneath blankets.
I look like a dead snowman.
“Go on to dinner,” I say, my voice muffled through the blankets.
“No.”
“I’ll feel terrible if you don’t go. Go on.”
“No.”
“It hurts to talk,” I say. “And I don’t want to talk. But I will to save you from hunger if I have to. Go.”
“No.”
“Go.”
“No.”
“Go go go go go—”
“Fine. I’ll go.”
I hear footsteps.
The door opening.
The lights flick off, and I hear the door shutting.
A minute goes by.
“You didn’t go,” I say.
“No.”
I can’t fight him on this.
I’m not going to win.
And frankly, as he knows, and I know, it’s too painful to do anything much besides what I’m doing right now. Lying as still
as possible in a room as dark as possible with as little noise as possible until the nausea and head banging subside.
So I don’t try.
At some point, some time later, I think of a wet washcloth. And then once I’ve thought of it, I can’t think of anything besides it.
Wet washcloth.
Wet washcloth.
Wet washcloth.
At last I groan.
Move to stand up.
He stops me before I make it all the way up.
“What do you need?”
I purse my lips, trying to decide if I want to fight him on this, to be a capable and independent woman, or give in to the
offer of help and show my weakness.
Weakness wins.
I slump back. “A wet washcloth. If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
He comes back, and I feel the press of the warm cloth against my head—the first moment of something to help.
I purse my lips.
“What’s wrong?” he says.
“Nothing.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I was itching for it to be cold.”
He grunts. “Itching, huh?”
A little while later he returns. Replaces the warm with cold.
After a few seconds, I give a blind little chuckle, all tucked up now, nothing more of me to see.
“You ready to take back your words?” I say.
And as soon as I say them, I instantly regret it.
A fear takes over.
Rational or irrational, it’s there, and I’m just not confident that I’m quite the catch he says I am. And a part of me suddenly waits to hear his words: “Yeah, actually. I am. You’re not the girl I was hoping for, after all.”
What I get instead, however, is a cold tingle that runs all the way up my spine. That tingle your body gets when it senses
somebody hovering just over your shoulder. Right behind your ear.
Or in my case, a hair’s breadth above me.
And the brush of his lips against my cheek. “Never.”
I fall asleep.
When I wake the headache is gone and the room is utterly black—now not just from the drawn curtains but from the dark of night
outside the patio doors. The clock on the bedside table reads 11:16 p.m.
Nash is seated on the chair in the corner.
His laptop is open on his lap, dimly lighting up the flannel on his chest.
Still working on that book.
Still working on that ending.
The brim of his hat is down over his face, and he’s slumped over in his chair.
Sleeping.
Or . . .
My feet hit the floor so fast it sounds like cattle racing.
The second I grab his shoulder and give a firm shake, he jumps to standing and shoots his head around, ready to fight.
“Where?” he says.
His head swings automatically toward the door and he throws me back, one arm stretched behind, the other out toward the door.
His body serving as a middleman between me and the unknown threat.
“Sorry,” I say weakly. I rub my forehead. “Sorry, I just . . . I saw you slumped over in the chair and . . . for a second . . .”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re all on edge.” He rubs his face with his hands. Waking himself back up. Looking back at his computer.
I run a hand over my matted hair, embarrassed.
Nash has done so much, been so much, and what have I done?
What have I helped?
Nothing.
He’s carried me down the hall. He’s taken me—or attempted to take me—to dinner. He’s announced he loves me, a wreck such as
myself.
And so far I’ve had a migraine and made him sit in the dark.
I have brought a total sum of nothing to the table.
Per usual.
I look out toward the lamp.
Stride over, anxious to turn it on and get some light in here.
To find something productive to do with my hands.
My eyes land on the curtains. The entryway to the little balcony, where one table and two chairs sit.
And I have an idea.