The cheat sheet, p.24
The Cheat Sheet, page 24
I have to…
I can’t…
I just…
Oh no. Something is wrong.
I watch as everyone clamors for Nathan’s attention and suddenly, his face goes pale. His eyes look distant and glazed. His shoulders are rounding in on themselves and he takes a step away from everyone. It’s so noisy in this tiny hallway that I’m barely able to hear him say, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to…”
He turns away from everyone and dashes down the hallway. There are about 12 bodies between me and Nathan and I push through them with the gusto of a Black Friday shopper fighting for the last doorbuster TV. “Excuse me. Just let me—ugh, MOVE, Doug!”
I emerge from the mob and stare down an empty entryway. He’s nowhere to be found. I run into the living room, but I don’t see him. He’s not in the dining room. I check outside. His truck is still parked, but he’s not out here. I’m frantic now, like I’ve lost my child in the mall. Nathan looked terrible right before he disappeared, and I’ve got to find him.
I decide to look up the stairs and peek in all the rooms. Finally, I see the door to the laundry room cracked with the light off. Inside, I find my mountainous best friend curled up in the corner, shaking. Nathan—my unflappable-Nathan—has his knees up to his chest, big arms wrapped around his legs, head dropped between them. I can hear his gasping breaths from here.
I rush over and drop down beside him, resting my hand heavily on his back. “Nathan, hey, shhh it’s okay. I’m here.”
“I can’t—” He tries to drag in a breath again. His shoulders are heaving. I put my hand on his chest and feel his heart pounding as if he just outran a bear. “I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m going to pass out.” All of this comes out in a frantic rush, like he’s desperate. “Am I dying?” he asks, completely genuine and terrified, and now I know for sure what’s happening.
I scrunch in closer and stretch out my legs around him so I can pull his back against my chest. Winding my arms around him, I hold him tight. “No, you’re not dying, I promise. You’re having a panic attack.” He’s shaking from head to toe, and my heart twists painfully. I know what he’s feeling right now. “Just listen to my voice, okay? I’m here. You’re safe. It feels like you’re dying, but you’re not. Now, all I want you to focus on is how my arms feel around you. Are they tight or loose?”
He expels a shaky breath and, after a long pause, answers, “Tight.”
“Right. I’m not letting go. Now, what do you smell?” I wait for his answer, and when he doesn’t reply, I gently ask again. “Nathan? Tell me what you smell.”
“Umm…cake,” he finally murmurs, voice raspy.
“Yeah, it smells so good. It’s vanilla with sprinkles. My favorite. Do you have any tastes in your mouth?”
I can feel his breath evening out a little and the tightness in his body loosening. I resituate one of my arms so I can run my hand tenderly up and down his arm.
“Mint,” he says quietly. “I had gum in my mouth, but I think I swallowed it.” He sounds so defeated and embarrassed by that. I know the fear and mortification of having someone experience my panic attack, of being seen so out of control and frantic. I want him to know I will never view him differently or see him as less just because I’ve seen him undone.
“That’s okay. I’ve done that before. I mean, I’ve only ever been able to taste watermelon-mint ever since then, but it’s not so bad.”
I get a minuscule chuckle from him so I know he must be coming back down to me. I lean my head against his shoulder blade and kiss him there. He sinks back against me a little more, his limbs loosening slightly.
We sit like this for a few minutes, and I talk to him until his breathing sounds normal again and his weight is heavy against me. My palm is pressing against his chest, and when his hand covers mine, I know he’s feeling more like himself. He squeezes.
“How did you know what was happening to me and what to do?” he asks, his voice hoarse and broken.
“Because after my accident, I used to get them all the time. Any time I got in a car for the first few weeks, the panic would settle in. It’s the worst feeling. Like everything is closing in and you can’t escape it. Like you would be willing to claw out of your skin just to get a minute of relief.”
“Yeah,” he says weakly. “Exactly.”
Silence stretches between us. Shirts are hanging above our heads on the drying rack, and the tile floor beneath my legs is cold. Nathan’s hand falls to my shin, and he squeezes. A silent show of gratitude.
“Are you feeling better now?” I peek over his shoulder to see his face, but he turns it away.
“Yeah,” he says, though his voice shakes.
“Nathan?” I crane my neck around his shoulder, but he won’t look at me.
His shoulders begin to shake again, but it’s not the frantic sort of tremor from before. “Please, don’t…just don’t look at me right now.” He raises his hand to press his thumb and index finger into his eyes.
“Why not?”
There’s a pause followed by a broken inhale. “Because…I’m going to cry like a baby,” he says, echoing my sentiment after my spill on the sidewalk a few days ago. “You can go back out there. I’m okay now. Just go.” He’s not trying to be mean. He’s desperately trying to preserve his dignity.
I hold on tighter. “You can always cry with me, Nathan. We’re safe with each other.”
This breaks him wide open.
He drops his head into his hands and a sob racks his frame. I hold on to him, pressing my palms into his chest so he can feel that I’m here, that I’m not going anywhere, that he could cry enough tears to fill the ocean and I would still think he’s the strongest person I know.
Suddenly, he twists, wraps his arms around my waist, and pulls me onto his lap. My legs are on either side of his, but there’s absolutely nothing sensual about this moment. I am his anchor. He wraps his arms tightly around me and buries his head in my neck, crying in a way I’m sure he never has before.
I run my hands through the back of his hair. “Nathan, talk to me.”
It takes him a moment, but finally he answers. “I’m so tired. I’ve had this tightness in my chest for weeks, and this is the first time it’s lessened at all. I feel broken. I used to be able to handle everything, but…”
“But now not so much?”
He nods against me.
“You’re not broken. Having a panic attack or anxiety does not reflect your wholeness. You’re burned out, and that’s completely understandable. You push yourself more than anyone I’ve ever seen before, and it’s only natural for you to reach this point.”
He shakes his head. “No…I can’t. I should be able to handle it. I have to be able to handle it.”
“Says who?”
He doesn’t answer me. I pull away and frame his jaw with my hands to make him look at me. Even in the dark I can see his eyes are red and puffy, and he’s deeply embarrassed. He tries to turn his face away, but I don’t let him because I need him to know I’m not ashamed of this part of him. He’s probably never cried in front of anyone in his entire life, largely due to the culture he’s steeped in day in and day out that tells him his maleness is defined by his ability to remain impenetrable to emotions.
“Why do you have to handle it all, Nathan? Why won’t you let yourself rest?” I ask, looking deep into his eyes.
He squeezes them shut and tears roll out. “Because I don’t deserve to.”
“What?” I ask on an exhale.
“Bree, I’ve never had to work for anything in my life. Nothing! It’s all been handed to me. Catered to me. I wanted to work in high school, but my parents actually wouldn’t let me. Even my current position on the team is because it was handed to me. Daren, the man who rightfully earned his spot, got injured, and I took over after sitting on the bench for two years. Do you see? I’ve been given all of this success—so what do I have to complain about? What right do I have to be exhausted? None. I’m just a rich kid who was provided everything he ever needed and handed more money and more success on a silver platter.”
I had no idea he felt this way.
“So this is the reason you work yourself to death? Why you never say no to people? You’re trying to prove your worth?”
His eyes turn down again. “When I work hard, when I feel tired, it’s the only time I feel a little bit of the guilt in my chest lessen.” I want to speak to this, but he keeps going, new tears shaking his voice. “I’ve never had to go through hard things in my life. I’ve never known anything close to poverty or struggle or even just budgeting, for that matter. I have a chef, a driver, a manager, an agent—everything I could ever need, so tell me…what reason do I have to complain about any of it?”
Tears are streaming down his face, and the look in his eyes is anger mixed with defeat.
“What right do I have to resent it? To want to escape any part of it ever? No. I don’t deserve to get help for the anxiety I can’t escape. I don’t get to feel overworked. I need to keep my shit together and give as much of myself as I can, because otherwise everyone will see that I don’t deserve to be where I am.”
Nathan lets go of me to press his face into his hands. For a moment, I sit, stunned. I stare at this man I thought I knew better than anyone in the world and realize all along he’s been bottling up his feelings, his hurts, his anxiety and stress because he feels like he has to wear a cape to be a hero.
If he can bare all of this to me right now, I can do the same for him.
I pull his hands down from his eyes so I can look in them. “Listen to me. It is not the things you do that make you worthy, it’s that you have a beating heart in your chest. You have a soul, which means you are allowed to feel hurt, tired, stressed, sad, angry. All of those things—you are allowed to feel them. Everyone is.” I gather all of my strength for my next words. “Your ability to shoulder everything, to give 200% of yourself all the time, to be perfect at everything you attempt…these are not the attributes that make you a valuable human being.” I pause. “And they are not why I fell in love with you.”
His black eyes shoot up to me.
I smile. The weight of these heavy secrets falls off of me, and I feel relieved to continue. “I fell in love with you because you’re goofy. You’re fun. Your heart is so big I don’t know how it fits in here,” I say, pressing my hand to his chest. “You’re a terrible singer. You make me soup when I’m sick. You bought me tampons that time I was laid out on the couch with cramps and couldn’t move. You didn’t even send someone else for them. You went yourself!”
He chuckles lightly, and I wish there were more light so I could see his smile clearer.
“Look, Nathan, I don’t care if you never pick up another football a day in your life, or if no one in the world attaches the word successful to your name ever again.” Now I’m the one dumping tears, and Nathan’s hands have moved to cradle my face. His thumbs dash across my cheekbones.
I shake my head lightly and try to swallow down my sob enough to finish speaking. “So don’t say you’re not worthy or deserving, because you are to me. You always will be.”
Nathan pulls me closer and crushes me against his chest. His strong forearms are pressing into my shoulder blades, his face buried in my hair.
“I love you too,” he whispers over and over again. “I love you, Bree. I love you. I always have.”
I talk Nathan into letting me drive him home in his truck, and he arranges for someone from his entourage to go get my car and drive it back for me tonight. Hello, celebrity perks. We leave almost immediately even though Nathan is severely worried this is going to upset everyone.
“Let me take care of you,” I say, looking up into his hesitant eyes. “Please?”
He relents and hands me his keys. “Thank you.”
I get a kiss on the cheek, but I sort of want to do the move where you turn your face really quick and get a kiss on the mouth instead. Not the time.
On the drive home, we’re both physically and emotionally exhausted. Nathan turns on some mellow music, takes my hand, and laces our fingers. He kisses my knuckles with an aching tenderness that tears right through me. We drive for two hours, not saying a word, just listening to the music in comfortable silence.
“Will you stay at my place tonight?” he asks, finally breaking the silence as I pull into the parking garage of his building.
I’ve stayed at his apartment a hundred times, so that question shouldn’t feel heavy or important. But it is, because I’ve never been asked it while he holds my hand and the words “I love you” hang between us. It feels easy to say yes though. Natural.
When we finally walk into his apartment, he tosses his keys on the entry table. I toe off my shoes and go into the kitchen to get us both a glass of water. It’s all so normal, but also lightly scented with different. Neither of us speak, because we’re not sure what words would be adequate enough to follow the emotional roller coaster we just rode together. So we carry our waters down the long hallway that leads to our rooms. I get ready to part from him and go into mine for the night like I always do, but he catches my hand, tugging me back around. A bit of water sloshes onto the floor.
“Stay with me?” He says those three words not as a demand, but as a defenseless question. A need. A desperate hope. Tonight has peeled back everything I thought I knew about Nathan, and now I see a man who’s just as scared as me. I love him more.
I nod and step into his expansive room. Nathan gently closes the door behind us, and my heart gallops when I hear it quietly latch. The floor-to-ceiling window is ten steps away, and I take each of them with a measured calm then look out over the most incredible view of the ocean, nothing obstructing the dark expanse of water and white crests of the waves breaking against the sand. It looks peaceful yet dangerous out there. That’s exactly how it feels in here too.
“Bree?” Nathan asks from behind me, and I whirl around like a tornado that’s suddenly directionless.
“I’m nervous,” I blurt.
Nathan’s eyebrows rise, and then he lets out a long breath and a tiny smile. “Same.”
“Really? Okay, good. Because logically, I know it’s me and you.” I sputter a humorless laugh. “It’s a dream come true, in fact! I shouldn’t be nervous—I should be tackling you.”
“It’s harder to accomplish than you think,” he says, cracking a joke that instantly eases the prickling in my lungs.
“But what I’m nervous about—or afraid of, really, is that I said I love you back there and you said it too only to humor me.” I have big cartoon eyes now—I can feel it.
Nathan smiles in a way that shows barely contained amusement. “Humor you?” He takes a nervous step away and runs an awkward hand through his hair. “You thought I could have been humoring you by telling you I love you?”
“Yes. You don’t have to keep repeating it.”
“I do. Because if you were in my head, you’d see how difficult the concept is to comprehend. Bree, I…” His voice trails off and then he freezes. He deflates with a sharp breath. “Sit down,” he commands, and then he disappears into his giant walk-in closet.
I perch on the bed and bounce my knee. Then I realize I’m sitting on Nathan’s bed—something I’ve never done before—and I jump up like it just burned my butt cheeks. I force myself to sit back down and process this like an adult. I’m in Nathan’s bed. In his room. He loves me. Nope, see? None of these abstract ideas will permeate. I’ve spent too long believing he has not a care in the world for me outside of friendship. It’s all I’ve known. How am I supposed to retrain my thoughts?
Nathan steps back into the room, and if he notices that I’m barely letting my cheeks rest on his mattress, he doesn’t show it. His attention is fixed on the shoe box in his hands. He looks nervous, maybe even a little sick as he extends it toward me. When I try to take it, it doesn’t budge. He’s white-knuckling this thing so hard.
I grunt. “Nathan, do you want me to look in here or not?”
“Not,” he says, dead serious. “I mean, yes. But no.”
I shift back a little. “Well now I’m terrified. What do you have in here? Bones? Endless pictures of earlobes? Am I going to be scared of you after I lift that lid?”
“Probably.” He winces lightly and then relinquishes the box.
I set it down on the bed carefully (because who knows what’s in here or how fragile thousand-year-old bones are) and gingerly lift the lid. I steel my spine for something to jump out, because he’s prepared me zero percent for what’s actually in here. Lizards? Maybe he keeps a box of moths in his closet and when I open it, they’ll rush out and choke my airway.
It’s neither.
After the lid is off, it takes me a second to realize what I’m looking at. Nathan paces away from me with a tight hand on the back of his neck. I dip my fingers inside and pull out…my scrunchie. The sunshine yellow scrunchie I thought I lost after Tequila-gate several weeks ago. I look up and make eye contact with Nathan. He looks like he’s going to barf. His fist is pressed to his mouth, and his eyes are crinkled. Poor thing is really going through the vulnerability wringer tonight.
“This is my scrunchie,” I say, holding it up for his confirmation that what I think I’m seeing is actually true.
He gives me a tight nod. “You took it off and left it on the table that night. I kept it.” He gestures toward the box with his eyes. “Keep going.”
Nathan resumes pacing, looking at me every so often like someone might watch a surgical operation they have been forced to attend. Next, I find a cocktail napkin with my lipstick imprint from the epic poster-ripping night. Then the orange Starburst I threw at him on the couch.
