17. Nyree
Nyree
M orning creeps in, casting a cold, pale light over the room. I sit on the floor, my suitcase open and half-packed in front of me. The clothes I’m trying to fold feel wrong under my fingers, the fabric stiff and unyielding. I’ve been at this for what feels like hours, packing, unpacking, folding and refolding, but nothing ever looks right. It’s as if I can’t even trust myself to do something as simple as this anymore.
How did I let myself be so foolish? How could I have thought, even for a second, that this Christmas would be different? The question stays in me. I’ve always hated the holidays, ever since that Christmas, the day my dad died. The memories rush back, uninvited and unwanted, but once they start, there’s no stopping them.
We were driving home from a family dinner. I remember the sound of laughter in the car, my mom turning around from the passenger seat to say something to me. Then there was the sound of screeching tires, a deafening crash, metal against metal, and everything went black. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. My body hurt everywhere, but the real pain was in my heart. Dad was gone. I never even got to say goodbye. He died on Christmas Day. The day that used to mean family and warmth, now felt like a cruel joke.
It didn’t end there. Mom… she never recovered. She tried. She smiled, she went through the motions, but she was broken. She withered away, piece by piece, until she was just a shell of herself. Grief consumed her like a slow-burning fire, and one day, it just took her completely. A heart attack, they said. But I knew better. It was the loss, the emptiness left behind. I lost her too, not long after, and the holidays became something I dread. Christmas wasn’t about joy anymore; it was a reminder of everything I’d lost, everything I would never get back.
And yet, for once, I thought… God, how naive I was. I thought it would be different. Marcus made me feel safe in a way I hadn’t felt in years. For the first time, the season didn’t seem like a looming shadow. I thought I could let myself breathe, that I could stop hating this time of year, even just for a moment. But no. It all came crashing down, and now I’m left in this mess, packing my things, trying to get out before I make it worse.
I can’t stop thinking about Coco. The look on her face when she walked in on Marcus and me, seared into my memory. The shock, the anger. And now Marcus… The way he looked at me when he found out I knew about Coco’s pregnancy. His eyes, full of disbelief and hurt, cut deeper than I ever imagined. It feels like I’ve betrayed them both in ways I can’t ever make right.
My hands tremble as I pick up a shirt, trying once again to fold it properly, but I keep messing it up. The edges aren’t lining up right, and the seams look crooked. I pull it apart and start over, but it’s still wrong. Always wrong. I can’t get it right. My chest tightens, and that damned itch on my neck begins. I rub at the spot, but it doesn’t help. The white noise is starting, that deafening roar in my head that blocks out everything else, and my hands keep fumbling with the clothes, making them worse, no matter how hard I try.
I want to scream. I want to throw the suitcase across the room, tear the clothes apart, anything to get rid of this overwhelming frustration that’s clawing at my insides. But I can’t. I can’t scream. I can’t break. So I keep folding, and I keep failing.
Then, the door creaks open behind me. I freeze, my hands still gripping a crumpled sweater. My breath catches in my throat, and for a bit, I can’t move. I already know who it is. I don’t need to turn around to know it’s Coco.
“Nyree,” she says softly, her voice cutting through the suffocating silence. There’s an edge to it, like she’s holding back a tide of emotion she’s not ready to let loose.
I don’t turn to face her. I can’t. My hands tremble more violently now, and I know if I speak, my voice will crack, revealing everything I’ve tried so hard to hold together.
“Are you really leaving?” she asks, stepping into the room. Her footsteps are soft, hesitant.
I nod, unable to look up. There’s a lump in my throat that makes it impossible to speak, and the panic that’s been rising inside me threatens to spill over.
“Nyree, please don’t,” she says, and there’s a tremor in her voice now. “Please don’t leave like this. We need to talk.”
Talk? How could we talk after everything that happened? After the mess I’ve made? I shake my head, still staring at the wrinkled shirt in my hands. “There’s nothing to say,” I manage, my voice hoarse, barely audible.
“There’s everything to say,” she insists, stepping closer. “I’m still angry. I’m hurt. But I don’t want you to just walk out of my life like this. You’re my best friend, Nyree.”
Best friend? How can she still call me that after everything I’ve done? I betrayed her trust. How can she still care?
“I thought you’d want me gone,” I mutter, my voice shaking.
“I don’t,” she says, her tone soft but firm. “I don’t want to lose you. I just… I need to understand.”
The depth of her words presses down on me, and the dam I’ve been holding together starts to crack. The tears I’ve been fighting back burn in my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” I whisper. “I never wanted to hurt you, Coco.”
She steps closer, her presence both a comfort and a reminder of the pain I’ve caused. “I know you didn’t,” she says quietly.
“I’ve ruined our friendship,” I say, my voice breaking. “I ruined everything.”
“You didn’t ruin everything, Nyree. We all messed up.”
I look at her, my heart breaking all over again. She’s right. We all made mistakes. But the gravity of my own feels like too much to bear. “I don’t know how to fix this,” I admit, tears finally slipping down my cheeks. “I don’t know how to make it right.”
Coco looks at me for a long moment, and then, to my surprise, she reaches out and pulls me into a hug. It’s tentative at first, but then it tightens, and I feel her tears against my shoulder. “We’ll figure it out,” she whispers. “Just don’t leave.”
The floodgates open, and I sob into her embrace, everything crashing down at once.
Coco pulls away from the hug slowly, her eyes red but no longer filled with anger. There’s something softer there now, a sort of truce forming between us, like we’ve both realized how much damage has been done and how neither of us want to make it worse. She gestures for me to sit with her on the edge of the bed, and I do, wiping my tears with the back of my hand, trying to calm my shaky breath. The room still feels heavy, but at least now it feels like we’re starting to dig our way out.
Coco takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly, like she’s gathering her thoughts. "I didn’t tell him about the baby," she says quietly, staring down at her hands. "Not because I didn’t want to. I just… I didn’t know how."
I glance at her, listening carefully. "Why not?" I ask, though I already have some idea.
She sighs, running a hand through her hair, her shoulders slumping. "You know how he is. Dad… he’s so protective. He always has been, ever since Mom died. He feels like he has to shield me from everything, like I’m still this little girl who can’t make decisions for herself. And I get it, I do. But sometimes, it’s like he doesn’t even hear me. Like what I want doesn’t matter because he’s already decided what’s best for me."
I nod. I’ve seen it, too. Marcus stepping in, taking charge. It’s not that he doesn’t care. He cares too much, in fact. But I can imagine how suffocating that must feel for Coco, especially now, when her life is changing so drastically.
“When Ethan and I first started seeing each other, it wasn’t supposed to be anything serious,” she continues. “We met at a party. It was wild, one of those nights where you don’t think about tomorrow. And I thought that was all it would be. But then we kept seeing each other. He made me laugh in a way no one had. I didn’t expect to fall in love with him, but I did.”
She pauses, her eyes misting over with memories. “There was this one time, a few months ago, when there was a picture of Ethan and his ex in the tabloids. I wasn’t prepared for how bad it made me feel, seeing that. We had this huge fight about it. I thought it was over. I really did. But Ethan didn’t want it to end. He came back, and… and then I found out I was pregnant.”
She’s been carrying this, not knowing how to tell her father, not knowing how he would react. I reach out and place a hand on hers, squeezing gently. “I get it, Coco,” I say softly. “I really do. You just want to live your life, without feeling like you have to answer to anyone, especially him.”
She nods, blinking back tears. “I do. I want Dad to understand that this…Ethan, the baby…this is what I want. This is my life now. I’m not asking for his approval. I just want him to accept that I’m not a little girl anymore.”
I know Marcus loves her fiercely, but he can’t keep seeing her as the child he lost her mother with. She’s grown now, and she’s going to make her own choices, even if they’re not the ones he would have made for her.
After a long silence, Coco shifts in her seat, her attention drifting toward me. There’s a vulnerability in her gaze that wasn’t there before. "What about you, Nyree?" she asks, her voice steady. "What I saw yesterday… Do you like him?… What was it?"
Her question hits me like a jolt. But the answer isn’t hard to find. It’s there, quietly growing inside me.
I swallow, feeling my throat tighten. "Yes," I whisper. "Everything happened so fast, I can’t even explain it, Coco. It’s so intense, the way he makes me feel. Being with him, it’s like… everything that’s always buzzing in my head… the anxiety, the worry… it just quiets down when he’s near. He makes me feel like I can breathe."
I can’t stop the tears from welling up again, but I keep going, the words spilling out before I can stop them. "But now… now he’s mad at me because I didn’t tell him about the baby, and I feel like I’ve lost him. Like we might never speak again, and I don’t know how to fix that. I don’t know how to fix any of this."
Coco reaches out and squeezes my hand again, her grip warm and firm. "You didn’t tell him because you were keeping my secret," she says gently. "And for that, I’m grateful, Nyree. You didn’t betray me, even though you love him. You did what you thought was right, and I can’t blame you for that."
Her words bring some comfort, but the ache in my chest doesn’t ease. I’m still terrified that I’ve lost Marcus forever, that he won’t forgive me for keeping this from him. But Coco’s hand in mine is a lifeline, reminding me that maybe, just maybe, things aren’t as irreparable as they feel.
"I’ll talk to him," she says suddenly, her voice filled with resolve. "We’ll talk to him together. I’ll explain everything. It’s not fair for him to be angry at you when you were just trying to protect me."
I look at her, surprised by the strength in her words. "You don’t have to do that," I say, though part of me is relieved by the offer.
"I do," she insists. "He needs to hear the truth from both of us. It’s the only way any of this is going to get better."
We sit there in silence for a while longer, the wear of the last twenty four hours pressing down on us both. But now, there’s a tiny glimmer of hope where there was only dread before. Maybe there’s a way through this after all.
Coco stands up, and I follow her. My legs feel shaky as I push myself off the bed. We walk to the door together, a strange sense of solidarity settling between us.
As we step into the hallway, the house feels eerily quiet, as if it’s waiting for whatever comes next. I glance at Coco, and she gives me a small, determined nod.
As we descend the stairs together, my heart beats wildly in my chest. Coco is tense beside me, and I can feel the nervous energy buzzing like a live wire. My fingers still tremble slightly from earlier, but I’ve managed to hold it together…for now.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and move toward the living room. Just as we round the corner, the front door swings open, and Marcus steps in. His broad frame casts a shadow into the house. He’s holding an axe, his breath visible in the cold morning air. For a second, my heart stops. There’s something fierce about the image, his strong hands gripping the handle, the frost clinging to his jacket. But then he speaks, and the intensity of the moment breaks slightly.
"I’ve been chopping wood," he explains as if to calm us. His voice is a little breathless from the cold outside. He wipes a trickle of sweat from his brow then leans the axe against the wall by the door and looks us over. His focus lands on me for a moment longer than I expect. I feel that familiar tension settle in my chest again, but I force myself to stay composed, even as the silence continues.
Coco takes a step forward, her fingers curling at her sides as if she’s steeling herself. "Dad, we need to talk."
Marcus straightens, his eyes softening as he looks at her. "I know," he replies quietly, his voice gentler now. "I need to talk to you too."
Before either of us can respond, the door to the kitchen swings open, and Ethan walks in. He looks at Coco immediately and moves toward her, slipping his hand into hers with a quiet, comforting gesture. Coco’s eyes widen, surprised to see him there, but it’s Marcus who speaks first.
"It’s alright, Coco," Marcus says, his gaze shifting between her and Ethan. "We’ve already spoken."
The surprise on Coco’s face intensifies. I’m shocked as well. "You… you talked?" she asks, looking at Ethan, confusion mingling with hope in her expression.
Ethan nods, squeezing her hand gently. "Yeah, we did. Man to man."
Marcus steps closer to his daughter, the heaviness in the air lifting slightly, replaced with something warmer and softer. "I’m sorry, Coco," he begins, his voice thick with emotion. "I know I can be overbearing, and sometimes it probably feels like I’m not listening to you. I just… I love you so much. You’re my only daughter. I’ve always felt this need to protect you from the world, to make sure you’re safe, and sometimes that means I don’t stop to think about what you need, what you want." He pauses. "But if you love Ethan, I won’t stand in your way. I trust that you know what’s right for your own happiness."
Coco’s face softens, her eyes filling with tears as she steps forward to embrace her father. "Thank you, Dad," she whispers. "I love him. I really do."
Marcus pulls her close, holding her tightly, and for a moment, everything feels suspended in the warmth of that embrace. The heartache, the misunderstandings, it all feels like it’s starting to heal.
Ethan steps forward, nodding respectfully at Marcus. "I promised him I would take care of you, Coco. I know I’ve made mistakes, but I love you. I’m going to be there for you and the baby. I just want you to be happy."
Coco’s hand tightens around his, and she gives him a small, grateful smile. The connection between them feels real, and I can see how much Ethan wants to be part of her life, part of their future. And though I never thought I’d see the day, Marcus seems to accept it. He’s still cautious and protective, but the walls that had been built between himself and Ethan seem to have softened.
Then Coco turns, her focus falling on me. "Dad," she says quietly, stepping out of his embrace. "There’s something else we need to talk about. It’s about Nyree."
My heart clenches in my chest, my breath catching. I’m not sure I’m ready for whatever comes next.
Coco continues, her voice gentle. "You can’t blame her for not telling you about the baby. She didn’t betray you. She was protecting my secret. She was being a good friend to me, and you shouldn’t hold that against her."
Marcus looks toward me, and I feel my stomach twist in knots. For a second, I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but then he speaks, and his voice is low. "I know," he says. "Ethan helped me see that she was just trying to protect you, Coco. And that… that’s what friends do."
The relief that floods through me is immediate, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
Marcus takes a step toward me, his eyes searching mine. "Nyree," he says quietly, reaching for my hand. His touch is gentle, almost hesitant, but it sends a surge of emotion through me. "I’m sorry for how I reacted. I’ve always been so protective of everyone I care about, sometimes to the point where I let that protectiveness turn into distrust. But I trust you. I know you kept Coco’s secret because you care about her, just like you care about me."
My vision blurs with tears again, and I can’t hold them back this time. The weight of everything…the pain, the fear, the love…all hits me at the same time, and I’m overwhelmed by the relief that maybe things are going to be okay.
"Marcus… I…," I try to speak through my tears, my voice breaking, but I can’t get a word out.
He pulls me into his arms, holding me close, and I bury my face in his chest, letting the warmth of his embrace soothe the ache inside me.
When we pull apart, I glance over at Coco and Ethan. They’re standing hand in hand, watching us with quiet smiles. For the first time, I feel like we’re all part of something bigger than the mistakes we’ve made.