That man tells you you're too much because he's afraid you'll figure out he's not enough. And the day you figure that out, he loses you. So, he makes sure you never figure it out. He keeps you looking down at your own feet, so you never look up and see the door. Victoria stared at him.
The tears had stopped. She was looking at him like she'd never actually seen him before, like the furniture had stood up and spoken. "Who are you? " she said quietly. Nobody, Nathan said. I fix your air conditioning.
No. She shook her head slowly. No. Where does a maintenance man learn to say a thing like that? Nathan looked out the windshield at the rain for a long moment.
I was married once, he said. Lily's mom. And I loved her. God, I loved her. He was quiet a beat.
But she was the one making somebody small. Me. For a long time, I let her because I thought that's what love cost. I thought if I just got smaller and smaller and quieter and easier one day, I'd be small enough that she'd finally be happy. He gave a short, hard breath through his nose.
You can't get small enough. There's no bottom to it. Whatever they need you to shrink to, it's always one size less than what you are. He turned to look at her. She left when Lily was two.
Best thing that ever happened to me and it took me a year to understand that. A pause. So, no, I'm not a smart man, Miss Harrington. But some things you don't learn from a book. You learn them on the floor.
For a long moment, neither of them said anything. The rain drummed on the roof. Victoria, she said finally. What? My name?
It's Victoria. If you're going to tell me true things at 1:00 in the morning, you can stop calling me Ms. Harrington. Nathan almost smiled. Okay, he said.
Victoria. He pulled back out into the street. When they reached her building, the doorman came out under a large black umbrella saw who it was, and his professional face flickered with something surprise, maybe at the state of her or at the mud splattered pickup truck, idling under the awning where the Bentleys and Teslas usually sat. Victoria didn't move to get out. She sat there with Nathan's jacket still around her shoulders, looking up at the glass tower where she lived.