Chapter Thirty-Four
Natalie
Moving to Provo from Salt Lake, one of my biggest reservations, besides the distance I would have to start traveling to get to work, had been losing my Pilates place. It was the one form of exercise that didn't make me want to kill myself and everyone around me. I tried to make it a point to go a few times a week but had fallen off in a big way since I had gotten entangled in the whole thing with Cameron and the general Porter family drama.
I had no excuse not to go on the weekends and usually didn't try and make any. It was usually as easy as weighing the consequences of what I wanted to be able to eat and what it was likely to do to my dress size. Dress size tended to win out every time. Today though, it was two in the afternoon, and I had done nothing but rewatch episodes of Friday Night Lights that I had seen a million times already on the couch in yoga pants and no bra under my shirt. My kitchen sink was full of spoons that I had eaten peanut butter off of because at no point had I had it in me to call in for food or make something that required even minor assembly.
The last time I had felt like this had been a while ago. A while ago, and there was no good reason for this time. I didn't get this way unless I had recently ended a romantic relationship, so what the hell was the excuse now?
I had ignored my phone all day. The only other people I had seen had been the two-dimensional characters on my television screen, and they didn't count. I had napped more hours than an adult of my age and activity level needed. I hadn’t cried though. That had stopped the night before, and I didn’t care how hollow a victory that was, I was celebrating it.
My doorbell rang, and I ignored it. I hoped it wasn't the mail carrier because I didn't want to be rude, but I wasn’t getting up. All my curtains were still drawn, I imagined the house looked like it was empty from the outside. Maybe my neighbors were checking on me to see if I had died. That would be in their interest, I guessed, probably affect their property value by proxy.
Whoever was at the door knocked again. I paused the TV and tried to make it seem like I wasn't home.
"Nat? Natalie?" I heard someone say. Shit. I rolled my eyes, getting up off the couch, wrapping the blanket I had over me around myself instead of leaving it behind. I unlocked the door and opened it.
"Oh my god."
"Nobody's home. Come back later," I said. That was the first time I had actually heard my own voice all day, I realized with some amusement.
"Natalie, what the hell. Have you looked at your phone today?" Kasey asked, barging inside.
"Please come in. It isn't like I wanted to be alone today. Have some time to my damn self," I said sarcastically. She walked into my living room, looked around, then turned to me with a look of utter disgust on her face.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Do you want something Kase? I was kind of busy."
"Yeah, you and Coach Taylor have a lot to talk about together?" she asked me sarcastically, waving her hand at the TV.
"You know I never recovered after it was canceled."
"I've been texting you all day," she scolded.
"Sorry," I said, shrugging weakly. "Sorry if you were worried." I went over to the couch and slumped back into it. She looked at me, really looked, like she was inspecting me just in case a body double had taken over.
"What happened yesterday? You haven't replied to any of my texts."
"Nothing happened." I tried to sound nonchalant, but she saw right through it.
"Oh no, did he...?"
"He didn't do anything. I just said what I had to say, and he told me what he felt about that."
"I'm sorry, Nat."
"For what? I'm not losing anything," I said, shrugging. "He didn't feel the same way, so there was nothing to lose." The next time this happened, I’d use that advice, and hopefully it would work out better than it had this time. It was sound advice; that wasn’t the problem. Not everyone you wanted would want you back. I was just at that place after a breakup when you felt like you would rather be dead than think about whoever you lost anymore. Yeah, all that and Cameron and I hadn’t even been dating.
"But you didn't want to hear that,'" she said, sitting down next to me. I just shrugged, not wanting to go into it all over again but knowing she wasn't going to give me the option to sulk in peace.
"Of course I didn't," I said. "It's not like I was even really pursuing a relationship when we got involved. It was just... I know how this sounds, Kase; you don't have to tell me."
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You were right about there being nothing at stake if he didn't feel the same way, but I could have sworn that there was something there and it wasn't one-sided. I felt it, Kase. I know that it probably hasn't been long enough, but I felt like I just knew. I felt like he would say yes, and I feel so stupid now."
"Don't feel bad for communicating your feelings to him, Nat. And don't feel bad that it didn't work out. I know you do now, but if it didn't work out, it wasn't supposed to."
"It was my fault."
"It wasn't anyone's fault."
"I lied to him, Kase; it was all my fault."
"You made a mistake. It sucks that he couldn't get past that, but maybe that's better for the long term," she said. "You can't sit here and wallow in all the things that can’t happen anymore otherwise you'll die here before you start living again."
"I just want to watch season four again and pretend like the last month of my life didn't happen."
"You can't do that."
"I was making progress before you showed up," I accused, starting the TV again.
"Turn that off," she said, taking the remote from me and turning the television off. "Have you been outside today? Have you even moved from that spot since last night?" I crossed my arms. I had actually slept in my bed the night before, and I resented her thinking that.
"Give me the remote."
"No, you get upstairs and get dressed. We're leaving."
"Leaving? And going where?"
"The salon. Your hair looks like shit."
"Thanks, I'll let my stylist know that she's bad at her job."
She glared at me. "I'm not the one who shot you down, Nat. You get to be sad about it, but you don't get a free pass to be a bitch." I sunk back into the couch.
"I know," I mumbled. "I just feel like... have you ever felt like you did something so bad, nothing can ever make up for it?"
"Cameron Porter isn't the last man who you'll ever fall for, Nat."
"That's the thing; I don't want to fall for anyone else. I wanted to see what happened with Cameron. I've never felt so close to anyone after such a short time." She sighed, letting me have that one. She didn't keep people around that long, so I was speaking a foreign language to her. The ocean was full of fish. If you stood in one place long enough, another person would come by; men were like buses, my mom used to say to me. I didn’t feel optimistic enough to consider my other options. Not when I still missed Cameron so fucking much.
"Did you love him?" she asked. I just shrugged because I knew what the answer was and I didn't want to say it because it would just make everything feel worse. "Natalie, I'm sorry that it didn't work out, but you can't just sit with the heartbreak of it forever. You got rejected, and you know what? That was the worst thing he could have done, and he did it. That was the end. Now you can move on because he gave you a clean break. You can take advantage of that and move on to something better."
"I'm not ready," I sulked.
"That's why I'm here," she said. "Go get dressed. I can do your hair. You can get your nails done."
"You don't have clients today?"
"My next client isn't ‘til six. If you had seen any of my texts, you would know that I wanted to spend this afternoon together if you were free." I shifted in my seat, guilty.
"I'm sorry."
"Good. You can make up for it by going upstairs, getting dressed, and letting me do your hair."
"It would be nice to have my nails done," I mused, and I liked being in Kasey's chair. It was always nice to see what she came up with.
"Then hurry it up!" she said, hauling me up off the couch. I laughed, getting up and letting her herd me up the stairs. I was grateful for her friendship, even when she was getting in the way of me and Coach Taylor. She wasn't going to let me wallow, and I needed that. If she hadn't shown up, I would have lost more than just this one weekend to being a sloth and binge-watching marathons of canceled TV shows.
We left when I had made myself presentable enough to be seen in public and went straight to her salon. I got a manicure first, then Kasey worked her magic on my hair. My hair was blonde, and in the years Kasey had been doing it, she had only ever played with the tones, never ever given me raven black locks or anything dark. I trusted her implicitly but was happy that she had never done anything too dramatic. Since it had gotten colder, she had toned down the summery gold tones she had put in when it had been warmer and cooled it down to a more natural tone.
"Can you cut some off?" I asked as she rinsed my hair out in the bowl.
"How much is some?" she asked suspiciously.
"Just a trim off the ends, maybe graduate the layers a little more?"
"Slow down; you didn't just have a breakup," she joked. No, I hadn't, but I was here so why not. It would be for me. I wanted something a little different. I sat in her chair as she trimmed my layers and blew my hair out. The bangs were too long now to still call them that. They framed my face while the rest of my hair tumbled over my shoulders and back in a fresh blowout.
"I like your hair parted down the middle," Kasey said, fluffing it with her hands, admiring her handiwork.
"What is it? Date tonight?" another stylist, a guy named Gerard, asked casually.
"Nothing like that," I said self-consciously.
"She doesn't need my help for that," Kasey said, laughing with her colleague. I smiled as they debated how well I was able to get dates and whether Kasey’s skills raised my rating on a ten-point scale. It was friendly, and I couldn't deny that it made me feel a little good. If not good then pretty, which was nice. I ran my hands through it, feeling pleased with myself. No, I hadn’t worked out or been in any way useful that day, but at least I had gotten a cute hairdo out of it. I savored it while I was still with Kasey because I had a feeling I wouldn't feel as good once I was alone again back at the house.
At least if I was going to be miserable, I'd be cute doing it. Cameron's sale paperwork was at my office at work. Brett was getting it Monday morning since that was the soonest he had been able to schedule another meeting with the stockholders. It was also the meeting where the representatives from the company that wanted to buy Cameron's stake would be present too. Thinking about it had been part of the reason for my foul mood. I couldn’t be sentimental about the family legacy of Porter Holdings if Cameron himself wasn't, but I was.
I felt almost like I had failed Grayson Porter on the one request he had made of me before he passed. I had failed at getting his son to where he wanted him to be. Whatever. I had done my job, and it wasn't my problem anymore. I'd go to work on Monday, and as soon as the sale went through, we'd see how many people were still standing by the end.
Kasey had driven me, so I took a cab back home. It was like a cloud slowly covering me out of nowhere, the gross, dark sadness that had sapped me of all my energy all day coming back the closer I got to my place. I didn't want to start crying in the cab, so I stared studiously out the window, hoping to discourage my driver from trying to speak with me. It ended up being a long, uncomfortable drive. I got out of the car in front of my house feeling like I wouldn’t even get to the bathroom to wash my makeup off before I face-planted on the couch and turned the TV back on. I walked up to my house, rifling in my purse for my keys.
"Natalie?" I stopped short, looking up. I had completely missed him. Cameron stood up from where he had been sitting on my doorstep. It took a minute before I composed myself to walk past him, up to my door.
"What are you doing here?" I asked. My back was to him. My hand was shaking as I tried to unlock my door.
"Can I come in?"