Page 84 of Backslide
But Nellie will not be making plans around Noah. Not now. There’s too much to lose.
“Oh, thank God,” he says, when she tells him she’s not pregnant. “Look, I’m so sorry. I just, there’s been so much going on. I freaked out. I froze.”
She will not let him off the hook so easily.
“Right,” she says, her voice tight. “Well, I was kind of freaking out too. But now I’m not.”
“Okay… I mean, that’s good?”
“I’m glad you think so,” she says, like she couldn’t care less what he thinks.
And the numb formality in her voice is more severe than any shouting.
“Nell,” Noah says, as he realizes he may have finally pushed too far. And wasn’t that his deep, dark intention maybe? But he realizes in this moment that separation from Nellie isn’t what he wants. Not at all. He has made a huge mistake—one from which he may never be able to recover. “I am so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry.”
“I hear that,” she says. “But I have to go.”
“You have to go? But we just got on.”
“Yes,” she says. “But I have things to do. I’m taking driving classes starting today.”
“You’re taking driver’s ed? Why?”
“Because. If I’m going to live in LA, I need a car.”
The weight of her words lands just as she hoped. On his chest like the last brick. His mouth drops open. He adjusts his grip on the phone, begins to sweat.
She feels real satisfaction as she waits for him to piece this puzzle together.
“Live in LA? What do you mean? I thought we decided…”
“Well,Idecided that I need to do what’s good for me. I need to look out for myself. Because no one else is.”
And he gets it. He does. He knows he has done something unforgivable. Butthis? This is all it took for her to let him go? To decide not to choose him?
It confirms his worst suspicions. That she was just looking for a reason. That she has never thought he was enough.
Maybe it was all a lie. Maybe he wasn’t more than baseball to her, any more than he was to anyone else. If all it took was this one transgression, albeit a big one, maybe she was looking for a way out all along?
“Okay,” he says. Because what else is there to say. “Are you still going to Chloe’s party tonight?”
“I might stop by. Probably not.”
“But we had plans?”
“Plans? Like when you told me you were coming over two nights ago? And left me alone, terrified, and fucked up?”
“Nell.”
“Noah.”
There is a heavy pause.
“What would you have done if I was still pregnant today?” she demands. “Would you have disappeared for good?”
Like your dad. The subtext hangs in the air.
“Nell.” His voice has gone hoarse, desperate. “You can’t possibly think that.”
