Page 35 of Secrets in Love
I love how you say or type SNORT instead of actually snorting. It’s fucking adorable.
To: Evie
From: Nate
Eves- I’m terrified writing this will change everything, but I can no longer hold it all in. I sound like one of your soft book boyfriends, but if I am to be ruined, let it be you that ruins me. I would rather have the tin can with wings that carried me to you crash to the ground and burn than spend another day not knowing.
I need you, Aoife.
They’re calling my flight. I’ll send more when I can.
Evie
Luckily, I slept with my phone on silent as I woke Monday morning to a moment of heart-exploding potential. I wouldn’t have survived on anything less than a full night’s sleep.
Nate was coming.
He was on his way, would be here by ten pm, and had sent me thirty-seven emails, inspiring possibly a thousand awws, OMGs, and countless laughs. In typical fashion, there were frequent mentions of various states of arousal due to my clothing, or lack thereof. My bikini was mentioned several times, as well as an odd wetsuit malfunction or two.
It was a lot to absorb. I wanted to hug and kiss him more than I’d ever wanted to kiss anyone, but I also wanted to kill him. That rumor about the toenails took me years to live down, and I didn’t even know about the teeth. At least the mystery of why poor, gullible, gorgeous Marc Loritso wouldn’t come within a foot of me without clapping his hand over his mouth and what were, granted, beautiful teeth.
A mental picture emerged halfway through the influx of affection—Nate, hunched over his phone, correcting his sitting position now and then because his mum possessed his body briefly to chastise his appalling posture. I could picture him, his tongue poking out as he typed with one finger. Hours must have been spent recalling and writing each message. I could count the time, of course. Each message had a timestamp, after all. The math could be quickly done, but that would muddy the pristine waters, removing the romance and making what I desperately wanted to remain illogical, logical.
Never had I imagined someone feeling this way toward me.
Nate Myers said he loved me and was coming to claim me. There had been no formal declaration, but the sentiment was conveyed with honest truths and confessions that only a lovesick heart could make.
Nate. Loved. Me.
Or at least, the memory of me.
With that thought, panic struck.Shit.What if that was all this was? Nostalgia? Rose-colored brain farts? My fingers began typing, quickly checking the first online thesaurus Google spat at me.
Nostalgia: a sentimental recollection or wistful affection for a period in the past. “See, that’s what this is,” I told myself. “That sums it up perfectly. He’s in love with the memories, not me.”
Persuading myself was surprisingly easy. After all, was it truly possible to love someone you had never held in anything but a friendly manner? Someone you hadn’t kissed, or…you know,bowchikawowwow? Was it possible for Nate to love anyone full stop?
I needed to reply to Nate but couldn’t bring myself to do it. What the hell was I supposed to say?
A full-frontal attack from Iris left little time to ponder. She jumped on my chest. Her strawberry-blonde curls covered my eyes as she began pulling at my cheeks like I was a piano accordion.
“Daddy is making pancakes! Get up! Get up!” With the enthusiastic pizzazz only she—and possibly her father—could possess at seven am, she somersaulted from the bed and landed back on her feet. After knocking my phone from my hand, she linked our fingers and pulled me from bed. The rush of blood from my rapid rise, this morning’s Nate news, and the emotionally charged prior evening, left me feeling like I drank a keg all by myself. “Awe you okay, Evie? You look all floofy. A bit kind of wed and yellowy.”
“I’m fine, bubs. I just got up too quickly. You go wait for me in the kitchen. And tell Daddy not to burn those pancakes. I could eat the ass out of a rag doll.”
“Haha, I heawd a sweaw!”
“Shit!”
“That one too! I’m telling Daddy!”
“Double shit.”
Knowing I had plenty to do but not being motivated to do any of it, I stood listlessly, smack bang in the middle of my room, staring out the window at the crisp blue sky and rust-colored leaves falling onto the street below. Nate consumed my thoughts.Where is he right now? What is he thinking? Will he send more messages?
The temptation to sneak back into bed, hide beneath my quilt, and reread his word again and again was hard to fight, but the responsibilities of daily life had almost the same pull.
“God. Can’t I just be me for one day?”
