I couldn’t help but relax after that.
Maybe I didn’t need to watch every single word.
Michelle agreed when I got home to find her in my room, painting her nails.
“God, Mara,” she said with a sad sigh as she stopped to shake her hands, then blow on her nails, “whatever happened that night must have been awful for Nico to lock it up so tight.”
That didn’t make me feel better, though.
But then, I don’t think Michelle was trying to make me feel better.
Rather reminding me—again—to be careful.
So, when my phone rang a few minutes after she’d gone home, I knew it was her, calling to reassure me because she knew that what she’d just said would keep me up all night. I didn’t even look at the screen. I just answered with “Oh my God. Have you watched that blackhead video Erin just sent? It’s disgusting.”
There was a long silence, then I heard a laugh that definitely wasn’t Michelle’s.
I moved my phone away from my ear to check who it was and swallowed a scream.
Nico.
“Sorry!” I cringed. “I thought it was Michelle.”
“It’s OK. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have called unannounced at ten thirty. Is this weird?” Before I could tell her it wasn’t, she sighed. “Don’t answer that. I just heard myself say it out loud and I know that it is.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “No, it’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course,” I told her, because I was painfully aware of how treacherous the transition between swapping numbers with someone and being able to casually call them was. Do it too soon and you look desperate with no boundaries but leave it too long and you risk never being able to make the transition.
It was kind of nice not to be the one agonizing about it for a change.
“OK.” I heard her let go of a breath. “So how disgusting is this video?”
“Do you want me to send you the link?”
“Immediately.”
I did and I heard it playing through the phone as she asked, “Do I need any context?”
“OK.” I laid back against the pillows again and restarted the video so we were in the same place. “This person had a blocked pore in their stomach for, like, five years, and it turned into a monster blackhead.”
“I didn’t even know you could get blackheads in your stomach.”
“Me either.”
“Holy mother of Beyoncé,” Nico gasped as the dermatologist showed it to the camera.
Not that they needed to.
It was impossible to miss.
“What is that, Mara?”
“I know!”
“Listen. Don’t get me wrong.” She raised her voice over the dermatologist’s commentary. “The human body is a wonder. It can heal itself and grow babies and, much like my own, can somehow survive on nothing but lattes and The Office, but when I see stuff like this, I remember that it’s a strange and hideous thing.”
“Right? How can a blocked pore turn into that?”
“I’m definitely taking a shower after this,” she said, then yelped. “They’re digging!”
“I know!”
“Man, they’re really going at it.”
“That poor soul.”
“Why am I watching this?”
“Why am I watching this again?”
We both sucked in a sharp breath as the dermatologist managed to expose a piece of it. Then Nico began muttering a series of Oh my Gods that got progressively louder and louder until she shrieked, “Oh my God!”
“I know!” I shrieked back.
“Mara, it’s so big!”
“I know!”
“How is it so big?”
“I don’t know!”
“It looks like a mini Mars bar!”
“I know!”
“They have an actual hole in their stomach now! What are they going to do with it?”
“Put a Band-Aid over it and hope for the best, I guess.”
“No. No. No. I can’t. I can’t.” I heard Nico’s laptop snap shut. “Listen. Let me calm down. I have to stop screaming before my mother thinks I’m being murdered and comes in here. She’s already pissed at me.”
“Why is she pissed at you?”
“For going to Resident.”
“Why?” I asked, then gasped when I realized what she was saying. “You didn’t tell her about the instore?”
“Not exactly.”
“Nico!”
“I know. I know. But she never would have let me go if I’d told her.”
“Where did she think you were?”
Nico let out another sigh, and when I heard her sheets shifting, I pictured her curled up on her side in a cloud of white cotton, her dark hair spilling across the pillow. “Hear me out, OK?”
“OK,” I promised.
“So I only have therapy on Wednesdays now, which is great, but also not great, because it’s the only time she lets me out of her sight and I can have an hour to myself. Well, myself and my therapist.”
“She must let you out of her sight sometimes. What about when she’s at work?”
“She doesn’t work.”
I don’t know why I was so shocked at that, but I was stunned into silence for a moment.
When I went quiet, Nico said, “She used to. She used to work in PR for Samsung; that’s how she met my dad. She took some time off when she had me, but then…” She paused and I already knew what she was going to say, grateful that she was telling me on the phone so I didn’t have to look surprised. “He died when I was two.”
“Oh, Nico. I’m so sorry,” I said quietly.
I almost added I had no idea but I stopped myself.
Pretending to be surprised was one thing, but I didn’t have to full-on lie, did I?
“He used to go back and forth between London and Korea a lot for his job and, one day, his plane went up, and thirteen minutes later, it came back down again.”
“I’m so sorry, Nico.”
“Mum didn’t go into any detail when she told me, but I got the impression that between the payout she got from the airline and his pension from Samsung, she doesn’t have to worry about money.”
“That’s nice.”
As soon as I heard myself say it, I cringed.
Nice?
Really, Mara?
Nice.
How nice that her husband was killed in a plane crash leaving her alone with a two-year-old.
Nico didn’t falter, though. “Anyway, I only have therapy on Wednesdays now, and tonight the stars aligned because one Wednesday a month Mum has group therapy with other parents who are managing and learning to cope with trauma, so I should have had plenty of time to go to Resident and be home before her.”
“Should have?” I asked, sensing where this was going.
“Yes. Well.” Nico huffed and I heard the sheets rustle through the phone again. “All that tempeh she eats has obviously awakened some sort of superpower that has allowed her to master the art of time travel because she got home before me. Even though I gave myself half an hour and it only took seventeen minutes—”
“Very precise,” I interjected.
“Thank you. But that’s the point, Mara. I timed it to the minute. And I could because she insists that I get a cab to and from therapy now so I don’t catch norovirus on the bus again.”
“That is if the cab driver doesn’t have norovirus, of course.”
“Mara!” she wailed. “Don’t tell her that, otherwise she’ll lock me in this room and throw away the key.”
I shouldn’t have teased her, but I’d never heard her like that before.
The old Nico was usually so cool.
So nonchalant.
It made a pleasant change not to be the one spiraling, for once.
“Sorry,” I said, trying not to laugh. “So was she mad?”
“Mad?” Nico scoffed. “When she got home and realized I wasn’t there, she called me, and when I didn’t answer, she freaked out, Mara. She had a full on DEFCON 1 meltdown. She called the police and everything.”
I waited for her to take a breath, then said, “You can’t blame her. She didn’t know where you were.”
Usually, I’d never side with a parent, but on this occasion, I understood why her mother panicked.
“I know,” Nico snapped, and usually it would make me regret what I said, but for once, I didn’t assume it was aimed at me. “I know what happened to me is every parent’s worst nightmare. But I’m OK, Mara. I’m still here. I survived. And I’m doing everything she tells me. I only leave the house to go to therapy or for our daily walk. I’m not going back to school. I’m eating kale soup and swallowing the fistful of supplements she makes me take every day and I let some random called Serenity who looks like Sinéad O’Connor and has a hamsa hand tattoo do reiki on me. What more does she want? What’s the point of surviving if she won’t let me live?”
I waited for her to take another breath, but she didn’t.
“And I hate that she’s right, Mara. I hate it.”
“Right about what?”
“I’ve only been home an hour and I already feel like shit. I’m shaking and lightheaded.”
“Of course you are. You just had a run-in with your mum. Have a peppermint tea and calm down.”
“Mum just made me have one.” She went quiet for a moment, then said, “But I still threw up.”
“You were sick again? When?”
“Just now.”
“Are you OK?” My brain lurched, grasping for an explanation. “Maybe it’s the shock of coming home to find your mum freaking out. Erin has really bad anxiety, and whenever she’s about to have a panic attack, she has all the same symptoms. Shaking. Dizziness. Nausea. Chest pains. Do you have chest pains?”
“It’s not anxiety,” Nico murmured.
“Are you sure? Michelle says that loads of people have anxiety, but they don’t even know it. They just think they’re stressed and ignore it until they have a panic attack and are forced to deal with it.”
“It’s not anxiety.” She sounded so sure that something in me sank.
“Is your mum being sick as well?”
“No, she’s just sick with worry, darling,” she said, putting on her mother’s singsongy voice.
I shouldn’t have laughed, but Nico did first.
Her laugh swiftly turned into a groan, though. “Why is my mother always right?”
“I assume you’re looking for an answer other than because she’s a mother?”
Nico chuckled, then groaned theatrically again.
“It can’t be norovirus again. Do you think it was the latte?” I asked when she began muttering to herself. “You haven’t had caffeine for so long, Nico. Maybe you’re allergic to it now, or something?”
“Or maybe I’ve been stuck in this house so long, I’m allergic to outside,” she said with a petulant huff. I waited as she began muttering to herself again, and after a minute or so, she let out another huff and said, “Maybe it was. Mum says that I’m detoxing, so while my body purges itself from all the toxins and heavy metals—”
“Heavy metals?” I asked with a frown.
“Don’t ask. Mum says it’s going to be like this for a few weeks. I just need to ride it out.”
“So this is normal?”
“Apparently. I’m literally expelling the toxins.”
“And the heavy metals,” I added, desperate to make a Black Sabbath joke, but it wasn’t the time.
“It’s not fair.” Nico whimpered. “I really wanted to see you after school tomorrow and borrow Just Kids.”
“Hopefully it’ll be quick like last time and you’ll be better by the weekend.”
“I will definitely be better by Sunday. I want to go to the Booth Museum.”
“Maybe we should skip it until your mum’s calmed down,” I suggested.
“She’s all for it, actually. She says it will do me good to get out and experience some culture.”
“That’s good!”
“Plus, she loves you. She says that every time I see you, she can see the old me.”
I think I prefer the new you, though, I thought as she laughed brightly.
But I bit my tongue.