My throat was too tight to speak.
“I don’t blame you,” he continued. “I never blamed you. I blamed myself for not being strong enough to walk away first. We were on this... carousel, you know? Round and round, same patterns, same pain, and neither of us could figure out how to get off.” Another tear slid down his cheek. “You were the one who finally said enough. You stopped the ride. I wish I’d been brave enough to do it myself.”
I swallowed hard.
“But I didn’t get off. I just... found a new partner for the ride.” A bitter exhale. “And then Julien left. And my skating was falling apart. And I stopped sleeping. Stopped functioning. And then I was so desperate for rest that I did something stupid.”
“I’m so sorry.” The words were useless, inadequate, but they were all I had.
“I know.” He squeezed my hand back. “I didn’t ask you here to make you feel guilty. I asked because—” He hesitated. “Because I needed to see that you were okay. That leaving actually helped you. That at least one of us was getting better.”
I thought about lying. About pretending I had it all figured out, that I was fully healed, that Chicago had fixed everything.
But Nico deserved better than that.
“I’m trying,” I said honestly. “I’m not there yet. But I’m trying. And that’s more than I could say six months ago.”
“Good.” He smiled, watery and fragile but real. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
We sat like that for a while, holding hands, not speaking. The nurse came in once to check on us and left again without comment. Through the narrow sliver of window, the light shifted from afternoon to early evening.
“There’s someone, isn’t there?” Nico asked eventually. “Someone who won’t just stand there watching you spiral. Someone who’d stop the ride and pull you off.”
I hesitated. It felt cruel to talk about Derek here, now, in this room.
“You can tell me,” he said. “I want to know. I want to know you’re not alone in Chicago.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “There’s someone. It’s… new. Complicated. But good. I think it’s good.”
“Is he kind to you?”
“Yeah.” My voice cracked. “He’s really kind.”
Nico nodded slowly, something like peace settling over his features.
“Then hold onto that,” he said. “Don’t do what I did. Don’t let it get so bad that you can’t see any other way out.”
I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to our joined hands, crying in a way I hadn’t cried since the night on Derek’s bathroom floor.
“I’m going to get help,” Nico said, his free hand coming up to rest on my hair. “Real help. They’re transferring me to a residential program next week. Somewhere outside the city, away from skating, away from all of it.”
“That’s good,” I managed. “That’s really good.”
“You said it gets different,” he said quietly. “I’m going to hold onto that. I’m going to try to believe you.”
“It does.” I lifted my head and looked at him—this boy I’d loved, this boy I’d almost destroyed, this boy who was somehow still here despite everything. “It really does. And you’re going to get there. I know you will.”
“Maybe we can both make it,” he said softly. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That would be something.”
The nurse knocked on the door. My time was up.
I stood, still holding his hand, reluctant to let go.
“Théo?” Nico’s voice stopped me at the door.
I turned.
