Page 150 of Fault Lines
We walked home together in silence, the city humming around us, rain pooling in the gutter and cars hissing by. When we got to the apartment, he set the book bag down and just looked at me, like he wanted to memorize my face.
“Come here,” he said, pulling me in.
We didn’t talk about Richard, not that night. We just curled up together on the couch, reading our dumb romance novels and eating cereal for dinner, the TV flickering in the background. Sometimes, we sat in silence. Sometimes, we laughed, and the laughter was shaky but real.
I’d spent so long being afraid of endings that I’d forgotten how much more important it was to be present in the middle.
That night, I lay awake, listening to Nate’s steady breath beside me, and thought about the store, about Richard, about the fragile, beautiful mess of the family we’d made for ourselves.
Tomorrow would come, and it would bring whatever it brought. But tonight, the world was small and warm and full of possibility.
And I, for once, was ready for it.
Chapter Forty
If there was a honeymoon period to living with Nate, it lasted all of those first three weeks. By the fourth, just after the news of Richard, we were already orbiting each other in familiar, lopsided paths, gravity recalibrated by whatever new force was working on us—grief, fear, or just the slow, uncoiling dread of what came next.
I’d convinced myself that I could tell when Nate was drinking. The signs were subtle, at first: a second glass of wine with dinner, a flask of “just a splash” that appeared when the evenings got long and too quiet. Sometimes, it was nothing more than a whiff of whiskey when he leaned in to kiss me goodnight, a flash in the eyes that I’d learned to recognize even in low light. But then, he’d get sentimental or short-tempered, and I’d know for sure. I tried to ignore it. I told myself it was just stress, or habit, or a coping mechanism that would burn itself out. After all, I could always stop at one. Couldn’t he?
I didn’t want to bring it up, not with everything else hanging over us. Richard’s cancer was the black star around which the rest of our days revolved. After the announcement, the bookstore shifted into a second, sadder home. Nate worked extra shifts, shelving and re-shelving books with a manic energy that left his knuckles raw and his eyes rimmed red. Richard, for his part, seemed determined to go out like a dignified shipwreck—refusing help, laughing at his own frailty, and pretending notto notice how often I caught him sitting in the back office, just staring at the wall.
I tried to keep things together. Tried to be the cheerful, stable one, to hold the edges tight and not let the darkness leak in. Some days, I even believed it was working.
But then Nate would come home late, smelling of gin and city air, and the fracture lines would show through.
On the day everything finally broke, it was raining hard, and the city felt like it was melting. We’d both gotten up early—me to make coffee and inventory the new arrivals, him to shuttle Richard to a doctor’s appointment—and by the time the bookstore opened, I was already on my third cup and my nerves were humming like power lines.
He arrived at eleven, an hour after his shift started. I saw him through the glass door, pausing in the rain, head bowed, as if negotiating with the universe for the right to enter. When he finally did, he moved slow and careful, like a man on unfamiliar legs.
He didn’t look at me as he slipped behind the counter, but I caught the tremor in his hand when he reached for a coffee mug. He poured, missed, and a dark stain bloomed across the counter and onto the floor.
“Shit,” he muttered, grabbing a rag, but the stain spread faster than he could blot it.
I came over, gently took the rag from him. “Hey,” I said, soft as I could. “It’s okay. We’ve got more rags than books in this place.”
He tried to laugh, but it caught in his throat. “Sorry,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “Rough morning.”
I wanted to believe it was just the cancer, the stress, the way time was shrinking around us. But the stink of old gin was sharp, even over the burnt coffee.
I waited until the store was empty, then followed him to the back room, where he was sorting a box of used mysteries with mechanical efficiency.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
He slammed a paperback onto the stack, hard enough to bend the cover. “About what?”
I braced myself. “About whatever’s going on. You’ve been… off, lately. I know it’s not easy, with everything that’s happening, but—”
He whirled on me, eyes glassy. “I’m fine, Livi. Don’t start with this shit, okay?”
I tried not to flinch. “Nate, I just—if you need help, or someone to talk to, I’m here. We can get through this, but not if you’re—”
“What?” he snapped. “Not if I’m what? Drinking? You think I’m turning into my fucking dad? Is that it?”
The words hit me harder than I expected. I steadied myself against the desk, keeping my voice even. “I’m not saying that. I just—look, I care about you. I don’t want to watch you go down that road.”
He scoffed, bitter. “Oh, you don’t want to watch. That’s rich. Because you’re so great at fixing people, right? Always have been.”
I felt my face burn. “That’s not fair.”
