Chapter 3
Chapter three
Nicky
Aterrible, pleading scream shatters the night. It smashes into me and jolts me upright with my gun in my hand.
For one sharp, dizzy second, I think I’m under attack. The adrenaline is hot in my veins, metallic on my tongue.
I blink and focus on my dark bedroom. I’m home. It is the middle of the night. Was the scream merely a dream?
A pitiful whimpering sound seeps through the walls. My stomach churns. It wasn’t a dream. It was Liam. My best friend is screaming in his sleep.
I put my gun away and get out of bed. I pad silently down the hall to Liam’s room. The door is ajar, just like I left it hours ago.
He came out at dinnertime, and we ate pizza in front of the TV. Liam didn’t say much. He looked tired, and when I suggested an early night, he bolted.
And now he is having nightmares.
I push the door, and it swings silently open. Moonlight falls on the large bed, illuminating a curled-up figure under the covers. Fetal position. Facing me. He looks like he’s trying to make himself vanish.
I swallow and step forward. Liam’s breathing is too fast. It is hitching. From what I can tell by the shape of the covers, his knees are up to his chest and his head is tucked down. I think he is still lost in a dark dream.
I gently touch his shoulder.
He recoils. His entire body jerks backwards as if my touch burns more caustic than acid. His head snaps up, and the sheets fall back. His eyes are gray in the dark and impossibly wide. Strands of pale hair streak over his face.
The whimpers come again. Ragged, broken. Like someone being dragged over glass.
“Liam.”
A choked sound tears from his throat, and in the next second he’s thrashing, kicking free of the sheets, eyes wide and unseeing.
“Liam,” I rasp. “It’s me.”
But he’s lost. Fighting shadows. His fists pound weakly against my chest. I catch his wrists, not to pin him but to keep him from hurting himself. I keep my voice low and steady.
“Liam. You’re safe. It’s Nicky.”
His gray eyes snap to mine, glassy and frantic. He thrashes against me, chest heaving like he can’t pull air in. For a terrifying moment, he doesn’t know me. Doesn’t see me. Just some shadow closing in.
Then, like a crack of light through a storm, his gaze locks on mine.
“Nicky,” he rasps.
Then, I am falling. Crashing onto the bed next to him. His hands move from my tee shirt to my back, and he yanks me even closer to him.
I put my arms around him, and he clings on to me. He is trembling like a live wire, but he is quiet now. His lungs are calming down.
“You smell like home,” he whispers against my neck.
The words nearly gut me.
I laugh awkwardly, not quite sure what to make of this.
“Remember all the sleepovers we had?” asks Liam.
“Yeah,” I huff. Relieved that he is making some sense now. “When we were thirteen, you practically lived at my house, squishing into my tiny bed with me.”
“Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “We were like brothers.”
Silence falls. Thick and heavy. Weighted with the past and all the burned futures. All the might-have-beens and should-have-beens that have turned to dust, leaving an empty nothingness. Liam’s future is now unmapped and unknown. Our friendship has been shaken to its very core.
I hold him even tighter, as if I can squeeze all the lost years away and recapture the bond that we had. Like I can hold us both together.
“Don’t ever let me go, Nicky,” he whispers into the dark.
“I won’t,” I promise him.
And I mean it.
He settles slowly. His lungs take up a calm, steady rhythm. Tension drains away from his muscles. I feel him drift back to sleep.
I stay and I hold him. Just like I promised.
The strip of moonlight slowly moves across the room until it fades, surrendering to the soft light of dawn.
Liam is uneasy in my arms. Skittish even in sleep. Still clinging to me like I’m the only thing tethering him here.
My heart grows heavier and heavier as truth claws all my denial away until the weight of reality is suffocating me. All the lies I told myself earlier have faded away like the moonlight, and now stark reality is blazing brighter than the morning sun.
Everything is not going to be fine. Liam is not okay.
And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put him back together.
The bright morning light is harsh on my tired eyes. I try not to grunt at the delivery guy, but I’m not sure if I manage it. I do manage to grunt something that passes for thanks. He doesn’t linger.
I carry the flat box down the hall like it weighs ten times more than it should. My shoulders ache, not just from holding Liam through the night, but from the knowledge pressing down on me. That scream, that terror, the way he clung like he’d drown without me.
I shuffle into the kitchen, where I slide the brightly colored box onto the breakfast bar. It clashes against the white marble. A symbol that summarizes everything. The garish exuberance of my childhood with Liam, versus the expensive, sleek and refined reality I have been trying to create.
Less than twenty-four hours with Liam back in my life, and I can already see the trappings of my existence are all show and no substance.
I rub my hands over my face and let out a tired sigh.
Liam peeks around the corner. Relief courses through me. He was in the shower for a very long time. I’m so glad he has finally emerged. Even if he does look a little dazed and his hair is still wet.
“Donuts for breakfast?” His eyebrows lift. His voice is flat, but his eyes… there’s a flicker of something, almost boyish, like he’s trying to pretend for my sake.
I force a grin onto my face. “We are adults now. We can do whatever the hell we like.”
Liam blinks at me, and I want to swallow my tongue. That hasn’t been his reality at all. If I keep this up, I’m going to be really putting my foot in it and saying something spectacularly stupid.
Liam pads into the kitchen barefoot, tugging the sleeves of his borrowed hoodie down over his hands. He looks impossibly young like that, nothing like the sharp-edged boy who once ruled the world from beneath an overpass.
I flip open the donut box with forced cheer. “Strawberry sprinkles or chocolate glaze?”
He hesitates, eyes flicking between the choices like it’s a trick question. Then, quietly he says, “Whichever one you don’t want.”
My chest tightens. “We can both have the same one, you know. There are plenty.”
He doesn’t answer. He just stands there waiting.
He always used to love chocolate. I used to tease him about having an addiction. He never denied it.
“I’ll have the strawberry,” I say.
He still says nothing. Just takes the chocolate and turns it over in his hands like it might disappear.
I bite into mine and talk too much to fill the silence. I tell him about the café down the street, the neighbor who plays his trumpet at midnight, and how Carlo nearly burned the kitchen down last week trying to flambé something he couldn’t even spell.
Liam nods, half-listening, but his gaze keeps darting to the window, the locked door, the shadows on the wall. Like he’s still in a cell, measuring the angles, waiting for the guards.
“Hey,” I say softly. “You’re safe here.”
His eyes finally lift to mine, startlingly blue, and for the first time since he stepped out of those prison gates, I catch a glimpse of the boy I used to know. It lasts all of two seconds before he drops his gaze again, mumbling, “I don’t feel safe anywhere.”
The words hang between us. Heavy. Final.
I want to tell him I’ll make him feel safe. That I’ll guard him with my life. Instead, I push the donut box toward him. “Then we’ll start small. One sprinkle-covered donut at a time.”
He huffs something close to a laugh. A real one. It cracks through his tight mask, brief but beautiful, and I want to bottle it and keep it forever.
We eat in silence after that. His shoulders stay tight, but the donut disappears quickly, like he hasn’t tasted sugar in years. Which, I suppose, could be the truth. I have no idea if they serve donuts in prison.
When we’re done, I clear the box, letting the clatter of cardboard and plates cover the way my pulse races. I don’t know what to do with him. Do I give him space? Do I hover? Everything feels wrong and right at the same time.
“Want to go out?” I blurt. “We could hit the shops, get you some clothes that aren’t… prison issue.”
His whole body tenses. “I didn’t have anything of my own.”
I guess other prisoners have families to sort things like that out. I should have realized that. I should have arranged for something to be delivered to him. My gaze tracks over his too-thin body. Even if I hadn’t been a dufus, I would have got completely the wrong size.
“Excuse for a shopping trip!” I say brightly.
Liam’s blue eyes fill with something that looks an awful lot like terror. “Out?” he gasps hoarsely.
I regret my stupid suggestion instantly. “We don’t have to. It was just an idea.”
He shakes his head quickly, like the suggestion itself is dangerous. His hands twist in the sleeves of his hoodie. “Not yet.”
“Okay,” I say, as gently as I can. “Not yet.”
We migrate to the living room, because it feels less like a confrontation there. I switch on the TV and start surfing until I land on a game show. Bright colors, loud buzzers, fake audience laughter.
Liam sits hunched on the sofa like he’s bracing for impact. Every time the host yells, he flinches. When the crowd claps, he startles.
I pretend not to notice.
Half an hour later, we’ve switched to cartoons. Something silly, slapstick, characters slipping on banana peels and smacking each other with frying pans.
Liam’s mouth twitches. Just once. Then again. And finally, after a particularly over-the-top pratfall, a short, startled laugh slips out of him. Quiet and soft.
I nearly miss it. But it’s there.
“See?” I grin, nudging him gently with my shoulder. “Comedy gold.”
He rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth is still curved.
We stay like that for hours. I let the remote wander us through cooking shows, reruns of old sitcoms, a wildlife documentary where a posh British guy whispers reverently about lions while dramatic music swells.
Liam’s head tilts as he watches the lions hunt.
He’s leaning forward without realizing, captivated.
“They work together,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “They’re stronger that way.”
I don’t say anything. I just watch him, the way his eyes soften, the way he seems to forget where he is for a moment.
By late afternoon, the sunlight slants gold through the window. Liam has drifted sideways, his head finding the cushion. My hoodie is too big on him, sleeves covering his hands. His lashes rest against his cheeks, pale and delicate, and for once he looks… peaceful.
I should move. Get up. Let him have space. But my legs won’t work. Instead I sit there, watching over him like some guard dog, until the light fades.
I remember his voice from last night. Don’t ever let me go, Nicky.
And I know I won’t.
Even if he never feels safe again, I’ll be his safety. Even if he never trusts the world again, he can trust me.
It’s a vow I make silently, sitting on my own sofa with my best friend asleep beside me, and it feels bigger than anything I’ve ever promised before.