Chapter 37
Natalie and Rob were lying in bed, their legs tangled together, as Rob told Natalie about his new job at the literacy start-up. She propped herself on her elbow and watched him as he grew increasingly animated, describing some of the data they were getting back about their program’s usefulness. She bit down on a smile, but not quickly enough.
“What?” he asked, cheeks going a bit pink. “Oh, am I going on too much?”
“No! I just remember when I used to try to get you to tell me about academia, and you were practically monosyllabic.”
“I think, to my utter surprise, this is a better direction for me.” He ran a finger up and down her arm, and she shivered. “But what about you? When are you going to write another novel?”
She shook her head and flopped back onto the pillow. “Never.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true! Why would I want to give the world another chance to break my heart? With Meant 2B, I get to be creative without having to bare my soul. Besides, so many people would kill to write for TV. I’m incredibly lucky.”
“That’s true,” he said.
She poked him. “But?”
“I know you’ve said you don’t want to be selfish about your writing. But I just hope you don’t go too far in the other direction.”
“I’m not! I love collaboration.”
“Sure.” He rolled over on top of her, bracing his hands on either side of her body so he could look her right in the eyes. “But you also want to make something that’s fully yours.”
“How do you know that?”
“To write a book that captured her heart on a page, and then captured others’ hearts as they read, seemed the most magical thing a person could do,” he recited.
“What…what did you say?” she asked, her belly fluttering.
He gave her a half smile. “I think you heard me.”
“That’s a quote from Apartment 2F.”
“Is it?” he said mildly. “I just know that it’s stuck with me over the years.”
“You hated Apartment 2F.” She pushed his chest, and he collapsed over her with a laugh, taking her in his arms and rolling over so they lay on their sides, faces turned to each other.
“Sure. But I also thought I’d never read a writer with more promise,” he said before leaning in to kiss her.
The next night, Natalie sat beside Gabby’s bed, a slim paperback in her hand. She’d started reading to Gabby for half an hour or so each day as Gabby dozed. But today, Gabby was restless, pulling her blanket from side to side. Natalie put the book down just in time to see a tear beginning to trickle down Gabby’s cheek.
Nat reached out and wiped it aside, and Gabby met her eyes.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t you dare apologize. What’s going on? Just…all of it?”
“Yeah.” Gabby spoke slowly, her voice dull. “I want to feel better now. I want to be who I was before. Am I going to spend the rest of my life with this anxiety hanging over my head, worried that it’ll come back and I won’t be so lucky? And it seems silly to even be upset about this, given how well things went, but…” Her eyes scrunched up, and she put her hands over them. “I wanted more biological children.”
“That’s not silly. You’re having to reorient, which is really tough.”
“It is. Christina would be such a great big sister.”
“Would she? Or would she try to murder the baby for taking attention away from her?”
Gabby huffed out a laugh. “Excuse me, that’s my daughter you’re talking about. But you’re right. Still, I want so badly to give her siblings. More of a team to get through life with, you know?”
Natalie nodded.
“Oh,” Gabby continued, “speaking of, I didn’t tell you. Melinda sent me a gift. I guess she has been thinking about me after all.”
“What is it?”
“A piece of jewelry from her line. You know how she makes those pendants and carves the name of your enemy into them?” Gabby paused. “She sent me a pendant engraved with the word ‘Cancer.’?”
Natalie tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a laugh. “Just what you need.”
“Still, at least she’s trying. Anyway, I know there are other ways to have a bigger family. And I guess it could be nice to have another child without feeling so sick that I have to stick my head in a toilet for two months straight.”
Natalie reached out for Gabby’s hand. “No matter what you decide to do, I’ll be here.”
“Thank God. Remember how we didn’t talk to each other for a year?”
“What the hell were we thinking?”
Gabby shook her head and took a slow breath in and out. “On another note, Angus told me he found Rob coming out of your room yesterday morning.” Natalie sputtered, and Gabby gave her a thin smile. “What’s going on there? A hookup of convenience or something more?”
Natalie’s neck flushed red. “I don’t know. It’s, um, amazing. But it’ll go from convenient to inconvenient real fast once we both go home. And it’s not like I’m going to drop everything in my life and move across the country for a man after a week and a half of bliss.”
“Bliss?” Gabby asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No, I didn’t mean…obviously this time period has not been blissful—”
“It’s fine. I’m happy if something good can come out of all this, especially if it involves you getting your world rocked.”
“Look. It’s been unreal. But throwing yourself into something so impractical is what you do when you’re twenty-three years old, not thirty-two.” At twenty-three, your body was resilient and your heart was too. Now, if Natalie slept at the wrong angle, she couldn’t move her neck for days. So if she threw everything into taking a shot with Rob and it didn’t work out, how the hell was her heart supposed to recover?
“Unless,” Gabby said slowly, “after years of dating and experience, you feel in your bones that this one is different.”
Natalie swallowed against a lump in her throat.
“But I don’t want to pressure you to do anything. I love you and am interested in your life even if you decide to never pursue a romantic relationship again.” Gabby’s tone was so sincere she had to be teasing a little bit, and Natalie’s heart lifted. Because here was a spark of Gabby’s old mischief. And a spark meant that things were getting better, starting to heal.
“I would swat you if you weren’t recovering from surgery,” Natalie said. “Now, shall I keep reading to you?”
“Sorry, this book is not holding my attention. Not its fault. Nothing I’m trying to read has been grabbing me.” She flashed Natalie a look, a slyness in her eyes, another spark. “Maybe I should finally finish Apartment 2F.”
“Oh Lord, don’t,” Natalie said. Words came to her mind as if they’d been there for a long time, so she just opened her mouth and said them. “I’ll write you something better.”
Gabby leaned back into her pillow. “Really?”
No.Even considering trying to write a novel again filled Natalie with anxiety. But Gabby was looking at her with hope. Sincere hope. “Well, maybe.”
Maybe she could. Open up a new, terrifyingly blank Word document and write something that tried not to impress people but to comfort them. Not in the mindless comforting way of Meant 2B, though, where a viewer never risked feeling anything. A story that was honest about life but approached it with warmth and hope instead of a cynical eye. The kind of thing they all wanted to read, needed to read, in such strange and uncertain times. Something to show Gabby that the narrative dominating her life right now didn’t have to be her story forever. The impulse solidified in Natalie’s mind, sending her imagination racing, her heart thumping with adrenaline.
She could start by writing this one just for Gabby. And if it turned into something more…well, she would see what happened.
Dammit, Rob was right. She wasn’t done trying after all.
“Not maybe,” Natalie said. “Yes.”