Page 83 of The Casting Couch

Nico just held me tighter.

“Let it all out,” he whispered.

And I did.

I cried until my nose was running and my eyes stung and I couldn’t breathe through anything but hiccups.I cried like I was emptying out a lifetime of being terrified and alone and trying too hard.And through all of it, Nico held me like he wasn’t afraid of the mess I was making.Like he knew.

Eventually, the storm passed.The sobs turned to sniffles, and the sniffles turned to silence, and I was just… there.A lump of sorrow in his arms.

“I feel like I could sleep for a week,” I mumbled.

Nico didn’t say anything.He just reached down and took my hand.

“Come on,” he breathed.

I let him pull me up.My legs wobbled a little, but I followed him down the hallway to his bedroom.I didn’t take anything in.Didn’t care.Didn’t need to.

The bed was enormous.The sheets were soft.That was all I noticed.

I kicked off my shoes.Didn’t even ask.Just curled up on the far side, in the fetal position, facing the wall.I didn’t want to talk or move.I just wanted to not exist for a while.

A moment later, the mattress shifted again, and I felt Nico behind me.His chest was against my back.His arm wrapping around my waist.And his other hand slid into my hair, smoothing it gently like I was something delicate and precious and not completely ruined.

He said nothing else.

He just held me while I drifted down into the dark.

And for the first time in years, I wasn’t afraid of my own dreams.

* * *

I woke up with a sharp inhale, heart pounding like I’d just escaped something.For a second, I didn’t know where I was.The ceiling above me was unfamiliar—smooth and high, with a ceiling fan spinning slow circles.The bed was too nice, too soft, and smelled faintly of cedar and something citrusy.

I sat up fast.

The room was dark.A streetlamp outside the window cast faint stripes of orange light across the exposed brick wall.Then I heard it.

Nico’s voice—muffled, distant—coming from the other room.

My whole body exhaled.

Right.I was with him.I was safe.Somehow.

My shoulders slumped, and I sank back against the pillows.Part of me wanted to get up, find him, wrap my arms around his waist and just exist in the warmth of someone who didn’t want to kill me or rob me or use me.But I didn’t move.Instead, I let my eyes fall shut again and made a conscious, almost desperate effort not to think.

Not about the scene.Not about the paycheck I didn’t get to keep.And not about my parents or my parole or the ice-cold look in Riley’s eyes when she called me a freak.

Blankness felt safer than reflection.

A few minutes passed, or maybe longer.I must’ve dozed off again, because the next thing I knew, the mattress dipped and I felt Nico’s weight slide in beside me.

He pulled me close to him again, like he’d been waiting for me to need him.Like maybe he needed it, too.

I mumbled, barely audible, “Thanks… for letting me sleep here.”

His lips brushed the back of my neck.

That one small gesture almost undid me all over again.It was so soft.So simple.But it felt sacred.Like it meant something bigger than either of us could say out loud.

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