Page 43 of How Freaking Romantic

Clouds clog the sky when I emerge from the subway at West Fourth Street, a rolling amalgamation of grays and whites and blacks.

They mute the new bursts of green punctuating the trees along the block.

It’s supposed to storm today, and I begin to feel the rain as I make my way to Vanderbilt Hall.

Big, heavy drops pelt my coat and mat my hair, but I manage to get inside the lobby before it really starts coming down.

By the time I make it upstairs to my office, it’s pouring.

Water cascades down my small office window while the wind makes the nearby tree branch play a staccato against the pane.

The floor is otherwise quiet, so the squeak of my chair seems to reverberate through the small room as I slump into it.

My bag falls to the ground beside me and my head lolls to the side to look at my desk.

I should open my laptop, check my email for the first time all week, and attempt to make this a normal day.

Or I could just make a cup of coffee.

I grab the handle of my “I Hate It Here” mug and shuffle down to the lounge, filling it to the brim before making the slow trek back to my office.

But when I get there, someone is standing outside my door.

For a split second my heart drops, but it’s quickly followed by a dull ache when I realize it’s not Nathan underneath the trench coat. It’s Jillian.

“Hi,” she says as I approach. Her voice is strained, and for the first time in years, I can’t see any makeup on her face.

I want to give her a hug. I want to cry and tell her I’m sorry again and again, but instead I just say, “Hi.”

She smiles meekly, like she’s grateful that I’ve said anything at all. “I remember you saying that you had office hours Thursday mornings, so I thought I would stop by.”

I take a step forward. “Jills, I’m so sorry—”

“Josh called me last night,” she interrupts. I can see the new sheen in her eyes before she darts her eyes down to look at her feet. “He’s signing the papers. His lawyer told him to drop all the petitions, too. Including the alimony. I even get to keep Tex. We agreed this just needs to be over.”

A vise I didn’t even realize had been gripping my chest loosens.

“I’m glad,” I say.

She looks up to meet my eyes again, a tear escaping out of the corner of one eye. “He also told me where he’s going. And what you did.”

I have played out this conversation a million times in my head, worked out every excuse I can give her for the fact that I bent over backward to help someone who had hurt her so much.

“He needs help, Jills,” I reply quickly. “And I couldn’t—”

“I’m not mad, Bea.” She shakes her head. “I’m so glad you did it. I just…” Her bottom lip begins to tremble. “I should have seen it. I should have known. All the signs were there, but I just… didn’t want to even consider it. But if I had…”

She’s crying now, and I don’t let her finish before I reach out with my free hand and wrap her up in a hug. She buries her face in my coat, and her shoulders quiver.

“I’m sorry,” she groans into my hair.

I laugh weakly. “What do you have to be sorry about?”

“You were trying to be honest with me and I got so angry and hung up on you when I should have listened.”

“I’m sorry, too,” I say softly, squeezing her tightly again. “I should have talked to you about it sooner.”

She releases me just enough to meet my eyes, a warm smile on her face despite the tears still on her cheeks. “Do you want to talk to me now?”

We go into my office and close the door. I don’t worry about work or class. I lay out everything that has happened since that first day I stormed into Nathan’s office. It tumbles from me, and I let it, enjoying the catharsis of not having to censor myself anymore.

My coffee is almost empty by the time I’m done detailing the moment Nathan confronted me in Frank’s office, how cold his demeanor became and how quickly it ended. A moment passes, then Jillian lets her eyes drift to the rain falling outside my office window.

“There’s only so many lives this divorce should be allowed to ruin,” she murmurs.

“Yeah, well…” I let my voice drift off and shrug.

She catches the motion, her expression softening. “Well, what?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Nathan and I were never going to work anyway.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually.”

“Bea—”

“I’ve never been good at the whole love thing, Jills,” I say, throwing her a flat expression. “You know this.”

She sighs. “Bea, of all of us, you might be the best at it.”

“How can you even say that?”

Her head tilts, like she’s considering. “Remember when Maggie and Travis almost broke up?”

I blink. “Right after graduation?”

She nods. “They had only been dating for a few weeks and Maggie invited him to Chicago to meet her family. It was just for a weekend or something, but he freaked out. And instead of talking to her about it, he started to pull back, setting the groundwork for a breakup. So, you went to his apartment.”

I smile. I do remember it. Travis was on the sofa, watching Heat for the hundredth time, and wearing a hoodie with a week-old ketchup stain on the front.

I sat with him and listened to his worries and fears for more than an hour.

When he was done, I calmly stood, picked up the remnants of some pizza from the coffee table, and threw it at his head.

It pissed him off, but that was the point: snap him out of his spiral long enough to talk some sense into him. And it worked.

“To be fair, I think they would have stayed together regardless,” I say.

She shrugs. “Maybe. But maybe not.”

The words sit between us for a moment.

“You loved Travis enough to make sure he didn’t mess it up with Maggie,” Jillian finally continues.

“And you love Maggie so much that you’ll wear whatever god-awful bridesmaid gown she picks out.

” I snort and Jillian smiles. “And you love me. You’ve spent months pretending to hate Josh for me, even though I knew it was only pretend.

” Tears prick my eyes again. I try to blink them away, but I can tell Jillian sees them because her eyes start to glisten again, too.

“You love Josh, too. You loved him when it was hard to love him. That’s not easy, but you did it. ”

Not easy, just simple .

I close my eyes and let out a long breath. “I miss us.”

I want to say more, but I know she understands.

Our group had been our family. For years, we had been together for all the ups and downs.

For the good and the bad. And I had tried so hard to hold on to it, to keep change at bay.

But in the end, nothing I did mattered because it was all fractured now.

The different parts were drifting away from where I stood, trying to balance on my own.

“We’re still here, Bea.”

I shake my head. “It’s not the same.”

She lets out a soft laugh. “Of course it’s not. It was never going to be. Change is inevitable. You can’t protect yourself from it or you’ll just keep getting hurt.”

“But I don’t know how not to,” I say. There’s a familiar lump growing in my throat. “And I don’t think I can get hurt again.”

“I understand,” she says. “But did it occur to you that maybe Nathan is somewhere thinking the same thing?”

The words hit a chord in my chest, their hint of truth resounding through my limbs. I want to ask her what that even means in the grand scheme of things. If it even matters anymore. But before I can, there’s a knock on my door.

Blake enters before I can invite him in, stopping in the doorway and leaning against it. “I will pay you a hundred dollars to check our voicemail box even once.”

I groan and let my head fall into my hands. “Go away, Blake.”

Per usual, he ignores me. “I’m serious. It’s full, and not one of them is for me. You’re killing my social life.”

“What’s going on?” Jillian asks, looking between us.

Blake barrels on, undeterred. “Or at least let me change the outgoing message so Nathan Asher knows you’re not the only one who uses it.”

My eyes snap open and lock on him. “What are you talking about?”

“He left like a dozen messages on there this morning. There probably would have been more, but we ran out of storage,” Blake replies.

Jillian’s eyes widen. “Wait. Nathan Asher called her?”

He looks over at her like she’s missed a step. “Obviously.”

“What did he say?” I ask.

But Blake isn’t interested in answering questions. “Why is he even calling our voicemail? Doesn’t he have your cell? Then he could at least text you and—”

“Blake,” I practically yell. “What did Nathan say?”

His head cocks to the side as he seems to think about it.

“Something about a guy named Josh. He talked to Josh? He knows about Josh? Then something about Josh and Sacramento. Then there were a few where he was really insistent that you call him, his voice got all gruff. Actually, those were great. I saved those. Then the last couple sounded kind of desperate.”

“Desperate how?”

“You know, the usual. ‘I’m sorry, please call me, I love you.’?”

The words land heavily in the middle of my closet-like office. A dozen different emotions roar to life in my chest as Jillian lets out a sound that lands somewhere between a gasp and a shriek.

I stand up, keeping my movements slow like it’s the only thing that will prevent me from exploding. “He left that on our voicemail ?”

Blake catches my expression, and he looks almost confused. “What is that face? Did you honestly think nobody knew you two were together?”

Jillian looks like she’s fighting a smile as she answers for me. “I think she did, yeah.”

Blake rolls his eyes. “Oh please. You two weren’t fooling anyone.”

I open my mouth, but it snaps shut again.

Because up until that moment, I had thought we were fooling everyone.

I thought if I pushed him away just enough, no one would see what I was too afraid to acknowledge: I’m in love with Nathan Asher.

I have been for ages. Weeks of pretending, and it had still been blatantly clear to everyone except me.

Embarrassment and anger and sadness swell from somewhere deep inside me, and I want to scream. But I don’t. I grab my bag and head for the door.

“Bea…” Jillian says, her voice calm and soothing.

I ignore it as I storm past Blake, who looks at me like he’s confused as to why I’ve suddenly gone murderous. “Are you okay?”

“Go away, Blake,” I yell over my shoulder as I head toward the stairwell and throw open the door.

It’s about to close behind me when I hear Jillian yell, “Be nice!”