I shake my head. “Not true. I am well aware that a vast majority of the population does not have an arrangement like my parents.”
Natalie shakes her head too. “I’m not talking about the details. I mean overall. You've convinced yourself that if love looks like what your parents have, and what my parents had, then you don't want it.”
“Why would anybody?”
“Because that's not what love is,” Natalie yells, lifting her hands in the air and shaking them.
“Isn't it? What my mother’s doing for my father isn't love?”
Natalie blows out a heated breath. “No. Well, yes. It is. Just not the kind I'm talking about. I'm talking about romantic love.”
I'm going to regret asking my next question, but I ask it anyway. “What's your idea of romantic love? And don't give me this hearts and flowers bullshit from your romance novels. I want the real answer. What makes love worth dying over?”
Natalie doesn't respond. I glance at her and find her looking out her window. “Nat?”
She keeps her gaze outside. In two minutes we will be at the hotel where the wedding is taking place, so I don't push her further.
Never has quiet sounded so loud.
I don't know what's going through her head, but I know what’s going through mine, and it doesn't feel very good.
Pulling into the hotel parking lot and up to the valet feels like a joyous event. A teenage boy wearing khaki slacks and a black jacket runs over. He opens Natalie's door first, then circles around for mine.
Natalie waits on the curb while I give him my last name and he gives me a ticket.
We're a few steps into the hotel when Natalie puts a hand on my arm and stops me.
“I don't know. My answer to your question is, I don't know.” Emotion reverberates through Natalie's voice. “And I don't know with who, but I am going to find out.”
Pain. I feel it everywhere. Natalie's words have reached inside me, their meaning searing my heart.
She is going to find out. It just won't be with you.
For the first time in my life, I understand my mom's choice. She loved my father so deeply that she would take him any way she could have him. Of course I would do the same for Natalie.
I've always known a heart was beating inside my body. It's just one of those things you have to trust, because all the signs are there. But in this moment, I feel my heart in a way I never have before. It hurts.
Is this heartbreak? And if it is, don't you have to first love somebody before you can ever feel this way?
* * *
I've passedup three separate offers from three beautiful women. Two of them asked me to dance. The third asked if I'd like to fuck a bridesmaid. She was definitely drunk, and definitely willing, and I definitely am not interested.
Natalie is having enough fun for the both of us. She has danced with the bride, the groom, and for the last three songs, she has danced only with the groom's brother. She is not trying to make me jealous. That's not how Natalie operates. She is only trying to forget.
Forget what happened in the bathroom.
Forget my words in the car.
Forgetme.
It's not easy for me to see her in someone else's arms. Two nights ago, she slept in my arms. I woke up first the next morning, a little stunned to find myself in Natalie's bed. It took only a second for everything from the middle of the night to come back to me. I stared at her sleeping face, wondering why neither of us were trying harder to stay within our carefully erected boundaries. Between that night and today's close call in my mom's bathroom, we are coloring outside of the lines.
The song ends, and a slower one starts. Natalie steps away from the groom’s brother, but he catches her hand and pulls her back in. Natalie laughs and wraps her other arm around his shoulders. I look away, out to the dark night beyond the large banquet room windows. My jaw is so tense that my teeth grind together.
Given the way I feel, I'd say the lines in mine and Natalie's relationship have been erased. We are operating in no man’s land, a landscape of pure white, unmarred by mistakes and bad choices. Whatever happens from here will leave the first mark.
I don't know what makes me look back to the dance floor, but I’m certain I've made better choices. The guy dips Natalie back, and when he brings her back up again, he kisses her cheek.
