Page 49 of Ten Years and Then…
“Uh, hi. Rachel? You don’t know me, but I’m Daniel. Nora’s boyfriend?”
She made a sound that he couldn’t place—partly a sigh, partly a curse she barely suppressed. “It’s nice to finally talk to you, but I wish the circumstances were better.”
What did she mean by that? “I know she’s not doing well, but she won’t talk to me. I want to help—I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I called you.”
She cursed again; he heard it for sure this time. “I know she’s not talking to you. She isn’t talking to anybody.” There was a bitter laugh. “I know she loves you, Daniel. And God knows she needs you right now. But—I hate to say this—I don’t think she’s going to let you in. Or anyone else.”
“I don’t understand.”
Yet another curse. “She learned some very crappy lessons from her parents. I shouldn’t be saying any of this, but you deserve to know. She learned that people who love her always end up hurting her. So I think she’s decided to push you away before you hurt her, too.”
“I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt her!” Not on purpose. But she was hurt the morning after his birthday, when he found out about the summer job, wasn’t she?
“No, I don’t think you would. But she doesn’t know that. Maybe she’ll figure it out one day. But—I am so sorry, Daniel—I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”
Nora, April 27
The phone rang a dozen times. Usually Kim answered it by the third ring, but now she just sat on her bed staring back and forth between it and Nora. When whoever was calling finally gave up, Kim asked her, anger in her tone, “Are you ever going to answer the phone, Nora? Or talk to anybody?”
Why? What was the point? If it was Rachel, she’d only be calling with another lecture. If it was her parents, there wasn’t anything they could possibly say that she’d want to hear. And if it was Daniel, he’d probably be calling to dump her, and while she didn’t blame him—she had been the crappiest girlfriend imaginable for the past several weeks—that wasn’t something she was prepared to hear now.
“It was probably for you anyway.”
Kim growled—Nora had never heard her roommate make that sound before. “God, Nora! What the hell is wrong with you? I mean, I’ve been patient because you were sick, and you were really swamped for a while, but you’re not the only person who ever had a bad couple of weeks.”
She didn’t understand. She didn’t have everybody who was ever supposed to care about her let her down. She wasn’t doomed to let down everybody she cared about. “It’s easy for you to talk, as if you know anything about me.”
“Only because you never let me know anything real about you! Not once! You talk and joke and make sarcastic comments, but the second something real happens, you shut down like it’s a crime to feel anything!” Kim stopped for a second, catching her breath, then she went on. “Except with your boyfriend, and you’ve been pushing him away, too. It’s like you want to be miserable, just so you can say you were right all along about how rotten everyone is.”
How could she say that? That was the most vicious, the most awful thing anybody had ever said to her. She hated Kim for saying it.
And maybe the truest thing, too. She hated Kim even more for that.
Chapter 15
The last day of spring semester—Albion College
Daniel, May 15
Daniel had never broken up with someone. Peggy didn’t count; there hadn’t been an official breakup, just something quietly dying that—in hindsight—hadn’t ever been what he’d thought it was in the first place.
He couldn’t let that happen with Nora. He owed her the truth, delivered face to face, and he owed it to her to stand there and take whatever her response was. Whether it was tears, or shouting, or the cruelest words imaginable or a slap across the face—did girls still do that, or did it only happen in movies?—he would deserve it.
But whatever happened, it would be better than letting this go on when there was no future. It would be better than breaking her heart even worse three months from now, or six, or a year.
Nora
Nora had never broken up with anyone. She had no idea how it was supposed to work, except that she owed it to Daniel to go over to his room and tell him in person. She’d ignored him for weeks, but she couldn’t do that anymore. She had to stand there and watch his heart shatter when she said the words.
She could have apologized and tried to fix things, if that was possible after how awful she’d been. But even if he did forgive her, which she didn’t deserve anyway, she knew what would happen afterwards. She’d just end up leading him on for a few tense months where every conversation was a minefield, until she said or did something so horrible that it would wreck him forever.
That’s what her parents had done to each other, and nearly two decades later they both still had ugly jagged wounds where their hearts used to be. She couldn’t do that to Daniel.
Daniel
He should go to her. He knew her roommate was already gone for the semester, so she’d be alone. The least he could do was allow this to happen on her turf.
He put on his sneakers, grabbed his keys and he was almost to the door when there was a knock.
