Instead, when Chris picks up, his voice is heavy with sleep. “Katrina,” he exhales. “What’s wrong?”
The words rush out of me. “Come to Florida.”
“Come to—” He repeats my words with incredulity. “Katrina”—he rustles like he’s checking his phone—“it’s midnight. For me. It’s three for you. Why are you even awake?”
I had no idea, which I don’t say. I’d lost track of time. The idea I’ve been rereading the pages for hours frustrates me. “Just—come,” I get out. “Stay with me.”
“What? I can’t just come to Florida.”
“Please.” I hate how plaintive I sound, how hungry. How defenseless I feel perching on the edge of my bed. “You can work remotely,” I tell him. This is important, I know. He would never consider coming if he’s not promised plenty of computer and phone flexibility.
“Katrina.” His voice has changed. He’s shaken off sleep, and I recognize the firm calm in his words. “You don’t need me to come to Florida. You can do this.”
“I do. I do need you.” My voice is stripped bare. Where Nathan and I can never be honest with each other, I can be with my fiancé. I grasp on to the idea with wild conviction. It’s why we’re together. It’s why I’m here. This whole conversation is strikingly reminiscent of how we fell in love in the first place. I called him needing help and he was there for me. He’s always been there for me. He’s picked me up every time I’ve needed him to.
In the long pause over the line, I imagine having Chris here. Yes, his presence would irritate Nathan, but he would temper the hostility that’s impossible to escape in this house. Instead of reading and rereading the same page stashed under my pillow, I could retreat into Chris’s arms every night.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he replies finally. I know every nuance and inflection of Chris’s voice like they’re the cross-streets on my drive home, and I recognize when decisiveness has won out over reassurance. “I’d only be a distraction. Why don’t we discuss this tomorrow, babe? It’s late, and I have a seven a.m. call with a publisher in London.”
Unbeknownst to Chris, I crumple, tears of rage filling my eyes. In the slanted shadow my lamp casts, my bedroom has never felt more like a cage. He’s not going to come, even after I prostrated myself asking him. I think it’s possible for people we love to quietly, even unknowingly, snap some tether holding us together. I wonder if it’s what Chris has done now. I want to feel like I’m speaking to the Chris who clasped one hand over my eyes while he walked me into the study in our home in LA, surprising me with towering white bookshelves holding my entire collection. The Chris who watched seasons of cooking shows with me when I got engrossed in them one summer, despite the fact that he couldn’t care less.
Somehow, I don’t feel like it’s the same Chris on the line with me now.
“Sure,” I say. “Fine.” I hang up, not giving him the chance to say I love you. Not caring if he was going to.
Returning my phone to the nightstand, I cast one final glance at the page of Only Once, my eyes lingering where they shouldn’t.
I give myself one second, two, before I shove the page into my dresser drawer.
15
Katrina
• FOUR YEARS EARLIER •
We’re on Harriet’s expansive porch. The day is warm with the kind of breeze I could bask in forever, the gentle wind coming off the ocean like a greeting. I’m curled up on the porch swing, one leg folded under me, my sandals on the deck. Harriet’s beside me. Nathan’s in the Adirondack chair across from us, scribbling on the pages I wrote last night.
I woke him up when I delivered them this morning. He came to the door hair tousled and shirtless and tried to act like he’d already been awake.
“What exactly have you been up to this morning?” I’d asked him.
“Writing,” he’d said.
“Writing shirtless now?”
I couldn’t help but catch the blush that entered his cheeks. “For your information, I’d write shirtless all the time if I could.” He was inventing it on the spot. I knew because for the past couple of weeks, I’ve watched him for hours a day come up with clever replies and remarks for our characters. I’d recognized his spitballing face immediately and undeniably, even though it didn’t usually come with red cheeks.
“What’s stopping you?” I’d asked, eyebrow raised.
He’d shifted his shoulders. I hadn’t lingered on his chest. If I had, I would have noticed it wasn’t writerly in the stereotypical sense. I’d been to his apartment and seen the expansive, modern gym in his building, not to mention worked around his nightly runs for as long as I’d known him.
“Concern for my beloved cowriter, of course,” he’d replied with a grin, dimple winking.
The memory makes me smile. I glance over, finding him still deep in his markup of my pages. “Surely what I wrote isn’t that bad,” I chide, completely free of resentment or sensitivity. I’d be more self-conscious if I didn’t completely trust Nathan. It’s like we’re one voice sometimes, one mind. I wouldn’t feel self-conscious reading my own writing. Nathan reading my writing hardly feels different.
Nathan looks up. “It’s great,” he says, and I know he means it. I feel warmth illuminating every inch of me, and it’s not the sun. It never ceases to surprise me how easily Nathan gives his praise. He could view others with the indifference privilege usually provokes. Instead, it’s like the generosity of his circumstances has instilled generosity in him. He compliments me daily, and whenever I look into his eyes the way I am now, it is impossible to doubt he’s genuine.
“Then what are you making so many changes to?” I crane my neck playfully.
“I want it more obvious how bewitched Jordan is with Jessamine,” Nathan says. “I know they just met, but he should feel like it’s . . .” Nathan pauses like he’s choosing his words carefully. He looks out over the yard, over the technicolor green of the grass and upturned fuchsia faces of the hibiscus. “Like his eyes, his mind, are drawn to her in every unconscious moment,” he finishes.
It’s disarming when Nathan says things like this. It makes me feel like Melissa is a lucky woman. I’ve only met Nathan’s wife a few times, which I figure is because Nathan is hesitant to cross his personal and professional lives. Over those few dinners—one where Nathan cooked in his apartment, one at the cozy Thai place near mine—I wondered if Melissa would be cagey or judgmental of her husband’s female collaborator, sizing me up. Instead, on top of her stylish blond hair and perfect makeup, she was nothing but warm, funny, and generous. She’s probably on the receiving end of plenty of Nathan’s poetic devotions. Of course, I’m lucky, too—because they end up in our books.