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CHAPTER37
NOVA
When I meethis gaze across the lawn and through two panes of glass, I can still sense him. The expression on his face wiped clean, replaced with a blank stare. He’s been out there for a while, and I suspected he would be torn up about Tabby leaving. But this feels like so much more.
I hear his footsteps on the stairs, and the door opens quietly as he slips in, keeping his back to me.
“Hi,” I say, trying to keep my voice normal.
“Hey,” he answers as he hangs up his coat, kicks off his boots, and tries to walk past me with his chin tucked to his chest.
I set a kettle on the stove and turn on the burner with a whoosh, making his shoulders tense higher. “How did it go?”
“Fine.” He keeps walking.
“Zeke,” I say. “Please.”
Zeke slumps into the chair and forces a smile in my direction but refuses to make eye contact. His shoulders are both tense and closed off. He breathes slowly, and I go to him. I can sense how tightly he’s trying to hold the lid on this.
“Hey,” I say and touch his shoulder. “It’s okay to be upset.”
His breaths come shorter, faster, shallower—yet they still somehow manage to take up all the air in the room.
“Zeke,” I say again.
He shakes my hand from his body. “I’m fine. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. You’re upset.”
“Nova, drop it, okay?” He slides out of the chair and moves toward the spare room, where he’ll slam the door and stay in there for hours.
I’ve been here for mere months, and his patterns are ingrained in me. Well, I’m fucking sick of it. His quiet moods and sulking self-flagellation.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me,” I state, harder than I think I’ve ever spoken to him. My hatred of this situation far outweighs my fear of confrontation now. He stops, and I see the shake in his hands, the slow rise of his shoulders. “Look at me.”
He turns to face me, his features tight, the muscle in his jaw and neck looking like it’s about to pop. At first glance, he seems angry, but I don’t care anymore. Let him be mad. At least he’s feeling something. At least he has something more than a blank look in his eyes.
He will topple in on himself if he doesn’t talk about this.
“It’s okay to be upset.”
“I said I’m fine,” he grits out.
I step up to him like I did with Figgy when I found him cowering under the bush at my dad’s place, all scraggly and frightened.
“It’s okay,” I repeat, and Zeke’s jaw twitches. His breathing is loud with the effort of keeping it together.
“Don’t hide it.” I touch his face, and his eyes close, his hands shaking harder. “It’s okay.”
I rise to my toes and wrap my arms around his shoulders, running my fingers along the back of his neck. He doesn’t hug me back. He’s rigid, and his arms hang at his sides. It’s like hugging a statue, but I don’t let go.
“You can’t hide from me,” I whisper in his ear. “I see you. Whether you’re in there on your own or out here with me, I still see you. Stay here with me. Let me be here for you.”
Each word melts him back into his human form, his muscles relaxing, his arms coming around me, his head dropping to my shoulder. I hug him tighter, stroking his neck and back, pouring myself into him, hoping and wishing he’ll finally let me in. His breaths come faster, bigger, his shoulders lifting sharply. The tension of my shirt pulling tighter across my body makes me realize he’s clutching the fabric in his fists.
It takes me a minute to realize he’s crying. The wet tears touch my neck, and his body shakes, and my heart shatters into a thousand pieces. His pain seeps out in wisps and puffs, and I recognize this to the core of my being. I force out the memories of my parents’ divorce and how the public heartbreak forced me to face my pain in silence.
Tears shed in the shower, with a face stuffed in a pillow, or parked in a car on a side road. Hidden behind closed doors, but not always literal doors. He is hidden behind the doors he’s built inside himself.
