"Untitled" Chapter 3

Chapter 3
         The conversation was carried out over a four-course dinner of lobster bisque, wild sprig salad, roasted duck, and chocolate mousse for dessert - just a regular Tuesday night for his parents. Nate had shown up, expecting them to ask about his date and was ready to fill them in on Jasmine, excited at their newfound interest in his life.
         "Honey, would you please pass the wine? Oh Nate, it's so nice having you join us. We should do this more often."
         Nate held back the biting response that was on his tongue.
         "Thanks for the invite mother, I wasn't aware you and Dad were going to be in town for so long."
         "We don't leave for Geneva until Thursday, silly. Oh Nate, that's your dessert spoon, not your soup spoon!"
         Nate's hand froze in mid-air before he placed the spoon he was holding back where it had been placed to the north of his table setting. He took extra care in picking up the exact same looking spoon to his left and held it tightly in his hand.
         "You would think you were raised by wolves!" his mother joked as she poured red wine into her cut crystal glass.
         Nate looked towards his father, who's eyes were glued to his blackberry, before looking back down at the table. Nate's mother corked the wine and took a long sip. Nate dipped his spoon into the soup and raised it, about to take a bite.
         "Wait a second Nate, we can't eat until we say grace."
         Nate froze once again and looked up to his mother in shock.
         "Um, since when are you religious?"
         "I wouldn't say religious, just spiritually inclined. Your father and I did a spirit walk in Bali last month and it changed our lives. Isn't that right, hun?"
         Nate's father nodded in agreement and placed the blackberry face down on the table in front of him. Taking Nate's hands his parents both closed their eyes as his mother started mumbling something to herself. Within ten seconds it was over.
         "So, I left a message for Jackson Monte, the dean of admissions at Harvard, today."
         "Oh?"
         "I told them to keep an eye out for your application. You did apply for early decision, right?"
         "What makes you think I applied at all?"
         "Oh Nate, don't joke. This your future we're talking about."
         "I'm not joking. I never applied, there was no point."
         "Well, where did you apply then?"
         "Nowhere."
         "Nowhere? What are you talking about, honey?"
         "I didn't bother applying to any colleges. I don't have the grades or the GPA so there's no point."
         Nate's mother went silent. He kept eating his soup and keeping his eyes to the table, he knew if he looked up his mother would be staring him down. He heard the sound of the cork popping and liquid being poured, so he assumed his mother had just downed her glass.
         "Well...maybe I can still make a call. Maybe I can salvage this."
         "Please, don't do that, don't do anything. If I get in somewhere, I want it to be of my own merit."
         "Oh Nate, please, don't be so nae."
         "How does that make me nae?"
         "You accept the help that's offered, hun. That's how this world works. And let's be honest, if you really cared about merit, you'd have tried harder."
         Nate looked up into his mother's eyes at that point.
         "There's nothing even you can do at this point."
         "Well, you certainly made sure of that. You know, your father and I are not going to support you forever, especially not when you act like this."
         "I'm sorry, in what way have you ever shown me support?"
         Nate's mother rolled her eyes as she sipped more wine.
         "Don't be dramatic Nate, it's not very becoming."
         Nate sighed as he looked back down at the table.
         "I just had no idea you'd let things go this far. Do you have any plan for after you graduate?"
         "If I graduate, I'll find a job somewhere. I'll make it work."
         "Well, that's disappointing."
         Nate didn't say anything for the rest of the meal. His mother moved on to other topics like future travel plans in Europe and ignored his presence for the rest of the night. Once his parents had called it a night, Nate packed a bag and left for Zack's house. He showed up on the doorstep about one in the morning and called Zack who was still up playing video games. Zack was surprised by the sight of his duffel bag but let him in, one look at Nate's face told him that whatever had happened was bad. The one spark in his life was that Friday was the prom.
         Jasmine showed everyone up in the auditorium that night. She entered the dance, flanked by twenty or so of her friends, wearing a form fitting silver dress that flowed over her body like liquid and her shiny black hair once again in ringlets, just like the first day he'd met her, except she also had a small diamond clip pulling her hair back on the left side. He had started making his way across the floor to meet her, but another guy was already taking her hand and leading her to the dance floor. He didn't particularly care because he knew that she was his date, and he felt like the luckiest guy in the world. He patiently waited for the song to end before making his way across the dance floor and taking his turn.
                   Granted, he was about as awkward a dancer as he was at life in general, and he stepped on her feet a couple hundred times, but he was in utter bliss. She spent the rest of the night accepting dances from any guy who asked, and Nate sat by one of the tables watching her glide across the dance floor with a smile on his face. He didn't have a car and was living with Zack full time, the saggy, army green couch in his room becoming his home for a year and a half. He couldn't offer her a ride home after, but Zack agreed to use his mother's car to pick them up and drive them back once the night was over. Zack had never been a fan of school dances, or dances in general, so he stayed home to play video games until Nate called him for the ride. Zack and Jasmine sat in almost complete silence until Zack cracked an inappropriate joke that caused Jasmine to fall into fits of uncontrollable laughter. After that turn of events they seemed to get along just fine. Hopeful for a new friendship dynamic between the guy he was closest to and the girl he craved being close to, Nate was extremely pleased and couldn't have been happier when the night ended. Two weeks later Jasmine agreed to a second date, and soon after agreed to be his girlfriend, as long as they kept it a secret.
         Not too long after, he started to feel depressed with his lack of choices. Graduation was coming up and his parents didn't bother hiding their disapproval that he didn't have the grades to get into any kind of college, let alone their alma mater, and spent every waking moment calling and texting to confront him about his life choices. It was the most attention he had ever received from them, turning something he had always wanted into something he deeply regretted wishing for. Nate grew to hate feeling of his phone vibraing and began to hyperventilate if it started to go off. He all but dropped out of school, his newfound depression taking control of his life. He tried talking to Jasmine about it, but she couldn't relate and asked him to keep most of it to himself as it was bringing her mood down.
         Living on a couch didn't give him and Jasmine very much opportunity for privacy, and she never invited him over to her place for one reason or another, but they made it work while Jasmine earned her Associates Degree and ended up graduating early, with a job offer from Dulley Press that she'd stayed with ever since. Starting that job changed both of their lives, because it enabled her to move into one of the luxury apartments, courtesy of her new boss and supervisor, and offered Nate a safe space. Much to his parents' dismay, he did actually find a job, earning it through an old friend of Jasmine's who worked at the university.
         Jasmine was his safe place, someone who could bring him out of the worst depressive spirals. She was the best thing that life had to offer, as long as he did everything according to her exact specifications. She had some pretty high-end standards and was used to having things done the way she wanted them done. Being a child of divorce, both her parents spoiled her in order to win her affection, and she expected that lifestyle.
         For all her heart she could foster a cold shoulder that would chill him to the bone if he ever pissed her off, and her temper was more furious than a hurricane if he ever made a mistake, but over the years he had learned what she liked and what she didn't like, making the cold shoulders and temper tantrums less occurrent. The first and only time he'd found his way into her office she had gone off on him for thirty minutes, lecturing about boundaries and privacy. He had just moved his stuff into the apartment, and she had to take a work call outside. He hadn't meant to snoop, he was simply curious about her writing and editing process. She had left her Macbook on, the tiny speech bubble on the bottom of the screen was jumping up and down. He crossed over to her laptop with the intention of closing it when she caught him. Two days later she had the lock installed.
         Although she was prone to mood swings he let them slide because the good times far outweighed the bad. She had a knack for being incredibly funny, making him laugh all his worries away with a random inappropriate joke, and was incredibly kind to most people she met. He liked that she showed a different side of herself to him than she did most people, it made him feel special and important. She was a talented and ambitious writer who was willing to do anything to get higher in her career, and he admired that about her. Somehow, she had managed to skip the title of "intern" and went straight to full-time journalist. It required a lot of late nights and weekends away, but he understood she had to go where the work was.
         Coming out of his trance he crossed to the cabinet in the bedroom and pulled open the last drawer. The past few years had only cemented in his mind what he had known since the first day he'd seen her, she was the one. And the ring hidden deep in his underwear drawer, a place she absolutely never went as he always did the laundry, was going to prove that to her one day soon. He just had to find the right moment.