Chapter 24 Nico
NICO
The sun is splitting the trees, casting shadows that flicker across the ground as the leaves flutter in the breeze. The very green ground.
Since Este first noticed the snow melted a couple of days ago, it’s all but gone around the cabin. Admittedly, this spot is a sun trap, but the whole mountain feels like it’s waking up. We’re two weeks into May, and spring is well and truly here.
Instead of thinking about what that means for us, Este and I are taking advantage of the milder temperature.
It’s not warm by any stretch of the imagination, and definitely not warm enough for Este to be hanging around in tiny shorts again, but she brought a blanket outside and is curled up on the bench on the porch.
We’re not doing anything particularly exciting. She’s reading, I’m working through the non-urgent to-do list I’ve barely touched since she arrived. But I like just existing alongside her, doing our own things. I like just being in her orbit.
I leave the workshop door open as I sharpen my axe on the grinder. Usually, I prefer to file it manually, but I’ve left it longer than I should have this time. Once I have the bulk of it done, though, I take it outside with my sharpening stone so I can sit with Este.
“I’m not reading out loud,” she says when I sit on the chair opposite her. “We both know where that will lead, and I can’t be distracted by sex when I’m so close to finding out what happened to her missing brother.”
“I’ve already read past that part anyway,” I tell her, and she glares at me over her Kindle.
“I can’t believe you’re a faster reader than me. You’ve got to give me a head start on the next one,” she grumbles.
“Deal. You can pick the next one, and I’ll give you a head start,” I reply, laughing.
We finished the previous book we were reading together after a nap and two big bowls of the orzo soup to replenish our energy, and immediately started another.
I hope we can keep doing this when she leaves.
I love seeing her react to books when I know what’s going on, and she ends every book with a stream of consciousness telling me everything she liked and didn’t.
It won’t be the same over the phone or a video call, I know, but hell, I’ll take snail mail if that’s the only way I get to talk to her.
I spend longer than I usually would sharpening the blade with the round sharpening stone, just so I can watch her reaction to the big plot twist. And it’s more than worth it when she throws her Kindle down and screams.
“No fucking way.”
“Right? I didn’t see it coming,” I say, blowing off the axe and wiping the blade on the leather strop over my knee.
“I did wonder why they kept bringing up the scar on her hand. Damn.” She shakes her head as she picks her Kindle back up.
“I’m going to chop firewood. You want to help?”
Este wrinkles her nose. “Nope. I did that purely to try and make you snap, and I have much more interesting ways of doing that now.”
“That you do.” I lean down to kiss her forehead as I pass, but she reaches for my face, pressing her lips against mine and breathing out a happy sigh as I stand back up. “I was thinking. Tonight, what do you say I make us a nice dinner, and we watch a movie or something?”
“Like a date night?” she asks, tilting her head. She runs the little wooden bear around her neck along the chain. She’s only taken it off to shower since I gave it to her, and she plays with it all the time.
A date night. Christ. I’m far too old for fucking butterflies. “Yeah. Like a date night.”
“That sounds perfect,” she answers, her smile a mirror of the one I feel stretching across my face.
This might be the most perfect day I’ve had in…
maybe ever. I’m happy, I think, for the first time in over two decades as I gather logs and drop them by the tree stump I use to chop firewood.
Truly happy. I’m not naive enough to think I’m going to feel better forever.
I know Este alone can’t fix my fucked-up head and heart, nor is it her responsibility to do so, but she’s sure as hell making a difference.
I hope I’m making a difference for her, too.
I roll my shoulders before raising the axe and bringing it down on a log.
I’ve worked my body more than usual this week, and my muscles are tired.
Maybe I can convince Este to soak in the tub with me later, after the movie.
Some Epsom salts, bubble bath, and her in my arms sounds like a good date night to me.
Thankfully, the axe is so sharp that it’s doing all the work for me as I split the logs. We don’t need many to top up the pile of firewood; a few should do it.
The distant rumbling of a plane overhead breaks up the silence of the forest, and I watch Este look up, squinting as she takes in the speck flying thousands of feet above us. She stares at the sky until it’s long past overhead, before sighing and looking back at her Kindle.
I can tell how much she misses being up there. Her decision not to fly commercially anymore does feel like the best one for her, but I hope she finds a way to still do what she loves when she’s ready.
I stack the firewood and set another log on the tree stump.
I raise the axe and bring it down, but my arm spasms like it has every now and then since the accident.
My fingers are not in my control when they open, dropping the handle.
I try to grab it, but my hand feels frozen, and everything happens so fast.
Too fast.
The blade hits the log at the wrong angle, knocking it from the stump. But the axe doesn’t tumble to the ground with it. It bounces, spinning up through the air, and I can’t move out of the way fast enough, not completely.
I lurch to the side, and the blade buries itself in my arm, right below my shoulder.
It feels like I’ve been punched, the impact forcing me to my knees. I crash to the ground, barely registering the axe lodged in my arm. The world around me is muted, foggy, tilting…
Este’s scream breaks through it all. It hurts, hearing her scream like that. A white-hot, blinding pain that rips through my body. It knocks me backward until I’m lying flat on my back. I can’t move my arm. I can’t feel my arm, only pain.
Seconds pass, or maybe hours, and Este is there, leaning over me. She’s blurry, but she’s perfect. God, she’s so fucking perfect.
I try to focus on what she’s saying, but there’s a ringing in my ears, and she’s crying. She’s crying, and I can’t do anything.
She disappears from my line of sight, and I feel her fingers at my belt buckle. She tries to tug my belt, and I try to help, to lift my hips, but I don’t feel in control of my body. Somehow, she frees it and leans over me again, speaking.
Focus, Nico. Fucking focus.
Este lays her hand on my face, and I swear it dulls the pain.
“Nico,” she sobs.
My mouth feels like sandpaper, but I open it and attempt to form her name.
“Shh, shh, save your energy,” she says, stroking my face. “This is going to hurt. I’m sorry.” Her voice cracks, and the sound hurts more than anything else ever could.
Or so I think. Because a moment later, Este moves my arm. My vision goes completely black, and the sound that tears from my throat is inhuman.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Este chants. I can’t see or feel what she’s doing, only agonizing pain, but I can guess, considering the clink of my belt buckle. And considering the wave of pain that spreads through me when she yanks something. I’ve never felt anything like this before.
Este is muttering to herself. She stands over me, and I blink, my stomach churning at the sight of her covered in blood. My blood.
“I’ll be back. Please stay awake,” she begs, before running in the direction of the cabin.
I watch the leaves fluttering in the breeze, listen to the creak of Este’s steps on the porch, the slam of the cabin door.
Was the grass always so comfortable? The burning pain fades into a thumping ache, and the ground feels pillowy.
Please stay awake. It would be so nice to drift off, but I’m predisposed to do whatever Este asks me to do.
I’m so tired, though. So fucking tired. And my eyelids are so heavy.
“Nico.”
I jolt, my eyes flying open. Shit. Este’s face is hovering right above mine, and relief floods it.
“Oh, thank god. Okay, we need to get you sitting up, and it’s going to suck. I’m sorry. I need to put this on the axe to keep it where it is…”
She rhymes off instructions, and I do as I’m told, unable to hold back my cries of pain.
Her face is ghostly white, but I stare at her lips, not really processing the things she’s asking me to do.
Soon, I’m sitting up, and she’s standing.
She turns away, then back to me, holding her hands out for mine, with something dangling between her teeth.
I squint, my foggy brain taking a second to recognize the black and silver object. My Jeep keys.
“No.” I shake my head, and Este grabs my good arm just in time to stop me from keeling over.
“No?”
“No car.”
Disbelief and panic flare in her eyes. “Nico. That’s not an option.”
“No.” It’s less of a word than a sob.
She falls to her knees in front of me and clasps my face, tears filling her eyes.
“I know you haven’t let anyone drive you since the accident, but I have to.
You’re losing too much blood. I’m pretty sure the axe is at least a little bit in an artery, and, if I don’t get you to a hospital, you’re going to die.
” Her voice breaks, and tears spill down her cheek.
I should be able to brush them away. I should be able to do this for her.
“No car. ’M sorry,” I mumble, and Este’s body crumples forward, her shoulders shaking as she cries.
I try to reach for her, but I can’t seem to figure out how to move my working arm.
The best I can do is a whimper of something that sounds kind of like her name.
She looks up at me, and the pain in my arm is nothing compared to the anguish on her face.
“Think about the boys, Nico. They won’t understand where you’ve gone.
And my dad never got to see you again. Think about Shay.
You can’t… You can’t leave her an only child.
You two have only just started fixing things.
” Shit. What is Shay feeling right now? Does she know I’m hurt? Will she feel it when—
“Nico, please,” Este begs. She presses her forehead to mine, and all I want to do is wrap her up in my arms and lie with her. “Please don’t make me watch you die. I can’t do this. I won’t survive it. Please.”
She sounds completely and utterly broken. It’s familiar, like I felt stuck, face down in the ravine, listening to Shay scream, knowing there was nothing I could do to help her. Knowing there was nothing I could do to bring Georgie back.
That was the hardest part. Remembering how powerless I was.
Este only has to feel that way if I’m too much of a fucking coward to get in the car.
I draw in a breath that does nothing to fill my lungs.
“I’ll try.”