“Oh?”
“I’m going to be really busy soon,” I blurted out.
“Are you?” she asked. “We’re entering summer vacation… I would have thought you’d be freer.”
“Well… I…”
To my surprise Natalie let out a little laugh. “I can’t believe how nervous you are,” she said, and again, she reached for my hand.
Frowning, I looked up at her. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, Chance,” Natalie said, shaking her head at me. “You can’t have thought that I wouldn’t notice the difference.”
“I…uh…”
“I know something’s up.”
“You do?”
“Of course,” she nodded. “It’s kind of obvious, don’t you think?”
Based on the smile on Natalie’s face, I knew that whatever she was thinking was happening wasn’t what was actually going to happen. Which meant only one thing. My time was up. I needed to be straight with her so that I didn’t fuck with her feelings any more than I already had.
In hindsight, I realized that I should have broken up with her in private, but I had hoped that being in a public place might make things less awkward. I couldn’t believe what an idiot I had been to think that.
“Natalie…”
“Yes?”
“We have to talk.”
She leaned in eagerly, and my heart broke for what I was about to do. “Tell me,” she said warmly.
I set my face into a cold expression and focused only on her. “I’m breaking up with you,” I said, without mincing my words. I hadn’t meant to tell her like that, but I decided that this was the best way to do it, like ripping off a bandage.
She looked at me blankly for a second and then she burst out laughing. “You’ve got a weird sense of humor,” she said, refusing to believe, just like I had hoped she would.
I didn’t smile. “Natalie,” I said, as I pulled my hand out from underneath hers. “I’m sorry, but I’m not joking. I’m completely serious. I’m breaking up with you.”
It took a moment, but slowly her expression began to change. The smile faded, and it was replaced by worry, then shock, then disbelief and lastly…pain.
“You can’t be...” she whispered. “You love me – you said so a dozen times…more than… How… Why?”
“I know this may come as a shock—”
“This is not a shock,” Natalie said, cutting me off. “It’s not real.”
I knew exactly how she felt and yet, I had no choice but to sit there with my stone face and act as though her pain didn’t move me. “It is real,” I insisted, in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. “This isn’t working out for me anymore.”
Natalie stared at me for a second and then she shook her head, almost as though she were trying to wake herself up from a nightmare. “You… I don’t… I don’t understand,” she said finally. “We were so happy… I thought we were happy.”
“You were,” I said. “I wasn’t.”
“Since when?” she demanded, and I saw tears start to form in her eyes.
“Since a few months after Paris,” I said.
“What changed?”