Page 86 of Backslide
Last night, after Damien threw a grenade into my sense of world order and then Ben excused himself to go bring a Coke to his barfing wife, I lay in bed trying to figure out who to be most annoyed with—D, Nell, or myself.
She wants to “hang out” with Damien in New York?What the fuck?
Even the idea of her agreeing to that platonically makes me want to blast the roof off this place. Why is she willing to spend time with Damien and not me? Why are they even talking alone? Do I really need to tell one of my oldest friends how uncool that would be?(Apparently, since he seems to think he’s clear to make a move and was maybe even warning me to step off—warningme?)
Nellie clearly didn’t want to share the suite with him. I assumed that was because he isn’t her favorite. But maybe it was actually for the opposite reason—because she felt self-conscious, living alongside a guy she’s attracted to.
I shuddered, the thought of them together like pure torture.
I was losing it.
On the other hand, Damien definitely wouldn’t have been dumb enough to pause a hot tub hookup—a fucking mind-blowing one, if I’m honest—to check in on her sobriety.
So maybe I deserve whatever I get. When I think about our history, now, in the light of day, I think I definitely do.
I’m such a fucking tool.
It was just that, in the hot tub, I had suddenly imagined her face afterward, eyes potentially filled with regret, and I wanted to make sure that wasn’t where we were headed.
Because I didn’t think I could handle that.
Only that’s exactly where I put us.
I didn’t realize how far that would take us off the rails.
I took a pillow and covered my face with it, so I could scream into the void.
Maybe this infatuation was just about me? My feelings of attachment just an expression of some early midlife crisis about unfinished business from my youth, things I didn’t accomplish, proof that I still had it. That’s what Nell had suggested when she got angry. Could she have been right?
But, lying in my bed, I knew that wasn’t true. This was all about her. A woman I met way too early, before I was ready for her, and who I now know in my gut is the one for me.
Unfortunately, there is just going to have to be more than oneone. Because this one is not interested.
I had come on this trip still harboring some resentment, I realized now. But seeing Nell had changed all that, had made me realize it was worth pushing through that pettiness for the promise of what could be.
Was there anything I could do to win her over, at this point? Was there any way to surmount our history?
No. That was the resounding answer. She was never going to be able to see me differently.
I threw my pillow across the room. And I decided resolutely, then and there, to let this—and her—go. I am a focused man. A surgeon. Not easy to ruffle. I wasn’t going to let this thing derail me.
I would be polite and avoid her as much as possible for the remaining couple days and then head home and get back to my functional, full life—which was totally fine before I saw her again.
So, in the morning, I woke up with a renewed commitment to forgetting Nell. Which lasted about three seconds until I headed into the common room to make a cup of coffee and found her already awake, on the phone. There she was, leaning over the desk, taking notes on the estate-branded pad, her wavy hair falling around her face and her ass—in throwback velour gym shorts—in the air.
I thought:I am so screwed.
She looked up at me, actuallylookedat me, which felt in my pathetic head like progress, and then glanced away.
“Uh-huh,” she was saying. “Yes. Totally. Got it.”
I crossed the room and grabbed a pod to start making coffee for us. She held up a to-go cup from the property’s café.
I have never been so offended to have my coffee rejected.
“I got it, CB,” she said. “I wrote it down. And yes”—she took the phone away from her ear and scrolled on it, then returned it to her ear—“I just got your list over email, too. Yes. I will cross-check them. I will not forget,” she said, standing up and shaking her head. “I’ve got this. You’ve picked the right woman for the job.”
I poured coffee into a mug and then, as quickly as possible, turned to go back to my room to hide until Nell was gone.
