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“Love you. Be safe. Kick Nate out.”
Colby held the phone in her hand, staring at the screen for a moment. Sitting on the hard ledge of the tub was making her hips hurt, but she didn’t get up right away. Jane’s words rattled around in her head. They were echoes of the same things she’d told herself: She shouldn’t let Nate into her heart. Not again. Not without knowing why he disappeared.
Be safe.
Was love ever safe, though? Wasn’t it more about risk? You have to put yourself out there and give things a chance. That’s what the girls kept getting after her about—she wasn’t giving the guys she dated a chance. She wrecked every first date, not giving them a chance.
Was that really because of Nate?
When she had seen him again on the front porch, she knew her feelings hadn’t changed for him. They’d just been locked up tight. And now he had disarmed them with his charm and his kindness. He took care of her. He helped clean up debris in a neighborhood that wasn’t even his. He made her laugh. He made her s’mores.
None of his great qualities matched with what he did four years ago. He had to have a reason. Why wouldn’t he just tell her?
Colby stood and stretched, her butt aching from sitting on the side of the tub. She looked in the mirror once more with the flashlight app, leaving her hair loose and down. The phone buzzed again in her hand.
Napper:You there?
Instead of answering, she turned off the phone. Moonlight filtered through the window, casting everything in a soft gray light. Colby needed to know. She couldn’t just pretend like things were fine with Nate or let herself fall any more for him. He should have told her what happened, but because he hadn’t, she needed to ask. He owed her that much.
When she got out of the master bedroom, there was a faint light in the hallway. Nate sat leaning against one wall in their makeshift bed with a battery-powered lantern next to him. His phone was in his lap and he looked intense, frowning down at it. But when he saw her coming, he set the phone down on the pillow and smiled.
Jane’s words were still running through her mind. She had lost that sense of romanticism she had. Lately, maybe because of Napper or even running into Nate again, that part of her felt like it was waking up. She hadn’t noticed the contrast from how hopeless and almost cynical she’d become. Not cynical—just a hard-edged realist. It was time to channel that again. She couldn’t hold onto romantic notions about Nate. Not without dealing with their past.
“Hey. I didn’t know if you wanted to camp out again or…?”
Colby shrugged, leaning against the wall.
Nate’s eyes softened with concern. “You okay?”
“I need to know,” Colby said finally. “I need you to tell me why you stood me up. And where you went. And why you never called me back to tell me.”
For a moment, there was only silence and Colby stared down at her feet, counting off the seconds. One, two, three, four… At five, she looked up at Nate. His mouth was opening and closing, but no words came out. He swallowed and blinked, his eyes going from hers down to the phone in his hands. He pushed it on, then turned it off. On, then off.
What could be so bad? Colby was irritated, but she also saw a man before her who was struggling. Whatever it was, he was agonizing over it.
Colby sat down next to Nate, her back up against the wall and her arm brushing his lightly. Close but not too close. He continued to play with the phone, now spinning it in his hands. His breathing seemed faster than it had been, and she saw that his nostrils were lightly flared.
“Look, Nate. I don’t want to push you or pry. Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll be okay with it. I just have to know. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal to you—”
“It was,” he said.
Her heart soared a little hearing that. “Well, you certainly didn’t show me that. You didn’t call or text me. You didn’t come back to class. You were just gone. Did you know that I read obituaries? For, like weeks. Not just in Houston. I thought maybe you were in Dallas, so I looked there too. I really thought you died. Or something horrible happened to you. I was glued to the news. I barely passed my exams.”
His hands froze, the phone turned screen-side up. She could feel him working on his breath, steadying it and slowing it purposefully. “Colby, I never meant to hurt you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think that you’d take it so hard.”
She snorted. “I guess I was dumb to think we had something special. I mean, it was really just a semester of talking and flirting in class. How dumb was I to get so hung up on you? You probably think I’m pretty stupid right now. My friends did. And still do.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“But you don’t trust me. If you did, you would tell me what happened. I’m sure you had your reasons, but I don’t know why you couldn’t just tell me? You didn’t then, but you still can now. I feel like I deserve at least that.”
“You deserve so much more than that,” Nate said, his voice sounding raw and gravelly. She waited, but he didn’t say anything else. The time stretched out, awkwardly long between them.
Why couldn’t he just answer? She didn’t want to push him if it was something traumatic. But she also couldn’t leave it alone. Not now that she’d started. The conversation with Jane ignited all the same hesitations and fears that she had been ignoring. Now she had crossed over a line and she couldn’t go back. It was tearing her up inside.
Nate began pushing the buttons on his phone again, absently, lighting up and then darkening the screen. Though she felt for him, a growing sense of irritation and anger also rose up. She swallowed it back.
“Nate, just talk to me. If it’s something awful, you don’t have to relive it or whatever. Just give me a reason to feel like I can start to trust you again. Because these last few days have been really, really good. Surprisingly good. But I can’t move past our past. Please, Nate.”
