Now #3
I look down at my ruined blouse. “Is that all you have to say, Nathan? I just spent five hours with my ex, and what? You don’t care?”
“No, I care. I’m a little mad about it.”
“Good. You should be. He almost kissed me, and I almost let him.”
He frowns, his jaw ticking. “What do you want me to say, Evie? That I’m furious my fiancée had dinner with another man? A man she used to love? A man she can’t seem to divorce? I saw the papers on your desk. I know you signed them. Why aren’t those filed?”
“I don’t know. Genuinely, I don’t. I had so many occasions to drop them off, but I didn’t. And I’ve been asking myself why I can’t seem to do it for weeks.”
Nathan observes me, crossing his arms over his chest as if to set a barrier between us. “You told me it was puppy love. But it was more than that, wasn’t it?”
“It was so much more than that,” I finally confess.
Saying it, admitting it at last, lifts a heavy weight that was on my shoulders and chest. I’ve tried so hard to minimize it that it’s only made it a much, much bigger problem.
While admitting it was oddly liberating, I can see the hurt on Nate’s face, and it pains me to have to do this.
But I can’t keep lying to him. I can’t keep lying to myself.
After another break to ponder, Nate faces me and asks, “Do you still want to marry me?”
I frown. “After everything I’ve said, do you still want to marry me?”
“I’m not happy about any of it, Evie. When you first told me about him, I thought: he’s a Formula One driver now, he lives somewhere in Europe, and he travels all the time.
It’s not like he can be a threat to us or anything.
And it still applies. We can get married and find a way to make it work. He’ll do his thing, we’ll do ours.”
I don’t even know what to answer. Who, in their right mind, would still want to move on with the wedding after what I confessed? I can’t imagine being someone’s second choice and still marrying them. No one deserves that. It’s vile and sad.
“I can’t believe I have to say this,” I start, a little stunned, “but no. We can’t get married, Nate. And you shouldn’t want to be married to a woman who loves someone else more than she loves you.”
It looks like he hadn’t fully grasped the heart of the problem, because his face completely drains. “You’re in love with him? More than with me?”
After a second to weigh my words and organize them, I say, “You know when people break up and say, ‘I will always love you?’” Nate doesn’t answer, but I continue my explanation anyway, “I will always be in love with him. I can’t help it.
He’s almost part of my DNA at this point.
A part of me. He was the love of my life. ”
“Was? Past tense?”
It only takes me a second to answer, “Is. He is the love of my life. And I think he will always be. I’m so sorry, Nate. I genuinely thought I could ignore that and move on. But ever since I saw him again … everything came back in full force, and I can’t keep ignoring it.”
Nate begins pacing the length of the kitchen, thinking intently as he does. “Did you know all that when I asked you to marry me?”
“No. Everything was buried inside me, and I truly looked forward to becoming your wife.”
“So, how long have you known you couldn’t marry me?”
“Just now. I’ve been having doubts since the dinner in Denver. But I didn’t know until tonight, Nathan.”
I watch as he walks back and forth, back and forth. I don’t know what else I can say. I’m responsible for his pain, but at no point did I mean to hurt him like this.
“I’m so sorry, Nate,” I say, unsure there’s anything else I can do.
He doesn’t answer, and after some more pacing, he grabs the tray with the wedding cake samples and walks up to the trash can. He folds it in half and throws the whole thing in there.
“So, the wedding’s off,” he lets out, almost like an announcement. “I’ll let the people on my side know. You’ll tell yours.”
“Yes.”
“I have some of your things at my place. I will make a box. I trust you will do the same for mine here.”
“Yes.”
Nathan walks up to the front door and grabs his coat from the rack. “Now that you’re free again, will you go back to him?” he wonders once it’s on.
“I don’t think so. It didn’t work before for a reason, and nothing has changed, so why try again?”
“I see … I can’t think of anything sadder than finding the love of your life yet being unable to spend it with them.”
He leaves me with those words, which resonate over and over in my head. It is sad. It’s devastating.
Nathan’s last remarks leave a bad taste in the back of my throat. An entire life of watching Jackson from afar, of knowing I had him once and let him go. I lost him because I was too young to cope with everything.
In great need of a pick-me-up, I return to the kitchen, combine the two glasses of wine, and grab the bottle. On my way to the stairs, I change my mind, turn around to grab the bag of desserts, a spoon, and resume my walk to my bedroom.
Tomorrow is Sunday, and I’m not leaving my bed the whole day. I’m done adulting for the weekend. And if life won’t give me a break, I’ll take it myself.