CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MATTI
“Listen to me,” I take a step toward her, trying to reason with her, but she moves back the second I move in. Fuck me. I knew this was coming. I knew it and I still couldn’t stop it. “I am not lost. Or lonely,” I say as calmly as I can muster under the circumstances.
Out of the corner of my eye, I take in the rest of the party. We managed to move just out of earshot by coming down to the water. Part of me can’t help but wonder if that’s what set her off, knowing we were alone. Alone but not so alone a scene wouldn’t go unnoticed.
“How can you be so sure?” she bites out through clenched teeth. She’s trying just as hard as I am to keep her emotions in check. I can’t tell which one of us is actually succeeding. Maybe neither of us is.
“Because, Ness, everything that happened, happened because you were lost. And you were lonely. And part of that was my fucking fault, and I’m sorry, God, I am sorrier than you will ever know, but the other part of that was on you.
And I didn’t really get that until after we split, and I watched what being on your own did for you.
Saw what you needed that I failed to provide.
What I couldn’t provide, even if I’d wanted to. ”
“This isn’t about why we split,” she’s practically spitting the words at me. “This is about what’s happening now.”
“Don’t you get it? What’s happening now is a direct result of why we split.” I try taking another step toward her, but she backs up again the second I try. “Neither has shit to do with my being lost and lonely.”
“Right, because only I experience those things. You’re somehow immune to these basic human weaknesses,” she scoffs. I’ve triggered her stubborn side. I knew it was only a matter of time.
“I’m not immune.” I rake my hands through my hair, running my fingertips over my scalp.
This is exasperating. We were so close. So goddamn close .
“I just sorted all that shit out way earlier. I spend most of my life crammed into a tin box with three other people. I don’t get a chance to feel lonely.
And not just for lack of space, but because those three people know me inside and out.
They’re my family. More than that, they’re my people.
The souls I chose somewhere before time to do life with.
And I didn’t get lost in my thirties because I found myself in my twenties. On the road. In my music.”
“Oh, but not in being with me.”
“No.” I know it’s a trap. And she’s going to be pissed about my answer either way. But she’s getting the honest one. “Not in being with you. I was able to be all of me with you because I found myself outside of you, outside of us.”
“And you’re saying I wasn’t able to do that for you. Wasn’t able to give you all of myself?” her screech-whisper sounds like she’s about to explode. “I gave you everything I had, Matti. Everything. Every breath, every heartbeat I poured into you and your dreams and our family.”
“I know.” There’s no denying that. Nor would I ever want to.
“And I’ve been grateful to you for all of it.
I’ve never taken for granted all you gave to us, still give to us.
But you’re missing the whole point of what I’m saying.
You gave us everything, and you kept nothing for yourself.
No part of you was anchored in your passions outside of our family, outside of us.
Until we split and you had a chance to feel the other things your heart could beat for. Things that had nothing to do with me.”
“And what, now that I’ve found myself, we have nothing to worry about? We can just get back together and live happily ever after because every existential crisis has already come and gone?”
She’s doing it again. Backing away from the ledge, unwilling to leap.
I could coax her back. I know I could. I know her well enough, know what she needs to hear. But I don’t want to. Not this time.
If we’re really going to have a second chance, one that will count for more than twenty-four hours in Hawaii and a few beautiful moments of traveling through time, I need her to leap. I need her to want to leap. To be fearless. About us.
“No, we can’t just get back together.” I swear, something inside me breaks saying the words out loud. “We can’t get back together at all if you’re always going to be afraid of where we’re headed. Of the reasons we showed up to be here together in the first place.”
She rolls her bottom lip over her teeth. She’s been crying since halfway through the conversation, but I’ve stopped trying to reach out to her. It just takes her farther out of my reach and more distance between us is the last thing we need.
“So, what, now you don’t want to do this?”
“Do you?”
Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I think her silence startles her more than anything. Her hand moves for her lips, tracing them as if they hold the map to the words she’s lost.
Her blue eyes seek mine and it’s impossible not to drown in the helplessness spiraling in them like a whirlpool in the ocean. After an agonizing silence, she finally finds her voice. And her words are worse than any emptiness hanging between us.
“I don’t know.”
Then she spins around and takes off. Running down the beach until the darkness swallows her out of sight.
She’s gone.
Again.
NESSA
I run without any sense of direction. I just need to run. I need space to breathe. To think. To feel all the damn feelings.
One foot in front of the other, over and over, I keep moving them. Until one of my straps snaps on my shoe and I’m forced to choose between stopping and tripping.
I only slow down enough to undo my sandals as much as I need to kick them off and keep going.
Now who’s having a fucking Cinderella moment?!
I don’t dwell on the fairy tale twists of my life. I just keep moving. Keep getting faster until my lungs burn, and my legs give out from the blow of anxiety and adrenaline colliding within me.
Down on all fours, chest heaving for air, bursting with emotion, I feel myself breaking from within, being swallowed in the empty stillness of being alone out in the endless space of sand and sea.
“Ness,” Matti whispers my name.
I’m sure I must be imagining it. He can’t really be here.
Then his hand lands on my back, softly moving in circles the way he used to do to calm me in moments of overwhelm.
My body doesn’t know how to respond. Part of me wants to lurch forward, deny myself the comfort his touch grants me.
The other part wants to sink into the weight of his hand, feel the safety of being held by him.
But it’s my mind which overshadows everything.
He’s here. He came after me. And it’s all I can do to keep repeating those words inside my head over and over. Matti came after me .
“Why are you running?” the deep rasp of his voice only makes the hurt in his words echo louder.
“I don’t think I can do this again.” I don’t turn around to face him.
I can’t. But I sit up, resting against his hand, allowing myself the grace of his comfort.
Just for a minute more. “I want to, Matti, but I’m scared.
” I force myself to look back and meet him eye to eye.
“You didn’t have to run after me. That’s not why I took off. This wasn’t some sort of twisted test.”
He doesn’t chuckle like I expect him to, like I count on him to make light of heavy situations. “I know that. You think that’s why I followed you?”
I turn my gaze away again, seeking the dark of endless night-drenched sea instead. “I don’t know what I think anymore.”
“Fine.” He moves in closer to me, both hands taking up the tender swirling motions against my back while his legs stretch out on either side of me. “Forget thinking. What are you feeling?”
Even just trying to tune in and narrow it down to a feeling or two I can voice out loud rattles my body with a wave of shaking, like I’m trying to escape my own heart, but my body is holding me captive, forcing me to face what I’ve shoved down all this time.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, soft lips brushing against my ear, my hair catching in the scruff of his chin. “You can fall to pieces right here and I will hold them all. I promise.”
“Stop,” I wince, breaking away from his touch. “You have no business trying so hard to make this right for me when I’m the one who screwed everything up to begin with.”
“It always takes two, Ness. You know that. When it works and when it falls apart, it always takes two.” He doesn’t try to pull me back, but he doesn’t move away either.
Just holds steady where he sits, like he’s waiting for me, certain I’ll return and willing to wait no matter the time it takes.
“And I get that it’s going to take more than one gesture, one declaration of my commitment to us, for you to believe in me again. ”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I cry, two years of grief I thought I healed still fresh beneath the surface.
“It’s not you I don’t trust, it’s me. Fine, we’re both to blame, but Matti, how I hurt you, how I was so easily willing to break your heart on my quest to fulfill my own needs, I’ll never be able to forgive myself for.
We were a team. It was my job to look out for you, not be the one who hurt you worse than anyone else ever could. ”
Silence settles between us. Silence but for my crying and the crash of waves moving in over the sand at a steady rhythm.
“Will you look at me?” he asks when so much time has passed between us, the numbness that follows heartache has started to spread inside me.
I don’t answer with words, but I do start to drag myself through the sand until I’m turned sideways. Not facing him directly, but still able to meet his request easily by lifting my head in his direction.
“I trust you,” he starts. “I trust you. And yeah, for a long time, losing you felt like it should have killed me, like maybe it still would. But I haven’t ever, not for one moment, thought what you did was selfish, or that you should have protected my heart at the expense of your own.”
I sniff. The numbness retreats again and a new surge of feelings begins to rise.
I can’t define it. But it scares me. “How could you not? I was willing to risk everything, our marriage, our family, just to find the pieces of me I thought were missing. And they weren’t even missing, Matti.
That’s the worst part, they were already there.
Everything I thought I needed to figure out, was already staring me square in the face.
I had a business degree. I’d been practicing yoga since college.
I even got certified to teach the year I got pregnant with Nate.
Then I had a newborn and forgot about it.
I grew obsessed with nutrition and holistic health practices instead.
I was already the woman I was seeking to become. I just couldn’t see it.”
“Maybe.” He nods and I notice for the first time, he’s crying too. “But I think you’re still hiding from the real reason you’re holding back, Ness. The only thing I can’t figure out is if you’re worried facing it will hurt you...or me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do.” His voice is gruff and deeper than normal, the way it only gets when emotions are getting the better of him. “Just say it. Whatever it is, you holding it in isn’t helping either of us.”
I want to argue with him. Want to tell him he’s crazy. That there’s nothing else.
But when my mouth opens, the words that spill out are, “I hated you.” I suck in a loud gust of air through my tears and the confession I’ve held deep inside my heart, too ashamed to say out loud.
“The night we ended things out in that parking lot, watching you walk away from me, it broke something inside me. I still loved you, but for the first time ever, I hated you too. Hated you for being able to just walk away without so much as looking back. And I know it’s crazy, and completely unfair because I’m the one who left, but damn it, Matti, I’m the one who had to watch you leave.
Like it meant nothing. Like it was easy. ”
“You think it was easy?” he roars with a pain so raw I’m caught completely off guard by it.
“Ness, I’ve never waged war with my own body like I did that night just forcing one foot in front of the other.
It hurt so fucking bad, I thought my own goddamn feelings would strangle me before I made it back to the bus.
And I didn’t look back, because I knew there was no way in hell, I’d be able to turn away from you a second time.
And I had to turn away from you, Ness. After all the times you put my dreams first, how could I possibly deny you? ”
“I know it’s insane,” I stammer, caught somewhere between grief and anger. “Believe me, I know. I know how much I hurt you. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you more. Why do you think I kept it to myself all this time?”
“Trying to hide it from me was never going to make it go away, Ness.”
I shake my head. “That’s the thing.” I close my eyes, letting another sob rattle through me. “I’m not sure anything will ever make it go away.”