I’m anxious, and I want to get this over with. Just like I promised myself back in that room, I want to tell him exactly how I feel and exactly what I need.
I just know it’s going to hurt like hell.
Twenty
Nash
Corey is quiet on the short drive to my house, and he maintains his silence until I close the front door behind me.
“Cuppa?” I offer, unsure what else to do.
“Please.”
I busy myself in the kitchen, filling the kettle, switching it on, grabbing mugs from the cupboard, and putting the teabags straight in them. I can’t be arsed to bother with the teapot this morning. I’m exhausted.
I watch Corey from the corner of my eye as he makes his way into the kitchen, having removed his shoes, and I notice he’s wearing my medical school hoodie that had been hangingon the coat hooks. I smile at his questioning gaze, reassuring him that it’s fine for him to borrow it, a second one of my jumpers for his collection. He smiles back at me, but like the one he gave me earlier, it doesn’t meet his eyes.
He looks shell-shocked, and I can’t say I blame him after what he’s been through the last few days. The last few years, really, but this sweet man just looks so lost in this moment, and I want to make it better.
“What’s going on, little rabbit?” I say, hoping the use of the nickname that’s just between us will relieve some of the tension in his body. His shoulders are doing a great job of warming up his ears right now, and I’m pretty certain I could iron a shirt on his back, it’s so rigid.
“Oh, you know, the usual. Got a little bit kidnapped and watched my best friend get seven bells of shit kicked out of him, no biggie.” His wry tone brings a smile to my lips, and I relax more when he sits on one of the barstools on the opposite side of my kitchen island.
I tilt my head at him and chuckle. “Yeah, no biggie. Just a typical weekday afternoon around here.”
He snorts a laugh, then folds over the edge of the island, laying his cheek on thecold marble surface. For a moment, I think he’s laughing as I pour the boiling water into the mugs on the counter behind me, but when I turn back around, I see his shoulders are not shaking with mirth, but rather with sadness. Despair, even.
I quickly make my way to him and wrap my arms around him like I did in his hospital room. His sobs are visceral, pouring out of him like a dark poison he needs to expel. He can’t stop. I rub his back and shush him, telling him how good he is, how brave, how everything’s going to be alright. I hold him like that for at least twenty minutes while he cries, and cries, and cries, and I want nothing more than to take all of his pain away and carry it for him. Or better yet, cast it into the sea for him so he never has to look upon it again.
This sweet, precious man should be cherished and cared for, not treated so abominably by those who supposedly care about him. I just thank God he doesn’t seem to have been physically hurt. This time, at least.
When his sobs quiet, and his body stops shaking, and he is finally still, aside from the occasional stuffy snuffle into my neck, I loosen my hold on him and move him back slightly so I can see his face. He clings tighter to me for asecond before he relents. He seems reticent to let me go, and that, coupled with his lack of eye contact, triggers my awareness. He’s looking down into the space between our bodies, and when he starts fiddling with the zip of my fleece jacket, I can’t take it anymore. I hook my forefinger under his chin and lift it so I can see his beautiful eyes. Once again, he has the look of a startled rabbit, caught in headlights he never should have had to face.
“Hi,” I say softly, and he smiles a watery smile at me.
“Hi.”
“I’m so glad you’re OK.”
“I’m so glad you came for me,” he replies, and tears start falling down his cheeks again, a slow, steady stream this time, rather than the great heaving sobs from a moment ago. The fact he thought I might not guts me. I know we agreed we were friends and nothing more, but these last few days have cemented that’s not what I want anymore. But I hope he knows that if friends are all we can ever be, I’d never let him be alone after something like this.
Deciding not to press this topic when he’s still so upset, I take another tack.
“Do you want to talk about whathappened?” I ask.
It takes him a minute, but then he nods and starts talking while I get rid of the now stewed tea and start afresh.
“I just…” He sighs as though he doesn’t know where to start. I keep quiet, hoping he’ll find a way to say what he needs to say. I want him to purge this experience from his being so it can’t weigh him down anymore, even though, rationally, I know it’s not that simple.
“As soon as I heard Dominic’s voice in my ear that day, I felt like I shut down,” he explains, his voice thick and tight. “Like I went right back to the pushover coward I was the whole time I lived with him.” He spits his words as though disgusted with them, with himself.
“You weren’t a coward, Corey. You aren’t a coward,” I say firmly, wanting him to hear me. “You did what you had to do to survive, and you got out when you needed to. Not everybody would’ve had the strength to do that.”
He sniffs wetly.
“I know you’re right in here,” he gestures to his head. “But in here? I feel like I’ve let myself down.” His hand is pressed firmly over his heart, and mine cracks a little for him. His life has been one hardship after another, fullof people who let him down, abandoned him – whether through choice or death – and hurt him. “You know what I kept thinking about while we were locked in that room?”
“What’s that?” I ask gently, handing him his tea, then ushering him over to the sofa, where we sit sideways, facing each other, knees pressed together.
