Chapter Twenty
Twenty
Nash
Corey is quiet on the short drive to my house, and he maintains his silence until I close the front door behind me.
“Cuppa?” I offer, unsure what else to do.
“Please.”
I busy myself in the kitchen, filling the kettle, switching it on, grabbing mugs from the cupboard, and putting the teabags straight in them. I can’t be arsed to bother with the teapot this morning. I’m exhausted.
I watch Corey from the corner of my eye as he makes his way into the kitchen, having removed his shoes, and I notice he’s wearing my medical school hoodie that had been hanging on the coat hooks.
I smile at his questioning gaze, reassuring him that it’s fine for him to borrow it, a second one of my jumpers for his collection.
He smiles back at me, but like the one he gave me earlier, it doesn’t meet his eyes.
He looks shell-shocked, and I can’t say I blame him after what he’s been through the last few days. The last few years, really, but this sweet man just looks so lost in this moment, and I want to make it better.
“What’s going on, little rabbit?” I say, hoping the use of the nickname that’s just between us will relieve some of the tension in his body. His shoulders are doing a great job of warming up his ears right now, and I’m pretty certain I could iron a shirt on his back, it’s so rigid.
“Oh, you know, the usual. Got a little bit kidnapped and watched my best friend get seven bells of shit kicked out of him, no biggie.” His wry tone brings a smile to my lips, and I relax more when he sits on one of the barstools on the opposite side of my kitchen island.
I tilt my head at him and chuckle. “Yeah, no biggie. Just a typical weekday afternoon around here.”
He snorts a laugh, then folds over the edge of the island, laying his cheek on the cold marble surface.
For a moment, I think he’s laughing as I pour the boiling water into the mugs on the counter behind me, but when I turn back around, I see his shoulders are not shaking with mirth, but rather with sadness. Despair, even.
I quickly make my way to him and wrap my arms around him like I did in his hospital room.
His sobs are visceral, pouring out of him like a dark poison he needs to expel.
He can’t stop. I rub his back and shush him, telling him how good he is, how brave, how everything’s going to be alright.
I hold him like that for at least twenty minutes while he cries, and cries, and cries, and I want nothing more than to take all of his pain away and carry it for him.
Or better yet, cast it into the sea for him so he never has to look upon it again.
This sweet, precious man should be cherished and cared for, not treated so abominably by those who supposedly care about him. I just thank God he doesn’t seem to have been physically hurt. This time, at least.
When his sobs quiet, and his body stops shaking, and he is finally still, aside from the occasional stuffy snuffle into my neck, I loosen my hold on him and move him back slightly so I can see his face.
He clings tighter to me for a second before he relents.
He seems reticent to let me go, and that, coupled with his lack of eye contact, triggers my awareness.
He’s looking down into the space between our bodies, and when he starts fiddling with the zip of my fleece jacket, I can’t take it anymore.
I hook my forefinger under his chin and lift it so I can see his beautiful eyes.
Once again, he has the look of a startled rabbit, caught in headlights he never should have had to face.
“Hi,” I say softly, and he smiles a watery smile at me.
“Hi.”
“I’m so glad you’re OK.”
“I’m so glad you came for me,” he replies, and tears start falling down his cheeks again, a slow, steady stream this time, rather than the great heaving sobs from a moment ago.
The fact he thought I might not guts me.
I know we agreed we were friends and nothing more, but these last few days have cemented that’s not what I want anymore.
But I hope he knows that if friends are all we can ever be, I’d never let him be alone after something like this.
Deciding not to press this topic when he’s still so upset, I take another tack.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” I ask.
It takes him a minute, but then he nods and starts talking while I get rid of the now stewed tea and start afresh.
“I just…” He sighs as though he doesn’t know where to start. I keep quiet, hoping he’ll find a way to say what he needs to say. I want him to purge this experience from his being so it can’t weigh him down anymore, even though, rationally, I know it’s not that simple.
“As soon as I heard Dominic’s voice in my ear that day, I felt like I shut down,” he explains, his voice thick and tight. “Like I went right back to the pushover coward I was the whole time I lived with him.” He spits his words as though disgusted with them, with himself.
“You weren’t a coward, Corey. You aren’t a coward,” I say firmly, wanting him to hear me. “You did what you had to do to survive, and you got out when you needed to. Not everybody would’ve had the strength to do that.”
He sniffs wetly.
“I know you’re right in here,” he gestures to his head.
“But in here? I feel like I’ve let myself down.
” His hand is pressed firmly over his heart, and mine cracks a little for him.
His life has been one hardship after another, full of people who let him down, abandoned him – whether through choice or death – and hurt him.
“You know what I kept thinking about while we were locked in that room?”
“What’s that?” I ask gently, handing him his tea, then ushering him over to the sofa, where we sit sideways, facing each other, knees pressed together.
“I couldn’t think about anything other than how much I’d wanted to be able to show Nancy the mural in her room. The thought I might never get to show her broke me a little inside.”
A wave of guilt crashes over me, even though I know it’s ridiculous.
“She er… She saw it already,” I say, wincing at my own words.
He looks up at me, those forest green eyes wide and sad, and I wish more than anything that I could go back in time and make sure he was there when she saw that piece of art for the first time.
“She came for a visit to the house, and she wanted to see her bedroom. I’m so sorry, Corey.
I’d have kept it for a surprise if I’d reali—”
“Don’t be silly,” he reassures me as he hastily places his cup down on the coffee table before taking my hands in his. “I’m just glad she saw it. Did she… like it?” The hesitancy and uncertainty in his voice are like salt in the open cracks of my heart.
“Ba—” I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying a word I won’t be able to take back, no matter how much I wish it could be true.
“Corey, she loved it. She spent ages waving her stuffed seal’s fins at the seals you painted, and she had these huge eyes as she looked at it like it was the best thing she’d ever seen. ”
His smile is wobbly, and his chin quivers at the image.
“Really?” His voice is nothing more than a whisper, a breath of sound in the quiet of my living room.
“Yes, really.” I can’t stand this anymore. I pull him to me and hold him to my chest, lying back slightly so we are stretched out next to each other on the couch.
We lie like that for a while, just breathing together in a shared moment, relief and affection our only company.
“When I was… away,” he says, leaning back just enough so he can look at me, “all I wanted was to get out, and get home. I wanted to tell you that…” He looks away, his words trailing off as he tugs his lip between his teeth, chewing it nervously. I cup his chin and draw his gaze back to me.
“Tell me what?” I ask, aware of nothing more than how close my lips are to his.
“I wanted to tell you that,” he takes a deep breath. “That I like you. A lot. And I wanted to see if maybe we could find a way to be more than friends. I know we talked about this already, but that’s how I was feeling.”
I can’t speak, I’m so happy. He wants what I want. Could it be that simple? And then, he continues, and I know that no, of course it can’t.
“But…”
They say we feel emotions in our bodies. Anger makes our jaws clench and our shoulders tense. Surprise lifts our eyebrows to our hairline and makes our mouths slack. Fear tightens our chest and elevates our heart rate and breathing.
At that single word, but, I feel my limbs get heavy, and a knot of pain lodges itself in my throat. My body feels weighed down, fatigued by sadness.
“But?” I ask, voice barely even audible. His smaller hand reaches up to cup my cheek, and I see tears lining his eyes once again. Fuck, I hate seeing him cry.
“But I can’t, I won’t put you or Nancy in harm’s way. Dominic has proven what a piece of work he is – what he’s prepared to do to get to me – and he’s still out there just hiding away until he finds another opportunity, and fuck knows what he’ll decide to do next time.”
“He won’t—” He presses his index finger over my mouth to stop me from saying another word.
“I don’t know what he’ll do. He might do nothing, but I can’t risk that he’d hurt you, or try to take Nancy, or hurt Rain, or anyone else just to try and hurt me.
He’s vicious, Nash. And petty, and he hates to lose.
And right now, I know he feels like he’s lost a round.
Fuck, he’s lost his brother. Toxic as their relationship is, he loves Dan.
He won’t stop until he feels like he’s winning again.
And I won’t put you at risk. I won’t put Nancy at risk. I…”
I’m shaking my head, a sick feeling that I know where he’s going with this, washing the fatigue away and leaving a tumbling ball of panic in my gut.
“I have to leave, Nash. I have to go somewhere he won’t think to find me, while I wait for the police to find him.”
“W-when?”