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Chapter One Hundred-Twenty-One
Point of View: Zoe



I spent every moment I could possibly get the hospital personnel to allow with Nick. He spent most of that time sleeping, and I smoothed his hair or rubbed his cheek. The more time I spent around him, the more attached I became, like he was a puppy dog. He'd confided a lot of secrets in me in his half-asleep state, things he'd possibly told no one before - things that I would never repeat.

I had the strangest desire to hold him in my arms and rock him like a baby, though I knew size-wise it could never be done. I cradled his head in the crook of my arm one of the days, and that would be as close as I'd ever get to being able to hold him protectively the way I really wanted to...

"Why do you care about me?" Nick whispered on the second night after Desi's death.

I was sitting beside him, my hand resting on the pillow beside his head, my thumb stroking his forehead gently. I gawked at him in surprise, "Why wouldn't I care about you?" I asked.

"Mom types never do," he answered in a tone that nearly shattered my heart on the spot. Nick's eyes stared out at me from the pillow that smooshed his cheek a little bit. He had the blanket up to his chin. "Not even my own mom," he added.

I shook my head, "Do not compare me to your mother." Nick's eyes looked a little hurt when I said that, and I quickly amended, "She has done nothing but hurt your heart... I don't want to hurt your heart. I want to help you heal."

"I just don't understand what makes you so different that you can love me when my mom can't even love me. She's the one that's supposed to love me." Nick's voice was low.

"Your heart is of gold, Nick," I said, "And if your mother can't see that then she's a very blind person. She should be able to appreciate the beautiful man that she helped to create and bring forth into this world." Nick shook his head. "Why are you disagreeing with me?"

"I'm not a good person," Nick said.

I stared at him in disbelief, "How can you say that?"

Nick shrugged. "If I was a good person, my mom would've loved me."

"Your mother is stupid," I answered sharply. Nick winced at the tone and frowned at the insult to his mother. He was one of those truly loyal people who stuck by a person no matter what... even when they were cut down and destroyed by that person. I rested my hand on his. "Nick, listen to me. My care for you should not be the exception, it should be the norm."

"What if I let you down?" he asked. "Would you hate me? Stop loving me?" I was reminded of a two year old, who asked these questions without words by breaking things or knocking things over. Is there anything which I can do that will make you stop loving me?

I shook my head. "There's nothing you could ever do, to make me turn away from you," I told him. He smiled, contented with that answer.

But on the third day after Desi had been killed, I found myself staring into an empty hospital room.

I sat there, staring into the room, numb feeling, wondering where he was... if he was okay...

Christopher came up behind me and rested his hand on my shoulder. "They moved him to the corrections facility's medicinal ward," he said quietly. "They were just waiting until they could get him off the morphine to send him away."

I sat staring into the room, until Christopher pulled me out in the wheelchair and started to push me away, back to my own room.