Chapter 17 Niko #2
“Will you boys be joining us in the living room?” Cheryl asks as we finish dinner, many hours later.
We’re all sitting around the dining room table, full of roast chicken, veggies, and the incredible apple tart that Cheryl and Victor made together.
Oliver looks from me to his mom. “Um, I’m a little tired, Mom—”
“We’ll gladly join you out there,” I say, partly just because I still want to get revenge on Ollie for not admitting to me that he told his whole family all about me, over the past few weeks.
“Right. Sure. We’ll join you.”
“Niko, you ever play GTA5?” Aaron asks.
“I sure have.”
“Fuck yeah. We’re going to race.”
“Language!” Cheryl says. “I was thinking more along the lines of a Christmas movie, guys. What’s GTA5?”
“Grand Theft Auto,” Aaron says, already getting up from the table and bringing his plate and glass to the sink. “It’s a video game. You can race cars after jacking them from innocent people on the streets.”
“Jesus Christ, Aar,” Cheryl says.
“He’s fine, Mom,” Oliver says. “Even I played it a little bit back in high school. We’ll just race each other, it’ll be fun.”
Cheryl gets up, and everyone helps clean up for the next few minutes.
“I need another glass of wine,” she says.
Victor nods. “Open another bottle of the Cabernet. Niko, Oliver, you’re welcome to have a glass.”
“I’d never turn down red wine,” I say.
He smiles.
He’s softened up, too, after wine and food and asking Oliver all about his first semester at Crimson. Victor pours heavy in all four of our wine glasses, and when we head to the living room, he holds his up and we clink them together.
The living room is big, with a long, U-shaped couch, ambient lighting from the fireplace, and blankets all over. I can see where Oliver got his taste for coziness that he brought to his room at Onyx House. I grab a soft one and toss it over myself on the couch, taking a sip of the wine.
“Let’s go,” Aaron says afterward, handing me a game controller.
For the next hour we play games and the Cabernet hits me harder than it usually would, putting a fuzzy, warm lens on everything.
I feel like I’m on an entirely different planet than the one I typically live on.
Everyone seems happy.
Victor’s pulled out a paperback book and is idly reading under a lamp while everyone else watches the video game. Cheryl occasionally leans over to kiss her husband on the cheek, and every now and then, I look over and see her checking a gardening website on her phone.
All so perfect. So ideal.
This is what normal families are like?
I take turns racing cars in the game with Oliver, Aaron, and Emily, and Emily’s the only person who beats me, one time.
“You’re a psycho on the track,” Aaron tells me after I lap him.
And for the final round, I purposely take a turn too hard, wanting to let the kid win.
“Damn. You’re gaining on me,” I tell him.
“Get smoked! Get smoked, Niko,” Aaron says as he races ahead of me and wins the round. I fist-bump him and he does a little victory dance, standing up from the couch. “I’m getting another piece of the apple tart. Anyone want anything?”
“Good for now,” I say.
“Mind if I walk over to Cheyenne’s house?” Emily asks her parents, standing up from the couch.
“Kind of cold for a walk, sweetheart,” Victor tells her.
“It’s, like, three doors down,” Emily says.
Cheryl clicks her tongue. “More like ten. Wear a thick coat, love. Be back before midnight, okay?”
“Will do,” Emily says, hugging both of her parents.
She gives us a wave, and Victor and Cheryl also get up, heading down the hall and getting caught up in a conversation elsewhere in the house.
For a moment, it’s just me and Ollie in the living room.
It’s the first time we’ve been alone together since we walked into the house, hours and hours ago.
And I turn to look at him, biting back a smile.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says.
“Ollie.”
“Don’t say anything to me, Niko.”
“You told your family all about me,” I say in a teasing tone. “You bragged about me.”
He looks like he wants to die for a moment, and then he leans over, closing the gap between us on the couch and pressing his lips to mine.
He kisses me hard. He smells like wine, and it only makes me want to taste more of him.
“This is the only way I know how to get you to quit talking,” he murmurs as he pulls back for a moment, and then his mouth lands on mine again.
I slide my tongue along his, giving it a suck, and I feel him gently exhale as he slowly pulls away.
“I like it, Ollie. You revert right back to your shy, adorable, absolutely fuckable self when you’re back here, and it turns me on.”
I press a kiss to the side of his neck and he leans into my touch.
“I hope you’re having an okay time.”
“It’s great. Really.”
My feelings are a lot more complex than that, in reality, but only because I’m envious that anyone could have a family like this.
“I’m glad you’re not cringing at me every goddamn minute.”
“Never.”
“I like it a lot better when you’re here,” he tells me.
Remember that’s fake, Niko.
Remember he just wants you so that he doesn’t feel alone.
The wine’s making it feel like he’s yours, but he’s not.
I pull in a breath and hold his hand in mine, massaging his palm.
“I like being here, too,” I tell him.
He pulls his lower lip between his teeth, then gives me a short nod. “Hey. Tell me the fucking thing.”
“Ollie…”
“You’re not pushing it off again. Just tell me. Why was Callum saying he saved your life?”
I swallow hard.
I look up, then back down at him.
I can see two of the freckles on his lower neck and all I want to do is lean in and kiss him there. Delay. Stay with him the way things are, right now.
But he’s giving me a look that breaks me apart inside.
And so I spill.
I start telling him my little sob story, knowing he may see me differently forever.
“I was on a hiking trip with Callum and a few of his friends. He claimed one of them was an agent, looking for new talent for his modeling agency. Once we got on the trip, I tried to ask the guy about opportunities, and Callum said it was the wrong time to talk business. So he took me behind a ledge, called me a career climbing whore, and pushed me across a wet rock, and I slipped.”
“No,” Oliver whispers.
My throat feels tight as I explain the events of that day.
It feels surreal even talking about it. Like I’m describing someone else’s life.
I wave a hand through the air. “It was nothing. I barely got a scratch. But… I was hollow inside. Done with him and the accumulation of his lies.”
“What happened?” Ollie whispers.
Something feels heavy behind my eyes. “So I, uh, drained a flask of vodka and then went to the edge of a waterfall cliff and jumped off, with no knowledge of what was below.”
I say it fast.
As if admitting something like that is easier if I spit it out quick.
It’s not easier.
“No.”
“I didn’t want to die. But when I drifted in and out of consciousness, seeing Callum’s face as he and his friends pulled me from the water…
I knew something had to change. Because I felt like it would have been easier if I’d had that escape.
Maybe not death, but even if I’d been gravely injured, I could be in the hospital and escape from him. ”
It sounds so pathetic coming from my mouth.
Makes me hate myself.
That version of me.
So weak in the face of someone taking advantage of me.
I feel like I just laid bare the truth that I’m someone who got so close to giving up.
Underneath years of acting like I’m better than that, like nothing can get to me, and that I’d rage before I’d ever let anyone hurt me.
But that afternoon, I broke.
Ollie furrows his brow. “What?”
I hate how scared his voice sounds.
I squeeze his hand hard, and now it feels like I’m holding onto him in hopes that he won’t disappear.
Don’t see me differently.
God, please don’t pity me.
“I wasn’t trying to end my life. I mean that, Oliver.”
“But…”
“But I didn’t know how tall the cliff was, or how rocky it would be at the bottom. I gashed the back of my head on a jutting edge nearby, saw blood spilling out around me, and passed out shortly afterward.”
“Oh my God.”
“Callum got me to the hospital and they gave me stitches. Luckily, the concussion was short-lived.”
“Niko.”
I gasp as Oliver lunges forward, wrapping his arms around my shoulders in a hug.
When I feel a tiny, hot wet spot at the back of my neck, I realize he’s crying.
What?
When has anyone ever cried for me?
“Ollie, I’m fine. There’s a gnarly scar under my hair at the back, but I’m fine.”
He’s clutching me so close.
“Callum deserves to die,” he says, with the smallest, quiet intake of a sob. He grips me tight, not letting go. “I’m so glad you’re okay. What the fuck? God, what the fuck—”
He trails off as he holds me, and my heart pounds in my chest.
I don’t know what I’m feeling.
But the way Oliver is holding me makes me feel like I’m solid, present, for the first time, while I’m thinking about the incident.
Like I exist, and his touch is proof of that.