Nathan appears in the doorway, obviously having heard the commotion. I sense something raging under the flat stone of his expression. For a fragile second, his eyes meet mine.
“Chris, I think you’d better leave,” he says. “Cool off.”
Chris whirls. “This is my house. You may have fucked my fiancée, but you do not tell me what to do.” He strikes the final syllables furiously.
Nathan doesn’t flinch. “I saw Noah out,” he replies calmly, “but I could invite him back in. I’m certain he’d find something of interest here.”
Hate simmering in his eyes, Chris stares at Nathan. Like he’s flipped some switch in frustration, he grabs his leather duffel in a rush. “We’ll discuss this later,” he says, his words for me and his eyes everywhere else, “after you’ve had a chance to think about what you’re doing.” Without offering me the chance to reply—and without picking up the ring—he strides out, his shoulder hitting Nathan’s as he passes him.
His footsteps pound the stairs on his way down. Nathan heads into the hallway, following from a careful distance. I stay rooted in place. The room is silent. I hardly recognize the way my heartbeat picks up. Lightness fills my chest, spreading into my shoulders, lifting my head while I stare out the empty doorway.
I hear the front door slam, and all I feel is unbearable relief.
45
Nathan
I watch out the front window until Chris gets into his Uber X, the SUV’s rear door flying closed behind him. My emotions are moving fast. I can’t hold on to them, can’t even name them. First Katrina’s confession, then the words I overheard from their room, now her ex-fiancé leaving the house in a furious huff—it’s nothing I ever dared imagine.
I walk upstairs. When I reach the doorway, I find Katrina having hardly moved.
Her face is flushed, her eyes weary. When I see her, one emotion finally overpowers the others in me. It’s heartache. Not for myself—for her. I remember staring down the end of my marriage, standing exactly where she is, looking into the future and the past simultaneously from the place where they split. Whatever my hidden hopes and wishes, what Katrina’s going through is not happy.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to be here for her without seeming like I’m celebrating or gloating. Right now, I just want to be her friend.
After that . . . I’m afraid to admit what I might want to be.
Her eyes focus on me. She musters an exhausted smile, one I don’t have the heart to return. “Well, I’m glad I never sent out invitations,” she says.
Her humor, pained though it is, relieves me. I let out a laugh. “You didn’t?” I joke. “I figured mine got lost in the mail.”
She starts to laugh. Then everything catches up to her. I watch the realizations pummeling her, one on top of the next. Her entire vision of her life, vanished. The knowledge that this person she used to see nearly every day would become one she’d only speak to under the harshest of necessary circumstances. Her posture sags, not much—just enough that I know some spark sustaining her has gone out.
She drops down onto the edge of the bed, and her eyes glaze over. I stand, helpless. I want to tell her she’ll be okay, that she’ll feel like her life has fallen apart, but she can choose every piece with which she reassembles it. I want to tell her she deserves love she never had with Chris.
But I can’t tell her those things. Because everything I say in this moment will be colored by her confession downstairs.
She needs space, not pressure to face what she said. To reckon with the new reality her words might have wrought between us.
“What do you want to do now?” I ask. It’s a direct question, the kind she told Noah Lippman she didn’t get enough of. While there’s plenty we need to discuss, those conversations will come with time.
Which we now have, I realize. I don’t need to leave her life when we leave Florida. Or . . . maybe she’ll want to leave Florida tomorrow. Without Chris pressuring her, maybe she won’t even want to finish the book. The possibility terrifies me. It’s like I’ve just remembered I’m perched somewhere high over the ground, like I’ve just caught my first perilous glimpse down.
Katrina lifts her gaze, her expression now focused. “I want to write,” she says firmly.
Her response floods me with a painful rush of relief. “Katrina, we can take the day off. We can take however much time you want off.”
“No.” She stands up. “I want to write now. Today. I . . .” She goes unfocused for a second, like the fragile scaffolding of her composure is shaking. “It’s the only part of my life I understand.” When she meets my eyes, I know what else she’s really saying. We still need to sort out where we stand, but I understand what she needs. Sometimes processing emotions is easier on the page.