“No. You still haven’t had a chance to properly meet her.” Robin seems to have filled herself up, and Nic adjusts herself back in place. “I swear, for someone so small, she’s always freaking hungry.”
I offer a polite smile. I don’t know anything about how much babies eat, let alone how to keep one alive. I think I’ve figured the basic principles, like how they need air and food and a clean diaper, but the mechanics of all that are beyond me. Nic, my crazy, grouchy, troubled coworker, has her man now, and he’s strong and bossy as all get-out. He gives her what she needs and even what she wants sometimes. Now she has Robin, and she’s all settled down. Holly started staying with Grady back when I was forced to stay with Duke and Nic. Holly never left, and now they’re all about having a baby and Grady’s teenage daughter is half a step from calling Holly “mom.” They’re all growing up and moving on with their lives, and here I am, stagnant and even regressing in some ways. My biggest accomplishment is avoiding a panic attack. Yay me.
Nic stands from the chair and nods her head to the bed. “You look nervous. Sit down.” Huh?
“Why?”
“No bullshit?” she asks. Oh no. Nic’s always been pretty forward when she finally decides to address something. She may let it eat at her for a while, but eventually she just goes all in with it.
“No bullshit,” I say. My voice is faint. Be brave, I tell myself. Face this head-on.
“Those men would have killed me. They would have killed my baby.”
“It’s fine,” I say. It’s not, but that’s not on her. It’s on the people who tried to hurt her.
“You said no bullshit.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I admit.
“I know what you went through. I know they hurt you. There’s no way we can compare the shit we’ve been through, but I think you know how well I understand your pain. I know what it’s like to be hurt like that.”
My throat closes up and my eyes well with tears. I’m fucking tired of crying and getting emotional about every little thing. But this is Nic, and this talk is long overdue. She wanted to talk to me when I was still in the hospital recovering, but I didn’t want to see anyone at that point. Ian stood guard outside my door, and he was the only one I wanted in there with me. I haven’t stopped wanting him. I don’t think I ever will.
“You don’t want anyone to touch you, hate the feel of your own skin. You ask yourself why it happened. In my case, I asked myself why it kept happening and why I couldn’t just leave the guy who was doing it. In your case, you know why, and I can’t imagine knowing makes it any better.”
“Makes it worse,” I confess. I’ve talked more about that night in the last hour than I have since it happened. It’s easy with Ian. He never talks about it, never asks me to relive the brutality like my dad does. Ian doesn’t suffocate me with worry like my mom does. I thought it would be too painful to talk about this with Nic or anyone in the club. I thought acknowledging it would be more painful than living day in and day out skirting around it.
“How can I be angry with you? You didn’t do anything wrong, and neither of us knew what I was walking into. I can’t be angry, because if it was you instead of me, then Robin wouldn’t be here. How can I be angry with the club? They did exactly what I would have wanted to do for that jerk hurting you? How can I hate anyone when the men who hurt me are dead? I can’t, and it leaves me with this ridiculous self-pity about not getting better that I just can’t get rid of.”
Except now. Right now I don’t feel like I’m not getting better. Even saying the words means I am better, and I know it. And now that I’ve had a little taste of being better, I feel a surge of impatience. I want everything right this second, which is so predictable. I don’t know the meaning of slow down.
“Well, it’s not a cure, but I know of a little something that always helps me,” Nic says. She blows a piece of her stringy bleached-blonde hair out of her face and puffs out her cheeks. She’s not as thin as a rail anymore, but even with the added baby weight, she just looks healthy now. I didn’t even realize how tiny she was before she got pregnant. She must have been so unhealthy.
“I know of a few things that help, but I’m kind of avoiding them,” I say and pull my black chip out of my pocket. I wouldn’t normally share this part of myself, but this is Nic. She’s the last person to judge. “Busted my ass for this thing.”
“How long?” She eyes the chip thoughtfully.
“Four years, two months, and fifteen days.”
“Grady was right. One tough bitch.”