Unfriended (20 page)

When I got to the Bluff, Nate’s truck was already parked, right at the edge of the driveway where the gravel ended and turned into grass. I pulled behind him, put Judy into park, and killed the engine. I unbuckled my seat belt, but didn’t get out of the car right away. I took just a moment, trying to prepare myself.

The driver’s side door of the truck opened, Nate emerged, and I knew that my moment was over, and this next part—this terrible task—had now begun. Nate was smiling at me, and I smiled back, automatically, the way I had always done, like his smile was somehow tied to mine. As I saw him walking toward my car, I opened my door and got out. I realized, seeing him, how much I had missed him after only two days. I didn’t let myself think about how much I was going to miss him
when two days turned into forever. I slammed my door and turned to face my boyfriend.

“Hi,” he said, closing the remaining distance between us. He slipped his arms around my waist and there was a part of me that knew I should push him away, give him the cold shoulder, begin this process. But I didn’t quite have the fortitude to do it, and instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him close to me. It seemed only fair that I get to kiss him one last time. And though our kiss was as knee-weakening as ever, it was spoiled for me by the knowledge that it was our last one.

I broke away from the kiss and wrapped my arms around Nate in a tight hug. “Hey,” he murmured, stroking the back of my head, which I had buried in his shoulder. “You okay?”

I nodded against the soft cotton of his T-shirt. “Fine,” I murmured, glad that he couldn’t see my expression. “I just missed you, that’s all.”

“I missed you, too,” Nate said, leaning back a little. I looked at his face, which was pretty much my favorite thing in the world. I rested my hands on either side of it, and felt that his cheeks were warm.

“Did you get sunburned?” I asked, tracing my thumb gently over the edge of his jaw.

“Amazingly, yes,” Nate said, with one of his half smiles. “Apparently, Schuyler was right, and you
can
get sunburned even when it’s raining.”

“Never doubt Schuyler when it comes to matters of SPF,” I said, feeling myself smile. I was on the verge of launching into the story of Schuyler’s epic sunburn
the summer before, but stopped myself. The longer I stood there, just talking to Nate like nothing was wrong, the harder this was going to be. I probably shouldn’t have kissed him in the first place, but that ship had sailed. “So, um,” I said, taking a deep breath and a tiny step away from him. I looked down at my flip-flops on the gravel, trying to get up my courage. “The reason that I wanted to see you tonight was … there’s something that I wanted to say to you.”

I looked back up at Nate and saw that, improbably, a huge smile was slowly spreading over his face. “Yes?” he asked. He sounded nervous, but also really happy and hopeful.

The reason why came crashing down on me like a ton of bricks. Nate was excited by what he thought I was going to tell him. The last conversation we’d had involved him telling me he loved me, but wanting me to wait and say it back to him in my own way. Nate thought I was about to tell him that I loved him, too.

This made what was about to happen so,
so
much worse that my breath caught in my throat and I had to fight for a moment to get it back. The timing was bad enough, but what I was fighting hard against, since it made me want to yell and break things, was the
unfairness
of it all. I loved him, too. And I wanted to be able to tell him, and for us to share in what in normal circumstances would surely have been a really wonderful, special moment. But instead, I wasn’t going to say it back to him. Instead, I had to break his heart and mine, in one fell swoop.

“The thing is,” I started, tearing my eyes away from his face. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do this to him if I had to look at his open, hopeful expression. My voice turned trembly, and I swallowed hard and forced myself to continue. “I wanted to say …”

“It’s okay,” Nate murmured. He tilted my chin up and smiled at me, looking right into my eyes. “You can say it.”

He tucked that one lock of hair behind my ear, and rested his hand on my cheek. I leaned my head against his hand for just a moment and closed my eyes, knowing it would be the last time that he would touch me. Then I opened my eyes and moved my head away, breaking our contact and looking back at him. “I’m sorry,” I forced out. My voice was shaking, and felt totally out of my control, like even my vocal cords knew this was a bad idea and were trying to prevent me from saying these words.

Nate’s smile faltered a little. “About what?” he asked.

“That I have to do this,” I said. I took another step back, farther away from him, even though the distance between us felt like it was physically hurting me.

“Do what?” Nate asked, and his smile was almost totally gone now. A crease had appeared between his eyebrows. He reached out to me, but I took another step back. I had a feeling that if he touched me, I wouldn’t have the strength to push him away again.

“This,” I choked out in what was little more than a whisper. I could feel tears in the back of my eyes, but I clenched my fists, fighting against it, trying not to let myself cry until I’d gotten through this. Which pretty much made it the world’s worst reward.

“Mad,” Nate started, taking a step toward me, looking worried.

“Don’t,” I said sharply, taking another step away. I was practically backed up next to Judy at this point. I saw confusion take over Nate’s face, as well as a flash of hurt in his eyes that I’d never seen before. Hurt that I had caused. And I wasn’t done yet. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I just … need to say this.” Nate nodded, still looking baffled. He let the hand that had been reaching out to me drop, and the space between us seemed to expand into a chasm. “I think,” I started. I took a breath and then let it out. I knew the words that I had to say. But it didn’t seem conceivable to me that I could say them, since they were so contrary to everything that was true.

Then, in a series of images, I saw Nate getting called before his headmaster, Nate’s acceptance from Yale rejected, Nate’s dazzling future dimmed forever. And it gave me the resolve I needed to continue.

“I think we should break up,” I forced out. As soon as I said these words, the tears started to fall, one sliding out from each eye. But my vision was clear enough to see Nate’s reaction. It was as though I’d just struck him with a physical blow. He recoiled and took a step backward. Hurt and confusion were plain to see on his face, which, only moments ago, had been so filled with happiness. I swallowed hard, though my throat felt tight, and it was getting hard to breathe normally.

Nate looked away from me and out to the Bluff, to
the open, empty space that we’d filled with laughter and feverish kisses and long discussions about what might have been. He turned back to me, and I could see just how shocked he was. “I don’t understand,” he said, his voice lower than usual, and a little choked.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, hating these words and how useless they were in the face of everything that was happening. “I wish I could … tell you why. But I can’t.” More tears were falling now. I wasn’t sobbing—I had a feeling that would come later tonight—but I also knew I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself from crying. I brushed some tears away, and my hand came back black. Clearly, this new eyeliner thing was not compatible with my current emotional state.

“Is it because of … what I said?” Nate asked, his eyes searching mine.

“No!” I said. I hadn’t meant to be so emphatic, but it was as though the word was yanked out of me. “No, not at all. I just …” I wiped my eyes, though that was a futile gesture, and took a breath to continue, but stopped when I realized there was nothing, really, that I could tell him. No reason that would make all of this make sense. And I hated that I not only had to hurt him deeply but had to leave him in a state of confusion, with no answers. “It just has to be this way,” I whispered, looking back at him.

Nate was staring down at his shoes, his shoulders hunched forward slightly, as though to protect himself from any other bombshells I might decide to hurl at him. I could see that his brow was furrowed, and his chin was
trembling ever so slightly. Finally, he nodded, and then looked back at me, and what I saw in his expression made me want to start crying harder. There was a distance in his eyes now that I’d never seen before. One that hadn’t been there just moments ago, and the sight of it brought home how real all of this was. There was truly no going back now.

“And there’s nothing I can say,” Nate said. “Right?” He looked at me closely, as though trying to see if he could get any kind of explanation for why I had chosen to make both of us so unhappy.

I shook my head slowly, and the chasm between us seemed to open even further, until it felt like we were standing on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon. Like the space between us was so vast, it was absurd to think that we’d ever touched each other.

“If this is what you want,” Nate said, his voice sounding a little jagged.

“It is,” I made myself lie. I wiped my eyes again, even though my tears were showing no signs of abating. Possibly ever. I was seized by a sudden, strong desire to get out of there, and fast, which was so strange to me, since before that moment, I never wanted to leave where Nate was. It had always been an internal battle to force myself away from him. But I couldn’t be here any longer—next to him, not kissing or touching or laughing, but instead, causing him great unhappiness. Being in his presence, in these new, awful circumstances, felt like it was physically hurting me.

“This is for you,” I said, my voice shakier than ever.
I reached into my bag, pulled out the tortoise, and held it out to him.

Nate’s eyes darkened as he looked at it and he shook his head. “I don’t want it,” he said, his voice more choked than ever.

“Please,” I said, still holding it out to him. “I want you to have the set.” Implied in this was something that made me feel like someone was squeezing my heart—that Nate would, at some point, give the other one to
someone else
. But I needed Nate to know that I was serious about this, and to get him not to ask me why, or try and get back together with me. I had to let him know that this was a real breakup, and this was the only way that I could think to do it.

Nate stared down at it for a long moment, then reached out and took it, grabbing the tortoise’s head, our hands not touching. He turned it over in his hands, and when he looked back at me, his eyes were more distant than ever.

“And this,” I said hurriedly, reaching into my bag and holding out the note to him. “Just … read it later, okay?” I asked. “When you’re at home, with all your things.” Nate reached out and took the end of the piece of paper, but I held on, the letter taut between us.

Nate glanced up at me, surprised, and I looked right into his eyes and spoke with urgency, knowing that this was my only chance to get this message across. “I just want you to remember that I gave this to you here,” I said. “At the
Bluff
.” I looked at him closely. “I wish I could give you the key,” I said as I let go of the piece of
paper, knowing he would probably think I meant our song, but hoping he would know that I meant something else.

Nate stared at me, and I had no idea if the hints I had given him had gotten through. I looked back at him and realized that there was nothing more to say.

“Bye,” I whispered, the words scratching at my throat. I turned away from the sight of him by his truck—confused, unhappy, hurt, and holding a wooden tortoise.

I yanked open my door and started the engine. I buckled my seat belt and looked over at Nate one last time. His eyes met mine, and after a second, I forced myself to look away. I put Judy in reverse and backed out of the driveway. Then I put the car in drive, leaving my boyfriend—my love—behind, not once letting myself look back.

I had made it home and gotten back inside seemingly undetected. If the quiet stillness of the house was anything to go by, my father was still sleeping. I headed into the kitchen and retrieved the note I’d left for him, crumpling it up and throwing it away. Then I headed up to my room, taking the steps slowly, leaning on the railing.

I had stopped crying on the way home, mostly because I had concentrated hard on the mechanics of driving, putting on the poppiest, happiest songs I had on my iCar, cranking the volume, and letting the lyrics wash over me, trying to lose myself in their upbeat choruses about finding summer love. A curious sense of numbness had settled over me, but I had a feeling that
it was just temporary. It was like I could see a whirlpool swirling just under the surface of a placid lake. Everything might seem okay on the outside, but I knew that, before long, I would be pulled down into it. It was just a matter of time.

I didn’t even turn on the lights when I reached my bedroom. I kicked off my flip-flops, dropped my bag in the doorway, and walked across my dark room. I headed directly to my desk, where my laptop was. I opened it and it whirred to life, making me wince a little as the brightness of the screen lit up the dark room. I logged on to Constellation and immediately clicked past the home page, but not fast enough to avoid seeing that I had forty-eight new messages. I went to the settings page and pulled up my profile.

I looked at it for a long moment, especially at the very last line—my relationship status. I couldn’t stop myself from remembering when I had changed it from single. Nate and I had done it together, back in April, sitting in the back of his truck with our laptops. He’d logged into his Friendverse and changed his status, which sent a notification to me, asking me to confirm that I was, in fact, taken by Nate Ellis.

“Taken
with
, is more like it,” I’d said to him then, and he had smiled suddenly, happily, like I’d surprised him, in the best way. And I’d confirmed that I
was
dating Nate, and had watched the screen as my status changed from single to taken, and I’d immediately gotten a barrage of congratulatory messages from my friends.

I looked at the line on my profile that I hadn’t
thought I’d ever change. I gave myself just a moment longer to read the proof of who I’d once been—Nate Ellis’s girlfriend—and now would no longer be. Then, trying to do it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid, I brought up the CHANGE SETTINGS menu. I made my changes, pressed SAVE, and waited for the small moment it would take for everything to become official. You didn’t need to get a confirmation e-mail when you ended something with someone, so Nate, at least, wouldn’t have to confirm that we were no longer in a relationship. There would just be a notification waiting for him the next time he logged in, just in case it might have slipped his mind or something.

The changes had gone through, and I stared at my profile, trying to process that this was who I was now.

I stared at the screen until my eyes burned. I could feel myself on the verge of tears, real tears, the kind Schuyler had cried over Connor that had nearly dehydrated her. Somehow, seeing my profile had been the remaining proof I needed that this was real. I was no longer friends with my friends. Nate and I were over. And there was no undoing this.

My computer dinged, telling me I’d just received a new private Constellation message.

From: Isabel
Location: Undisclosed
To: M
²
Well done. Hope it wasn’t TOO painful. Don’t worry—I’ll keep up my end of this. But know that I’ll be watching. Have a great summer!

I was relieved that I’d prevented disaster but furious that she’d been able to do this to me at all. Not wanting to see her message—or face—any longer, I logged out of Constellation and shut my computer down. But before it turned off, a message popped up, asking me if I wanted to first save my changes to the last document I’d written. The note I’d drafted to Nate filled the screen, and I found myself reading through it once more.

Nate,

Does one not tell?
When a new thought
Takes hold it sticks.
Better let a change kommence, meaning an initial loss ends doubts.

It’s
Letting one version end
You once understood
Tragically, once’s over.

Madison

I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. I had no idea if Nate would understand what I’d meant. Reading it over now, it seemed impossible that he would. Everything suddenly seemed totally hopeless.

I could tell that I was about to cry, but I also knew—which made me want to cry even more—that it wouldn’t accomplish anything. I had lost my friends. I had lost Nate. It was as though the solid ground I had always taken for granted had suddenly been jerked out from under me, and I had no idea now how to stand or walk. I closed my eyes and felt one tear, then another, trickle down my cheek. I didn’t even bother to wipe them away, but just let them fall.

I stood up on legs that felt shaky and walked slowly over to my bed. The thought of getting changed into my pajamas, or even brushing my teeth, was much too challenging to even contemplate. I climbed up on my bed and pulled the covers over me, still fully dressed.

I turned on my side and closed my eyes. There was
a piece of me that was still trying to fight against this, cursing Isabel and the unfairness of it all. But that piece grew fainter and fainter, until I could barely hear it any longer. There was no point in fighting against what had happened—it had happened, it was over, and there was nothing to do but accept it. The tears flowed faster as the new reality of my life stretched out before me. The calm surface broke, and there was the whirlpool, waiting for me, ready to pull me down into its depths.

I gave up the fight and let myself be pulled under.

TUESDAY

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THURSDAY

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