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Before: Home for the Holidays


Ashley

Back in May, Nick woke me up in the middle of the night, banging on my apartment door, drunker than Jack Daniels himself. He'd warbled and droned out smatterings of explainations as he crash-landed on my couch, reeking of alcohol. I'd gotten a cool cloth and wiped his face until he'd closed his eyes, his face haunted with the dying embers of profound sadness. He'd been struggling since January to deal with his sister's death... and Nick doesn't exactly deal with things well or even rationally.

He does stupid things.

Like get drunk.

And wake me up at two in the morning four months later.

If he'd banged on anyone else's door by that point, they probably wouldn't have understood what was bothering him. On the outside, Nick seemed like he'd coped and moved on and maybe even become a better person because of his loss, like a lesson learned sort of thing. But I knew Nick better than to believe the outside. Hell, sometimes I think I know Nick better than he knows himself. Which is why that memoir idea of his is bad. Obviously that's not the only reason but it's one of the many reasons.

See, on the inside, Nick had been bottling, pushing and shoving emotions down until they were compact and compressed in teeny tiny little inescapable boxes of nerve endings. On the inside, Nick was trying to drown himself. He'd been sleeping around more and more and his once healthy habits were either forgotten or becoming more aggressive. He was jogging longer and harder until he'd call me and need a ride home because he couldn't muster the energy to walk back. In April, he'd sprained his weak wrist - the one he broke back in 2001 - while trying to lift a dumbell that weighed more than he does.

Honestly, deep down, I was worried about him.

So that night in May, when he closed his eyes, I thought he'd fallen asleep and I put the cool cloth on the coffee table and started to slip away when his hand grasped mine and his eyes blinked open and he strung his fingers through mine. Nick stared up at me. "Dogface," he said quietly, "It should've been me instead."

I shook my head, "Don't you ever say that," I said.

Nick stared up into my eyes. He has the bluest eyes you've ever seen. There's just something about them, when you look at them - like really look at them - they just go on and on and on like there's an entire galaxy in there. They were so sad that night though, his eyes, I mean. I felt like I could drown in them. He blinked them closed and tears snuck out of them.

"Oh sweetie, shh," I whispered, picking up the cloth and pressing it to his cheek, catching the tears, "Shh."

See, when things are compressed and compacted, eventually they expand and explode and everything in the world blows up everywhere. I knew that eventually I'd be picking up pieces of Nick off the ground.

I just prayed everyday that it wouldn't literally be pieces of him that I was picking up.

I say all this because this was the first time since Leslie had died that he'd gone to see his mother. Or any of his family besides the twins, who had become a bit of an instituion in the last six months.

And his mother wasn't exactly the nicest, most loving mother in the world.

I mean, she was the one who told him that she wished it was him instead of Leslie in the first place to trigger that whole episode back in May.

But Nick doesn't know that he told me that.




Nick

I stared up at the house. It was like that Mozart guy was playing a requium as I stared. I could almost feel the chill blowing across the lawn. I swallowed as I peered up through the rental car's windshield, leaning against the steering wheel.

"She has garden gnomes," Dogface said.

I nodded.

"Nobody with garden gnomes can be this intimidating." Her voice was gentle.

I licked my lips. "Yeah," I said. I reached for my backpack in the backseat. "I need a smoke." I pulled out a pack of cigarettes and climbed out of the car. Dogface joined me at the back bumper a moment later as I lit my smoke and leaned against the car's hatchback door. She didn't say anything, even though I know she hates my stress-smoking habit. We just stood there for half my smoke in silence.

"I haven't seen my family in years," she said finally.

I glanced over at her. It was really rare that Dogface talked about her family. I mean, I had a fucked up family, but Dogface's was even worse. She was adopted when she was four by a missionary couple who now lived in Uganda. She had no idea who her real parents were. She'd been shuffled through group homes until she'd been adopted.

"We'll go to Uganda for Easter," I said.

Dogface looked over, a half smile on her lips. "You're mental."

"It'll be cool. We'll speak Chinese and --"

"Uganda is in Africa, Nick."

"Okay so we'll speak African."

"They speak French."

"Why the fuck do they speak French in Africa?"

Dogface reached over and took my cigarette out of my mouth and tossed it onto the ground. She snuffed it with her toes. "My point, Nick, is that your family's rough, but you've all been through something terrible, but --" she took a deep breath, "You're gonna get through it. And you have the advantage of being able to do that. Together."

I nodded. Though I couldn't help but think far less positively.

"You're a good person, Nick," Dogface said. She reached up and fixed the tie I'd put on at the airport when we landed in Florida. She studied me for a long moment, seemed to approve, then said, "You deserve good things."

I glanced at the house. "C'mon." I reached out and grabbed her hand and we walked up the walkway to the front door. I stared at it. Dogface reached over and pressed the bell and inside an echo of voices and barking dogs resounded. I looked over at her, one eyebrow raised. She squeezed my hand. "I don't think I could've done this without you," I commented.

And then the door swung open.