She skimmed the rest of that entry—it was a much messier version of that first chapter he’d given her to read, weeks after that first day together in the library. She flipped to the next page.
I can’t believe I let her have this notebook. When I gave it to her, yesterday before we left the library, I kind of forgot what I’d written about her at the very beginning—on the very first page. But she promised she wouldn’t read it, and I think she kept her promise, because she isn’t acting weird to me today or anything.
Well, not weirder than usual, since, you know, she sort of thinks I’m a monster.
Not that she’s wrong about that, but still.
Can I trust her to take the notebook again? On the one hand, I am sort of terrified that if I keep it I’ll delete everything and that I’ll rip out those first pages I wrote. Not for the same reason as I did the first time. The first time I deleted everything, it was because what I wrote was terrible, untrue, dishonest. It made me hate myself when I read it later. Izzy says I shouldn’t have done it, that I should have saved it somewhere, but I needed to do it, to help myself get rid of the person who had written those words, who’d thought he had all the answers, who was so confident and wrong.
No, now I’m afraid I’ll rip out those pages because they’re too honest, and I’m not sure if I’m ready for that. So I guess that’s why I need to give them to her, for safekeeping. I guess I need to try to trust her.
Izzy remembered a few times that week, Beau had looked at her strangely as she’d pushed the notebook across the table to him. She hadn’t really thought anything of it at the time; he always looked at her kind of strangely back then. But now she realized why: He was trying to see if she’d read his notebook. If he could trust her.
She flipped to the next page. And then the next, and then the next. At the beginning of almost every entry, Beau had written about her.
We had dinner together again last night. Me and Isabelle. Izzy. We had a good day working together—at least, it seemed good to me. She seemed upset about something at dinner, and I asked her what was wrong. She seemed surprised that I knew something was wrong with her, and I don’t know how I could tell, but I could. Eventually, she told me it was some jerk she works with who made everything difficult for her today. I think talking to me about it made her feel better. I hope it did.
And it definitely made her feel better when she made fun of me for not washing my dishes. To be fair, I kind of deserved that.
Okay, more than kind of.
A different day.
I’m sure Izzy hasn’t opened this notebook once in the entire time she’s had it. I wonder if she has any idea how every night, when we sit on the couch together and watch TV, I have to fight to keep from leaning over to kiss her. I won’t do it—I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it—but, God, I want to.
Every day I like her more. It’s not just that I’m more attracted to her—that, too, obviously, especially when she wears those little tank tops down to dinner—I just like her. Last night when we ate dinner, she went on this extended riff about how she was really sure the snack cabinet was talking to her one day, and I laughed harder than I’ve laughed in…over a year, actually.
Izzy remembered that night at dinner. That was a fun night.
A few days later.
We went surfing yesterday. I needed a break from writing. It was sort of an impulsive decision, but a really good one. It seemed like she needed a break, too, because I expected her to argue with me about where we were going and what we were doing, but she didn’t, at all, and came along to the beach, and even let me start to teach her how to surf. It was a lot of fun—for me, but I’m pretty sure for her, too. I mean sure, she fell off a million times, but we laughed about that a lot. I think we both trust each other more after yesterday, even though that wasn’t my goal.
I think we both like each other more after yesterday, too.
The problem is I almost kissed her last night. It was after dinner; we were together in the kitchen, cleaning up; we’d each had enough wine to be not quite drunk, but somewhere on the way. She was kind of giggly; it was cute. Anyway, she slipped, and I caught her. And then I didn’t let go. And she just relaxed against me. And we stood there like that for a while. And my God, it felt so good. And then suddenly, I knew that if I stayed like that with her for one more second, I would kiss her, so I made myself drop my hands and take a step back.
I can’t stop thinking about the way she smelled, still faintly of the ocean, but with that floral scent in her hair.
She could still feel that first embrace, in the kitchen. How solid, comforting, warm he felt. How she didn’t want to let go either.
The next week.
I showed her my writing for the first time yesterday. She even liked it—I know she did, because she seemed surprised at first when she told me it was good, so I know she was telling the truth. I didn’t really tell her this, but part of the reason it was so hard for me to start this memoir—or, this version of it, anyway—was that the idea of other people reading it terrified me. I’m really glad that Izzy is the first person to read any of this.
And then, later that week.
Izzy’s friend is in town. She came over yesterday—Izzy said she wanted to see the house and asked if she could come. She seemed kind of nervous to ask me that, which irritated me, that she’s still nervous around me, but whatever. Anyway, when they were here, her friend said something about how Izzy’s going back to New York in just over a week. I sort of forgot she’s leaving so soon.
Whatever. It doesn’t matter.
Later that day. She almost didn’t want to read this.
Well, shit. I fucked everything up now, didn’t I? I was such an asshole to her today. Yes, a bigger asshole than the first day, if anyone can believe that, which I don’t know if anyone can, but it’s true. I was such an asshole that she walked out of the library, took the car, and drove away. I’m sitting in the kitchen now, writing in this thing because I don’t know what else to do, while I wait for her to come back. Though I don’t blame her if she doesn’t.
I said really shitty things to her. I don’t even want to write them down. If she comes back—and who knows if she will—she’ll probably just go straight up to her room, pack, and leave. I guess I’m just sitting here because I want to be able to apologize to her before she does that.
I thought writing all this, thinking about all this, was making me less of an asshole. I guess not.
I should wait outside for her.
That was the worst day.
She came back. She’s still here.
I didn’t think she’d come back. I didn’t even try to convince her to stay, I didn’t think it would do any good. Even though it’s what I wanted, more than anything.
I apologized, and she blew me off, and I did it again, and she listened, only sort of, at first. And then she told me that I hurt her, and even though I knew it was true, hearing her say the words felt like a punch in the face. It made me realize how much I care about her, how important our…friendship, I guess, is to me, because now I know that I never want to do anything to hurt her ever again.
I told her everything. About my dad, my mom, me. What I did to my mom. The stuff I haven’t been writing about, not even in here. The stuff I’ve skipped over. And she listened. And she’s still here.
She told me to write it down, everything I told her tonight, and I’m going to do that, in just a second, but I just had to write this first.
I promised Izzy I’d never do that to her again. I don’t know if she believed me, but I swear, I’ll keep that promise.
He’d kept that promise.
Izzy told me about her own writing. The unbelievable part is that when I encouraged her to start again, to write again, she listened to me. I’m sure it wasn’t just me, she said she’d already sort of started while she was here, I think she just needed a tiny push to get her to really do it, but I’m glad I could be the one to give her that push. So now she’s sitting across from me, writing, too.
Izzy was glad he was the one who gave her that push to write again, too.
I texted that therapist, the one I used to see. I’m going to talk to him tomorrow morning. I’m nervous as hell about it.
She hadn’t known that.
Izzy is supposed to leave at the end of this week. I really want her to stay longer. I think I might ask her if she will, if I get the courage. Wish me luck.
The next day.
She’s staying. An extra three weeks.
Marta said that for Izzy to be able to stay, I had to send her some pages—to prove, I guess, that I’ve gotten work done. She said that it was nonnegotiable.