I went out for basketball in seventh grade because I thought it would make me popular. I wore pink Chuck Taylors and I scored two points over the entire season. It didn’t work.
I opened my eyes and was breathless as I took in the beauty. Where the skyscraper had been cool because you could see everything from way above, this view was as if I was surrounded in a hug of my favorite city. We were right in the heart of the Old Market, just above it, so we could see the horse-drawn carriages and the people walking and the huge fountain they’d just installed last summer.
We were in the Old Market, as opposed to above it, but we were invisible.
It was breathtaking. I whispered, “This is magical.”
“Right?” he said, looking out at something on the horizon. “This is my favorite spot in the city.”
“Again, who are you?” I took a sip of the rich, decadent hot chocolate coffee and looked at his strong jaw. “How do you know about this?”
“My brother used to live in this building,” he said, still looking at something far away. “So every time I came over, we always hung out up here.”
“Lucky. My siblings are tiny and not really my real siblings. Where does he live now?”
I was staring out at the fountain but when Nick didn’t answer, I turned to him. Fidgeting with the cuffs of his sleeves, he sighed and said, “Yeah, this is awkward. He doesn’t.”
Oh no. THE accident. “Um, Nick, I—”
“He died in an ATV accident.”
“Nick, I am so sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay; it’s not like it just happened. I mean, it’s been, like, a year.”
“A year? That’s not a very long time at all.” A year was like it happened yesterday.
“It’s fine.” He didn’t look devastated, like there was fresh grief. He looked… weighed down with it. Exhausted by it. Drained by it as he gave me a tired smile. “I didn’t mean to drop that on you. It’s so weird to talk about.”
“Well—”
“It’s actually a year today.” He swallowed and looked like he was trying to sound casual when he said, “He died last Valentine’s Day.”
“Seriously?”
He gave me a half-smile and said, “How’s that for a Hallmark holiday, right?”
“I would want to drop-kick everyone talking about flowers and candy, if I were you.” It felt sick, the idea of someone dying on a day where people sent balloon bouquets and heart-shaped pizzas. I also felt like a total baby for feeling sorry for myself about my parents’ breakup anniversary when Nick was dealing with this. “Like, who gives a crap?”
That made his smile grow just a little. “Right?”
It totally made sense now, the way he lived his adult-in-a-high-school-body kind of life. How would things like prom and parties and basketball games seem like anything other than pointlessness after experiencing a loss like that?
“I totally get it if you don’t want to DONC with me, Nick.” I set my cup on the railing beside where he’d set his, shoved my hands in my pockets, and felt guilty for dragging him along on my adventures. “Maybe you’d rather—”
“Hang out with my parents and listen to how quiet the house is? Nah—this is way better.”
I followed him over to a bench that sat next to a dead plant on the roof’s corner. He sat down, and when I sat beside him, he grabbed my sleeve and pulled me closer. Slid me into him so my back was leaning against his front. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and rested his chin on top of my head.
“This okay?” he murmured, and his voice vibrated through every follicle of hair on my head.
“Mm-hmm,” I replied.
We sat there like that, quietly watching the world all laid out in front of us, for what felt like a very long time. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though—just silent.
“Y’know, the weirdest thing about it is the disconnect in my brain between life and death.” Nick’s voice was nonchalant when he said, “I can spend an hour thinking about the fact that he’s dead, but then five minutes later if I hear a noise down the hall, I’ll think bizarre shit like, E must be taking a shower. It’s like my brain knows but my memory forgets or something.”
“Um—that’s so incredibly awful.”
“In a way.” His voice was quiet, and the sun made my cheeks marginally less cold as he said, “But part of me likes that confusion because for that half-second, it feels like things are normal. Weird, right?”
“Not at all.” My heart hurt for him, and I set my hand on top of his. “But the half-second after that half-second has to be awful.”
“The worst.” He made a half-laugh, half-groan noise and said, “How did you know that?”
“I don’t know how it couldn’t be.” I ran my finger over his knuckle and asked him, “Were you two close?”
“Yeah. I mean, close the way brothers three years apart are close. We spent most of our childhood fighting, but we were always together.”
“You must be so lonely now.” I knew there were things far worse than loneliness, but I also knew firsthand that the empty achiness of feeling alone could be utterly suffocating. I turned around on the bench and set my hands on his cheeks, stricken by the sad in his eyes.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I kissed the tip of his nose. Because this wasn’t about boys and girls and love and attraction, this was about a human soul needing to feel seen. I knew that because even though it wasn’t comparable in scale to what he must be feeling, I felt that loneliness often. Every time my mom forgot it was her weekend or my dad left me a note telling me to just order a pizza because he and Lisa and the boys already had dinner, I felt like I was all alone in the world.
“Stop that.” Nick’s hands covered mine, trapping them on his face. “Stop wearing that heartbreaking look on your face. Were you just thinking about Sutton?”
“What?” That made me snort. And I realized that I felt nothing at the mention of my ex-boyfriend. “You know, I actually forgot that he existed.”
“Then what was that?” His thumb stroked over my hand as he removed it from his face and then wrapped his fingers around mine. “What made your face so sad?”
I rubbed my lips together. I never—ever—talked about my parents to anyone. But as Nick looked at me as if he actually wanted to know, I found myself telling him everything. Our fingers ended up linked together, caught in between us as I got lost in rambling away about infighting and shiny new families.
I didn’t realize the level of share I was at until I saw the bubble of tears blurring my vision.
No, no, no, you dork—don’t cry in front of Nick Stark, the one person who should be crying.
“Sorry.” I blinked fast and said, “That was weird—I never talk about that stuff. It’s probably the last thing you need to hear about today, my pathetically mundane family life.”
“You’re wrong.” He swallowed. “Somehow knowing I’m not the only, um… fuck… lonely one? Yeah, somehow I think that helps.”
I forced my mouth up into a smile. “So you’re happy I’m crying. Such a dick.”
That made him grin and squeeze my hand. “Little bit.”
We both laughed, and I said, “I actually do know what you mean. Nothing makes you feel alone quite like thinking you’re the only one who is alone.”
Nick smiled and said, “Tell me more about you. It’s a good distraction.”
I told him a million little stories, but he seemed fascinated by each and every one. He joked and teased, but it was warm and sweet and everything my lonely heart needed.
“You sociopathic little deviant,” he laughed, tugging on a piece of my hair after I told him about my secret box of lifetime confessions. “Hazelwood’s valedictorian is not at all what she seems.”
“For the record, I haven’t added any confessions in quite some time,” I clarified.
“Bullshit,” he coughed, and we both laughed.
“Oh! This is a good one,” I said. “All I wanted for my ninth birthday was this purple unicorn cake from Miller’s Bakery. It was majestic, Nick, for real. It had glitter in the frosting, so it looked like it was dusted with a thousand tiny diamonds. Every Saturday, when my grandma took me to get doughnuts, I would gaze at that glittery, beautiful cake. I loved it for like a year, and I wanted it as my present. No toys, no clothes; it was the only thing I wanted, and I talked about it nonstop.”
“Sounds like an ugly cake,” he teased, his fingers gently rubbing against mine. “But carry on.”
“So my birthday comes and I am beside myself with excitement, right? My mom and her boyfriend drive me to the roller-skating rink, and I am bouncing off the walls. I skate with my friends for a bit, and then it comes time for the cake.”
“I feel like I’m going to hate this part,” he said.
“Oh, absolutely.” I smiled at the warmth in his eyes and said, “Because my mom looks at my dad and goes, ‘Tom? Cake…?’ ”
I shook my head at the memory. “And he says, ‘Beth? Cake…?’ ”
“No,” Nick groaned.
“Yes. So then they morph into their whole fake-smile-but-homicidal way of conversing, arguing because since the party is on my mom’s day, he thinks it’s her responsibility. But she thinks since I saw the cake when I was with his mother, it’s his responsibility.”
“Meanwhile you’re just hearing the word ‘responsibility’ and feeling like a piece of shit, right?”
“Exactly. Like, if they cared about me and my birthday, shouldn’t they have wanted me to have that purple unicorn cake, no matter what?” I rolled my eyes. “Then they said ‘Oh well’ and just stuck a bunch of candles in the pepperoni pizza that kids had already started stealing pieces from.”
“There was no cake at all?” he said, looking outraged.
“Nope.” I kind of wanted to laugh at how offended he looked. “Did you and Eric ever have any cheesy roller-skating birthday parties?”
“Hell no—we went with laser tag.”
“Studs.”
He started talking about his brother, sharing memories that made his voice crack while his eyes smiled, and I couldn’t get enough. He told story after story of the two of them, running around after Eric moved downtown, doing obnoxious things and texting each other immature memes. I was crying again, but this time it was because I was laughing so hard.
“So.” I sat up straighter. “Is your tattoo about Eric?”
“Yeah.” He looked down at my—his—jacket and put his hands on the front, pulling the top together a little more. It was a nurturing gesture that made me warmer than the coat itself. “It’s the exact match of what he had.”
“Exactly?”
“Yep.”
“That’s actually really cool. Did Dante do it?”
“Yep. He did Eric’s, and then he did mine.”
“Can I see it?”
He smiled a dirty smile. “I’d have to take off my shirt.”
“Oh, well, I’m sure you don’t want to,” I teased, pretending my cheeks weren’t suddenly on fire. “You’re probably ashamed of your marshmallow body, anyway.”
His eyes crinkled. “You really want to see my chest, don’t you, Hornby.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” I gestured to my forearm and said, “I’m just super into tattoos. Obviously.”
“Yes, that’s right, you badass.”
“Just forget it.” I rolled my eyes dramatically and said, “I don’t want to see it anymore.”
He gave me a grin and stood. He had that ornery-little-boy look in his eyes—the one I imagined he’d worn every time he screwed around with his older brother—as he took off his coat and dropped it on the bench.
“It’s freezing, Nick—maybe—”
“If Emilie Hornby wants you to show her your tattoo,” he said, casually pulling the back of his sweater over his head like he was changing alone in his room and it wasn’t freaking freezing outside in the middle of the city, “you show her.”
I got up, laughing as he stood there with his sweater in his hand.
Stepping closer, I forced my eyes to stay trained on his tattoo, which was some kind of Celtic pattern that wound up his bicep and twisted around his shoulder.
I set my fingers on his skin and let them glide over the inked lines, my eyes never daring to look up at him. He was all lean muscles under tight skin, and it felt more like we were alone in the dark than exposed on the roof as my hands moved over him.
He groaned. “Okay—stop. This was a terrible idea.”
I looked up at his face and his eyes were hot. I managed to nod and take back my hands, and I watched as he put his sweater back on, and then his jacket. I started to wonder if I should feel awkward for feeling him up as he zipped his coat, but then he said, “I gotta hand it to you, Hornby—the DONC was one hell of a good idea.”
That dissolved any tension that might’ve been building, and I grinned. I said, “Okay. I have an idea of what we can do next, and it’s either great or terrible.”
“So probably terrible.”
“Probably.” I took a few steps away from him, pacing as I tried pitching it in a way that would make him see its merit. “But since it’s the one-year anniversary of Eric’s death and he’s obviously on your mind, what if we, like, pay him tribute?”
“Emilie.”
“No—hear me out.” I kept walking, taking steps back and forth to keep warm. “It sounds like you guys always had a blast in the city, like it was the setting for a lot of your best memories. So, what if we revisit some of those activities?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I ran over and set my hand on top of it. “Let me finish, Stark.”
He tilted his head and his eyes crinkled at the corners, so I let go and started walking again, happy that he was smirking. Any time that I could be responsible for that look on his face, I was thrilled. “What if we, um, zip the scooters over to the Joslyn like you guys did on the Fourth of July? Or maybe we could ride bikes to the park and go down the big slides. Feed the ducks the way you guys did when your mom brought you down here in grade school. I don’t want to overstep, but it’d be kind of cool if you were able to feel like Eric is somehow with us on the DONC.”
“Hornby.”
“Please don’t be mad that I’m butting my—”
“Emilie.”
“—nose in. I just want—”
“For the love of God, Em, stop talking.” He stepped over to me, grinning, and put his hand over my mouth. “If you don’t shut up, I can’t tell you that I think it’s a great idea. Christ.”
I looked up at him, giving me teasing eyes from such close proximity, and I realized that I was actually feeling kind of big things for him. I mean, yes, we hadn’t known each other long, but I felt like I knew more about him than so many people who were important parts of my life.
I felt like he knew me.
And I rarely felt that from anyone.
He lifted his hand from my face and said, “Shall we embark upon the next part of our journey, then?”
