Chapter Forty Nico
Chapter Forty
Nico
‘I’m sorry,’ Lee blurts, pretty much the moment the door shuts behind her.
Seeing as I’ve just realised I’m going to have to bare my soul to her and I’m in a state of extreme anxiety, it takes a moment for these words to land.
‘Sorry?’ I frown. ‘About what?’
‘About what Phoebe just said. About getting… too attached to her. I know I shouldn’t let it happen.
’ She’s literally wringing her hands now.
‘I know it will make everything harder. I didn’t mean for it to all get so tangled up like this, for me to get so tangled up in your life.
’ Her breath is coming fast. ‘I know it’s bad.
I know it’s all going to hurt. I don’t want to hurt her.
God, Nico,’ she looks at me and her eyes are glazed with tears, ‘I didn’t even realise I could hurt her before this.
We should have talked about this ages ago.
You’re angry and you’re right to be. I can’t believe…
’ She’s so panicked, I reach out and wrap my fingers around her arms.
‘Stop,’ I say. ‘Breathe.’
I actually have some idea about what she’s experiencing.
When I first met Phoebe it didn’t take long for me to understand that if I wanted to be in her life that meant holding her vulnerable little soul in my hands.
Everything I say, every decision I make has consequences for her.
It’s incredibly overwhelming and Lee is actually handling it better than I did.
My epiphany was accompanied by a whole bottle of Jack Daniels.
‘But… Nico…’ she looks at me, wild, ‘I love her.’ She presses a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh god, I love her. I love her so much.’
My entire universe comes into alignment in a single moment.
‘How has this happened?’ Lee mutters, clearly not experiencing the same sense of cosmic euphoria.
‘I’m not someone who has girls’ nights and family dinners, and…
craft clubs! I’m learning to crochet, Nico!
Mrs Penny told me she ordered in a special book about it for me. It’s at the library right now!’
Okay, now she is losing me a bit.
‘This isn’t me!’ she carries on. ‘I’m careful. I’m distant. I don’t have all these people that matter. I never even met my best friend in person, before this week! Oh god, Gran was right… I’m cold.’
‘What?’
‘It’s what we argued about, she said I was cold, and I didn’t agree with her. I thought she didn’t understand me, but she’s right. I keep myself apart, I just ran away from her, I shut down—’
‘Enough,’ I can’t stand watching her tear herself apart anymore. ‘Lee,’ I say, my voice gentling, ‘come and sit down.’
I tug her over to the sofa and she sits, her back poker straight while she continues to look traumatised. I crouch down in front of her and take her hands in mine. Her fingers are freezing.
‘Listen. Listen to me. You are not cold—’ I choke off an anxious laugh as I press her hands between mine. ‘I mean, physically you are right now, your poor fingers are like ice, but Daisy… you’re sunshine.’
She’s looking at me now. ‘You think so? You really… believe that?’
I sigh. ‘Lee, of course I do. I know it. Do you think there’s anything cold about what there is between us?’
‘I—’ She looks thrown by this. ‘No, I suppose not.’
I arch a brow at her. ‘You suppose not?’
‘Well, we’ve been friends for a long time,’ she says hopelessly.
‘That’s true,’ I agree. ‘We’ve been good friends, and never in the last twenty-seven years would I have described you as a cold person.
And it’s not just me… Magda, Phoebe, my mum, they all love you.
Kat and Mei and Luke, they think you’re amazing.
And Tara? She’s obsessed with you. She told me about all the times you were there for her.
She told me that if I hurt you, she’d spare my life for Phoebe’s sake but I’d have to say goodbye to any further plans to procreate.
’ I shudder, and some of the tension leaves Lee’s face; there’s a trace of amusement in her eyes and I’m glad someone finds the threat of castration funny.
‘But that’s not even what I’m talking about.
’ I push my hands through my hair, frustrated that I can’t find the right words ‘The feelings I have for you – they’re not polite feelings, okay?
They’re not lukewarm or friendly. They’re wild, Lee.
I’ve been called that my whole life: wild.
The things I’ve done, the way I lived, always chasing some big adventure, the next adrenaline rush, but nothing has ever made me feel the way I do about you.
You make me feel more alive than I ever have.
This thing between us, it’s all consuming, it’s burning me up inside.
I am not a rational human being anymore.
You’ve broken me, in the best possible way.
Do you understand? You’re not cold, you’re dazzling. ’
She’s looking at me now, her eyes wide. I push to my feet, and run a hand over my face, nerves hopping inside me.
‘I’m not angry with you. Seeing you with Phoebe only confirmed what I already knew, that I was going to have to talk to you about this, that I was going to have to tell you that I’m not okay with the plan we literally just made.
That I can’t cope with the idea of only having you for six more days.
Cards on the table: I’m in love with you. ’
Lee continues to stare at me, her face blank.
‘I think I need to sit down,’ she says eventually.
‘You are sitting down.’
‘I—’ She looks around. ‘Right. I’m sorry, I just… I’m honestly not sure if this is real. You’re in love with me?’
‘Pretty fucking desperately, actually.’
‘I see. This is…’ she trails off, frowning.
‘You don’t seem thrilled about this development,’ I manage.
‘Thrilled? Nico, there’s a Fourth of July firework display going off in my brain right now.’
‘Really?’
She nods, and a smile finally breaks over her face. Pure sunshine. My heart starts beating again.
‘I mean, I’ve had a long time to get used to the idea of me being in love with you,’ she says. ‘You need to give me a minute to catch up here.’
‘Fuck that.’ I grab her hand and haul her up into my arms.
The instant her lips touch mine is like holding a match to an incredibly short fuse.
I kiss her with everything I have, with all the feelings I want to share with her, and she kisses me back like it’s necessary, like she needs this as much as I do in order to simply keep surviving.
It’s not a kiss, it’s a claiming, it’s a riot, it’s our whole lives.
‘Cold,’ I murmur, amused, against her mouth, when we finally pause for air.
I feel her lips curl into a smile against mine. ‘Fine. You’ve made your point,’ she says.
‘I can make it again,’ I trace the curve of her neck with my lips. ‘I can make it better.’
She laughs, but catches my face between her hands, looking straight into my eyes. ‘We need a plan here.’
‘You’re right,’ I sigh, resting my forehead briefly against hers. ‘Okay, if we’re actually going to talk I need you to sit over there.’ I gesture to the far side of the sofa and after a careful adjustment to my jeans I sit in the armchair as far away from her as possible.
She purses her lips in obvious amusement. Crosses one leg over the other.
‘So,’ her tone is businesslike, ‘cards on the table, isn’t that what you said? You’re in love with me. I’m in love with you. What are we going to do about it?’
There’s a long silence. The amusement slowly leaves her face. I watch as she chews on her bottom lip.
‘The idea of being in a relationship doesn’t scare me,’ I say into the quiet. ‘Not with you anyway. My life is a mess, it’s far from perfect, but I don’t want to wait… I want us. In this. Together. All in.’
‘Your life doesn’t look like a mess to me. It looks busy and joyful and chaotic, but in the best way.’
‘And can you cope with that, tidy girl?’
‘I want that,’ she says. ‘I want it very much.’
I smile.
‘But,’ she starts, and my smile slips. ‘I can’t leave London.
We might be fighting right now, but it doesn’t change anything…
I can’t leave Gran.’ Her expression is earnest as she looks at me.
‘She’s one of the most important people in my life.
She’s been there for me through so much, and she’s the only parent I have.
I love her. She’s also eighty-three years old.
I might not like to think about that, she might not like to think about that, but it’s the reality of the situation.
Her health isn’t going to suddenly start getting better.
Difficult times are coming. I’m not going to leave her on her own on the other side of the world. ’
‘I get it,’ I say softly.
‘I don’t think I could forgive myself if I wasn’t there for her,’ Lee pushes on. ‘Even being away this long… I keep worrying I’m going to get a message saying something has happened. It would kill me…’
‘I know,’ I say again. ‘Lee, I know. I love her, too. I understand what you’re saying, you don’t need to explain it to me.’
She nods, relief in her eyes.
‘But,’ it’s my turn to speak, ‘I can’t leave Roseport. I can’t uproot Phoebe when what she needs is stability and structure. I can’t take her away from Magda. My life is here, and I can’t change that.’
Lee smiles again, but it’s a sad sort of smile. ‘I understand,’ she says, and she really does. She doesn’t need me to explain.
‘But—’ I say, and Lee cuts me off.
‘No more buts. Please.’
‘However,’ I correct myself. ‘I’m not giving up on this. I get that it won’t be easy. I get that we’ll have to do long distance, but I think we can make it work. I will take as much of you as you can give me, and I will give you as much as I possibly can.’
‘What about Phoebe?’ Lee asks tentatively. ‘Don’t you think it will be difficult and confusing for her? Me coming and going?’
‘Honestly?’ I huff out a breath. ‘I don’t know.
But I do know that she’s better off with a parent who’s in a loving, stable, healthy relationship than one who’s walking around feeling broken in half.
I know her life will be better with you in it.
She’s never had a conventional upbringing, and she understands that families look all different ways.
For the rest of it I think it’s about good communication, checking in with her. ’
Lee nods. ‘As long as we both agree that she comes first. If it ever feels like it’s not right for her, we reassess.’
I think I fall a little bit more in love with her at that moment.
‘Deal,’ I say, getting to my feet and holding out my hand.
The smile she gives me then is shy. ‘Deal,’ and she slips her hand into mine.
‘I think we can seal this some better way than with a handshake,’ I say.
‘Oh?’ She tilts her head. ‘What did you have in mind?’
I pull her towards me. ‘I have a few ideas.’