33. Nate
“Thanks,”
The word barely leaves my mouth, hardly reaching the poor room service attendant, who has seen my face an ungodly amount of times over the past few days, as he wheels out the empty silver cart.
I catch his stare as he backs out into the hallway, passing me a ‘you don’t look like yourred carpet photos’ smile as he does.
The soft click of the hotel room door closing is my signal for my spine to return to thearch it seemed to have favoured existing in recently; the ache that bloomed across my shoulders not as painful as it was when I first noticed it. My hands run over my stubble and through my hair, as I walk over to the table the attendant had set up on the balcony, my breakfast sitting under silver domes that reflect that sunlight.
My bones groan as I fall into the chair below me, an actual groan forcing its way out ofme too. If the room didn’t come with an elliptical, I’d probably feel a lot worse than I did. But even with the workouts I’d forced myself to do, I still felt weak. Pathetic. And the diet of room service probably wasn’t helping with that, nor was the confinement to the room.
I had ventured out in the days since, the day after… you know. I dared the drive to my parents house just outside of Malibu. They’d sold the house that was next to Addy’s years ago, opting for a little condo slightly more inland. And I’m glad they did.
Going back to the place where it all began seemed wrong. Like returning to the scene ofa crime to help with the clean-up, knowing you were the one responsible for the damage.
It was nice, seeing them. My whole family for that matter. They were all there, with awelcome party and roaring barbecue waiting for me to turn up.
But after I came back… I hadn’t found the motivation to leave again.
Which was why I was still wearing the white bathrobe that had been left out the first dayI got here. Why I was eating fresh fruit and slightly stale croissants for the third day in a row. Why the room seemed lifeless, almost a reflection of the man existing in it.
I couldn’t get it out of my mind— any of it. From the second my head sunk into thepillow at night, sleep tormenting me with its promise of escape to the darkness for a few hours, I couldn’t blur the image of her. Her hair was as vibrant as ever, her tears were so shiny they had a glare, and her breaths hit my face, like I’d left the balcony door open and the night air was washing over me.
Pure flames, fighting against the wind.
I couldn’t escape it. And the harder I tried to forget, and distract myself… the more Ithought about it. The more I spiralled. The more the ever-closing walls seemed like the only place I wanted to be.
But I deserved the torment. I deserved every ounce of regret and shame that was pulsingthrough me, mingling with my heartbeat, consuming what was left to feast on. I’d hurt her in ways that a girl like Adaline didn’t deserve to know… there was no one else to blame but myself.
I’d realised this morning that there was only one way to lessen the pressure, rid myself ofwhatever excess guilt was lingering… enough that I could see clearly, figure out how to make this all right. And there was only one person who I knew could survive a talk like that.
I popped a ripe strawberry into my mouth before ditching the morning sun and heading backinto the air-conditioned room, making a beeline for the bedside table where my laptop lay.
I had a rough idea of Alice’s schedule, and after seeing her for years, that was no surprise.
Tuesdays were her quiet days, she told me, that memory sticking with me as I scrolled through my contacts, clicking the FaceTime button without a second thought.
Each ring was even more annoying than the last, the silent prayers I whispered in my mind that herTuesdays were as quiet as she told me they were the only thing to block the noise, and the thought of enduring this for another minute became—
“Nate! Well, this is a surprise.”
Thank you, therapy lords, I owe you.
“Alice, hi.” I cast my eyes down at the screen, the corners of my mouth twitching.
Asmile, as if it had been beaten to within an inch of its life.
I shook my head. “I… I was just hoping…” The words lodged in my throat, probably because I hadn’t spoken to anyone but the room service attendants in days, but I saw Alice’s mouth pry open when she noticed that the words weren’t coming.
“Is everything okay, Nate? I thought we’d postponed your meetings until after you wereback in the city.” she wondered, pressing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
I nodded. “We did… but I’d like to un-postpone them… if that’s okay.”
Her smile was as warm as the sun shining through the windows, brightening the roomwith little effort. Sympathetic eyes, ones that I knew would listen to me at three in the morning if I called, stared at me through the screen, gathering what she could through the pixels.
She went out of frame for a second, the sound of her phone switching off rattling through the speakers below the screen, before she leaned back in her chair and nodded at me.“I’m all ears.”
My head fell forward, as a thankful smile I wasn’t sure if she could see tugged on mymouth, before I slowly lifted back up to face the pixelated version of her. “Thank you,” I nodded. “I appreciate it.”
“Any time, you know that, Nate.” I did. “Now,” The drag of her notepad across her deskbroke up her words, as she plucked a pen from the cup she kept tucked away in the corner of her office. “What’s happened?”
What hasn’t happened would be the better question to ask, but I started with the basics,the one thing that I knew she’d want to hear first. But….
“Just before I start talking… exactly how quiet are your Tuesdays?”
Her brows knitted together. “Why?”
“I think we might be here for a while…”
It was like she could tell by my face, how sunken my eyes were, how messy my hair was,that she knew I wasn’t kidding.
“I better go get my laptop charger then.”
In the years that I’d been going to Alice, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her sospeechless.
“Well,” was all she said when I’d finished talking, and that was around a minute and ahalf ago.
I squinted my eyes at the screen, clocking how not a single part of her had shuffled. “Have you frozen… or are you just in shock?” I asked, a hint of humour coating my voice.
Like someone had pressed play on the scene in her office, Alice shifted, pulling herglasses away from her face and hands pressing into her cheeks, her pinky finger tapping her lip. “Well… I guess if I were to provide you with anything positive to take away from all this, it would be that you can finally throw away that damned photo, finally rid yourself from its torment.”
Highly unlikely, I thought to myself. “To be honest, Alice,” I ran a handthrough my hair. “I think that I could burn it, shred it, and destroy it every way I could think of, and it’ll still torment me. Knowing that it never meant anything in the first place.”
A shrug rolled through her shoulders, as she began to clean her lenses with the electricblue sleeves of her sweater. “But surely, now you know it wasn’t real, it’s going to be easier to move on… you know,” Alice leaned forward and moved her hands, as though she were balancing imaginary weights. “It was a miscommunication, Nate. A, slightly, innocent mistake.”
A snort erupted through my nose. “There’s an innocent mistake, and then there’s what Idid.”
I dropped my head as the words fell out of me, careless and true. I let my balled-up fistcollide with my other hand, cupping it before I brought my eyes back to Alice. “There’s messing up, and then there’s swearing off the girl you love because you thought she’d cheated on you when actually, she never did, and because I was too angry to watch their movie, I wasted too many years hating a girl who never did anything wrong to begin with.”
Her smile went tight, her head tilting as I caught my breath. “Well, yes. There’s that perspective too.” My head fell into my hands. “Have you spoken to her?”
I shook my head free from my grip. “Not since it happened, no.” Silence graced us, thesun simmering and the world getting grey for a moment. “Alice, what do I do?”
Her sigh rattled through the screen. “Nate… you’ve been coming to me for what? Fiveyears now? And I think this is the first time I don’t have a suggestion other than ‘let her come to terms with things’.”
She slid her glasses back on her face, the glare just off in the corners, before she settledher arms back on the desk, talking with them like she always does. “It’s… unique, this situation you’ve found yourself in, and although I feel like I know you better than yourself… it’d be wrong for me to tell you how to fix this when that’s something we both know you need to figure out on your own.”
“But—”
“Don’t let it control you.” I didn’t break our stare as she broke up my words. “You’vesat with your feelings, you’ve wallowed, but encouraging their company is only going to rot you from the inside out.” Her voice was controlled, and calm, all the things I wish I was. “Treat it like the attacks, Nate; breathe through whatever negative feelings that have pounced on you and picture what you could be if you made this right. Picture the good.”
I shot back. “But what if there’s nothing to picture anymore?”
“Oh, there’ll always be something to picture, Nate,” The lines in her smile faded as shesaid, “So long as you let her have her time, and show her that picture. Show her that you care.”
I dropped my stare to the dusty keys of my laptop, idly swiping at them before setting my eyes onAlice again. “And if she doesn’t like the look of it?”
Her shoulder rose to her ears and fell again as she let out a breath, her hurt for me, forAddy, painting her cheeks red as she said calmly, “Then I’ll see you when you’re back. But don’t blame her if she can’t see the beauty of that picture… you broke her heart in more ways than one.”