"Hi," he said in a tone so unfamiliar that Camila didn't know who had spoken until she'd looked up. Nathan stood in front of her, hands deep in the pockets of his coat. His gaze drifted around the park before settling back on Camila. "It's getting kind of cold to be out here."
The wind blew strongly at that moment, dragging an empty water bottle across the ground.
Camila watched it silently, briefly irritated at the person who had tossed it. Under normal circumstances she would have picked it up. Instead, she did nothing but hold the pages of her sketchpad down as the wind picked up again. "It's fine," she said.
"Did you like the flowers?"
Camila looked down, feeling tired now. She wished he would leave. "What do you want, Nathan?"
He sat down beside her without waiting for an invitation. He must have known she wouldn't offer one. "I wanted to apologize."
Camila stared at his profile, trying not to appear as surprised as she felt. Nathan? Apologizing? To her?
"It wasn't your fault that I..." Nathan hesitated and started again. "My parents were putting a lot of pressure on me to find someone else." He glanced at her quickly. "It's not that they don't like you it's just that you're... you're not..."
Camila tried to ignore the sinking feeling that always accompanied the thought of Nathan's parents. Of course she knew that she was not upper class. Of course she knew that his parents didn't approve of her, of her family, of her and Nathan's relationship. Of course she knew they had threatened to cut Nathan off if he didn't break up with her. They had made it abundantly clear that she wasn't good enough for him.
Nathan shifted to face her. "Things got really ugly, and I had to tell them that we'd broken up."
Camila swallowed, hating that this hurt her. "When?"
"Six months ago," he said. "I'm sorry, Camila. It was the only way they'd leave me alone. The only way they'd leave us alone. But, it wasn't enough." He paused and breathed deeply, indicating that was to follow was much worse. "They set me up with someone. The daughter of one of my father's business partners. She's headed to Harvard as well, and we... we really hit it off. That's why I've been so distant. I've... I've been seeing her."
Camila blinked at him, unable to formulate words.
"I meant it when I said that I love you. It's why I brought up your transferring to Harvard and being engaged. I wanted to believe that you and I could make it. That whatever I was feeling for Vanessa was only temporary..."
"Vanessa," Camila said softly, thinking the name would spark something in her. Anger or bitterness or something. Anything besides emptiness. "Did you sleep with her while we were together?"
Nathan looked away. "I'm sorry."
Camila nodded. "Thanks for telling me," she said, rising to her feet.
"Camila..."
"It's fine," she said, not sure if it was true or not. The cold was getting to her now, and she needed to walk. Perhaps if she walked it would rid her of the numbness settling in on her. "Please stop calling me."
"Do you hate me?"
"No," and this she knew was true. "But I don't want to see you again. Not any time soon. Maybe someday, in ten years or so, we'll run into each other by accident, and we'll be able to smile at each other and think back on this moment in a bittersweet kind of way. Maybe then, I will be happy to see you. Maybe. But right now, if I were to see you again, if I were to run into you and see you smiling and laughing with a group of friends, if you were to call me up and say 'hi', I think I would hate you. And maybe I will hate you anyway, once I walk away from you now and think about this. I can't promise I won't. But right now, at this very moment, all I feel is relieved. Relieved that this is over. Relieved that I'm not longer yours to hurt. Send my best to Vanessa. I wish you both the best. Goodbye, Nathan."
