Page 20 of Yours, Truly

How do I introduce him? My one-night stand, my sex buddy, my best friend’s older brother, or maybe,‘it's complicated as he is a commitment phobe’.

“There's nothing to tell.” I tried to play it cool, hoping that was enough to shut her up. Brie eyed me suspiciously, not satisfied with my answer. I began to feel awkward, trying to quickly figure a way out of this. Nate cleared his throat and held out a hand to Brie.

“I'm Nathan.” He introduced himself, Brie took his hand and shook it. He squeezed my hand that he was still holding in reassurance. “Apologies. This is still fairly new, so we haven’t had the label conversation yet.” He swooped in, saving the day. He smiled over to me and I relaxed allowing him to take control of the situation.

“Oh, so you haven't known her for long then,” Brie chimed in, raising a brow, before looking at me again. I couldn’t work out what she was getting at. My insecurities bubbled up to the surface. I knew this was Brie’s intention, to belittle me in a tactful way. Maybe she was jealous that someone like Nate would be interested in someone like me. I wasn't anything special, not compared to her anyway.

“Actually, I've known her for a while," he defended, noticing the undertone of her comment. The diplomatic lawyer in him had surfaced. “I said the dating was new. Gi and I have been friends for a while,” he smiled politely, making himself dominantagainst her overpowering, egotistical, personality which only made my sister dig more.

“Oh, I see. Well, it’s good you can handle my sister’s crazy anxious episodes. Sometimes they can be…a lot. Even our parents couldn’t deal with her anxiety. That’s why they sent her to counselling,” Brie blurted before shrugging it off.

My mouth gaped open at her, I couldn’t believe she had just disclosed that. My anxiety was something I didn’t want to discuss with anyone and now here she was, telling me our parents sent me there as they couldn’t handle it themselves.

News to me and now Nate had heard this revelation too. It made me feel even more insecure. I swallowed the lump in my throat and I felt Nate’s hand squeezed mine tighter like he didn’t want to let go. His face darkened at my sister's disrespect towards me. He kept his gaze on her like a warning to back off.

The atmosphere became awkward, leaving me unsure how to come back from this. I was angry with her, upset, and now I felt like shit. This moment, this day, ruined. I was worried about what Nate was thinking at this moment. I was crazy; my anxiety could spiral out of control and this moment wasn’t helping. Brie was a trigger.

“So, when are you going to introduce him to Mum and Dad?” She asked, breaking the silence as if she had said nothing wrong. “They would be impressed you got a guy like him without any help,” she chuckled. I wanted to say something, I also wanted to leave but instead I froze. My body froze, watching her in disbelief at her lack of tact. I wasn’t surprised byanything she said or did anymore, but she would usually say this alone, not in front of others.

Nate's face hardened and I could feel his body tense up, anger building inside. He wanted to say something but I don’t think he knew what to say. Truth is he didn’t know me as well as either of us thought and there was a lot of myself that I didn’t expose to him. We were friends, not a couple.

I pulled myself out of my frozen state and squeezed Nate’s hand back. I wasn’t going to let my insecurities seep out now. Brie was trying to ruin this as she wanted to be the one to set me up. To make me feel like I owed her for finding someone for me. So, she could control him, control us. I blinked back the tears that were sitting on the edge, ready to flow, just like they always did when Brie treated me like this.

When we were kids and she acted this way towards me, I would cry into my pillow the moment she left my room, her words still hanging there. Moving out to my college dorm when I turned 18 was the best decision I ever made. Thankfully, nowadays it was mainly at family events I had to endure her. About 70% of the time, she was fine, just a slight sarcasm in her comments, but the other 30% of the time, she was pretty unfiltered. The sad thing is she didn’t even realise she was doing it.

“What a pleasure as always, Brie.” I replied harshly trying to get her away. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of humiliating me any longer. She shrugged once more and left, leaving behind the rubble of her presence. Nate was frozen, stillprocessing what happened. I couldn’t help but worry this would make him back away further, my mental state wasn’t something I openly shared. Even Kyle had barely scraped the surface and we were together for two years.

“Nate,” I said, my voice shaky, it came out as more of a whisper as I tried to hold back tears that threatened to escape. He didn't move, didn't even blink. He just stared at the place Brie had now vanished from. I placed my other hand on his arm, hugging his biceps. He simmered down, his body relaxing beneath my touch.

“Can we go home please?” I begged. This had cut our day shorter than planned. He finally looked at me, his emotions unreadable and he nodded. He slipped his hand from mine and flung it over my shoulder, pulling me into him protectively as we walked to the car. Not uttering a single word.

Nate needed to run in the store to grab some food for Ivy and I stayed in the car staring out the window. Nate returned, fastened his seatbelt and sped out of the car park as he needed to make a quick stop at Ivy’s to drop the items in. He hadn’t even been gone for 10 minutes. Maybe he was rushing to get back to me, worried to leave me alone in case I broke down again. When we had reached the car, after our interaction with Brie, I had cried uncontrollably, throwing Nate off. I guess for him emotion wasn’t something he knew how to deal with. Hell, I didn’t know how to deal with them myself. All he knew was that I wanted to get home quickly and hide away. While driving he would occasionally glance over to make sure I was doing okay.The whole journey, he had his hand resting on my leg, a trivial reassurance, like it was natural for us.

Finally arriving at Ivy's house, he ran everything into her, leaving me hidden in the car just around the corner, before he continued the journey to drop me home. Silence hung over us on the way home.

Like the gentleman he was, he walked me to my door, concern still etched on his face. This was the quietest he had ever seen me. I was usually more chatty, more challenging, more relaxed. After Hurricane Brie, I was the complete opposite. It was like I was back in my old shell, deep in my own thoughts.

“Thank you for today.” I smiled gently, finally breaking the long silence.

“Gi, are you okay?” He asked, concerned, like he wanted to know what was going on in my head. I wasn’t ready to share with him, so I pasted on my best fake smile and pretended I was fine, pulling myself together in a split second.

“Yeah, I'm good” I lied, burying the hurt deep in my chest. My eyes avoided his as I placed the key in my door to unlock it.

“You don't have to lie to me,” he said, placing a hand on the small of my back, freezing me in place. My eyes met his and he was being sincere. He brought his free hand up to graze my cheek affectionately. I swallowed the lump in my throat. This wasn’t his problem. We weren’t dating after all, so my mental state wasn’t his business. He didn’t need to bedragged into my problems, family or otherwise.

“I know. But I’m fine,” I lied again, keeping the smile there and turning my attention back to the key in the door, twisting it as a click unlocked it, allowing me into my safe space.

I walked in the door and out of Nate’s grip as he followed close behind me. I unwrapped my scarf from my neck and unzipped my coat, placing it on the peg as he closed the door behind us doing the same.I guess he's staying then.

I rolled my eyes. As much as I would love him to, I just wanted to be alone, I wanted to cry and scream with no witnesses but now I had to hold this in. I flopped onto the sofa, sighing and resting my hands in my lap as I watched his movements. He ran his hands through his hair, sighing a little, he seemed nervous, just as nervous as I was.

I played with my fingers and nails, inspecting them over and over again for the smallest chip, anything to keep my eyes off the man before me. The sofa gently dipped beside me. He hesitated before reaching for my hands, taking them in his, softly caressing the back of my hands, brushing his fingers over my knuckles.

“Gi, your sister is wrong. You are beautiful, inside and out.” My eyes met his at the affectionate comment. He swallowed the lump in his throat before continuing. “Any guy would be lucky to have you!”

Wow! Is that so Nate?Any guy?Just not good enough for you.

His words stung, maybe he thought they would make the situation better, give me comfort, but they made it worse. Iscoffed at his comment, the irony, as he expressed that someone else would be lucky to have me but I didn'twantto be someone else's.I want to be his.

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