I did that once at the pool. I stood up there for like a hundred years and daddy said I didn't have to, but I did it anyway. And then it was fun. And I did it 11 more times. That's very brave.
You just have to not think about it, Lily advised. If you think about it, you can't do it. You have to just go. Victoria looked at Nathan over the child's head, and something passed between them, and Nathan had to look back down at his eggs. They ate.
It was Nathan thought the strangest and best breakfast of his life, his kitchen, his kid, and the most powerful woman in the city, eating saved toast in his old shirt, and asking Lily about the diving board. He kept waiting for it to feel wrong, for the sheer impossibility of it to come crashing down, and it didn't. It felt, "God help him," like something that fit. Afterward, Lily wanted to get dressed for the Saturday soccer she had at 10:00, and Nathan cleared the plates, and Victoria stood by the window with a fresh cup of coffee, and the mood shifted. The child was out of the room, and the adults were left with the size of what had happened.
"I ended it," Victoria said. The engagement just now on your bathroom floor essentially. She laughed without much humor. 2 years and I ended it sitting on the edge of your bathtub. That's not how I imagined it, if I ever imagined it at all.
Nathan dried his hands on a dish towel. How do you feel? Terrified. She said it immediately. No performance.
He said things about how I'll fall apart without him. About how everyone will see. About how I'll come crawling back. She wrapped both hands around the coffee mug. And the terrible thing, Nathan, is that a part of me believes him.
Two years of hearing, you're nothing without me, and it gets in. It gets under the skin. I can know it's a lie and still feel it's true. Does that make sense? More than you'd think, Nathan said.
He asked who you were. Nathan went still. What? He knew there was someone. He could hear it in my voice that I that someone had talked to me, said things to me, and he asked who.
She turned from the window to look at him. I didn't tell him. But he'll find out Nathan. That's what he does. He's not a stupid man.