Nico sleptin the car while Cooper set up the campsite. He had fallen asleep a half-hour into the drive and slept the entire three hours. It’d been the first time Cooper had driven more than a half-hour since the accident and he was in a mild state of panic the entire time.
The sun fell from the evening sky, replaced with the shadow of night.
Cooper built a teepee with kindling first, added small twigs, and lit the fire from beneath. It quickly blossomed into a proper campfire, stacked with logs purchased from a random person off the side of the road selling firewood.
He heard the car door slam shut and looked up to see Nico rubbing his eyes.
“Good morning, princess,” Cooper said with a sly grin. He rubbed his hands together, dusting off the remnants of bark. “It’s actually nighttime.”
“Did you seriously bring me camping?” Nico dragged his palms over his face and sighed. “I fucking hate camping.”
As did Cooper.
Cooper patted the back of a blue camping chair that still had the tags on it. “Come take a seat.”
Almost everything still had tags on it. He’d ordered all the essentials from the local Walmart and picked it up using a fake name. The middle-aged woman who brought him his order didn’t seem to recognize him, and thank God because he had no idea how he was going to explain driving down to Orlando if anyone caught him. After all, he was supposed to be prepping for the Pro Bowl game he was voted to play in the following week preceding the Super Bowl.
Nico took a seat beside the growing campfire, dropping his backpack on the ground beside him. Cooper tore off the tag, threw it into the inferno, and took a seat in a red chair on the opposite side of the fire.
A chorus of frogs croaked in the distance, a melody Cooper couldn’t translate, but he imagined they were arguing with each other. Obnoxious, but it was better than the feeling of standing in a room with a hundred people vying for your attention. Out there, in the middle of nowhere, Cooper found peace and he hoped Nico would find the same.
“Why did you bring me out here?” Nico asked, his voice strained, as he pulled a Knights hoodie over his head.
Because Cooper knew what it was like to lose someone and when that happened, he got none of the things he needed. Instead, he got everything he didn’t. Thoughts and prayers from the entire fucking world, well-wishes to get better by friends and fans alike, bouquets and cards, hugs he didn’t consent to, and leadership who watched as their wallets got a whole lot smaller. Nothingbut fucking noise when all he wanted was to be left the fuck alone.
All these were things Cooper never said out loud, not even to Stassi.
“After Luke died, all I needed was silence but everyone around me wouldn’t shut the fuck up.” Cooper shifted his gaze to the fire between them. “So, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to shut the fuck up.”
“You know I don’t like the silence.”
“Nobody is stopping you from talking,” Cooper said with a barely there smirk.
“If this is your best attempt at roleplaying a therapist, I don’t think you’re properly equipped.”
“I took a few psychology courses in college. I know things.”
“Do you believe in god?”
Cooper shrugged. “It’s not something I think about too often, but whenever I do think about it, I’m cursing his name so I’m going to go with an emphatic no.”
“Do you know my dad is a pastor?”
“It was in your dosier.” The only thing that wasn’t in Nico’s file was that he was bisexual, but who would’ve known?
“I don’t believe in god, either.” Nico said flatly. “I think that makes me a bad person.”
“You’re cocky, bratty, and you get on my last damn nerve sometimes, but you’re not a bad person. Trust me, I know plenty of people who are terrible. You’re nothing like them.”
Nico tongued the inside of his cheek. His eyes searched the dark forest around them. “I was pretty awful to mybrother after his accident. I said some horrible things to him when he was sleeping. I’ll never know if he could hear me, and I don’t know if that comforts me or makes me even angrier.”
“You’re mad at him for leaving you.” Cooper said, and it wasn’t a question. It was a feeling he knew all too well.
“I was angry at him for so long, but I’m not angry anymore.” Nico dropped his head. “It’s a feeling that’s something worse, like every time my heart beats, it feels as if it’s being ripped in half.”
Nico leaned over the side of his chair, dug through his bag, and pulled out a bottle of pills. Cooper jumped to his feet, ripped the bottle from his hands, examined the label, and tossed the bottle into the fire.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Nico shouted as he stood, his eyes going straight to the fire as if he might make an attempt at salvaging the pills.
