Chapter 18 Oliver #2
And for my entire life, Emily was the picture-perfect kid. Better than me and Aaron, by far. She got perfect grades. She was kind and sweet. She volunteers at a community garden where my mom is a member, and she’s planning on applying to Harvard and Yale.
How could things have changed that much since I left for college?
A tear falls from Mom’s eye and I walk over, wrapping my arms around her in a hug.
“Hey. It’s going to be okay. I’ll go talk to her.”
“There’s no talking to Em right now,” Dad says. “Apparently Cheyenne slipped a bottle of vodka from her grandmother’s house, and…”
“Oliver.”
I turn and see Niko in the archway that leads to the kitchen.
He’s put on black sweatpants and a crisp white hoodie, and he frowns at me, his hair still in a messy swoop from sleep.
He looks perfect.
And I don’t want him to be bothered by any of this.
“I’m sorry, Niko. It’s my sister. You can go back upstairs.”
“Is Emily okay?”
“Teenage woes,” my dad says, trying to offer Niko a polite smile.
The backyard door swings open again a moment later and Emily steps inside.
My stomach drops when I see her. Her black eye makeup is running in rivulets down her cheeks. There are scratches along her arm.
And she has a cigarette in one hand, bringing it to her lips to take a drag as she walks into the kitchen.
“Get that out of the house. Are you out of your mind, Emily?” Dad says, standing up and walking over to her.
“Ask me if I fucking care,” she says, slurring her words.
“Em,” I say softly. “Christ. Come with me.”
I walk over toward the living room and grab a blanket, heading back over to the kitchen. It smells like smoke in here now, and I pull the cigarette from her hand and toss it into the sink. I wrap the blanket around her shoulders as she protests.
“And here’s Ollie,” she says in a low tone. “Back home just in time to see us fucking falling apart. You going to tell him, Mom? Or should I?”
“Emily, please,” Mom says.
“They’re going to get divorced,” Emily says, a wild look in her eyes. “They hate each other. And they certainly don’t give a damn about us.”
“Come outside with me,” I demand, pulling her back over toward the door and shoving it open.
As we step outside, Niko follows.
Emily looks at Niko with a bitter expression on her face.
“Really nice to meet you today, Niko. Welcome to our shitshow.”
Niko gently closes the back door behind him.
Out here, the air is freezing. The wall lamp beside the back door is the only light outside, and Emily stands with the blanket wrapped around her, reaching down to her pocket and pulling out a pack of Marlboro Lights.
I snap the pack out of her hands before she can stop me. I toss it over into the lawn trash bin and she pretends not to care, looking out toward the cluster of trees that line the back edge of our big yard.
My head is swimming.
I don’t know if what Emily said is true or not, but something deep inside me believes it.
It’s crumbling.
Everything I thought I knew.
This life that Niko thought was so perfect.
“Are you okay?” Niko asks her.
“Do I seem okay? I fucking hate my life.”
I feel like someone has a vise around my heart, squeezing it until it nearly breaks.
No.
Not my little sister.
How can everyone good hate their lives so much?
“I hated absolutely every aspect of my life when I was getting near the end of high school,” Niko starts to tell her, and I’m amazed he can summon the will to form a coherent thought right now at all.
“Hated my parents, even though my dad wasn’t part of my life at all.
Hated my mom for being so cold to me. Despised the idea of college. ”
“If you’re trying to make me feel better, it won’t work,” Emily says.
All I can picture is how happy she seemed the last time I saw her, just this last August before I went to Crimson.
She had just gotten back from a beach trip. She was sad to see me go, but wished me a good first year.
“You’re not going to feel better,” Niko says. “You’re going to feel completely fucking powerless.”
“Sure fucking do,” she says before looking at me.
“Mom and Dad are fighting every night. They’re playing nice because you guys came home.
And tonight, I just wanted to go have fun with Cheyenne, but we got drunk and she told me that she fucked Darien Brown last night.
I did everything with Darien. All year. And he fucking told me last week that I could be the first girl he falls in love with—”
She breaks off into a sob, and as I realize how personal this all is, some small piece of tension unravels in me.
She’s hurting.
She’s not going down some awful path.
She just wants love, and got her heart broken.
“Emily,” I say as I wrap my arms tight around the blanket surrounding her shoulders.
She sobs against me as I hold her tight.
“I fucking hate him. I hate her. I hate them all.”
“I hate him for that, too,” I say.
I reach over and turn on the small patio heater next to us, and for the next half hour, Niko and I listen to every detail that Emily wants to spill.
We let her complain about the asshole boy that broke her heart. About her friend Cheyenne, who’s probably now an ex-friend.
And eventually, as she breathes deep and stops crying, she talks about our parents.
“I don’t know if it’s going to be divorce,” she says. “But shit’s just different since you left, Ollie. You were like… the glue. Of this entire house.”
I’m astonished.
“I didn’t think anybody cared about my presence at all,” I tell her. “I was just… there. I didn’t do anything special.”
She shakes her head slowly. “Even Aaron misses you. He doesn’t admit it. But he’s bored that there’s no one who’s worse than him at card games.”
I let out an unexpected laugh, and miraculously, she starts laughing, too.
“God,” she finally says with a sigh. “Niko, I’m sorry you had to see this. Welcome to the crazy factory.”
“This is nothing,” he promises her. “I’m sorry you had such an awful night. I don’t know you that well, Emily, but I know you deserve better.”
She gives me a sad smile.
“You’re so lucky, Oliver. Can’t even imagine having a boyfriend who’s actually caring like him.”
A coil of guilt wraps around my heart.
I want to tell her it’s all fake, but I don’t have it in me, right now.
“You’ll find someone so much better than Darien. But you have to promise me something. Don’t start smoking, Em.”
“I won’t. I don’t even like the taste. It’s kind of gross.”
“I smoked for a while when I was fifteen, then another little lapse when I was seventeen. Not a great path to go down,” Niko says.
Emily sighs. “If Mom and Dad split up, you two have to be my new parents. End of story.”
Niko bites back a smile. “Not too sure I’m the best role model, but okay.”
“At least someone in this fucking world is capable of love,” she says. “You guys are cute together.”
I glance over at Niko, and he looks back at me.
Love.
What a strange word to think about, while Niko’s eyes are on me.
It starts to feel too overwhelming to look at him, so I stand up and turn off the heater. “Okay, Em. I think you’ve probably scared Mom and Dad enough for the next year. I don’t condone drinking, but if you do, please, for the love of God, have water in between each drink.”
“Yes. Right. Water. I need water right now.”
We head inside with her, get her a giant insulated cup full of water, and Mom makes her some buttered toast. While Emily’s in the bathroom, I talk with Mom and Dad, trying to reassure them that she will be okay.
I don’t mention anything about their supposed fighting.
It’s a topic for a time of day that isn’t nearly five in the morning.
My parents spend about ten minutes straight apologizing to Niko for the commotion, even though I can tell he isn’t fazed by it at all.
In fact, he’s calmer than I’ve ever seen him. He’s been like a steadfast rock, all night. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that Niko Berlant could be a pillar of stability, but that’s exactly what he’s been for me tonight.
When Niko and I are heading back up the stairs, I look back down at my parents.
“Oh, yeah. Merry Christmas,” I call down to them.
“Merry Christmas!” Mom calls back up. “I’m still going to be up by nine making cinnamon rolls for breakfast, don’t you kids worry.”
Once we’re back in my room, I sit on the edge of my mattress, staring out into the middle distance for a moment.
I don’t bother turning on my bedside lamp.
Right now, the darkness feels peaceful.
“I don’t even know what to say,” I tell him.
“Don’t say anything, then.”
I feel his weight sinking onto the mattress behind me. And a moment later his palm is on my back, stroking up and down, rubbing me.
Usually, after a night like tonight, I would be alone up here in my room, ruminating. Worrying about every little thing that my sister did and said. Worrying about my parents.
But everything feels different with Niko nearby.
Finally, I speak.
“I’m sorry if any of that was intensely awkward for you, Niko.”
“Not even slightly. You want to know something weird?”
“Yes. Please. Always.”
“I feel like I belong here more than I even belonged in my own house,” Niko says.
“You guys actually talk. Talk things out, talk about your feelings, express yourselves. My mom… she’s like a fucking wall made of ice.
One time she came home and told me that Ben, a man she was dating for an entire year, was thrown in jail for embezzlement, and would be in prison for six years.
She said it without crying. Without expressing even a shred of emotion. ”
“What the fuck?”
I turn back to look at him.
He looks so arrestingly beautiful in the ambient glow from the Christmas lights outside, with two pillows propped behind him. It’s still a shock to see him in my bed.
“Like I said. She doesn’t do emotion. Or communication.
Or… baking goddamn cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.
Your mom and dad could be fighting each other every minute, and it would still be better than my house.
Emily could come inside ripping a bong the size of the Christmas tree, smoking this whole house out. ”
I let out a laugh, and it’s like a weight lifting from me.
“I suppose your problems make mine seem trivial.”
The image of Callum swirls through my mind, and my spine feels cold.
He’s still out there.
Probably still heavily weighing on Niko’s mind.
Just because we’re in our cozy little winter snowglobe for Christmas doesn’t mean that reality isn’t waiting for us on the other side.
I finally get under the covers and let myself cuddle close to him.
I run my hands over his arms.
I don’t care if I’d usually stop myself from doing it. I don’t want to do anything else.
“Your problems are real, too,” he says softly. “But I promise I like being in your world, Ollie.”
I watch his gaze dance around my room.
Suddenly I’m aware of each heartbeat thudding in my chest.
How do I feel so right with you, right now?
Why am I letting myself believe this?
He looks from poster to poster on my walls, the reflection of the Christmas lights faintly dotting each one.
“Which movie was your favorite, as a kid?” he asks.
I stare at the framed poster at the center of the opposite wall, and I reach out to point at it.
“Hercules. Without a doubt. No question.”
Niko glances over at me for a moment, and when I meet my eyes, he’s searching my gaze.
Calculating something, behind his eyes.
“Hercules,” he murmurs.
And I feel like my heart stops.
Hercules.