Karma

39| Grand Gestures

The tears kept flowing as I grabbed more tissues and look another bite of my Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I glanced at my TV again.

Allie: "It was real, wasn't it? You and me. Such a long time ago, we were just a couple of kids. But we really loved each other, didn't we?"

"God, this is so us," I sobbed. I knew I shouldn't be watching it, but NETFLIX kept advertising The Notebook. Even though it was so different from us, I never realized the few similarities that were there.

Then it got to the part that made me cry every time I watched it. Even more so now.

Noah: "Would you just stay with me?"

Allie: "Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we're already fighting."

Noah: "Well, that's what we do, we fight. . . You tell me when I am being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you're a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing."

Allie: "So what?"

Noah: "So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? 30 years from now, 40 years from now? What's it look like? If it's with that guy, go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again. If I thought that's what you really wanted. But don't you take the easy way out."

When we dated in high school, we did bicker like Noah and Allie a lot. It would be over little things then we would end up kissing or laughing. This scene reminded me of last night -- except I was the one begging him to stay.

I took another bite of my ice cream and cursed under my breath. "Great. Now this fucking part."

Allie: "Why didn't you write me? Why? I wasn't over for me, I waited for you for seven years. But now it's too late."

Noah: "I wrote you 365 letters. I wrote you everyday for a year."

Allie: "You wrote me?"

Noah: "Yes. . . it wasn't over, it still isn't over."

I wiped at my eyes with another tissue. And another. For Nathan and I, it had been twelve years and it didn't feel. . . over. Far from it.

I sighed with frustration and reached for the remote. "I need to turn this off."

Just as I turned my TV off, my cellphone rang.

"Hey, mama." I said into the receiver.

"Oh, no. What's the matter?"

I hesitated, trying to not let on that I was upset. "Nothing. I'm fine. Just watching a sad movie."

There was a moment of silence from her end. "Mama? Did I lose you?"

"It was Nate, wasn't it?"

Shit. How did she always know? "What do you mean?" I was trying to be coy. I really didn't want to talk about this. Not now. Not. . . ever.

When my mom sighed into the phone, I could picture her pacing around her kitchen. "Karma, I know you. Tell me what happened."

I couldn't hold back the waterworks any longer. "We tried to make it work. We both wanted to get back together. I even told him that I forgave him for what happened. But he said he couldn't be with me unless he told me the truth about all those years ago. I begged him to tell me," I sobbed into the phone. "But he said that he couldn't. Why couldn't he tell me?"