(It does need to be said that three days after receiving the pillow, he kissed it—even though he knew it wasn’t exactly normal.)
But Nick was still a man. He’d promised to make good decisions this new school year, a clean slate for both of them. New day, new dawn, blah, blah, blah.
He was shoving his feet into his beat-up Chucks when there was a knock at the door. That too had been part of their agreement. Nick would be trusted to have his door closed if he was responsible enough to do his own laundry so his father wouldn’t see any evidence that Nick had been … exploring himself. Nick loved his dad, but his singular talent for making Nick’s life excruciating was something that needed to be addressed.
“Breakfast,” Dad called through the door. “You better be getting ready, Nicky.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “I am.”
“Uh-huh. Stop your Tumblring and get your butt downstairs. French toast waits for no man.”
“Be right there. And it’s not Tumblring, you philistine. God, it’s like you don’t know anything at all.”
He heard his dad’s footsteps retreat down the hall toward the stairs. The floorboards squeaked, something they’d talked about fixing for years. But that was … well. That was Before. When things had been right as rain and everything had made sense. Sure, his dad had worked too much back then too, but she’d always been there to rein him in, telling him in no uncertain terms that he would be home for dinner at least three times a week, and they would eat as a family. She didn’t ask for much, she pointed out. But it was understood by all that she wasn’t asking.
Dad still worked too much.
Nick pushed himself off the bed. He turned his phone to vibrate (muttering about Tumblring under his breath) and crossed the room to his desk to slip it into his backpack.
She was there on his desk, as she always was, trapped in a photograph. She smiled at him, and it hurt, even now. Nick suspected it always would, at least a little bit. But it wasn’t the ragged, gaping hole it’d been two years ago, or even the constant ache of last year. Seth, Jazz, and Gibby didn’t walk on eggshells around him anymore like they thought he’d burst out crying at the slightest mention of moms.
Dad had taken the photo. It’d been on one of their summer trips out of the city. They’d gone to the coast of Maine to this little cottage by the sea. It’d been weirdly cold, and the beach had been rocks instead of sand, but it’d been … nice. Nick had moaned about being away from his friends, that there wasn’t even any Wi-Fi, and could his parents possibly be any more barbaric? His father laughed, and his mother patted his hand, telling him he’d survive.
He hadn’t been too sure about that.
But then, he’d been thirteen, and so of course he’d been overly dramatic. Puberty was a bitch, causing his voice to break along with a group of zits that had decided to nest against the side of his nose. He was gawky and awkward and had hair sprouting everywhere, so it was in his very nature to be overly dramatic.
Only later did Nick find out his father had taken the photo.
It’d been halfway through the trip, and they decided to find the local lighthouse that was supposed to be scenic, which was code for boring. It’d taken a couple of hours because it was in the middle of nowhere, and the paper map she insisted on was absolutely useless. But then they nearly drove past a sign half-hidden by a gnarled old tree, and she shouted, “There!” Brightly, full of excitement. Dad slammed on the brakes, and Nick laughed for the first time since he’d set foot in the state of Maine. She looked back at him, grinning wildly, her light hair hanging down around her face, and she winked at him while his father grumbled and reversed the car slowly.
They found the lighthouse shortly after.
It was smaller than Nick expected, but there was something exhilarating about the way Jenny Bell threw open the car door as soon as they stopped in the empty parking lot, waves crashing in the background. She left the door open, saying, “See? I knew we’d find it. I knew it was here.”
The Bell men followed her. Always.
The frame of the photograph was oak and heavy. He had taken it from his mom’s nightstand without a second thought. His father hadn’t said a word when he’d seen it on Nick’s desk the first time. It was something they didn’t talk about.
One of the somethings.
She smiled at him every day. She must have seen Dad with the camera, because she was looking right at it, her head on her son’s shoulder. Nick’s head was turned toward the sky, his eyes closed.
They looked too much alike. Pale and green-eyed and blond with eyebrows that had minds of their own. There was no doubt where he’d come from. Dad was big, bigger than Nick would ever be, tan skin and dark hair and muscles on top of muscles, though they were softer than they used to be. Nick was skinny and all gangly limbs, uncoordinated on his best day, and downright dangerous on his worst. He’d taken after her, though she’d made being a klutz endearing, whereas he was more likely to break a table or a bone. She’d told him she’d met his dad by literally falling on top of him in the library. She’d been on a ladder, trying to get to the top shelf, and he happened to pass right on by the moment she slipped. He’d caught her, Dad would say, and she’d say, sure, right, except you didn’t because I landed on you and we both fell, and then they’d laugh and laugh.
Nick looked like her.
He acted like her.
He didn’t know how Dad could stand to look at him some days.
“I’m going to do better,” he told her quietly, not wanting his father to hear. The fact that he spoke to his mom’s photo would probably get him back to the psychiatrist, something Nick was desperate to avoid. “New Nick. You’ll see. Promise.”
He pressed his fingers against his lips, and then to the photo.
She kept on smiling.
* * *
Dad was in their small kitchen, an old dishrag thrown over his shoulder. He’d taken off his uniform at some point after he’d gotten home from the night shift. Breakfast was their time—unless Dad had the day off. It was usually all they got for weeks. It’d get even harder now that school was starting again, but they’d figure it out. After the events of last spring, they were working together as a team.
The table had already been set, plates and silverware and glasses of juice. And, of course, the oblong white pill with the cheery name of Concentra. “Concentra will help Nick concentrate,” the doctor had told them with a straight face. Dad had nodded, and Nick had somehow managed to keep his mouth shut instead of saying something that probably wouldn’t be appreciated.
Dad kept the pills locked up in the safe in his room. It wasn’t because he didn’t trust Nick, he’d told him, but he knew the dangers of peer pressure, and he didn’t want Nick to get caught up in the world of drugs and dealing them under the bleachers on the football field.
“Thank you for not letting me become a drug dealer,” Nick had said. “I felt the pull toward a life of crime, but you saved me.”
Nick picked up the pill now, Dad turning to watch him with an eyebrow arched, and he swallowed it, chasing it down with a sip of orange juice. Gross. He’d just brushed his teeth, and now he had a mouthful of the plague. He grimaced as he stuck out his tongue, raising it up and down, showing that he’d swallowed the pill.