The Cheat Sheet

“Why do you have to handle it all, Nathan? Why won’t you let yourself rest?” I ask, looking deep into his eyes.

He squeezes them shut and tears roll out. “Because I don’t deserve to.”

“What?” I ask on an exhale.

“Bree, I’ve never had to work for anything in my life. Nothing! It’s all been handed to me. Catered to me. I wanted to work in high school, but my parents actually wouldn’t let me. Even my current position on the team is because it was handed to me. Daren, the man who rightfully earned his spot, got injured, and I took over after sitting on the bench for two years. Do you see? I’ve been given all of this success—so what do I have to complain about? What right do I have to be exhausted? None. I’m just a rich kid who was provided everything he ever needed and handed more money and more success on a silver platter.”

I had no idea he felt this way.

“So this is the reason you work yourself to death? Why you never say no to people? You’re trying to prove your worth?”

His eyes turn down again. “When I work hard, when I feel tired, it’s the only time I feel a little bit of the guilt in my chest lessen.” I want to speak to this, but he keeps going, new tears shaking his voice. “I’ve never had to go through hard things in my life. I’ve never known anything close to poverty or struggle or even just budgeting, for that matter. I have a chef, a driver, a manager, an agent—everything I could ever need, so tell me…what reason do I have to complain about any of it?”

Tears are streaming down his face, and the look in his eyes is anger mixed with defeat.

“What right do I have to resent it? To want to escape any part of it ever? No. I don’t deserve to get help for the anxiety I can’t escape. I don’t get to feel overworked. I need to keep my shit together and give as much of myself as I can, because otherwise everyone will see that I don’t deserve to be where I am.”

Nathan lets go of me to press his face into his hands. For a moment, I sit, stunned. I stare at this man I thought I knew better than anyone in the world and realize all along he’s been bottling up his feelings, his hurts, his anxiety and stress because he feels like he has to wear a cape to be a hero.

If he can bare all of this to me right now, I can do the same for him.

I pull his hands down from his eyes so I can look in them. “Listen to me. It is not the things you do that make you worthy, it’s that you have a beating heart in your chest. You have a soul, which means you are allowed to feel hurt, tired, stressed, sad, angry. All of those things—you are allowed to feel them. Everyone is.” I gather all of my strength for my next words. “Your ability to shoulder everything, to give 200% of yourself all the time, to be perfect at everything you attempt…these are not the attributes that make you a valuable human being.” I pause. “And they are not why I fell in love with you.”

His black eyes shoot up to me.

I smile. The weight of these heavy secrets falls off of me, and I feel relieved to continue. “I fell in love with you because you’re goofy. You’re fun. Your heart is so big I don’t know how it fits in here,” I say, pressing my hand to his chest. “You’re a terrible singer. You make me soup when I’m sick. You bought me tampons that time I was laid out on the couch with cramps and couldn’t move. You didn’t even send someone else for them. You went yourself!”

He chuckles lightly, and I wish there were more light so I could see his smile clearer.

“Look, Nathan, I don’t care if you never pick up another football a day in your life, or if no one in the world attaches the word successful to your name ever again.” Now I’m the one dumping tears, and Nathan’s hands have moved to cradle my face. His thumbs dash across my cheekbones.

I shake my head lightly and try to swallow down my sob enough to finish speaking. “So don’t say you’re not worthy or deserving, because you are to me. You always will be.”

Nathan pulls me closer and crushes me against his chest. His strong forearms are pressing into my shoulder blades, his face buried in my hair.

“I love you too,” he whispers over and over again. “I love you, Bree. I love you. I always have.”

I talk Nathan into letting me drive him home in his truck, and he arranges for someone from his entourage to go get my car and drive it back for me tonight. Hello, celebrity perks. We leave almost immediately even though Nathan is severely worried this is going to upset everyone.

“Let me take care of you,” I say, looking up into his hesitant eyes. “Please?”

He relents and hands me his keys. “Thank you.”

I get a kiss on the cheek, but I sort of want to do the move where you turn your face really quick and get a kiss on the mouth instead. Not the time.

On the drive home, we’re both physically and emotionally exhausted. Nathan turns on some mellow music, takes my hand, and laces our fingers. He kisses my knuckles with an aching tenderness that tears right through me. We drive for two hours, not saying a word, just listening to the music in comfortable silence.

“Will you stay at my place tonight?” he asks, finally breaking the silence as I pull into the parking garage of his building.

I’ve stayed at his apartment a hundred times, so that question shouldn’t feel heavy or important. But it is, because I’ve never been asked it while he holds my hand and the words “I love you” hang between us. It feels easy to say yes though. Natural.

When we finally walk into his apartment, he tosses his keys on the entry table. I toe off my shoes and go into the kitchen to get us both a glass of water. It’s all so normal, but also lightly scented with different. Neither of us speak, because we’re not sure what words would be adequate enough to follow the emotional roller coaster we just rode together. So we carry our waters down the long hallway that leads to our rooms. I get ready to part from him and go into mine for the night like I always do, but he catches my hand, tugging me back around. A bit of water sloshes onto the floor.

“Stay with me?” He says those three words not as a demand, but as a defenseless question. A need. A desperate hope. Tonight has peeled back everything I thought I knew about Nathan, and now I see a man who’s just as scared as me. I love him more.

I nod and step into his expansive room. Nathan gently closes the door behind us, and my heart gallops when I hear it quietly latch. The floor-to-ceiling window is ten steps away, and I take each of them with a measured calm then look out over the most incredible view of the ocean, nothing obstructing the dark expanse of water and white crests of the waves breaking against the sand. It looks peaceful yet dangerous out there. That’s exactly how it feels in here too.

“Bree?” Nathan asks from behind me, and I whirl around like a tornado that’s suddenly directionless.