Page 34 of Noticing Natalie
I sucked in a breath. “That’s not what I’d ever call it.”
She arched a brow. “That’s what you’re proposing.”
I shook my head. “No. Fuck buddies don’t care anything about each other. We’d still be close friends and just add sex into the mix. It’s kind of like the best of both worlds.”
She made a derisive noise. “Sure. And then you’ll be with as many other women as you want to be.”
“And you could be with, um, other men.” Even as I said it, the words felt wrong leaving my mouth. I wouldn’t be okay with her fucking some other guy. I knew it; I just didn’t want to fully acknowledge it.
“Yeah, that’s not happening.” She stood up. “Well, this has beensucha great conversation. I’m so glad I came over to hear this.”
“Wait,” I reached out and grabbed her arm before she could leave. “I have more to say that I probably should have started with. I’m making a mess out of all this. I’m not good at it.”
“Talking? You’re great at talking. You just suck at emotions.”
Oof. That felt like a truth I didn’t really want to hear right now. “Look, Nat, I think this whole thing has been a massive miscommunication. If you hadn’t been so busy last week with exams, I don’t think any of this would have happened.”
“It’s my fault? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s just I kept texting you that we should talk after what happened. That’s when I could have proposed what I wanted from a relationship with you. But you weren’t answering your texts. I drove up there, but you were at the library in a group study session. I wanted to talk it out. I needed to. You have to believe me.”
She shrugged, but I could tell she was listening to me.
“You have to believe that I didn’t mean for you to see anything with that woman.”
“You should have done more to get in touch with me that night.”
“I was scared to call—I thought because you weren’t answering your texts you were either still studying or in an actual exam. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I never meant for you to see me with someone else.”
“It’s just like what Annika did to you.”
I felt like all the air had been smashed out of my lungs. “That’s not true,” I gasped out. “We weren’t even together. I hate to tell you, Natalie, but I can’t even keep track of all the women I’ve had one-night stands with. They didn’t expect more than that. But you?” I laughed bitterly. “Apparently, you had us walking down an aisle after a weekend of great sex. It doesn’t work that way.We weren’t together. I never looked at you and said please be my exclusive girlfriend, just like you never said the same to me. You could have slept with whoever you wanted. So could I. There shouldn’t even be a problem here.”
She stood up. “I get it. You treated me like you treat every other hookup you’ve ever had. I had the audacity to believe that because we meant so much to each other, you would treat me differently. Treat me as if you at least cared about my feelings. But you didn’t. And then that made me question my overall perception of you. I suddenly doubted our relationship. If you thought it was okay to treat me like that, then I felt like I never really knew you at all.”
“You knew who I was, Natalie. Your eyes were wide open.”
She nodded, a look of… disgust on her face. “Well, I do now. And I don’t like what I see. I accepted the internship in Baltimore. Your family is helping me move. I don’t want you coming with us.”
I stared at her. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do,” she said calmly, though I could sense there were tears buried down deep. “And I don’t want to see you. I’ll be gone ayear or more. I want no contact with you. No texts, no calls, no emails, no surprise visits. Nothing.”
“Are you serious?” I whispered.
“Yes. We’ll see how things stand in a year, but for now? I want nothing to do with you.”
I stood up and pulled the bouquet of flowers off the table between us. “These are for you.” I thought it was worth a shot. Maybe flowers could say that I still loved her, but that she should have known we weren’t together yet.
She took them and held them for a long moment, looking down at them, fingering the velvety soft petals of some of the roses.
“You know,” she said without looking at me, “you used to give Annika flowers in middle and high school. It made me… jealous. But it also helped me know that I wasn’t the type of girl you were ever going to give flowers to. Even a couple of weeks ago I would have been thrilled to get these from you. But now?” she shook her head. “They make me a little sick inside. This isn’t the way I ever wanted to get flowers.” She held the vase away from her and stared at the flowers. “These are guilt flowers, ‘I’m sorry’ flowers, ‘forgive me’ flowers—and the truth is, that I can’t forgive you. At least not yet. And maybe not ever.”
“But we weren’t even together,” I yelled after her as she walked away from me. “We weren’t a couple!”
She kept walking, but called over her shoulder, “Then what were we?”
I opened my mouth to snap back, but then I stopped. Because I didn’t know.
