Chapter 30
My father started a group chat with the four of us after the dinner at his house, and there’s a new message in there. From Jacob.
I scramble, sitting up in bed, but it’s nothing exciting. Just a pin on Google Maps. Sometimes the location of the park doesn’t show up correctly, he says. Looking forward to tomorrow.
Maggie responds with an emoji of a bride and groom, and my father chimes in with a thumbs-up.
I hesitate for a second, tap out a See you there, then toss the phone onto the covers.
I haven’t moved from this spot for the last six hours.
I cried on Jacob’s couch, gathered my things, checked back in to my old hotel, and crawled into this bed, where I cried some more.
After the tears dried up and I had nothing left, I pulled out my computer and lost myself in work.
Some prep for the new season, but mostly finishing up the pitch and sending it to Natalie.
But now that that’s done, I have nothing left to distract me, nothing to take my mind off this…emptiness I feel.
My stomach growls, and I reach for the room service menu.
Caesar salad.
Cranachan.
I groan, putting the menu down, but it doesn’t help. I can picture Jacob sitting beside me, shirtless, a parfait glass in his hand, his mouth closing around the spoon.
I miss him. It’s only been hours, but I miss him. And if that’s how I feel now, I can’t imagine how horrible I’ll feel when I go back.
A ringing sound fills the air, and I reach for my phone, but quickly realize it’s the landline on the nightstand that has an incoming call.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Pillai? This is the front desk. We’re calling to inform you that there’s been a delivery.”
My brows draw together. “I didn’t order anything.”
“There’s an envelope here with your name. Would you like us to send it up?”
“Uhh—no. That’s okay. I’ll come down and get it.” I could use some time outside this room. “I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”
I fix my hair and change into a clean shirt, then head downstairs. When I give my name to the man working the front desk, he hands me a thick brown envelope. The kind one might serve legal papers in.
It’s bigger than I expected. I thought it’d be one of those small white ones with a letter inside.
My curiosity builds and I start opening it in the elevator, pulling out some pages held together by a paper clip.
The first one has a single word at the top: Heather. And then some lines below it. I read through it quickly and realize they’re verses. A poem.
I flip through and see they’re all like that. As I’m turning the pages, a folded note flutters to the floor. I bend down to get it just as the elevator doors open. I walk out into the hall, clutching the papers to my chest, my heart racing.
They’re from Jacob. I don’t know what they mean, but he left these for me.
I walk faster, almost jogging to my room, and as soon as I’m inside I drop the papers on the desk, sifting through them until I find the note, unfolding it to reveal Jacob’s handwriting.
I sink into the chair.
Neelu,
I want to first say that my giving you these is not any sort of effort to change your mind.
I’m giving them to you because they belong to you.
It wouldn’t be right for me to keep them.
I wrote these poems over the last few weeks.
The morning after we met. The day of the wedding.
And every day since. It’s a practice of mine, writing a poem a day.
Most never amount to anything—and these are unedited and not particularly good—but it’s a habit.
When I looked through them, trying to see if any of them might work for my upcoming collection, I knew each one was about you.
These are the poems I wanted to share with you. You’re not obligated to keep them. You’re welcome to throw them away, but I thought you should have them, that you should know what this time has meant to me. I’ll never regret any of it, or the time I spent knowing you.
Jacob
My lungs tighten, the air trapped inside until I release it in one long breath.
I can’t believe…he wrote about me?
My hand shakes as I flip through the pages.
Like the heather on the hill
Temporary, fleeting
But when the season passes
I’ll remember her still
I turn and keep turning, snippets from different poems catching my attention.
The bird that cries at night listens as we talk
Stories of mourning that echo
It too has known loss
I reach for the mist that haunts the mountains
Only for it to taunt me in return
I do not want to want to chase it
But still I ascend, climbing higher
Laughter ringing in my ears
A flame at night, unyielding, unafraid
Light and warmth in equal measure
Drawn to both its beauty and its pain
They all have titles. “Heather.” “The Bird.” “Mist.” “The Flame.” And they’re all…me. He’s writing about me. These things that scare him, that enchant him, that frustrate him. Things that he’ll miss when they’re gone.
My head reels.
He told me he was falling in love with me, but seeing it spelled out like this…Everything he’s said, it’s how I feel too. Drawn to him from the very beginning. Enchanted by him, frustrated with him, scared by my feelings for him.
Did I make a mistake?
I pick up my phone, dialing a number I know by heart.
“Mom?”
“Neelu? What’s going on—everything okay?”
“No,” I say, and my voice breaks. I thought I was all out of tears, but here they are again, fresh and stinging.
“I think…I think there’s something wrong with me.
” And I tell her everything. How I met Jacob before the wedding, how I developed feelings for him, how I pulled away.
How I’ve kind of forgiven Dad, but it still hurts.
How there’s still this feeling that I wasn’t wanted, wasn’t good enough, wasn’t someone my own father wanted to be around.
“Oh, Neelu.” I can hear the emotion in her voice. “I wish I was there. I wish I could give you a hug.”
“Me too.” I sniff, finding a tissue and blowing my nose.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” my mom says, “and I think you know that. But I’ll tell you as many times as you want: There’s nothing wrong with you.
Everything you’ve said makes sense. It makes sense that you’d feel this way, that this would scare you, that you’d want to pull away.
” She pauses. “I think you’ve done this before too,” she says gently.
“Maybe you didn’t realize it, but with some of your friends…
You just seemed to cut off those friendships really quickly.
You stopped mentioning them entirely, and I didn’t want to push.
I figured there was a good reason, but—”
“No, I mean, I thought there was. And for some of them, I still think there was, but”—my throat tightens—“but not for everyone. But it just seemed simpler that way. It felt like they had…they’d pulled back first, and it felt natural to just allow that to happen.
To…to have some say in what was happening. ”
“But it doesn’t sound like Jacob pulled away. It sounds like he was trying, like he wanted to come see you, and—”
“But he will pull away. He says he’ll come, but he’s not going to…to leave this place. He hasn’t traveled in years, and he’s going to change that? Suddenly board an international flight, all for…for what?”
“For you, Neelu,” my mom says softly. “He wants to do it for you.”
I blink, my eyes stinging again. “I don’t believe that. Why can’t I believe that?” I pull my knees up to my chest, hugging them.
She’s quiet for a beat. “I was angry at your father for a really long time. Not for the way our relationship ended, but for the way he was with you. And it sounds like he’s recognized that.
That he didn’t do enough. But it doesn’t have to be that way, Neelu.
Jacob’s not your father. I don’t know if he’ll manage the distance better or worse, but he’s not him.
He can do this differently. You both can. ”
“But what if—what if it’s too hard, and he decides it isn’t worth it anymore, and he—”
“Maybe,” my mom says. “Maybe that will happen. Maybe he comes to see you, and you travel to see him, and you find a way to make it work. Or maybe it’s too hard—for him, or for you—and you both decide it’s just not working. But at least you won’t have any regrets.”
I wipe a hand over my eyes as she continues.
“I’m not telling you what you should do, but I think…
I can tell what you want to do. And you should allow yourself, give yourself permission to want it.
To ask for it.” Her voice softens. “Neelu, my brave girl. I’ve never seen you back down from something.
I’ve seen you afraid, but I’ve never seen you not try something at least once.
Think of all the places you’ve gone to, all the new things you’ve explored.
You don’t have to be fearless. You can have all the fear in the world, as long as you try. ”
Later, after we’ve hung up, I stare at the pages on the desk, reading every poem for a second time. And then a third.
It’s all Jacob, his feelings laid bare. He hasn’t hidden his fear; it’s written into every line. He’s loved and lost the people he loves over and over, and still he’s willing to push past that fear for me.
Why can’t I do the same for him?
I take a long shower and climb into bed. But even after I switch off the lights, I can’t sleep. My eyes are open, staring unblinkingly into the darkness.
I reach for my phone, open the notes app, and begin to type.