I don’t move when I hear the door open.
“That was brilliant,” Chris says, moving into the room with evident delight in his quick steps. “You knocked it out of the park. Really. Liz is going to be ecstatic.” His green eyes glitter when they fix on me, waiting for me to share the victory.
This dream isn’t over. Its warped energy compels my next words. I look up, right into Chris’s chiseled face. “You honestly think I told a reporter I was in love with Nathan to make Liz happy?” I laugh, harsh and humorless. “I’m done. I’m done with this. It’s over, Chris.”
I watch him, cataloguing his every reaction. He’s stunned. Not hurt, yet. Indignation and defensiveness steal into his features.
“You’re firing me?” he says.
I say nothing. I don’t know how I could have possibly been unclear. In my silence, Chris steps forward with a smile like dark honey.
“Kat, babe,” he croons, “don’t be ridiculous. Even if you did fire me, I’d still be the agent on this deal. You know it’s my contract.”
I step back, like we’re partners in a spiteful dance. “That’s really all you care about, isn’t it?”
“Should I be ashamed for caring about my career?” His demeanor has darkened. “I know you don’t relate, Katrina, but honestly. The rest of us want to succeed. You just want to hide.”
It is, surprisingly, what I needed. His cruelty is liberating. It opens up something in me, some spring from which joy surges forth. I knew what I wanted to do. Now I have the strength to do it.
“I’m not firing you, asshole,” I say.
Wordlessly, I reach down to my left hand, where I wrench off the diamond engagement ring I’ve had for two very long years. I hold the piece of jewelry out to him, no uncertainty in my intention.
“We’re done,” I say softly.
Chris falters. I see some cord in him snap, and rage hurtles into his eyes. “Now that’s a fucking joke. What? For Nathan?” He doesn’t take the ring.
It’s perfectly ironic. He’s jealous? After weeks of saying I could do whatever I wanted with Nathan? Of course this is what gets to him. Chris wanted his future wife to be a writer. Having an affair didn’t factor into it. But now, when that goal is taken from him—now, he’s upset. “Not for anyone,” I snap, placing the ring on the dresser. “Except for us. We don’t work.”
Chris squares his shoulders. “I stood by you when you were nothing. When you couldn’t even get out of bed. When you cried to me, saying you’d never write again. When you weren’t yourself, I stayed. Now, you’re back to writing, and you’re done with me? Fucking hilarious, Katrina.”
“I was myself,” I reply hotly. “You just didn’t like who I’d become.”
He slams his fist on the dresser, which rattles against the wall. The ring jumps. I can’t help startling. I step backward, half fearful. While I know Chris would never hurt me, this conversation is going nowhere productive.
Nathan appears in the doorway, obviously having heard the commotion. I sense something raging under the flat stone of his expression. For a fragile second, his eyes meet mine.
“Chris, I think you’d better leave,” he says. “Cool off.”
Chris whirls. “This is my house. You may have fucked my fiancée, but you do not tell me what to do.” He strikes the final syllables furiously.
Nathan doesn’t flinch. “I saw Noah out,” he replies calmly, “but I could invite him back in. I’m certain he’d find something of interest here.”
Hate simmering in his eyes, Chris stares at Nathan. Like he’s flipped some switch in frustration, he grabs his leather duffel in a rush. “We’ll discuss this later,” he says, his words for me and his eyes everywhere else, “after you’ve had a chance to think about what you’re doing.” Without offering me the chance to reply—and without picking up the ring—he strides out, his shoulder hitting Nathan’s as he passes him.
His footsteps pound the stairs on his way down. Nathan heads into the hallway, following from a careful distance. I stay rooted in place. The room is silent. I hardly recognize the way my heartbeat picks up. Lightness fills my chest, spreading into my shoulders, lifting my head while I stare out the empty doorway.
I hear the front door slam, and all I feel is unbearable relief.
45
Nathan
I watch out the front window until Chris gets into his Uber X, the SUV’s rear door flying closed behind him. My emotions are moving fast. I can’t hold on to them, can’t even name them. First Katrina’s confession, then the words I overheard from their room, now her ex-fiancé leaving the house in a furious huff—it’s nothing I ever dared imagine.
I walk upstairs. When I reach the doorway, I find Katrina having hardly moved.
Her face is flushed, her eyes weary. When I see her, one emotion finally overpowers the others in me. It’s heartache. Not for myself—for her. I remember staring down the end of my marriage, standing exactly where she is, looking into the future and the past simultaneously from the place where they split. Whatever my hidden hopes and wishes, what Katrina’s going through is not happy.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to be here for her without seeming like I’m celebrating or gloating. Right now, I just want to be her friend.
After that . . . I’m afraid to admit what I might want to be.
Her eyes focus on me. She musters an exhausted smile, one I don’t have the heart to return. “Well, I’m glad I never sent out invitations,” she says.
Her humor, pained though it is, relieves me. I let out a laugh. “You didn’t?” I joke. “I figured mine got lost in the mail.”
She starts to laugh. Then everything catches up to her. I watch the realizations pummeling her, one on top of the next. Her entire vision of her life, vanished. The knowledge that this person she used to see nearly every day would become one she’d only speak to under the harshest of necessary circumstances. Her posture sags, not much—just enough that I know some spark sustaining her has gone out.
She drops down onto the edge of the bed, and her eyes glaze over. I stand, helpless. I want to tell her she’ll be okay, that she’ll feel like her life has fallen apart, but she can choose every piece with which she reassembles it. I want to tell her she deserves love she never had with Chris.
But I can’t tell her those things. Because everything I say in this moment will be colored by her confession downstairs.
She needs space, not pressure to face what she said. To reckon with the new reality her words might have wrought between us.