I inhale some of that beautifully sad nature shit for strength. “Only me. Not towards May. Not if I could help it, at least. Because since childhood, I took it all, so she didn’t have to. I shielded her from it. By being louder,smarter. By beingthe best. I didn’twantto be the best. Ihadto be the best. I took it all on—all of their attention and their wrath, just so they would leave May alone. I got straight A’s so that I would be the one berated for a B+. I was loud and talked back so that they wouldn’t look twice at May—she was the good one. The silent, deferential, perfect one. I played piano and violin really, really well, so that May could sit happily as a second chair clarinet player.”
“So I was never allowed to be average. I wasn’t allowed to rest. So that May could be happily average—so thatshecould rest. So I hustled.” A bitter laugh escapes me. “And for what? So I could get into Harvard and be their shiny little trophy?” I shake my head. “Didn’t get in. I blamed it on my GPA. I blamed it onyou. Got into NYU instead, and the second I got out from under them, moved into the dorms, I fell apart. No rules, no parents, no pressure? I went feral.”
My voice drops.
“I exploded. No curfews, no parents breathing down my neck, no one watching. I partied in the best city in the world for partying. Slept too little, drank too much, hooked up with people I didn’t even like because they could get me something.” I shake my head. “Even if that something was just a funny story in the morning.”
Shame washes over me, hot and tight, but Nico’s hand brushes against mine. Gentle. Intentional.
“Every relationship I had was a transaction. Attention for validation. Sex for connection. Proximity for status. We used each other as social currency. And I told myself I deserved it—after everything, I was owed some pandemonium. I was allowed to be selfish.”
“After we graduated high school, I was a huge fucking embarrassment to my parents, obviously. But then it was May’s time to shine. She thrived. And I was so proud of her—I am so fucking proud of her—but… But then I kept swinging, swinging, swinging, and my poor decisions started impacting her. Like… we used to live together in Chinatown. She’d come home from her MBA program to find me in her bed with some rando. Or she’d come home and I wouldn’t be there at all. For days. Without answering my phone. Or she wouldn’t be able to work because I’d have people over. That sort of shit.”
“She made me move back home, even if it was hell, because that was the kind of overbearing structure I needed again. She made me go to therapy. She made me get my shit together. It was her turn to watch over me. And then…” I blow out a breath.
“The engagement party,” Nico finishes for me.
“The engagement party,” I confirm. “And then…”
“This.”
“And then this.”
Nico wraps me up in his arms. Inthis.
“Thanks for telling me the rest,” he murmurs.
I shake my head.
“That’s not—I don’t think I’m done.”
His arms tighten.
I cling to him, now taking a hit of that Beautifully Sad Worst Enemy Shit directly into my lungs, my bloodstream.
“I’m either nothing, Nico,” I say, “or I’m just a bad fucking person.”
I’m surprised at how saying it out loud makes it feel smaller, as if it’s not pressing quite so hard on my ribs anymore.
Nico holds me tighter, and I can feel it in the way his whole body wraps around mine like armor that he wants to fight that thought for me. But he doesn’t say anything yet.
“I was jealous of you—I recognize that now. And none if it was your fucking fault. What a shitty fucking thing.” I tear at my hair while Nico tries to swat my hands down. “Also? Even when I got out of my mess? After the engagement party? I didn’t fix anything. I didn’t become a better person. Or at least… I just started hiding better. I keep Old Annie on a leash and hope she doesn’t maul anyone. I don’t…doanything, see anyone.” I’m rambling now. “I don’t have my name on anything and—shit, Nico. I don’t exist.”
Something about the way he has me, though, makes me doubt that, a little. One hand smoothing over my hair. The other tracing circles on my back. Slow, steady.
“You’re not a bad person,” he says once he feels me settle, quiet but resolute. “You were just a kid under too much pressure—too many unstable variables, not enough control. So you did what you had to do. You protected the person you loved. And when she was finally safe, you tried to rebalance the equation. You just over-corrected. You’re not empty, Annie. You’re still trying to find equilibrium.”
Jesus. I let out a laugh-sob hybrid. “Big-brain Dr. Nico.”
But something, I realize, has shifted in those few words.
Not an explosion, or a full epiphany, or some miraculous transformation. Just… something. A softening and a slight easing in my chest.
So I breathe. A real, full breath. And when I exhale, it’s like I’m letting go of something I’ve been clutching too tight for too long. I let it drain out of me, slow and quiet.
And what’s left isn’t nothing.
What’s left is warmth. Faint, but something. A flicker of light where the weight used to be.
