Chapter Sixteen #2
When Nicholas lets me go, I have to make an admission to myself:
I have no idea what’s happening anymore. It’s terrifying.
–
I’m still hungry, and miracle of miracles: Jackie’s is open.
“On Thanksgiving?” I exclaim to Nicholas after he climbs back into the car with a greasy paper sack.
“They’re always open.”
I look sideways at him. We grabbed so many meals from Jackie’s the first year we dated, before we got engaged and moved in together and I lost my hardware store job all at once. “You still come here a lot, then?”
“Oh, you know . . .” He shrugs. But I don’t rip my gaze from his face, and he eventually spills the truth.
“Sometimes when things aren’t going so great at home, I do.
If I’m worried you’re about to say something .
. . uh . . . that I don’t want to hear, I get in the car and leave.
I’ll say I’m going to Mom and Dad’s, but most of the time I just drive around or I come here.
Look.” He opens the glove box, where a huge stack of extra-large napkins from Jackie’s is crammed.
“You’re worried I’ll say something you don’t want to hear?” I repeat, accepting a carton of fries from him. “Like what?”
He shrugs again, then starts to drive home.
Since it seems he doesn’t want to answer this question, I come up with something else to say. “The plaque on your parents’ house is wrong. The ‘rose by any other name’ one.”
He laughs. “I know. I looked it up once. Don’t tell them, okay? I want to see how long it takes them to find out.”
We share a smile. Nicholas isn’t so bad, maybe.
It’s this goodwill that makes me say, “When we get home, there’s something I want to show you.”
He looks over at me. I feel his stare in the darkness, dividing between my face and the road. He’s quiet but I hear his brain spinning the rest of the way home, wondering what I’m going to show him. I can’t get a read on what his guess might be.
By the time we’re walking through the front door, I’m already regretting this. Why am I so impulsive? I need to take back my offer. I strain to come up with a different secret to show him but draw a blank.
“So,” he says, hedging. “What do you want to show me?”
I’m not sure I still would, were it not for the hesitation in his eyes.
He’s worried. He thinks that whatever it is, it involves him and me, and that it might be bad.
I can’t let him suffer, so I suck it up and summon all my bravery and then some.
Never in a million years did I think I’d voluntarily show him this.
He’s leaning against the kitchen counter when I hand him my phone. “Here.” Then I retreat to the other wall, biting my nails.
He’s even more worried now. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“Check my notes.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
He studies me for a handful of seconds like this might be a trap, then does as he’s told.
I want to snatch my phone back. My face is red and my heart’s in my throat, and if he laughs at me I’m going to cry.
His pity would be even worse. I am so certain that he’s going to think I’m a pathetic loser.
All the evidence is there in his hand. No one wants me.
Look at what you’ve thrown everything away over.
A woman who can’t even get hired as a waitress at Olive Garden.
I watch him read the list that I’ve typed up in my notes, of every single establishment I’ve applied to.
It’s detailed: I describe if I applied online or in person, if I can expect to hear back from them over the phone, by text, or email.
Places I had high hopes for are marked with smiley faces.
The nos are followed by Xs. The places I haven’t heard back from yet have question marks beside them. There are no yesses.
It’s a long list, and it’s full of Xs.
When several minutes pass and he still hasn’t spoken, just staring at my screen as he no doubt decodes it all, I feel like I’m being strangled.
When I was the only one who knew about all these rejections, I was able to handle it.
Now that he knows, it’s freshly humiliating.
I know I’m not worthless, but god is it tough not to feel that way when you’re in the middle of a never-ending streak of This is hard to say, but we’re going with someone else.
We’re very sorry we couldn’t give you better news and we wish you the best of luck.
I’ve got my face in my hands, so when a pair of arms wraps around me I’m not expecting it. His touch tugs all my threads loose, and I start crying into his shoulder. “It’s stupid to cry over this. I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” he murmurs, nuzzling my temple. “It’s not stupid. You have nothing to be sorry for. These places are stupid.”
“They’re not,” I sob.
“They are if they turn you down. I want to get into my car and go throw eggs at all of them.” My sob turns into a laugh, and the cheek he has resting against my hairline tightens, telling me he’s smiling.
But when he pulls back and examines me closely, his eyes are serious.
“I had no idea you’ve applied to so many places. ”
“Yeah, well . . .” I wipe away my tears with my sleeve, averting my gaze. “It’s embarrassing. Especially since you have a stable job. I didn’t know if you’d understand.”
“I would,” he says softly. “And I’d want to be here for you. Support you and make you feel better. I want you to tell me when you get bad news so that you’re not going through it alone.”
“It’s like applying to universities all over again,” I confess.
“I haven’t told you about that, but about two years after high school graduation I decided that I wanted to go to college, so I applied to a bunch of universities all over the country.
I was so hopeful; I thought for sure at least one of them would pick me.
Then I slowly watched all the rejection letters trickle in.
My parents suggested I apply to community colleges instead, because they wouldn’t mind a lower grade point average, but by then I was . . . I don’t know. Jaded, I guess.”
He doesn’t respond the way I think he will.
He doesn’t drill-sergeant me with a list of goals I need to set for myself and carry out, no matter what, no exceptions.
He doesn’t tell me I should have tried harder in high school, and paid more attention, or that if I’d been more focused I could have a bachelor’s degree and a great-paying job by now.
He doesn’t say I planned my life badly and spent my twenties achieving nothing.
Instead, he asks, “What did you want to study?”
“I don’t know, honestly. I thought I’d figure it out as I went along. Never had a specific major in mind—all I wanted was a workplace I looked forward to driving to every day. A small setting with friendly people, like having another family. Somewhere I fit in.”
His eyes are so warm with understanding that I melt. “Like the Junk Yard.”
“Yeah. I didn’t even care that the pay was crappy.
Having fun makes all the difference. Melissa sucked, but I got to hang out with Brandy every day.
I liked the atmosphere and . . . I was comfortable.
It was familiar. We got to listen to whatever music we wanted.
I loved arranging displays and making the store fun for nonexistent customers.
Moving around Toby the raccoon. I’m never going to find a job like that again. ”
He doesn’t say Yes, you will. He hugs me tight and lets me sniffle into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I never would’ve made all those cracks about work and college. Shouldn’t have made them, anyway. If there’s any way I can ever help, will you let me?”
“I don’t think there’s any way you can help.”
He heaves a deep breath. Wipes a tear away with his thumb.
“I’m here, okay?” He grasps my shoulder and squeezes gently.
“These aren’t platitudes. I’m right here.
And I want to listen. Whenever you’re sad, I want to hear why.
I want to know what you’re feeling, all the time, so I can share those feelings with you. ”
I have to shy away from the emotions in his gaze, because my heart is a tight fist in my chest and Nicholas shattering my expectations by being kind and compassionate is constricting it so much that it’s like I’m wearing a corset.
I can’t breathe under the heaviness of his gaze.
I want to trust that he means this, but I can’t.
Right now he’s sweet and empathetic, but what about a week from now?
What if I’m having a bad day and when I tell him about it, I’m not met with this sweet, empathetic variation of Nicholas but the other one?
The one who turned distant when issues arose that he didn’t want to face?
That Nicholas is going to come back, sooner or later, and he’s going to make me sorry for being this vulnerable with him.
I can’t forget what he’s said in the past. Naomi doesn’t need a job.
Don’t punish me for being successful enough to buy a nice vehicle.
His bitterness that I held him back from that job offer in Madison.
He can apologize a thousand times, but I’ll always wonder if he meant what he said. If he believes in me.
“Whatever you want to do,” he tells me, “I’ll support you.”
My mind flashes to the diner in Tenmouth. The haunted house. I say nothing.
“I’m sorry about my mom.”
“Me, too.”
“And my dad.”
“I’m sorry for your dad and Beatrice.”
This gets a chuckle out of him. “Beatrice. Her favorite daughter, Mom used to call her. It’s a mystery why Heather never comes around.”
“Poor Heather.” Maybe she deserves the maid of honor role after all. I feed the errant thought into a wood chipper, because there won’t be a maid of honor. There won’t be a wedding. Nicholas and I can’t even walk down an aisle of wedding decorations, must less the aisle for our real wedding.