Page 150 of The Player

And Nicole had gotten quieter every day.

She still let him sleep over. She still curled up against him at night and let him hold her. But she didn’t talk the way she used to, and she didn’t laugh, and she didn’t paint. Twice he’d woken up in the middle of the night and found her lying there with her eyes open, looking at the ceiling fan. He’d asked her what was wrong, and she’d said, “Nothing, baby,” and kissed his chest, and he’d dropped it. He’d dropped it because he didn’t want to hear the answer.

So when she let him in Sunday night and went right back to the couch and sat down with her hands folded in her lap, not reading, not watching TV, not doing anything, his whole body knew.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” She looked up at him. Her eyes were already red. “Can you sit down?”

He didn’t want to. He stood there in the doorway with his keys still in his hand.

“Drew. Please.”

He shoved his keys in his pocket and sat on the coffee table in front of her, close enough that their knees touched. She took his hand and held it in both of hers and looked down at it for a long time.

“It’s not you,” she said. “It’s me.”

He almost laughed. He couldn’t help it. Because he’d said those exact words to girls whose names he couldn’t remember now, in his truck and on his porch and once, God help him, on some girl’s answering machine. It was the easiest line in the world. It meant I’m done, and I don’t want to feel like an asshole about it. He’d never in his life thought he’d hear it pointed back at him.

And not by her.

“Don’t,” he said. “Nicole. Don’t say that to me.”

“I can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“This.” Her voice broke. “Us. I can’t.”

He already knew why. He’d known since the night she asked him to go home and looked at him like she was trying to figure out who he was. He’d lain awake in his own bed that night and told himself he was imagining it.

“I’m not him,” he said.

She shut her eyes.

“Look at me.” He took her face in his hands, and she let him. Her cheeks were wet under his thumbs. “I’m not him, Nicole. I’m not your dad. Please don’t do this to us.”

“I know you’re not.”

“Do you? Because it doesn’t feel like you know.” He leaned in until his forehead was almost touching hers. “This is real, Nicole. You know it is. I love you, and you love me. We’re not your parents, baby.”

“I know.”

“Then don’t do this.” His voice was going. He didn’t care. “Please. Baby, please don’t do this.”

She was crying hard now. She tried to say something, and it came out in pieces, half a sentence and then another half that didn’t go with it. She kept saying it wasn’t him. She said she didn’t know how to explain it, and that she loved him, and that she just couldn’t, and then she’d start over from the top, still hunting for whatever it was she meant. None of it made any fucking sense, and he could tell it didn’t make sense to her either.

“I have never,” he said, “not once, given you a reason to doubt me.”

“New York,” she said.

He let go of her face.

“New York?” He stood up. He couldn’t sit there. “Are you fucking serious? I never touched that girl. She broke into my room. I was about to throw her ass out. You were there, Nicole. You saw it.”

“I know that, Drew.”

“Then what the fuck are we talking about?”