Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Nicky
I’ve left Liam in an institution. Again.
Okay, I didn’t put him in prison, but I did leave him there. I didn’t fight to see him, when visits might have made all the difference.
I rub my hand over my face. Yeah right. Who am I kidding? As if seeing my ugly face in a visiting room would have done anything. We might have had a laugh for thirty-minutes, but then the guards would have dragged him back to his cell, and his cellmate, or whoever the fuck it was who hurt him.
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. I want to ask Liam for names. I have connections now. Even in prison, I can reach people. Make them pay. Make them hurt.
But Liam is already scared and disappointed in me. Nevermind the fact that I very much doubt he is willing to share the details.
I know. He knows I know. It is forever going to be this unspoken thing between us.
And that’s just fine, as long as he is happy. Happy and safe and coping. That’s the only thing I want. I’d gladly swap all my wealth and status for Liam to be okay.
Sighing, I park the car. The sky is gray and rain is splattering down half-heartedly. It is a perfect depiction of my mood.
I get out of the car and jog up to the door. The doorbell chimes. A pleasant sound that lets you know it is an expensive doorbell only for people with good taste.
The heavy door swings open, and Molly smiles warmly at me. He isn’t wearing a dress today, or tiny shorts. He is wearing comfy-looking yoga pants and a loose-fitting tee shirt. His blond hair is up in a messy bun, and there is a trace of glitter around his eyes.
“Hi!”
“Hi.”
He steps aside to let me in, and suddenly, sense crashes into me.
“Is Dario in?”
Molly’s brows furrow. “No? When you rang, you said you wanted to see me?”
“I do,” I swallow. “But if Dario’s not home…”
Molly stares at me blankly for a moment, and then comprehension sparks. He rolls his eyes, grabs my suit jacket and hauls me over the threshold.
“Dario isn’t a dick. He knows I’m not going to sleep around.”
My cheeks are burning now. “It’s a respect thing,” I mumble. “A Made Man is never alone with another man’s wife.”
Molly puts his hands on his hips. “Well, he hasn’t married me yet, so you are fine.”
“You are still his,” I protest.
“I am,” Molly agrees with a proud smile.
He pulls out his phone and puts it on speakerphone. The calling tone rings out twice, then Dario’s voice echoes around the entrance hall.
“Everything alright? Molly Mio?”
“Everything is just peachy, Duckling. Nicolo is here and wants to chat with me, but he is worried about some stupid mafia etiquette.”
Dario chuckles. “Nicolo is welcome in my house. I trust him with you.”
“Thank you, Duckling. I’ll let you get back to work.” Molly makes a kissing noise that feels far too intimate for me to be hearing.
Then, he puts his phone away and looks at me. “Can we have a bloody drink now?”
“Yes please!” I grin.
Molly always manages to cheer me up. I like him a lot. He is the same age as me and Liam, and that’s so refreshing. Everyone else in my life is older.
Molly leads me to the kitchen and pours us both a glass of red wine. It’s early, but damn do I need it.
“I thought your friend was getting out of prison?” Molly asks casually.
I gulp some wine down. “He was. He did. He… I just left him in a psychiatric hospital.”
Molly’s blue eyes widen. “Shit! What happened?”
“He’s not good. Prison broke him. He had a major panic attack while we were shopping, and an ambulance had to come…” I trail off.
Molly reaches over and places his hand over mine. He waits patiently for me to say what I need to say.
But now I am here… I can’t. This was a stupid idea, and I don’t know what I was thinking.
“He… he said some things. I think he… In prison. I don’t know what to do or how to help. You… you… Riccardo wasn’t nice to you. I don’t know anyone else who has… been through anything similar.”
I drop my gaze. My stomach is heaving now. Oh my god. What the hell am I doing?
Molly’s hand squeezes mine. Startled, I look up. His eyes are watery, and his expression is strange.
“Oh Nicolo. You are such a sweetie. Thank you.”
“What…?” I stammer.
“Not to make it about me, but do you know how many people would completely dismiss what happened to me? Just because I’m gay and was a sex worker? And here you are treating it the same as what happened to your straight friend.”
“It is the same!” I splutter. I cannot believe anyone would be asshole enough to think otherwise.
Molly smiles at me.
“And I’m not sure about the straight part,” I blurt abruptly, surprising myself more than anyone.
His eyes widen. “Tell me more!”
I blush, but I don’t look away. “Before he went away, I don’t think it was just hero worship on my part. I think I was in love with him… And I think he might have felt something similar. I think it might have gone somewhere.”
Molly’s eyes are enormous.
“The way he looks at me sometimes. Some things he said. I don’t know.” I shrug.
“I do know!” exclaims Molly. “It’s a love story! He is going to get better, and you two are going to get married, and it’s going to be amazing!”
I laugh. Molly’s joy is infectious. It is igniting a small flickering flame of hope deep inside me.
“How do I help him?” I ask.
Molly’s grin falters. “I wish I knew.” He squeezes my hand again. “Love him. Keep him safe. The rest will just take time.”
Molly’s words hang in the air between us, and something about the way he says it. So matter-of-fact, like love is both the simplest and most complicated thing in the world, makes my chest tight.
“I do love him,” I say quietly, the admission feeling both terrifying and inevitable. “I think I always have. But I don’t know if what I feel now is... healthy. If it’s fair to him.”
Molly refills our wine glasses, his movements graceful and deliberate. “What do you mean?”
I stare down at the dark red liquid, trying to find the words for something I’ve barely admitted to myself.
“When we were eighteen, it felt pure, you know? Just... wanting to be near him all the time, thinking he was the most brilliant person in the world, getting jealous when he talked to other people. I told myself it was just friendship, but...”
“But it wasn’t,” Molly finishes gently.
“No. It wasn’t. And now...” I take a shaky breath.
“Now I look at him and he’s so broken, so scared, and part of me just wants to wrap him up and keep him safe forever.
But is that love, or is that some fucked-up savior complex?
Am I in love with who he is, or am I in love with the idea of fixing him? ”
Molly considers this seriously, twirling a loose strand of hair around his finger. “Tell me about before,” he says finally. “Before prison. What was it about him that made you feel that way?”
The question catches me off guard, but the answers come easily.
“His laugh. God, his laugh was infectious. You couldn’t help but smile when you heard it.
And he was so confident, not in an arrogant way, but like he genuinely believed good things would happen if he just tried hard enough.
He used to make these ridiculous plans, like we’d save up money from our part-time jobs and buy a flat in London, or he’d learn Italian and we’d move to Rome.
Completely mental ideas, but when he talked about them, they felt possible. ”
“He sounds lovely,” Molly says softly.
“He was. He is.” I correct myself quickly.
“He defended people. There was this kid at school, Callum, who was getting bullied for being gay. Liam didn’t just tell people to stop.
He made friends with Callum, made sure he sat with us at lunch, and invited him to parties.
Just... made it clear that picking on Callum meant picking on him. ”
“And now?”
I think about Liam curled up on the hospital bed, apologizing for existing. “Now he can barely leave the apartment. He flinches when I move too quickly. He thinks he’s broken beyond repair.”
“Maybe he is broken,” Molly says, and I start to protest, but he holds up a hand. “Let me finish. Maybe he is broken, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe you can love someone who’s broken without wanting to fix them.”
“How?”
“By loving the person he is now, not the person he used to be. By seeing his strength in surviving, not his weakness in struggling. By supporting his healing without making it about you.”
I drain half my wineglass in one swallow. “That sounds incredibly mature and healthy. I’m not sure I’m capable of it.”
Molly grins. “None of us are, at first. It’s a skill you learn.”
“How did you learn it? With Dario, I mean. He’s got his own... issues.”
Molly’s expression softens, becomes almost dreamy.
“Dario thinks he’s a monster. He’s convinced that everything he touches turns to poison, that he’s incapable of being gentle or good.
But I see how careful he is with me, how he checks three times that I actually want something before he does it.
I see him feeding stray cats when he thinks no one is looking.
I see him lying awake at night worrying that he’s going to hurt me just by loving me. ”
“That must be hard.”
“It is. But I don’t love him despite his damage, I love him including his damage. Does that make sense?”
I think about Liam’s quiet voice asking if I came back, the surprise in it like he genuinely hadn’t expected to see me again. The way he still worries about whether I’m hurt even when he’s the one falling apart. His stubborn insistence on trying, even when trying terrifies him.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think it does.”
“The question is,” Molly continues, leaning back in his chair, “do you love Liam the way he is now? Not the way you hope he’ll be after therapy, not the way you remember him being before, but exactly as he is in this moment?”