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Chapter Twenty-Seven


Nick pulled me down onto the bed gently, and we crawled across, pulling the sheets and blankets over us to our waists. He kicked off his jeans and tugged away his shirt, and lay there in his boxers. He stared at me, right into my eyes, and I reached for him, running my palms across his chest. He radiated warmth and I liked feeling his body rise and fall as he breathed, like physical proof that he was really there. He slid his hand over the curve of my hip, onto the small of my back, and pulled me closer to him so that our pelvic bones touched and I aligned with him, my back curved so that I continued to look up at his eyes.

I could see emotion running through him, and his face moved with it, the corners of his mouth twitched. He whispered, "Samantha..."

And I knew it wasn't going to happen.

"Yes?" I whispered.

Nick took a deep breath, "Can I just hold you tonight?" he asked. "Cos I think, to be fair, to play by the rules, I think we should wait." I could see how much he didn't want to say these words - it was written plainly on his face. "I want to have sex with you right now," he explained, "But I -- I don't want it to be because I'm hurt. I respect you enough to wait. Is that okay?"

I nodded.

"But don't go anywhere, okay? Please?" He snaked his arms tighter around me, until I curled around him, laying my head on his chest. I wrapped one leg around his waist and snuggled so that I fit in the crook of his arm. He rested his jaw on the top of my head and let out a contented sigh, his hand absently rubbing a rhythm against my back. "This is the least alone I've felt in years," he muttered.

I kissed his chest softly, my palm pressed against his skin by my face.

"I don't mean to be a prick," he said quietly, as though I were only just now screaming the words I'd screamed back on the interstate what already seemed like a lifetime ago. "Sometimes I don't realize what an ass I'm being until someone says so. And then I feel like shit after and wish I could take it all back but it's too late. You know?"

"You've got a temper on you," I commented.

He nodded. "I really do. I inherited that from my mom. She's such an emotionally charged person... I mean, all my family is." He lay there quiet for a moment, and I listened to his breath and heart beat. His words seemed to echo in his chest, like I was hearing them from inside and outside of him at the same time.

"My family was never emotional enough," I confessed.

"Family is a weird concept... how people relate to eachother, charged and connected by blood... expected to get along and cooperate even if their personalities are chasms apart..." Nick shook his head, "Even when they've burned you to hell and back again, you have to forgive them... Blood is thicker than water... blah, blah, blah..." He paused. "I don't think my family will ever forgive me for the things I've done. And maybe they shouldn't, I don't know. I've been a real asshole for a long time, you know?"

"My brother won't forgive me until I let Jesus forgive me," I laughed. "All he does is preach, preach, preach about forgiveness and how much it means, but he never shows what it looks like." I closed my eyes. "I didn't even do what he thinks I did," I mumbled.

"What does he think you did?" Nick asked.

"Subconciously, I think he blames me that our parents are dead," I answered.

"You said it was a car wreck... because of a deer," he said. I was surprised he remembered us talking about it considering he'd been drunk and icing a black eye that night. "Head on with an eighteen wheeler, you said. How could that possibly be your fault?"

"I was in the car," I said. I saw it in flashes in my mind. "It was pouring rain and I'd undone my belt buckle because I'd dropped my CD player. I was in my moody teenage years, you know? I'd spent the entire ride under my headphones ignoring them. I was bent forward and the deer came out and she swerved and on the impact I was thrown out of the car and onto the grass. I walked away with a bruised tailbone and some cuts from the glass I flew through. Nick, even my fucking CD player was still running. But my parents were dead." I felt a tear run from my eye, across my cheek, and hit his skin.

He held me tighter. "That isn't your fault... and I for one am damn thankful you were spared. It just... wasn't your time."

"Jake blames me," I said.

"Aaron blames me for Leslie dying," he said.

"Your sister died?" I twisted my neck to look up at him.

"Last year," he said thickly.

"I didn't know that," I whispered.

"Prescription medication overdose. But she was depressed for years and years. Because of how fucked up my family is and everything. But Aaron thought I should've been able to help her somehow, like I was a miracle working god that could cure peoples' problems, just because I'd managed to pull myself out of the same hole that she was stuck in... I don't know how I did it really, I don't know how I could've helped her. And maybe Aaron's right and I should've. Maybe that's why I feel so guilty about her being gone. But he blames me, right or wrong, and it breaks every fiber of me to know that I didn't just lose one sibling when she died, I lost them all. I lost my whole family."

"That's how I felt about Jake with my parents. They weren't the only ones who died. So did the Jake I knew before."

We fell silent for a long moment, both of us just laying there in the dark. Outside the window, the sun was starting to light up the sky in streaks from the east, turning the world a lavender-grey color.

Nick chuckled.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I've spent all of my life fighting just to be seen. I've climbed obstacles nobody thought I could've done for recognition and fought for fame and thrown myself into hell for notoriety when nothing else worked... I've spent thirty-three years obsessed with the limelight, obsessed with the imaginary promise that being seen meant being understood. And you..." he laughed, "You just walk in and I don't even try with you, I don't even think about it... and you just see me, naturally." He shook his head, "It's ironic, isn't it, how hard I tried and how easy you saw me when I wasn't trying?"

"Maybe you've been trying too hard all along," I suggested.

"Maybe," he agreed. "I just know I'm real tired of trying so hard."

"So rest," I said.

"I think I will," he answered.

"Good. I like you better this way anyhow," I said, and Nick hugged me tighter in response.