Authors: Masha Leyfer
“Nathan, you’ll figure it all out, I promise.”
He sighs again.
“When we came to pick him up, he looked at us and said, ‘Mike, Nathan’
,
then he gave us the most awkward hug I’ve ever had in my life and asked, ‘Where’s your mother?’ What are you supposed to say to that? She’s dead? What is that supposed to convey? It’s just...you can’t summarize an entire lifetime in two words.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That’s what we told him: she’s dead. But it felt so wrong. Everything about this is just so wrong.”
“I know what you mean,” I say. “It’s just too much.”
“Yes. That’s it. That it exactly. ”
“Hmm.”
Nathan looks out at the stars and then back at me. Our eyes lock and he holds my gaze for several seconds before letting go.
“Molly?” he says.
“Yeah.”
“Can I...Can I confess something to you?”
“Of course.”
“But you have to promise not to get mad.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, here goes: Molly, I…I’m sorry, I don’t know why this is so difficult to say. I...Sorry, I feel so stupid for all these pauses.”
“Don’t. It’s okay. It’s been a crazy night.”
“Yeah, it has.”
“But you can tell me whatever you want. Or not. If you want to keep silent,” I smile at him. “That’s fine too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. In that case, I might as well say it: Molly, I love you.”
CHAPTER 27
“What?” I say quietly. I can’t believe that I just heard those words said aloud. To me. I have no idea how to respond. My eyes open wider and my mouth forms an O. I realize that I am still holding Nathan’s hands and I hastily drop them. I look into Nathan’s eyes, piercingly blue, and I find that not only do I not know what to say, I don’t know what to think. In the emptiness of my mind a million memories zoom around. The first time I saw him on the snowmobile outside of Hopetown. The first time I saw his face in the bar. The first time we spoke, on my first day as a member of the Rebellion. The night up in the lookout post. Playing guitar here, under the oak tree. All if it tumbles around my brain in an unguided mass of emotions, overlapping and bumping into itself. Then Nathan disappears from my thoughts. Random memories replace him. Leaving Hopetown. My first raid. The Blast. All the post-Blast winters and seeing the sled dragged through Centre Street. Years of fear and hope and longing and sorrow, all concentrated now, in this one moment. I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t figure out what would summarize everything that I’m feeling, so my mouth just remains like that, slightly open in a perpetual state of surprise.
One memory cries to be heard louder than the others, although I’m not sure exactly why. The first Summer after the Blast, in the very beginning days of Hopetown, my mother and I were walking near what now later turned into Hopetown’s walls when we saw a dandelion. It was in full bloom, with the seeds ready to be blown off. It was the first flower we had seen since the Blast. My mother told me that if I blew off the seeds, every dandelion that would grow in this meadow as a consequent result would grant me a wish. I blew them all off and we returned the next summer to the same place. Seventeen dandelions had grown, but I remember wishing for one thing and one thing only, though I don’t remember what it was. That fall, the meadow was turned into farmland and all the dandelions were ripped up.
The only coherent thoughts I can form are,
Nathan loves me. Oh my goodness, he loves me. How can that be possible? Nathan Kerman loves me.
“I’m sorry,” Nathan’s voice disrupts my thoughts. “I shouldn’t have said that.” I just stare at him, still wordless, as he stands up and brushes himself off to leave. “I’m sorry,” he says again and heads back towards camp.
“No, Nathan, wait,” I find my voice again. He turns back around, his eyes full of hope. “I..I…”
My voice loses itself again. He loves me. That singular fact shocks me into silence. His eyes are so hopeful and I can’t stand to crush that hope. But I’m not ready to love, not ready to be loved. What do I do? What do I say? How can I tell him no? But...How can I tell him yes?
“Nathan, listen, I...you’re my best friend and I would go to the ends of the Earth and back for you, but I…” I can see the light go out of his eyes and I turn away. “I can’t…” I stammer. “I do love you, just not...not like that, I...I’m sorry, I just, I...I can’t, I...I’m not ready to jump, do you understand? I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“No, no, Nathan, don’t say that. You’re the most wonderful person on this planet, and if anybody deserves to be happy, it’s you. It just won’t be with me.”
“Molly, I…” he trails off.
“Nathan, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You’ve done so much for me and I wish I could do the same for you, but…”
“You already have. Don’t apologize.”
“Nathan, I wish I could say yes, I wish...It’s not your fault. Please don’t blame yourself, I-I’m just not ready for this.”
“I understand. You don’t have to justify it.”
“Nathan…” I pull him into a hug and kiss him on the cheek. His arms are stiff on my back. Maybe I should have kept my distance.
“You deserve so much and so much more than me,” I say. “I hope you find your happy ending someday.”
“You too.”
“Can we not let this change things between us? I know that it’s impossible completely, but can we try? I don’t want what we already had to fall apart.” He nods weakly. “I’m sorry for...”
“No, no, I should be sorry. I should have known and I shouldn’t have forced you into this and…”
“Nathan, stop apologizing. You have nothing to be sorry for. You’re the most wonderful person I know, don’t be sorry for that.”
He smiles a little and shakes his head, but it is not a smile of happiness.
“Molly…”
“Nathan…”
“I’m sorry it had to end this way.”
“It isn’t over yet,” I say. “Maybe, someday, in the future, I...it’s just that now…”
“It’s okay, I understand. Goodbye.” He leaves and heads back towards camp, leaving me to ponder what I have just done.
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
I lie awake in my tent at night, thinking about the week’s events. My entire world has just been turned completely upside down. The Kerman father isn’t dead. I am not dead. Nathan loves me.
Nathan loves me.
Those words repeat themselves in my mind.
Nathan loves me. I remember that I suspected it vaguely, once, when he sang a love song around the fire. I suspected it then as somebody suspects their death. It is eternal and unmeasurably important in its inevitability, but inconsequential until we get to it. And now that it’s tangible…
How do you respond to something as earth shattering as love?
How do you turn it down and leave it to fester within the heart of your best friend? But if you take it on, then what? It festers inside both of our hearts in the same way? I suppose it’s easier to rot with somebody by your side then to die alone underground.
I feel terrible for declining Nathan. Although I know that I never had the obligation to say yes, I feel that he deserves it. He deserves happiness. He gave me happiness and I want to give him happiness in return, just not like this.
I turn around under the sleeping bag. Why is this so difficult? Why can’t the world be simple and easily explained? I used to find the complexity beautiful, but now it just like an unnecessary burden. Why can’t the beauty of the world be in its simplicity?
I toss around some more. Sleep evades me. How could anyone sleep in a situation like this? I wonder if Nathan is asleep. Probably not. It’s amazing, how most of the camp is probably dozing off right now. Even if they’re not, they must be thinking about something completely different. But Nathan and I have an entirely separate problem to solve. We’re all so close to each other, and yet we can be completely oblivious to each other’s problems.
I shift around for several hours more, trying to find a comfortable position. This tent and the forest ground have never before seemed uncomfortable to me. But tonight, sleep evades me again. In Hopetown, I dealt with insomnia through my paints, but I always painted something concrete. The sunset, the ocean, our town. But how are you supposed to paint love? What color means betrayal? What color means regret? What shape symbolizes confusion? How many shadows does it take to say,
I’m sorry
?
This isn’t something I can paint. This is barely something I can think about, much less understand.
Nathan Kerman has just told me that he loves me.
And I have absolutely no idea what to do next.
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
The next morning, Nathan and I don’t talk during breakfast. It isn’t so much that we are avoiding each other, it’s more that we just don’t drift together the way we usually do. I look over at him, talking to Desmond and Matt. The three of them laugh. That’s good, I guess, isn’t it? That whatever I did to Nathan wasn’t bad enough for him to stop laughing. He catches my eye and I realize that I’ve been staring perhaps for longer than I should have been. He smiles. I smile back. His smile doesn’t seemed forced, but it’s different somehow. I’m not sure if the change is with me or him.
Mike is talking to his father. He’s explaining something and seems to be doing his best to hide his agitation. Mr. Kerman only nods and shakes his head. He rarely says anything. Mike shoots a glance at Smaller Sally and she nods reassuringly.
“It’s really getting to him,” she tells me quietly.
“Yeah. I can tell.”
She sighs.
“The thing is, he
knows
that he shouldn’t be afraid or nervous or anything, but he just can’t help it. I tried reasoning with him, he tried reasoning with himself, but you can’t reason with basic instinct.”
“Yeah,” I nod. “I guess you can’t.”
The day moves by fairly quickly. Big Sal gives me a list of herbs that she needs and tells me to bring any edible mushrooms that I find. Rebekah joins me. We go out with two baskets and come back with them both full, one with mushrooms, one with herbs. Big Sal thanks us, relieving us of the baskets and tells us that she’ll save the best of lunch for us. After lunch, I find Mike, and he agrees to go train with me in the Field of the Fallen, as we used to. We fight for almost ten minutes, constantly at a standstill, until Mike finally knocks me to the ground.
“You’re getting really good,” he says. “I’m not sure what else I could teach you.” I shrug in response. “All right, let’s go again.”
We fight again, dodging each other’s blows almost before they come. I think we’ve picked up on each other’s patterns and movements well enough to be able to predict what the other will do next. We fight for a long time again, but as always has happened, he knocks me to the ground.
“Remember our first training session?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I respond, brushing myself off. “You pulled me to the ground every ten seconds.”
“I was teaching you a lesson,” he shrugs. “And besides,” he adds quietly, “watching you fall is very amusing.”
“I would imagine it is,” I chuckle appreciatively.
Mike sighs.
“How things have changed.”
“Yeah,” I agree. Then, after a pause, “So. How’s your father?”
Mike sighs again and bites his lip, looking in the direction of camp.
“He’s not at all what I remembered or what I imagined. And it’s...I shouldn’t be complaining. I get my father back. And I know I should be happy, but….”
“You don’t owe it to anybody to be happy.”
“That’s not true. If I’m visibly unhappy at somebody’s presence, even though they’ve done nothing wrong but being different from what I imagined...Well, you can understand what that would do to a person. So I owe it to him to at least pretend.”
“I think it’ll work out.”
“I’m happy you think so.”
“Is he planning to stay here?”
“Where does he have to go? We’re the only home he has left.”
“I don’t know, Mike. Just have faith that things will get better.”
“And where will that get us?”
“Not really anywhere, but it makes the roads we take more bearable, don’t you think?”
“I’m not sure our roads can be salvaged anymore.”
“It’s not so much about saving the roads, it’s about making the best of what you have.”