Page 76 of The Best Worst Thing

It Was You

I have spent my whole life trying to be perfect,” Nicole said, sitting at Mari’s kitchen table, trembling as the live stream button blinked on her laptop’s screen.

The rest of her crew was banished to Mari’s bedroom.

“I don’t totally know why. First child syndrome?

Just really liking things to be neat and organized?

I don’t know if it even matters, if it’s even relevant.

But growing up, there was always this part of me that thought if I made straight A’s, if my hair was always combed, if my room was always clean, maybe everything else would be okay.

“Then I got older, and things started getting messier. It’s not so easy, you know, being perfect once you start drinking, start making mistakes, start getting your heart stomped on by stupid Webster Groves boys.

Once the rejection letters from the fancy colleges everyone expected you to get into start to pile up on your parents’ kitchen counter.

How could I be perfect if I never got off the wait list at Columbia?

How could I be perfect if I couldn’t get a single publishing house to let me work in their mail room?

How could I be perfect if my own body wouldn’t do the one thing I really wanted it to?

The one thing I was so sure it was made to do?

“I don’t know … I guess the truth is, I thought being perfect would give me control.

I thought that when things got difficult, I just needed to try harder, do more, be better.

But that’s not what happened, at least these past few years.

My perfectionism gutted all the good in my life.

It came for my marriage, and then, when that crumbled, it came for me.

I know I haven’t talked about that here, that it probably seems like Gabe just disappeared, but it’s not that simple.

Because the truth is, every decision I’ve ever made—probably up until the night of July eleventh—has been in pursuit of perfection.

“And so, this summer, when I reconnected with an old friend, I didn’t understand that I was full of poison.

That I hated myself and my body and the decisions I’d made so, so much for not being perfect that I had no idea how to love anyone else.

And by the time I realized I was absolutely head over heels for this person, I didn’t know how to show it.

I didn’t know how to tell him. And I didn’t know how to believe I deserved that kind of love in return. ”

She hugged her arms around her elbows and exhaled.

“Logan … I know that after the shit I pulled in November, you probably never want to hear from me again, that I’m only making things worse, that I’m only making this harder.

And I know you probably think I’ve only ever thought of myself, but the truth is, I have always hung on every word you’ve said.

“I know you dressed up as Ken Griffey Junior for five Halloweens in a row, and you would’ve kept doing it forever, but your mom paid you twenty bucks to be literally anything else, and that was that.

I know you Subscribe & Save so you never run out of peanut butter, but things have gotten out of hand, and now you have four cases of Skippy in your closet and two more at your office, and you keep forgetting to cancel the subscription, so the problem just keeps getting worse.

I know you have fifty-six thousand two hundred and eighty-three unread emails on your phone, or at least you did the last time I saw it, but that the number makes perfect sense to you, and that you’re on top of what’s coming in, so what’s the big deal, anyway?

“I know your favorite flavor of ice cream is literally any ice cream, that favorite ice creams are a social construct that cause undue familial strife. That you like living in a sleepy little beach town because it’s close to your office and the airport and you spend all week traveling to big, fancy cities, so why not come home to a place where there’s no traffic and the tacos are cheap and the air is clean and there’s nothing to do but take it easy, anyway?

I know that your dad’s insurance agency was, for some reason, a sponsor of the Issaquah Salmon Days festival, which—if we’re being completely honest here, and I guess we are—I would really like you to take me to.

I know that every D&D character you’ve ever played is chaotic good.

That you can guess every flavor jelly bean with your eyes closed.

That Ichiro Suzuki is the true hit king.

“I know you run because it makes your brain feel better, because it grounds you, because it’s how you make the rest of your day make sense.

And I know that after you finish a marathon, you like to weep in the bathtub and eat cold rotisserie chicken straight out of the carton, because I watched you do it, because you made me feed it to you, and it was absolutely horrific, and somehow, it made me love you a million times more.

I know that your childhood was so bonkers it nearly put your mother into an early grave.

I know that you’re the least competent cook I’ve ever met, and the best wedding date I’ve ever had.

I know that Dwarf Fortress is the most complex computer game ever engineered, and I know that you’re so, so good at your job, and that your brain is absolutely incredible, and that, more than anything, you’re the greatest man I’ve ever known.

“And I know, above all else, that I love you. I love you, Logan. I really, really do. And I know I had no business showing up at your door—not then, and not tonight, and probably not ever again, but I wouldn’t take it back.

I wouldn’t change a thing. I had to know how great you were.

I had a feeling that you were going to be the man of my dreams, okay?

That’s why I showed up. That’s the answer to your question.

I had a hunch that it was you. I had a hunch, and I was right.

“I was made for you, Logan Milgram. 3D-printed. You’re all I see, all the time. Every night, when I close my eyes, it’s you. In the morning, you. And I don’t know how I missed it before, but I swear to god, I’ll never miss it again.

“I want to love you forever. I want you to get on my nerves.

I want to want to fucking kill you. I love your stupid face and your stupid hair and your stupid jokes and I love how you have always seen the best in me, and I love every single inch of our impossible, absurd, definitely-in-need-of-an-editor love story.

“The things I was scared of, the sacrifices I wouldn’t let you make—I was an idiot.

I didn’t know how to be loved like that.

I had so much growing up to do. You were right, and I was wrong.

I was the kid. I was the baby. I want to build a life with you—and the hard stuff, we can figure out together.

I can do that. I swear, I can do that. And I don’t care anymore that it won’t be perfect.

That it won’t be just so. That it won’t look exactly like I thought it would when I was little.

I don’t care if it’s the biggest mess anyone this side of the Missouri River has ever seen.

It’ll be ours, and we will find our way.

“We can do this. I know we can. And if the offer still stands, I’m all in. Right here, right now. Wherever you are, whatever you’ve decided, I want you. I want us. I want this. Logan, it was always you, okay? It was always you. I just didn’t know it yet.”