That was made evident when he confessed, “I remember getting to this point with Naomi and hating myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her anymore, it was that I couldn’t stand to be around me.” His eyes slowly lifted to meet mine. I felt his embarrassment behind his thick lashes. “Does that make me the most selfish man alive?”
I rushed to assure him that it didn’t. “I know exactly what you mean.” I pulled my thick hair over one shoulder and ran my fingers through the ends nervously. “I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot. It’s like Nick and I are mostly good people… until you put us together. Then we’re miserable and mean. I’ve never treated… I’ve said some horrible…” I let out a shaky breath. I barely knew Eli. These things were personal; I didn’t need to share them with strangers.
“You’re just not right for each other, isn’t that it? You’re good people, but better people apart.”
I bravely met his gaze again. “That’s exactly it. We are better friends than husband and wife.” But even as I said the words they felt like a lie. I didn’t know if we were better friends. We had never been friends. And I seriously doubted the probability that we would become friends now.
“Does it get easier?” My words trembled as they fell from my lips. I needed him to tell me yes. I needed him to offer hope.
“It does,” he said solemnly. “It will.”
Relief, sweet and strong, pulsed through me. I felt hot tears prick at my eyes. I held them back, frustrated that I could still cry at the drop of a hat. I needed to pull myself together. I needed to get a grip.
To my embarrassment, he noticed right away. “Hey,” he soothed. His big arms wrapped around me and pulled me into a comforting hug.
I was so shocked at first that I didn’t know what to do. But he didn’t give up, he didn’t let go. After a few more moments, I couldn’t fight the warmth of his touch or the promise of his comfort. I let my arms encircle his hard torso and sank into him.
“Thank you.”
He squeezed me tightly for another elongated moment before releasing me. “It’s still fresh,” he consoled. “Give it time. Remember what it’s like to live alone and you’ll be fine, Kate. You’re a tough cookie.”
I wrinkled my nose. “How would you know that?”
“You work here, don’t you?” His playful smile put one on my lips too. “You have to be tough.”
“Or stupid,” I laughed.
His expression straightened, turning serious with his sentiment, “Well, you’re definitely not that.”
My stomach fluttered unexpectedly. I hadn’t been anticipating such a sweet compliment. “Thank you,” I told him. “Again.”
He moved toward the door, offering me a small wave as he pulled his black-framed glasses from his pocket. “Any time. I mean that. Any time you need to talk, I’m just a few doors down.”
I was too flustered to respond, so I nodded slowly and pressed my lips together to keep from smiling too big.
He disappeared through the doorframe and I stood there for a long time after, just staring at the blank space. I needed to prep for my next class, but I couldn’t get over Eli and his surprising friendship.
I hadn’t been open with anyone that wasn’t Kara in a long time. And I hadn’t had a man’s opinion in my life for longer than that.
Nick didn’t count since he rarely gave his.
Neither did my dad or brother since I never listened to theirs.
And not only had Eli been nice… but he’d understood too.
He hadn’t judged me. He hadn’t dismissed my feelings or made me feel bad for having them. He’d been through what I had and promised it would get better.
I held those words close to my broken heart. I let them take root in my chest and bloom with promise.
I needed it to get better. I needed to know I could survive this.
Because right now… right now leaving Nick… healing from our brokenness… moving on with my life…
It all felt impossible.
Chapter Five
12. We never talk anymore.
Friday night used to be the best night of the week. Once upon a time… before my age started skirting thirty and responsibility became more important than tequila shots and dancing the night away.
Also, since when did hangovers evolve into the bubonic plague? In our younger years, Nick and I could walk the thin line between alcohol poisoning and passing out in a friend’s bushes, then wake up the next day refreshed and ready to do it all over again.
Now two beers were enough to land me on my ass for the rest of the weekend with a nasty headache and Exorcist-style puking.
Nick wasn’t like me, though. He could still party unapologetically like he was at his bachelor party every single night. Which worked well for him.
He was in a band. A band.
But not the Backstreet Boys. Nick was the farthest thing from a Backstreet Boy. Thank god.
He had been named Nick Carter before the crooning boy band member had ever made the name famous.
Nick hated that he shared his name with someone else. I loved it. Not because I had a thing for boy bands. But because I could give him an endless hard time about it.
Come on. It never got old.
Plus, I could sing I Want it That Way and pretend like it was just to get under his skin.
At the age of thirty, my husband still hadn’t given up his dreams of becoming the next big thing.
Our entire marriage had been centered around his big break, the big break that never came. Our weekends were booked with gigs and late nights at seedy venues. His college degree that he’d earned with honors was all but forgotten in his pursuit of happiness.
He was good at it. I would never claim otherwise. My husband could sing and play guitar and rock out on stage as if he belonged on the radio and in stadiums surrounded by hundreds of thousands of fans. He was something to see on stage. I was transfixed from the very first moment I saw him up there. He never failed to make me fall in love with him every time he took the stage and opened his mouth.
But the music industry was not a fair place. He knew that more than anyone else.
We had lost so much money to bad agents and self-recorded albums. I had watched my savings dwindle and my hard-earned paychecks disappear into new equipment and demos.
It had been amazing while we were dating. I used to love having the lead singer’s complete attention. I loved that he wrote songs about how much he loved me. I loved that my husband was in a band.
Fast forward seven years, it wasn’t as pretty. The shininess had worn off and the glitter had faded. I was tired of supporting us on my pathetic teacher’s salary and begging him to get a real job, a job that paid something.
And I could tell he was tired. He was tired of failing. He was tired of not making it. With each passing year, he’d grown more cynical… more jaded.
His music was still great. His music would always be great. But at some point we had to grow up.
I supported him for as long as I could- both emotionally and financially. But I reached my limit and I couldn’t hide it anymore.
I didn’t even want to think about what that did to him… what it felt like to have the person that was supposed to love him most in the world give up on him.
Guilt swam in my stomach, erasing my hunger and determination to stock my empty refrigerator.
I pushed the cart forward and let go for a few seconds. Grocery shopping on a Friday night. This was about as grown up as it got.
But not in a good way.
I looked at the few items in my basket and tried not to roll my eyes. I had been wandering around the store for forty-five minutes and hadn’t been able to find anything that sounded good.
I’d picked up lots of Nick’s favorites before I realized that he didn’t live with me anymore. Putting them back on the shelf made me feel so pathetic. I couldn’t shake the feeling of failure when I acknowledged that taking care of Nick was a hard habit to shake.
Plus, it made
me realize that I had been catering to his needs for so long, I didn’t know how to take care of my own.
Why didn’t I know what I liked to eat? Why couldn’t I pick out groceries for me?
The embarrassing part was that I started to realize how much of a crutch Nick had been for me. When we were married, I felt completely fine buying junk food for us because it was all stuff that Nick liked. I realized I blamed him for bad eating habits, when really, when it came down to it, it was food I actually preferred.
Now my conscience wouldn’t let me pick out the sugary cereals or the mountains of chocolate I craved. Now I had all of this obnoxious guilt for not buying organic produce and rice cakes.
Damn Nick and his obsession with processed foods.
And damn Dr. Oz for doing that special on weight gain and high fructose corn syrup.
I loved high fructose corn syrup.
I grabbed my wayward cart and dropped my head down to the cold metal handlebar. “It shouldn’t be this hard.” The chill from the freezer section pulled goose bumps from my arms and legs, but I didn’t have the willpower to keep walking.
I just wanted to give up and go home. I could order Chinese. Again.
Or eat my weight in Wheat Thins.
My body jerked when someone banged their cart into mine. The scraping metal and squeaky wheels grated on my nerves and I snapped my head up, ready to rip someone’s hair out.
Or at least give them a stern verbal lashing.
Okay, probably more likely it would have been a meaningful glare. But they would have felt shamed.
I would have totally shamed them with my evil eye.
Today was the wrong day to mess with me.
My lips parted and my eyebrows shot to my hairline when I saw Nick at the helm of the other cart. My eyes moved over his faded maroon t-shirt and low-slung jeans. In one second, I noted his hair that was just slightly too long and the thicker beard that roughened his jaw. I could close my eyes and picture this man perfectly naked. When he appeared out of nowhere, I saw the differences in him without trying. “What are you doing here?” The words fell out of my mouth before I could tame my reaction.
His lips twitched with an almost smile. “I think you forget that I’m still alive. It’s like you don’t expect me to keep on existing now that I’m not in your life every day.”
His words were only barely playful. Mostly they held a sharp edge of bitterness.
“That’s ridiculous,” I countered immediately. Even though, maybe he was a little right. “You’ve just surprised me. Twice.”
He leaned forward as if telling me a secret, “You’re ridiculously easy to surprise.”
The shock of seeing him here receded and I pressed my lips together when I felt laughter bubble up inside me. “Whatever.” Memories of our relationship tumbled around in my head, but I suppressed them. I was already an emotional wreck. I didn’t need him to witness my most recent damage.
Nick tugged at his earlobe, his nervous tell. “So, uh, really, you surprised me too. I didn’t expect to see you here. On a Friday night.”
“Ice cream,” I suddenly decided. It was so much better than the truth. “I need ice cream.”
He raised one eyebrow, a look I used to love on him. “Bad week?”
“Week from hell.”
“Yeah, me too.” His words were a forlorn mumble and I had the immediate urge to ask why.
Instead, I forced my lips to stay shut. We stared awkwardly at each other, neither of us knowing how to navigate our fragile peace treaty from last week. Long seconds ticked by while people moved around us and bad pop music drifted through the store.
“So, what are you in the mood for?” His gaze swung toward the frosted freezer doors, where cartons of ice cream sat hidden behind cloudy glass.
The million-dollar question. “I should probably get the staples first, right? If I pick out ice cream now it will melt by the time I get to the car.”
“Yeah, me too.”
I looked back at Nick and found him watching me. His fingers flexed and stretched while his palms rested on the metal bar. He was trying not to reach for his earlobe.
“What do you need to get?” I asked quietly.
It was weird talking to him. Even if it was just over groceries. Our relationship had always revolved around conversation, even if we were screaming at each other. But he’d been mostly out of my life over the last five months. We had nothing to fight about at the moment, but we couldn’t exactly bare our souls in the middle of Meijer either.
We had never been good at small talk. Not even in the beginning.
What do you want most in life? That had been the first question he asked me on our fateful second date.
I remembered staring at him for longer than was comfortable. I remembered wanting to fidget, but wanting to figure him out more.
When I answered him, I hadn’t known what I was going to say or if it would even be true. I want a life, a real one. I want to know each day meant something profound and at the end of it, I want to know it was worth the journey.
That doesn’t sound easy, he’d said. His lips had tilted on one side with a crooked half-smile that had made butterflies take flight in my entire body.
I didn’t say I wanted easy. I want beautiful.
He had met my eyes and I noticed for the first time how blue his were. They were electric with intensity, searing with focus. He had leaned forward and whispered, “You are beautiful.”
I cleared my throat and tried to erase the memory of our past. It was one of my favorites. It was the one that promised I would fall in love with him, the one that buried him beneath my skin and wrapped him around my heart.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he murmured.
His words hit me unexpectedly and like usual when he was around, I felt like crying. “Oh, sure,” I said quickly. I tried to replace the defenses around my heart, but it was too late. He’d penetrated them too quickly. “It’s not fair of me to ask you to small talk about… ice cream. I’m sure you have other things to do.”
I yanked my cart back, ready to make a fast retreat when he stopped me with a chuckle. “Kate,” he called. “I meant that I’m having a hard time grocery shopping. I don’t know how to do this.” He gestured around him with a lazy flick of his hand. “You used to… it used to be your thing. I’m completely out of my element.”
As sharp and shocking as rejection hit me, the sweet pulse of relief was just as strong. I swayed with the dizzying notion and then immediately berated myself for letting him control my emotions like this.
Letting him still control my emotions like this.
“Want some help?” I offered gently.
He tugged on his earlobe while he weighed my question. I could see indecision flicker in his bright blue eyes. He wanted to know what this would cost him.
I immediately felt guilty. “I need help too,” I said. “I can’t remember anything I like. I only remember everything you like.”
His lips kicked up in a small smile. “That’s exactly my problem.”
It was my turn to feel indecisive. What was I doing? Before I could talk myself out of my better instincts, I suggested, “We could… we could shop together. You remind me what I like and I’ll do the same for you. That work?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed thickly, “Sure. That works.”
We turned our carts so that we could walk side-by-side. It worked well in the freezer department because the aisles were wider, but the rest of the store was more crowded so I took the lead.
“You like peanut butter,” I offered.
“But what kind?” He stared at the shelves. His lips pressed into a frown and I watched his eyes move over the different kinds and sizes of jars with determined concentration.
It was my turn to smile. “You don’t know what brand of peanut butter you like?”
He rubbed his hand along the side of his jaw, his dark scruff scratching his palm. “I know what I like, but that one?
??s cheaper.” He pointed to the store brand and my smile stayed in place. “Does it taste the same?”
When his eyebrows drew down and he looked at me with the helpless expression of a lost little boy I couldn’t help but laugh. I shook my head slowly and said, “No, it doesn’t. Don’t be cheap with peanut butter.”
“But the kind I like is three dollars more.”
“And so worth it.”
His forehead smoothed out and his lips twitched again. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Okay, what about jelly?” He put his favorite brand of peanut butter in the cart and moved down a shelf.
“That you can be less picky about. I usually go for the one that’s on sale and has a flavor I like.”
His low chuckle followed him as he grabbed a jar of raspberry preserves. “Are we too old to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?”
“Don’t say that. We both know it’s the breakfast of champions.”
“So the cashier isn’t going to judge me?”
“Just mention the kids you have waiting for you at home.”
The jar fell out of his hands and crashed into the cart. He ignored the jelly and spun toward me. “You don’t do that.”
“Captain Crunch and corndogs are your favorites. Of course, I do that!”
His deep laughter warmed the air between us and I found myself smiling too. “You’re an evil genius, Katherine Claire.”
I ignored the way his teasing burned through me or the nostalgia that tickled my belly when he used my full name. I pushed my cart forward and led us to another aisle.
“Is it your students?” His deep voice chased after me.
I avoided running into another shopper when I turned the corner and processed his words. “My rough week?”
“Yeah, your rough week. Is it your kids this year? Or new management? What’s going on at Hamilton?”
“Mostly the kids,” I explained over my shoulder. “We’re still establishing the pecking order. They’re not ready to admit I’m in charge yet.”
“Because high school kids are assholes,” he added in my defense.
My lips turned up in another smile. “That they are.” I rubbed my chin on my shoulder as I looked at him. “The beginning of the year is always the hardest.”