Nico’s nose flares as he breathes out hard, unhappy having his words thrown back at him, no matter how gently I’d said them.
“I agreed it was fine that he use your washing machine and babysit your kid, Desmond, I didnotagree that you could fu—” He cuts off and turns his face away, jaw clenched tight. It doesn’t matter, I heard the unspoken word and know how that sentence was going to finish.
I feel a sudden and intense pain of sympathy for Jack, knowing exactly how mortified he’s going to be when Nico asks him whether I convinced him to quit the team while I fucked him.
“It’s time for a walk,” Nico says sharply, and so forcefully it takes me a second to figure out he’s talking about the puppy and not threatening me with walking papers.
“Okay, I can?—”
“No. I’ll take him. I need to take a second to think, and I can’t do that in this room. I can’t do that with you here, because, right now, I want to kill you.”
Mutely, I watch as he gathers Drou’s leash and tries to clip it on the wiggling puppy. His shoulders are visibly tense beneath his shirt, and he keeps his back to me as he leaves, not turning around as the door slams behind him.
That went well,my sister tells me, as I prop my elbows on the desk and drop my face into my hands. That did not go well at all.
For the remainderof the week, Nico treats me to a chilly silence. When he speaks to me, it’s in a clipped, businesslike tone, completely at odds with the warm, almostfamilial way he spoke to me prior. He’s polite and isn’t ignoring me, but the difference between then and now is striking. I have been very summarily bumped from friend down to coworker. And not a coworker he is particularly fond of, evidently.
When I ask questions—as I’ve always done—about Anthony or Drou, he responds with single-word answers, usually without looking away from whatever he’s working on. After three days of this, I realize just how much I’d come to appreciate working with him, and just how much I’ll miss the comradery if it’s gone for good.
Checking my phone, I see that I’ve got fifteen minutes before I need to leave to pick up Parker. It’s Friday—my early quit day, granted by Nico—and school gets out a little sooner than usual. Saving the file I’d been working on and dropping a flag to save my spot in the video I’ve been reviewing for the last two hours, I begin packing up.
The sound of Nico drumming his fingers on the wood desktop draws my eyes over to him. He’s staring at his computer screen, jaw clenched tightly enough I worry it’ll set off a migraine. Which would, I imagine, only make him more appreciative of me, at the moment.
“I’m speaking to Micky, today,” he says tersely.
“I know,” I agree. Jack had asked me to tell him exactly what I wanted him to say, which I’d explained was the very worst thing I could do. I’d told him to just be truthful, and everything would be fine. I’m still working on believing it myself, buthedoesn’t need to know that. I don’t need to give Jack any more reasons to be stressed. Nico rubs at his eyes with thumb and forefinger, before pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Anthony thinks I was too hard on you,” he admits,sounding a touch annoyed. I wait, assuming there is a “but” following that statement. Nico adds, “But he’s wrong.”
Since I happen to agree with Anthony, I keep my mouth shut. Nico spears a look at me, clearly reading my silence for exactly what it is.
“Do you need anything before I head out?” I ask, willing to do literally anything as long as it helps toward putting me back in his good graces.
“No,” he says on a sigh. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I glance back at him, hovering in the hallway. He’s staring blankly at his computer screen, lost in thought. Quietly, I leave, thoughts turning toward Jack.
19
Jack
I never hadpanic attacks or anxiety as a kid. Not even on the worst nights, when my belly was hollow and I was freezing because the heating had been shut off again. No, even after those nights, I’d still get up the next morning, put on the cleanest clothes I could find, and spend a day at school; never complaining, or saying anything to a teacher that wasn’t an answer to a direct question. I was a good kid, despite what my dad had to say on the matter. I never cried, or complained, or asked for a single thing.
It wasn’t until I found myself in a safe space that the anxiety knocked on the door. All the years of pain and fear hadn’t made me tough, they’d simply made me patient. And then, once my belly was full and I had a bed with sheets on it; when I signed my name on that scholarship, and smiled back at Nate the first time. That was when my house of cards collapsed, and the stress of living tried to convince me that I shouldn’t even try.
Incredibly, being an adult feels so much harder than being a kid had. Nobody hits me, or yells at me anymore. I have access to food that doesn’t list sugar as the main ingredient. I have afriend. But a switch was flipped when my parents died. The world was a lot bigger and scarier now, and sometimes I longed for the quiet, secret darkness of the space behind the couch where I’d hide when my parents were at their worst. Sometimes, I wished for the ability to fold myself up, smaller and smaller and smaller, until there was barely anything left.
Sitting in Coach Mackenzie’s office with the door closed—a door which always remained open in welcome—as he asked me careful, polite questions about Desmond, made me ache so badly for that space behind the couch that I could feel the phantom scratch of upholstery against my fingers; smell the musty odor of mothballs, and dampness. There’s a certain comfort in routine, even if that routine is horrifying. My childhood might not have been ideal, but at least it was predictable.
Now, in the relative safety of my small dorm room, I sit on my bed and breathe myself through the come-down. There’s nothing quite like the sweeping exhaustion that follows an anxiety attack; I always feel like I could crawl into bed and sleep for a week afterward. Also, that I’ve probably lost a pound or two just from the way I sweat when I get worked up.
Gathering my bathroom kit and a clean pair of clothes, I leave my dorm and walk to the communal bathroom to shower. The water pressure and hot water in the dorms isn’t anything to get excited about, but I stand under the stream until it runs frigid. When I get back to my room, I feel a lot better, and am just thinking about doing a reread of one of my comfort books when my phone buzzes.
Desmond
Hey, Jacko, you right?
Jack
