“You can set it anywhere.” He points to the sparkling granite countertops on his kitchen island. “It looks amazing.”
He’s the picture of casual, yet I can see how tightly wound he is in the way he moves. For some perverse reason, the thought that he might be feeling as nervous as I am sets me at ease.
“My mom did most of it, but I was an excellent sous chef.” My hands feel empty without the weight of the cake in them. My palms itch to reach out and touch Nate, but I don’t. I’m loath to admit it, but Ruby’s right. I have too many feelings for this to go forward without figuring things out between us first.
“Should we have a piece now or wait until later?” He doesn’t wait for my answer before he opens a drawer and pulls out a cake cutter. Because of course he has a cake cutter. “I have ice cream in the freezer. I know you love your sweets as much as you love your cheese.”
It’s true and it’s why cheesecake is the ultimate dessert, but I’d never say no to cake and ice cream. The fact that he remembers that about me makes everything that much sweeter.
“Sugar topped with sugar? How could I refuse?” I settle onto the same stool I sat on after I crashed the HOA meeting. “Although, I’m not sure if you remember or not, but Kimberly’s baking is hit-or-miss.”
“How could I ever forget? Do you remember those brownies she made us?” His eyes sparkle as he puts giant slices of cake on our plates. “Sometimes I think I can still taste them in my mouth. It’s like the unsweetened cocoa powder haunts my taste buds.”
I didn’t remember those brownies.
Not until now.
It was our freshman year of high school. We’d been studying for a geometry test all week. Nate got an A, I got a C, and I was pissed. But in my defense, shapes aren’t math and I will die on that hill. I was on the verge of tears all day. To this day, I hate the feeling of not quite getting something—feeling like I’m missing what others understand so easily.
Because Nate knew how much I loved sweets, he called my mom and asked her if she could surprise me after school. When we got home, a tray of brownies was sitting on the kitchen counter. He and my mom high-fived like total dorks before we cheers’d our brownies together. We held eye contact as we took matching, giant bites—and watched each other’s faces change from excitement to disgust as we raced to the trash can.
Dad ended up bringing home Dairy Queen.
When I went to sleep that night, my stomach ached not from the fail brownies and ice cream, but from laughing so hard with my best friend.
It’s bittersweet, remembering the good times but knowing how abruptly they came to an end. Pain intertwines with happiness and something breaks free inside me. The fear of what I might hear dissipates and an overwhelming need to understand what happened between us comes over me. I have to know how we went from best friends to enemies.
“What happened?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” Nate looks up from the carton of ice cream he fished out from the bottom of his freezer. His confused expression flickers from me to the plates to his counter. “Did I drop something?”
A kinder person might be more delicate in their approach to this sensitive and long-overdue conversation, but I can’t. I know that if I wait or dance around the question, I’ll never ask. I might not be some shrinking violet afraid of making others upset, but I am a person who constantly felt on the outside of everything.
As writers, we’re taught that all our characters have a story they’re telling themselves. Something that they believe with all their heart, even if it’s not true. Some characters may feel like they are unlovable while others believe that love makes you weak. It’s up to us as writers to figure out this story and show how it’s affecting their life. But even though I would consider myself pretty damn good at doing this for my characters, I’m only just now seeing that I’ve been ignoring mine for years. This belief that I’m not good enough, that I don’t belong, and that nobody will ever choose me has been haunting me all along.
Nate abandoning me, and choosing the popular kids over me, reinforced everything that I already knew to be true. It triggered every ounce of self-loathing I had percolating through my hormonal, awkward teenage body, and I hated him for it.
And in my hurt, as the main character in my own story, I never once thought about what he could’ve been going through. It was so much easier to be angry than it was to be sad that I never once thought to ask him why he walked away.
Until now.
“You dropped me.” Blood rushes through my ears like Niagara Falls. “You left for the summer and then we never talked again. What happened? What did I do to make you leave me like that?”
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so vulnerable. I’ve spent my entire adult life masking my anxiety and fears with humor to try to avoid looking weak. Allowing Nate to see me like this, knowing he’s hurt me before, is terrifying.
“Fuck.” He drops the ice cream scooper and runs his fingers through his hair. “I knew we were going to have to talk about this one day.”
My instincts to walk it back, tell him we don’t have to talk about it, light up like the fireworks that have been setting the sky ablaze all night.
I hold firm.
“If we’re going to move forward, then yes. I need to know.” My voice holds steady, but beneath the counter, I’m pinching my leg so hard it may leave a bruise. “If we don’t talk about it, I’ll always think you’re going to walk away again.”
I had prepared myself for his immediate response to be defensive. That’s what mine would be. But when he nods and his hazel eyes look at me with nothing but understanding shining through, I’m reminded once more of why losing him hurt so damn much.
“I know.” He slides the plate in front of me and walks around the island to take a seat beside me. “I need you to remember that I was a kid. I know we thought we knew everything back then, but I was so young and stupid. I had no idea how to express what I was going through.”
I’m afraid to look at him. I keep my eyes trained on the plate and nod, hoping he’ll keep talking.
“I don’t know how much you remember about that summer,” he says, and I keep quiet, not wanting to tell him that I remember every single thing. The plans before he left, the unanswered calls while he was gone, feeling as if he’d plunged a knife through my heart when I saw him back at school holding Rachel Shroder’s hand. “I told you I was going to see my grandparents but I lied. That was the summer I stayed with my mom.”
All the air in my body leaves me in a sudden whoosh.
“What?” I gasp.
“Yeah.” He nods. “I can’t remember if I ever told you that she still called sometimes. A few times a year I’d get a present in the mail with a letter telling me how much she missed me or that she wanted me to come visit.”
“You never told me that.” I’m nervous to speak, afraid I’ll say the wrong thing and cause him to shut down. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you more or if I ever made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Seriously, you and your family did more for me than anyone else in my life.” He reaches beneath the counter and takes my hand in his. “If I’m honest, I loved your mom so much that sometimes I felt ashamed of myself. Like I was betraying my mom for wishing she could be someone else.