Chapter 14 #2
“Indeed. And that is all I will say on the subject. Now, onto practical matters. You have been, as I said, an exemplary student and I have no wish to put a C, or, God forbid, a D on your transcript. So regardless of what you decide in a larger sense, I will offer you a bargain. Come to every class these last two weeks of term with your full attention. Come to every shift in the lab—unless classwork conflicts, and you give advance notice. Study diligently for my final exam, and score at least 85%. If you do all that, I will give you a B for the semester, and I will keep you on at the lab for the fall. Do we have a deal?”
Despite his crummy—he couldn’t call it anything else—work the last few weeks, his advisor was offering him a way out with a decent grade. “Yes, Scott—I mean, Professor.” He extended a hand for his advisor to shake. The man grinned again. It really was weird to see.
“Excellent, Mr. Keller. I shall expect you in the lab tomorrow morning.” The grin faded away, and Professor Maddox appeared lost in thought for a moment.
“One more thing, and I am not sure I should tell you this. But I am your advisor, and as much as you probably won’t like hearing it, it is the truth.
Whatever choice you make, it will be difficult.
And you will always question whether you were right, regardless of how you decide.
” He gestured towards the photos on the bookshelf behind him—presumably his wife and children.
“I love my family with all my heart. I would like to believe that I have been a good husband and a good father. I have never been disloyal or unfaithful. And yet, after all these years, if Emma were to show up in my doorway right now and ask me to run away with her, I cannot honestly say what I would do.”
Nora , April 11
How had she fallen so far behind?
Nora knew she wasn’t feeling 100%—and hadn’t been for a week—but a stupid little cold was no excuse for sleeping through her eight o’clock. class this morning, or forgetting about two different assignments, or collapsing into bed before nine o’clock every night this week.
Schoolwork wasn’t the only thing she was missing. Rachel had called twice this week and she’d meant to call back but something had always interrupted her before she could. And she hadn’t seen—or even spoken to—Daniel since last Thursday.
She knew he’d called, because Kim gave her the messages. And she knew he’d come by, because Kim left his handwritten notes, and the container of chicken soup he’d brought by yesterday, on her side of the desk.
She hadn’t even recognized her own voice when she heard herself last night yelling about the soup. “I can take care of myself! I don’t need anybody to tell me what to eat or when to go to bed or how to blow my nose!”
Kim had stared at her like she was a Martian or something, but she didn’t actually say anything.
Nora could only imagine the freakish look she must have given her roommate.
It was only now, a day later, thinking about it, that she realized she’d heard that exact rant before.
It was her mother’s words coming out of her mouth, with a combination of her mother’s vicious sarcasm and her father’s anger.
And it was even worse because she didn’t know why she was feeling any of it.
Thank God Daniel wasn’t there to hear it. All he was doing was trying to help. That’s all he ever did, and she had lost her mind over it. If she didn’t pull herself together, she was going to drive him away—maybe for good.
It was a small mercy that she hadn’t thrown the soup container against the wall. Kim must have been afraid of that, because the soup had disappeared right after Nora went into the bathroom to cough up brownish-green gunk for fifteen minutes.
All this craziness—ignoring her boyfriend, blowing off her aunt, neglecting schoolwork—for a little head cold? How was that possible?
Daniel , April 16
He hadn’t properly spoken to Nora in almost two weeks. He’d been so busy trying to honor his promise to Professor Maddox, and to catch up on all the other classwork he’d neglected, he hadn’t even had time to miss her
Except at night, when he lay there alone, remembering how it felt to fall asleep with her in his arms, her laughter at some silly joke the last thing he heard before drifting off.
What if he forgot what that felt like?
What if she did? What if she wanted to forget it? He’d been busy, but if she’d knocked on his door, or just called to talk for an hour or three, he would have made time.
He had a key to Ellis Hall, and the code for the alarm system. If making time for her meant he had to get up at four in the morning and walk over there in the dark to get his work done, he would have done it. But she didn’t knock, or call or anything else.
She’d been sick, that was true. But he’d tried to bring her cold medicine.
And hot soup. And even a chocolate Frosty, which cost him $40 counting the taxi fare to the nearest Wendy’s and back.
But he hadn’t even been able to give any of it to her in person; it was always her roommate answering the door.
Nora hadn’t thanked him; hell, she hadn’t even acknowledged him at all. It was like she’d become a completely different person overnight.
Maybe his father had been right, and he’d just been pretending he was ready for love when he obviously wasn’t.
If he couldn’t even help her through a cold and feeling overwhelmed by classes, how could he ever take care of her if something serious happened?
Maybe he didn’t even know what love meant at all.
At least he could control his schoolwork.
He could finish the semester strong, earn back Professor Maddox’s trust, and get ready to do a good job in Pittsburgh over the summer.
He could make his father proud, and help pay next year’s tuition, and start to build the future everybody wanted him to have.
Until—unless—Nora knocked, or called, or did anything reach out, that would have to be good enough.
Nora , April 18
Last night, she finally got the call she’d been expecting for two weeks. The only thing that surprised her was that it had come from Rachel, not her father.
He’d broken up with Joelle, and he hadn’t even had the nerve to tell her about it directly; he left it to his sister to break the news to Nora.
She had known it was coming. They’d been dating almost six months, and his relationships never lasted longer than that.
“He said they started drifting apart, just stopped talking, and he didn’t want to hurt her any worse than she was already feeling,” Rachel had told her. That’s how it always seemed to go with her father.
But on the phone with her aunt, Nora had lost her temper. She didn’t even remember everything she’d said, except that it had been ugly and horrible and she hated herself afterwards for it.
That, and after she hung up on Rachel, she’d screamed loud enough that it hurt her throat, and long enough that it brought Karen Quinn all the way from the other side of the floor to see what was wrong.
If only Daniel were here, if only she could talk to him. He’d make everything better.
Except he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Because she’d been dating him for six months, too. And apparently that was the expiration date for love in her family.
She’d already been pushing him away the whole month, just like her father had done to poor Joelle. A very sweet woman who’d done nothing to deserve what happened to her, any more than Daniel deserved her ignoring him and brushing off every kind thing he tried to do.
She had to at least be stronger than her father and be honest with Daniel about what a disaster of a girlfriend—a human being—she was.
But she had an insane amount of schoolwork to get through, and final exams to prepare for, before she could tell him what a mess she’d become, and how much better off he’d be without her.
She could tell her father to his face that she was just as good at hurting people she claimed to love as he was, but she couldn’t face telling him she’d flunked out of school, too.
If she couldn’t be a good girlfriend, or even a good person, at least she could be a good student.
That had to count for something, didn’t it?
Daniel , April 23
Another week, and he still hadn’t seen his girlfriend.
Was she even his girlfriend anymore?
He’d thought about going over to Morris Hall and banging on her door until she answered. But that only worked in movies. In real life, it would just get him escorted out of the building by campus security, if not something worse.
Then he’d thought about lurking around Addison Hall and catching her by surprise after she got out of class. But that felt creepy, bordering on stalkerish. Whatever had gone so wrong between them wouldn’t get better if she thought he was spying on her.
His last idea was to call her aunt. He remembered the phone number for her apartment from Christmas—he never forgot phone numbers. She might not be home, and she might not speak to him if she was, but he felt like there was at least a nonzero chance that something good might come of it.
It still took him half an hour to work up the nerve to dial the phone.
She answered right away. “Hello?”
“Uh, hi. Rachel? You don’t know me, but I’m Daniel. Nora’s boyfriend?”
She made a sound that he couldn’t place—partly a sigh, partly a curse she barely suppressed. “It’s nice to finally talk to you, but I wish the circumstances were better.”
What did she mean by that? “I know she’s not doing well, but she won’t talk to me. I want to help—I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I called you.”
She cursed again; he heard it for sure this time. “I know she’s not talking to you. She isn’t talking to anybody.” There was a bitter laugh. “I know she loves you, Daniel. And God knows she needs you right now. But—I hate to say this—I don’t think she’s going to let you in. Or anyone else.”
“I don’t understand.”
Yet another curse. “She learned some very crappy lessons from her parents. I shouldn’t be saying any of this, but you deserve to know. She learned that people who love her always end up hurting her. So I think she’s decided to push you away before you hurt her, too.”
“I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt her!” Not on purpose. But she was hurt the morning after his birthday, when he found out about the summer job, wasn’t she?
“No, I don’t think you would. But she doesn’t know that. Maybe she’ll figure it out one day. But—I am so sorry, Daniel—I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”
Nora , April 27
The phone rang a dozen times. Usually Kim answered it by the third ring, but now she just sat on her bed staring back and forth between it and Nora. When whoever was calling finally gave up, Kim asked her, anger in her tone, “Are you ever going to answer the phone, Nora? Or talk to anybody?”
Why? What was the point? If it was Rachel, she’d only be calling with another lecture.
If it was her parents, there wasn’t anything they could possibly say that she’d want to hear.
And if it was Daniel, he’d probably be calling to dump her, and while she didn’t blame him—she had been the crappiest girlfriend imaginable for the past several weeks—that wasn’t something she was prepared to hear now.
“It was probably for you anyway.”
Kim growled—Nora had never heard her roommate make that sound before. “God, Nora! What the hell is wrong with you? I mean, I’ve been patient because you were sick, and you were really swamped for a while, but you’re not the only person who ever had a bad couple of weeks.”
She didn’t understand. She didn’t have everybody who was ever supposed to care about her let her down. She wasn’t doomed to let down everybody she cared about. “It’s easy for you to talk, as if you know anything about me.”
“Only because you never let me know anything real about you! Not once! You talk and joke and make sarcastic comments, but the second something real happens, you shut down like it’s a crime to feel anything!
” Kim stopped for a second, catching her breath, then she went on.
“Except with your boyfriend, and you’ve been pushing him away, too.
It’s like you want to be miserable, just so you can say you were right all along about how rotten everyone is. ”
How could she say that? That was the most vicious, the most awful thing anybody had ever said to her. She hated Kim for saying it.
And maybe the truest thing, too. She hated Kim even more for that.