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Her eyes drifted away and she worried her bottom lip.
“Nik,” he prompted after a beat too long.
Her eyes came back to him, and they looked…guilty.
“Sometimes someone says the very thing you already think about yourself, you know?”
He nodded once, understanding and unease swirling in his gut.
“I know…I knowthat she only said it to hurt. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.” She tried to shrug but it was small and so unlike her. He could feel it, the pull inside of her that believed those twisted accusations.
“Nik.” He shook her a little in his hold. Maybe there was nothing he could have done back then. But he could do something about it now. “None of what she said was true.”
She rolled her pretty eyes at him like he didn’t get it.
“I understand.” He made sure he had her full attention before he went on. “Sometimes someone repeats the worst things we think about ourselves, and we convince ourselves that it’s true. But it’s not.”
She blinked, her thoughts warring inside her head with what he’d just said.
“Try to believe the people who love you. Not the ones who hate you.”
“That’s exactly what Asa said.”
“It’s good advice.”
Her gaze drifted over his shoulder and then came back. “I’m trying.”
He could cry at her admission. It was small but more than he expected. He could work with that.
“Okay.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and then hugged her to his chest. “I’m right here to remind you when you forget,” he said over the top of her head.
She responded by burrowing closer to him and, in doing so, became a permanent part of his heart.
* * *
They got dressed and walked up the path to the big house where Bob and Mary had more food than they needed. Eggs, sausages, bacon, toast, muffins, fruit, and various juices.
They asked about his childhood and his hobbies. They asked about his work and how that might look in the future.
And they made him feel welcome.
Part of a family.
At least that’s how it felt. The only family he’d really ever been at peace with was Sabine. He didn’t know how to have Sunday dinners and joke about the workweek. He had no experience with “shooting the shit” as Bob called it.
But this? He could do this. With these people.
And he was able to see a new layer to Nikki.
Some of the stories he’d heard before.
But it was different this time. Not the story, but him. He was different this time. More invested. Present.
It was like listening to a song that you’d fallen in love with when you were young, but not understanding it yet because of age or lack of experience. Then you hear it again later, and all the things you loved are still there, but there’s a new layer to it that makes it mean more.
And then there were the stories he hadn’t heard yet.
“Of course, when she came home in eighth grade with her head half-shaved, I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” her mom said, pressing a hand to her chest like the heart attack could still happen with just the memory.
