“So you see it, too, right?” Nico spins around, away from the house, shrinking in on himself. “Fucking hell, he’s still here. He’s still here.” He drops into a crouch, the bag with his breakfast bagel falling to the ground and his head suddenly down between his knees as he takes several fast, shallow breaths. I’m pretty sure he’s going to throw up again.
I kneel down next to him and don’t even think twice before my arm goes up around his shoulders. Tension radiates off him, and I squeeze him gently. “Breathe. Deep, slow breaths.”
“I can’t take slow fuckin’ breaths,” he hisses. “Dammit. Dammit, I—I can’t—I can’t believe he’s still here. Fuck!” He smashes a fist into the hard ground, then growls a few more choice curse words. And he’s shaking. Badly. And still barely breathing.
I stand slowly, pulling him up with me, and then I hold him tightly to me. He doesn’t fight it, and instead, his arms loop aroundmy waist, and he clings to me, burying his head in my chest.
“Fuck,” he says again, his voice muffled and raw.
A million questions come to my mind, but he’s so upset right now that I’m scared to ask even the most obvious one. I have to, though, because I feel like I really need to know. Bracing myself for his backlash, I say, “Since when?”
“Friday night,” he mumbles against me.
That explains a whole lot, especially why he showed up at my house at one thirty in the morning, looking like he’d been through the wringer. I hug him a little tighter, though I’m not sure what else to say right then, and so we just stand there for a few more minutes. When he eventually pulls away, he wipes his cheeks. His face is red, his eyes are puffy, and his shoulders are still tense. He keeps his back to the house and crosses his arms over his chest.
“I’ll go,” I say, without really thinking it through. “I’ll grab your stuff, and then we can go back to my house so you can get changed. What all do you need? Your wallet, your—”
“No.”
“Nico.”
“Alex,” he retorts, and he glances up at me very briefly before turning back around toward the house. He bites his lower lip. “W-wait here for me?”
I shake my head. “Let me come with you.”
“No.”
He starts to walk, stiffly but with purpose, and I follow him. Like hell I’m waiting here. He drops his chin but doesn’t stop walking.
“Please stay here,” he says, the rough words simmering with whatever anger is building in him.
“I’m not going to let him hurt you again. Not even a chance. I’m coming with you.” I frown. “Please, Nico. I don’t want you to go alone.”
He stops and closes his eyes, and his hands fall to his sides and ball up into fists. Suddenly, he looks twelve again, about to pull away from me as he had in the beginning, when that asshole first started hurting him. He didn’t really keep anything from me, though we also didn’t talk about it too much. But as the bruises gradually got worse, so did his fear and anxiety and depression. He got quieter, and then, after that bastard Patrick finally hit Nico in the face and broke his nose, Nico started to have strong reactions to anyone touching him. His anxiety morphed, making him prone to irritability and anger. And hissocialanxiety ballooned into something almost unmanageable.
He seemed to only find solace in being alone, or in being alonewith me. He let me hug him, comfort him.
He trusted me then. And I need him to trust me now, too.
“Come on,” I say quietly, and I start walking, slowly, to give him a chance to catch up. His feet stutter a little as he gets moving, and then he’s silent as we make our way up the driveway, our shoes kicking up dust.
The small one-story home has seen better days. I haven’t been here in a while, but it looks rougher than I remember. The siding is faded, its medium-brown paint peeling, and one of the windows has a long crack in the glass, stretching all the way from the top right corner to the lower left. The fascia along the lower edge of the roof is rotted, and the gutter at the near side of the house has come loose, drooping down to show an overflow of dead leaves and other junk. And the garden under the front windows is full of dry weeds and a single dead rosebush.
I remember planting that rosebush with Nico as a present to his mom when we were ten. He saved up his allowance for months to buy it for her. She loved it.
And it was shortly after that when Patrick started coming around.
I swallow hard and glance over at Nico. He’s staring at the ground, his expression still hardened and angry and scared. I step a little closer to him.
“In and out, okay?”
He nods. Then he blinks, long and slow. “I need clothes. And my wallet and keys. A-and maybe...” He shakes his head and then moves ahead of me, taking the porch steps two at a time.
I follow, unsure of what we’re about to encounter but certain we’re going to get through it together.
Chapter Nine
Nico
