30. Nat
THIRTY
Nat
An indistinguishable look crossed over Jack’s face as he held my heart in his hands.
A nonspiraling version of myself would give the man a minute, but the anxious version wanted to fill the silence. She won out.
“You don’t have to say it back,” I said calmly, like someone trying to stop a bear from approaching.
“I just think there’s something here. We’ve spent all this time together.
We had that night under the stars. Look what you just did for me.
I know we’ve spent this summer at each other’s throats, but the past few weeks have been different.
And it’s not like I didn’t feel anything during all that anyway, even if…
well, you know what they say about love and hate. ”
Radio silence.
I cleared my stinging throat. “You’re leaving me hanging here, Jack. Say something.”
The pained look on his face deepened, his voice sounding like sandpaper. “You don’t mean that.”
I didn’t expect him to say what I wanted him to say, but did he have to choose the dumbest thing in the playbook?
I stood stock still. “Don’t try to tell me how I feel.”
Jack’s brow furrowed as he took on a different tactic. “I told you I don’t do relationships. I’ve seen them fail, and I’ve been through enough. I was clear, Nat.”
I shook my head, stepped forward, and touched his hand.
This poor guy had been through the wringer, and I just wanted to make him feel better.
But what better words were there to make you feel better than I love you?
“I know you’ve had your heart broken. I’ve been there, and I know how hard it is to come back from that.
But you can’t believe you’re going to be alone forever.
We have something worth fighting for. So why not me? ”
Why not me?
The crinkles around his eyes came out, but only for an instant, before his face went back to immovable.
He was stone, and I was what I always was: malleable clay, ready to be squeezed into whatever someone wanted me to be.
Something that wasn’t me. It was why I’d run from my family, from my previous life. I’d chosen to fit my own mold.
But not right now.
Right now, I would do anything to make him happy, to make his impending no become a yes.
“We’ve been having some really good sex. It’s easy to get confused—”
“I’m not confused—”
“And the winner is Nat Breckenridge!” Autumn’s voice carried over the applause and whistles coming from the stage. “Has anyone seen Nat?”
Cheers of “Nat! Nat! Nat!” filled the air.
“This was a mistake.” Jack flinched as he said it, giving me a modicum of hope that this was going to turn for the better, despite the painful words. “We won’t fuck up again.”
And there it was. Like a blow to the stomach. I could barely catch my breath. The space between us grew wider, an uncrossable crevasse filled with all my hope. A mistake? I bit my lip and stared at my shoes as tears blurred my vision.
“Nat—” From his mouth, the word was heartbreaking. This was killing him, too.
The flicker of warmth that went across his face made me pause, but only for a moment. He was scared. Too scared to do something here, even with my heart on a platter.
Then fight or flight kicked in, thank god, and I turned from him. “I’m sorry you think we were a mistake.”
He said nothing as I ran from our hidden place behind the trees.
The jubilant crowd cheered on the person who’d won the camper talent portion, and he was bowing and blowing kisses back at them.
I took a deep breath, shaking off my feelings.
I somehow put back on the Breckenridge mask I’d thrown away so long ago.
I had never felt like myself with my family and their friends, so I’d leaned into this more palatable version of myself.
I hated that I’d done this before, and it was even more unsettling to do so now.
But still, I made myself smaller and ignored what I felt.
Only, right now on stage, I was thankful for it.
I smiled at the crowd and bowed, accepting my place as winner of the Camp Wars competition, glad it wasn’t going to be dragged out the whole summer.
I shook the bedazzled kids' soccer trophy above my head, faking enthusiasm.
The Kevin Blevins Award was practically falling apart. Just like my heart.
I’d won, but it felt like I’d lost everything.
The crowd cheered for me. Jack didn’t cheer. He was nowhere to be found.
The realization hit me full force. These campers didn’t know me. My friends barely knew me. But Jack did. And he’d made it clear exactly what I was to him.
It’ll be okay. It was a lie I’d told myself a thousand times. It had to work now, too.
I stepped off the stage as fast as I could. Putting on my brave face was the most I could manage, but I’d done it. I made my way back to my newly constructed cabin in a fog.
I looked at the situation from a reasonable person’s perspective and knew he was right.
I was great at making mistakes.
How many wrong moves could a person make in a lifetime?
Because I was pretty sure I’d hit the cap, and I was only thirty-three.
I threw clothes into my bag, rushing around my newly fixed room like the Tasmanian Devil.
I couldn’t believe I’d told him I loved him. I wasn’t known for holding in my emotions these days, but I’d thought I could when it came to my romantic feelings for Jack. My other feelings, those of animosity and frustration, had been loud and clear.
He’d shown up for me. Stopped caring about the competition we’d been fighting our way through because I was left hanging. And he’d done so much more than that. He’d fixed my cabin and took me on an excursion perfectly tailored to me. He’d carried me in the pouring rain, for fuck’s sake.
Maybe that was just who he was. Maybe, to him, it didn’t matter that it’d been me.
That fucking hurt.
And the worst part? He’d told me in advance that he wasn’t into the idea, and I hadn’t listened. I let good old too-much-Natalie blurt the most vulnerable thing she could to a man she knew wasn’t interested.
She was too emotional. Too quick to give her heart away. Too good at scaring people off.
I thought I’d outgrown her, but I guessed I was still that girl.
I thought Jack knew me. I thought he understood me. I thought he was different from everyone else.
Maybe Jack’s relationship avoidance had only been a front for the woman he saw becoming obsessed with him. Maybe he just wasn’t interested.
Once my bags were packed, I made my way to Hazel’s place. Campers usually hung out at the campfire for a while after the talent show or by their cabins, so I was lucky to avoid people on my way out of my pod.
I could see Hazel and Leo’s duplex in the distance, right as I heard some voices coming up the trail. I jumped off the path and dipped behind some trees. I wasn’t proud of it, but I was committed.
“Did you see the way she looked at him?”
“I wasn’t looking at her. I would cut off my right tit just to get a man to look at me like that.”
Some giggles followed as a very loud hiccup came from one of the campers.
“Wow. You’re cut off.”
My mouth went dry. Was I that obvious to other people? To the staff? Would I be able to show my face at camp? God, I’d have to come back to camp. This was a nightmare.
When they passed, I booked it to Hazel’s.
I knocked quietly and whispered her name as I waited for a response.
Nothing. Then I knocked harder. Still nothing.
Tears filled my eyes as I turned from her place, dropping my phone in the process.
It lit up on the ground, and I lifted it to find a message from my sister with four simple words.
“So, are you coming?”
There was nowhere quite as depressing as an airport hours before a red-eye flight after you’ve had your heart stomped on. I used to find them fun and exciting, but right now, it just felt depressing.
A man lying on his duffel bag by our gate let out a snore as a couple shared a wilted airport salad beside me.
I checked my phone again when another couple approached hand in hand.
They hugged each other as if they might not see each other again.
They must have been going to different gates.
I hated that I wanted to know. What was their love story?
Maybe in the past, I would have talked with them and found out.
I tore my gaze away from their affectionate display. A flash of the last couple I’d interviewed popped into my brain. Married for forty years, still watching the stars together. My chest ached, and I willed myself not to cry here.
Three. More. Hours.
And no message from Jack.
Which was good. The last thing I needed was some pity response or a request to talk. I’d gotten out of there like a bat out of hell, and I wanted to burn my phone rather than hear from him. Mostly.
I’d texted Hazel that I’d decided to see my sister sooner than expected, and she’d given me the okay. I felt bad leaving my campers without saying goodbye, but I would have been a mess if I’d stayed.
Would I be a mess if I came back after this trip?
After my and Jack’s last hookup—and that was what I had to see it as now, a hookup—Hazel had interrupted our cuddle to tell me that a former camp counselor had reached out about working the remainder of the summer.
That it meant I could leave my position.
She’d reminded me it had been temporary anyway but I was welcome to stay.
I’d tried to get a read on her that day, on what she preferred, but I hadn’t been able to.
Somewhere in between the storm and all the competitions, I’d decided to stick around, even if it severely impacted my traveling. I’d come to the conclusion that I needed Camp Starlight, but maybe I needed it more than it needed me.
I could easily lift right out, and that realization hurt. Hazel had been so busy this summer that we’d rarely hung out. The person I’d spent the most time with was Jack.
He didn’t need me around either.