Page 129 of Backslide
“I was wrong, but—”
“You didn’t listen to me! Hesawus tonight, you know. He saw us.Me. Here. And he made sure to let me know. It’s already ruined!”
A raw rage tears through me, stronger than I think I have ever felt before. I want to find Damien and destroy him. Like he’s destroying this for me. Like he has destroyed something for this remarkable woman in front of me.
Like he has disrespected her.
“A million years ago, I thought we were forever,” she says. “And you didn’t show up for me when things got hard and then you broke my heart. And youstilldidn’t choose me! Even after all that—the pregnancy scare, that kiss—you didn’t fight for me. You just let me leave your life forever!”
“Nell,” I say, squinting against the rising sun. I can feel myself losing my grip on this. “I asked you to stay. I asked you not to go to California. Ibeggedyou not to leave me behind. But you didn’t chooseme! You closed yourself off and left. And now you’re doing it again. What was I supposed to do?”
There is quiet between us for a beat as my question settles, sees the looming light of day.
“I don’t know,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “But you don’t either. And that’s the problem. You still think I didn’t choose you, but the options were only on your terms. You always expect me to be the one to adjust for you. We tried this out and look—it’s a disaster again! My two best friends are barely speaking to me, we just ruined the celebration that Ben and Cara worked so hard to plan. You’re asking me to forget the past, uproot myself, come to LA, risk the life I’ve built, risk getting hurt—I can’t do all that.”
“I’m asking you to be with me!” I plead, hating the desperation in my voice.
“But you have no idea what comes next,” she says. “So,I’mdeciding now.”
“Nell, please…” I say because I know I’m losing her. I can see her disappearing like some flickering hologram. She is already gone. Her mind is made up.
Her incredible, impossible mind.
“I’m not mad at you,” she says, running a hand through her hair and exhaling a shuddering breath. “Not like before. I want you to know that.”
And I wish she was. Because mad I can work with. Resigned not so much. Defeated not so much. Goodbye not at all.
But nowI’mstarting to get mad. Because she’s doing it again. She’s not choosing me again—usagain. She’s nottryingagain.
She looks at me for an extended moment, like either she’s trying to memorize or erase my face from her mind. “Take care,” she says.
She turns her back on me. So I do the same.
And I am left feeling noxious, toxic, ready to burst. And I’m thinking I know exactly who to take it out on. My hand curls into a fist.
But it’s like she can read my mind.
“Noah,” she says, and I turn back around. “He’s not worth hurting your hands.”
And then she leaves.
I watch her recede again.
28BOTHBACK IN THE DAY
On Nell’s plane to LA for college, there are tiny bags of peanuts. A window seat, thank God. Room in the overhead compartment, though she struggles to push her suitcase up and in.
“Can I help you?” asks a guy just a few years older.
“No thank you,” she says.
She doesn’t need help. She will not make that mistake again.
The flight is smooth. The middle seat next to her is empty. The movie isFour Weddings and a Funeral. For Nellie, the weddings also feel like funerals.
There is a woman with a baby, which sends Nellie’s brain to dangerous corners, considering what she has just been through. She calls it back from the edge. Out the window, there is the platonic ideal of clouds. White, fluffy. But she knows they’re just vapor.
She takes a deep breath. Inhales recycled air. Smiles at the nice grandmother-aged lady in the aisle seat, who keeps offering to share her peanut butter crackers. She asks where Nellie is headed.
