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Chapter Seventy-Six
Point of View: Zoe

I stared at Nick. He looked like a little boy who had just fallen down and scraped his knee, with big crocodile tears coming down his face and the most hopeless expression on his face as he looked at me, waiting for me to give him an answer that would put the world back together, the way a child expects a parent to be able to do.

I did the best I could.

I looked at the cop. "Can't you just look away long enough for this guy to get a hug?" I demanded.

The cop looked at me and gave me a once over. Shockingly... he turned.

Nick's face was one of shock. "Well," I said, leaning my crutches against the wall by the door. "Don't make me walk over there, Carter."

He bounded across the space between us and into my open arms, bending low so I could reach him, and pressing his face into the top of my shoulder. I could feel his tears dampening my blouse the moment he made contact. I rubbed his back, and he just stood there, soaking it up.

"Oh, Nick," I sighed, resting my chin on his shoulder, my heart shattering for him as he cried into my shoulder.

The cop turned back around and watched us silently, his lips pursed, eyes cold, but not speaking to break it up. He let Nick stay there for several more long minutes, shaking in my arms.

"Honey," I said after what had to have been at least five to ten minutes of the hug. The cop was looking irritated. I let my hand slip from his back and he reluctantly stood up, wiping his eyes, and handed me my crutches before backing away from me, sniffling. His face was all red.

If Davey had lived, I thought, he would've looked a lot like Nick by now.

I swallowed, in utter disbelief that I'd let those words go through my head.

I shifted my hands on the rests of my crutches uncomfortably. "We'll come back tomorrow to see you, Nick," I said, turning around to the door.

"Zoe?" Nick called after me before the door closed.

I paused. "Yes?"

"I love you," he said simply.

He didn't mean it like he meant it when he said it to Kayla, he didn't mean it in any strange/seductive/sexual way at all, and I knew it. He meant it like he would've meant it speaking to a parent.

I looked up at him. "I love you, too, Nick," I answered.

He smiled sadly. "Thank you."

The fact that he felt the need to say thank you for a parental love shattered my heart into pieces even more than the giant crocodile tears had.



Kayla was curled up in the passenger seat of the Prius when I got out there, the seat buckle around her, her feet up on the chair, hair pooling over her face and knees like a curtain. When I opened the door she looked up and watched as I slid in. She reached for my crutches and put them in the back seat for me as I adjusted the safety belt and checked the mirrors methodically.

"Do you remember David?" I asked.

Kayla blinked in surprise. "What?"

"David," I said, feeling a ball rise in my throat. "You were maybe three last time you would have seen him. You probably don't remember him."

"Who was he?" Kayla asked, her eyes searching the air in front of her as though scanning photographs in her memory.

"He was a very kind man that I dated a very long time ago," I answered.

Kayla's eyes lit up. "The guy with the yellow sweater," she said, clicking her fingers and pointing at me, "Right?"

I smiled sadly, remembering the sweater she meant. "Yes... the yellow sweater." I turned to the wheel of the Prius and hit the power button, intending to completely drop the topic there. I shifted into drive and the Prius slowly made the circle around the water fountain. At the gates to Nick's property, which had been closed by the officers that stood on either side of them, toting guns, a huge herd of frenzied paparazzi and photographers waved their arms and stuck their cameras through the rungs for pictures of the house.

"What made you bring him up?" Kayla asked.

"Nick looks a lot like him, I didn't realize it before today," I explained.

Kayla thought for a long moment in silence as I waved to the scowling officer and he opened the gate, shouting at the photographers to step back. The Prius inched into the throng of them. They pressed their cameras against the windows frantically, lights flashing. I stuck one hand up between my face and the window - a certain finger a loft - and kept my eyes straight ahead, trying not to run over any of the assholes that remained glued to the front of the Prius as I forced my way out of Nick's driveway. Kayla had dropped her face back into her knees to hide from them.

Once I'd pushed through them and started driving at a normal pace - though a couple of them had followed along in non-descript black vehicles - Kayla looked up from her knees again. "What happened to him anyways? I mean obviously you broke up," she said.

"Yeah, we broke up," I said, though it wasn't entirely the truth.

Kayla nodded. She paused. "Is this some kind of you-need-to-break-up-with-Nick chat you're working up to or something? Because if it is, I gotta tell you, it isn't going to happen."

"It isn't," I said, shaking my head, "And I would never think that it would." I looked at Kayla for the briefest of seconds as I came to a stop at a red light. "Remember how reluctant I was for you to go out with Nick to begin with? How protestant I was?"

"Yes," Kayla nodded.

"I was stupid," I admitted. I took Kayla's hand. "Nick is a very, very, very rare treasure," I said. "Keep that in mind, okay?" I smiled sadly, "They only come along once in a life time... and when they do, whether they stay in your life or they leave... you're never the same afterwards."

Kayla was looking into my face, her eyes slightly confused, but she nodded. "Okay."

I let her hand go as the light turned green and continued the drive home. When we got there, we made our exodus to the kitchen and put together a salad for dinner, which we sat in silence at the table to eat. I glanced at the chair Nick usually sat in, and caught Kayla doing the same thing. She sighed, her salad only half finished. "I'm tired," she said, getting up. She stuck the plate into the fridge, "I'm going to bed."

"At seven thirty?" I asked.

"Maybe I'll read in bed," she shrugged. "Night Aunt Zoe."

"Night baby-girl," I answered as she left the room.

The sound of the fork scraping the plate as I poked at the lettuce and finished off the salad before me sounded loud. When I was done, I put the plate into the dish washer and, since the washer was full, started it up. The hum of the washer filled the room, and I imagined a teddy bear I'd given Zara when she was pregnant with Kayla. The bear had a sound box in it's belly that made the sound of a uterus, like an ultrasound, which was supposed to comfort a baby when it cried for the first few weeks after birth.

I sat back down and stared at Nick's seat a little longer.

Finally, I stood up and got the phone and sat back down.

It would take a little while to find her... but there was someone I needed to talk to.