Be With Me

“Wow Justin, you were right. This is definitely the best ice cream that I‘ve had in a long time,”

“Told you so,” She rolled her eyes at my cockiness, mumbling a whatever before placing another spoonful of her Sunday in her mouth.

“I‘ve never heard of this place,” she pointed out “How did you find out about it?”

I had brought Natalie to a small ice cream shop, Dina’s ice cream, that was a few minutes outside of Manhattan. It had a vintage feel to it, as if it were a 50’s dinner. A jukebox stood in the far corner, opposite of the booth that we were sitting in. A sundae bar was located in the back where you could make your own sundae. After making your own sundae, you walked to the register and paid for the size of the ice cream, and the scoops rather than the toppings. The colors red and white could be found in various places in the shop.

I simply shrugged. “You find a lot of things when your on the road all the time,” She nodded in understanding.

“You can‘t always go somewhere crowded. It‘s one of the reasons why I like coming here. You know, besides the ice cream,” I ate a spoonful of ice cream before looking around the shop. A small family consisting of a father, mother and daughter, were the only other occupants in the store.

The little girl was small, around the age of five. Her blonde hair was pulled into two pigtails. She held onto her chair as she swung her feet back and fourth. Her mother sat at the table across from her, but her attention was focused on her blackberry.

“Why does Nick keep staring at me?”

I shook my head at the sound of her voice, coming back to reality. “Hm?”

She simply nodded her direction in the direction of Nick and Kenny. They were sitting at a table not too far from Natalie and I. Normally they would’ve been closer to me, but due to the lack of people there was no need.

Nick was indeed staring at Natalie, though I couldn’t place the expression on his face. His eyes shifted to me. I simply raised my brow. He shook his head before going back to his conversation with Kenny.

“I don‘t know,” I shrugged “Maybe he‘s surprised by how much you‘ve changed,”

“What are you talking about?” her eyes slanted, “I haven‘t changed Justin,”

“Are you serious? Natalie, three years ago I only saw you in a hoodie if your were tired or something, and you wouldn‘t have gone out in public with it. All I ever saw you in was heels, I didn‘t know you even owned a pair of sneakers. And your hair was almost never pulled back in a ponytail. Then there‘s--”

“Okay Justin I get!!” she interrupted. I could see the family looking at us from my peripheral. She sighed as she looked down. She stirred her ice cream with her spoon involuntarily. “A lot has happened in 3 years…”

I felt the urge to ask her what happened at her apartment. It sat on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to know so badly that the words practically slipped past my lips, but they didn’t. All that stopped me was Natalie’s reaction. I wasn’t sure how she would respond to the question.

“Let me guess…you want to know what happened back at the apartment,”

Shock was the only thing on my face. I opened my mouth to speak but she shook her head, silencing me. “I‘ll tell you but…promise me that you‘ll wait until the end before you judge,”

“Promise,” I nodded.

She took a deep breath as she stopped stirring the remains of her ice cream. “Well I‘m going to have to tell you the entire story about me and Nathan for you to understand. Okay?” I nodded once more.

She sighed. “Well, during my Senior year in high school there was this pre-prom party. One of the girls in my school was throwing the party, a bribe for votes for prom Queen. Anyway, Maya and I went to the party as each others date. Nathan was the DJ at the party. Later that night, I couldn‘t find Sabrina so I asked if he could help me find her. Eventually we did, and that was pretty much the end of it. He wasn‘t interested in a girl who was still in high school, but who could blame him,” she shrugged.

“Sorry I‘m dragging on but you need to know to understand, I guess,”

“It‘s fine” I nodded. I wanted to know what had happened that made Natalie so…different.

“When I graduated I got accepted into NYU. Sometime later a couple of friends and I went out to this club. We were In VIP, one of the girls new the DJ. Well as luck would have it, she introduced us and Nate was the DJ. We ended up talking the rest of the night. Before I knew it were we talking all the time and hanging out all the time.”

“I can‘t really describe it but he was just…different. He wasn‘t like any other guy I‘d met before,”

My chest suddenly tightened. I grew stiff slightly but quickly played it off. I began to breath through my nose to make the pain go away. I didn’t know what happened, but once the words left her lips I felt almost uncomfortable. It was as if my body didn’t want to hear her talk about him like that, but I didn’t even know who he was.

She shook her head as a small smile formed on her lips. “I guess it‘s safe to say that we started dating. Everything was great. We would talk to each other all the time and hang out whenever our schedules allowed us to. Things were nice.”

Her smile slowly faded. “Then one day things changed. Nate started hanging out with this girl who was a bartender at one of the clubs he worked at. She hated me. I never knew why, but I knew that she had animosity towards me.”

“One day he called me, questioning me about one of my guy friends. We argued and things ended badly. That‘s when I found out he cheated on me. I don‘t know what got into me, but I didn‘t break up with him; I couldn‘t. I just ignored it and things went back to normal. For a little while at least. Drama began to circle around us, so I had no choice but to break up with him,”

“But I couldn‘t get over him. No matter how hard I tried I couldn‘t let him go. So when he called me telling me that he loved me and that he was seeking help for his anger management, I took him back. Then I started messing up. Certain things that I was doing would upset him, make him mad.”

She shook her head. “And its wrong of me to make him so mad when I know the trouble that he goes through. I deserve everything that he gives me,” My heart clenched at her words. ”So I stopped doing things to make him mad. I do whatever I have to do to keep him happy, to keep us together. So things go back to normal,”

“Today was just a rare exception. I just made him mad as all. Yes, sometimes I do get tired of just doing things for him but…in a relationship you make sacrifices.”

I was speechless. Overwhelmed even. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. Natalie had changed, she changed more then I thought. The Natalie I once knew would have never done half of these things. The Natalie I knew was strong and confident. The girl in front of me was nothing more than an image of the Natalie I once knew and loved.

Not to mention, she was changing herself because of a guy. A guy who doesn’t deserve a girl like Natalie. From the way things appeared, I couldn’t understand why Natalie was still with him, and neither could she. She sounded confused and hurt.

I felt a mixture of anger and compassion. I hated seeing her like this. She wasn’t the girl I thought she was. She was so hurt that my heart clenched just thinking about it. I hated seeing her like this.

“Natalie you shouldn‘t be with him,”

She didn’t bother to look at me. She simply rested her head on her hand as she looked downwards. “You sound like Maya and Sabrina,”

“Because it‘s true. You don‘t need him. You don‘t deserve to be treated like this. You deserve so much better--”

“I love him,” she interrupted. “I love him so I‘m going to be there for him no matter what. Once we get through this and I stop messing up things will go back to normal. I just have to be there for him,”

“But who‘s going to be there for you,”

She instantly fell silent. I took this as my cue to continue. “You said that you have to make sacrifices in a relationship but what is he sacrificing. Nothing that he does could be worth the pain that he‘s putting you through. Please Natalie, just end things with--”

“Justin stop,” she closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. “I appreciate the help but I don‘t need your relationship advice right now,”

I sighed in defeat. I knew that there was no way that I could breakdown Natalie’s newfound walls that easily. She wouldn’t let me. That was one thing that hadn’t changed about her.

“Fine, I‘ll leave it alone for now,” before I realized what I was doing, I reached across the table and held her hand. She shifted her gaze to me for a mere second but looked away before our gazes could lock.

“I‘m here for you Natalie, and I‘m not leaving you alone like this,”

Although she wasn’t looking at me, I could still make out the minuscule smile that made its way onto her lips.