The Body #4: Nico and Cosi

Chapter 27 (Cosi): Eating The Cupcakes

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

The girls were all gathered around my bed in the hospital, and we'd just had lunch during which I'd told them about Nico giving me birth control without my knowledge. 

"So that's why I've been having you bring me food," I explained at the end of my story. "I'd been trying to work through Nico slipping me birth control for five years, to the point that I even ate the food he brought before I got...before my step-father...before the shooting, but when he started arguing with me about taking pain meds, it just kind of freaked me out that he'd start trying to put pain meds in my food."

My five friends looked at me. 

Fina spoke first. "That's understandable, Cosi. It triggered you."

"Five years," Ant said. "And you thinking that whole time it was you. Even with him reassuring you, we all saw the strain it was putting on you, your marriage, thinking something was wrong with you."

"I know. I also can understand his thinking to some extent. Tommaso's story was brutal and horrifying and no matter what, Nico is crazy protective of me so I can see where he was coming from. He had my doctor monitoring me carefully all five years, and he was watching out for me, too. But even though I can understand it...it still hurts."

"Let's kill him," Moxie suggested. "Maybe Nico and Enzio, like a two-for-one-deal."

"Moxie, what's going on?" I asked her, wondering if there'd been a new development in Enzio not taking the news of her secret life very well.

Moxie waved her index finger in a no gesture. "Sorry. This is about you and Nico. I shouldn't have brought him up, and I'm not talking about him."

She spat out him as if it were poison in her mouth.

Vic jumped in. "Is this something you can forgive Nico for, do you think? Can you see yourself getting past this?"

"I want to. It's just a lot to think about. I spent so many years feeling as if my body was betraying me when it really wasn't. Five years of thinking our sweet tradition every night before bed was so beautiful only to find out it was a sneaky way to give me the pills. Even on our honeymoon, when I thought he was being considerate, giving me time to get comfortable with him...it was just giving the pills time to start working."

"Secrets hurt," Janie said, clearly in her head. "You said he was scared that you'd accidentally slip and tell someone, which could bring him under scrutiny."

"Yeah, but I could have kept the secret."

"But, Cosi, he didn't know you'd been keeping some huge secrets for more than a decade. He had no idea what you were capable of," Ant said, gently pointing out the obvious.

"I know he had no idea. I also know I kept some huge secrets from him, but his secret was different."

"Yeah, it was," Janie agreed. "It's one of those things that can end your marriage if you can't forgive him for it. And he knew that. He had the divorce papers ready to go if you told him, no, we're done."

"He was preparing for the worst-case scenario reaction from me. In his mind, he did it to protect me, but he knew that what he was doing was bad enough that I might want to divorce him when I found out."

"And how would you have ever found out?" Vic asked.

"Through him. He had to tell me."

"He could have kept it a secret and you'd never have known," Moxie said. "That would have been the easiest thing in the world."