Chapter 31 Nellie Today
“I think you should give him a chance,” Cara is saying to me for the hundredth time.
I have been getting the same kinds of messages from Sabrina too.
But I am way past that. It’s been weeks since I said goodbye to Noah. Weeks since he asked me to stay, to come to LA, to try some version of us being together, to ignore this feeling in my gut like I was still just one of his many followers—a sycophant in the cult of Noah.
Like he still just expected me to fold into his life.
Nothing has changed.
It’s been weeks since the taxi pulled up at my brownstone apartment building, dumping me out onto a street that felt familiar and looked strangely smaller at the same time. A place I once really adored and is objectively lovely, but have maybe outgrown like so many once on-trend denim silhouettes.
Weeks since the bodega cat sauntered up, his plush belly almost brushing the ground, and shot me a dirty look like he’d hoped I was gone for good.
You can never go back, I tell my friends. The past is the past.
And Noah hasn’t reached out. No call. No text. No snail mail letter or singing telegram.
And I get it. Because I didn’t leave it open-ended. But it is still astounding to me how much this feels like the first time around. How I kept waiting for him to call again. To try harder. And how he didn’t for literal decades and doesn’t now.
In that time, it became a new millennium. Towers fell. Smartphones were born. Smartphones got cameras. Smartphones ruined the world.
My father died.
And then Noah did reach out. But by then… I had nothing left to say.
No words.
“CB,” I say now. “There’s no there there anymore.”
“But there is though! Isn’t it at least worth a try?”
What is this scenario? Where we try long distance and it’s horrible like it always is—death by a thousand paper cuts in the form of missed calls, time differences, questionable photos posted on social media—and we break up all over again? Marinate in the pain all over again?
I wouldn’t do either of us the injustice.
But I do miss him. God, I miss him. Even though I barely had him.
“I think we kind of did try,” I say. “And it didn’t end well.”
“He didn’t hook up with Lydia, for what it’s worth,” Cara insists.
“I know that for sure! She said Damien told her to go ask him to examine her—and then made sure you saw it. She may have been trying to get in Noah’s pants…
Okay, she was. But she didn’t succeed and Damien, well, we all know he’s garbage. Even Ben is done with him.”
I know that too. About Lydia and Noah. Really, I knew that almost instantly.
She was never his type and there was Damien at his old shenanigans again.
But that shot of adrenaline—of seeing Noah with her and that moment of not knowing—was enough to convince me that what we have is not enough for me to uproot myself or trust him from thousands of miles and organic smoothies away.
Noah wants me. I can admit that. But he wants to merge me into his life. He wants me to be convenient. And what happens when I’m not?
“I know, CB,” I say. “But it’s just too hard.”
So, I am sad, but I am working on other things. On finding new ways to replicate some of the feelings I felt when I was with him—like everything was in Technicolor. Like I was on to the next chapter. Like I was awake again.
I’ve been taking meetings about freelance art director gigs, ones for TV and film, as I finish up at the magazine.
It’s a big change and will involve a steep learning curve, but I think I’m up for it.
I’ve been looking for new apartments—though I’m not sure exactly where I want to go.
I’ve been digging up old contacts and going out for drinks.
For Manhattans, old-fashioneds, martinis—and advice.
And then I’ve been coming home and, yes, I have been allowing myself a few minutes to stare up at the ceiling and remember what it felt like to have his hands in my hair, his lips on my lips, his smile projecting a thousand-watt glow in my direction.
I’ve been staring at the photos Cara posted—I know partially for my benefit. I’ve been examining our faces for clues. To what, I’m not sure.
I’ve been coming home and, yes, letting myself cry until my pillow is damp, remembering how free I felt on that day in West Marin and wondering if I’ll ever feel that right again.
If I will die alone and the bodega cat will celebrate.
“Will you at least promise to tell me if you need me?” Cara says. “No more secrets?”
“I promise,” I say. And I do. Because I’m also working on learning to ask for support. On telling my friends when I’m feeling vulnerable or down. On accepting help.
I am working on letting in what might make me happy.
And so, today, as I root around in my purse for my keys after a fruitful meeting in SoHo, I’m planning to treat myself.
I will order sushi—no oyster shooters. Too triggering.
I will watch Hallmark movies. I will give myself an extra few minutes to think about Noah and wallow in aching for him.
And then I will try out my new rose oil and jade gua sha facial tool and go to sleep early.
But, when I turn the key in the apartment lock, I open the door to something unexpected.
Wall-to-wall yellow. In the form of Cheerios boxes. Each featuring an image of a heart-shaped bowl.
Cereal bowls of love.
There must be hundreds of them. And when I tiptoe in, close the door behind me and look more closely, I see there are a few other types too.
Honey Nut. Apple Cinnamon. Multigrain.
Multigrain?
I turn in a circle, my apartment transformed. And it is only as I do this that the shock begins to dissipate and reality dawns. Who else could have done this? But did he orchestrate it from a distance? Or is he…?
When the doorbell rings, I cross back toward it in a daze.
“Who is it?” I ask, not daring to look through the peephole.
“You really don’t know?”
His gravelly voice hits me hard. I brace my forehead against the door.
“It’s best to be safe,” I say.
“It’s Mike,” he says. “From the oyster farm.”
“Oh, thank God. I thought it was someone creepy.”
I turn the lock and open the door. And there is Noah standing there—in all his tallness, maybe less relaxed than usual, handsome as always. A bit worse for the wear.
His denim shirt—the one I love—looks a little rumpled. His perfectly worn pants look like they’ve been through a thing or two.
Most likely a flight.
But it’s in his face that I see the true toll. There are new dark circles under his eyes. His cheeks look drawn. His five-o’clock shadow is nearing midnight.
Right away, I want to step toward him, draw my fingertips along his jawline, kiss his cheek scar, his forehead, his lips—curved as they are in a small smile.
But then I remember. This is not Sonoma. We are not together. And there are four hundred boxes of cereal behind me in my apartment.
How will I eat them all?
“Can I come in?” he asks.
I glance behind me. “I’m guessing you already have.”
“Your landlady is very kind,” he nods. “A bit of a romantic. Not good with security.”
Fair enough.
Is there anything this man can’t talk his way into?
When we were growing up, Noah was so accustomed to being a god among boys. That high school athlete. That star. Can you ever outgrow that? That entitlement? That expectation?
I step back and let him pass through. Not because I miss him and seeing his face sends a fusion of joy and heat rocketing through me.
Not because I am so fucking relieved that he’s here that birds are singing in my head.
Not because I still remember what it felt like when he pressed kisses down my side all the way from my rib cage to my ankle.
But because when someone sends you enough Cheerios for a lifetime, you should at least hear them out.
That’s just etiquette. Emily Post says.
I close the door. And then it’s the two of us. Alone in my apartment. The one where I live as grown-up me. And it feels like two worlds—two versions of me—colliding. Like the quietest explosion. He feels alien and like he belongs at the same time.
“Nice place you’ve got,” he says, glancing around.
“Thanks,” I say. “It usually has less of a supermarket warehouse vibe.”
He swivels his head to look at all the boxes. “I just wanted to make sure that, if you’re ever freaking out, you have plenty of reinforcements.”
“But I thought oats don’t actually mitigate the effects of weed?”
“Well, it always seems to make you feel better,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “So what do the scientists know? Plus, it smells better than hundreds of oysters or wedges of cheese.”
The man has a point.
I cannot believe he is standing here. Actually standing here. Surrounded by so much breakfast.
I am suddenly overcome by nerves. And confusion. And a general sense that, for reasons I can’t quite explain, I might burst into tears. Happy. Sad. Overwhelmed.
I motion toward the couch—kelly-green velvet and my favorite piece—so he can take a seat. So I can at least perform some semblance of normalcy.
“Can I get you a drink?” I ask. Because that’s what polite people offer.
“Sure,” he says.
“Milk?” I ask. “And a spoon?”
“Obviously,” he says.
As soon as I’m alone in the kitchen, I close my eyes and press my back against the cool steel of the fridge, trying to keep myself calm. My heart is thumping out of my chest.
I need to get my head on straight. I need to calm down. Whatever this is, I need my mind to be clear for it. But the problem is, my mind is never clear with Noah around.
I know I’m not supposed to want him here. I know I said we should avoid each other, cut ties. I know this situation is complicated as hell. But the thing is, I didn’t realize how much I would miss him. Or how much that would hurt.
I exhale, resolved to stay chill. I grab a beer and a cider from my fridge because that’s what I have. And I come back to the living room all casual, holding the drinks up in front of me.
“Which one do you want?” I ask.
“Which one do you want?”