“My pleasure.” I smiled into the phone. “See you soon.” And I hung up, falling into a heavy sleep in a matter of minutes.
When I awoke, I immediately texted Natalie alerting her to my plans.Good morning, Johann had a crisis and I’m going to stay with him for a bit, not sure how long— I’d love to see you before I leave.
She responded, seconds later:I’m already on my way.
I went about my morning, making myself a cup of coffee and looking out over the calm blue of the lake. Never had I been a sentimental person, and this was a view I had grown quite accustomed to, but the prospect of not waking up to it, and not only that, but not knowing how long this would be the case, sent a gentle chill through my body.
As I was making my way to the kitchen for a second cup of coffee, I heard a knocking on the door, hard and fast. I set my cup down on the counter and went to open the front door; the moment I did, Natalie was in my arms, holding me tightly.
“Natalie,” I said, returning her hug, rubbing her back tenderly as I did. She smelled like warm honey and vanilla—the perfume I’d gifted her, surely. I closed my eyes and inhaled, and for the first time in a long while felt truly present.
“Lucas,” she responded, and I could tell from her tone and her quickness of breath that she was on the verge of tears. Pulling her back to get a good look at her, I saw her eyes were red, she’d been crying before she arrived.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, cupping her face with my hands. “Please don’t cry, I can’t stand to see you like this. Here, I’ll make you some coffee, and we can sit and talk about it, alright?”
Natalie sniffled, then nodded. “Coffee… sounds good,” she said, and after I kissed her tenderly on the forehead she sulked toward the couch, plopping down next to where I’d been sitting, and was silent.
Surely it has something to do with me leaving— but why does she seem so upset by it?I wondered as I made her coffee, adding two splashes of oat milk and a spoonful of honey, the way I knew she liked it. I brought it to her; she took it and sipped. She exhaled, smiling, and looked at me.
“It’s perfect. Thank you, baby.”
I smiled, pleased that she was pleased, and sat down beside her, putting one arm around her while caressing her leg with the other. “Okay, now tell me, what’s wrong?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could produce any sound, I saw tears accumulating in her eyes. Instinctively she looked away, out the window and toward the lake, but I held her tighter and turned her face back toward mine. The tears had paraded halfway down her face, and her eyes betrayed a look of desperation.
“Please don’t go,” Natalie said, and before I could respond, she was burying her head in my shoulder, sobbing. Silently I rubbed her back, worried I might say the wrong thing.
“Natalie…” I began. “Johann is in trouble, and I told him I’d go help him. That’s all this is, a friend going to visit another friend. And just for a while, okay?”
“But what if—” she began, but stopped short, still sobbing into my shoulder.
“What if what?”
“What if… you don’t come back?”
I almost chuckled, not at her distress, but at the clear miscommunication that had prompted it, before catching myself. Instead, I leaned back, again taking Natalie’s face in my arms. “Natalie, listen. Of course I’m coming back. Of course. I wouldn’t leave like that, and I especially wouldn’t leave you and Sophie. I’m sorry if I confused you when I said I didn’t know how long, by that I meant a week or two, a month tops. But please, please know how much I care about you, and that I’ll be counting down the days before I get to see you again.”
She looked at me, her eyes glistening with tears, and leaned in to kiss me. Whatever I felt for her deepened exponentially over the past weeks, and I was certain she felt the same.
“I love you,” I told her, and she looked into my eyes.
She smiled. “I love you, too,” she said, and we kissed again.
I lay down across the couch, Natalie burrowing into my chest and resting her head just under my chin, and we remained like this for a few minutes, hearing only the sounds of the birds twittering and small waves washing gently onto shore.
“I have an idea,” I said spontaneously. “I won’t leave tonight; I’ll book the earliest flight tomorrow morning, and tonight can be our night. We can snuggle up and watch a movie, maybe drink some wine, play a board game, whatever you want. It’ll be a night for the two of us. How does that sound?”
Natalie looked up at me; it seemed the sadness had left her eyes entirely. “I’d like that very much,” she told me.
And that’s just what we did.
21
A SHOCKING DISCOVERY
Natalie
As promised, our last evening together passed magically. We watched one of my favorite movies, our bodies cozily entangled on the couch. We ate popcorn and drank wine—enjoying the finer things in life, Lucas had remarked jokingly—as the sun set, temporarily painting the walls a deep orange-red; and, finally, we went to the bedroom early, where we had sex. Or, rather, we made love.