Chapter 36 Nathan
Nathan
Night falls fast on the sound. In my studio, the light changes from amber to blue to the flat black of river mud, each shift making the paint on my easel look like a different idea altogether.
The windows are open, and the air is thick with salt and the far-off song of tree frogs starting their shift.
I don’t turn on the overheads; I work in the hush, lit only by the small desk lamp and the glint of pigment on palette.
The painting in front of me is a mess—layers built up, scraped down, rebuilt.
It’s supposed to be a horizon, but the line between sea and sky keeps drifting, refusing to settle.
Maybe that’s what I like about it. Most of my life, I’ve craved sharp lines and clean endings, but out here, everything blurs.
Edges dissolve. Even grief gets softer if you leave it out in the brine long enough.
I rinse my brush, wipe my hands on a rag, and stare at the canvas like it might offer a verdict.
In the background, the old dock clock ticks, the one Sara found at a flea market the month I moved in.
It’s twenty minutes slow, always will be, but I keep it anyway, a small rebellion against my own need for precision.
The phone rings. I expect it to be Diane, maybe Cassie, calling to check on me the way I check on them, as if any of us could drown without warning.
I pick up, already half-smiling. “Hello?”
A pause, then a voice I haven’t heard in almost a year. Clear, measured, with a trace of city in the vowels.
“Nate. It’s me.”
My spine goes rigid. I slide onto the nearest stool, careful not to knock over the jar of turpentine. “Melissa?” I say, and the name is a stone in my mouth.
She laughs, soft and familiar, and for a second I’m twenty-seven again, standing in the kitchen of our old apartment with the window open and her hair a storm cloud around her face.
“I didn’t think you’d answer,” she says.
“I always answer,” I say and then want to take it back. The truth is, I’d stopped expecting to hear from her. Stopped expecting to hear from anyone, really, except the three people who make my life feel less like a waiting room.
I breathe in slowly, trying not to let her hear how fast my heart is running. “Is everything okay?” I ask, because I don’t know what else to say.
She tells me about the city, about her new job at the museum, and the apartment she finally bought.
Her voice is warmer than I remember, or maybe I just forgot how easy it is to get lost in it.
She asks about my gallery, about the coast, about the weather.
She doesn’t ask if I’m seeing anyone new, and I’m grateful for that.
We talk for a while, about nothing and everything, until Melissa’s voice changes, a note of intent threading through. “I’ve been thinking about coming down,” she says. “Just for a weekend. See the gallery, maybe catch up.”
There’s a hollow where the words land, the kind of silence you only get from old wounds. I study the horizon on my canvas, the place where sea and sky refuse to meet.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Mel.”
“Oh?”
“It’s just… I’m not sure that’s what either of us need right now,” I reply, and this time the words fit.
From the other end of the line, I can almost hear her deflating. “I see.”
“I'm sorry, Mel,” I say, and it feels inadequate, this apology that can mend neither old wound nor dashed hopes.
“No, no, it’s okay. I just thought…maybe we could… I miss you, Nathan.” Her voice is a whisper, a ghost of the woman I knew.
I squeeze my eyes shut, clutching the phone tighter as if I could hold onto her through the miles. I miss her too. But I’ve learned that missing someone isn’t a good enough reason to invite them back into your life, especially when the wreckage of your past still litters the ocean floor.
“I miss you too, Mel,” I admit. “At least, I did. But some bridges are better left in ruin.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. It’s like she’s been struck, and that sound, that tiny gasp of pain, it cuts through me like a scalpel, dissecting old scars. “You’re right,” she says. “You always were. Well, goodbye, Nate.”
And then she hangs up. The line goes dead, and the room plunges back into silence.
I return to the canvas, pick up the brush, and draw a new line where the old one blurred away.
Not perfect, not clean, but solid enough to build on.
I work in the dark, letting the sound of the water and the memory of other voices fill the space around me.
When I look up, the horizon is still shifting, but it’s closer than before.