Page 90 of My Irresistible Enemy

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It was sad, but not unexpected. And they were—well, they weren’t perfect, but they did their best with a bad situation. They loved me, even if they didn’t always know how to show it.”

Nolan was looking at something just over my shoulder, but I had a feeling whatever he was seeing wasn’t actually in the room at all. The air conditioner whirred softly, and a bird chirped on a branch outside.

“Your parents,” I asked. “Are they—did they also—”

His smile slipped, a ribbon coming undone. “No.”

For a long time, he didn’t say anything else, and I wondered if I’d pushed too far. He traced one finger down the expanse of comforter between us, following one of the thin yellow pinstripes.

“I haven’t seen my dad since I was seven.” His voice was so quiet that even in the stillness of the room, I had to strain to hear it.

“He wasn’t a very—” Nolan broke off, pausing. “I was going to say he wasn’t a very good person, but I guess I can’t really know that. He wasn’t a good dad, though. That much, I can say for sure. He would drink, and get angry, and take it out on whoever was within reach.”

My mouth dropped open, but Nolan rolled on before I could say anything.

“Usually my mom made sure she was that person. She’d make me hide and promise not to make a sound until my dad fell asleep.” He closed his eyes and shook his head momentarily, like he was trying to unsee something. “He was always so apologetic about it the next day, but apologies didn’t make her bruises go away.”

“Oh, Nolan…”

“One time, though, she wasn’t fast enough in hiding me. I missed school for two days after, and when I did go on the third day, I had a black eye. And I made the mistake of telling my teacher what had happened.”

He shook his head again. “I didn’t know what I’d done. Didn’t know I couldn’t undo it. Two days later, my grandparents came to pick me up after school. Told me I was going to stay with them for a while.”

“Oh no.”

“A while turned into weeks, and then months. I started going to a new school. They bought me new clothes, turned their guest room into my bedroom. I didn’t get to see my mom for months, and I only pieced together what was happening from snippets of conversations that I overheard. My parents were getting divorced, and my mom wanted custody, but the courts wouldn’t give it to her. And my grandparents supported that decision.”

He closed his eyes. His lashes were so long and delicate, black feathers against his cheeks. A beam of sunlight slanted in from the window and cut across his body, bathing everything from his neck upwards in gold.

I wished again that I could freeze time. Not for me, though. For him. I wished I could stop it, or maybe undo it, so he never had to tell me this story, because it never would have happened at all.

Just the two of us, gleaming in this patch of light. Weightless.

“The next time I saw my mom, she looked different,” Nolan said. “Thinner. Stressed out. She was acting kind of weird, and my grandparents were mad at her, and I couldn’t figure out why. She asked me if I wanted to come live with her, and I said yes, and we snuck out to her car. We made it three blocks before my grandfather caught up to us. After that, her visits were supervised.”

He made a face. “I don’t think they told me she was using until I was twelve, until I asked point-blank. But I knew before then. I knew, and didn’t want to admit it. I kept hoping she’d get better, but she never did. For years, it was the same cycle. She’d show up, say she was getting sober, that she’d stopped using and she was turning everything around, and then a week or a month later, she’d relapse and be gone again for who knew how long.”

He pressed his lips together. “My grandparents told me to stop expecting her to change, but they never understood. I didn’t expect her to. Ineededher to. Because all of it—the drugs, the divorce, me getting taken away—it was all my fault.”

“Oh, Nolan. No, it wasn’t.” I reached across the comforter and touched his wrist.

His eyes flashed. “Wasn’t it?”

I pulled my hand away, letting it fall into the space between us. “Your dad was abusive. That’s not your fault.”

“Maybe not, but if I had just kept my mouth shut, I wouldn’t have been taken away from her. If I hadn’t been taken away, she’d never have started using. Call it bad luck, or bad timing, or whatever you want, but if I’d just not said anything to my teacher—”

“You cannot blame yourself for that. I’m serious. That’s insane.”

Nolan just smiled that tight little smile that I’d come to realize meant he disagreed but didn’t want to fight about it.

“The point is, I know what it feels like to need something from someone and not get it. My mom’s not using anymore, but for twenty years, that was all I wanted, and it was the one thing I couldn’t get.”

“I’m glad she stopped,” I said. “She’s better now?”

“In a way,” Nolan said. But he looked even sadder. “She got sick a year ago. Really sick. That was what finally got through to her, made her stop using. But she also didn’t have any money, or even a place to stay. So she came to live with me.”

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