Chapter 23 Nina
Nina
Oxygen rushed into my lungs through the cannula.
My body wasn’t in crisis anymore, but every breath was still too shallow to be fully satisfying.
Lincoln held my hands with tenderness. The closeness between us felt fragile, guarded by the steady hum of the oxygen machine and the occasional beep of the monitor tracking my pulse.
I’d always been in survival mode, reacting.
Now, Lincoln, my bully, the thorn on my side, wanted to give me a choice.
Then the door clicked open, and Vinny filled the doorway, all charcoal-steel eyes and wavy hair that usually looked intentionally tousled.
Today he’d just run his hands through it making it seem unkept.
My stomach dipped. I’d been furious at him for leaving me to handle Lincoln alone, banking on my need for help.
Seeing him now, though, jaw tight, eyes tracking every wire and tube, made something in me loosen and sting all at once.
“Vinny, what now?” The question came out in a rush of renewed effort. “You weren’t feeling the family label so much when I needed you.”
Vinny’s gaze darted everywhere before locking on Lincoln. Lincoln’s dimples cut deep into his cheeks from how tightly he pressed his lips together, eyes fixed on Vinny while his thumb caressed circles into my hand.
“Dude, you’re not even going to offer to leave?” Vin asked.
Lincoln’s hands stilled around mine, his voice dipped lower, the way it used to every time he spoke to me. The way it wouldn’t anymore, not to me, not since the accident.
“Nope.” He exaggerated on the “p,” his trademark smirk and dimple daring Vinny to push him further. “You don’t get to barge in here and feed her some version where you’re not another person who didn’t have her back. You don’t get to demand she talks to you.”
“Vin, come on. Let’s just … I honestly don’t even know why you’re here.” My voice frayed, all my energy eaten up by breathing, not an ounce to spare to play referee.
“What do you mean, Nins? You have any idea what it’s like to get that call from a hospital? That someone in your family had an attack and lost consciousness on site?”
I let the silence stretch. The warmth of Linc’s hand kept me steady.
“I mean, Lincoln has always been closer to you, and you weren’t too shaken up when he lost almost a decade of memories … So no, I can’t imagine what that was for you to get that call about me.”
Vinny exhaled sharply, the hiss of breath splintered by frustration. He raked his hands through his frizzy hair, jagged waves tangling around his fingers. “So now, this”—he jabbed a finger at our joined hands, his mouth twisting—“is a thing?”
Lincoln said nothing for a minute, but he squeezed my hands to keep them in place when I tried to pull away.
Vinny nodded as his shoulders sagged, and he sank into the metal chair across from Lincoln. Both men stared at each other, the air between them charged with tension.
“No, Vin,” Lincoln said, his voice dropping to something rougher, his gaze darting to our joined hands before adding, “this is not a thing,” and he forced himself to focus on Vinny again.
Vinny pressed the heel of his palm to his eyes, as if to wipe away the storm of doubt lodged there, and said, “Cuz, I need you to understand I’ve never known what to do with what I’m about to tell you.
” His eyes found mine before he glanced back at his shoes.
“What do you remember about living with my parents?”
My breath caught, Lincoln stiffened and checked the oxygen saturation as if he understood what it meant.
“Vin—” My voice caught. I had no interest in speaking ill of his parents. It had taken years for me to stop resenting Aunt Sarah and accept that it was okay she didn’t love me or I her.
“It’s important, Nina. Think of my mom. Think of the noises at night.”
I did, flashes of memories flooding my mind, tiny recurrent things I never thought were important.
Aunt Sarah’s hands shaking as she lit another cigarette.
Her snapping at me over missing work hours.
Uncle Matt slamming his fists on the table and checking the clock way too many times.
The front door opening and shutting at odd hours.
“You do, don’t you? My mom would get shaky, she’d be happy, then mad as hell. Dad would get shifty if she took longer to come back from work or the grocery store—” Vin swallowed. “How he’d leave in the middle of the night if Mom didn’t come home, they’d both come back screaming at each other?”
A prickle of discomfort crawled up my spine. “Yeah, I do remember all of that.”
Vin’s knee bounced, his hands knotting together. The air around him felt tighter, his features drawn and shadowed. “My mom … she has some issues.” His lips cinched together, the words sour. Pain flickered across his face, his throat bobbing before he forced them out. “She’s—she’s an addict, Nina.”
I searched for hints in my memories of the year I lived in that house. She’d had mood swings, but I remembered no pills or bottles hidden anywhere.
“Yeah,” Vinny said, shaking his head. His face burned with embarrassment, shame so thick it seemed to weigh down his posture. “Not like that.” He straightened, shoulders squaring.
Vinny dragged his chair closer, knuckles white where he gripped the back before sitting.
“Nina”—his voice was rougher now—“right before your parents—” He broke off, jaw flexing.
“Things were bad. Really bad. People showing up at the house. Calling late. Getting louder, aggressive. Demanding what my mom owed.”
I went still, fingers curling against the blanket.
Vinny exhaled hard, his knee bouncing. “She’d fallen in with a bad crowd.” He looked out the window. “Things were …. It’d gotten out of control. We never knew if the car pulling up outside was someone coming to collect or—” He cut himself off, dragging both hands down his face.
The picture formed slowly in my head, ugly and inevitable.
When I came to live with them, for that whole summer, everything had been quiet.
No knocks. No screaming. No shaky hands.
Then came homecoming week …. The fights.
The shouting. The late-night whispers. My aunt’s shaking hands, my uncle pacing about to bounce off the walls.
It got worse. Until I left and didn’t look back.
I swallowed hard, still raw from the attack, each word scraping my throat on the way out. Of course things had been better after my parents’ deaths. Maybe there had been insurance. Savings. My fucking home …
“How much?” I asked, my voice breaking.
“Too much,” Vin croaked, his voice ragged. “So much.”
My chest tightened—not from asthma this time. They’d used my parents’ money to buy peace in their home.
“Fucking tell her, Vinny, or I will.” Lincoln’s tone was ice.
My heart lurched, panic clawing at my throat. I turned on him, words coming out ragged. “You knew?” My fingers dug into the blanket, trying to push myself upright. My chest felt too small again, breaths stuttering as if the air itself recoiled from me.
Lincoln’s eyes went wide, and he was at my side in an instant, cupping my face with both hands.
“No. I knew nothing.” His voice was urgent but steady, grounding.
“Just—When my memory came back, I pieced some things together, and I looked into it. I wanted to tell you after your pitch …” His thumbs brushed over my cheekbones, grounding my breathing.
Truth and tenderness poured into his touch.
His hand trailed back into mine, tightening around my fingers, thumb stroking over my knuckles. My pulse pounded weakly against his grip, but I didn’t pull away.
“How could they?” I rasped, my nails digging into Lincoln’s palm. Each breath stirred the plastic of the cannula. “Legally—how did no one catch it? There’s—there’s guardianship courts, financial audits—” My voice dissolved into ache, pounding between my lungs.
Vin’s gaze dropped to the floor, shame heavy enough to bend his shoulders.
“Own it for once in your life. If you rile her up and she has another attack …,” Lincoln said, sharper this time, his blue eyes hard as glass.
Vinny swallowed hard, his voice low when he finally spoke, cutting across Lincoln’s words guilt edged into every syllable.
“My parents passed off the debt as your dad’s,” he said, staring at the floor instead of me.
“They used your inheritance to pay it off, and the judge signed off without blinking. A few months later, my parents deposited a large amount—courts thought it was from your parents’ assets.
Mom and Dad couldn’t argue against it without giving away my mom’s gambling.
” Vin faced me, his eyes meeting mine. “Judge forced my folks to allocate some for you. Thirty grand because Dad said you were expensive, about to go to University of Michigan.”
“I never even applied to Michigan.”
“But I did.” He dragged a hand down his face, guilt twisting his expression.
“On paper, we were loaded. I got no aid. But that cash?” His mouth curled, bitterness clinging to his words.
“That was part of my mom’s ‘lucky day.’ So they told the court you were going there, showed them the deposit to explain where the money went. And they just accepted it.”
My skin prickled. They’d used my parents’ money to erase their mistakes.
Vinny’s shoulders sagged further, as if saying it out loud took something out of him. “Mom had a really bad run before decision day. Right before your NYU interview.”
A tremor ran down my spine. My chest burned, my ribs still tender from coughing so hard earlier.
The night before the interview, I rehearsed until I passed out.
Cars came and went as I answered questions in front of a mirror, memorizing every student organization I wanted to join at NYU.
The next day, I’d lost it in the school parking lot before even going in the school when I saw my box of mementos in Lincoln’s car.