“No, the label is throwing it. But if it’s too much, we cantake a lap and leave.” She snuggled back against his side, then pointed at his phone. “I didn’t bring anything to wear, though. Can you look up if Natasha’s Closet is still open? It’s the best vintage store in the world; I used to get all my awards show outfits there.”
“Sure,” Niko said, swiping open his phone.
The two of them were immediately greeted by the picture of Merritt flipping off the camera.
Beside him, Merritt stiffened like she’d been turned to ice. He didn’t even think she was breathing.
Niko swiped the picture away. “I was just deciding what color T-shirt I wanted,” he said, trying to break the tension. She relaxed into him slightly, but she still didn’t say anything. He could practically hear her mind whirring away beside him, like an old Discman.
He typed inNatasha’s Closetand found it was still in business, tilting the screen in her direction. She made an almost inaudible noise in the back of her throat.
He turned the phone off and put it down.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“What areyouthinking?” she retorted immediately.
He bit his lip. “I’d never done that before,” he said. “Looked you up, I mean. But I wanted…I wanted to know more about what your life was like here. I’m sorry. I should’ve just asked you.”
She was quiet again. “Can you show me?”
“Show you what?”
“What comes up. When you look.”
He nodded slowly, then passed the phone to her.
She was silent as she scrolled, shifting until she was sitting upright again, so he did, too. “I don’t know why I thought Icould come back here without facing this,” she said, and he could hear the exhaustion in her voice.
“How do you feel?”
When she spoke, her voice was soft, pitched high and tight in the back of her throat. “Sad for her,” she said, her gaze still on the screen. “And proud of myself.”
She leaned back against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, nestling his face onto her shoulder. “You should be.”
She turned her chin toward him, her cheek brushing his. “Something happened at the studio today.”
His stomach clenched as she recounted the story, loaded pauses in between each sentence, closing it with a rushed “Do you think I overreacted?”
He shook his head. “Definitely not. Not if that’s how she responded when you asked. And even if you had, it would make sense that you would feel…I don’t know…triggered, I guess, by the whole thing.” He laced his hand through hers where it rested on her thigh.
“You want to know something weird? I think it helped me forgive myself a little bit, in a way I don’t know if I was able to until now. Like, I still get so caught up in shame about how I was acting during that time—how I was embarrassing myself, or who I was hurting. And I do take responsibility for that, or I try to, anyway. But also…I was constantly in really fucked-up situations, and I was so conditioned to normalize it. And it’s like, no, actually, none of this is fucking normal. And Iknewthat, but I don’t think I really felt it until today, being on the other side of it.” Her voice grew more impassioned as she spoke, coming out harsh and bitter by the end.
He pressed his lips to her temple, and she shut her eyes with a heavy exhale. “Does that mean you’re glad you came?”
“That’s the other weird thing,” she said. “The work part of it was…actually kind of amazing. It made me think…maybe I’m ready to figure out how making music can be part of my life.”
“Really?” He sat up straighter, pulling her closer. “Merritt, that’s incredible.”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “But I don’t think I ever want to set foot in this city again.”
They settled back on the couch together, intertwined from their limbs to their fingers.
“Do you see me differently now?” He felt more than heard her say it into his chest.
“Sort of,” he admitted. “Not in a bad way. It’s just hard to believe that’s you.”
Her laugh reverberated through his chest. “That’s the nicest thing you could ever say to me.”
