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Chapter Twenty-Three / 2013


Abbey

That night, I dreamt of Nick. But not in a dirty way. Just in general. I woke up several times after holding long conversations with him in my dreams - what about, I couldn't remember. But I woke up and looked at the clock, expecting hours and hours to have passed and each time discovering it was less than thirty minutes since the last time I'd done this.

I was worried about him, about whether he was angry with me for telling him about Lauren still or not. I spent most of the night wondering where he was and what he was doing. Had he talked to Lauren? Was he okay? Was he heart broken somewhere? I pictured him throwing her stuff out of the bedroom window and onto the lawn, screaming at her to get out of his house (and his life) because he deserved better than she'd given him. But even as I imagined it I knew that Nick was too kindhearted to do anything like that. More likely, he was sleeping on the couch. Or driving around in his car. Or something.

All I could think was that she was fucking lucky that Nick didn't have the vengeful attitude that I had bubbling just below the surface or else she'd be landing on the curb with a bruised tailbone from the door that would've hit her in the ass on her way out. I don't know why what she'd done made me so pissed off, after all, it wasn't my heart she'd been playing games with, it was Nick's and what did that have to do with me? I couldn't believe anyone could cheat on that man, he was so perfect and sweet. I wouldn't ever be able to hurt him like that, no matter who was trying to compete with him.

If things had been different seven years ago, I thought, he wouldn't be going through this now.


I sat staring up at the pattern the moon and clouds were making on the ceiling of Matty's room.

I was almost back to sleep when Matty moved, and the movement from the bed made me sit up in a flurry of panic. He was just rubbing his nose and rolling over to his other side. I let out a low sigh and leaned back into the chair, my eyes sliding closed with relief. It was at that moment I realized how god-damned terrified I was of bringing him home in the morning. What if I took him home and he had an episode, what if his heart gave out when there was only me around to watch him? What if it was during the night? What if it was during the day and he couldn't get my attention in time? A hundred thousand what-ifs parasailed around in my head, like a disturbed hive of bees, stinging my senses and making my hands sweat and shake as I stared at him laying there in bed.

Christmas at home with Matty was going to be different. As I've said already, we'd spent a better number of his holidays in the hospital. We didn't have a lot of traditions installed, and I was afraid of disappointing him, of not making his Christmas as special as he deserved it to be... just in case. I wanted to create memories that I could hold onto for the rest of my life because if -God forbid- something happened to him, I would need those memories desperately.

If things had been different seven years ago, I thought again, things would be different for all three of us. Nick wouldn't be out there with a broken heart, I wouldn't be laying here in a chair worrying about him and about Matty. Matty wouldn't have spent the fist six years of his life without a father, without a real family Christmas. We would have traditions. We would have been happy. All of us.

I picked up my cell phone and I opened a text message. I wasn't sure when it had happened, but at some point over the last two weeks, I'd become dependent on Nick to be the one to listen. Maybe because, even though he was only just now getting on board, I still felt like we were going through the same thing. I mean I know he wasn't going through it the way I was - but he was the closest thing I had to a friend, besides Monica, and Matty's own doctor doesn't really count.

All I want for Christmas is for all of us to be happy. I hope you know that Nick.

After I pressed send, I lay there staring at the text box, waiting for the phone to say that he was typing something in response, just praying that he would.

He didn't answer my text.

What if he was mad at me and that's why he wasn't answering? What if me telling him about Lauren had incited his need for the parachute? I stared at the text window, just willing him like crazy to please, please text me back. I'd already lost him once, I thought, I couldn't handle losing him again.

And for that matter, neither could Matty.

I just wanted to know he was okay. So that's what I texted him. And a few moments later I got the following:

Hey, Nick's ok. He will text you in the morning. This is Brian.

I wasn't sure if I was relieved or not.




Nick

I gripped the steering wheel tight. I could see my knuckles were white as we passed under streetlamps heading up the backroads to the city. Brian sat quiet beside me, biting his lip and studying his hands. I'm not sure if he was being quiet to allow me time to process my thoughts or if he was just afraid to say anything because he thought he might set me off or something.

I felt like a gutted fish, like Lauren had reached down my throat and pulled out all my insides and thrown them away and now I was just all hollow and smelly in there. I blinked back tears, frustrated tears. I was just as angry with myself for letting her hurt me as I was with her for actually hurting me. I should've protected myself better, I thought, I shouldn't have let my guard down.

It wasn't until I was turning onto Children's Way that I realized I'd driven to Vanderbilt - or maybe I'd driven to Abbey. I drove past the front doors, my throat tight.

Maybe Lauren was right, maybe she wasn't the first one that had abandoned our relationship. I thought of all my second-guessing I'd done during the European promo run, all the times over the past six months that I'd completely forgotten that I was engaged, that I had a family to come home to. I thought about how long I'd fought with myself that proposing to her was the right step. Even as I did it, even on the island as I'd dropped to my knees, I'd thought momentarily about saying I'd tripped on a rock. Maybe I had no right to be mad at her, maybe she wasn't the only one that had betrayed the relationship we had. Maybe it was nothing but a ghost to begin with.

"Matthew's a great kid," Brian said, as we idled at the red light in front of the Veteran's Hospital behind the Children's Hospital.

I looked over at him and he looked back. "Yeah," I said. I took a deep breath. I didn't know what to say because I wasn't entirely sure I knew what I was thinking, and all I got out was, "Brian... I..."

"I know," he said, interrupting me. He smiled in a reassuring way.

Somehow I just knew that he did know, even though I wasn't positive that I knew. But Brian did and that was enough.

It was funny having Brian there beside me, funny how fast things change. Less than two weeks ago I'd been complaining to Lauren about Brian and the Berlin-Wall-esque separation that had been erected between the two of us, and now here I was with Brian, thinking about the separation between Lauren and I.

"I missed ya Frick," I mumbled into the dark.

He patted my shoulder in response.

The light turned green and I drove away from Vanderbilt, away from Abbey, and further and further away from Lauren, my foot heavy on the pedal. We crisscrossed through the numbered streets until we ended up on the parkway, wrapping around the north end of the city, headed south.

My phone was vibrating in my pocket. I pulled it out and handed it to Brian. "I got a text, can you read it?"

He pressed a couple buttons. "It's from Abbey. She says all she wants for Christmas is for all of us to be happy and she hopes you know that." Brian looked over at me in the dark, like he was waiting for an answer to send her.

I didn't feel like I could ever be happy again. It didn't really feel possible to be. I let out a low breath and chewed on my lip for a moment.

We were coming up on the Opryland Hotel, which is absolutely gigantic. It's bigger than the huge-ass mall that sits right behind it, looming off the side of the highway like a monster of grandeur. The hotel does this big fantastic light show in their halls every year, with this giant display you can see from the highway as you pass. My eyes wandered toward the lights, glowing in the dark and I thought about how they shone like hope, and this weird Christmasy feeling creeped over me, like I was Ebenezer Scrooge or something, and I felt, for just a moment, like maybe everything would be okay in the end.

That's the magic of Christmas, I thought.

"She wants to know if you're okay," Brian read a second text message aloud as the car sped by the hotel and the lights glimmered in my rearview mirrors.

"I have an idea," I suddenly said.

Brian looked over.

"Tell her I'll text her in the morning. We gotta go to Walmart."

"Walmart?" Brian looked surprised as he typed the message.

"Yeah," I said. "There's something I need to do."