“I couldn’t think about anything other than how much I’d wanted to be able to show Nancy the mural in her room. The thought I might never get to show her broke me a little inside.”
A wave of guilt crashes over me, even though I know it’s ridiculous.
“She er… She saw it already,” I say, wincing at my own words. He looks up at me, those forest green eyes wide and sad, and I wish more than anything that I could go back in time and make sure he was there when she saw that piece of art for the first time. “She came for a visit to the house, and she wanted to see her bedroom. I’m so sorry, Corey. I’d have kept it for a surprise if I’d reali—”
“Don’t be silly,” he reassures me as he hastily places his cup down on the coffee table before taking my hands in his. “I’m just glad shesaw it. Did she… like it?” The hesitancy and uncertainty in his voice are like salt in the open cracks of my heart.
“Ba—” I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying a word I won’t be able to take back, no matter how much I wish it could be true. “Corey, she loved it. She spent ages waving her stuffed seal’s fins at the seals you painted, and she had these huge eyes as she looked at it like it was the best thing she’d ever seen.”
His smile is wobbly, and his chin quivers at the image.
“Really?” His voice is nothing more than a whisper, a breath of sound in the quiet of my living room.
“Yes, really.” I can’t stand this anymore. I pull him to me and hold him to my chest, lying back slightly so we are stretched out next to each other on the couch.
We lie like that for a while, just breathing together in a shared moment, relief and affection our only company.
“When I was… away,” he says, leaning back just enough so he can look at me, “all I wanted was to get out, and get home. I wanted to tell you that…” He looks away, his words trailing off as he tugs his lip between his teeth, chewing it nervously. I cup his chin and draw his gaze back to me.
“Tell me what?” I ask, aware of nothing more than how close my lips are to his.
“I wanted to tell you that,” he takes a deep breath. “That I like you. A lot. And I wanted to see if maybe we could find a way to be more than friends. I know we talked about this already, but that’s how I was feeling.”
I can’t speak, I’m so happy. He wants what I want. Could it be that simple? And then, he continues, and I know that no, of course it can’t.
“But…”
They say we feel emotions in our bodies. Anger makes our jaws clench and our shoulders tense. Surprise lifts our eyebrows to our hairline and makes our mouths slack. Fear tightens our chest and elevates our heart rate and breathing.
At that single word, but, I feel my limbs get heavy, and a knot of pain lodges itself in my throat. My body feels weighed down, fatigued by sadness.
“But?” I ask, voice barely even audible. His smaller hand reaches up to cup my cheek, and I see tears lining his eyes once again. Fuck, I hate seeing him cry.
“But I can’t, I won’t put you or Nancy in harm’s way. Dominic has proven what a piece of work he is – what he’s prepared to do to get to me – and he’s still out there just hiding away until he finds another opportunity, and fuck knows what he’ll decide to do next time.”
“He won’t—” He presses his index finger over my mouth to stop me from saying another word.
“I don’t know what he’ll do. He might do nothing, but I can’t risk that he’d hurt you, or try to take Nancy, or hurt Rain, or anyone else just to try and hurt me. He’s vicious, Nash. And petty, and he hates to lose. And right now, I know he feels like he’s lost a round. Fuck, he’s lost his brother. Toxic as their relationship is, he loves Dan. He won’t stop until he feels like he’s winning again. And I won’t put you at risk. I won’t put Nancy at risk. I…”
I’m shaking my head, a sick feeling that I know where he’s going with this, washing the fatigue away and leaving a tumbling ball of panic in my gut.
“I have to leave, Nash. I have to go somewhere he won’t think to find me, while I wait for the police to find him.”
“W-when?”
“Tonight? Tomorrow? I don’t know, but soon. I can’t stay here and put all the people I’ve come to care about – maybe even people I could love – at risk.” His eyes bore into mine like he’s trying to burn the meaning of his words into my soul.
“Stay,” I beg. I have no pride, no control over my emotions right now. All I want is to keep him here, safe in my home, in my arms, where I can protect him. “Please, just stay. We’ll figure it out, I promise. We’ll—”
“I can’t,” he interrupts. “If anything happened to you, or, God forbid, your daughter, because of me, I’d never forgive myself, Nash. It would taint everything we could be in the future because of who I was in my past. And that’s the other thing. I need help, Nash.
“These last few days have made me realise you were right to give me that card for a therapist. I need help to deal with all the shit I’ve been carrying around since my parents kicked me out. If I weren’t still so damaged by my past, I might have been stronger in that situation. I might not have gone straight back to the pathetic man I’d been before, happy enough to take whatever was doled out if it meant avoiding some other, worse thing.”
I hate everything about this situation, but I’m also so proud of him for this. Therapy is a huge step, one he hasn’t been ready to take yet, and I agree with him that he needs to speak to someone. Someone qualified who is objective and can help him understand his trauma and crucially, help him move on from it. Someone who can help him heal.
I can’t speak, though, so I just nod at him in understanding. His eyes soften even more as we continue speaking into the space between us.
“I want to feel stronger, Nash. Stronger for myself, and for my future. I would love nothing more than to explore what we could be in the future, but right now, I have to do the right thing – the grown-up thing – and walk away.”
