“I’ll give you some privacy,” he says understandably.
As soon as he leaves the bathroom I cross back over to the sink and retrieve my phone.
I dial the phone number to Connor’s school. After speaking with the counselor she has agreed to let Connor leave school early and his absence of school for the next week.
With shaky fingers I click on the next contact. Nico answers on the third ring and he sounds breathless which can only mean on thing. “This better be good, Oak,” he warns me and I hear a woman giggling in the background as the sound of kisses are being planted on god knows where.
“Off speaker, Nico.”
I literally hear the woman pout as he orders her out of the room and after a minute he switches off speaker phone. “Speaking confidentially, I assume. What have you done that acquires my services this time?”
“I killed someone.”
Oak
Everyone’s here.
And it fucking hurts to see them all in pain.
“Is Slater okay?” Nora asks me with concern in a soft voice. She sits beside me while our mom sits next to her. Connor, who had been sitting on my opposite side now has his head resting on my lap. I glance down at the kid, a kid who was forced to become a man, and my heart aches. He’s already suffered too much. And seeing him try to hold himself together and not break down and cry when I told him about his sister nearly broke me. But what killed me was when he finally broke, and he crashed himself into me, trusting me, and didn’t want to let go. He reminded me so much of a child then. A child he was never allowed to be. Even in his sleep he holds my hand in his.
Truth be told I don’t know if Slater is okay. I just know what happened to Grace with the social worker triggered something with him. One man suffering from PTSD to another can tell when one’s triggered. Slater has his past kept under lock and key. We all know he grew up in foster care but that’s the only thing he’s divulged with us. Something happened to him. None of us know what.
“Will he?” My sister asks again and I blink at her. “Will he be okay?” She begins chipping on her fingernails. A coping mechanism ever since that night nine years ago. I asked her about it once. Why she chips away at her nails until they’re down to the nubs. She said she’d only answer if I ever told her why I twitch my fingers. We never did answer each other. The wounds were too fresh then for the both of us. How can I tell my sister my fingers twitch in remembrance of my brothers, how it was the last thing I saw moving on their bodies? It stuck with me, the twitch of the fingers. Just as the chipping has stuck with her.
“Slater will be okay.” But I don’t sound the least bit convincing.
Nora nods her head, chipping away at her fingers some more. “He’ll be okay,” she assures the both of us but her chipped fingernails say otherwise.
Crow, the man who has had his eyes on Nora since the moment he’s arrived, crosses over in the waiting room and crouches down in front of her.
Ever so gently he pries her fingers apart. Shockingly, she allows him, all the while her breath is in her throat. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
Nora swallows. “I’m not-”
He lays her fingers in his hand and inspects her nails. She was getting close to the nub. And soon when the nub wouldn’t be enough, she would’ve torn at her skin.
Then in a voice with pure conviction and strength he says to her, no, promises her, “He’ll be okay. Grace will be okay. And so will you.”
Nora breathes. And I notice how her breaths are nice and even. How her hand isn’t trembling in his. How her body is lax and eyes vulnerable. The only other man she’s ever this comfortable around is me.
He inches closer to her and she lets him. “Have I ever lied to you?”
“No,” she responds softly.
“Then don’t hurt yourself. Everything will be okay.” He squeezes her fingers with a gentle smile and as he goes to release her she tightens her fingers in his hand. And I swear for the first time in my life I see Crow freeze. He stares down at her fingers in his hand with a mixture of disbelief, wonderment, awe and relief.
And fuck. I know that look.
He’s in love with her.
“Thanks, Blake.” Her voice is as soft as a feather but to look at him her voice saying his name lands a grand impact.
“Anytime, Nor,” he promises her. “Anytime at all.” She nods her head at him with an even softer smile. A smile I haven’t seen from her since she had a crush on a boy in the eleventh grade.
And I realize just as Grace has brought me back to life, bringing back pieces of the man I was before war, Crow is doing the same for Nora.
She releases him then but he doesn’t stray far from her. He keeps an eye on her, like her own watchful protector.
