Page 61 of How to Say I Do
At least I had work to keep me occupied. I had holes to dig, poles to erect, and shade sails to hang. Picnic tables to build. I had to paint the barn, too, but nottooperfectly, Noël had cautioned nearly fifty times. Whitewashed. Artistically weathered. I told him if it ended up looking too good, I’d consider it a compliment, and I could surely muddy it up and make it look a mess if need be.
And, of course, I had the vineyard. Summer was coming on strong, and soon the grapes would be singing for mercy. Summertime was when the art of being a wine grower truly came into play. Good sunlight strengthened the vines, but also withered the fruit. Each day was a balancing act, and a battle against time and Mother Nature’s strength.
The sun rose and fell, and Noël didn’t call or text or email.
A second day passed. The silence between us felt alive, growing, deepening, thickening.
His life was so remarkably different from mine, so full of glamour it seemed astounding that he’d even notice me. My life’s ambitions extended to my cross fences and drawing my father’s dream out of the earth. Noël hosted movie premieres and Super Bowl parties. He’d dated supermodels. He was about to become a partner in his global superstar firm. What delusion was I clinging to where I believed Noël would choose me over all of that?
I reread his emails again, hunting for the thing I missed. There had to be something, some line I’d missed about how he wasn’t ready or he didn’t want to be with a man. Or he did want to be with a man, but not me.
I didn’t find the place where he told me, “No, not us, not you,” but, re-reading, I did understand him differently. I heard, finally, how deeply lost he was, and how unbearably alone he felt.
I spent a long time sitting on the porch and staring at the sky that third night.
Noël’s heartache hit me like a hammer clawed into my chest. His fears trawled through the words he’d written.I don’t know where I’m going. This life doesn’t make sense, Wyatt.
My brushstrokes of happy memories bled into smudges of darkness, filled in with Noël’s confessions.I barely know myself. Most of the time, I don’t feel like a real person. I feel like I’m this puppet or this robot, expected to follow some script that I wasn’t given the lines for. Why does everyone around me seem to know what’s going on? Why can’t I be excited about this future? Isn’t a partnership the pinnacle of my professional aspirations?
And you… What aboutyou, Wyatt? I don’t understand—
If I could have, I would have taken apart the world and rebuilt it until everything was knowable to Noël again. But I couldn’t, and so I felt uselessly helpless. No, more than that: I felt personally responsible for Noël’s precarious spiral into this startling place he hadn’t asked to be dragged into. Given the choice, would he wipe me from his past?
It was a hard place to sit in, holding on to the realization that you loved a man who might wish to forget you ever existed.
There was nothing in this life I was driven to more than the urge to help another. I’d raise my baby brother and his own baby, and I’d draw my father’s dreams out of the ground, and I’d buy a burger for a stranger in a bar, and I’d do it all without a second’s hesitation. And, yes, I wanted to go to Noël and help, any way that I could, but I was not so unaware that I knew that would be the wrong choice to make.
Noël was in a maze, and he had to find his own way out. He had to learn himself, and discover his own truth, and the meaning he was searching for. His life and his future were somewhere out there, waiting for him, and maybe that included me, but maybe it didn’t. I couldn’t do anything to rush him or push him.
If he wanted me, he had to find me himself.
So I was waiting.
Sunflowers swayed. Wind whispered over the fields. In the barn, something creaked like it needed oiling. The moon was low, slanting pale shadows across the yard. My roses looked like budding stars, grabbable by little boys with dreams and foolish men who believed they’d come true.
“Noël…”
I imagined he could hear me all the way in New York, where it was an hour later and his night would be in full swing. He was probably out with movie stars and recording artists and stunningly beautiful, insanely talented people, doing gorgeous and brilliant things.
Wouldn’t it be easier for him to put his wonderings away? Why should he spare a thought for a man alone on his ranch with nothing but grapes and ghosts for company? If I were Noël, would I bother trying to puzzle through this conundrum? Or would I nail that door shut and walk away, think of those six days as a hot little experiment down in Mexico? Noël could have anyone. Why would he choose me?
I scraped the bottom of my boot against the step and tried to empty my head.
Of course, that’s when my phone rang.
It vibrated on the porch beside my thigh, lighting up with an unknown number and a 212 area code.New York, New York, my display read. I lunged for it and swiped to answer. “Hello?”
“Wyatt?”
“Hey.” I scrambled for something, anything, to say. “How are you?”
He blew out a long, tattered sigh. I imagined his hand running through his hair, the ends sticking up, the way his face pinched when he was frazzled. “I don’t even know.”
“It’s late.” Three days of imagining Noël calling, and that’s what I went with?
“It’s early,” Noël shot back. “I just sneaked out of a party. God, I could not stand another second being there. I’d rather play in traffic.” I heard cars rushing by him, horns honking, pulsing music. People’s voices in passing. “I was just thinking about you,” he said, his voice suddenly higher, lighter, faux ease I could see through because I played that game, too. “And I…”
He was retreating. Backing away like a scared animal, even though he’d picked up the phone and dialed tonight for some reason. “I’ve been thinking about you, too.”
