Impact

Chapter Twenty-Five

"Are you eating anything this morning, Darlin'?" Nate's mother asked as she stood in the doorway of his room. 

Over the last week, she had made him something every morning for breakfast and brought it up to him only to find the tray untouched on his desk at lunchtime, the food on it cold; the glass of orange juice still full. Nate was still in bed, huddled up in his blanket and facing away from her. 

"I don't know."  He mumbled from his pillow. 

"Nathan..." She replied with a sigh. She walked to the bed and sat at the foot. 

"Sweetheart, I know this hasn't been easy, but at some point you have to be able to move on. You've come so far after Tommy."

"I don't want to talk about it, Mom." He said. 

"I know, but that's usually when you need to. I know Scott cared for you, but I still believe you made the right choice. If you didn't feel the same way, it wouldn't be right to lead the poor boy on." She moved a hand to his back. 

"I said I don't want to talk about it." Nate said, jerking away from her touch. 

"Okay, then I won't make you. But you can't stay up here forever, Darlin'." She patted his back and then left the room. 

Nate lay there for a while, staring at his bookshelf. He had cried enough over having to break up with Scott. It was a difficult thing to have done. It was hard when Scott never texted him back, even though he knew Scott had said he wouldn't. He also knew that it had to be done. He cared for Scott, but it wasn't love and he couldn't pretend that it was. 

It still hurt, though. He admitted that there was residual left over from his time with Tommy and a part of him still wished that the jock could remember.  He knew that he shouldn't but he was going to anyway. Slowly, he stood and went to his closet. There was rustling from inside and when he made his way back to his bed, he was holding Tommy's Letterman jacket, taking long sniffs of the jock's scent. 

He still couldn't bring himself to toss it. He knew that it was probably unhealthy. Right now, however, it was the only thing that was bringing him any form of comfort. He would eventually get rid of it, but right now, he needed to pretend that Tommy was with him. He needed to close his eyes and remember a time when he had someone there to hold him and help him feel like everything was going to be alright. He lay back down on the bed, pulling the comforter back over him and the jacket. For the first time in a while, he thought about Tommy and he cried. 

**********

Tommy stood in the room, looking at himself in the mirror as he adjusted his tie and brushing the wrinkles out of his tux. He turned to one side and then the other as he stared at his reflection and smiled to himself thinking that he looked a little like James Bond. He couldn't believe the time had come. He was nervous and excited to be starting a new life but there was a small part of him that had doubts. 

Stacey had been keeping some kind of secret from him. He was nearly positive she wasn't cheating and even her and Steve's "secret" conversations hadn't sparked any worry. But there was something eating at him that he just couldn't place. Something was still off kilter and he wondered if it was just prewedding jitters or if it was always going to be this way. It was almost as if he was settling. 

But Stacey loved him, didn't she? She had proven it to him over their time back together, right?

He hadn't seen anything back from Nate or his mother. Since Tommy had mailed the invitation himself, he was sure that they had received it. It had probably been too much to hope that they would come. He still wasn't sure what he had done, but his friendship with Nate was over. He tried to chalk it up to them being people that just happened to be part of his life for a season, but his stomach didn't sit too well with it.