Page 134 of Backslide
I hold up the T-shirt in my hands, examine it. “Should I throw this out?”
“No way!” Cara says, petting it with her palm. “It’s too soft.”
“Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater,” Sabrina adds.
“Is Noah the baby or the bathwater?”
“Unfortunately for you,” Cara says, “I think he’s both.” Then she turns on her side to face me: “So, what really even happened?”
And so I tell her. I tell them both. Everything.Finally. And it comes out in a rush, a full purge. I tell them about my job ending, since the news will break any day. And I tell them everything about Noah. Not just the details about what went down on this trip, but about the history too—the parts I redacted years ago in hopes of protecting… I guess myself.
Maybe him on some level?
I think maybe there was a part of me that always thought we’d get back together. And I didn’t want them to judge me if I made that choice. When I left LA to live in New York again after college, it was in part to be closer to my family—which proved so fortunate when my dad got sick shortly afterward. But also, I think some part of me believed maybe Noah and I would find each other again. In our city. With our spots. And our rough edges.
And somehow all the history would evaporate. And I didn’t want my friends to think I was weak for taking him back.
But then he was gone.
He evaporated instead.
And my anger grew.
I caught myself looking for him sometimes, in boys I saw rushing down the subway steps or carrying their baseball equipment in a duffel on the train. In young men on green fields with dusty paths to white bases, the changing of the guard from childhood to adulthood.
I tell my friends what happened between us all those years ago.About the pregnancy scare and him standing me up and my decision to leave for school and his decision to stay behind—and then the kiss. Thatkiss. With that random girl. That took something fluid, that still had at least the possibility of movement, and made it solid—immovable.
Over.
I tell them that the first time I saw him was at that club, that night. And that I obsessed over him, though I never said a word. One of many debauched nights to them maybe, but so significant for me. That I thought about him from that night on—and how I kind of never stopped.
“I had no idea,” Cara sighs, like it’s romantic and not a stupid tragedy with a side of oysters. “I can’t believe you came here after losing your job and breaking up with your fiancé and didn’t say a word!”
“I know,” I nod.
“No wonder you’re a mess!”
“Hey!” I elbow her lightly, smile.
She’s too busy reeling to notice. “I can’t believe Lydia never told me about him kissing that girl!”
“I mean, it was her friend. She orchestrated it. It didn’t exactly make her look good.”
“That’s true.” Cara considers this for a second. “I know she’s kind of horrible. But I feel bad for her. I mean, Nellie, she resents you because she doesn’t feel good enough.”
“True,” Sabrina says. “But she’s also a dick.”
There is a long silence as we digest this. “What Noah did was bad,” Cara says, sliding a hand between her head and the pillow. “Really bad. I mean, I understand now why you hated himsomuch. I think if I knew then, I might have trouble forgiving him now, even on your behalf. But now, so many years later, I don’t think he’s the same mixed-up guy he was then.”
“That’s probably true.”
“We all make mistakes,” Sabrina says. “Like some of us throw up in tiny water bottles.”
“That seems like a less egregious mistake.”
She nods in agreement. “Fair enough.”
“But are you sure you can’t make it work?” Cara asks, propping herself up. “With the Noah of today?”
