Page 68 of The Best Worst Thing

The Gulf

The ocean was dark and loud. And for the past ten minutes, Nicole had been standing there, fists clenched, staring straight into it.

“Nicole? Where have you been? I—”

She whirled around. “Take the fucking job, Logan.”

“What? No … I’m not—”

“It’s Carson & Allen, right? Chief sales officer?

I called Mari. She said they cleaned house this summer, that they’ve been assembling some dream team to run the place, shake things up, bring in cool brands.

That they’re giving out relocation packages and stock options left and right.

I think you should do it. I think you should go. I think—”

“Stop it, Nic. Let me explain. I’m not—”

“No! You’re a fucking liar! All this time, you had me believing I was the one that could never be honest, who could never let you in!

Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to move when I was baring my soul to you in your shower?

Why’d I have to hear that from your—surprise—super-fucking-pregnant college sweetheart?

Why’d I spend the last three months talking to you about some business you were never going to start?

Why’d I spend all those nights falling asleep to the sound of your voice while you were in Chicago, planning your new, perfect life?

Why’d Kara have to be the one to tell me you wanted—”

“Because I don’t want it! Listen to me, okay?

I’m going to turn it down! This is what I wanted to talk to you about in Seattle, I swear!

I’m sorry Kara told you. That shouldn’t have happened.

My college friends, they all knew this summer, when there was no you, and then last weekend, when I saw everyone for the game, I told them I was staying in California.

I thought I’d have told you by now, but then we had our fight, and I just wanted things to be easy for a few days. I just wanted—”

“Then why the hell would you keep interviewing for it! Why would you hide it from me? And why’d you tell me you didn’t—”

“Because I was done in LA!” He pushed the hair off his forehead.

He was still drenched in sweat. “Before you showed up, I really was done. I was so fucking lonely! I needed to try something new—to just start over. And then you came along, and everything changed. I didn’t want to scare you away.

I didn’t want to put the brakes on something that hadn’t even started yet.

And neither did you, remember? You withheld information too. Your baby! Your divorce!”

“You know everything now! I put all my cards on the table. You told me you were all in! That you—”

“I was! I am! But fuck, Nicole, what was I supposed to do? What if I didn’t get the job?

I didn’t want to push you to define us—not that soon, anyway.

Not under pressure. Not for maybe nothing.

I wanted you, and I wanted the job, and I was afraid I was going to end up with nothing.

That’s the truth, okay? I didn’t know what to do.

I was never really sure you were going to stay.

I was never really sure if you could do this.

If it wasn’t just all too much, too hard, too soon. ”

She looked at him, frowning. “I think you should take it, then. If it’s that great, if you wanted it that badly. If the only reason you’re—”

“You’re not listening to me. I choose you! I choose this! Don’t make this something that it’s not.”

“You need to take the job, Logan. It’s perfect for you. I can’t hold you back. I can’t be the reason you don’t—”

“No!”

“Yes! You can’t stay! I won’t let you!”

He stared at her. “Then why’d you show up at my door?”

“Wh-what?”

“Why’d you show up, then? This summer? What was going through your head when you decided that was a good idea?”

She closed her eyes. “I don’t … I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. It can’t matter, because—”

“No! It does matter! I will take responsibility for what happened at work. I fell for a married woman, and that’s on me.

Fine! But Nicole, I was forgetting you. I let you go.

I had almost forgotten you. And then you showed up at my door, what, two hours after your marriage fell apart? Was it even two? Was it?”

“I … I don’t know.”

“Right, you don’t even know! What, was this a game to you?

Show up at my door, see if maybe I could put you back together again?

Oh, stupid Logan, he’s so in love with me, maybe he’ll make me laugh, maybe he’ll take me upstairs, fuck my pain away!

Is that what you wanted? Is that why you came to see me? ”

Nicole’s arms fell to her sides. “You were in love with me? That night?”

“Yes! I’ve loved you the whole time, Nicole! I’ve loved you for years! I could never figure out how to make it stop!”

And there it was. That tug. That ache.

Louder than ever before.

Now, unmistakable.

It had been him.

It had been this.

The whole time, it had been this.

Some other life, desperate to unfold.

Some other story, dying to be told.

“Why didn’t you tell me? You could have told me!”

“Tell you!? You can’t be serious!”

“In New York! You could have said something!” She tried to breathe. “You could have told me. Everything could have been different!”

“Yeah, and then what? What good possibly comes of that?”

“I don’t know, okay? I wish I’d known! I couldn’t read your mind!”

He yanked at the roots of his hair, sputtering in half circles.

“Do you have any idea what it was like, loving you? Every day, all I wanted to do was talk to you. Walk by your desk. Make you laugh. I couldn’t get enough.

I never wanted it to end. I went on these dates—oh god, I must have gone on a hundred dates between Danielle and Andrea—and I could barely hear a word anyone said.

Staring at these women, trying to nod and smile and ask questions, see if maybe I got to know them a little better, stayed out a little later, kissed them a little longer, I could forget you.

Because it must’ve just been an obsession, right?

Another hyperfixation of mine. Surely nothing I felt was real.

I just needed to find someone to replace you, and then I could erase you from my mind.

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let the idea of you go.

“And then, when you finally left, I thought, I cannot waste another minute of my life loving someone who’s never going to be mine.

So here’s what I did. I split the South Bay in two.

I drew a line between our towns. I didn’t go into Manhattan Beach for anything, no matter what.

It was a stupid plan, it didn’t even make sense, but I did it.

I ran south and only south—and down by the water, on the bike path, because I knew you’d never run there, that the concrete gave you shin splints.

I got a new bagel place, a new auto shop, a new dry cleaner.

I downright refused to take PCH. It defied all logic, and I didn’t give a shit—anything was better than risking running into you.

“Oh, and your car! Your car! I spent two years having a heart attack every time I saw a navy X5, and guess what? It’s white now!

The wrong car, and my heart skipped a beat every single time.

I didn’t know what I wanted more, for it to be some stranger, or for it to be you.

To get to see you again. To find out whether you were happy.

Whether you’d ever had that baby. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t—”

“You should have told me!”

“I couldn’t tell you! Not then. You were married! You were trying to have a baby with somebody else! But then you showed up at my door that night and … I thought you loved me.”

“Wh-what?”

“Come on, Nicole,” he said. “Why’d you show up, then? Why’d you do it? If it wasn’t that, why’d you come and find me? Why’d you start this? Why’d you do this to me?”

“I just wanted a chance to get to know you! That’s all I ever wanted, okay? Just to find out who you really were!”

“Well, congratulations! Now you know!”

And then, for a moment, there was silence.

Logan, spinning, hands on his head.

Nicole, shaking, head in her hands.

The five feet between them, a gulf.

Everything else, crumbling.

“Logan,” she said. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m really sorry. But this can’t work. This isn’t going to work. We can’t be together.”

“Why not!”

She threw her arms out wide. “Because you want kids, that’s why!

Kara told me! You told me it didn’t matter to you!

You made a joke out of it, let me believe I could have you, that we could have this!

And then Kara starts talking about you and your imaginary babies and your picket fence dreams like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Like it was nothing. Like I could give you everything you’ve always wanted, whenever we decided.

Like I could give you a normal, perfect life!

And I can’t! I’m barren, remember? My body doesn’t work! ”

“Yes, it does! I don’t care!”

Nicole shook her head. “Right now you don’t, because I’m shiny and new, but that’ll fade. And sooner than you think, you’re going to wake up and want the things that make settling down worth it. You won’t want to make concessions. You’ll want your own kids. You’ll—”

“I want you!”

“You don’t,” she said. “You just don’t know it yet.”

“That’s not true! I don’t expect anything from you, but for you to be all in!”

“No!” She stomped her bare foot in the sand.

“This is what you do, Logan! You talk this big game about going after what you want, and then you don’t do it, and then you’re miserable!

You’re doing it with Quentin, and you’re doing it with this new job, and now you’re going to do it with me.

Just fucking do what you want! Hurt people! Go live the life you want!”

“Listen to me! What I want is you!”

“It’s too late! It could have been you!”

“I don’t have a time machine, Nicole!”

“If you loved me, why didn’t you stop me? It should’ve been you! We could’ve had everything!”

“Stop you? Are you serious? Have you ever thought about what would’ve happened if I’d actually done that? If I’d actually told you? It would’ve been a disaster. You weren’t going to leave. You weren’t going to—”

“You don’t know that! You don’t know what I would’ve done!”

He took a step closer, then exhaled. “It wouldn’t have changed a thing. And that’s okay. It really is okay.”

Nicole tried to breathe. “I want a whole mess of you, running around. That’s the truth. I want a hundred of you at my feet, tugging on my arm, little and blond and driving me crazy …” Her chest howled. “God, you deserve that. I can’t take that from you.”

“Stop it,” he said. “Don’t push me away over this.”

“You’re so perfect, Logan. You’re my favorite person in the whole world. Any girl would be lucky to have you. Go to Chicago, okay? Please, take the job. Start a family. Go coach some Little League. Please, just go.”

“No! Tell me I can love your kid, and I’m there!”

“Don’t you get it? Didn’t you see Kara tonight?

Didn’t you hear Nadia’s dad, telling her and Benny to go make him a grandkid before it was too late, while everyone else just laughed?

I’m the punch line! Don’t you see that? Nobody ever picks me.

If you knew the day you met me that my body was broken, you would’ve never even looked my way. ”

“You’re wrong! You don’t get to decide that for me!

I don’t give a shit about your uterus! The only thing about your medical records that matters to me is that they’ve caused you pain.

That’s it, all right? I am not going to change my mind about you!

You were made for me. It had to be this way.

And that’s okay. I promise you, it’s okay. We can do this. I know we can.”

She looked at him. She saw it all flash before her eyes.

It was Logan, sitting on her filing cabinet, laughing at her massive diamond ring.

It was Logan, letting her off the hook when she blurted out she’d like to meet his mother.

It was Logan, staring at her at that holiday party.

It was Logan, pulling his hand off hers on the copy room floor.

It was Logan, making her smile in the middle of her first miscarriage.

It was Logan, walking away in New York when he could have thrown her against the wall.

It was Logan, nodding softly when she told him she was pregnant again.

It was Logan, clenching his jaw as she said goodbye.

And it was Logan, opening the creaking door to his cluttered town house, pouring her a cup of coffee, keeping his distance, saying all the right things.

Taking her running, telling her he was sorry things had been so hard, that he had nowhere to be but sitting on the sand, right next to her.

Letting her scream at him on her stoop, then making her laugh until everything felt simple and good and easy again.

Reading her silly books, buying her coffee, dragging her to the Tar Pits.

Watching her stupid movies, feeding her junk food, letting her foot find his under that blanket first. Asking for permission to kiss her that morning in his car.

Slowing her down. Driving her home after she couldn’t sleep with him.

Sitting in that diner, barely flinching when she told him the biggest secret she’d ever buried, then just holding her pain.

Pulling her in for a hug in that parking lot, expecting nothing—always, always expecting nothing.

Peeling her off him in the passenger seat of her car, setting ground rules, insisting she be sure.

Pushing her to stop with the self-pity, to restart the podcast, to ask Valerie, to build something she was proud of.

Carrying her up his stairs, inching off her clothes, letting her fall apart in his arms, begging her to open her eyes.

Telling her husband to fuck off, telling her she’d always been worth the trouble, telling her he’d choose whatever the hell it was they had above anything else, every single time.

Taking her back over and over again, asking for nothing in return, except for her to be all in. Except for her to be here now.

And she knew all that. She knew it. That he was the most precious thing she’d ever known. That she would never, ever find a love like this again. And that she had to do it. She had to let him go.

“Nicole,” he said, staring at her. She could barely look at him. “Say something. Don’t push me away over this. I love you. I’ve always been here. I’ll always be here. I’m not going to change my mind about you. You’re it for me. I want a life with you. Please.”

She closed her eyes, and that was it.

A whole summer of heartbreaks, leading her here, to this last and final blow.

“I could never,” she said, “waste you on me.”