Then she starts crying again, her slight body shaking against me. “I don’t want to have all these feelings!” she sobs. “It’s too much.”
“It’s okay.” I’m not really sure what to say. I do know that I want her to keep talking. “It’s okay to have feelings, Nikki.”
“But it hurts.” She whimpers. “It hurts so much. Oh, Marek. It hurts so much.”
Somehow I know she’s not talking about me. “I know.” I stroke her hair again. “I know it does.”
“It’s all my fault,” she sobs. “People are dead and it’s all my fault.”
“Christ, Nikki. It’s not your fault. Not at all.”
“It was my concert. My responsibility.”
“No. You were in no way responsible.”
“I feel that way, though.” She cries harder. “I feel responsible. People wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for my concert. Families are missing people now. Kids are in the hospital hurt. In pain. It’s just… unimaginable. I never, ever thought something like that would happen. I was all worried about my career and going on this tour and selling tickets and I was so s-selfish.”
I close my eyes, pain slicing through me as if I’m feeling hers. “You couldn’t have imagined it. It was an accident. You can’t blame yourself. I understand why you feel that way, though.”
“Really?” She sniffs.
“Yeah, of course.” I pause, gathering my thoughts. “When something like that happens, something terrible, it’s normal to want to know why it happened. There has to be a reason. Otherwise it’s beyond comprehension. And…” I swallow. “Sometimes it’s easier to accept what happened if we blame ourselves.”
I feel her settle a little against me, as if she’s listening, although she’s still swiping at tears.
“When things happen that are out of our control, it’s a normal way to give us a sense of control over our lives. We think of what we could have done differently. But that doesn’t make sense because there’s nothing you could have done differently that would have stopped that.”
She shifts in my arms to look at me again. “H-how do you know all this?”
Am I going to do this? Yeah. If it’ll help her, I’ll rip my heart out of my chest and lay it out in front of her. “I’ll tell you. Let me get rid of this rubber.” I grimace and gesture at myself. “I’ll be right back.”
She nods and reluctantly separates herself from me, and I hustle into the bathroom to clean up. Washing my hands, I look at myself in the mirror. I don’t like talking about shit that happened to me. Why would anyone want to talk about pain and hurt? I like to keep things light and easy. But if it’ll help Nikki, I’ll do it.
Back in bed, we attach to each other like we’re made to fit together. I hand her some tissues I grabbed from the bathroom, and she mops up.
“I’m all snotty,” she says, her nose sounding stuffed up.
“It’s okay. I can handle a little snot. You know hockey players are out there hocking loogies all over.”
A watery laugh springs from her. “True.”
Maybe I don’t have to tell this story. Maybe she’s forgotten. But…
“Okay, tell me,” she says softly.
“This is not something I enjoy talking about. I’ll tell you on one condition.”
“What?”
“That you do the same. Talk to me more about what you’re feeling.”
She doesn’t reply for a fraught moment. Then mumbles, “Okay. I’ll try.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “When I was eighteen, the fall after I got drafted by the Storm, I got cut by a skate blade. On my throat.” I swallow. “I nearly died.”
Nikki draws in a sharp breath. Her gaze and her fingertips immediately go the scar on my neck. “This?”
“Yeah.”
