As much as Nick wanted to introduce Natalie to his family as soon as possible so that they would get off his case about marrying a girl no one had met, he knew it wasn't entirely feasible and wouldn't be for a while yet. He initially wanted to take her home with him during spring break, but she had obligations to go spend the week with her family, and he couldn't hold that against her.
So he did the next best thing: he told Charlie and Lacey to pick a time when they were both free, and he would get Natalie over to his dorm room and they could all Skype. It wasn't ideal, of course, since Nick was pretty sure that there was something about how Natalie's energy seemed to fill up a room when she walked in that wouldn't come across as easily with hundreds of miles of separation. But he still wanted them to get off his back about it, and he just knew that they would love her just as much as he did.
"I'm a little bit nervous," Natalie said with a quiet laugh, looking over at him as he booted up his laptop.
"Don't worry about it," he said, leaning over and kissing her cheek. "They are really nice. They'll love you."
"I certainly hope so," she said, biting her lip.
"They will," he insisted. "I've told you stories about them, remember? And didn't they sound like nice people?" He gave her a small smile to encourage her, lightly nudging her with his elbow.
"Yes, yes, they sound like nice people," she said with a nod, rolling her eyes at him. "But that doesn't mean that they are guaranteed to like me. I mean, my roommate last year? She was super nice. But she hated me."
"I think that might have had something to do with the fact that you apparently were much more of a night owl than she was. From what I understand, you didn't let her sleep," he said, chuckling softly.
"That isn't really a great reason to hate someone," she said with a shrug. "If she had come to me about it, we could've talked it out or something."
"Yeah, I don't know, maybe there was something else. But I know that you take sleep very seriously," he said, chuckling softly. He gave her a smile before looking back at the computer, pulling up Skype and logging in. Once he was logged in, he saw that Charlie's account was already signed in as well, and almost immediately he had an incoming video call from his brother. "You ready?" he asked, looking over at her.
"Ready as I'll ever be," Natalie said with a soft sigh, nodding.
"Alright," he said, smiling as he clicked the button to accept the call.
Nick couldn't help himself but to smile a bit more as the screen filled with his brother's face and then, slowly and with the confusion to technology usually reserved for the elderly, Lacey's, as well. It had been long enough since he had seen them that it made him ache just a bit to see the looks on their faces and how close they were to each other, their sides pressed up together on Charlie's bed.
"Hello, my sweet baby brother," Lacey greeted with a bright smile.
"You have never spoken to me like that," he replied with a laugh. "Don't try and scare Nat into thinking that we talk like that."
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," she replied and chuckled softly, the sound crackling through his speakers.
"Charlie, give her a good shove for me," Nick said, rolling his eyes fondly at her.
Charlie did as he was told, and Lacey made a show of falling over as a result and then picking herself back up. Nick wrapped himself up in the feeling of seeing the both of them in front of him, so normal and real before his eyes, and it took Natalie clearing her throat (maybe the slightest bit uncomfortably, he'd think in hindsight) for him to remember why exactly he had planned this with them.
"Anyways," he said, wrapping an arm around his fiancee's shoulders and pulling her in closer to him. "Charlie, Lacey, this is Natalie. Natalie, these are Charlie and Lacey. I apologize in advance on their behalf."
"It's nice to meet you," Natalie greeted with a small wave at the camera. In the corner of Nick's screen, he watched the small, fuzzy feed from his camera with a small smile.
"I don't know what you think you're apologizing for," his brother said with a laugh. "You are every bit as bad as we are."
"That's just not true," he insisted. Looking over at Natalie, he smiled and repeated, "It's not true. I promise."
Natalie chuckled softly, shaking her head. "It's absolutely fine, Nick," she said. "I know that you can get a little bit... abstract, for lack of a better word."
"I prefer the term 'batshit crazy', myself, but I think that works out alright, too," Lacey said with a soft laugh. A moment passed where the four of them all exchanged smiles and laughter through the video, then Lacey got serious again as she went on, "Anyways, we need to start to get to know you."
"Okay," Natalie said with a nod, smiling softly.
"So, you're a year ahead of Nickster, right?" she asked.
"Yes, I am."
"And you're majoring in...?"
"Pre-Law," she answered. "My plan is to graduate from here, then head up to New York for Columbia law." Her words came easily to her, the same plan that Nick had heard her explain countless times, the same plan that he was fairly certain she had had since she could talk. Or at least for the past several years, much earlier than most other people even started to seriously consider their futures.
(Which was, actually, another reason that Nick felt so good about wanting to marry her: Natalie was exactly the kind of person who liked to make plans, and she stuck to her plans. She had once told him, in fact, that she wanted to marry young, definitely by twenty-five. He was becoming a part of her master plan, and that felt amazing.)
"Ah, so you're going to be a lawyer," Charlie said, nodding slowly. "That's really nice."
As Natalie smiled at his words and thanked him, Lacey raised her eyebrows slightly and she said, "Nick didn't tell us about that." He could almost hear her making some comment about lawyers not having souls, and he was just grateful that she didn't actually say anything of the sort out loud.
"Well, from what I understand, he didn't really tell you much about me at all," Natalie said, and it was just another testament to how patient and truly perfect she was that there was no hint of bitterness or irritation in her words.
"That's very true," Charlie said with a small nod. In spite of how Nick knew that he disapproved of him getting engaged to Natalie, he was still clearly making an attempt to make this more comfortable and positive for everyone as he said, "But I imagine it has something to do with the fact that he didn't think words alone were enough to do you justice. Besides, we can get to know you now."
Natalie smiled softly at his words, a soft giggle passing through her lips. She brought her hand up to cover her mouth as she laughed, and on the computer screen Nick could see the light catching on the small diamond on her ring. "That's true," she said. "So, what else would you like to know about me?"
"Well... Hm," Charlie started, pausing to consider the question. "Where's your family from?"
"Up in Oregon, actually," she said with a smile. "Not anywhere near Portland, though, just to be clear."
"Hey, I went to Portland a few times, it's pretty nice," Lacey said, shaking her head slightly.
"Oh, sure, but it's got that reputation, you know how it is," she said, shrugging.
Lacey nodded slowly, shrugging. "Anyways, any siblings?"
"Two brothers. One younger, one older."
The conversation went back and forth for a while, Natalie easily explaining who exactly she was to his siblings. After a while Nick decided to steer the conversation a bit, getting Lacey and Charlie to talk about themselves as well; even though Natalie seemed to be perfectly alright with facing the Spanish Inquisition, he thought it might make her a bit more comfortable to know a bit more about his background as well, to give all of them a bit more of an even footing in things.
When they disconnected the call after about an hour, Nick had a smile on his face as he kissed Natalie and said goodnight to her, feeling good about things now that Natalie and Lacey and Charlie had all met each other. It was no longer having over his head, and overall they seemed to get along pretty well, any of Lacey's misgivings notwithstanding. There was no outright animosity, anyways, and everything could be smoothed out over the years at Thanksgiving and other holidays.
Overall, Nick wasn't really much of a drinker. He found that he had better things to do with his time in general, and for the most part when he drank all that happened was that his body felt too hot and he got overly confused about simple things.
So to him, having a holiday that was celebrated almost exclusively by getting ridiculously intoxicated didn't really hold much appeal, especially not when a guy down the hall from him started telling anyone who would listen that the best hangover cure would be to simply drink more.
That said, he wasn't about to run around shitting on everyone else's St. Patrick's Day. Or even his fiancée's, even with the knowledge that alcohol made her feel a bit more... free-spirited. Natalie had asked him if he was interested in going out to some big party that a lot of the business students were holding, and as much as he loved spending time with her, he did not love spending time with people making drunken fools of themselves.
So instead of subjecting himself to that torture, he had told her to go ahead and go to the party without him, to find some friends to go with. She did, after all, have a lot of friends, and Nick was fairly certain there was some hidden textbook for girls out there that outlined proper party behavior, and it involved looking out for each other before anything else. He felt confident that it would work out and her friends would keep her out of trouble.
With that decision made, he also planned that he was going to stay in his dorm for essentially the entirety of St. Patrick's Day and the entire weekend the holiday was backed up against. Ideally, the only person he would have to face drunk was Bennett, and he was fairly certain that he could live with that.
He didn't mind the solitude, really. Especially considering the fact that for about the past month, he had spent what some might consider to be a ridiculous about of time with his fiancée. It wasn't that it felt too clingy or anything, hell, he loved being able to be that close with a person that they could spend that much time together and still be excited by each other's company. No, the problem was purely in the fact that he was giving more attention to Natalie than he was to literally any of his classes.
Saturday was spent almost entirely just with one textbook after another on his lap as he caught up on work. Most parties were that night, seeing as St. Patrick's Day itself was on a Monday and getting wasted on a Monday when you had an 8 AM class the next day wasn't what most people considered pleasant.
Seeing how hungover and miserable Bennett was in the morning, Nick decided that he would indeed get out of the dorm that day.
He made a trip over to the grocery store over on Main, picking up some crackers, ibuprofen, and Gatorade before he made his way to Natalie's apartment. He smiled to himself as he headed up the stairs to her door with the grocery bag on his arm, fishing his keys out of his pocket so that he could let himself in.
Walking into the apartment and looking around, he saw that everything was about as he expected it to be: completely quiet and with a few things laying around, since Natalie couldn't be bothered to actually put things away neatly when she was drunk and stumbling in after a party.
Her roommate was sitting on the couch looking at something on her phone, and the girl only looked up briefly and gave Nick a small smile before returning her attention to whatever was on the screen in her hand.
Nick gave her a quick greeting, since he figured it was only polite despite not really knowing the girl very well beyond basic introductions and one night of hanging out, before going further into the apartment and making his way to Natalie's bedroom.
He fixed the bag on his arm to be more comfortable before opening the door and stepping inside. The sight that greeted him when he did so was enough to stop him in his tracks, and if he had been holding anything in his hands it would've promptly fallen to the ground.
In Natalie's bed, the girl was laying on top of the covers, entirely naked. It would've been a fairly welcome sight for him, if it wasn't for the equally naked man laying beside her, his tanner-than-Nick's arm slung across her waist.
And Nick, being far too forgiving for his own good, probably would've been willing to accept something that as a general rule. He might've gotten mad; no, he definitely would have gotten mad, but in the long run he knows that that feeling would not have lasted long and he would have forgiving Natalie for clearly having cheated on him. His mind went into overdrive in the milliseconds it took for him to realize what he had just walked into, coming up with reasons this wasn't that bad and how she could be forgiven: she was drunk, she didn't really know what she was doing, maybe they hadn't had sex, really.
That is, of course, if it wasn't for the fact that both the people in the bed were clearly awake and still... enjoying themselves, hours after they should have been done drinking from the party Natalie had gone to.
A noise fell from Nick's throat, something that wasn't quite words. He cleared his throat and tried again, saying with a bit more conviction and confidence, "What the fuck, Natalie?"
There was a gasp from the bed and the man was quickly flung off of Nick's fiancee. "Nick, oh my god, hi," she said quickly, her voice too high in pitch and breathy the way she only should have been after running a marathon (just like they'd been planning on doing later in the spring). "It's not what it looks like. What are you doing here?"
He wasn't sure what to do with himself. No part of him had been ready to face this kind of thing, it had never even crossed his mind. So he just turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him even as a small part of him screamed to turn around and go back, that maybe just maybe they could fix this.
Nick couldn't really remember making his way back to his own dorm, almost feeling like he had just skipped the entire trip back and was just magically there.
He looked at Bennett all curled up in bed asleep, and he set the grocery bag he was still carrying down on his desk.
Slowly, his roommate opened up his eyes and looked over at him. "Hey," he mumbled before turning his face back into the pillow, groaning.
Nick let out a soft laugh as he looked at him, seeing the pure regret and anguish etched on his face left there by drinking God knew how much last night. "Hey, if you want anything that might help with that hangover, I've got some stuff for you in that bag," he offered quietly.
Bennett slowly sat up, reaching for the bag and pulling out the Gatorade and pain medicine. "Thanks," he said, giving him a smile. He pulled out the bottle of pills and swallowed a couple, downed half a bottle of Gatorade without removing it from his lips for a second, then slumped back down on his bed. "You're a true hero."
Nick rolled his eyes fondly at his roommate, letting out a soft laugh. "Just trying to help."
"Nah, man, you're literally a god among men, the nicest person to ever have lived," Bennett mumbled, his voice getting a bit lost somewhere in his pillow.
Nick chuckled softly as he went and sat down in his bed, grabbing a book as he settled back into his blankets. He watched Bennett (or rather watched the Bennett-shaped lump of blanket on Bennett's bed) for a bit longer before opening the book up and starting to read.
For most of the day, the pair of them stayed in the dorm, quiet except for a few cases of Bennett needing to vomit or Nick getting up to get something for him. By the evening, his roommate was feeling much more human and was willing to venture out of the room, saying that he needed to repay Nick for his nursing by treating him to a good dinner.
This "good dinner" turned out in the end to be simply a trip to a sandwich shop downtown, in equal parts due to Bennett's limited budget as a college student and increased sensitivity to foods for the time being. Still, though, it was fairly good, if plain, food paired with good company, and there was something reassuring about that. Just because something he had been so sure about had been tipped over on its head that morning, that didn't mean that everything else had to be, too. And when he told Bennett what had happened that morning, he just said, "You know, I wish I could say I'm surprised. But she did have a bitch face. I'm just disappointed to find out you didn't just go out with the intention of getting supplies to help your poor, hungover roommate. I was your second choice, and that hurts." And that was that.
Nick was the sort of person who liked to think that everything was going to work out in the end, but at the same time he was realistic enough to know that things didn't always work out and fate wasn't always on your side. That day, though, March 18, 2014, it did, and it was. Instead of throwing more time and effort into a relationship with a dishonest girl, he took care of someone who genuinely appreciated the gesture and had nothing to hide from him.
And somehow, having made the choice to spend the day taking care of Bennett (though it made without even thinking, barely feeling like a decision) felt more right to him that he had ever felt about deciding to marry Natalie.
It was exhilarating.
Nick wasn't really sure that he was quite ready to actually deal with the fact that Natalie, his fiancée, the girl he was sure he was going to marry, had cheated on him.
He knew, logically, that he should probably try and talk things out with her before he did anything else about it, and especially before he told anyone about it, Bennett notwithstanding. Instead, though, he wanted to talk to people about it. It wasn't necessarily that he wanted to get people's advice or to commiserate or anything, he just wanted... He wasn't sure what exactly he wanted, but he was fairly sure that once he actually got down to it and started talking about it, then he would figure out what exactly he wanted.
His first instinct was to call Lacey. She was always the perfect person to talk to. Except for, of course, when what you want to talk about is a relationship she had never quite approved of. He didn't really want to hear her say "I told you so."
Still, though, there was something about the idea of the comfort of family familiarity that appealed to him, so he found himself dialing Charlie's number. After several rings, it cut to his voicemail message, so Nick hung up and tried again. At about the time he was going to give up and call it a day, he finally picked up.
"Hello?" answered a voice that was most definitely more feminine than his brother's had ever been, and after a second his mind registered the fact that he had gotten a hold of Lacey anyways.
"Hey, Lace," he greeted. "Where's Charlie?"
"Taking a shit, I think," his sister replied, and he could hear a bit of shuffling coming from her end of the line. "Yeah, I don't know. Probably taking a shit. What do you need, baby brother?"
"I just... wanted to talk," Nick replied.
"Mhm," she hummed. He could practically hear her quirking an eyebrow at his tone. "Just called to chat."
"Yeah."
"Which is why you called a few times."
"I wanted to make sure Charlie hadn't just missed it. Besides, why do you know that it was a few times? Did you just decide not to pick up?"
"Touché," she said, chuckling. After a moment, her tone sobered again. "Anyways, though, you're not getting out of this that easy. Something is bothering you. Is it a college thing? A girlfriend thing?"
Nick sighed softly, rolling his eyes fondly at her. "Don't worry about it," he said, even though he knew she would.
"What, there's something that you would talk to Charlie about but you wouldn't tell your big sister? I am very hurt, Nicole, very hurt."
"I don't think that you can say you're hurt and call me by a girl's name in the same sentence."
"I totally can," she said with a soft laugh. "I'm still upset about the fact that you turned out to not be the baby sister I had asked for."
Nick chuckled softly, rolling his eyes at her. "Right, my bad," he said. "But it's been over eighteen years, you should probably get over it my now."
"Get over it? Get- my word, Nick, you're... Totally distracting me again, damn," Lacey said, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "What's troubling you?"
Nick let out a long sigh, resigning himself to his fate. Sure, talking to Charlie first about what Natalie had done would've been easier, but it was just a matter of time before Lacey would know, too, and she wasn't going to just let him out of it, so he realized that his best option was to simply tell her. "It's something with Natalie."
"Ooh, ouch," she said. "Is it a sex thing?"
Nick couldn't help himself but to laugh. "It's... Sort of."
"It's perfectly normal to not be able to get it up sometimes. Maybe you've just been having too much sex for poor little Nick Jr. to keep up," she said, her voice pure teasing.
"Actually, no, it's not that," he said. "I haven't been having too much sex. Natalie has, though."
Lacey didn't say anything for a moment, and the clock Bennett had hung up was ticking loudly on the other side of the room. "What?" she asked after a bit.
"She cheated on me," he said, the words feeling foreign and just wrong on his tongue. "I walked in on her and some guy."
There was another stretch of silence, this one stretching out a bit longer. He knew that some part of Lacey was happy, the part that liked being right and knew that this was a bad idea and that the relationship had been all but doomed from the start. Still, though, he was sure that a bigger part of her was telling her to be a good sister, to help her brother deal with what had happened.
"You saw?" she asked him after a bit, frowning.
"I… yeah," Nick said, letting out a heavy sigh. "I mean, I didn't really see anything too… revealing or anything, but I definitely walked in on something that there was no question about."
"That sucks," she said.
Neither of them said anything for a bit after that, and he just had to be grateful that she knew him well enough to know that there was nothing she could really say to make him feel better, and quite a few things that could make him feel worse.
After a bit, though, she had to speak. "So, you're broken up now, then?" she asked.
"Well…" he started, hesitating to say anything. "Not technically."
"Not technically?" Lacey echoed, her voice going up a little bit, although he was fairly certain that she was still making an attempt to reign herself in for him.
"We haven't talked since," he said. "If you'd even call that talking. We didn't really talk much. I mostly just wanted to get out of there."
"I can understand that," she replied, sighing. After a moment, she added, "You really should officially break things off with her, though."
"I know, I know," he said, even as a quiet part of his mind revolted at the idea, wanting to take Natalie back and forgive her for her mistake (because it was a mistake, wasn't it? She would think that it was a mistake, she had to).
"As in, soon," she said. "I know you, you like to put off things that are hard. Especially things that are conflicts with other people. But you really do have to do this."
Nick chuckled softly, shaking his head slowly. "I know," he said. "And I am. I really am." It didn't really matter to him that some part of him was lying to his sister, because another part of him really did have the full intention of cutting things off with Natalie and taking the ring off her finger, so it wasn't really a lie, right?
"Good," she said. There was a moment of static across the line as she moved, and he could hear her voice quieter, joined with what he was pretty sure was Charlie's voice. He couldn't make out what she was saying, her hand probably on the receiver of the phone, but he was fairly certain that she was telling him what had happened.
After a little bit longer, there was another shuffle of movement before he heard his brother sigh into the phone and say, "Well, that's unfortunate."
Lacey laughed in the background at Charlie's choice of words, and Nick couldn't help but agree with her to an extent.
"Yeah. Yeah, it's unfortunate," he said, his tone picking up a hint of bitterness that he hadn't meant to put into it.
"Sorry," he said.
Nick sighed, shaking his head slowly even though he knew that Charlie couldn't see him. "No, I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just, you know, I feel like I could've done something."
"If someone is the sort of person who is going to cheat, there's nothing you can do to stop it," he said. "It's just better that it happened and you found out sooner rather than later, right?"
"I guess so," he said with a sigh, even though he was still convinced in his heart of hearts that maybe just maybe if he had gone out with Natalie to that party instead of staying in, this wouldn't have happened.
"So… I just wanted to make sure that you knew that me and Lace are totally here for you if and when you ever want to talk," Charlie said.
Those words managed to bring a small smile to his lips. "I know."
"Any idea when you're going to… you know, break up with her?" he asked.
"Tonight," he said after taking a deep breath and letting it back out slowly. "I'm going to do it tonight."
"Good," he said. "It's the right thing to do."
"I hope so."
"I know so," Charlie said. "Anyways, I'm going to let you go now. Eat a good meal, comfort foods, ice cream, whatever you want to do."
He didn't break up with her that night.
In fact, he didn't even talk to her that night.
It wasn't until his phone went off several days (he didn't want to think about what his siblings would say if they found out) later that he even really considered seriously approaching just talking to her.
From Nat:
We should probably talk things out.
Nick really didn't want to. He didn't want to go over to Natalie's apartment, he didn't want to talk to her about what had happened, and he didn't want to break up with her. At this point, he just wanted to be broken up with her, to forget that any of this had ever happened.
But still, he knew that he had to. And if a small part of him was still quietly holding onto the hope that maybe Natalie had some great excuse or she would fall to her knees and beg for him to take her back and he would have no choice in the matter, he probably wouldn't admit to it out loud.
Shortly after texting her back and informing her that he would be at her apartment in about half an hour (he had considered asking her what her plans were and if there was a good time for her to do this, but he decided in the end to instead do what Lacey would do and not give her an option—"you owe her nothing, Nick, nothing," his sister would say), he headed out to head over there.
On the walk up the stairs to her door, he pulled the key off of its place on his loop of keys, knowing that that was no longer its place, really. He opened the door, only feeling a slight pang of sadness at the realization that it was quite likely that that was going to be the last time that he unlocked that door and walked into a place that had until now felt like a second home.
Once again, Natalie's roommate was in the main room when he walked in. This time, though, when she looked up and saw who was there, she got up quickly and made her way over to him. "Nick!"
"Um… Molly," he said, furrowing his brow in confusion.
The girl glanced behind her towards Natalie's closed door, her voice lowered as she said, "I'm guessing that you're here to talk to Natalie about, well, you know what?"
Nick nodded. "Yeah…"
"Well, that's good. She's been a huge mess since," Molly said, sighing and shaking her head. After a second, her eyes went wide and she backtracked quickly, "But I'm not saying that to sway you not to break up with her or anything. It's just a fact."
"Then what is the point here?" he asked, realizing a moment too late that he sounded a bit too hostile.
"The point is," she said with a sigh, lowering her voice even more. "I want you to go into that conversation with all the cards on the table, because I know that she'll want to keep some up her sleeve."
"What cards?"
"This isn't the only time that she has cheated on you," she said, glancing over her shoulder again quickly. "I don't know how many times, I don't know many specifics, but I can tell you that much. It was definitely not the first time."
Nick just looked at the girl for a moment, trying to search her face for answers. She couldn't be telling the truth, could she? Natalie had cheated on him once, sure, but that was a fluke. It was just a bad night, it was a one-off. Even as he tried to tell himself that this was the truth, he could see in Molly's face that she was being honest, for whatever reason.
He let out a long breath, taking a step back from her as he felt anger bubbling up inside of him. "Thank you," he said before walking past her, knowing that there was nothing she had done wrong and if he stayed talking to her for any longer she would end up in the middle of a situation she was just an innocent bystander in.
So instead of taking out that hurt and betrayal on Molly, he went and he swung open Natalie's bedroom door and he couldn't even be bothered to flinch as he heard the door bang against the wall with the force he'd put into it.
When he stepped into her room, he was faced with a sight that stopped him in his tracks for a moment. Natalie was standing there wearing the same dress that she had worn for their first date. It was white and lacy and beautiful.
But he had taken a fair few English classes in his time, and he knew all too well the symbolism behind the color white, had left annotations in enough pieces of literature about the meaning of someone dressed in all white. White = Innocence. Purity. Cleanliness. It was no coincidence when authors of great literature did it, and he was fairly sure that it wasn't when she did it, either.
As he took in the sight of her, her fingers starting to curl in the fabric of her skirt, he remembered the fact that white had more meanings than just what immediately came to mind. In Eastern cultures, he had learned at some point, white could mean death, and for once he could appreciate the pointless trivia taking up space in his head.
"Nick," she said, a small smile on her lips.
"Natalie," he said in return. He sighed softly before adding, "You cheated on me."
Her face immediately fell. "Nick… That was a mistake," she said. "You have to know how sorry I am, it will never happen again…"
"Because it only happened the once, right?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
Natalie opened her mouth to reply, and for a moment he was sure that she was going to try to lie to him again, to tell him that it really was the only time, but he could see in her face that she reconsidered it, knowing she was caught. "How do you know about that?" she asked instead, furrowing her eyebrows.
"It doesn't matter."
"I really am sorry."
"If you were sorry, then you wouldn't have done it."
She didn't say anything for a moment, so he pressed on.
"Do you really not have anything to say to me?" he asked. "Just that you're sorry."
"I have no idea what to say, Nick," she said. "I have no idea how to make this better."
"You can't," he said with a shrug. "But I'm just surprised you're not trying. You're going to be a lawyer, aren't you? You're supposed to be good with defenses."
She looked down at her feet, shuffling a bit uncomfortably.
"I'm sorry that things turned out like this," he said, his tone a bit gentler. Even with how upset he was with her, he knew that part of him would never let him get angry at her, would never let him wound her, especially when she was already upset. "If things had gone differently, I could have loved you all my life."
She took in a deep breath, letting it back out slowly. "You… You still could, couldn't you?" she asked. "Those feelings are still there, somewhere."
"No, I couldn't," he told her, giving her a sad smile. "I would never be able to look at you without wondering what you might be doing when I'm not there. Once, I could've forgiven. God knows how many times… I can't. I'm sorry."
"I would be loyal," she said. "I promise, I would. This… This is so hard. I don't want to lose you."
"You already did," he said, shaking his head slowly. "This… This is over."
Nick followed Natalie's gaze down to the ring on her left hand finger, and both of them just stood there and stared at it for a moment.
"Do you want it back?" she asked, her voice just barely audible over the quiet roar of her fan.
"I don't care," he said, shrugging. "You can keep it, sell it, give it back, do whatever you want with it. Just don't wear it anymore."
Natalie nodded slowly, lifting her other hand slowly to rip the ring off of her finger. She held it out to him, placing it in his palm. She closed his fingers around the piece of metal, her hand lingering on his.
He couldn't help it. He leaned forward slowly, his free hand cupping her face as he gave her a long, soft kiss. It was nearly as tentative as their first kiss ever. He liked that. Bookends.
As they pulled back, she whispered, "I love you."
With a sigh, he replied, "Goodbye, Natalie."
He turned around and walked out of the room, slipping the ring into his pocket as he left her apartment for the last time ever.
AN: This is the last chapter without Jeff. He makes his first appearance in April, I promise.