"You're being very standoffish and I don't know how to take it. I want to give you whatever space you want, yet I can't help but be scared you don't want this … or me."
I moved to the coffee table in front of him and held his face, making him look at me. "A lot happened last night, and I'm battling a lot of emotions right now, but it doesn't mean I don't want you. I'm just having a hard time figuring out how to be what you want me to be. What you want from me."
"I only need you to be there. I don't need anything other than you," he whispered. "But I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be happy with someone when I'm unhappy with myself. Or how to love someone when I hate who I am."
"I'm going to be honest with you, Nolan. I can be there for you and help you see the good in life. I can try to show you what's worth living for, but it's up to you to see it. I can't help you find happiness or make you love yourself. That's on you. And you have to be willing to see it, to believe it if you ever want things to change. I'll be here, and I'll do everything I can to help, but you're the one who has to put forth the effort. Not me. If you're expecting me to perform magic and transform you from this to where you want to be, all it'll do is hurt us both."
"I'm trying."
"Then let's start off by talking. Open up to me about what you're so unhappy about, and maybe it'll give way to a solution."
He leaned back into the couch, tipped his face to the ceiling, and rubbed his eyes like a tired child. "I'm unhappy with everything. I feel like I'm living in someone else's world without my own place. I don't have an identity, nothing to say ‘this is me in a nutshell' other than things that don't mean shit to me. I fought someone else's war and lost my leg. I had to take the fall for someone else's actions, and I've spent years paying the price. I've been fulfilling someone else's vision of me, and it's left me with nothing. I'm nothing."
"I know it's hard to grasp, but the war you fought was yours. It was mine, our families', our friends' … our country's. You fought for our freedom, to give us peace and security."
"I know." His grumbled response interrupted my thoughts, but I let him have it for a moment, knowing he needed to get it out. "I'm a fucking hero. I killed people, shot them, murdered them, and I'm a hero. Again, Novah … someone else's vision. I don't feel like a hero. I feel like a thug, the country being my mafia, sending me out to handle its vengeance. I'm a criminal."
I leaned forward and braced myself with my hands on his thighs, the extra material beneath the fabric of his left pant leg evident. "Okay. I get that. I can't even wrap my head around what it must be like for you. But whether you see yourself as a hero or not, you are one. And the fact you harbor so much regret for the things you had to do over there proves you're a good man. You have a good heart, regardless of how you see yourself. I'm looking at you, and I know what I see."
"Then why can't I see it?"
"Because self-hatred is a debilitating disease. It blackens your soul and clouds your sight. It can be terminal if you let it, but that doesn't mean it's untreatable."
He stared at me, unmoving and silent.
"Take some time and find something that makes you happy. Start small. If it's the sun on your face, then we'll spend an hour every day lying in the grass as we watch clouds float by until you accept it. Then we'll move onto something else."
"Football used to make me happy, but I can't exactly get out there and play again. Having one leg makes it a little difficult to run around and to not get tackled."
I grew irritated with his pessimism. "You'll never be happy if you find the bad in everything. I love to sing, but I can't carry a tune to save my life. Do you think I let that keep me from belting out a song in the shower or from singing along to the radio in my car? No. I love blue diamonds, but I can't afford them. However, my inability to buy one doesn't make me cringe every time I see one. Egg rolls are one of the best things I've ever eaten, but don't ask me to make one, because it just might poison you. Yet it doesn't stop me from wanting them on a weekly basis."
"Okay," he said sternly, dropping his head until he could see me again. "I get it. But how would you feel if you woke up tomorrow without your sight? Just blackness everywhere you looked? How would you feel knowing you'll never be able to take another picture again, or see photographs?"
I shifted and sat next to him, grabbed his hand, and held it in my lap while my eyes locked with his. "It's no secret Beethoven was deaf. But if there's one thing to learn from him, it's adaptation. When he was younger and he could hear well, he loved high notes, and used them often in his compositions. As his hearing began to deteriorate, the notes drifted away from the high ones because he had a hard time detecting them. But the real lesson was when he went completely deaf. It was then he brought back the presence of the high notes in his music. It didn't matter that he couldn't hear them, because he already knew what they sounded like. He could compose music solely on the memory of the notes."
"So you're telling me if you woke up tomorrow blind, you'd still be able to take pictures because you remember what something looked like?"
"I'm sure if I took a picture it wouldn't be the same as any I take now, but I wouldn't say it'd be impossible to do. I know the controls on my camera, and if I could touch the object or subject, I'd be able to do it."
"But you'd never be able to see what it looks like when you're done."
The corners of my lips lifted into a soft smile as I tilted my head at him. "No. You're right, I wouldn't be able to see it. But others could and then explain it to me. I know what a face looks like, so if they described it, I'd be able to use my mind's eye and imagine what they were seeing." I squeezed his hand and then pulled it to my chest where I held it over my heart. "Everything has a positive and a negative side. Everything. You can sit back and only think about what you're missing or what you can't do, and then live life watching everyone and everything pass you by. Or, you can find the good side and live in it."
He nodded, and the way his gaze fell to his lap, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth, I could tell I had made an impact on him. I only hoped it was enough for him to accept.
Twelve
I hadn't seen Novah all week, mostly because our jobs had been busy for us both. It worked out for the best because I clearly had a lot to think about, and even more to process. I could tell my issues were bringing her down, and it was the last thing I ever wanted to happen. The truth was, I needed her in my life, but she would be better off without me. However, I couldn't find the strength to let her go, so I selfishly held on.
After our day together on Saturday, I thought a lot about her insistence for me to find something that made me happy. And in a small way, she did. Talking to her, listening to her laugh, made things easier to bear, and lifted some of the weight off my chest. So starting Sunday night, I called her after dinner and listened to her tell me about her day. She asked about mine. If I had something to tell her, I did, but most of the time, I just listened to her stories of Shari's antics and the clients who came in requesting strange pictures.
Every day at lunchtime, she sent me a text. We messaged back and forth for the remainder of our breaks while she worked on her computer, and then nothing else until my call after dinner. It was strange to have someone there to talk to on a daily basis without leaving me an emotional wreck. Even more bizarre, it wasn't a one-way street. It wasn't just me reaching out to her.
We'd talked about getting together on Friday night, maybe go out and grab something to eat, but I ended up having to work. Most of the time, my job ended at five, but since retail stores were open later than my office-and they technically employed me-the work didn't end when my office shut down. And instead of changing shifts around to fill in the gap, I went ahead and took the job. I apologized to Novah, and then made plans for the next day.
My phone rang early Saturday morning, waking me up. I didn't often sleep past eight, but working a fourteen-hour day before coming home to unwind, I was more tired than normal.
"Get dressed and meet me at my studio. I have a surprise for you," Novah said excitedly over the phone once I answered.
"Are you going to give me some sort of hint?"
"No. Just get dressed and meet me there. I'm already on my way. It'll be fun, so make sure you've had your daily dose of caffeine before you show up." And then the line went dead, leaving me scratching my head and rolling out of bed.