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My skin prickled at his words and my breath caught. Then I tamped it all down because I was here to tell him goodbye. I was not here to imagine his lips moving up and down the skin of my neck, whispering words against me.
Before I could respond, he was sitting in his chair across from me, his long legs brushing mine under the table as he folded himself into the chair. Almost instantly, our waiter appeared and Nate was ordering a rum and coke. He looked at me expectantly and I found a way to make the words “Vodka Sour,” slip past my lips. When Nate gave me a wistful smile, I nearly crumbled. I was just seconds from grabbing my purse and leaving, unable to look at him, knowing it was the last time, thinking about everything that we’d never have together, when I heard his voice.
“Stop overthinking this, Lyn. We’re only having a drink. Ordering di
I let out a breath and nodded, a little relieved that he hadn’t pla
“Tell me about Devon.” He’d just delivered the most surprising and unexpected request in the history of fucked up relationships.
My eyes darted to meet with his and I must have looked panicked because he held up a hand, almost like he was trying to defend himself.
“I know you probably don’t want to talk about him with me, but I know everything you’re dealing with right now is centered around him.” He stopped talking as the waiter appeared, leaving both our drinks on the table. Before I could stop him, Nate ordered di
Is that what’s been happening to me for the last nine years? I’d been slowly hollowing out? That seemed like an apt description. How much of me could there possibly be left? How much longer could I live like this before I disintegrated entirely?
“Start from the begi
I took a deep breath and decided to give him exactly what he wanted. “I met Devon my freshman year of college. Some guy dumped a soda down my shirt and Devon gave me the shirt off his back. Literally. He was nice and fu
“I had nearly gotten to the point where I didn’t believe he actually existed, until one day my best friend introduced me to her new boyfriend, and it was him.”
“Ouch,” Nate said just before sipping his drink. He didn’t seem put off by the begi
I went on to tell him everything. Every single detail I could recall. We ate. We drank. He listened attentively, almost raptly, asking questions when I left out something he couldn’t piece together, nodding and sincerely paying attention to my crazy story.
“One night, at Liv and Devon’s rehearsal di
“I said yes, but I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have given him that hope. I just didn’t know how to tell him no in front of the entire di
“I watched Devon marry Olivia, lost my shit, and ended the engagement in a bathroom right after the ceremony,” I sobbed the words out, not even trying to maintain any kind of façade of composure. Nate had given me free rein to open up to him, and for better or worse, my floodgate was officially wide open. He let me cry, let me weep quietly, and when I looked back up at him I didn’t get the look of contempt I was expecting. I didn’t wilt under his stare of disdain. Instead, he was looking at me with calm compassion. He looked as though he wanted to wrap his arms around me, but didn’t want to frighten me away.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’ve never told anyone about that before. It was, uh, a little overwhelming.” I reached for my purse, grabbing a tissue, and blotted my face.
“So, you’ve spent the last nine years in love with your best friend’s husband?”
“Give or take a year, yeah.” I nodded and pushed back the tears. Hearing someone else say the words, having someone else acknowledge everything I had been dealing with was a heavy feeling. And the fact that he said the words without judgement, made it that much more difficult to hear. I wanted him to be disgusted with me, to be angry, to tell me that I deserved all the unhappiness I was feeling. I wanted him to help with the hollowing-out process. I nearly handed him a proverbial shovel and said, ‘Here, dig out every good thing I have inside of me, every happy memory, every moment of contentment, and get it out. Then, bury me under it, so all that’s left is a shell of a shitty person, buried underneath everything she ruined.’
“That sounds terrible,” he said sincerely. And it was then I was convinced that Nate couldn’t be a real person. He simply couldn’t be that perfect.
“It was terrible,” I said through a sniffle, and I caught the tiniest hint of a crooked smile pull up on one side of his mouth, but he pushed it back. “But then, the most terrible thing of all happened.”
“She died,” he said with a nod. I frowned, unable to stop them, more tears spilled. Nate got up, moved his chair so he was next to me, and then let me cry on his shoulder as I wept for my friend. I’d not had one person let me cry for her. I’d helped so many other people deal with her death, but no one had ever just wrapped their arms around me and let me mourn her, my best friend.
“Olivia died and we all just ended up in this really weird state of limbo. I stepped in to help because that was the one thing she’d asked me to do. I helped him because it’s what I thought she wanted. But the longer I was there, even before you came into the picture, the more wrong it felt.”