In the End

Nate confronts Anna

A Drop in the Ocean, a change in the weather,

I was praying that you and me might end up together

“Hey, babe, I got to go. Leia just arrived and I have a feeling that things are going to get pretty crazy in the next few minutes. I’ll spare you the gory details,” Nathaniel’s girlfriend of roughly six months laughed into the phone. She had called him only five minutes ago to check in. She was out for the evening, and the occasion made him cringe.

“Okay, then. Goodnight, babe,” he said into the microphone with a heavy breath that failed to escape his lips. His voice was cold, and he knew it.

“Goodnight, Nate. I love you,” she replied. Without another word, he hung up. He threw his phone with force, and it made a loud noise as it hit the wood of his desk. Now left in silence, he stared frustratingly at the darkness of his room. It was eight o’clock and he didn’t even bother with the lights. He lay on his bed, alone in his bedroom.

He dreaded the upcoming day. Once it came, it would pass quicker than any other day. All his time would run out, and he’d be left to finally face his choices. Nathaniel was naturally both stubborn and a procrastinator. He was too stubborn to realize that he wasn’t a god and that he did make mistakes. When he would realize, however, he would put off fixing it until the very last moment. This time was no exception, except…he wished it were. He wish he would’ve told her sooner all the things that he was trying to keep to himself. Now it was too late to fix things. They were both already under five feet of dead soil. When dawn came tomorrow, they would watch as the final foot of dirt flew into their graves, and every ounce of hope that they held in their hearts would be lost with them.

Nate knew that his actions in the next five minutes would determine whether they would climb free from their holes and walk out hand in hand or let a huge amount of themselves die. He couldn’t let her fall from his life. He knew he had to do something.

He grabbed his coat from the hanger on his door and ran for his car in the pouring rain. The pitter-patters of water on the windows as he drove faded into the sound of the heater, and when he reached her house, both sounds became mute.

He sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, staring at his future in the wet bricks that made up her four walls. Through the cloth blinds he could see shadows dancing across the room. He should’ve known that he wouldn’t be able to get her alone so easily tonight. The fact that she wasn’t alone made him mentally retreat. He couldn’t just walk up there and ring the doorbell now. What if her mom or friends answered? He’d be dead. He’d cause more heartbreaks than he needed to. That wouldn’t be good.

But, there was a knock on the window of his passenger’s side, and a sense of hope flooded into his chest. He looked to see her. Annabeth. Her hair glistened under a streak of streetlight that seeped through a crack between her umbrella and the rim of the car. She knocked again, wanting to come in. He stared blankly for a moment then unlocked the door. The world came rushing back to the surface when she opened it and he could again hear the sound of rain crashing down on the pavement.

She closed the umbrella shortly after occupying the seat next to him and closing the door. When the noise she made was over, they sat in an uncomfortable silence. They took turns staring at each other, but never at the same time. When he glanced at her for periods of about five seconds, she was looking ahead, possibly focusing in on a single droplet of water on the window as it trailed down. When she sneaked a forbidden peak at him, he was looking down at his shoes, with a face too vulnerable for her to ignore. She was the one to break the silence.

“What are you doing, Nate? Why did you come?” she asked in a whisper that was loud enough to carry.

“I…I don’t know,” he admitted.

“You don’t know.” She tested it. Her face became cold as she said, “You don’t know a lot of things, come to think of it. I saw your car roll up from my bedroom window. I had to stealthily escape the three raging girls and my mother in that house to come and see you. Don’t tell me that I did all that for just another ‘I don’t know.’”

He continued to stare at his shoes. He wasn’t like this, normally. Only she could have the power to make him like this. Any other day, he knew what he wanted; he was over confident and super cocky about everything, even the things he knew he was wrong about. When she’s in the room, or in the compact space of his car, he’s completely lost at words.

Annabeth sighed. “Look, Nathaniel. We can’t keep doing whatever this is. It’s not healthy for either one of us. We both know that it’s a one-way ticket to hell, going down the road we are moments away from choosing. We don’t share a life anymore.”

Nathaniel responded this time by laughing. “Ha! We don’t share a life anymore? How can you lie to yourself like that, Anna? From the moment we met, we were forever and you know it. You know it.”

“What do you want me to say, huh? I am engaged. Engaged! I’m getting married. Tomorrow! And you. You’re dating my best friend. We aren’t in the right circumstances to be having any type of conversation like this. The very fact that I had to sneak away proves just how wrong this is. And we aren’t even doing anything! We’re just discussing things that don’t matter.”

“They do matter, Anna! That’s why I’m here. Because you matter to me. You mean everything to me!”

She wiped a tear that slid down her cheek before she replied. “You don’t get the right to say that, not when you’ve had the opportunity to for almost an entire year.”

“You know how stubborn I am, Anna.”

“That’s not an excuse. I loved you. I’m not going to deny that. And you loved me. But what we have is obviously toxic, because for us to work, someone’s life is going to be ruined. I won’t let you hurt my best friend like you hurt me.” He kept a solid look on his face, but she knew him well enough to know that he was taken aback by what she had said. “It wasn’t a good idea for you to come here. I think I should be getting back to my bachelorette party.”

Nate cringed at the words, “bachelorette party”. It was another little detail that made him realize once again that he had made the biggest mistake of his existence. He grabbed her wrist and kept her from going out that car door. He couldn’t let her leave. If he did, there was no point in coming here. All he would’ve managed to do was allow his heart to get broken once again, into smaller pieces than it had been. “Don’t go. I did everything wrong. I made the mistake by making you go a long time ago. I can’t let you leave this time.” His beautiful blue eyes bore into hers, pleadingly.

“You can’t do this!” she yelled. “I can’t understand why you’re telling me this, Nate! You’ve just waited, and waited, haven’t you? You’ve waited until this exact moment to break my heart again! It’s another one of your games, isn’t it?” She escaped his stare. Her fingers combed her hair in a panic, like he’d seen her do a million times before. Tears threatened her eyes. He wanted to believe that he didn’t cause them, that he wasn’t hurting her again by being here, but he knew that’d he’d be lying.

“This isn’t a game. Annabeth, I mean every word that comes out of my mouth.” He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. His eyes proved his seriousness; her eyes hinted her disbelief. However, he held his stare in order to convince her of his truth.

“Then tell me to call it off.” Now it was obvious by his wide eyes that he was surprised. “Do it, Nate. Break the heart of my best friend, and I’ll call off my wedding and break the heart of my fiancé. Would you be willing to do that, just to be with me?” She was challenging him. There was no way she’d be okay with him, breaking the heart of one of the people she loved the most. It was a lose-lose situation for him. Option A, to let her out of the car and drive away and never bother her again, would result in locking himself inside his penthouse for weeks with a pain in his chest that wouldn’t go away. It was something he’d dealt with before, and wasn’t very fond of going back to it. At the same time, Option B, to tell her that he would ‘break the heart of her best friend’ (as she puts it) if it means he could be with her, would probably have the opposite effect. He knew how much they meant to each other; this would ruin them. And while he might get her, a part of her would resent him for doing that to her.

He shook his head. “You can’t do it, huh?” she quirked. “I wouldn’t be able to either.” She escaped his grasp on her chin and wrist, and in return took his face between her palms. She looked him straight in the eyes and continued, “What we have is toxic. The game we played was fun while it lasted, but now we’re both just trapped. We aren’t good enough for one another. I just…” Without ever finishing what she was going to say, she leaned in and planted her lips on his forehead. They stayed there for seconds. It sent tingles throughout Nathaniel’s body.

She reached for the door handle after she pulled away. He didn’t stop her this time, a combination of awe and a deeper understanding. “I should be going.” He nodded his head and watched her turn his back on him for what might just be the last time.

When he woke up that morning at ten o’clock, he heard bells ringing in his head, and he knew what he had to do. 

Author's Note

Excuse format.... I'm still trying to figure out how it works.