Page 22 of The Price of Protection

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Nate told her, following her back into the house, where she began to put on her jacket, wanting to show him how little she cared.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rose said, though inside she was broken.

“Please, Rose,” Nate urged. “Talk to me.”

“I’ll see you when you get back,” Rose said coldly. “If you ever do.”

With that, Rose stepped into the night. As usual, a limo awaited her, but she walked beyond it, waving goodbye to the driver. She didn’t want to use Nate’s money or his employees, not if he wasn’t going to show her the decency to tell her his plans. She’d thought they were in a real relationship and preparing for a future. In her defense, Nate himself had said they were. He’d said that after she graduated, they could travel through France and Italy, that he’d show her the world. Already, in her journal, she’d begun listing all the things she wanted to do, see, and eat. She considered going home, finding that list, and ripping it up.

But when she found her notebook, she found she couldn’t tear it to shreds. Her heart broke, and the idea of destroying this little proof of her dreams hurt even more.

To make matters worse, Rhett left two days after that. She heard through the grapevine that Rhett had a little going-away party on the beach, and that Heather had been there. Of course, Rose hadn’t been invited. But it killed her to know that she hadn’t even seen Rhett since June, that he’d been living his life without her, while she’d built a false reality with Nate.

Senior year began, against all odds. Rose walked like a zombie from class to class. She ate lunch with friends who recounted summer memories she knew nothing about. She wrote papers, read books, did her math homework, and dreamed of Nate, only of Nate. When at last he contacted her to ask if she wanted to meet that weekend, she wanted to tell him she was busy and didn’t have time for him. But physically, she couldn’t. She needed to see him.

To her surprise, seeing Nate was much the same as it always had been. He told her about how tirelessly he was working on things he hated, and she said the same about her senior year. They kissed like crazy. They kissed as they would never see one another again.

And then, just as he’d said he would, Nate left the island, leaving Rose brokenhearted yet again.

September turned to October, which turned to November, and during those months, Rose heard nothing from Nate. She felt itchy and volatile, apt to fight with her best friends or her mother. It didn’t matter who crossed her path, she was ready to jump. Throughout, she waited for messages from Nate, but none came. On the brand-new Nantucket High School computer, she used the internet to research Nate’s father, his businesses, and the incredible capital he’d earned. But reading this brought Nate no closer to Rose.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, she received a call. “It’s for you, Rosie!” her mother said from the kitchen, drawing Rose out of her dark bedroom.

Rose’s heart jumped into her throat. This time, she thought, it really was Nate. He’d tell her he missed her, that he needed her. She hurried to the kitchen.

“Hey. It’s Rhett,” he said.

Rose wasn’t sure what to make of this. On the one hand, hearing from a man, any man at all, thrilled her, as she felt unwanted and strange. On the other hand, hearing from Rhett hadn’t been a part of her plan.

Rhett wanted to meet up when he got back from art school. “Only if you’re not busy,” Rhett said.

School let out the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, leaving Wednesday wide open for a meeting. They arranged to hang out at a diner they’d once loved, a place filled with memories that Rose was sure would be painful as they sat there and “caught up.” Maybe, she reasoned, that “pain” was a part of the process of growing up. Maybe they needed to face it together.

When she first saw him through the diner window, which she rushed toward through the November snow, Rhett looked better than he ever had. He’d grown his hair out, and he looked like he belonged to a rock group and painted in all his spare time. As it turned out, she was almost right. At art school, he’d joined a punk band and begun taking photographs at all hours, roaming his school campus and Boston, searching for interesting angles and strange people. He’d brought several of his photographs with him, apparently to show Rose what he’d been up to.

The photographs were good, proof of his alert nature and unique perspective, and as Rose flipped through them, tears filled her eyes. At the same time she adored them, they forced her to face something about herself. She hadn’t done anything since Nate left. She hadn’t made any art. She’d hardly pushed herself academically. She’d spent hours in her room, feeling sorry for herself. She’d even quit her job at the resort because she couldn’t stand the people anymore. She couldn’t stand herself, either.

Just as Rose prepared herself to tell him how much she’d missed him, Rhett announced that he had a girlfriend. “She’s cool. She’s from the West Coast, and she plays the bass.”

Rose was careful not to show how she felt. “That’s amazing, Rhett. Really. You deserve someone great.”

“Yeah.” Rhett blinked at her, as though he expected her to share similar news.

“I’m seeing someone, too,” Rose said.

“I figured,” Rhett said. “You were always somewhere else this summer. We assumed you met someone at the resort.”

“I did,” Rose said. “He doesn’t live here, but he visits a lot.”

“That’s cool. I’m happy for you. Actually, I’m happy for how it all worked out, in a way,” Rhett said, raising a french fry. “As strange as it sounds, I’m glad we can be friends. It’s healthy. I’ll always love you, in a way, you know? We went through so much together.”

“We really did,” Rose agreed.

After Rhett and Rose parted ways outside the diner, Rose turned on her heel, walked back in, went to the bathroom, and threw up everything she’d eaten. Sputtering there over the toilet, her hands gripping the seat, she felt as though she were living some kind of nightmare. Probably, she told herself, her stomach was sick after such an anxious meeting. I miss Rhett, and I miss Nate, and my body can’t take missing them both.

It was only a few days later, when the vomiting continued throughout the Thanksgiving weekend, and she realized she couldn’t keep anything down, that she grasped what was really wrong.

At first, she was too terrified to tell anyone, not even her friends. She reasoned that the only person who deserved to know, the only person she wanted to talk to, was Nate. But communicating with Nate was difficult. Online, she found an email address for one of his businesses, but when she emailed it during the first week of December with just the message “Hello, I’m a friend of Nate, and I really need to speak with him,” she got no answer.