Nathan suddenly pulled the menu down, and I was caught sticking my tongue out at him.
Oops.
But instead of getting mad, Nathan only said quietly, “I’m sorry, Alyx.”
There it was, I thought. The thing I most feared was actually happening. I was tempted to throw the menu over my head in a fit of despondency, but I managed not to. I took my time setting the menu aside, and without meeting his gaze, I heard myself ask, “Are you breaking up with me?”
“What?” Nathan’s tone was stunned, and a glimmer of hope that I didn’t want but couldn’t help feeling burst inside of me.
“The thought never even crossed my mind.”
Oh.
He reached for my hand across the table, and as our fingers clasped, I mumbled, “But you don’t fuck me anymore.”
The ex-model choked.
Turning red, I snarled under my breath, “Sorry, was I supposed to make that sound more romantic?” I adopted a breathy, feminine tone, saying, “Our bodies no longer come in writhing unity---”
“Ah, sweetheart.” He tipped my chin up, forcing me to look at him, and when our gazes met I didn’t quite know what to do---
The bleakness was gone, the tenderness that I used to always see in it was back, but why didn’t it feel enough anymore?
“There are just things I’m working through. That’s all,” he stressed.
No longer able to ignore the elephant in the room since it was practically bitch-slapping my face with its long wet trunk, I asked abruptly, “Is it something your stepmother said?” Yes, it was a wild guess, but there wasn’t anything else to do. I could only grasp at straws when Nathan insisted on not telling me anything.
When he didn’t answer, I pressed determinedly, asking, “Your father then? They learned something about me, and now they don’t approve of me---”
“No one has to approve what we have,” Nathan gritted out.
“Then what’s wrong? Why have you suddenly stopped coming to my place? Why have you suddenly stopped---”
Fucking.
Talking.
Caring.
Why have you suddenly stopped pretending that you want to love me back?
“I want you in my life, Alyx. That hasn’t changed.”
But will it change…one day?
I wish I had the courage to ask that, but then a part of me knew I didn’t have to. Of course it would change – it was meant to change, if he never learned to love me the way I loved him.
“Alyx…” His fingers tightened. “I know there are things I have to explain, and I promise I will. But right now…I just need you to wait for me.”
Ah.
“Can you do that for me, Alyx?” His voice was hoarse.
“I just wish…” I swallowed past the painful lump in my throat. “I don’t mind waiting, Nathan, but…can’t you tell me why I suddenly need to wait alone?” He had to know that I had poured my heart out in the poems I had worked on with Keanne. He had to know that what was happening right now was like the fucking poem coming to life---
He was alone.
I was alone.
We were alone when we didn’t have to be.
Nathan’s fingers slowly slipped out of my hold, and for one moment – for one desperate moment – I wanted to snatch them back and never let go.
“I don’t know,” he said tonelessly.
“I s-see.” I clumsily hid my hands under the table, not wanting him to see how it suddenly couldn’t stop shaking.
“Alyx.” His voice was suddenly fierce.
But I couldn’t make myself meet his gaze. How did it come to this point? How? How?
“I don’t know a lot of things right now, but all I goddamn know is that I don’t want to lose you.”
Space. I had to give him space.
“Right?” I was at home, alone, and verbally drowning my sorrows in a three-way FaceTime call with Yanna and Daria. It was just like old times, really. We used to do this a lot when Daria was struggling as Nik’s one-time mistress and we had done it, too, when Yanna was torn over Constantijin’s womanizing ways.
And now it was my turn, and I hated it.
I really hated it because it made me feel so damn foolish, made me feel like such a bratty know-it-all. Who the hell did I think I was all these years, believing I could avoid this kind of pain just because I had seen my friends go through it?
“It’s what he asked,” I reasoned. “So I should give it to him rather than be the stereotypical nagging girlfriend, demanding him to talk about his feelings.” I rolled my eyes. “Which we all know is like pulling a tooth out of them.”
Silence.
“Right?” I demanded again.
“Absolutely,” Daria said after a beat.
“Whatever you think is best, then that’s what you should do,” Yanna said.
Another bout of silence stretched.
“You totally don’t think that’s what I should do, do you?” I asked finally.
“It’s because you’ve always been the cautious type,” Yanna explained helplessly. “I don’t want to advise you to do something that you might not feel comfortable doing.” She was in the nursery with her adorable months-old daughter sleeping on her shoulder while in the background we could see her firstborn, two-year-old Christiaan playing on the floor, his concentrated gaze focused on a model train that looked too complicated for his age.