It’s a bad idea, lingering in here, but I’m too nosy for my own good. I rummage through his closet, touching all his crewnecks and dry-cleaned suits. The ivory button-down he wore at our disastrous engagement photo shoot. Our smiles were forced in every picture. Between takes, we muttered under our breath and accused the other one of not trying, of not wanting to be there.
One of those pictures is supposed to be in a frame on his nightstand. The nightstand contains only a lamp. My heart plummets, but then I spot the frame hanging on the wall. He’s switched out the engagement photo neither of us was trying in and replaced it with a memory that takes me back to this past winter, days after he proposed. It’s a bit blurry, and my arm is disproportionately wide because I’m holding it out to snap the picture.
According to the red paint in the background, we’re in his friend Derek’s kitchen. It’s Derek’s housewarming party, and as a gag we got him a gun that shoots marshmallows. Nicholas is right beside me, head on my shoulder. At the last second our eye contact abandons the camera, noticing a marshmallow stuck to the ceiling above us. My hand unconsciously strokes through his hair and holds his head to the cradle of my neck in what strikes me as an affectionate gesture I haven’t done in forever. Just like that, a posed picture becomes a candid one.
As soon as the flash went off, that marshmallow fell on Nicholas’s head, and everyone laughed.Did you get that?
No, I got the moment just before.
Too bad.
I wonder when Nicholas had this picture printed. Why this particular shot, out of the hundreds we’ve taken of ourselves? Why would he want it on his wall? Until now, I thought it existed only on my Instagram. Looking at the picture now, feeling these emotions, solidifies into a memory of its own.
I’ve already spent too long in his bedroom—his, not ours—and I need to slip out before I’m caught, but I need to know more. I’m on a mission to closely examine this man’s belongings, the things he touches daily. I’ve seen it all so many times that I’m numb to it, so I have to focus. See through new Naomi’s eyes.
I rummage in his nightstand, fingering each object. His contacts case and bottle of solution. A case for his glasses. Lube, which I might as well throw away at this point. An old charger that’s no longer compatible with his current phone is next. Skittles. A pen and notepad from a Holiday Inn, top sheet containing a smiley face I drew. I pick up a disposable straw wrapper and am about to drop it when I see that the ends are tied together.
And I remember.
A few months ago, Leon went and got take-out Chinese food for everyone at the Junk Yard. Nicholas stopped by while we were eating, odd man out in his fancy black blazer and wingtips. I think the teasing he gets for his typically Rose-esque wardrobe is why he clings to the khakis:See! I can be casual, too.
He’d planned to take me out to dinner as a surprise and didn’t understand that I didn’t want to put aside cheap take-out that wasn’t even that good in favor of driving an hour to an upscale restaurant. I was part of something here, this Junk Yardfamily. He was the outsider, annoyed that I’d undermined his plans. Annoyed that I had a new family and he wasn’t invited in.
With the surprise dinner thwarted, he wasn’t sure whether we wanted him hanging around. He strolled awkwardly about the shop for a few minutes, clearly tense, shooting us looks whenever we laughed. I didn’t join him while he meandered through the aisles, painfully aware that half of my coworkers didn’t like him. I didn’t want them to tar me with the same brush. Joining Nicholas would be like declaring my allegiance to him, and then I’d be the odd man out, too.
So I stayed where I was and didn’t try to alleviate his awkwardness. Didn’t try to bring him into our conversation. I took everybody’s straw wrappers and tied them into bracelets, which we all put on, even Melissa. Nicholas walked over while I was tying an extra straw wrapper, so I handed it to him. An afterthought.
And he’d kept it. He easily could have thrown it out when we moved, but here it sits. Nicholas’s secret sentimentality.
My throat burns. My fingers curl around the piece of trash, preserved in this drawer like a precious treasure. I hear a fit of coughing from downstairs and return the straw wrapper bracelet to where I found it, then hurry from the room.
When I descend the stairs, I find Nicholas sprawled on the couch, coughing in his sleep. Used tissues clump on the coffee table and floor. He’s twisted up in the blankets like he’s been tossing and turning, shirt riding up to expose a gap of stomach. His hair’s a mess and his glasses are askew on his face. He looks young and flushed and sweet.
I carefully remove his glasses and put them on the coffee table, then feel his forehead. He’s clammy, but no fever. He doesn’tknow I’m watching him, which gives me free rein to have a closer look. His bone structure is so elegant, I almost hate him for it. He swerved all of Harold’s genes while developing as an embryo and he’s only going to get more distinguished-looking as he ages.
The tissue box is empty, so I go pull down a fresh one from a closet. Then I see he’s had quite a night down here by himself, drugstore paraphernalia scattered all over the counter under the cabinet where we keep antacids and allergy tablets and the like. There’s a plastic medicine cup in the sink with a drop of cherry-red liquid in it. It hits me that he probably slept downstairs so that his coughing wouldn’t wake me up, and my heart makes a little tick, rolling over.
I root through the cabinets and come up with a bag of cough drops, so I leave those on the table for him, too.
“Just had to get that canoe, didn’t you,” I murmur to myself, padding into the drawing room. I sneak behind his desk to look outside and almost gasp.
It’s a wonderland out there. A good four inches of shimmering white covers everything, even the pond, which means that canoe isn’t going anywhere. It’s stranded in the middle, surrounded by ice. The forest is breathtakingly beautiful with sunrise glowing up over the edge of the world, coloring the spaces between branches like stained glass.
I wish Nicholas were awake to see this, but then again, snow isn’t as magical to him as it is to me. For him, snow means he has to go and—
Oh, crap.
My joy explodes to dust. Nicholas once left me in a bookstore to drive to his parents’ house and carry groceries in from Deborah’s trunk in the pouring rain. He did this because shecalled and asked him to. He mows their grass and fixes things around their house and worries about their memories and medical appointments and finances. He’s incurably concerned, and will baby them for as long as he lives even if they don’t necessarily need it.
I stare at his miserable form on the couch, back convulsing off the cushions with each coughing jag. He’s so exhausted, the coughing doesn’t even wake him up. This man is sick, but that’s not going to stop him from going over to his parents’ house this morning and shoveling their driveway. That’s just Nicholas. He’s That Guy.
I glance outside again at the snow, at the thermometer on the other side of the window that declares it’s nineteen degrees, and I think with a vehemence that jolts me:No.
No way in hell.
There’s only one way to stop him, so that’s the way I’ve got to go. I reach for my coat and hat in the closet but see his coveralls and raise an eyebrow in consideration. It might not be a bad idea to wear something a little more heavy-duty. After I tug my Ghostbuster gear on and roll up the pant legs about a mile until the cuffs no longer drag, I decide to go the whole hog and grab his hideous earflap hat, too. It smells like him, which is oddly comforting even though he’s right here, and the fleece is so soft and comfortable.
I need to get me one of these.
