Текст книги "These Battered Hands"

Автор книги: Laurel Ulen Curtis

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Repeated.

Over and over I pictured his face in my head.

His eyes were like actual pools of water—moving, flowing, and changing color along with depth. Each time his focus shifted, so did mine, zeroing in on a new fleck of deep blue and trying to help it float through the much more abundant aqua. Their magnetism made it hard to focus on his words, but I wouldn’t have traded those moments spent studying their nuances for all of the words in the dictionary.

Sure, looks were shallow and words could mean everything, but in those split seconds when his eyes changed before my own, I would have sworn on my every Olympic medal it was the opposite.

And right now, I needed the comfort of that feeling. I needed it to swaddle me in its warmth and make everything feel right again.

The word wrong had never been a concept worthy of my focus, but as I tried to make sense of what was happening, denying its existence was no longer an option.

Up felt like down and left very nearly tricked me into believing it was right.

Voices called out to me constantly and on repeat, but none of them were the one I wanted. Like they were speaking through water, every pronunciation of my name seemed foreign and unwelcome, and my brain did nothing but scream another.

I tried valiantly to talk my uncooperative body into bending to my will, but for the first time in my life it wouldn’t.

Digging deep down into my sternum, I found the last vestiges of my energy and willed them into one single action.

Into one single word.

“Nik.”

Priorities shifted and silence mocked me.

My entire life had been a series of events all specifically driven toward this very moment. I’d known all of my work was meant to culminate in a flourish of glory and significance. I’d known there’d be a second in time when I knew why each part of my life had played out the way it had.

I’d even known it would probably happen now—on this stage, in front of all of these people.

I’d just had the timing wrong by about three minutes.

But I knew now.

This was it.

This moment of reflection and clarity forced on me by the inability to move made it fucking impossible to deny.

He was everything.

“Calia,” I finally heard, the sound of Coach Banning’s concerned voice finding its way through the muck of my confusion.

I didn’t answer though.

I tried.

But the chain of communication from my brain to my lips was obviously hindered by a temporarily broken link.

God, I hoped it was temporary.

“Callie, listen to me. Do not move,” she instructed, making me mentally roll my eyes.

I wasn’t even responding vocally. Moving seemed pretty fucking unlikely. But, given the grave look on her stricken face, I decided to take note of the memo and put an asterisk next to it. Move it up to the very top of my Don’t Do List.

With my options for activities dwindling, I tried again to make sound vibrate properly off of my vocal chords.

“N-N-Nik.”

No one paid me any mind, but I wasn’t sure if it was because they couldn’t hear me or that they just had more important things to worry about. Everything seemed surreal to the point of feeling out of body, and it made it nearly impossible to discern whether or not the things I thought I knew were worthy of validation.

Whatever the case, after several ventures with nothing gained, I decided it wasn’t worth the effort anymore. I knew he wasn’t there to answer, and none of these people knew we had a relationship other than coach and athlete. I’d thought it was important to keep it that way, and as was my nature, when I willed something, I settled for nothing else.

That was why I was here in the first place, competing in my third Olympics and largely ignoring the ailing cries of my overworked body. I didn’t know when to say Uncle, and now, with the feeling in my legs eerily absent, my body was screaming it for me like a plane on fire with both wings broken off.

I could, however, feel my arms, and, having just rolled me up in order to carefully place a backboard beneath me, they were strapping them tightly to each side of my body with thick velcro straps. I figured if there was ever a time to cry, this would have been it.

Instead, I focused on a single, floating particle of chalk, the brilliance of its perfect white shining starkly against the obscurity of a faceless, silent crowd. It fluttered and flipped aimlessly, waiting for something to catch it or get in its way.

I hadn’t lived even one second of my life that way; conversely, I worked hard at sprinting from one place to another. I mentally berated myself for aspiring to be like a fleck of chalk, but the absurdity of its unimportance was largely overshadowed by the truth of it all.

I liked to think it was my dad’s fault. That’d he’d pushed me to this.

But I really had no one to blame but myself. Because my dad was just pandering to the version of myself I’d allowed to run rough-shod over what could have been a fucking life.

I’d been the one too cowardly to admit to him and myself that plans had changed.

By focusing all of my energy on each destination, I’d done a pretty good job of ignoring the journey. I’d competed in three Olympic games for shit’s sake. And all I could think about was making a bigger splash than each time before.

Ha, I thought as the paramedics took positions at each end of the board, my immobile body sandwiched in between. I’d sure as hell done that.

I watched as my piece of chalk met another, flitting and floating together then from one place to the next and landing safely on some asinine surface connected to one another.

I was surprisingly unaffected by the fact that my gymnastics career was over, and had ended in a fall no less.

I was worried about the lack of feeling in my legs, but when I really considered the consequences that stretched out in front of me, there was only one thing I was scared to death not to have.

And that was—

Nik.

A gentle shake to my shoulder woke me from what could only be described as a fitful sleep.

“Nik?” the flight attendant asked, having learned my name after looking at me with what I guessed was a reflection of my own sad eyes and asking.

I’d driven like a madman to Atlanta to catch the first flight in time, not grabbing clothes or belongings or more than the passport I thankfully kept on my motorcycle all the fucking time. It would have cost me a round trip of about six hours which wasn’t the end of the world, but it very well could have meant the difference in my precarious mental health.

Despite my parent’s loose affiliation with their international relatives, they’d always carried theirs with them just in case and preached the habit to me.

International travel took time, something I was finding out for myself first hand, and they always wanted to be ready and able to get there as quickly as possible if something happened.

In my entire lifetime, I’d only known of it happening one time, for the death of my Grandfather.

I didn’t go with them, as I’d never met the guy, and the reception when they got there wasn’t exactly warm, but my parents believed in doing what was right—even if that meant doing the opposite of what was easy.

“We’re about to begin our initial descent.”

“Thanks,” I murmured, sitting up taller and wiping an agitated hand across the sleep in my eyes.

I peered over the person next to me to the view of Brazil, not that I could point anything out to you technically or with skill. Lush green peppered the landscape outside of the city, and my knees bounced with unconfined anticipation.

I just wanted to see her. Talk to her. Touch her perfect skin and look into her chocolate eyes and know that she was okay.

The rest of it didn’t matter. Not what she wanted from me or didn’t or the circumstances under which we’d parted ways.

Not the disapproval of the people around us or her reluctance to commit.

Not time or distance or some misspent effort to do what was right.

All that mattered was her.

All that ever mattered to me anymore was her.

Navigation through an airport and one cab ride later, and I had never been more thankful for the “Speak to Translate” app in my life.

I knew Portuguese was the language in Brazil, and I knew I didn’t speak it.

What I learned pretty quickly when I got there was that it was a problem.

I couldn’t find an English speaker anywhere, and I didn’t have time to seek one out. So instead, I spent what was probably five hundred million dollars and downloaded an app using international roaming data on my phone.

Luckily it had gotten me here, but under the duress of the situation, hours upon hours of travel, and the crushing relief of finally ending up in the building where Callie was, my memory did a good job of fleeing.

I rushed through the doors and to the front desk without one single look back to the cab, starting to speak as soon as I got within five feet.

“Callie Nickleson, please. Calia. You have to let me see her,” I pleaded with the woman at the desk, waiting foolishly for her to answer me.

She shook her head in the negative, her understanding of even a single word I’d said failing.

I groaned to myself, grappling with my pockets and digging for my phone.

Before I could get it out though, a woman in scrubs approached the desk and looked at me appraisingly.

“Who are you here for?” she asked in perfect English, stopping the frantic search for my phone and freeing up a hand to squeeze the back of my tension-filled neck.

“Calia Nickleson.”

“Are you family?” she asked, the dread that filled my stomach nearly sinking me to the floor when I realized that they weren’t going to let me back there. Not only wasn’t I family, but Callie was a public figure. There was no way they were going to just let any old schmo back there to see her.

“No, I’m…”

Looking over my face again, she interrupted me. “Are you Nik?”

My chin sank back into my chest.

“Yeah.” Excitement made me stutter. “Yes.”

She pursed her lips to the side. “Look, I’m sorry to be a pain, but I’m going to have to check your ID to make sure.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I agreed easily, “No problem.” I reached quickly into my back pocket and pulled out the waiting passport.

She smiled warmly at the confirmation of my name, taking my elbow immediately and starting to walk.

“She’s been waiting patiently for you.”

My eyes teared up and very nearly spilled over. I wiped at the corners just in case.

“She’s in surgery right now, but she made sure I knew to bring you back as soon as I could. Keep checking to see if he gets here, she told me over and over again before they took her back.”

“Surgery?” I asked, forcing a swallow past my tight throat and scratching almost violently at the skin of my forehead. I felt positively itchy with anxiety and worry.

“On her back,” she confirmed slowly.

Pulling me to a stop, she measured her words, cringing slightly as she lowered her voice.

“She was having some trouble feeling her legs.”

Oh God.

I felt sick and uneasy on my feet and, given her reaction the evidence must have been splashed pretty clearly across my face.

Pushing me to the wall, she helped me settle my back against it and slide down, my butt hitting the floor and leaving room for my head between my knees.

She pushed actively on my neck, coaching me to keep my head down if I felt like I was going to pass out.

And I did.

I followed instruction and let the thoughts swirl endlessly like a bad loop of a nightmare on repeat.

I stewed and stewed, worrying every muscle so much they practically separated from the bone, knowing this kind of disability would break her.

She lived her life bottled inside herself most of the time, but her internal emotions were messy, fucked up, and relied heavily on the one thing she’d always held steady—her ability to release aggression and feeling through movement.

In that way, she really was like me.

“When you’re ready we’ll go to the waiting room. You can wait for her surgery to be over with her parents.”

I hadn’t thought it was possible before, but I quickly learned I could, in fact, be more nauseous.

I knew it was better to get it over with quickly though, so I pushed to my feet, swaying only slightly when ambushed by a wave of lightheadedness.

“She’s gonna be fine, Nik,” she comforted, naively thinking I only had one thing to worry about.

God, I didn’t even know her name.

“What’s your name?”

She smiled and patted my arm. “Shirley. And if you need anything you can ask for me.”

I wanted to ask her more, like why she spoke English and anything and everything else I could think of about Callie. Her mental state and her spirits and how’d she’d been feeling besides the lack of feeling in her legs.

But before I could utter a word, we rounded the corner and came face to face with Frank and Sonya Nickleson.

His face warmed at the sight of Shirley but quickly turned to stone when he realized I was the one on her arm.

“What are you doing here?” he barked, surprising Shirley significantly.

She was the only one.

My jaw hardened along with my resolve. The only way he was getting me out of here was by shooting me first. And even then, I’d make sure to request a room right fucking next door to his daughter.

“I’m here to see your daughter,” I told him. My words were steel fact.

“Like hell—”

“Frank!” Callie’s mom broke in, looking from my face to Frank’s and back again.

“He’s not going in there,” he told her turning to look directly at her in order to issue the order.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I am,” I corrected without waiting for his cold eyes to come back to me. “I already was, but now I’ve heard that Callie was asking for me herself. And if she wants to see me, you couldn’t keep me away no matter how hard you tried.”

My chest ached and heaved with each word as I fought to keep control of my volume. I wanted to yell and curse and punch him right in the nuts while I was at it, but the pesky rational voice in my head told me that wouldn’t be a good idea or help anyone involved.

Scratch that.

It would help me. At least emotionally.

But not anyone else. Least of all, Callie.

And this was all about her.

His voice shifted to an angry whisper, the threat rolling easily off his tongue, “I’ll have you physically removed—”

“Frank!” Sonya yelled loudly, startling us all.

My chin pulled back into my chest as I looked at this completely unknown version of Callie’s mom with caution.

“Jesus, Frank, just stop. For Christ’s sake, don’t you think you’ve done about enough?”

As surprised as I was, Frank was mystified. It was astoundingly clear that Sonya Nickleson had never talked back to Frank a single day of their married lives. And maybe before.

But she was sure as hell talking back now.

“We’re in goddamn Brazil, waiting on our daughter to come out of back surgery so we can find out if she’s still got the use of her legs. Nik obviously traveled here as fast as he could, and Callie’s asking for him, and by God, Frank, if she wants him, she’s going to fucking get him.”

The knot in my gut eased, the notion that I wasn’t the only person here fighting to reunite me with Callie just barely lightening the burden.

I wasn’t sure I trusted it enough to thank her verbally, but I met her eyes with my own and did my best to express my gratitude.

I looked from her to Frank and back again, and then watched as Shirley scooted quietly out of the room unnoticed. The other families looked on with interest, but no one said anything.

Not me, not Sonya, and most surprisingly, not Frank.

Shock painted his face as he backed over to a chair and sat down.

I kept a few chairs between us, but ultimately sat down on the same wall and waited.

Waited for news.

Waited for Frank to threaten to kick me out again.

But mostly, I waited to see my girl’s chocolate brown—

Eyes.

They were the last thing I saw in my dreams and the first thing I saw when I woke up. Brilliant blue and surrounded by lush, dark eyebrows, lashes, and hair, they smiled at the corners, shimmering with a wetness beyond their normal pools of water.

I was groggy and confused, but I knew those eyes, and most of all, I knew who they belonged to.

“Nik?” I croaked, my throat scratchy and sore.

My focus zeroed in, and the fuzziness of his face started to clear.

“Right here, Cal,” he whispered, leaning forward to kiss the very apple of my cheek.

“Are you really here?”

He laughed and smoothed the loose hair back off of my face.

“Pretty sure.” His thumb moved from the corner of my mouth to my ear and back again. “Otherwise the ten hour flight was a really god awful dream.”

I tried to smile, curving my lips up and holding them there as long as I could.

“Rest,” he whispered, rubbing at the corners of my eyes until they fully closed. “You’ve been through a lot, my little Pea. And I swear on my life I’ll be here when you wake up again.”

“Good,” I murmured just as I was drifting off to sleep. “Cause if you’re not here, I’ll kill you dead.”

“Calia. Caliaaa. Come on, sweetie, wake up for me.”

Warm fingers rubbed at the hair on my arm, pulling it from one side to the other and back again. It was easier to wake up this time, but I still felt way more fatigued than I was used to.

“Mmm,” I mumbled, not quite knowing what I was saying or who I was talking to yet.

“Hi, Calia,” a female nurse chirped, and with the blur of her face I couldn’t tell if I recognized her or not yet. “I’m Shirley.”

“Hi, Shirley,” I responded, simply because it felt like what I was supposed to do. And then I had a flash of something from the first time I’d woken up.

“Nik?”

“Nope,” I heard his voice call out from the other side of the room. “You killed him good and dead.”

“Huh?” I groaned, shaking my head to try to help clear it.

He chuckled, coming into my line of sight and resting his hand on my leg. “I guess you don’t remember what you told me before you fell asleep.”

Slowly things started to come back to me in pieces, my routine and the fall, and a whole lot of hours spent wondering when I could see Nik again.

I hadn’t known he would come, and I hadn’t expected it.

But I had sure as hell hoped.

Then being wheeled into surgery on my back, an effort to try to restore feeling to the lower half of my body, which no matter the outcome meant the end of my ability to do gymnastics ever again.

And as if the wound needed a little more salt rubbed in, my fall cost our team the gold.

Three Olympics. Three Team Silver Medals.

I thought I’d feel unsatisfied by that. That is would really burn and grate that I made all this effort, all of these sacrifices, and still hadn’t managed to do better than before.

But I didn’t feel that way at all. I felt like three Silver Olympic medals was still really fucking good. And most of all, I felt like I got what I really wanted out of that work, sweat, and blood—a life changing reward that changed the meaning of my life and filled my life with even more guts and glory.

I wanted to feel like I had everything I’d always wanted. I wanted that feeling of fulfillment.

And I found it in Nik.

He was the everything I’d been looking for. It just took me a while to realize what everything looked like.

It wasn’t until the fourth time his hand moved from my knee to ankle that I realized what the fact that I had noticed meant.

“Nik…I…I can feel your hand.”

He looked down, startled, so lost in his thoughts and his concentration on my face that he didn’t even realize what it meant either. He thought he was hurting me, jerking it back like retreating from an overly hot surface.

“No, no!” I shouted to stop him. “Put it back.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Please, put it back.” He did, looking right into my eyes and listening. “I think I can feel my legs.”

His eyes widened just before closing in relief, his fingertips sinking noticeably into the muscle of my blanket-covered thigh. Sweet sensation drifted into the skin around them, and my throat clogged in relief.

“Oh, thank God,” I heard my mom say from the side of the room I’d yet to survey. My dad stood next to her silently, probably for the first time in his life.

I’d told myself that everything would be okay no matter what the outcome with my legs. That as long as I figured out a way to get Nik in my life and keep him, the rest really didn’t matter. I had to hold on to that positivity before surgery.

But I could not deny the sweet melody that hummed through my veins at the realization that I wouldn’t have to live with that burden—and that Nik wouldn’t have to either.

Lost in my own relief, I hadn’t noticed that the room was uncomfortably silent.

When several seconds passed and my dad still said nothing, I scrunched my eyebrows together and looked from him to Nik, at a complete loss for what was going on.

“Nik?” I asked, knowing he would be the one to tell me the truth out of the bunch. Even if he didn’t want to, he respected me enough to do it.

“Cal,” he murmured sweetly with a short swipe of his arm, “it’s fine.”

It was fine?

What was goddamn fine?

What the hell was going on here?

“No, damnit. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that it is not fine,” I disagreed, anger running the line of my body, raising me taller in bed, and making Shirley hide a smirk and turn her head. “Someone is going to tell me why it’s weird, and they’re going to do it right now.”

Still, no one spoke, and as a result, I officially started to lose my shit.

I met each and every one’s eyes individually, holding them in the depths of my most violent stare until they turned repentant.

“Someone is going to tell me why I’m lying here after one of the biggest scares of my life, telling you I can feel my legs, and you’re all denying me a well-deserved goddamn celebration!”

Shirley, the saucy minx, raised her hand.

Nik couldn’t contain his laugh at the harmlessly shit-stirring gesture, and my dad’s eyes turned hard at the beautiful sound.

Mine narrowed for a fight, but before I even opened my mouth, my mom changed everything I thought I knew, turned my whole parental world upside down, and elbowed him directly and with force in the gut.

He made a small noise as the air left him, accusatory eyes turning toward my mom but not challenging.

“Okay,” I shrieked! “Now I’m really interested.”

Nik sighed and moved at once, coming to sit on the bed in the space by my hip. His hands moved to my face, love bleeding from every facet of his tender hold, and lifted my lips to his once, twice, and touching his lips to mine a third time before looking into my eyes and explaining to the best of his ability despite a clear preference not to.

“It’s pretty simple, Cal, and if you really thought about it, I’m sure you could figure it out on your own.” He paused only briefly, touching his lips to mine once more and drawing a grumble from my dad once more. My lips followed his as they left, each touch like a tiny stitch in the hole he’d torn open in my heart when he left.

He shrugged with a simplicity that matched his statement. “I’m here. Your dad doesn’t want me to be.”

I closed my eyes and slammed my head back into the pillow, turning in my father’s direction and prying them slowly open. “Still, Dad? Really? Jesus.”

“Come on, Frank,” my mom prompted my dad, pulling him toward the door of the room and trying to contain the situation. “We’ll give you some time alone,” she added, addressing me directly. It was pretty clear he didn’t want to go, but he did anyway.

Shirley winked and followed them out of the room, and Nik didn’t watch any of it.

He was too busy watching me.

His forehead met mine with a soft thunk, and his eyes closed as it did.

“I missed you, Cal.”

I reached up and cupped his cheek, whispering, “I missed you too.”

His face felt warm in my hand, and the flush of his cheeks matched my own. “I know I didn’t always make the best choices when it came to us, and I’m sorry for them all. For each hurt, each inconsistency, each time I made you feel less worthy and wanted than you are.”

His lips touched mine softly.

“I want an us,” I said desperately, feeling like my point wasn’t clear enough and not wanting to leave even an ounce of question. “I want you and me, and I want it forever.”

A small smile pulled at the very corners of his mouth, and his hands gingerly took mine, turning them over until the palms faced up.

Under the lights, the glitter and New Skin glistened, and the evidence of my jumbled up words shone indisputably.

“I know, my little Pea. I know you want it, and I know I’m going to give it to you. You, your dad, Shirley…” He smiled. “None of you could get rid of me if you tried.”

Relief surged and sizzled, and determined not to waste any more time or opportunities, I blurted out the one thing that was long past due.

“I love you,” we said at once, completely robbing me of my victory dance, a right of passage to be awarded for taking my foot out of my mouth first.

Smiles melted both of our faces, and the already negligible space between us dwindled significantly.

He didn’t let me dwell on it long though, crushing his lips to mine and re-marking my mouth as his. His tongue traveled all the territory, visiting all of the corners and the residents and leaving his taste with the majority of the sensitive buds of my tongue.

He felt like home and happiness and like a long awaited prize awarded solely by being a prize idiot.

I’d denied it too long, fought it too hard, and waited too long to make him my everything.

I didn’t intend to make that mistake ever again.

His forehead rolled back and forth on mine as I shook my head, wanting to let it go, wanting to live in the moment and move forward, but not being able to.

“Why’d you go?” I breathed, the sound just barely audible over the bustling noise of the hospital around us.

His forehead left mine and his vision narrowed in question, but his hands reached out to hold both of mine. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I started with a huff, the frustration I’d felt that day hitting me as if it were happening all over again. “Why did you leave? Why did you sign that stupid fucking paper? Why did you leave without saying anything? Why’d you give up and give in when you did nothing but swear that you wouldn’t? I’ve got nearly a million fucking whys that have done a million fucking laps in my head.”

He shook his head, slow at first and increasing in speed as it went, stopping only to accuse me of his own injustice.

“You signed that paper first,” he insisted, squeezing at my hands with more and more pressure as he did. He wasn’t only telling me. He was reaffirming the actuality to himself.

And he definitely saw it as a certainty.

My heart jumped in my chest, and I searched my memory for my exact account.

But I hadn’t signed anything.

Not when he first brought me in the office, not when he showed me the paper from Nik, and not when I left to call him.

Nothing made sense, and I shook my head vehemently to say so.

“I didn’t sign anything, Nik.”

“Fuck!” he yelled, jumping back off the bed and startling my heart into a beat double the speed. He’d figured something out, but my brain was only moving at half of his speed.

I tried to sit up fast enough to follow him, tried to move as he moved away, fighting desperately to keep him close and touching.

“Nik—” I called as he turned, his walk a perfect display of anger and exploitation. The door slammed into the wall on his way out and my monitors started to go off in distress.

I tried to throw back the covers and climb from my bed, but though my legs had feeling, they were hardly fully functional, and the pain as a result of trying to force it was excruciating.

“Ahhhh,” I moaned in pain, gritting my teeth against it just as Shirley came running into the room.

“Sit back,” she told me, helping me settle back into the pillows and giving me a stern eye as she did.

I widened my own, nodding to the escalation outside. “You expect me not to try to figure out what’s going on?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, I heard Nik’s voice going higher and higher until my father’s joined in, each one of them scraping and challenging for dominance.

I panicked they’d get kicked out, but so far they hadn’t.

Nik’s eventually won the war, the sound of him asking, “What did you do?” ringing out so loudly the whole floor had to have heard it.

My palms turned clammy at the growing possibility of what I feared would be true.

“You owe us an explanation!” Nik’s voice boomed, sending a sharp knife right through my heart.

Because I knew what had to be. I didn’t know the details, but I knew the painfully heartbreaking gist.

My dad had set us both up like a couple of fools, and in a game where I had already lost, I just found out that I lost double.

Ushered by my mother and a lesser known, fuming version of Nik, my dad made his way back inside my room.

“Dad?” I asked simply, knowing he knew I was smart enough to put all of basic pieces of the situation together.

“I did it,” he admitted immediately, Nik’s jaw hardening to the point that I thought it might shatter in the background.

His eyes met mine.

I expected details and a reason, something greater than selfish priorities, but something far more disappointing is the only thing that came.

“I created a problem, and I fixed it.”

Rote and steady and comical in its simplicity, his voice held no emotion. No hesitation, no apology, and not one fucking ounce of regret.

“Nik!” I yelled watching him jump toward my dad in one smooth move. It cost him a lot, I could see it in the stormy flash of his eyes, but he stopped at the sound of my voice.

“God, Dad, how could you?!” Bitterness burned the lining of my throat and bile met it in the middle on its way up. Betrayed wholly by one of my most trusted allies.

“I did what I had to do to keep you from ruining my career,” he justified easily. Way too easily.

“And nearly ruined my life.”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. It’s not like I intended to keep you apart forever—”

“No,” I interrupted, a single tear finally escaping my eye and floating down the line of my cheek. “Just long enough to make sure I didn’t mess up any of your carefully schemed plans.”

“The worst part is that you still don’t get it,” Nik cut in, unable to hold back his own emotion anymore. “You don’t get that life’s about more than achievements. It’s about understanding and love and a genuine fucking desire to make the people you supposedly care about happy.”