Page 71 of One Wrong Move

Harper: How are you gonna solve that?

Nate: I’m going to order whatever chef recommends and then eat it with a smile on my face. Even if it’s pickled herring.

Harper: Send me a pic of the food when it arrives.

Nate: Absolutely not. This is a business dinner. Can you imagine if I tell people to wait before eating because I need to take a pic?

That makes me laugh again.

Harper: Are you with them now? You should talk to them! Not me!

Nate: Don’t worry. You’re helping me to appear aloof and busy. I just referred to you as my brother in New York, by the way, the CEO of Contron. They’re very impressed.

Harper: Go eat some fish.

The next few days fly by in a flurry of back-and-forth texts. Nate sends occasional pictures from his trip—he’s in Berlin now—little updates and jokes.

I didn’t think I would miss him.

But I do.

The giant townhouse is quiet and I have it all to myself, but the luxury doesn’t feel the same without him in it. It feels empty, a shell that’s waiting for him to return.

I leave work in a hurry on Friday, excited to finally see Nate again. But when I arrive home… he’s not here. The empty rooms continue to mock me and the silence is deafening.

I pause on my landing and look up at the narrow stairs leading to his floor. The top level is the last place in this giant, elegant place I haven’t been to.

But I valiantly stop myself from snooping.

Harper: Where are you?

Nate: Have to stay another night in Berlin. There was a fuckup with a supplier. I’m annoyed.

I bite my bottom lip and struggle with the same feeling. I thought I would see him tonight. Had hoped… thought we could order in, watch a movie perhaps…

Harper: Oh. Hope it gets resolved!

Nate: It better.

So I head out instead… and go to a bar in Chelsea.

Grab a drink by myself is on my list. Although everything inside me screams at how weird it is to sit in the bar with a single glass of wine and no one to talk to, I force myself through the profound awkwardness of the first fifteen minutes.

Once I get over my self-consciousness, something amazing happens.

It becomes enjoyable.

Watching the people, feeling the pulse of the night, and drinking my white wine. I don’t let myself be distracted by my phone, either. I am simply present in the moment, in a way I haven’t been for a very long time.

As I walk home with another thing checked off my list, I feel a newfound sense of empowerment.

Ridiculous, Dean would have said. I can hear the tone he would have used, too, like my ideas were fanciful and childish, and had no place in an adult’s life.

I’m reclaiming that sense of wonder one step at a time, and with it, myself. Who I used to be when I indulged my whims, when I focused on fun instead of stability. Tiny movements toward the woman I want to be. Toward the life I want to live.

I walk aimlessly through the kitchen and run my hand over the stone countertop. Look outside the windows at the dark garden I’ve still never really sat in. I’ll have to change that, soon.

Maybe he needs to stay in Berlin for another reason. One he didn’t want to share. It would be unreasonable of me to expect a single, wealthy man in his late thirties to spend every weekend at home or work.

---