Breaking Skin (37 page)

I swallow around the brick in my throat and consider giving in to him. I imagine shedding my guilt like a second skin. But if I make the selfish choice, the one that makes me happy, Renee will get hurt. She’ll feel angry and betrayed. She could cut me out of her life again, and Langley’s too. Her recovery is so new and fragile. If she shuts me out and starts drinking, how will I know? How will I be here for Langley?

Renee didn’t ask me to choose, but that’s what it comes down to. She wants me to walk away from Cole, and if I don’t, I know what the consequences could be.

When I shake my head and whisper, “I can’t do this to her,” it’s Langley’s face I see.

Cole bends his head to make eye contact. “You can’t do what? What are you saying?”

He knows what I’m saying. “I can’t be with you.”

He blinks and his eyes harden. “You’re willing to sacrifice us for her sake when you know there’s nothing between Renee and me.”

“This isn’t about you and Renee. It’s about me and my sister. What I did was wrong, Cole.”

“Did Renee tell you that? Because I know your sister too, and she told me a lot of things about you. Things I know to be lies. Is it possible she’s lying now to manipulate you, to keep us apart?”

My eyes widen at his accusation. “Please don’t say that about her. Renee doesn’t mean to lie. She just has a hard time seeing things the way they really are. It’s not her fault.”

His expression turns from angry to frustrated. “It isn’t only Renee who doesn’t see things clearly.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he shakes his head and raises hurt eyes to me. “Don’t do this. I’ll talk to Renee. I’ll make her understand.”

“No, you can’t!” I insist in a harsh voice when he takes a step toward the house.

He stops short and looks back at me.

“You can’t talk to her about us. You have no idea how much damage that could do, but at some point you will have to talk to her. When you do, I hope you’ll let her down easy.”

His gaze darkens, like he’s had a revelation and he no longer likes what he sees as much as he used to.

The only reason I’m maintaining any composure is because the person saying these terrible things to Cole is nothing but an empty shell. The real me is curled up in a ball somewhere, waiting for this nightmare to be over. When it ends, I’ll go away alone and fall apart then. If I crumple now, I’ll never get through this, and I
have
to get through this.

A heavy silence stretches between us and after a while, it’s as if something breaks behind Cole’s eyes.

“So that’s it? Your sister comes home and all the things we shared, all the things we feel, they don’t mean anything to you.”

“Of course they do. They mean everything.” I hug my arms around my middle, sick to my stomach.

“But it doesn’t matter,” he says. “Not to you. You never believed in us. You never let yourself.”

At first I’m offended, but as his accusation sinks in, I can’t deny its truth. I wanted to believe, I really did, but I’ve had so many disappointments in my life, I don’t know how to believe in good things anymore. I don’t know how to trust them.

He looks at me for one heartbeat and then another before a change comes over him. His expression smooths out and the warmth drains from his eyes.

“I thought you were brave, and maybe you were once, but not anymore. I can’t slay this dragon alone, Nikki, but I’d try if I thought it would do any good. I’d burn the whole fucking world down to be with you if I saw half the heartbreak in your eyes that I feel right now.”

His words are brutal. They tear into me. Can’t he feel the way my heart is breaking? Can’t he see how hard this is for me? The facade falls away and something fractures inside me. A wave of emotion crashes down. My breath hitches as tears stream down my face.

“I’m sorry.” My voice is broken, nearly unintelligible, coated in pain.

Sympathy melts some of the scorn in his eyes. No matter how I hurt Cole, he’s not immune to my tears. There’s so much despair passing between us, I think the weight of it may crush me.

“I’m sorry too.”

He stares at me hard and I can sense the war going on inside him. Comfort me, the person causing all this heartache, or walk away. It doesn’t take long for him to decide.

I watch as he turns and walks back toward his own house, fading into the night, taking all my dreams of happiness with him.

D
eedee moved in with me for the first few days after my knee surgery, and she took Siegfried for walks in the park along with her dog, Brandi. It was supposed to be Cole taking care of me. It was supposed to be Cole in so many ways, and I can’t shake the dark cloud that keeps me company in his place.

Deedee thinks I’m depressed. She also thinks I broke up with Cole so I could make dancing my priority, because that’s what I told her. When she brings him up and suggests I made a mistake, I snap at her. I don’t want to talk about it. Recalling my last moments with Cole makes it hurt to breathe. I’m the walking wounded, slowly bleeding out, but I’m the only one who can see the deep red stains that color my skin.

The only way I can get through the day is to not think about it or talk about it. Thank goodness I have an all-consuming distraction. Like a demon, I channel my energy into rehabbing my knee and ensuring my body is ready to dance once it’s healed. I’ve lost the extra weight I gained eating all that lasagna with Langley, and I pour everything I have into dancing. I have to make a success of something in my life. I have to fill all the empty space I’ve been left with again.

Langley and Renee come to visit me often. Recently, Langley came on her own and slept over. Renee sent Langley on the bus and Deedee picked her up at the station. Langley was beyond excited to be coming into the city on her own to visit me. I took her to the rehearsal space one afternoon and she got to meet all the dancers. While we were there, I talked to Nadia and gave her my encouraging progress report.

By the time Deedee and I put Langley back on the bus back to Cooperstown, she was like a jumping bean, brimming with stories of her stay and begging to come back soon. I promised she could and waved good-bye as the bus pulled away.

“Now that she’s gone, you’re going to crash back down to earth,” Deedee remarked that day as Langley’s bus disappeared in the distance.

I rolled my eyes, even though she was right. I’m thrilled to have a close relationship with my niece, but I paid a high price for it. As anxious as Renee was to talk to Cole once she got home, she hasn’t mentioned his name since I left Cooperstown and moved back into my own apartment. I assume they’ve spoken, but I don’t ask Renee about Cole because no matter how desperate I am to hear any morsel of information, I don’t trust Renee not to embellish their interactions. If she did, it wouldn’t help my state of mind. It’s better to know nothing, to ask nothing, to say nothing about him.

One man Renee does mention often is Langley’s father. She’s had no word from Ben, but she’s on pins and needles, in a constant state of worry about him turning up again. I wonder if we scared him off for good that day. I hope so, but a part of me knows it won’t be that easy. Someday, Ben will come back.

Renee tells me she’s spoken to her therapist about him, and after hearing the whole story, the therapist advised her to proceed cautiously and to have all her ducks in a row. That means documenting what Ben said and did when he reappeared in her life. I contributed by writing down everything I remembered from my encounter with him.

Even if she never meets him, Langley will always have questions about her father. I don’t know if she should ever hear the whole sordid story of how Renee met Ben, but someday she may have to because I wouldn’t want someone else to tell her the rumors Cole heard before she learns the truth.

I recall Renee saying that Cole is the kind of father Langley deserves, and she’s right about that. Too bad most of us don’t get what we deserve.

It’s a cold, rainy night and I’m at home listening to the raindrops pelt against the windows while I do stretches to improve the range of motion in my knee. When the buzzer sounds, Siegfried wakes up and barks a few times. It’s late, but I’m sure it’s Deedee ringing from downstairs. She’s the only one who comes to see me unannounced.

I hop over to the panel on the wall and push the button to unlock the downstairs entrance. When there’s a knock a few minutes later, I pull open my door and am stunned by the two small people I see standing there.

“Derek is running away from home,” Langley announces. “I told him he could stay here.”

I’m speechless, looking for an adult in the empty space behind them as my mouth opens and closes silently.

Langley’s brows inch up her forehead. “Can we come in, Aunt Nikki?”

They both look like drowned rats, and I know they must have been walking around in the rain for some time.

“How did you get here?” I ask as I usher them inside.

“The bus,” Derek answers, eyeing me warily. “Langley said it would be okay.”

I suppose my expression makes him doubt Langley’s word. “Does your father know you’re here?” I ask, even though I know Cole would never approve of their road trip. “Or your mother?” I give Langley a harsh look.

She gnaws on her lip. “No. But we have a really good reason.”

“Well, you can tell it to me after you both get dry and warm.”

I go into my bedroom, and as I dig around in my drawers for things that may fit them, I can’t stop shaking my head. The reality of what they’ve done is too frightening to comprehend. They took the bus at night by themselves and then walked here through the city streets alone? It’s over a mile from the bus stop to my apartment.

I bring out some T-shirts and sweatpants for them both. Then I have Derek change in my bedroom while I help Langley in the living room.

“I’m sorry,” she says, seeing my stiff expression and mistaking fear for anger.

The anger will come later, but first I have to let the fact that they’re okay sink in.

Once they’re both dry and seated at the small bar in my galley kitchen, I put on the kettle for hot chocolate and face them with a stern look.

“Tell me why you’re running away.”

Langley nudges Derek, who fidgets for a moment before blowing out a long breath. “I’m supposed to move to LA with my mom, but I don’t want to go. Dad says it’s up to the judge, not him, but he doesn’t want me to go either.”

“Oh no,” I murmur. Cole must have lost the custody case. I don’t understand how that could happen. He must be heartbroken. “So you ran away? Do you have any idea how worried your father must be?”

Derek nods, his expression crestfallen. He knows he made a mistake.

“You can’t call him.” Langley then turns her pleading gaze from him to me. “I don’t want Derek to move. I told him you’d help him.”

“She can’t help me,” Derek says softly. “Nobody can.”

When Langley gives me a hopeful look, I hate that I have to disappoint her. “I’m sorry, but I have to call Derek’s father.”

Her shoulders slump and Derek looks at her. “It’s okay. I don’t want my dad to worry about me.”

I look at him, thinking how much like Cole he already is.

After I pour them each a cup of hot chocolate, I take my phone into the living room and locate a number I haven’t used in weeks. I send a simple text to Cole.

Nikki: Derek is here at my apartment. He’s fine.

A moment later, the phone rings in my hand.

“Nikki?”

At the sound of his voice, I sink down onto the couch. “Hi, Cole.”

“Derek is in San Francisco? With you?” I can hear the edge of panic in his voice.

“Langley brought him here when he told her he didn’t want to move to LA. She thought she was helping him.”

“Christ. Are you still at the same address?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be right there.”

When he disconnects, I call Renee. She’s a little less panicked.

“You’re telling me she took Derek on the bus with her and found her way to your apartment all by herself? I thought she was in her room, the little stinker.”

“Cole is on his way here to get Derek. You could probably catch a ride with him.”