"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
These words Nick had chosen were ringing more true than he had intended. Of course, they were poignant as he had thought of them himself, but he had thought of them in light of the events surrounding his time in New York, not of any thing in relation to his own life. However, he found himself thinking back on them more than he should, and they were always paired with thoughts of Gatsby.
Nick had become one of those boats against the current, become what had ended up being the undoing of Gatsby. It was ironic, even, as it seemed to be Gatsby himself who was turning him to this.
When he had been with Jordan, Nick had felt something inside himself. Something that he desperately tried to convince himself was "love". Perhaps it was because she had been the first truly interesting, real woman he had met, or perhaps it was her dichotomy to his cousin, Daisy. How unalike they were, and how that interested him. But that was where it ended. Interest. Curiosity. And that was why it hadn't worked out. Love isn't love when you have to tell yourself that's what it was.
Jordan's chilly response to their last meeting should have struck some sort of deep, aching emotion inside of Nick, if it really was love. Instead, he felt a minor annoyance and a minor perplexity with how it had all shaken out. Several days after that, when he had really thought about it, was when he realized that he had never really felt love for the golfer.
While he was still on that train of thought about love, thoughts of Gatsby started to pop into Nick's head. At first, he dismissed them as stray parts of his consciousness that had simply wandered into the wrong thought process, but those thoughts of Gatsby started to become more pervasive and more frequent. Those thoughts wore Nick down, and instead of frantically swatting them away, back into the crowded nooks of his mind, he actually followed them, unwinding where they led him to. How magnificent Gatsby had looked standing alone on the staircase of his mansion, how his suits always fit him just right. Even though Nick hardly approved of the man, he was obsessed and with these thoughts, and he was allowed to like him; he carefully managed to admit that to himself.
It was when the thought of how nice "Nick Gatsby" sounded snuck into his mind that Nick realized that this was not how a man should be thinking of another man. This was hardly appropriate, and not what Nick had intended to think about. This was going too far. And as such, Nick swore to himself that he would not think about that man any more.
Nick managed to promptly break this promise, as the next day he found his mind absently straying to thoughts of how close they had grown. Were they really close at all? What had the mogul really thought of Nick? His better judgement reminded him to wipe these ideas from his head, but his heart refused. His heart told him that he felt something deeper for Gatsby than he wanted to admit, and his better judgement kicked and screamed and struggled viciously against this hypothesis.
But it was still a hypothesis. Now that it had managed to scrape itself together, it was nigh impossible to get rid of. Nick decided that surely it couldn't hurt to pursue it; of course he knew it would prove to be false, there was no way it could possibly be otherwise.
Nick thought back to the moment when he first found out about what had happened to Gatsby. The sensation that stood out the most was the fact that he felt like he had just received a heavy punch directly in the gut. He couldn't believe it. He simply couldn't believe it. Gatsby had seemed immortal, Gatsby had seemed like he would continue on forever. That first night when the house next to Nick's was silent and devoid of vibrancy was the most startling. Nick had known consciously that this was the way society would expect a neighborhood to be at night, however, it seemed foreign and wrong when he had grown used to the fantastical, elaborate, bloated extravaganzas that had occurred there. It was like a jazzy, raucous tune that had been abruptly silenced by someone smashing the radio it was playing on.
And that feeling, that deep sense of loss that Nick felt, was what philosophers seemed to equate to "love". That sense that part of you was torn out; and although it was a short period of time for another person to become "part of you" was short, Nick felt that was even further evidence.
All of the signs, the constant thought, that emotion, that indescribable heart beat that seemed to cascade over Nick when thoughts of the snappily dressed man entered his mind's eye, seemed to point to what was known to some as "love" for another.
At this realization, Nick started to panic. But, with a few breaths, he managed to clear his head and come up with a perfectly rational, normal explanation. It was merely brotherly love he felt. Merely that camaraderie that was like that built up between men who had served by each other's side in war; and was New York not a war of its own? Had Gatsby not been his compatriot in their trek together surviving, and in Gatsby's case, thriving?
This placated Nick; a man could not have feelings, like those that Nick feared he had, for another man. It was unnatural. Then again, Gatsby himself was anything but natural. And yet, at the same time, he was what people envisioned when they envisioned the American Dream; that which every cold, tired, penniless man dreamed of when he first stepped off the boat which had borne him an eternity away from his home and stepped onto the soil of a land that was as rich with possibilities as the Pope was rich with faith in God.
That night Nick slowly dropped off the brink into sleep with a clear conscience, with all his nagging loose threads of ideas and possibilities taped up. And then, he dreamed. He dreamed a dream of a man, rich with personality, dark with mystery, and dripping with luxury. That man took an interest in one who was hardly half of what that man was, and the lesser man grew an interest as well. No one was between them, not even the rigors of society that should have barred them. And they were happy. Happy together.
Nick woke up with the cold stain of tears upon his cheeks and all of his previously patched up conceptions torn open. He loved Gatsby. He loved Gatsby, and not like a brother or a soldier. He loved him with his heart, open and vulnerable, the way that left you feeling breathless yet aching. The way that perhaps Gatsby had loved Daisy.
Nick loved Gatsby, and it was too late. Nick was a boat, being desperately beat into the past as so many others whose love was untimely was cursed to become.