“That’s the problem, Lincoln.” I raised my voice. “Youdohave a clean slate.That’s why you’re behaving this way. We’re not on equal footing; you can’t remember shit you’ve done.”
“Shit I need to earn forgiveness for, right?” He held a picture of him as a little boy, hair so blond it looked white flowing in the wind as his brunette-haired mom swang him in the air. “I did something bad. I can handle that.”
“You can’t earn forgiveness for things you don’t remember doing.”
His knees shifted, drawing closer to his chest, and for a second, the man who tormented me in high school blurred, while the boy in the photo became clearer—folded in on himself, cornered.
“It’s my choice to try.”
“No. I’m telling you, you’re wasting your time.”
He finally looked at me, eyes bloodshot but steady, his thumb tracing circles into the corner of the photo as if he could smooth it back to new. “Lucky me that my time is mine.”
Truth is, I wanted to tell him we could leave the past behind. Not forgive him but move… ahead of it. I wanted to be strong enough, lofty enough, above it all to be able to find a way to be around him without all the baggage. It simply was notme.This… romantic delusion he had was insane, but I felt envious that he could be free.
Except he wasn’t, was he? He was weighted by everything he didn’t even know he’d done. My forgotten pain was his own oppressive choke of grief.
I sat down next to him. The mess of clothes and overturned drawers between us a metaphor for the obstacle course of our past. I wrapped my arms around my knees, making myself small. “There’s so much you don’t know, and it’s heavy shit.”
His gaze lifted to mine, his eyes glacial blue and so intent I almost looked away. “Doesn’t matter. I can handle it.”
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Dust and the smell of old cedar clung to my airways until I could barely breathe. Then he shifted, resting his head against the bed. “You don’t have to believe me. I’m going to figure out every single fucked-up thing I’ve done. And I’m going to make up for it.”
He shook his head, then switched topics. “Now, tell me, Nina. Tell me more about your parents.”
We were so starved for the space to grieve that we both put everything aside. For the first time, we were on the same side of the line, at the same level. Equals in sorrow and possibilities.
11
Lincoln
When I opened my eyes, my body screamed in protest. I shifted, my chin brushing against Nina’s temple. Her head on my shoulder brought last night back into focus.
Her hair spilled in long black waves, tickling my arm and ribs, right where I carried the inked songbird. I’d wrapped my arm around her waist, my hand high on her thigh. She leaned in, the faint curve of her nose, strong yet delicate, nudged my collarbone.
We’d talked until the night didn’t feel so dark. Nina’s eyes had closed, her head resting on me, and I’d watched her until my head dropped back and sleep claimed me. We slept snuggled against each other, sitting on the floor, my back against the bed. Something had shifted in her. She wasn’t rushing into my arms, but we’d built a fragile bridge from the wreckage of losing our parents.
Careful not to wake her, I slipped an arm under her knees and lifted her onto my bed. Her hair fanned across my pillow asshe curled on her side. For a moment, I thought she’d wake up, but she settled deeper into sleep.
The room was all wrong, cluttered and messy, a slogan for my thoughts. Before heading to the kitchen, I slid my mom’s photo album into the box and pushed it beneath the bed. It’d been safe there. So safe it was almost lost to me.
Since figuring out Nina and I had never been together, I’d hit pause. It unsettled her. I’d told her I was coming for her with everything I had, and she didn’t think I’d keep my word. But… Ihad.
Now, with Carmen feeding her clients and more calls trickling in, I was on a countdown. Unless I managed to change things between us fast, she had no reason to ever want to hear from me again. As much as the thought gutted me; I understood when I found that fucking text thread with Natasha.
It wasn’t just the sexting or the pictures even past me had ignored—it was the way she mocked Nina. And asshole Lincoln, as I called that version of me, hadn’t stopped her. He’d encouraged her. He only texted Natasha back when she trashed Nina. That had sent me heaving, about to throw up more than once. And then there was her cousin—my supposed best friend—egging me on in a different conversation. The shithead wouldn’t even return my calls.Who does that?
Even though she wasn’t mine, I’dlearnedher. I got up early to cook—not because I cared about the food, but because she lit up when it was hot on the table. She kept the nebulizer in her room and hated having to get up to use it, so figured out what kind it was and ordered one to put by the armchair. She hated it when I touched her work things, but if I left coffee next to where I’d move them to, she’d purse her lips and ignore my trespass.
She followed these little rules and expected you to figure them out. Somewhere along the way, she’d decided that if someone cared, they’d notice. And I did. I liked her at thehospital, and I talked a good game then, butnowI was building my days around showing her. If that wasn’t wooing, I didn’t know what was.
As I was getting ready to cook, there was a prickle in my mind that wouldn’t let me get started, and I had the compulsion to check on Nina. It was almost eleven and one of her work-from-home days, so she wasn’t in a rush, but she’d never slept in.
The sound that hit me as I turned into the corridor wasn’t anything I’d ever heard before. A raw, tearing wheeze, too jagged to be breathing, scraped through the quiet. My gut dropped.
“Nina?”
She was there—barely upright, one hand pressed against the wall was the only thing holding her up. Her other hand twitched in the direction of her room, but her body wasn’t listening. Her knees buckled, lips parting on a broken gasp.
