Chapter 67
Nikolai
I ’ m not sure how much time passes.
After keeping such a tight lid on myself for so long, it’s not hard to find other things to break. Glass sparkles on the floor
in the moonlight, crunching underneath my boots as I pace. My mouth tastes sour; I heaved into my wastebasket when I saw the
shattered paperweight. I sweat through my clothes long ago, and chewed the inside of my cheek long enough to make it bleed.
Still, I pace. I pace and try to breathe.
At least I’m alone. At least the nightmares running through my mind aren’t reality.
I’ll be alone forever if it means not hurting her.
Someone knocks on the door. I tense, imagining Isabelle, but it’s my mother’s voice that I hear.
“Nika?” she says softly. “Are you in there?”
Another old, well-loved nickname. I stare at the door, ignoring the throbbing in my shoulder.
This is what Isabelle asked of me. The last thing before I pushed her away. I might’ve fucked everything up, but I can do
this for her.
I pull the door open.
Mom’s gaze sweeps over me. I open my mouth, unsure what excuse to muster up, but before I can speak, she yanks me into a hug.
“You’re okay.” She pushes my hair away from my forehead, inspecting me. “Thank God you’re okay.”
I’m frozen. She hasn’t hugged me like this in what feels like forever. I’m not sure what’s more surprising: the embrace, or the fact she’s here at all.
She peers around me, taking in the glass, the trashed room. “Where’s Izzy?”
I clear my throat; my voice is rusty. “Not here.”
“Are you still panicking?” She leads me to the bed and sets me on the edge, fretting needlessly with the collar of my shirt.
“Was this the first time, or has it happened before?”
I just stare as she sits next to me. She’s usually so put together, but right now, she isn’t wearing makeup, and she’s in
leggings and a pullover sweatshirt.
She turns on my bedside lamp, giving the room a yellowy glow. “Should we do a breathing exercise together?”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically. “You didn’t have to drive all the way here.”
“I left the moment Izzy called.”
My throat constricts as I remember the look on her face when I told her to leave. The way she jumped when my voice got loud.
My mind refuses to shut off that particular memory.
At least I didn’t hurt her. I could feel myself shaking apart, utterly out of control. I’d never been so terrified—not for
myself, but for her. If she refused to leave, I don’t know what would have happened.
“Why?”
Something crosses her face, too fast for me to parse. “Is this new, Nika? How long has it been going on?”
“You haven’t called me that in ages.”
“It’s one of many things I haven’t done in way too long.”
“A long time,” I finally say. I’m too exhausted to filter myself. “Sometimes pretty bad. This was—he was here, Mom.”
“I know.” She reaches for my hand, squeezing tightly. “I know, honey, Izzy told me everything. I hate to see you like this. He triggers them?”
I manage a short nod. The tightness in my chest hasn’t fully gone away, even if I can breathe normally again. Now that I have
some distance, I feel like a fool. A fool for thinking—hoping—that Dad might’ve changed. A fool for letting myself get swept
up in him, even to shove him away. A fucking fool and a bad son and his son, on the edge of shaking to pieces.
She shuts her eyes for a long moment. When she opens them, they’re glassy. “The same thing used to happen to me.”
She sends me to shower and change into clean clothes before she says another word. When I return, she’s sweeping up the glass
with a broom. I step around the pile carefully, taking in the sight of my room. She changed the wastebasket, made my bed,
and put the hockey puck from the paperweight back on my desk.
“Where did you get the broom?”
“I found it in the hall closet.” She sets it aside, blowing the hair out of her face. “Did the shower help? They always helped
me.”
I sit on the bed. “You never told me you had panic attacks.”
“Have some water, that’ll help, too.” She holds out my water bottle as she sits in my desk chair.
At my look, she keeps talking. “I didn’t want to worry you. But I struggled with them for a long time.” She swallows, looking
at her lap. “I remember I had one once... God, it must have been a couple weeks after we came back to New York. It was
at one of your first hockey games here. I don’t remember what triggered it. Maybe the rink, or—”
“Me.”
Her head jerks up. “What?”
My heart sinks to my stomach. I always assumed she left that game just because the sight of me playing hockey reminded her of Dad. If I actually caused a panic attack, that’s even worse. “I know you don’t like me playing hockey.”
She’s quiet as she fiddles with the gold bangle on her slim wrist. “Is that what you really think?”
“It’s Dad’s thing.”
“I did watch you play for a long time, you know.” She shakes her head, smiling wryly. “You probably don’t remember half of
it.”
“I remember you arguing with Dad about training.”
“I wanted you to have a normal childhood. And I stand by that. Andryusha was so insistent, though. He didn’t just want you
to play hockey. He wanted you to be the best.”
I startle at the sound of my dad’s nickname.
“Was I always into it? When I was little, I mean?”
“Of course.”
“But you don’t like it. It... it reminds you of Dad. Like when you look at me.”
The back of my neck burns at the admission. I’ve never said it to her before, but it’s not hard to tell that when she looks
at me, she sees my father. Especially now that I’m the same age as he was when they met. I’m his son, through and through.
No one would know that better than her.
“What?”
“You always...” Fuck it. If I’d opened up sooner, maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess with Isabelle. She told Mom about my
panic attacks; there’s not much else to hide. “When you look at me, you... you flinch. Like you’re looking at Dad and then
remember it’s me. Am I really that much like him? Do I bring up those memories? Make you panic?”
“No.” A tear runs down her cheek. She wipes it away impatiently. “I remember things, yes. But not because you remind me of
him. Nika, I look at you and remember how I failed you.”
I shake my head. “I should have protected you. He terrified you. If I had just said something, then maybe—”
“No, sweetheart. That wasn’t your responsibility.” Her tone is soft, but firm. “I was your parent just as much as him.”
“But—”
“I don’t regret meeting your father,” she interrupts. “I don’t regret it, because he gave me you. But I do regret not leaving
sooner. I regret letting him control us for as long as he did. I tried to keep it behind closed doors, especially since he
left you alone physically, but I should have known that eventually, he would... I’m so sorry.” She breathes wetly, blinking
back more tears. “And I’m sorry I didn’t know you’ve been struggling, either. I know how much it hurts.”
Bone-deep exhaustion settles over me. When we left, she retreated into herself, and Grandfather took me under his wing. This
whole time, I thought she couldn’t stand to look at me because I was lingering proof of what she lived through, when really,
she was panicking, too. Drowning in her own memories.
But when she panics, I’ll bet she doesn’t worry about hurting anyone.
“I can tell you’re thinking of something.” She clears her throat. “Just tell me. Whatever it is.”
“Something’s wrong with me.” I twist my fingers together, wincing at the pain in my knuckles. The night has been such a blur,
I can’t remember how I bruised them. If it was the game or my meltdown.
“Nothing is wrong with you.” She squeezes my shoulder. I tamp down my wince. “Nothing, Nika.”
“No, Mom. I mean it. I have these nightmares.” I ease away. “In them, I’m him, and I’m... I’m hurting people. You. Isabelle.”
My chest twinges sharply, as if someone hooked it with a fishing line. “I felt out of control, with her. I thought I might
do something bad.”
The admission hangs in the air, like the night on the beach when I told Isabelle about my past. It’s as if saying it aloud purges something from my body, my soul.
Mom lurches forward, pulling me into a tight hug. I breathe into her shoulder, blinking as the intensity of her embrace sinks
in. When she lets go, tears streak down her face. She brushes them aside impatiently, then fusses with the collar of my shirt.
“I tried to give you space to process things on your own,” she whispers thickly. “We all thought that would be best. I should
have known you needed more support.”
“I don’t want to be like him.”
“You’re nothing like him.”
“I am.” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to calm down. “I’m just as angry, and there’s hockey—”
“Don’t let yourself spiral,” she says firmly. “Let’s take this one step at a time.”
“Even after everything—I miss him, Mom. He asked me if I hate him, and I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t, even though I should
have. I should have quit hockey years ago, too. It’s his, it’s always been his.”
“Deep breaths.” She looks into my eyes, her gaze steady. Calm. “I don’t hate him either.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t hate him. I don’t feel much of anything when it comes to him. But honestly, Nika—I’m glad you don’t either. No son
should feel that way about his father. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to have complicated feelings. You’re even
allowed to miss him.” She laughs, self-deprecating. “Lord knows my feelings were complicated enough. Feeling these things,
feeling out of control—that doesn’t mean you’re like him. It doesn’t mean you’re going to go through with whatever you’re
thinking, even if it feels impossible to break the pattern.”
“I don’t trust myself not to be like him.”
“Is this really why you don’t want to take the contract?”
I give a short nod.
“Hockey doesn’t belong to him.”
“It’s his dream.”
“So all the work you put into hockey in high school, in college—it was for his dream?” When I don’t reply right away, she
presses further. “You’re not your father. You never have been, and you never will be.”
I let the words wash over me.
“You’re you and no one else,” she adds. She reaches out, then hesitates with her fingertips an inch from my face. I nod once,
tightly. She cradles my cheek, brushing against my scar. “And I love you. More than anything in the world.”
I clear my throat as tears prick my eyes. “So it’s not... you’re not going to be disappointed...”
“The only way I’ll be disappointed is if you don’t sign that contract.”
Somehow, after all of this, I still didn’t expect her to actually want me to go through with it.
“I spent so much time rebuilding my life, my whole sense of self, after the divorce, that I didn’t question as much as I should
have. I didn’t make sure you were okay. That’s my failure. My own guilt just made things worse.”
“Mom, I don’t blame you. You deserved to be happy.”
“And so do you. What do you want, Nikolai? You, not Andrei or anyone else. What do you want to do with your life?”
“I want to play hockey.” There’s no question, no debate. At my core, it’s what I want. It’s what I’ve always wanted.
She nods. “Good. Then you’re going to play hockey.”
“Grandfather will hate it.”
“I never should have let him talk you into quitting.” I’m taken aback by the fire in her voice. “If I’d known why you agreed... I love him, but he can be such an asshole sometimes.”
Despite myself, I laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse.”
“There’s a lot we need to catch up on,” she says, laughing, too. Her eyes soften as she nods, almost to herself. “Let me handle
your grandfather. On Monday, you’re getting on that plane to California.”
Finally, I nod. “Okay.”
“And Nika—I want you to go to therapy.”
“Isabelle has been saying that.”
“She’s a smart woman.” She sits next to me, tucking me against her side. I lean my head on her shoulder, torn between exhaustion
and the tendril of anxiety that ignited at the mention of therapy. “It’s scary at first. And it’s hard work. But it helps.”
Talking to Isabelle about my past. Cooper. Now my mother. It’s taken something from me each time, but I can’t deny that I’ve
felt lighter after.
“I don’t know.”
“Keeping it locked inside just makes it worse.” She rubs my back. “You need to face what you’re feeling.”
“Does it really get better?”
I feel stupid for asking it, but she just hums thoughtfully. “It does. It’s not always linear, but over time... it does.”
Something shifts in my heart. The last piece of resistance, falling away. I’m terrified to start, but I’m more terrified of
staying this way forever, constantly on edge, constantly worried I’ll fuck everything up irreparably. Unable to love hockey
the way I want, unable to love Isabelle the way I want.
I can’t live like this anymore, but I can try to change. For her. For myself.
For us, and the future I imagined in Brisbane.