Chapter Eighteen: Is John Mayer Right? Should We Say What We Need to Say?

I wait all morning for a response from Nick.

Nothing.

Not a text. Not a phone call. Not a smoke signal.

I throw myself into work, a welcome distraction.

At lunch time I cave and call Naomi.

She’s a teacher so I have but a sliver of time to get a hold of her during the work day, although I reserve those interruptions for emergency best friend situations only. Subsequently she picks up immediately and demands, “Who died?”

I condense the sequence of events as fast I can. What Nick said. What I said. What I did.

What I wrote.

“Holy. Holy. Crap.” The extra holy emphasizing her profound shock. You see, Naomi has long since fallen for Nick too, her stamp of approval solidified weeks ago as she watched Nick personify prince charming in every fairy tale we were ever brainwashed to believe as little girls. “What the freaking hell. I can not believe this,” her voice is hushed as I can tell she is leaving her classroom and exiting to the hallway where she can be a candid real person not a pretend perfect teacher, “Why the shift? What happened? And really? You wrote that? Oh my gawd, I can’t believe you said that, are you sure?”

“Yes, no, maybe . . .”I falter, “Ahhh, I don’t know. I guess, yes. Yes. Of course. I can’t do that, Naomi. I can’t audition. That’s crap, it’s not fair.”

“But, what if he chooses to end it?”

I let her question hang momentarily in the invisible air waves where our cell phones have transformed our voices into data. The truth is I find that possibility unfathomable. Maybe I am naïve’. Maybe I am arrogant. Who knows, but I just feel that what Nick and I have is different. Of course it started quickly but that doesn’t negate its authenticity. Does it? I don’t see what I wrote as a door for an ending he is going to walk out of. I see it as my laying down a patchwork quilt of honesty, a foundation of truth where we can build a relationship of compromise and trust. “That is not going to happen,” I firmly predict.

But maybe I say that not because I really believe it. Maybe I say it because I can’t imagine the alternative.

And then. Out of the corner of my eye I see it.

Nick’s name in my inbox, black, bold and bright on my computer screen.

“Oh my god, he wrote back. I gotta go, I gotta go,” I stammer.

“Okay, deep breath, I am sure it’s fine. He loves you, Audra. I know he does. He’s not going anywhere, that guy is a gem,” she assures me.

I hang up.

And read Nick’s email.

He confesses my words took him off guard. But then again, he says, after he let it sink in, not really. I’m a strong woman. Why would I respond any differently?

He spends two paragraphs telling me how wonderful I am.

And then.

I read words like razors.

“But I respect your decision to move on.”

My decision?

I didn’t read that right. I read it again.

And again.

And.

Again.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

The screen goes blurry. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. My nose burns and my throat is choking on the tears that are erupting from everywhere inside of me.

And just like that.

Everything that was us dissolves, melting like a sandcastle in the waves. The past, the present, and the future all collapse into one another like dominos made of dust.

Nick is not choosing “keep things the same.” He is choosing something else.

He is choosing.

Over.