“That’s reassuring,” I reply, swiveling to face him.
“In all seriousness…” He stops.
He needs a push, give him the push. “Listen, I don’t know you. I’ve seen you once.”
“Twice now,” he interrupts.
I scoff. “Twice, I guess.” I bite my lower lip and tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. “There’s nobody here, which is rare, and I’m willing to listen. Trust me when I say my life is sad as shit, so I’m sure it won’t be worse.”
“I can almost guarantee this will be worse.”
“Try me.” I shrug. “Or not. Your call.”
I let him marinate on whether he will tell me. Why do I want to know so badly? A mystery. Why would he? Another one.
“Would you try to make amends with someone who hurt you if you knew their time was going to be limited?” He surprises me.
Mm, cryptic.
“Oh, no, no, give me more than that.”
He sighs. “Hypothetically speaking, someone you love dies.”
Nothing hypothetical about the most factual statement I’ve ever heard.
“But almost twenty years later, you found out they were actuallynotdead.”
I cross my legs and rest my arms on them. “I’m listening.”
He leans in. “Let’s say this person was really shitty, and the last time you saw them, you were a kid and told that person died…but then, they showed up in your life.”
This is nothing like I expected him to say.
“What would you do?”
I contemplate his words. If he would’ve posed this scenario for me five years ago, I would have said the person doesn’t deserve a second chance if they led me to believe they were dead,but the Natalie of today knows I would give organs to see Nick one more time.
“I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask for unbiased advice.”
He looks as if I had thrown water at his face. “Biased? Do you know my dad?”
What? “Your dad?”
“Shit.”
“No, wait. I don’t know who you’re talking about, but hypothetically speaking, if you will, is this person the father of the person who needs to decide?”
There, I fixed it. “No, I don’t know who this person is, but I’m biased because I would give what I don’t have to see someone I lost again.”
Someone. No, not someone. Literally the center of my universe. The love of my life. The father of my children. He was definitely the sun, and now, everything is gloomy and rainy without him.
“But did the person you lost pretend to be dead for a long time?”
Who would even do that?
“Well, no.”
“See where this hypothetical situation gets hairy?”
