She's staring out the window, jaw tight.
"But I know you," I continue. "I know that you don't make decisions lightly. That you overthink everything to the point of paralysis. That you wouldn't say yes to spending your life with someone unless some part of you genuinely believed it was right."
The silence stretches.
"So yeah," I add quietly. "I trust that you know what you're doing. Even if I don't understand it."
She's quiet for a long moment, staring out at the view, hands clasped in her lap.
When she speaks, her voice is tight. Controlled.
"That Nora doesn't exist anymore."
"What?"
"The one you think you know. The one who overthinks everything and second-guesses herself into oblivion. I'm not her anymore."
"Aren't you?" I ask gently.
She turns to face me then, and there's fire in her eyes.
"No. I'm not. That girl was naive. She believed in things that don't work in the real world. That wanting something badly enough meant it would work out. She was wrong."
The pain in her voice cuts through me.
"She wasn't wrong," I say. "She just—we just?—"
"We what, Nate?" She cuts me off, and now there's heat in her words. Anger mixed with something that sounds like grief.
"We needed to not be so fucked up," I say bluntly. "We needed to be healthier versions of ourselves. That's not the same as being wrong for each other."
"It doesn't matter. Look what happened when I tried to believe we'd work. Look where that got us."
The accusation hangs in the air.
"We never actually tried, Nora." My voice is rough now, the truth I've been avoiding for seven years forcing its way out. "We loved each other when we were kids. But we never actually tried to build something as adults. We just... existed in each other's orbit and hoped gravity would do the work for us."
She's staring at me, and I can see her processing this, turning it over.
"And whose fault was that?" she asks quietly. "Because you're the one who left. I waited for you. Then you wait until my brother’s wedding to tell me you’ve outgrown me."
The words land like a physical blow. What she believes is based on a lie and I hate myself for it.
"I know," I say, and my voice cracks. "I know I did that. And I'm not trying to pretend I didn't fuck everything up. I'm just saying—we were kids dealing with adult trauma. We didn't know what we were doing.”
"And now?" Her voice is barely above a whisper. "Now we're adults with separate lives. You have yours here in Eden. I have mine in LA. We both got what we wanted."
"Did we?" I let the question sit there, simple and devastating.
She stares at me, and I watch her throat work, watch her eyes go glassy, watch her try to find words that won't crack open whatever we're dancing around.
"I want to go home," she says finally, and her voice has gone quiet. Defeated.
Not angry anymore. Just tired.
The shift in her is immediate, palpable.
The fire dims. The walls go back up.
