Good Love Will Find Me

It got easier after that.

Natalie had only needed to see him once, and suddenly, her chest felt a little less tight when she saw the picture of him on her bedside table. She stopped turning it upside down and even smiled in the morning when she rolled over and came face to face with it.

But still, she didn't call him. She didn't call any of them.

It got easier for John, too. He started to clean up his act and bring his head up after letting it hang so low for so long. He ditched the mindset that she had ditched him and he started to understand that they could function fine without each other.

He sat down next to her at the table facing the lanes, watching Pat drop a ball too early, making the ball roll much too slow. Natalie was chewing on her lip and it was obvious she was thinking hard about something, and he was about to ask when she told him herself.

"Listen, John, I just - I don't think I can do this."

"Do what? Natalie what -"

"I can't pretend that everything is the same. It's not and we both know that. I'm so happy I got to see you today, and I'm thankful for all the things that you guys have done for me, really. But this is my home now. Not with you, not with any of the guys or Bridget or Luke or Leigh. Just me."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what? Being independent?"

He rolled his eyes.

"No. No! That's not what this is. You're running away again. I know you, Natalie Smith. You don't want to get close again. It is the same, but you don't want to admit it. That's why you're scared."

She just pursed her lips and stood up to bowl yet another strike.

After that night, John realized Natalie would never be able to stay in one place for too long. She was a nomad and she recycled people like sheets on her bed, leaving nothing behind. For her, it was go, go, go.

And while John thought he could deal with that, or maybe even change her, he couldn't even come close. She was too resistant. And it was time for both of them to move on.

Of course, he missed her. But he had been alone for much too long. It was time to go and start anew.

There were other girls.

Stacy, who didn't last long. She didn't bother with his journals in the morning. She just left and came back later to fuck. That was it.

Valarie, who, quite ironically, almost crashed Valerie. She was out of John's life faster than Stacy was.

There were many girls who couldn't care less about the desert past 12 AM and others who didn't touch vinyls, let alone CDs.

One hated Luke almost as much as Allison and absolutely none of them stepped foot onto playgrounds.

There were other girls, but they weren't her. He slept with them, but they weren't her.

They didn't ask him for cigarettes and skinny dipping within hours of knowing him.

They didn't come close to inspiring him the way she did.

They weren't Natalie Marie Smith and no one ever would be but John was dealing with that and he was okay. He was getting there and that's all that mattered. At least, he thought so.

For Natalie, there was one boy. Shaun. He was reckless and a little lost and he didn't quite know what he was doing but he knew one thing - he knew how to distract her from the fact that she was now even more alone than before and he knew how to keep her away from the thought that she now had no one else to turn to when winter got too cold in Cleveland and she craved the Arizona sunshine.

He didn't care.

That was key. He didn't care enough to ask her about her past and who she left behind. He didn't want to know why she was too sad on some nights. He didn't want to know who the people in the pictures were. He just wanted a good fuck. And that's what she wanted too. Right?

They chain smoked on her days off and they watched reruns of Friends and with Shaun, nothing was urgent. Nothing was too slow, either. Nothing was sentimental and nothing was important. It just was.

And Natalie thought that was what she needed but one night, she found herself dialing a number that she thought she had forgotten, and said a name that she only dared to whisper once Shaun was asleep.

But she only said it into a messaging system, and she felt the salt and warmth roll down her face as she realized what she had done.

When he woke up the next day, he saw the number he too had thought he forgot, and he heard the fear in her voice, the isolation and the night that blanketed the sound that came out of the speaker of his phone.

The girl next to him asked, "John, what's going on?" But he had already forgotten her name as he dialed back and she picked up and he walked out of the room and into the bathroom and the other girl followed but he ignored her and he took a deep breath and he said,

"Na-"

"Sorry. I didn't mean to call you. It was an accident." There was the same loneliness that was evident in her voice the night before.

He closed his eyes and sat down on the toilet with the seat down. Instead of saying anything, he let out a sigh.

She didn't say anything. She just kept on breathing. She was waiting.

"If it was really an accident, you would've hung up by now."

Nothing.

"You said my name and I heard what you really meant, Natalie."

By now the other girl had given up and gone back to bed.

And this girl was about to do the same.

"It was an accident." This time her voice was more firm and this time, she hung up.

And this time, John didn't call her back.


"Nat, you got something in the mail."

"What?"

Shaun tossed it at her and she was expecting a call for jury duty or a notice to pay bills or something that wasn't of immediate importance to her.

But she held an envelope with a return address located in Tempe and her name was written in beautiful cursive. Once she opened it, she almost gasped.

You are invited to attend the wedding of Garrett Nickelsen and Leigh O'Callaghan.

It was time to come home.