Chapter 30
nicky
‘Are you sure?’ Nicky said.
Maggie stiffened beside him. ‘Have you changed your mind?’
‘Of course not. I just want to be sure you haven’t.’
He felt her shake her head beside him as they lay on the bed, their hands linked, staring up at the ceiling. ‘You’ll tell me if I’m . . . you know,’ he said. ‘Too rough, or anything.’
‘You won’t be.’
Finn would’ve known exactly what to say in this situation. Nicky wasn’t good with words, even in his own head; Aunt Iris said he expressed himself through his painting, which when he thought about it was kinda true. And the way Maggie made him feel was simply too huge to describe anyway.
He’d grown up with her; he’d known her all his life.
They’d fallen in love this summer the way he fell asleep: slowly, then suddenly, all at once.
They were exactly right for one another: not because she was perfect, or because he was, but because their combined flaws were arranged in a way that enabled them to hinge together as if they’d been hewn from the same tree.
He could tell Maggie things he’d never shared with anyone: dreams he knew would never come true, goals he’d never achieve. Loving Maggie, knowing she loved him, was like feeling the sun on his body from both sides.
He leaned up on his elbow, his bare chest a ghostly white in the dim light spilling through the drawn curtains. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said.
‘I’m fat,’ she said.
He knew how self-conscious she was about her body, how much she hated being overweight. But who got to set what that word even meant, anyway? Who decided what was “over” the weight you were “supposed” to be?
He couldn’t articulate what he felt when she said these things about herself, but he could paint it.
He knew it was in the air Maggie breathed, this fat-shaming contagion; it seeped in through her bedroom walls and beneath the door like smoke; it came in on the soles of people’s shoes and on their breath, it contaminated the water she drank, it leached into her skin and swam through her blood; and it was impossible now, too late, to save her.
It filled him with an inchoate, impotent fury.
Losing confidence in her body had robbed her of her confidence in herself.
He let his hand drift tentatively down her curves, feeling her nipple stiffen as his palm passed across her sports bra. Her belly was as white as his chest, and its softness stirred a feeling in him that dizzied him and made his breath come faster.
She made a noise that sounded like a sob, and when he looked up, he realised she was crying.
He snatched his hand away. ‘Did I do something wrong?’
She turned her face to the pillow, her dark hair covering her face.
‘Maggie, I’m sorry. I’ll go. I shouldn’t have—’
‘It’s not that.’
‘Did you change your—’
‘No! I want to. I just—’
He was already reaching for his pants. ‘It’s OK. You don’t have to explain.’
‘I don’t want you to see.’
For a moment, he thought she meant because I’m fat. And then he realised she had her hands butterflied on her upper thighs.
Covering something.
Gently, he peeled her fingers away.
He recognised the scars; he was part of the Euphoria generation, he knew what self-harm looked like.
Hundreds of perfect, tiny, parallel cuts covered the inside of Maggie’s legs from just above her knees to the tops of her thighs, some faded to white, others newly carved, still scabbing over, in various shades of pink and red.
Exposing the stress of the structure beneath the paint.
She must have been doing this for years.
Maggie twitched the duvet cover over herself. ‘Don’t look.’
Anger bubbled up inside him. He hated Ashley Lincoln and her kind: the influencers and fashion editors and Insta posters who’d made his beautiful, sweet Maggie hate herself enough to do this to her body.
He hated everyone who knew what was happening to Maggie and wasn’t lifting a finger to stop it.
‘I don’t want to do it,’ Maggie said. ‘But when I cut, it eases the pressure inside me. It’s like . . . it’s like the blade sings to me. It makes me feel like I’m alive. When I see the blood, when it hurts, I know I’m still here.’
‘You don’t have to explain to me,’ Nicky said quietly.
He rubbed his thumb gently across the latticework of her scars. ‘People say mean things to break you, but you’re strong,’ he said. ‘You win every time you get up after they knock you down.’
‘I’m not strong,’ she said. ‘I’m tired.’
He knew she didn’t mean now.
‘I want to go away,’ Maggie said.
‘Where to?’
‘Nowhere.’
He knew what she was saying. She’d been telling him the same thing for months now, but he’d refused to understand.
‘You don’t really want to leave your parents,’ he said. ‘Your mom. They’d miss you so much. We all would.’
‘They just want me to be happy.’
‘Maybe if you explained—’
‘It won’t make any difference,’ Maggie said. ‘I’ve tried with my mom. And yours. They don’t listen. They don’t want to listen. I can’t stay, Nicky. I can’t deal with it anymore. But I’m scared to go on my own.’
‘You’re not on your own. I’m with you now.’
She snuggled into him. ‘You make me feel safe.’
‘You are safe,’ he said, putting his arm around her. ‘I’m not going to let anyone hurt you again. I’ll talk to my mom. We’ll sort this out—’
‘I have to go,’ Maggie said. ‘I want to go. And I want you to be there with me.’
A beat fell.
‘Please,’ Maggie said. ‘I don’t want to do it without you.’
Nicky rolled onto his back. A week ago, he wouldn’t even have considered the idea.
A week ago, he’d just been another eighteen-year-old kid.
He’d been trying to hold his shit together ever since that night in the woods.
He’d twisted this way and that like a rat in a trap, looking for an escape, a way out, but he was boxed in.
Whatever option he chose would hurt someone he loved.
He understood now why an animal would chew its own limb off to be free.
‘Tomorrow night?’ Maggie said, reaching for his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. ‘After prom.’
‘After prom,’ Nicky said.