Page 104 of Secrets in Love
Returning a broken, alone, shadow of myself is not the triumphant homecoming I’d envisaged, but I wouldn’t change a thing about the last few months. For a moment in time, I finally got to call you mine, and for that, I would give anything. Without a shadow of a doubt, you are the most amazing woman I’ve ever known and the only woman I have ever and will ever love.
I have faith in you. In us.
If you change your mind, you know where I am. You’re the boss here, Gidge. You’re in control.
Forever your idiot,
Nate the Great.
The letter fell to my feet.
What have I done?
In my blind rush to get back to Nate, I’d left my phone in Tarrytown, but thankfully, Jocelyn was one of the few remaining people in New York to insist on keeping a landline. Having not remembered a phone number for more than half my life, it took three goes to get the right one, and even then, there was very little help coming from the other end. The two of them were drunk as skunks, and I knew I wasn’t getting anywhere the minute Finn started quoting Shakespeare.
“For fuck’s sake, Finn. Shut up. Did Nate tell you what time his flight was or not?”
“I’m not telling you. You’re gonna do something stupid like try and stop him. And I only just finished reading the end of your story. Your beautiful heartisglass, Evie. If you go to stop him, it’s only gonna get more shattered.”
Jocelyn took command of the phone. “Don’t listen to Finn. You’ve got an hour and a half, Evie. Go get him, darling.”
Regret bubbled in my veins as I sat in the middle lane of I-495. There would be no movie-style, grand gesture at the airport. The snow had taken care of that. I’d left too late.
The lady from the car behind me, Karen, had just escaped. The poor thing had tapped on my window, wished me a HappyHanukkah, then handed me a hot chocolate she poured from a steaming thermos.
In payment for her kindness, she received a cry-fest of such magnitude that she was willing to sit in the car of a complete stranger for forty-five minutes and offer them comfort. Karen was possibly the kindest and most understanding person I’d ever met. She also gave her name a much-needed boost.
As the traffic finally started to flow an hour later, very little of Karen’s love hypothesis remained in my brain. But one part did.
“They always say things happen for a reason. Maybe you just need to wait a little longer to find out if Nate is yourbeshert. That’s Yiddish for soulmate.”
I didn’t think I took it as Karen meant—who knew—but what if my negative-leaning was right? What if the reason was as simple as Nate and I weren’t meant to be? Perhaps Mother Nature herself had intervened because, as ridiculous as it sounded, Nate was not my fate.
If I was truly meant to be with him, the snow would have cleared, and a Moses-style parting of traffic should have occurred. It was almost Christmas, after all. Wasn’t that the time for a miracle? ‘Tis the season and all that crap.
The entire concept was well and truly played out by the time I made it home. I was exhausted, over it, and already rebuilding the walls of ice around my heart.
Nate
Eight weeks later
Summer in Australia was amazing, especially when you lived where I did. Daylight Savings provided oodles of hours to hit the beach, the pool, the shops, or whatever took your fancy.
Dank is what had taken my fancy in the painful few weeks of self-indulgent wallowing I’d partaken in. The absolute bare minimum had been done around the farm, most of which was completed half-heartedly in the early morning before anyone else was awake. It seemed my lifetime of extroversion was over.
I sought no one’s company, and given my mood, no one sought mine. No one except Mum. After two weeks of near-constant cake deliveries, badgering, and reminders that I was home and it was time for my heart to join my body, I was finally unpacking the suitcase that had sat by the door. It was a stinging reminder of my time in New York with Evie, but I couldn’t bring myself to empty it. I knew once I did that, it was really done.
But done it was, and I had to accept it. Evie didn’t want me. I got it.
Just as I struck the dreaded pile of worn, unwashed boxers at the bottom, I found a letter from Evie.
Nate,
♥ I love your hair. How it flops into your eyes when you lie down, when you tie up your shoelaces, or when you read, and I really love when you blow it away from the side of your mouth.
♥ I love that we went surfing. You spent more time watching me than the waves but still managed to catch every one you wanted to.
♥ I love your abs, your arms, your cockiness, your pride, your work ethic. I love that you notice your mum has different cake tins for different flavors, and that you work so hard to maintain and build on the traditions your dad established.
