Chapter 25 Both Back in the Day
Noah calls. He does.
He leaves messages on her answering machine. They are brief. Because someone else might hear. But also they’re brief because he is angry too.
Nell. Call me.
Nell. Just trying you again.
Nell. We should talk. Before you leave.
He doesn’t say he’s sorry. Nell notes this as she sits on her pin-striped beanbag chair and listens to them over and over, analyzing the cadence of his voice.
When she’s not listening to “Fuck and Run” on repeat.
He knows he was wrong. He knows he acted like a scumbag. He knows he should have shown up when she reached out about the pregnancy scare, that she was frightened and alone. He knows he shouldn’t have gotten drunk and kissed some other girl, especially one Lydia served up. Of course not.
He knows he has pushed Nell away.
And she is probably the best thing that ever happened to him—or ever will happen to him.
But also, she is leaving. And she is leaving him behind.
And actually, with each day she doesn’t call back, he feels more like she already left.
And she’s not the first person in his life to do that. Which she knows. She knows about his dad.
And she is freezing Noah out when he is in all kinds of pain—physical, emotional. When he is a mess because of his injury. When he has lost what feels like everything.
Nellie thinks he can’t take it when things get tough—but what about her? Now that he is no one’s golden boy, she isn’t sticking around either.
She can’t muster up empathy for him. Though he has no plan now. Though he will have to take a gap year. Though he is untethered, floating through space toward a giant black hole.
And so he tries to reach her. A few times. But it’s no grand gesture. He walks by her building, once. Sees her father coming home from work, his jacket slung over his arm. Hides behind a scaffolding pole.
Wonders how much the family knows.
Wonders how this man who welcomed him with open arms—at family dinners, at birthdays, to architectural unveilings, when he needed fatherly advice—would react to seeing him now. Noah can’t face the awkwardness, the probable rejection.
And so he goes home. And he doesn’t try again.