Hearing it sang a cappella, I realize despite the peppy melody, it’s a sad, depressing song and I wonder why he sang that one. Stuck in his head, maybe. How does he even know that song?
He’s right on the other side. I can hear him breathing.
“I can’t walk away from this, Nadia. And I don’t think you can either.”
“Just…please, just give me tonight. I need to…to think.”
“I’ll bring coffee.”
“Okay.”
He’s still there.
“Nathan?”
“Hmmm.”
“I just don’t know how to do this with you.”
“I know.”
“Just…just give me tonight to figure myself out, okay?”
“I’ll be at your door in the morning. Six thirty.”
“Thank you, Nathan.”
Still silence.
Then I hear a scuff of a boot on wood. Hesitant, reluctant. The porch creaks, and I hear his heavy sigh. Slow tread, as if still hoping I’ll change my mind at the last minute and open the door for him.
After a while, I hear his cabin door thunk closed.
I turn my back to the door, slide down to sit against it.
It was just too much. The candle, the flower on the table. My favorite color, lavender. The sunset on the lake, loons swimming, fluting to each other. My favorite food.
How did he know?
Something isn’t adding up.
Or it’s adding up too well. My favorite wine, my favorite flower, my favorite dinner.
The champagne thing.
So many things.
He just knows me.
He knows me too well.
It scares me. Because I feel comfortable with him.
That was a date. It was utterly romantic, perfect. Incredible. I’ve rarely felt so…seen. Known. So intimate. I felt myself falling.
I felt myself toppling toward him. If we’d finished the date, we’d have sat on the dock looking at the stars and I’d have kissed him.
Invited him in.
Kissed him by the fire.
Kissing is as far as my brain goes, as far as I can allow thoughts to progress, but the full reality is there under the surface.
It’s happening. In some ways, it’s already happened.
Love again, Nadia.
Tears trickle.
How can I, Adrian? You were my love. You were my present and my future, my past, my everything. You WERE. Now you’re gone but my heart doesn’t totally realize it. Can’t quite accept it. I’ve learned to exist as a human without you by my side, but living again, without you?
To hold another’s hand. To let him into my heart, into my world. To put my body at his mercy. How do I do that again?
I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m not sleepy. I don’t want to drink. Can’t think clearly enough to read; I have no focus, no mental or emotional direction. I’m a ship without a keel or rudder, becalmed, just floating, spinning with the currents.
I never turned on a light, and I realize I’m sitting alone in the darkness, lost in my thoughts.
Wondering what would have happened if I’d stayed at the restaurant. If I’d opened the door for him.
Everything; nothing. The impossible—the inevitable?
I am drowning again. I was doing better, but one date, and I’m lost again. Did I really think by simply driving separately and paying for my own part of the meal that it would be less of a date? Less romantic, less intimate. Less meaningful.
I enjoyed it. It was beyond mere companionship, when I’ve been so lonely. Even with Nathan to talk to and hang out with, there’s a loneliness in holding your heart aloof. In keeping people out. I’ve kept even Tess out, to a degree. Kept her from seeing how destroyed I am. She knew, but I wasn’t showing her. With Nathan, I’ve kept the shell of ice around my secret heart, and that date melted it. That armor of uncaring cold melted in the candlelight and sunset warmth, in the glow of his smile and easy conversation, in the delicate complexity of good wine and the savory satisfaction of good food.
Now that secret, broken heart of mine is bare, unarmored, exposed. And I am absolutely terrified.
I make it to my bed, fall in fully clothed and lie there, unsleeping, staring at the ceiling for hours. Maybe I should just leave. Go home. But something in me shies away from that. I went a week not seeing Nathan and I honestly hated it. I kept the depth of feelings buried under the ice, but it was lonely and not as fun and I missed him.
Now that I’ve had that date with him, it’d be even worse. I miss him right now, I hate that I’ve hurt him, made him sad, made him feel rejected.
I could feel it on the other side of