Page 52 of Crash & Burn

“About what?” I ask, with just a tad of sass.

He sighs. “Well, first. I want to apologize for asking what you were dreaming about. I should’ve minded my own business.”

My knee-jerk reaction is to be a smartass with him to prolong this conversation a little longer, but I don’t think that will work right now. My next thought is to just tell him not to worry about it and change the subject, but I find myself not wanting to.

I have realized that being with Eddie brings my guard down. My usual barriers crumble when I’m around him, and I have to fight like hell to keep them up.

I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing.

“It was just a dream I’ve had before. Well, actually it is a memory more than a dream.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to,” I say, and he scoots his chair a little closer to the bed, still leaving a safe distance. I cross my legs, making sure my shirt—Eddie’s shirt—isn’t too revealing, as I prepare myself for this conversation. I have never talked about my dreams aside from with my therapist, but, for some reason, right now I feel ready.

“Have you ever gone to sleep and felt like, instead of a dream, it was your mind showing you a memory?” I ask.

Eddie’s eyes darken in the slightest, but he doesn’t say anything. Something unsaid passes between us, like he is telling me “yes” with his eyes, so I continue. “It is kind of like that. Sometimes when I fall asleep, my mind makes me relive the last night I saw Nico.” I don’t remember if I told Eddie Nico’s name, but I can tell he knows who I am talking about.

“Is it a good memory?” Eddie asks, and I am taken aback by the question. Not because it was random or unwarranted, but more because I just recently have been able to think of Nico’s memories, the ones with him, as good. But no matter how you spin it, the one we’re talking about is anything but good.

“No. We got into an argument that night, and he left angry.” I feel tears prick my eyes, but I don’t want them to fall.

I am healing.

I don’t want to take a step backwards.

“It’s okay,” Eddie reassures, and, when he says it, I believe it.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath in, filling my lungs to capacity, as a single tear escapes from the corner of my eye. I breathe out and open my eyes to find Eddie watching me. He is leaning forward in his chair, and his hands are tightly wound together in his lap.

“Before I tell you this story, I want you to know I am in therapy and have talked about this night a lot with my therapist. I know what ultimately happened is not my fault, and I have spent years working through my guilt. I also know there were parts of Nico that I couldn’t fix, even though I wanted to. That took me a long time to accept.”

Eddie nods. “You can tell me whatever you want,” he reassures. A small smile graces his lips, pushing them to one side to show a hint of his dimple. The singular light from the lamp makes his green eyes look darker than usual and the sadness in them is on full display tonight. His scar in this light catches my eye, and I don’t know why it feels like the right moment to say, “You can tell me whatever you want too,” but that is what comes out of my mouth.

He lets out a dry chuckle, making his smile a little wider, and I wish this boy would put away his mask for good and show everyoneallof him.

“Noted,” he says as he stands to take a seat on the bed next to me. His legs are hanging off, and I shift my body to face him. “But tonight is about you.”

I take one more deep breath, reminding myself that the past is in the past. Even though it is a part of me, and always will be, I can’t let it define me.

“It was my sophomore year of college, and Nico and I were having trouble making time for each other. Me more than him because I was busy with school. He was writing a new song, one for me, and he took his music really seriously. He had come over that night to play the song for me because it was finally finished.

“As he was playing it, I wasn’t paying attention. I was trying to finish some stupid paper that wasn’t even that big of a deal, and I had heard the song, or versions of it, so many times. He got upset that I wasn’t paying attention, and he thought that I didn’t care about him or the song, and I just—”

My heart starts beating and my palms feel sweaty as I stop myself from admitting something that I have only ever shared in the confines of my own head. I close my eyes and shake my head as if to shake the thought away, and the rest of tears threatening to fall, feel thick in my eyes.

I open my eyes to find Eddie, waiting.

“I just didn’t have it in me that night to fight with him,” I admit.

Eddie reaches a hand out to me and then stops, bringing it back to his lap.

“That’s understandable,” he whispers. “Sometimes we don’t have it in us to fight.”

He is right, but he doesn’t get it.

“No, it’s more complicated than that. Fighting with Nico was also fighting with the demons in his head. The ones that told him that he wasn’t enough. The ones that told him to give up.” Nico was diagnosed with depression in high school, and he had struggled for years to find the right combination of medication and therapy. He tried and he tried, but he couldn’t fight the imbalance in his brain. His parents were supportive, but they didn’t see his mental illness for what it was.

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