October 8, 2020
When Nathaniel wakes, his mouth is dry, a dull throb behind his eyes. He straightens out his legs to stretch and immediately registers a pleasant weight on his chest. Cracking his eyes open, the first thing he sees is Rebecca's chestnut curls fanning out over his bicep, her nose tucked adorably into his t-shirt near his armpit. Her forehead is smooth, all her features relaxed, and her mouth hangs half-open with a hint of drool at the corner of her lips.
He runs his fingertips lightly through her hair then down her arm, allowing himself the momentary indulgence of watching her sleep. He wants to commit it all to memory – the sight of her so serene and peaceful in his arms, her achingly familiar smell, the cozy warmth of her body at his side. When he shifts the most miniscule amount to stretch his stiff muscles, she nuzzles deeper into the crook of his arm. He wants to memorize that too. All of it. Every tiny detail of this moment. These are the moments he took for granted during the scant, blissful few weeks they dated. Then, he spent years longing for those same moments like some lovesick fool, hoping someday he would have the opportunity to recreate them.
And like the perpetual lovesick fool he is, he drops his nose into her hair and inhales, breathing her in. Truly pathetic. He tries to shush that voice in his head, idly wondering if they could spend the entire day snuggled up in bed together. Unfortunately, he cannot turn off the voice telling him that it's still a work day, no matter how amazing it feels to wake up with her like this.
He glances over at the night table where his phone is resting. Though he wants to know exactly how late to work he'll be, he also doesn't want to disturb her sleep and let the moment slip away. The empty wine bottle next to his phone sparks a blurry string of memories, culminating in Rebecca's echoing words that make his stomach lurch:
All wrong. This is all wrong.
Mere seconds before she uttered those devastating words, she had kissed him so intensely, so passionately, he could have sworn they were on the same page. He even dared to believe she loved him. None of it makes any sense. The more he thinks about the sequence of events, the less he understands.
Worry, stark and foreboding, looms over him like a dark cloud. He still doesn't want to wake her, but not because he wants to stay in the warm halo of morning-after bliss. No, now he fears the conversation to come once she rouses from her dreams. Though he may be slightly hungover, he can still envision the outcome with terrifying clarity – her, pushing him away, running away. The thought makes him ill. Is he stuck running in circles, forever chasing her, futilely hoping one day it will be different?
With reluctance, he slides his arm out from underneath her and manages to ease out of bed with only a minimal amount of jostling. Rebecca stirs when his feet hit the hardwood and he freezes. Without opening her eyes, she grabs his pillow and hugs it closer, burrowing her face into it with a gentle smile on her lips.
After closing the door quietly behind him, he pads into the kitchen while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He fetches a drinking glass from the cabinet, fills it to the brim with water from the faucet, and chugs it with gusto.
For a brief moment he contemplates leaving. At the very least, it would buy him some time to think about what he wants to say. Truth be told, if she thinks last night was a mistake, he wants to be the one to say it first. For once, he wants the control. For once, he wants to be the one who walks away without a gigantic bruise to his ego and an even bigger one on his heart.
The problem with leaving, however, is that he knows her too well. He knows about her abandonment issues. He remembers her recounting of Greg leaving her in the middle of an argument and her subsequent spiral. When it comes to Rebecca, leaving is the nuclear option. The last thing he wants is to blow up their entire relationship over one drunken make out.
Footsteps tip-tap down the hall and he holds his breath. When AJ crosses the threshold into the kitchen, he stops short and his eyes go wide. He assesses Nathaniel head-to-toe as he stands there, smackdab in the middle of their kitchen in his pajamas as he wipes his lips with the back of his hand.
A playful smile then tugs at his lips and he's back to his snarky self. "Thank god," he says with a groan, "This whole will-they, won't-they crap has been exhausting. I never pegged you as the type to move this slow. Guess I owe Mrs. Hernandez twenty bucks."
Rebecca's door creaks open and she scurries to the bathroom without even casting a glance their way.
AJ quirks his eyebrow at Nathaniel and says, "Walk of shame, huh? So, did you salt her pretzel? Or would it be she who salted your pretzel?"
Nathaniel runs his hand over his face. "What? Ew. No. Not really. It's complicated," he says.
AJ crosses his arms and says, "I fail to see how this is complicated. What I do see is you pining away for her every morning at the Rebetzel's counter. Following her into the women's bathroom. And buying Sugar Face for her! None of my friends are dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars on commercial real estate for me, I'll tell you that much. And that's only the stuff I know about. So please explain to me how this is complicated, because it seems pretty straightforward to me."
"Hold on. I didn't buy Sugar Face for her, per se . . . "
Before he can elaborate, Rebecca joins them in the kitchen, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, all the makeup rubbed off her face.
"Hey," she says to Nathaniel, hesitantly, a shy smile on her lips.
Nathaniel sets the water glass down on the kitchen island. "Hey," he replies in a gentle tone reserved only for her.
"Can we talk?"
Nathaniel's stomach drops.
"That's never a good sign," AJ says warily. He gestures back-and-forth with his two pointer fingers, adding, "There's some weird ass energy between you two."
In a voice much more polite than their usual quippy back-and-forth, Rebecca asks, "AJ, can you give us some space please?"
"So, no carpool today then or . . .?"
Rebecca locks eyes with Nathaniel, her expression soft and pleading.
"I'll take that as a no," AJ says and walks out the front door, leaving them alone.
Rebecca leads them to the couch and sits, patting the seat next to her. He sits a few inches away, careful not to touch her. Turning slightly toward her, he searches her face for any hints of what's going on behind her eyes. He wishes more than anything he could read her mind, but her gaze is fixed on her lap, her fingers picking at her cuticles, giving him nothing to go on. The silence is a proverbial game of chicken that grows more uncomfortable with each second that passes.
He takes a deep breath. "About last night –" he starts.
"You think it was a mistake," she finishes, as if she knew the ending of the sentence before he even did.
"That's not . . . Do you think it was a mistake?"
"You had a real deer-in-headlights look back there," she says, nodding toward the kitchen, "and I thought maybe you thought it was a mistake."
She finally makes eye contact with him, lifting her eyebrows expectantly. For some reason she seems so much smaller than usual. While their size disparity has always been there, he rarely notices it, her larger-than-life personality often filling up their gap in stature. Barefaced and barefoot and with her hair pulled back, she looks so vulnerable – meek, even – and it makes his breath catch.
She's rubbing her hand up and down her own arm compulsively and he has to shake off the urge to soothe her. Determined to stick to the facts, he states, "Last night, you said what we did was wrong."
Shaking her head, she stops him before he can say more. "I know. I'm sorry," she says, "I guess I thought if we started sleeping together again, it would be different."
If we started sleeping together again, he repeats in his mind. So this is about sex? It always comes back to sex with them, doesn't it? If there's one thing he knows for certain it's that he cannot be her friend with benefits. He can't be her confidant and her support system and her best friend and her fuck buddy, then someday watch her fall in love with someone else. He's self-aware enough to know he can't handle that.
More than anything, he realizes, he's mad at himself. He chose to come over here, fresh off their kiss at Sugar Face. He brought over a bottle of wine. He drank too much. He offered her a massage. He put his hands down her pants. He initiated everything. All of it. If he destroyed their friendship because he can't keep his hands to himself, then it's his own damn fault. If she's about to reject him for the millionth time, he asked for it. Deep down, he knew it could happen. He knew he could end up in the same place he's been over and over again with her.
It hits him like a slap in the face, then. All the countless hours he's spent with her since he returned from Guatemala when he could have been finding someone else who could actually love him in return. All the wasted time.
Like a reaction to being burned, he blurts out, "I can't do this anymore."
Her mouth forms an o-shape and she lets out a long, shaky exhale. "Wh- What do you mean?"
"We both know what happens when we sleep together. I can't go through it all again. I can't go backwards. I can't –"
"No, Nathaniel, I don't want that either," she interrupts, her voice a little frantic, bolting to the edge of her seat.
"Please," he says, holding up both his hands, "I'm trying . . . There are things I need to say to you."
Rebecca's gaze flits back down to her hands. "Sorry, keep going."
He clears his throat and says, "Since I came back from Guatemala, you know I've been trying to date other people."
Again, Rebecca erupts in an outburst, covering her face with both hands, "Oh god, you're seeing someone else. You have a girlfriend."
He recoils. "What? No, god no," he says, his defenses rising. "When would I even have time for a girlfriend? I'm with you all the time. God, can you just listen to me for five seconds?"
He doesn't mean for it to come out as harshly as it does, but after all this time and how deeply they've grown to know each other, he's offended. How could she think he's still capable of behaving like he did during the darkest chapter in their history?
Rebecca squeezes her eyes shut. "Sorry. I'll shut up now, I promise."
"I told you I deleted those apps months ago. I did it because I was spending all my free time with you. And every woman . . . I measured every woman against you. I would ask myself: Are they as smart as Rebecca? As funny? As beautiful? When you're in my life, I can't even see anyone else. How will I ever have room in my life for someone else when all I can see is you?"
Rebecca's back to self-soothing, wringing her fingers together and biting her lip.
He continues, "As much as I love the closeness we have – I mean, god, it's what I always wanted with you – we can't keep this up forever. Believe me when I say this is killing me, but I think it's the right thing for both of us."
"Oh," she breathes. Her shoulders slump and she nods slowly, processing his words.
He scrubs his hand over his face. "Honestly, it wasn't until my mom was in the hospital that I realized how I feel about you," he says. A small, rueful chuckle bubbles up in his throat. "Again," he adds, "How I feel about you again. Or maybe I never stopped. I don't even know anymore."
"How you feel," she repeats softly to herself.
He's already revealed more than he wanted and it suddenly fills him with such an intense self-loathing he can't stand to even be in his own skin.
Standing from the couch in a panic, he says, "I have to go. I'm sorry. I can't be here right now."
He walks toward the door until her timid voice breaks the silence and stops him dead in his tracks.
"Do you love me?"
Hearing her say it out loud is a gut punch he wasn't prepared for. The words sting and he wishes he would have bitten his tongue clean off rather than admit his feelings again.
When he turns to face her, he can tell by her expression – so open and vulnerable and innocent – that the question has not a shred of malice behind it. She's not trying to rub salt in the wound. She simply wants to know the answer.
A pinprick stings his eyes and he's not sure how much longer he can stand in front of her, his whole body and soul aching with years of unrequited love for her. As much as he wants to give her those words, to speak out loud the feelings he's been burying deep inside, he can't do it. Without knowing if there's reciprocation on the other end of a declaration of love, he can't risk it all again.
"Please don't make me say it," he whispers, "I can't. I need –"
"What?" she asks softly, her wet eyes pleading.
As embarrassed as he is to admit it, what he needs is commitment. He doesn't even know what that would look like – all he knows is he needs it. She can't promise him forever. She can't promise they'll ride off into the sunset on horses, happily ever after. That's impossible, of course. But he needs something. He needs something unambiguous, tangible, and definitive. If he's going to take that leap of faith again, he needs her to be the first to jump.
"I don't know," he lies, "I'm sorry. This isn't –"
"Black-and-white?" she finishes, offering him a faint, melancholy smile. The idea seems to resonate with her, her eyes filling with tears.
Ironically, the situation has become very black-and-white for him. For once, he's the one craving a black-and-white answer. Never again can he be half-in, half-out with her. Unless she's all-in, this has to be the end of their romantic journey.
She's retreated into one of her daydreams, her gaze in soft-focus on the Dear Evan Hansen piano book on her keyboard across the room. Her breathing is hurried, her brow wrinkled, mouth parted. He's seen that look before. That shell-shocked, conflicted look. She's lost in the recesses of her mind, working something out he's not privy to. It's the look that ends with opening his door to an empty hallway, heartbroken.
So that's it, he thinks. That's my answer.
"Rebecca?"
She blinks hard, snapping back to reality. "Sorry, I'm, um, processing everything," she says. Closing her eyes for a few seconds, she takes a slow, measured breath before continuing, "I'm hearing you. I'm acknowledging your feelings. If this is what you want, then I have to respect and accept it. I get it. I do."
For all the time the two of them have spent working on being better people – trying to be more mature, more evolved, more kind – all he wants is for her to throw it all away. He wants to yell at her to cut it out with the therapy-speak and let her emotions spill out all over the floor. Get messy. He wants to backslide. The part of him that's disgustingly weak for her wants to collapse into her arms and take anything she's willing to give without questioning it.
He swallows hard. "I have to, um, go home, change my clothes, and go to work. And so do you," he says.
She musters a weak smile. While he's still clueless as to what she's thinking, he can tell she's putting on a brave face, letting him walk away with his dignity. It makes him love her even more, as if that were possible.
Ask me, he begs her in his mind, please ask me to stay.
When his hand touches the doorknob, she suddenly gets up, as if realizing it would be rude not to show him out.
Out of sheer habit, he turns when he crosses the threshold. This is the time he would kiss her on the cheek and she rises on her toes in anticipation. If he bends down and dares tempt fate, he knows he'll kiss her – really kiss her – and he won't be able to stop. Instead, he cups her shoulder and squeezes, wishing he could telegraph all his pent-up feelings through the simple touch of his hand. Her chin quivers like she may cry.
When he turns to leave, the click of the door behind him is deafening. He has to remind himself to put one foot in front of the other, painfully aware that each step is one more away from the only woman he's ever truly loved.
As he's walking down the path away from her apartment, he hears a thud on the other side of the door.