tears continue to fall. I don’t know when they stop but I know sometime while releasing all of my pain, I had slipped beneath my sheets and dreamt of my mother and father. I dreamt of Natalie and Mills as well and the best part about it was we were all together.
Happy.
Smiling.
Complete as a family.
Chapter Nine
Natalie
It’s been a week since I’ve left California. In between that week were tears, sorrow, and pain. It hurts so much and I’ve wanted to call him back so badly but I held off. I knew better. He wants his space so I’m giving it to him. Plus, all of the voicemails he left, he sounded drunk in them. I knew he wasn’t in his right state of mind which makes it worse. I didn’t want to talk to him while he was intoxicated. And although I feel like running away wasn’t the easiest thing to do, it felt like the best thing to do. He wanted time alone but that left me with other thoughts as well.
What made him fall in love with me? What made me fall in love with him? I had fallen in love with him and didn’t even realize how bad we were. We lacked a lot in our relationship and it’s hard to look over now.
Communication was one of the main things. There was a point when I never wanted to tell Nolan anything. I told him about my situation with Bryson. How I had confronted him at the coffee shop and asked him why he had really cheated on me. He wasn’t as upset about it as I thought he would be but he was bothered that I didn’t tell him until a few weeks after it’d happened.
Turning onto my back, I stare up at the ceiling and watch as the dots spin around me. Through the speakers of the living room, Kelly Clarkson is singing about her “dark side” and it’s really making me wonder if I’m experiencing Nolan’s dark side. I love him regardless of his dark side and I suppose I’m experiencing it since I’ve never seen him as mad as he was last week. Hopefully he’s calmed down by now. He’s been calling so maybe it’s finally time give him a call back.
As I sit up, I think maybe it’s not the brightest idea. I want to figure out what it is about him that made me fall so hard before we actually try and move forward. Lust and love can get confused so easily and I’m hoping that’s not what I’ve fallen for. But I think about him constantly. It isn’t just about the looks or the sex. He has his flaws I tried to run away from but for some reason I trusted him enough to go through with more.
I have class today so instead of continuing my mope I push out of bed and hurry for a quick shower. After showering, getting dressed, and tossing my hair into a tight pony-tail, I grab my satchel bag and my keys and head out. Harper, my roommate and best friend, is in the kitchen with a bagel in her hand as I step in.
“Well, good morning. You seem . . . alive,” she says, grabbing the cream cheese out of the fridge.
“Ah, well,” I sigh, stepping around her to get to the fruit basket. “It could be worse.” I pick through the fruit but as reoccurring thoughts of Nolan circle my mind, my stomach rolls over and I turn around because eating probably isn’t best right now.
“I could hear you thinking about him from out here,” she giggles.
“I miss him a lot.”
“Then pick up his damn calls, idiot.” She splits her bagel then spreads cream cheese onto each slice. “Maybe he thought about it and knows he’s fucked up.”
“It’s just weird,” I mutter, my back pressing against the edge of the counter. “I didn’t tell you this, but he asked me why I loved him—and the sad part about it was I didn’t have a real response. The first thing I wanted to say was because you make me happy—because you complete me—but anyone can make a person happy. That’s a terrible reason.”
Harper bites into her bagel as she hops onto the counter. Her feet dangle as she stares at me with slightly wide eyes. “So . . . what is this supposed to mean?” she asks.
“It means I need to think about it before I call him back. I need to know