Chapter 14 Blake Doesnt Get a Vote #2
"He asked about us. He heard we're together. He wanted to confirm it."
"And you confirmed it."
"Yes. He asked if anything happened between us while Blake and I were still together. I told him no. He asked if I'm happy. I told him yes. He left after that."
"Was he aggressive?"
"No. He was upset but he wasn't threatening. He kept his distance. He didn't raise his voice. Honestly, it was probably the most mature Blake has ever been during a difficult conversation."
"That's something, I guess."
"It is. I think the last few months have changed him. I don't know if it's enough or if it's permanent but he seemed different. Smaller somehow. Less sure of himself."
Nathan is quiet for a moment. He picks up his beer from the coffee table and takes a drink and puts it back down. I can see him thinking. Not reacting. Thinking.
"Do I need to talk to him?" he asks.
"No. Absolutely not."
"Because I will if you want me to. Not to fight. Just to be clear about things."
"I don't want you to. Blake and I are done. There's nothing left to discuss between any combination of the three of us. You talking to him would suggest that his opinion matters in this and it doesn't. He doesn't get a vote in my life anymore."
"Okay."
"Does it bother you?"
"Does what bother me?"
"That Blake confronted me. That he showed up at my workplace. That he has feelings about us."
He considers this. He doesn't answer immediately because Nathan never answers important questions immediately. He thinks about them first. It used to unsettle me, the pauses. I'd wonder what was happening behind the silence. Now I know. He's making sure what he says next is what he actually means.
"I'm bothered that he showed up at your workplace uninvited. That's your space. He should have called or texted and let you choose where and when to have that conversation. Showing up at the salon put you in a position where you couldn't walk away."
"I could have walked away."
"You could have. But he made it harder by coming to you on your ground. That's a power move even if he didn't intend it as one."
I hadn't thought about it that way. Nathan sees angles I don't. He reads situations the way he reads books: for structure, not just emotion.
"But am I bothered that your ex-fiancé has feelings about you dating someone new?" he continues. "No. That's normal. I'd be more concerned if he didn't care at all. That would mean the relationship meant nothing and relationships that mean nothing don't produce the kind of pain you went through."
I look at Nathan from the kitchen. He's sitting on my couch in my apartment holding a book he was reading because reading is what Nathan does when he has ten free minutes, and he just said something so thoughtful and measured and emotionally intelligent that I have to put down the pasta spoon for a second to appreciate it.
Most men I know, Blake included, would have responded to the Blake situation with either anger or dismissiveness.
Either puffing up and wanting to confront him or shrugging it off and saying it doesn't matter.
Nathan did neither. He acknowledged the situation.
He offered to engage if I wanted him to.
He assessed the safety dimension. And then he put the whole thing in perspective with a single honest observation about human nature.
This is who Nathan Johnson is. Not reactive. Not passive. Thoughtful. Intentionally, deliberately thoughtful.
"How are you like this?" I say.
"Like what?"
"So reasonable. So calm about everything."
"Would you prefer I punched a wall?"
"No."
"Good. Because I've never punched a wall and I'm not starting now.
I spent four years in the Army learning to manage my reactions under pressure.
Actual pressure. The kind that involves things considerably more stressful than a jealous ex-boyfriend.
If I can stay calm during those situations I can stay calm about this. "
"He was my fiancé."
"Right. Your ex-fiancé."
"You corrected yourself very quickly there."
"I'm a fast learner."
I smile. I go back to making pasta. Nathan picks his book back up.
We exist in the same space without needing to fill it with noise.
The water boils. I add the pasta. He turns a page.
The apartment smells like garlic and olive oil and the window is cracked and the evening air is coming in warm and soft.
This is what I want. This quiet, this ease, this person who reads books on my couch while I cook and who answers questions thoughtfully and who doesn't make everything about himself.
This is what a relationship is supposed to feel like.
I didn't know that before because I had nothing to compare Blake to. Now I do.
Later, after dinner, we're sitting together on the couch. Nathan's arm is around me and my head is against his shoulder and we're watching something on TV that neither of us is particularly invested in.
"I want to tell you something," I say.
"Okay."
"I used to think that what I had with Blake was good enough.
Not perfect. Not amazing. But good enough.
We had our problems but I told myself that every relationship has problems and the important thing was that we were together and we were building toward something.
I accepted good enough because I didn't know what better looked like.
I had nothing to compare it to. I'd been with Blake since I was eighteen.
He was my first serious relationship. My only serious relationship.
I didn't know that a man could listen the way you listen or think the way you think or care the way you care. "
"And now?"
"Now I know what better looks like. It looks like this.
It looks like you sitting on my couch reading while I cook and not being offended that I'm not entertaining you every second.
It looks like you asking me how my day was and actually listening to the answer.
It looks like you waiting three weeks to call because you wanted to be sure.
Better isn't a bigger house or a fancier ring or a more dramatic proposal.
Better is a person who tells the truth and means it every single time. "
Nathan's arm tightens around me slightly. He doesn't say anything for a moment. Then he turns his head and kisses the top of my hair.
"You deserve better," he says. "You always did."
We sit there on my couch in my apartment on Birch Street and the TV plays something we're not watching and Nathan's heartbeat is steady against my shoulder and outside the window Pinehurst is going about its Saturday evening business.
Someone is grilling on a patio down the street.
I can smell the charcoal through the open window.
A dog is barking somewhere. Dorothy's TV is on downstairs, the same muffled companion sound that greets me every evening.
None of it knows or cares that two people on the second floor of Dorothy Phillips' house are quietly falling in love with each other.
There's no audience. No applause. No moment where the music swells and the credits roll.
Just two people on a couch with a book and a beer and an evening that doesn't need to be anything more than what it is.
I think about the woman I was a year ago.
The woman who stood in a salon cutting hair and trusting her fiancé and saving money for a house she believed they'd build together.
That woman would not recognize the woman sitting on this couch.
That woman wouldn't understand how you could lose everything you thought you wanted and end up finding something you didn't know you needed.
She'd say it was too fast. She'd say it was too soon.
She'd worry about what people would think.
But I'm not that woman anymore. I'm the woman who found the messages and gathered the receipts and kept a notebook and told the truth and walked away and started over.
I'm the woman who moved into her own apartment and learned to cook for one and discovered that being alone is not the same thing as being lonely.
And I'm the woman who is sitting on a couch with Nathan Johnson, who reads books and opens doors and waits three weeks to make a phone call because he wanted to be sure it was the right one.
Who listens with his whole body and thinks before he speaks and has never once in all the time I've known him tried to be anyone other than exactly who he is.
We are falling in love. Quietly. Steadily. Without drama or deception or performance.
And it feels right.