They walked in silence most of the way down the hall. Tony wondered if Julia was preparing an apology. That would be just like her, to apologize when he had been snippy. She was too quick with her sorries, betraying that she didn’t always mean them.
Instead, she said, “Detective Rice came by.”
“Where, the house?”
“Here, in the ER.”
“When?”
“Just now, I ran into him on my way back from the bathroom. It was kind of strange.”
“Wait, was he in the ER for himself or—”
“No, to see Nick.”
Tony considered this as they crossed the atrium, their boots crunching on the salt and dirt dragged in from outside. “But he didn’t come in.”
“I told him we were all set. I didn’t think there was any use in Nick talking to another cop about it. And it’s not like the two of them have a relationship outside of why he’s here in the first place.”
Tony nodded.
She went on. “I just couldn’t tell if he was here out of concern or if it was more about, like, checking in on an important witness, you know?”
That was perfect. Just fucking perfect. He probably was here to check on his star witness, make sure he wasn’t getting too unstable to testify. The ADA would probably drop by next.
“Fuck him if it was,” Tony said.
Julia said nothing for a beat, and then: “I’m just so glad he agreed to go to Goodspring.”
“Do you know anything about what it’s like there?” Tony thought she may have, from her old job.
“Not Goodspring specifically, just enough to know he’s better there than at home.”
“Not even our home?”
Julia stopped walking and grabbed his arm. “Honey, we can’t take care of this ourselves. We need real help. He needs to be . . . kept an eye on right now.”
“We could do that. You’re already home, and I could take a week off.”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry, but no, I don’t want to take this on, and with the kids.”
“The kids? He would never do anything in front of them, he loves them.”
“I know that, but clearly this is out of his control.”
“He doesn’t even want to hurt himself, it never would have happened if he hadn’t been drinking on his meds! And he knows never to do that again.”
Julia started walking again. “I’m not having this conversation right now.”
Tony followed her. “He’s gonna miss Christmas if he’s stuck up there, did you even think of that?”
“Christmas?” She nearly shouted the word as she turned to face him, and he involuntarily took a step backward. “Tony, he almost missed all the Christmases! What do you even—he could have died last night.”
“The doctor said—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. He could have done it differently. I don’t care what he would have done sober. He wasn’t sober. He was drunk out of his mind, and he tried to kill himself.”
She was right, but she continued.
“I am so sick of you acting like you know better than everyone else. Christ! Nick needs to be with professionals, wants to be with them, and for some reason you can’t stand that. You aren’t the only one who can take care of him.”
Tony’s chest was tight, and he could feel his face flushing with heat. His eyes began to burn.
“I know that.”
Julia’s face softened, but she didn’t move toward him. “Do you?”
A man passed by them in the hall and Julia fell silent and smiled at him. Can’t have a stranger knowing they’re fighting. Another thing about Julia: she was ashamed by the appearance of conflict.
When he was gone, she said, “I know you’re terrified.” She brought a hand to her chest and her voice choked. “I can barely stand it. I can’t believe we could have lost him.”
He was going to cry if she didn’t stop talking. He wiped his eyes, stopping his tears before they started.
“I hate being powerless as much as you, but the only thing we can do for him is get him to Goodspring.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
They walked the rest of the way to the cafeteria in silence. Julia’s words replayed in his mind like a sad song.
Nick had almost died. He’d almost lost him.
They were in a new place now: a place where Nick’s life was at risk. Not just what people thought of him at school. Not just what would come of the court case. His life.
Julia didn’t like to feel powerless, and neither did Tony. But Tony wondered if he was as powerless as she thought.
* * *
The drive to Goodspring was long and quiet. Tony tried to get Nick chatting a couple of times, but he couldn’t keep him distracted from whatever it was that kept making him fall silent. Nick kept looking over at the GPS, like he was watching the minutes scrape off the time left in the car with Tony. Eventually, Tony stopped trying to make chitchat, and they drove in silence.
How did they get here? Two months ago, Nick had been like any other junior. Solid grades, living with his friends, too funny for his own good. He was born great, and Tony had managed to keep him that way. It sounded stupid, but it was true: it had been Tony. How else did you explain him being so functional after being raised by two alcoholics? Tony had been there from the beginning. When he was little. When he was suffering through the horror that is male puberty. Tony had been the one Nick came out to first. When Nick was sixteen, Tony and Julia took him into their home for weeks—with a three-year-old and a baby in the house!—after Ron caught Nick kissing a boy in the living room and threw Nick out. Later, Tony mediated between his dad and brother to get Nick back into the house so he could finish high school without transferring schools.
Had he really managed to ferry Nick out of their father’s house and into well-adjusted adulthood, only to have him obliterated by someone else?
As they pulled off the highway and drove onto Route 3, a sign pointing them toward Belfast, Tony felt Nick grow tense. It was a shift in the air, like a swell of humidity. From the corner of his eye, he saw Nick fiddle with his sleeves, touch his hairline, and stop himself from doing more than that.
Goodspring was a flat, industrial-looking building at the end of a long driveway in the woods. There were walking trails around it, according to a nurse at the hospital. Nick would get to go on walks while he was there for the month. Tony thought about saying something about it, anything at all, as he pulled into a space in the lot.
“I need to tell you something,” Nick said.
Tony put the car in park. “Okay.”
Nick rubbed at his sleeves, then crammed his hands under his thighs.
“You can tell me anything,” Tony said.
“I haven’t . . .” Nick stopped. He breathed.
Tony’s heart began thumping so hard it seemed to move his whole torso back and forth in his seat. “What is it?”
Nick breathed out of his mouth in a thin stream, like a kid learning to whistle. “I haven’t been honest with you,” he said. “About that night.”
Chills spread down his spine as some part of Tony’s brain warned him that something terrible was about to happen.
“And I know that’s not the only reason I’m having a hard time. I know that.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself of something. “But the lie, the lie has made everything so much worse.”
The lie. What did that mean?
God forgive him, Tony thought of Julia and what she said about Nick.
And just for a second, Tony wondered if Nick had made up the whole thing.
43
Nick Hall, 2015
Tony was staring at him like he could see into Nick’s head—like he could read the words Nick was about to say on a marquee behind Ni
ck’s forehead. So he said the words out loud.
“I remember everything.”
Tony shook his head like he didn’t understand.
“I made up the blackout.”
Nick brought his hands up to his face and sobbed sharply. It was the same as when he told Jeff—the pain of it rushed him at once, overwhelming him. What Ray had done to him. What he’d done to himself. The shame he felt, and the anger that he felt any shame at all.
“I remember everything he did.” His own voice was a wail in the cavern between his hands. “I thought I was going to die.”
“Nick!” Tony was saying his name like Nick couldn’t hear him, like Tony couldn’t reach him. “Nick!”
Tony’s hands were on his shoulders, pressing, squeezing, pulling him against Tony’s chest.
“I’m so sorry,” Nick sobbed. Snot poured from his nose onto Tony’s shirt. “I’m so sorry, Tony.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“Lying, fucking everything up.”
Nick pulled himself back to look at Tony’s face. “You didn’t fuck anything up,” Tony said.
“I did,” Nick said. “I’ve lied so much. I lied under oath. When they find out—everyone will hate me. Even the prosecutor and the detectives. They’ll all hate me.”
Tony shook his head. “They’ll understand. You were in shock.”
“Yeah and it wore off. I kept lying. I kept pretending I didn’t remember what happened in the middle. What happened in the room with him.”
Tony frowned. Held something back. Nick knew what it was. Tony wanted to ask the obvious: Why had he lied? Nick decided not to make him say it.
“I decided on the way to the hospital,” Nick said. “Everything was happening so fast, I got so upset, I couldn’t breathe—I couldn’t think. And then I got really calm, and I thought, I’ll just tell them he knocked me out. He did hit me.”
“I know,” Tony said.
“It was such an easy lie. And telling it was easy—it was easy to say I didn’t remember. I didn’t want to.”
“It’s okay,” Tony said.
“By the time you came . . .” Nick stopped to wipe his nose on his sleeve. “I’d already lied to the police. And I thought, Okay, I won’t tell anyone, ever, and eventually it won’t feel like a lie.”
Tony reached across the console and rubbed Nick’s arm. “Why did you—you just didn’t want to have to talk about . . . what he did?”
“No. I . . .” Nick paused. “I was bleeding.”
Tears began to run down Tony’s face.
“People were going to know he raped me. I didn’t think I could hide that. I just didn’t want anyone else to know what happened before that.”
“What?”
“I was so ashamed,” Nick said. “It was so confusing. With Ray. One minute it was one thing and the next . . . I barely had time to think. I didn’t want it.”
“It’s not your fault,” Tony said quickly. “Whatever you did or didn’t do. That doesn’t mean—”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Nick said. “I told him to stop. I tried to make him. But I didn’t . . .” Nick paused. And he let himself remember.
They went into the room. He was nervous but eager, his hands trembling and restless. Josh—Ray—shut the door. Nick sat on the bed, and the springs bounced under him. Ray smiled, came toward him, stood him up. Kissed him. It was good, a little awkward, a rougher kiss than in the cab. Ray pulled his face back from Nick’s. And then he hit Nick.
Not like Nick told the police. It was weird, there was no other word for it. It was open-palmed, slow-motion, not hard but jarring in its wrongness.
“You like that?” Ray asked.
Nick said something stupid, he couldn’t remember what. Something like “I don’t know.”
Ray’s eyes were playful. “Bad boy,” he said.
Nick’s stomach went hot.
Ray slapped him again, hard this time.
Nick’s eye watered and his ears rang. It was awful, and horribly familiar. An old humiliation.
“Don’t,” Nick said. His voice was small, childish, and his breath hitched. He had made a mistake. This was a mistake.
“No?” Ray leaned forward and kissed his neck. “Sorry, baby.”
Nick held still. He wanted to leave. He wanted to shove Ray back and walk out the door, but he held still. He didn’t know why he had held still. But he did.
Ray started pushing him back toward the bed.
Nick planted his feet, slowly brought his hands up to Ray’s shoulders.
He started to say something. He couldn’t remember what it was. Maybe if he’d told the police right away, he would remember it now. He didn’t know. All he knew was it happened quickly after that. Ray hit him again; Nick hit back. Ray forced him down; Nick scratched Ray’s arms, cried out, tried to headbutt him, but Ray won. And Ray raped him.
“I didn’t see it coming,” he told Tony. “I mean I did, I felt it the second he hit me—that he wanted to hurt me, but my body, it was like I froze.” Hot tears ran down Nick’s face, soaking into his collar. “But then I fought, I did, I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t get out from under him. I thought he was going to kill me.” Nick brought a hand to his throat. Ray had pressed into his neck so hard, it felt like Nick’s throat would collapse. “I wasn’t strong enough. I fought back, and I lost.”
When Tony spoke, his voice was hard. “I’m gonna kill him.”
Nick shook his head. “When I tell the prosecutor what happened, she has to tell Ray and his lawyer. It’ll change everything. He’ll use that I lied against me. It’ll be in the papers. Everyone will know.”
“I’ll kill him,” Tony said again.
“Don’t be stupid, Tony,” Nick said. “Don’t talk like that. I just need to decide whether to tell them at all.”
Tony shifted a bit in his seat. “What else would you do?”
Nick shrugged. “Give up the case. I don’t know if I ever cared to begin with.”
“Don’t do that. You told the police the part they needed to know—that he’d done it at all.”
“I didn’t tell them, though. Elle did. It was already done when they asked me what I wanted to do.”
“Don’t let him win,” Tony said.
“You’re not listening. No matter what, I lose.”
They sat in silence for a minute. Through the windshield, Nick watched a woman come out of the building and get into a parked car.
“I wish you hadn’t kept this from me.”
Guilt cut through Nick’s belly. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m not blaming you. I mean I wish I’d been there for you.”
“You have been,” Nick said. “I just . . . I should have told you, but I didn’t want to.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” There were emotions tied to it, overwhelming feelings he could vaguely categorize. Pride, shame, fear, protection. He just didn’t know how to talk about it yet.
“Why’d you tell me now?”
Nick shrugged. “Honestly, I’m just tired of keeping it from you.”
“It’s why you took all your meds, right?”
“I still don’t know why I did that. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Nick.” Tony’s eyes were dry now. “You know there isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do if it meant saving your life, right?”
44
Julia Hall, 2015
I was using that!” Sebastian shouted.
“Not so loud, Seb!” Chloe said even louder.
Julia stuck her head into the dining room. Chloe was holding the cereal box at arm’s length from her little brother, who was stretching across the table.
“Nope,” Julia said as she swiped the box from Chloe’s grasp. “If you’re still hungry, there’s extra oat
meal in the kitchen. No seconds on the cereal.” One of them must have grabbed it from the cupboard while Julia was occupied.
“Seb already got some,” Chloe whined.
Julia leaned down to Chloe’s eye level. “Honey, I don’t like tattling.” She kissed Chloe’s forehead to show her that she was forgiven. “And, Seb, if you can’t follow the rules, we won’t do cereal for breakfast at all.”
Seb’s face burst with shock. “What!”
It was all she could do not to laugh in his adorable face. “Do either of you want oatmeal?”
Each grumbled a no.
“Backpacks,” Julia prompted, and she cut through the living room for the stairs. She’d take the kids to the bus stop in a minute, but first she wanted to swap her pajama bottoms for warmer pants. Wind was pushing against the windows that morning, and it looked frigid outside.
At the top of the stairs, she heard Tony’s voice in her study. He used the space every now and then, mostly for phone calls when he wanted to block out the background noise of the kids. He’d used it last night, too. Something for work, but Julia didn’t know what.
“I just think you should wait until after that,” he said. “Yeah.”
She paused in the doorway of the bedroom, curious to know who he was talking to so early in the morning.
“Right,” he said. “If you tell them before, it doesn’t— Exactly. Okay. I just woke up thinking about it and wanted to ask. You’re making the right decision.”
She didn’t have a clue who it could be until he signed off. “I love you too, bud.”
It was Nick. That was odd. What were they talking about?
She opened the door to the bedroom closet and paused. The inside of the closet door was covered with pieces of the back-and-forth love letter they’d been writing for longer than they’d been married. There were notes from her to Tony, notes from Tony to her, the occasional note from the kids. A smattering of photos and concert tickets were scattered through the mix, and Tony’s tie rack hung down the middle. Over the years the collage had nearly overtaken the door.
Her fleece-lined jeans were folded on the top shelf. Julia dropped her pajama bottoms and stepped into her pants. As she buttoned them closed—a little tighter every winter, it seemed—she took in the collage of her life with Tony.
The Damage Page 20