Reed was coming closer, but I had managed to muster enough common sense to put my car in reverse. I was slowing pulling away when he lunged for the hood, smacking it hard with both hands. “Nolan, stop! You don’t understand, you don’t understand.” He was yelling, his face red and his muscles fully flexed. He was yelling at me, angry. Angry at me?
My emotions were a roller coaster. I flung the gears into park, swung my door open so wide it actually came back to close on my leg as I stepped out. It would leave a terrible bruise I knew, but I couldn’t seem to stop to care or check on my leg right now. I was swinging between heartbrokenly crushed and furious.
“What’s to understand? I just saw you, holding… her!” I said, gesturing to her like she was some tossed aside piece of beef at a cattle show. “How could you? How could you!”
I was spewing venom now, and I couldn’t be stopped. “What does this mean, Reed? Are you with her?”
He just stood there. Silent. Without words. He frowned slightly, looking down at his feet and then looking back up to me, shrugging. “Nolan, it’s just… it’s just that. Oh, it’s complicated, ok? You have to believe me that I didn’t want to hurt you…”
I cut him off at that, raising my hand to say ‘stop.’ This was it, I was broken now. And I wasn’t sure there would ever be a way to come back from this. I got back into my car, and just before I closed my door, I looked him right in the eyes, seething. “Go to f**king hell!”
I spun the car around and allowed myself one last look at him in the rearview mirror. Tatum was walking up behind him, reaching out to take his hand. And still, he just stood there. Silent.
I made it home somehow in one piece, avoiding the urge to crash into everything I saw. I didn’t want to hurt myself, but I wanted to exhale this pain boiling inside me. I didn’t know anything could ever hurt this badly. I managed to get inside my house before my parents were home, giving me an hour to process alone in the comfort of my room. My phone kept buzzing with texts from Reed.
Nolan, please forgive me.
Nolan, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.
Please don’t hate me.
I finally shot one back after his 15th message:
Leave me alone. I am done.
I shut my phone off and threw it into my backpack, crashing face first on my bed and curling into a ball around my favorite pillow. My tears stopped. I felt numb, and for a moment, I thought maybe I had imagined it all. But just when I would start to convince myself I would close my eyes, and as if I were watching a close up, I would see Reed’s hand cupping the back of Tatum’s head. Their bodies so close. Her face, not at all like this was a trick, but just looking at me with pity. She was pitying me.
I was going to be sick.
I ran to my bathroom and flung open the lid, dry heaving until I heard my mother’s keys on the counter in the kitchen and the sound of her high heals treading down the hall in my direction.
“Honey, are you sick? Are you ok?” she said, opening the door and finding me on the floor. As soon as I saw her, the tears started up again.
“Oh, honey. What’s wrong?” she said, pulling me into a hug. The only hug that could ever seem to fix anything. Somehow, though, I knew this time my hurt was not meant to be fixed. No. This one was mine to keep. A reminder. A lesson.
She walked me to my room and laid me on my bed, sitting next to me and stroking my hair. I just looked at her, quivering a little with tiny sobs, trying to make them stop. When I finally was able to hold my breath steady for a few moments, I just uttered the truth. “My heart hurts, mommy. Really bad.”
She just leaned over and held me tightly again, stroking my hair and rocking me back and forth. “I know sweetheart. I know.”
She didn’t lecture me. She didn’t warn me, or say anything to prevent me from loving a boy ever again. She never even uttered Reed’s name. She understood what it was to be a girl with a broken heart. She knew that even though I was 16, what I felt was very real, as real as it would be if I were 37.
She sat there with me for an hour until I finally felt human. We heard the sounds of my dad’s truck pulling into the driveway and my mom kissed my forehead and told me that she’d bring me in a plate later. She pulled my door closed and met my dad in the hallway. I could hear them talking, and was so relieved when she was covering for me, knowing that my dad would react to my heartache as a father would.
“Something she ate at work, maybe? She’s pretty tired from being sick just now. I told her I’d check on her later, let’s just sit outside tonight for dinner. Give her some quiet,” and then they were in the kitchen and soon after I was asleep.