Chapter 21
Natalia
Natalia
Isabelle
Where?
Lana
Come here. I’m bored and Christian is at the gym for the next few hours
Isabelle
On my way
Natalia
On my way
The best thing about a 911 text to a group chat with your best friends is the fast replies.
You don’t hold off on a reply when you get a 911 text—it’s a law.
And I don’t make the law, I’m just glad for it these days—superbly grateful for that rule now that I’m pacing the space of Lana’s living room.
I nibble around my thumbnail, trying my hardest to not ruin the lavender gel polish coating the nail.
“Natalia,” Isabelle says and I pause.
I turn toward the girls waiting patiently, confused, on the couch watching me. “Huh?”
“You’ve been pacing for the past…” Lana checks her phone. “Two minutes. What’s going on?”
I exhale and shake my hands out at my sides. “I think I need to talk some things out, you know? Like how some people need to see things in writing or have something demonstrated for them? That’s me.”
“Okay,” Isabelle says, encouragingly. “Go ahead. We’ll map it out together.”
“Rowan…” I take a breath. “I think maybe we aren’t just friends anymore.”
Lana and Isabelle share a silent look.
“I also think I have real feelings for him but I’m not sure if I can, you know?
” I continue my tangent without any breaths.
“Like what if it’s just the dopamine or whatever from the orgasms making me think that I can love him?
Or what if that’s what’s happening to him?
Can someone be that good in bed? Maybe I can be that good in bed, but still—”
“Natalia, breathe,” Lana says.
I swallow the lump in my dry throat, feeling it burn and the pressure behind my eyes intensify. “It isn’t that, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so,” Lana whispers.
“It isn’t the dopamine.”
“I mean, it could be?” Isabelle offers a half-shrug. “I’ve seen you two outside of, you know, that. He’s happy when you’re around. So yes, you trigger the dopamine and everything else, Nat, but it isn’t just the sex.”
I nod. And nod and nod and nod, the corners of my vision clouding. “He makes me feel like—” My breath shudders. “He makes me feel like I can breathe. Like I can rest…”
“Oh, honey,” Lana coos. “That’s part of what love is.”
She might be right.
I nod, hearing the words I’ll repeat to myself later in bed when I continue to overthink our entire situation.
That is part of what love is…
Breathing and resting.
And I breathe and rest with him.
“It feels different now,” I rasp, trying to subtly wipe my cheek. “I started crying…the last time we…”
Here comes the sob damn it.
“Natalia, what’s wrong?” Lana asks.
“Come here,” Isa says.
I move to sit between them, but like the maternal friends they are, they urge me to lie across their laps—my head on Lana’s and my legs over Isa’s. Lana brushes my hair back and Isabelle holds my hands.
“Guys,” I croak through my hiccups.
“What’s wrong, Nat?” Isabelle begs. “Talk to us, please.”
“You haven’t been yourself.” Lana frowns, the line of concern between her brows making an appearance.
“I don’t feel right,” I cry and they pull me across their laps. “I don’t want any of this. I think…I think this is too complicated for me. I can’t—” I desperately gasp for air. “I can’t breathe.”
“Natalia? Natalia, we’re here. We’re right here—”
My body trembles and quakes from the violent tears, and my bones grow weaker as though all of the sadness that has been stored within them has finally caused their deterioration. My body is breaking.
“I can’t breathe,” I gasp and my vision blurs with black spots.
“Okay, okay, um…” Isabelle stammers for a moment before putting a firm hand on my calf, wrapping her fingers around it. “Hand on your chest, Natty. Over your heart.”
Lana helps me, gently taking my wrist in her hand and putting my hand on my chest. I can feel its savage hammering against my palm as Lana presses it into my breast bone. She leaves her hand there, both of them offering firm touches to calm me.
They both begin to take controlled breaths, encouraging me to follow along.
“Natalia,” Isabelle coos, pushing my hair back. “I think you need to go back to therapy, honey.”
I nod and Lana wipes my cheeks. “He loves me.”
“We know,” Lana whispers. “It’s okay.”
“I—” I hiccup and inhale deeply, filling my lungs to maximum capacity. “I hate this… I—I don’t…”
“Shhh,” Isa whispers. “It’s okay, don’t say anything.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Lana says softly. “You don’t have to say anything. Just cry it out.”
I’d rather vomit it out. Something to get it out quickly—right now.
I’d rather cut it out. Take a knife and cut out the parts of me that don’t make sense, that make me unlovable.
Cut out all of my most undesirable qualities and shape myself into something worth admiring and loving.
To cut him out and whatever I might actually feel for him because it’s precarious.
It’s ruinous and catastrophic and I can’t do it.
I can’t do it.
I don’t want to do it. I think I want it to burn, I think I want him to burn me so I can at least say I know what it’s like to burn like this for someone else—someone like him.
Maybe I want him to destroy me, ruin me for everyone and everything else that isn’t him.
Or maybe he’s already doing that. No, he’s already done it—thats the truth.
But I can’t look in the mirror and say it.
I can’t look at myself in the mirror period or I’ll remain stuck there. I’ll use my finger as a marker, circle and point and draw lies across the flaws and scars and find things I didn’t know were there before.
I’d look at myself from the outside and look for what it is he might love about me. Because he does, I know he does, and I don’t know what to do with it. What can I do with love like that when I don’t have love like that for myself?
Between my sobs in my best friends’ arms, Lana’s front door opens and her neck snaps as she looks over her shoulder. “Hey, baby,” Christian says and the door closes behind him. “What’s up—”
“Hey, baby,” Lana says and squeezes my shoulder. “Can you actually stir the pasta for me?”
I watch them exchange a look of understanding and he dips his chin. “Let me know if you need anything.” Then he disappears.
Somehow, for some reason, that makes me cry harder.
“Nat,” Lana says gently, wiping my cheeks. “I think you should give her a call.”
“I will,” I croak and sniffle.
“Nat, have you…?”
I shake my head. “No. No, I haven’t—I swear.”
“Okay, that’s okay,” Lana coos. “We believe you.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t see it sooner, Natalia,” Isabelle croaks, her eyes rimmed with redness and tears. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I’m sorry too, Nat,” Lana rasps.
“I just feels like—like I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Does anyone?” Isabelle mutters. “I know it feels like that, and I understand it—it’s valid.
But one day, it won’t. One day, you’re going to be so unbelievably happy and your heart will feel so full.
And all of this, the complicated feelings and everything else, will sound so funny when you talk about it. ”
“I wish one day was today.”
Lana wipes my cheek. “As much as life likes to fuck us, it loves to edge us even more.”
Laughter bubbles in my throat and I can’t hold it back. “You’re so weird.”
“It’s true.” Lana laughs, and Isabelle snickers. “And at least you’re laughing.”
The laughter simmers down and Isabelle scoots closer, wrapping her arms around me and Lana as best as she can. “We’re making a new pinky promise,” she says. “We always ask for help when we need it.”
“Always,” Lana says as she holds up both of her pinkys. Isabelle holds up both of hers, hooking one of them with Lana’s.
I sit up, sniffling hard and clearing my throat, ridding myself of the slight burn that lingers. I hook a pinky with Lana’s and the other with Isabelle’s, and rasp, “Always.”
“Always,” Isabelle says. “See? This is a healthy adult friendship.”
Lana chuckles. “Ride or dies.”
And with these girls, I’ve learned what ride or die is.
I’ve learned what true, unconditional love is, and I wouldn’t have learned that without my best friends.
I may not have had my epic love story where I’m devastatingly in love with the man of my dreams yet, but I have them.
Even when I thought I had nothing, I had them.
I breathe and rest with my best friends.
“Do you guys wanna stay here tonight?” Lana asks.
I nod, and Isa says, “Yeah.”
“Okay,” Lana chirps and stands quickly, practically jumping off the enormous sofa. “I’ll be right back.”
Lana leaves me Isabelle’s arms, who brushes back my hair and keeps her arm firmly around me. The TV turns on and illuminates the darkening space of the living room and I twist to see Christian and Lana starting a fire. Lana drops blankets on the couch with pillows and a giant bag of Cheetos.
Christian kisses Lana once, softly, and whispers a few sweet nothings to her that have her grinning and turning red in the cheeks before he disappears again.
And for a moment, I’m envious of the intimacy and whatever secrets they share.
It’s something I want, something I crave, but don’t think I’m capable of right now.
And not with the person I want that with.
And my god have I felt guilty for everything I’ve put him through, and not to mention embarrassed.
But tonight, I lie between my two best friends and we snuggle against each other, Beetlejuice starting on the large television above the lit fire.
“We’ve got you,” Lana says, setting her head on my shoulder.
“Always,” Isabelle says, her head resting on my other shoulder.
And I remember that, no matter how dark the days are, I’ll always have some light. A place to breathe and rest with my friends by my side.