~ Nick
“You sure you don’t want me to stay?” Emma asks as she walks into the kitchen, sliding her phone into her pocket.
I wonder who it is that called her this early.
“I’m okay,” I say, trying for a smile.
Emma slides her arms around my waist. “Bad one last night, huh?”
I nod as I lean down to press a kiss to the top of her head. This is so much more than I deserve.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, resting her cheek against my chest.
“No,” I say, letting out a deep breath. “They’re all the same anyway. It’s nothing new,” I add, knowing that’s part truth and part lie. I knew it was going to be a bad one last night. After everything I’d been forced to talk about with Adrian at my last appointment, how could it not be?
I’d been expecting the worse and that’s exactly what I’d gotten. That and more. God, opening the front door to find Emma standing on the other side of it had been fucking awful. The look on her face, a look that screamed disappointment and disgust at everything she now knew about me.
Emma pulls back and looks up at me, one arm sliding out so she can brush her hand across my cheek. “I can stay home if you want me to,” she says. “It’s okay.”
I smile down at her, closing my eyes as I lean in and press a kiss to her mouth. “It’s okay, really,” I whisper, knowing I can’t ask her to do that, no matter how much I might want to. “I’ll be fine, I promise.”
Emma kisses me once more before pulling back. She watches me now with a look of uncertainty, as though she doesn’t quite believe what I’m saying but knows I’m not in the mood to argue about it.
“Okay,” she eventually says, pressing up on her toes to kiss me again. “Call me if you need me though, I’ll have my phone with me all day.”
I nod, smiling as I walk her to the door.
After she leaves, I walk back into the kitchen to make myself some strong coffee, knowing I’m going to need it if I want to make it through the day. It’s one thing to fall asleep when she’s around, but it’s totally different doing it when she’s not. As bad as it is that I wake her so often, at least she’s there to pull me from the nightmare, to comfort me when I wake up. When she’s gone and it happens, it’s harder to convince myself that it’s only a dream; something I can actually wake up from.
Oscar follows me into the living room and both of us park it on the couch. I turn on the TV, my eyes focusing on the news program that my brain is not taking in.
Before long though, I’m thinking back to the night I met Emma. The night she walked into my bar and changed everything. But right around the time I remember us in my office, me sitting across from her after she’d ended her call with Sarah, is when things start to change.
At first it’s just a bruise on her arm that wasn’t really there that night. But even though I notice it, it doesn’t stop me from kissing her. When she pulls me onto the couch and on top of her, I pull back, expecting to see her smiling up me. Instead, I see make up smeared across her face that wasn’t there that night.
Then she does smile at me and everything is forgotten as she pulls me closer, her hands sliding up my back, under my t-shirt and over my skin. I groan, forgetting about the anomalies as I let her pull it off me, just like she did that night.
“You okay,” I whisper, her hands on my chest. I know what comes next and even though I know it isn’t going to be good, this time at least, I know I can imagine a different ending to that night.
“Mmmm,” Emma murmurs, smiling as her eyes follow a path to her hands.
And that’s when everything about that night really does change.
Because Emma doesn’t just freeze at what she sees tattooed into my skin, she morphs into something else entirely. Suddenly the woman I’m afraid to let go of, lies bruised and broken beneath me. Her cloths torn and her skin bruised and bleeding as her bloodied fingernails dig into my skin as though she’s trying to rip it off me.
“Emma?” I ask as panic flares through me.
She opens her mouth to scream, but nothing comes out.
“Emma, no,” I repeat, the fear uncurling in my gut and seeping through me. I roll off her, my body landing with a thud on the floor beside the couch.
Suddenly I wake up, my body shaking and covered in sweat like it always is.
Fucking hell.
I fell asleep again and that wasn’t me remembering the night Emma and I met, that was me having another fucking nightmare; a nightmare that seemed to morph the past into the present in order to screw with me in yet another way.
I spend the rest of the day lying on the couch, practically mainlining coffee in an attempt to stay awake until she comes home. As the hours tick by though, a part of me can’t help but wonder when this miracle cure Adrian keeps promising me is ever going to happen. When there will ever come a time that I don’t fear going to sleep or even just having the conversations I’m expected to have about that night.
But more than anything, I can’t help but wonder if maybe, I’m just too broken to ever be fixed, and if so, if maybe Emma isn’t just better off without me.
When Emma gets home from work, she somehow manages to convince me we should go out for dinner. She makes up some excuse about not having any food in the house because she hasn’t had time to go to the shops. I’m not sure if that’s a dig at the fact that she’s back working all day while I sit on my arse and do nothing, but it’s enough to make me say yes, even though going out is the last thing I want.
We don’t venture far, just a quiet café at the end of the street. Over dinner she tries to ask me about the nightmare I had last night and I force myself to tell her that it really was no big deal. I don’t bother mentioning the second nightmare I had after she left, because I really don’t need her thinking she needs to stop working to look after me.
I don’t want to lie to her, but I can’t bring myself to confess about this latest dream. The one filled with visions of her and not my sister, lying on my couch, her body broken as though all those awful things Zach did to Amy were instead done to Emma. I don’t like the fact that in this new version of events it happens while I’m kissing her. Fuck knows, I don’t want to think about whatever shit that is supposed to mean either.
Emma doesn’t push and I’m grateful. Instead I turn things around and ask her about her day. Even though I know she knows it’s a diversion, she still talks, and we somehow manage to spend the rest of our meal focusing on her instead.
Afterwards, instead of heading back upstairs to my apartment, Emma steers me towards the bar’s entrance. It’s all shut up, the bar closed as it normally is on a Tuesday night, so I’m not exactly sure what we’re doing.
“Do you have the keys?” she asks.
I pull the keys to my apartment from my pocket. There are only five keys on the ring, two for my apartment, one for my parents’ place and the other two for the bar. “Why?” I ask.
Emma smiles as she takes the keys, sliding the right one into the lock and opening the door. The alarm sounds out as soon as she does, making her jump and she turns to me, a questioning look on her face.
I step inside and punch in the code, not bothering to hide it from her. Emma follows me in, closing and locking the door behind us. The room is dark, the only light coming from the jukebox and the various emergency exit lights.
It feels like forever since I’ve been in here, even though nothing looks any different to the last time.
“What are we doing here?” I ask, as Emma walks past, brushing a hand across my back before she moves behind the bar.
“Having a drink,” she says, gesturing to a stool in front of her.
I walk over and sit down, not quite sure what she’s getting at but going along with it all anyway. Emma smiles at me as she reaches for a clean glass and I watch as she holds it beneath one of the beer taps before pulling on the handle.
The liquid streams out, filling the glass quickly and in the worst way possible. It’s practically half beer, half head. She hands me the glass, an almost triumphant smile on her face and I can’t help but laugh a little.
“What?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Emma, that’s like the worst beer pull I’ve ever seen.”
“Really?” she asks, eyeing the glass in her hand.
“Yes, really,” I say, standing. I move around to her side of the bar, taking the glass from her hand and pouring it down the sink. I grab a fresh one and move so I’m standing behind her, my arms on either side of her body.
Emma looks up at me, a small smile on her face.
“Watch and learn,” I tell her, nodding towards the glass.
She looks back, watches as I tilt the glass, gently pulling on the beer handle and allowing the liquid to run slowly down the side of the glass. When I’m done, she studies it, before nodding and reaching for another fresh glass.
I don’t move and as she reaches for the beer handle, my hands fall to the side, finding their way to her hips. Emma glances up at me, offers another small smile before turning back and trying again.
“Well?” she asks, holding up her second effort. It’s only a third head this time.
“Definite improvement,” I say, eyeing the glass. Just as I open my mouth to suggest I might consider letting her work here, the door opens and Tony walks in.
“Oh, hey,” he says, stopping. “What are you guys doing here?” His eyes flick to Emma quickly, before returning back to me, a strange look on his face as though he isn’t sure if he’s walked in on something he shouldn’t have or he’s been busted doing something he isn’t supposed to be doing.
“Having a drink,” Emma says, as though this is all completely normal. “Do you want one? She offers him the beer she just poured.
“Jesus,” Tony says, laughing as he walks towards us. “You poured that?”
Emma nods, her smile widening. “I did,” she says. “Pretty good, huh?”
“Ummm,” Tony says, flicking me a quick glance that I’m pretty sure says; help!
“You should’ve seen her first one,” I say, gently squeezing her hips.
Tony’s glance flicks back to Emma and the two of them share a silent look that I can’t decipher.
“Well, fine,” she eventually says. “Clearly I’m not bartender material after all,” she adds, taking a loud sip of the beer she poured. “Still tastes pretty good.”
“I’m only teasing you, Em,” I whisper, my fingers tightening.
She turns now, so she’s facing me. “I know you are,” she says, pushing up on her toes to press a kiss to my lips. “I’m going upstairs. You should stay, hang out with Tony,” she adds before slipping out of my arms.
I open my mouth to say no, I’ll come with her, but she’s already saying something to Tony that I don’t catch, before she squeezes his arm and walks out of the bar. After she’s gone, I turn back to him, notice the guilty look he now wears as he stands awkwardly on the other side of the bar watching me.
“She totally set this up, didn’t she?” I ask. Tony shrugs as though he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “Right,” I say, nodding. I grab both glasses, handing Emma’s attempt to Tony while I hang on to the one I poured. “This one’s yours then.”
Tony eyes the glass, the look on his face letting me know just how much he doesn’t want to drink a beer that looks like that, as though it goes against everything he believes in.
I can’t help but smile. “Yeah because you’re totally innocent in all of this now, aren’t you?”
“What?” he asks with mock surprise. “I’m just here to sort the roster for next month.”
“Uh huh, sure you are,” I say, moving around to the other side of the bar and taking a seat. Tony walks cautiously over, reluctantly taking the beer I hand him. I watch as he takes a small sip, wincing a little as though he can’t believe he just did that.
We sit in silence, side by side, both of us staring at the shelves of bottles lined up behind the bar and unable to speak. I’m not even sure where to begin with all the things I know I need to say to him.
“So how are things?” he eventually asks.
I turn, cocking an eyebrow.
Tony shrugs. “Well,” he says. “We gotta start somewhere.”
I shake my head, even as the smile forms. “We should start with me apologising and thanking you,” I say.
“You don’t need to do that,” Tony says, waving a hand dismissively.
“Yeah, Tony,” I say, turning so I’m facing him. “I really do.”
“It’s all good, Nick,” he says, taking another sip of his beer before finally conceding and pouring it down the sink. I watch as he half stands, leaning over the bar and refilling his glass, properly this time. “I know that what happened isn’t easy for you to deal with,” he says, sitting back down. “And I know sometimes you just need to not be here. But you know that when those times come, I will be. Always.”
He’s not looking at me now and it dawns on me that for all the words and thoughts and feelings I’ve buried about that night, about what happened and about what we both saw; I’ve never heard Tony talk about it either. Even though we were both there, we’ve never discussed what happened to Amy that night.
“I should’ve thanked you a long time ago,” I say. “For so many things.”
“What,” he asks, his voice cracking. “What do you mean?”
I pause and Tony finally turns to look at me. “You were there that night,” I whisper, forcing the words out. “You found her, you saw what he did to her, you…”
“Nick,” Tony says as he reaches over, grips the back of my neck and half pulls me into a hug. “We both saw what he did to her,” he says.
“Yeah but I’m the one who shut you out,” I say, pulling back. “I shut you out as though none of that affected you, like none of it mattered to you.”
I have to stop, even though there’s more I know I need to say. Things like how Amy felt about Tony, how I knew he felt about her. How awful that must have been for him to walk in and find her like that.
But I can’t because I have no idea how to even start that conversation, especially now, when none of those feelings they both had for each other can ever matter anymore.
“You know, for the past year or so,” Tony finally says, his voice rough. “I’ve been waiting for you to either fire me or tell me to fuck off.” He pauses, stares at the beer in his hands before he shrugs and adds, “Maybe both.”
“What, why?”
“For my part in it all,” he says, without looking up.
“What part?” I ask, confused. “You had nothing to do with it, Tony,” I add, knowing that the events of that night have always been on me.
“Didn’t I?” he asks.
I stare at him, wondering what the hell he’s talking about. “No,” I eventually say, shaking my head. “Tony, how could you possibly think that?”
He finally looks over, lets out a long breath. “I always liked Amy.”
“I know.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I mean I really liked her.”
“I know you did,” I say. “Just like I knew she really liked you too.”
Tony smiles now, gives a half laugh as though he’s remembering something. “Of course she did,” he says, taking another sip of beer. “How could she not?”
Now it’s me smiling, wondering how different things could’ve been if one or both of them had been able to act on those feelings. How happy I would’ve been to see them end up together if they had.
“Why do you think you had anything to do with what happened that night?” I ask, needing to know.
He shrugs now as the smile disappears. “I never should’ve left,” he murmurs. “I’d seen Zach leave, heard all the shit he’d said to her as he walked out. None of it felt right. I should’ve trusted my gut and stayed.”
I watch as he finishes his beer, glancing at the beer taps as though he’s contemplating another one. I reach for his glass, refilling it for him.
“I’m the one who shouldn’t have left,” I say, sliding the glass over. “I shouldn’t have said the things I said to him, and I definitely shouldn’t have disappeared upstairs to fuck some random girl while all of it was happening.”
Tony exhales hard, running a hand through his hair as he lifts the fresh beer to his mouth. “Like I said, I left too,” he murmurs.
“Yeah, but I’m the one who provoked him, Tony. I’m the one that started it. You did nothing wrong.”
I watch as he drains the beer in his glass, swallowing hard as though it’s more than just liquid that he’s trying to force down. I wish I knew what else I could say to him to let him know that I don’t blame him for anything that happened. That I never have.
“I’m glad you’re finally seeing someone about all of this,” he eventually says, glancing at me. “That you’re finally talking about it all.”
“Emma told you?” I ask.
He nods. “She cares about you.”
“I know,” I say, nodding. “I know she does.”
“You’re allowed to let her, you know,” he adds. “And you’re allowed to not feel guilty about it, too.”
Now it’s me emptying my glass. I can feel Tony watching me, waiting for a response. Instead, I stand and move back around to the other side of the bar. Reaching up to the top shelf, I grab a bottle of whisky and two glasses before returning to my stool on the other side.
I pour us both a shot, my fingers sliding one in Tony’s direction before wrapping around the other and lifting it in an empty salute to the room.
“I just wish I knew how to make that happen,” I say before pouring the warm liquid down my throat.