Free Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin Page A

to rely on him more and more as my sole source of
    happiness. I often told him that I loved him, and felt more relief
    than joy when he said it back. I started to think about marriage,
    even talked about our theoretical children and where we all might
    live.
    Then one night Nate and I went to a bar in the Village to hear a
    folk singer from Brooklyn named Carly Weinstein.
    After her
    performance, Nate and I and a few other people chatted with her
    as she put her guitar away with the gentleness of a new mother.
    "Your lyrics are beautiful what inspires you?" Nate asked her,
    big-eyed.
    I was instantly worried; I remembered that look from our first
    coffee date. I became even more distressed when he bought a copy
    of her CD. She wasn't that good. I think Nate and Carly went on a
    date a week later, because there was one night when he was
    unaccounted for and didn't answer his cell phone until after
    midnight. I was too afraid to ask where he had been.
    Besides, I
    already knew. He had changed. He looked at me differently, a
    shadow over his face, his mind somewhere else.
    Sure enough, we had the big talk soon after that. He was very
    forthright. "I have feelings for someone else," he said.
    "I always
    promised that I would tell you."
    I remembered those conversations well, remembered liking the
    strong, confident way I sounded as I told him that if he ever met
    someone else, he should just tell me outright, that I could handle
    it. Of course, I didn't think at the time that it would ever leave the
    hypothetical realm. I wanted to suck back all my cavalier
    instructions, tell him instead that I would greatly prefer a gentle
    lie about needing some space or some time apart.
    "Is it Carly?" I asked, a catch in my throat.
    He looked shocked. "How did you know?"
    "I could just tell," I said, unable to fight back sobs.
    "I'm so sorry," he said, hugging me. "It kills me to hurt you like
    this. But I had to be honest. I owe you that."
    So he got a new girl, and he got to be noble. I tried to be angry, but
    how can you be mad at someone for not wanting to be with you?
    Instead I just sulked around, gained a few pounds, and swore off
    men.
    Nate kept calling for a few months after our breakup. I knew he
    was just being nice, but the calls gave me false hope. I could never
    resist asking about his girlfriend. "Carly is fine," he would say
    sheepishly. Then once, he answered, "We're moving in together
    and I think we're going to get engaged" His voice trailed off.
    "Congratulations. That's great. I'm really happy for you," I said.
    "Thank you, Rachel. It means a lot to hear you say that."
    "Yeah Best of luck and all, but I don't think I want you to call me
    anymore, okay?"
    "I understand," he said, probably relieved to be off the hook.
    I haven't heard from Nate since that conversation. I'm not sure if
    or when they married, but I still look for Carly Weinstein
    sometimes when I'm shopping for CDs. So far she hasn't made it
    big.
    Looking back, I question whether I really loved Nate, or just the
    security of our relationship. I wonder if my feelings for him didn't
    have a lot to do with hating my job. From the bar exam through
    that first hellish year as an associate, Nate was my escape. And
    sometimes that can feel an awful lot like love.
    A reasonable time passed after Nate. I lost my breakup weight, got
    my hair highlighted, and agreed to a string of blind dates. At worst
    they were awful. At best, simply uncomfortable and forgettable.
    Then I met Alec Kaplan at Spy Bar, down in Soho. I was with
    Darcy and some of her friends from work and he and his oh-sohip
    friends approached us. Alec, of course, wooed Darcy at first,
    but she pushed him my way literally, with her hand on the small
    of his back with firm directions to "talk to my friend."
    To her, it
    was the ultimate in generosity. Even though she had Dex, she was
    never one to turn down male attention. "He's really cute," Darcy
    kept whispering. "Go for it."
    She was right, Alec was