9
Nick all but burst out of the pub and then, much to his humiliation, doubled over, dry heaving. God, this hadn’t happened in years. His face burned, but he couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t stop it. His heart was going to rip straight through his ribcage and bleed out onto the rainy street. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Breathe.”
A steady hand on his back, a voice in his ear. Nick’s throat dry-clicked. He shook his head, I can’t, I can’t breathe.
“C’mon, you can do it.”
Nick was vaguely aware of Dex crouching down next to him, his hand moving up and down on his back. He hated it and needed it at the same time. Hated that he needed it. Needed it like air.
Slowly, painfully slowly, his breathing evened out, and he no longer felt like he was going to vomit. His heart pitter-pattered inside his chest still, fluttering like a hummingbird. He felt his pulse in his ears, in his fingers, in the bottoms of his feet. When he swallowed again, he could do it without a cobwebby feel in his throat. He straightened up slowly and closed his eyes. Dex’s hand still soothed his back, and Nick had no idea how to make him stop. He was aware of trembling.
If the ground could open up and swallow him whole, he’d have welcomed it.
“Fuck.” He breathed through the last of it. His face, when he touched it, was clammy and warm. His shirt stuck to his back under his jacket, and he shook the jacket off, let it drop, felt the cold rain on his arms. He took off his glasses and buried his face in his hands. Street noises filtered in. Dex was no longer touching his back. He was quiet next to Nick, but present. Too present.
Nick didn’t know how long they stood there like that. If it had been up to him, he’d have stood there long enough to turn to stone and for Dex to walk away, but in reality, he couldn’t just slump like an idiot forever. Maybe everyone else was about to file out, and he’d humiliated himself enough for one night. It writhed in his belly, replacing the panic. At least he hadn’t actually vomited. Small favors.
“I’m okay,” he lied, letting his hands drop to his sides. Without his glasses, Dex was a little blurry beside him, but Nick could still tell he looked concerned.
“Okay.” Dex’s voice was careful, quiet.
Nick shivered, the cold finally seeping through, and bent to pick up his jacket, only to notice it hanging from Dex’s arms. “Oh. Th-thank you.”
“Not a problem. D’you want to walk?”
Nick slipped his rain-spattered glasses back on, put on his jacket, and nodded. They trudged together under the street lamps. Nick attempted not to think by counting numbers and letters on the passing cars’ license plates, slipping into the old habit like a comfortable bed.
He had to apologize. To everyone, but especially to Jonny, and to Dex, too. What they must think of him, derailing a night about their friend. Dex had barely even been there ten minutes when he had to go and babysit Nick.
He swallowed and made himself talk. “I’m sorry.” His voice was almost steady. He set his jaw. “I haven’t … This hasn’t happened in a while. I wasn’t expecting it, and you really didn’t have to—”
“It’s okay,” Dex said. “Really, promise.”
Nick nodded, not believing him for a second but trying to appreciate the lie. “I can probably make it back by myself.” He was aware that his attempt at a smile most likely looked wrong, but it was the best he could do.
“Don’t mind a walk. It’s nice.”
It was drizzling and freezing, but Nick shut up. They crossed two intersections before Dex pointed to a darkened park nearby. “Want to?”
Nick squinted, made out a weird sort of sculpture garden. He realized with desperation that he didn’t want to go back to his dorm. “Okay.”
“Cool.”
Dex led the way. The street lamps didn’t quite reach inside the park, the trees protecting it from view. The sculptures turned out to be a set of oddly shaped colorful benches, smooth like water-weathered stone. When Nick sat down on a blue one, it propelled him backward and he yelped, just managing to hang on.
“You okay?” Dex turned around. “Oh, is that one of them spring things?”
Nick righted himself, his humiliation complete. “Apparently.”
Nick didn’t miss his grin. He ducked his head and sighed.
“It’s okay, you know,” Dex said a moment later. He, Nick noticed, didn’t fall ass over elbow when he sat down on his own rocking bench. The thought must have shown on his face, because Dex said, “You tested it for me.”
“You’re welcome.” Gingerly, Nick pushed one foot off the ground, and the bench swayed beneath him. Now that he was expecting it, it was sort of soothing. Like a swing, or a rocking chair. The rain didn’t reach them under the cover of trees, and his glasses slowly dried as he sat there, rocking. The back of his head was cold. Izzy’s haircut left him virtually shorn in places he wasn’t used to being exposed. He still had no idea why he’d let her, but he was actually pretty pleased with the result. And it had been free. And then Izzy got the text from Natali, and Izzy had dragged him along, and…
He looked down. His shoes were wet, small blades of grass sticking to the tips. It wasn’t that he never thought about his dad. He thought about him all the time. But he’d relegated him to the back of his mind, a place it was safe for his memory to inhabit without rendering Nick a complete and utter mess. Because when the mess came out, it came out in a vicious wave of this.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” Dex’s voice cut into his thoughts, and Nick looked up. Dex didn’t look like he was humoring him, but the offer still made Nick feel strange. “I mean, you don’t have to,” Dex added. “But maybe it’d help?”
Nick was aware of two things. One was that he very much never wanted to talk about this with anyone ever again, and the second was that he probably owed Dex an explanation at the very least. Dex had been deliberately kind, which Nick couldn’t bring himself to push away, no matter the extent to which he had no idea how to deal with it.
He cleared his throat, squeezed his eyes shut for a minute, and said, “I haven’t reacted like this in a while, like … with a panic attack, I guess.”
“How long has it been?”
“Five years,” Nick supplied automatically, then looked up. “Sorry, that’s—since he died. And I guess about a year or so since I’ve done this.”
He’d just turned fifteen. It had been a muggy sort of summer day, no breeze. He was working at a Dairy Queen at the time. He had been just about to go on his break, brooding about something stupid, when Zoyka walked through the door, the bell clanging to announce her presence. He had never seen her like that before. Not once since. Her eyes, always heavy-lidded and big—she had beautiful eyes—were red and shadowed underneath. Her hair was all over the place. Nick still remembered the way one stray curl fluttered with the force of the AC blowing in through the vent over her head. That’s what he was looking at when she told him that something had happened with Dad. Nick hadn’t even taken off his apron. He’d been thinking about his best friend. Thinking about how he hadn’t seen Josh for a week now that Josh had a girlfriend.
“I’m sorry.” Dex’s voice was quiet.
Nick nodded, taking in a shaky breath. “Yeah, I guess talk of dads and hearts and … You know.”
“Yeah. I mean … yeah.”
When Nick glanced up, Dex gave him a small dimpled smile. He returned it, but it felt brittle on his face, a trepidation of muscles that felt unused. Even in semidarkness, he saw the questions Dex wanted to ask. He was grateful Dex wasn’t asking them at the same time as answers clamored to spill out, words he hadn’t said in years. Maybe the darkness made it easy. Only his mom and Zoyka knew it all. Lena, too. She’d been there. Before they became anything else, they’d been friends. Two immigrant kids, clinging to each other, united by language and misery.
“He’d been working in his lab, and his heart just … gave out.” Nick’s voice was rusty. He swallowed. “The ambulance got there too late, and I guess they couldn’t have done anything even if they’d been there a second after, he—” Died. Between one second and the next, his dad was gone. Massive coronary. Nick hadn’t known at the time that his dad hadn’t seen a doctor since coming to the States. They’d all had a check-up or two when they first immigrated. Got their shots just in case, had their first dental cleanings. After that, his parents were religious about Nick and Zoya’s physicals. But no one had looked after Dad. And then it was way too late.
“Christ, Nick.”
Nick looked up, and their gazes caught. He felt the tears pricking at his eyes, hot and unbearable. He attempted a smile, realized his nails were digging into his palms. “Is this too much information? Sorry, I shouldn’t—”
“Of course you should, it’s fine.” Dex stood up and walked over to him. He dropped down to his haunches. The sight of him so close, looking up at Nick with a soft expression, made a light-headed sensation go all through Nick. He told himself to snap out of it. “What happened is … I can’t even imagine.” Nick couldn’t make himself look away. Dex’s face was mesmerizing. “God, you must have been Albert’s age.” He paused. “Sorry, my baby brother. He’s fourteen.”
“I was fifteen.” His shoulders lifted in a self-conscious shrug, then froze somewhere around his ears. “You have a brother?”
“Al, yeah. Good kid, but a pain in my arse at the moment.”
“I have a sister, but she’s older. Four years.”
“What’s she called?”
“Zoya.” It was always strange to say her name out loud in his American accent. There shouldn’t really have been a difference in how he pronounced it language to language, but it permeated his tongue anyway. Made everything Russian sound just a little bit alien. “She didn’t want to change her name either.”
“She shouldn’t, it’s pretty.” Dex smiled.
Nick fell silent. He’d never considered if Zoyka’s name was pretty. It was just her name.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Dex said after a while, shifting a little. Nick wondered just how he was managing to stay crouched like that without going numb. It was probably painful. “With your dad, and tonight, too. That looked … bad. I mean, hard.”
Nick squirmed. “It’s stupid, though.”
“You clearly hadn’t meant to.” Nick sucked in a tiny breath when Dex laid one cool, dry hand over his. “Don’t beat yourself up over something you can’t control. Anyway, they’ll understand, if you wanna tell them?”
Nick looked up at the bit of a starless sky he could make out through the trees. Breathed in. “I should, right?” He didn’t know how. Forcing the words out to Dex back at the pub had been punishing enough. “Or I’ll just look like a crazy person. Or a real dick.” Dex looked like he wanted to laugh but was holding back. Nick, emboldened, nudged him with his foot. “Like a dick, right? It’s cool, you can tell me.”
“Nah, man.” He did laugh, though. It sounded warm, not mean at all. “Maybe just a tiny bit of a dick.”
Nick grimaced.
“Seriously, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Dex caught his gaze, looking serious again. “Anyway, if you want, I guess I could tell them. Short story. Just the reason.”
Nick knew it would be an easy out. Well, he’d always been the Cowardly Lion anyway. “Maybe. If you wouldn’t mind.”
Dex finally unfolded himself, not quite as steadily as Nick would have expected. Well, he’d been down there for a while. Nick didn’t want to look any smaller than he already did in comparison and stood up, too. Dex hadn’t stepped away yet, and just like that they were mere inches apart, Nick’s eyes level with the hollow of Dex’s throat. When he looked up, Dex’s expression was unreadable in the dark. Nick had nowhere to go because the bench was at his back, and it felt like a small eternity before Dex took a backward step and did a twisty turn in silent indication for them to get back onto the street. Like nothing had ever happened.
Nick followed, his heart sounding hollow as a drum in his ears.
You can’t, he told himself. He pictured his mom’s face. Not for you.
+
Dex must have done his part, because Nick had a text from Izzy when he left class the next day.
Hope you’re okay babe. Sorry about last night. Here if you want to talk x
Usually Izzy’s texts were written with so many shortcuts, Nick sometimes couldn’t tell on the first read if they were English. This was—different. Sweet. He wasn’t sure how to respond, because he wasn’t okay. She had nothing to be sorry for. And he didn’t want to talk.
Thank you & I’m sorry x was his final response.
Class had taken every brain cell he had just to sit through it, and he wasn’t even sure why. He found the British university system challenging, for sure, but not impossible. His advisor back home had warned him that it would be a lot more independent study and self-discipline, and so far Nick was just fine with that. Being a gigantic nerd had its advantages. The only time he felt like a real idiot was when he was told to show up to a tutor session at half two and showed up at one-thirty, twiddling his thumbs for an hour.
But yesterday had been so surreal, he couldn’t concentrate on his professor’s droning even a little. It was like words immediately escaped his brain before he could grasp their meaning. He heard everything and could recall nothing. He would look down at his notes and see spirals and boxes filling the margins of the page. He was just glad he hadn’t been called on to respond to some assertion or other. It was just not the day to perform any sort of mental tasks.
All day, he had a headache, like a panic hangover, and no amount of caffeine he applied to it did a damn thing.
He decided to skip his last tutorial and disconnect from the world via napping, but sleep wouldn’t come. He found himself running his hand over the short hair on his nape and going through the previous day in his mind. He tortured himself over and over by remembering everything he said to Dex, every moment where he could have stopped himself. He could have begged off coming with Izzy, he could have not told Dex the truth, he could have controlled himself and not fallen apart in front of his friends, he could have literally done anything but what he did, and now he was curled up under his blanket, digging his nails into his palms. Dex had to think he was an idiot, or at least pathetic. Izzy was so sweet, but she had to wonder why she’d become friends with him, didn’t she? He just wasn’t normal. He wasn’t okay.
And Dex. Fuck. Fuck.
How honest could you get with yourself? He’d often asked himself this question when skating a little too close to unapproachable things. Not very was his usual response. Don’t think it, and it won’t come true. Don’t let yourself, and you won’t have to.
When he had sat on Lena’s bed, running his hands over the familiar pattern of her flowered comforter, and forced himself to tell her that he didn’t think a long-distance relationship between them would work, he’d almost believed himself that it was the long-distance part that wouldn’t work. When he missed her in the days after the breakup, he believed that he was missing all of her. Her voice, her confidence, her smile. Her scent, her small breasts that fit so neatly into the palms of his hands. It was getting harder and harder to believe these days.
He was nearly four thousand miles away, and he still felt all of his fears like ghosts over his shoulder.
How honest could you get with yourself?
Not very, he thought, pushing away the memory of how Dex’s hand had felt on top of his. Not very honest at all.
+
Nick spent the next week wondering how Jonny was doing and simultaneously avoiding any human contact that he could. He went to classes. He went to the library. He watched Netflix on his laptop, propped up on his thin pillow and eating digestives from a packet. It was strange how they reminded him of his childhood, something about the taste and texture instantly bringing him back to the pecheniya his parents always had for tea.
Luckily, he did have an essay that was due the following week on the Tudors, which he happily used as an excuse to get out of making plans. It was a big enough campus. He didn’t run into anyone, and the longest conversation he had was with a guy whose room was across from his and who Nick found putting a sign on the shared fridge that said, IF YOU ARE STEALING ALL MY CHEESE I WILL CATCH YOU AND I WILL END YOU, with a frowny face and a knife drawn on the bottom of it.
And then on Saturday night, as he was leaving the library, his essay triumphantly finished a full twenty-four hours before it was due, he found Izzy chilling on the library stairs, smoking a cigarette.
“Hiya!” she said, with absolutely zero surprise at seeing him.
Nick looked around, just to see if maybe she was waiting for someone else, but she laughed and extended her hand. “C’mere, stranger. Been a while.”
Nick took the last few steps and sank down next to her. “Hey.” How had she found him? Now that she was here, he felt stupid and guilty. He hugged his bag to his chest. “Sorry I’ve been … you know…”
“It’s cool, I get it. Just thought you might want some company. Alex mentioned he saw you in the reading room a few hours back, so I took a chance. Since you never respond to your texts anymore.”
Nick felt his face flushing and fumbled for his phone. He had two texts from Izzy and a missed call from his mom. Jesus, he’d forgotten his phone even existed. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I wanted to finish this paper. Guess I got distracted.”
Izzy took a drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke away from his face. She held the cigarette in her right hand, and Nick knew she was a lefty like him. He thought about how her exuberance sometimes overshadowed the small ways in which she showed her kindness. “Want to get a drink? It doesn’t have to be everybody. It can just be us.”
Nick shivered with the wind and zipped up his jacket all the way up to his chin. “I do,” he said. Surprised himself by finding that he’d missed her.
“Cool.” She smiled and threw her cigarette to the ground, stomped her booted heel over it.
He was aware of how close she was. He recalled watching her in the mirror as she cut his hair the week before. All concentration, accentuated by the precise metallic snipping of her scissors and the toneless buzz of the clippers. You need a cut, babe, she’d said, and he’d laughed and said, I know. But money.
I’ll do you for free had been her response, and that was that.
“Dex is working, so let’s go say hi,” she said now as she heaved herself up, then extended her hand to him. Nick took it.