Chapter 17 #2
“What do you mean?”
“I knew exactly what I was thinking in that moment, little rabbit. I was thinking you were so…” I hold my breath, stomach flipping so much I’m regretting the gusto with which I’ve just devoured this lasagna. “Stupid.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I say, incredulous. He laughs.
“Watching you march into that fire like it was nothing, with no regard for the risk you put yourself at, was like torture, Corey. I care about you… a lot, and I wanted to scream at you for being so reckless.”
I drop my knife and fork onto my plate with a clatter, and my arms fold around my stomach on reflex. I don’t like being reprimanded. It’s far too reminiscent of so many conversations with Dominic.
Nash tugs my hands away from my body and holds them tightly in his much larger grasp, pulling them until I twist my body on my chair so I can face him.
“You weren’t the only one who wanted a kiss that night. I was so scared you’d get hurt, and then when you climbed out of that boat soaked and stinking of fire and smoke, the reality that you could have so easily happened hit me like a tonne of bricks.”
Tears fall freely down my cheeks now, his words breaking the flimsy dam of my emotions. He releases one of my hands, freeing his own so he can swipe his thumb across my cheeks, taking the tears away. If only he could take my confusion away, too.
“I don’t understand,” I practically whimper.
“I wanted to kiss you, Corey, because you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever met, inside and out.
You’re sweet, kind, funny, and so wise. You never fail to call me out on my shit, and, quite aside from anything else, I feel like my best self when I’m with you.
I’m so, so sorry I pulled back from you, but I didn’t know how to handle my feelings when I know…
” He tails off, and I know why. A stone forms in the pit of my belly – disappointment, regret, loneliness.
His palm cups the side of my face, and he leans into me, our faces close. So beautifully, painfully close.
“When I know I can’t ask you to wait for me.”
I don’t need the specific words to know what he’s saying.
He’s about to become a father, and, quite rightly, Nancy is his priority.
She needs 100% of his focus. She deserves nothing less.
And he can’t be distracted by trying to navigate romantic feelings at the same time.
I’m still processing the suggestion that he could possibly even want something romantic with me, but there’s no lie in his eyes, no deception in his touch.
No dismissal in his earnestness as he tries to explain.
“You don’t need to explain anything to me, Nash. I get it,” I say, voice thick.
“Do you?”
“Of course. Nancy deserves all of you. And I wouldn’t ever want you to compromise that.
Not for anything, least of all for me. Don’t get me wrong, I like you.
A lot. More than I probably should, given the shitshow that is my life, but I get it.
We’re just… the timing is all wrong.” My voice catches on the last words, and I have to blink several times to try to prevent more tears from falling, an effort that is ultimately pointless.
Our eyes are locked on one another, neither of us willing to look away. I think we both know that as soon as we do, this little bubble will burst, and we’ll be firmly back in the friendzone, whether we like it or not.
Eventually, I can’t stand to be this close to him anymore without my lips on his, and so I break eye contact and start to gather myself.
“I think I should go,” I say, and he shakes his head at me as I stand.
“No, Corey, don’t go. Please. I want us to be… fuck… friends?” He grasps my hand and pulls me back to face him again.
I smile weakly. “I want that too, Nash, I do,” I say, voice gentle around the hiccups and sniffles. “I just need a little space to, I dunno, process? Sulk?” He laughs sardonically. “I didn’t think someone like you could ever want a fuckup like me—”
“You’re not a fuckup, Corey,” he says, voice harder than I’ve ever heard it.
“I am, though. I’ve lived a messy life, and now I’m trying to start afresh, again, even knowing my psycho ex-boyfriend might show up and set something else on fire at any point, and now knowing that maybe you do want me, or at least you could, and that I just turned up in your life at the wrong time…
I dunno. It sucks.” He snorts a wet laugh, so many emotions passing over his face, each one of them a mirror of the ones battering my soul.
He follows me as I make my way to the door.
“I think ‘it sucks’ is the understatement of the century,” he says as I pull on my coat – a thick grey wool coat that was my Christmas gift from Rain and Aidan.
“And whatever happens with your ex or anyone else, just remember you have people here who care about you. Rain, Aidan. Fuck, my whole family adores you. And friends or not, more or not, I’ll protect you.
You’re safe here. And that fresh start is yours for the taking. ”
I nod with a wobbly smile, then turn to pull open the door. I turn back to him and tilt my head, the weight of disappointment pressing in on my shoulders.
“Right man, wrong time,” I say resignedly.
“Right man, wrong time,” he agrees. I lean up, bracing my hands on his chest, and press a brief kiss to his cheek.
“Goodnight, Nash. I’ll see you soon. And don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not sure I will,” he says, regret flooding his features as I step back.
“Of course you will. You’ve got a daughter to get ready for. She’s coming home, and she needs her daddy.” The jovial tone of my voice is entirely forced, and I’m certain he knows it, but he doesn’t call me out. We both know if things were different…
Well, there’s little point in worrying over ‘what ifs’ when the reality is that Nash needs to focus on Nancy and on being the incredible father I know he will be.
I smile at him again, then walk out the door, and away from the most wonderful man I’ve ever known.
***
Rain, Aidan, and I decide to go to Poppy’s for breakfast the next day, but it turns out Aidan doesn’t even get the chance to eat as he rushes out to look for Wren after Poppy mentions not having heard from her since Christmas.
“Do you think we should try to arrange a night with the four of us?” Rain asks, meaning himself, me, Poppy, and Wren, as we eat our pancakes, concern for Wren clear in his tone.
“With face masks, wine, and Grease 2?” I ask, determined to win them over to my side of the fence, that Grease 2 is an infinitely better film than Grease. I mean, come on. Michelle Pfeiffer and Max Caulfield singing about a cool rider? The song plays in my head even as we speak, and I hum along.
He just laughs at me.
“What?”
After we eat, Rain and I make our way back to the house. He heads upstairs for a quick shower, while I dry Pax’s damp paws off with a towel.
And that’s when the world goes to shit.
I feel a strong hand close over my mouth and an arm band around my middle while Pax is dragged away from me by his collar.
“Hello, Corey,” a familiar voice croons in my ear.
“You’ve been a very naughty boy. I think I’m going to have to punish you with my belt when we get home.
” Thick and sweet, the smell of cigarettes is cloying as Dominic leans over me before forcing me down onto the sofa.
I look up, trying to see where Pax went, and see Dan inject something into his neck.
I lurch forward, trying to get to the dog who is looking at me with glassy eyes, before he goes floppy.
Dominic sits next to me, taking Pax’s collar from his brother.
“Sit there and don’t move,” he whispers, menacingly, “or this,” he holds up a kitchen knife, “will go straight through the dog’s throat. Understand, bitch?” I nod frantically, terrified for Pax, tears streaming down my face.
I’m paralysed with fear. I don’t know what to do, and the return to the state of mind I thought I had escaped hits me like a tonne of bricks. Terror and acceptance.
I was so close. So close to a happy ending. So close to building something completely my own.
I hear Rain coming down the stairs and strain my neck to try and warn him. He’s wearing one of Aidan’s hoodies, and the domesticity of it is heartbreaking, knowing that his world – our worlds – are about to be turned upside down.
“Cor, do you want a cuppa?” he says, and the simple question has tears spilling over my cheeks. He comes into the room and stops abruptly, taking in the scene before him. I look at him with desperation on my face.
He was always the braver one. The one who found a way to escape this life even after being put through so much pain. I need him to figure out a way to get us out of this, because I can’t. I’m frozen.
Every fear, every insecurity, every moment of my life that forced me to start afresh somewhere new. Every sunrise full of opportunity that never came to fruition weighs down on me in that moment, and I feel a sickening sense of acceptance fill me.
I was foolish to think I could ever truly escape this. To think that I deserved something better. No. It was a pipe dream. This was always inevitable, I see that now.
I try to look on the positive side of everything, to see the best in people and the opportunity in every new day. But the reality of my life to this point finally hits me. I’m not the person who gets the happy ending.
I’m the person who relives the same toxic cycles over and over again until I die or am so jaded by life that I don’t care anymore.
As I watch Dan slide up behind Rain and, in an act so vile I thought it was only ever the stuff of nightmares and horror films, he licks a wet trail up Rain’s neck.
In that moment, I know we’re going to be taken.
Rain can’t think of a way out. He’s frozen, too.
But there’s a look of such determination in his eyes that I just hope he has a plan in mind.
But for now? I just accept the hand life has dealt me and make my way to Dan’s car with a knife pressed against my back.