Trapped✔️

4

Eighteen Months Ago

Nina woke up to the sound of her phone, vibrating from somewhere in the an unfamiliar room. She blinked. Where was she?

"Hey, baby." She turned, startled, towards the voice. "Leaving so soon?"

It was Todd, shirtless, white sheets covering his waist. He looked bleary-eyed, his hair tousled. He looked like nothing she could ever want.

"Yeah." She forced the sound out of a dry mouth with a hoarse voice. It did not sound like hers. "I have to go."

Nina gathered her stuff, picking up her clothes and purse from the plushly carpeted floor, taking the phone from the jeans' pocket, rubbing her thumb over its familiar cracked screen. There were probably messages and missed calls, but she couldn't even think about turning it on right now.

Nina wandered down the hallway until she found an inhabited bathroom, and for dressed. Her clothes didn't quite fit. Her hair was a rat's nest, and her mascara had run. She looked half-dead, and felt like it, too. She hurt everywhere - her head ached, her limbs were sore, and every part of her wanted to go back to bed.

Unfortunately, that wasn't an option. When she checked her phone after she was dressed, a thousand messages greeted her. She opened her voicemail, following the directions until Hailee's urgent tone reached her ears.

"Holden and Harry are in the hospital. Nobody knows what happened. Please call me back."

The message sent her heart rising into her throat, and vomit, too. She puked into the sink, her hair getting into her face, and all she could think was that if Holden had been here, he would have held her hair back.

But he wasn't. He was hurt, and - indirectly or not - she had hurt him.

:::

Present

Holden was silent.

Nina didn't know why it irritated her, the silence expanding in her ears, filling her head with unspoken words.

"Why - why did you - " she didn't know what she was asking. She didn't know if she wanted an answer. But she kept going anyways.

"Why did I what?" Holden sounded genuinely confused.

"Why weren't you mad? When you got out of the hospital, why weren't you mad at me?" Nina asked, her voice trembling, her lungs aching with asking the question as it tumbled out of her in a rush.

"What brought this on?" He frowned at her.

Nina shrugged. "I don't now... we were just talking about the past, and it got me thinking."

"I wasn't mad at you because..." Holden sighed. "I don't know. Let me think about it."

Let me think about it. Those five words were the most terrifying ones she'd ever heard from him, and she'd heard a lot from him.

:::

Twenty Months Ago

"How did we end up like this, Nina?"

Holden sat next to her on the porch swing, both of them facing the quiet suburban street, the setting sun bathing both of their faces in warm light.

Like parallel lines, she thought. They lived next to each other but would never meet.

"I don't know." She curled in on herself, protecting all the soft parts of her.

Todd had just left, and her father was at his friend's place, watching the game. Nina could still feel Todd's hands, and his mouth, on her skin, like a drug she couldn't flush entirely out of her system.

Holden had come over, a now-rare occasion, bringing a thermos of hot chocolate and having wrapped himself in a scarf to fight off the chilly spring weather. Nina herself had brought a cashmere throw from the house, and was cradling the cocoa in gloved hands.

"Really? The great Nina Edwards, admitting to not-knowing something?" He teased, poking her beneath the blanket.

She laughed. "Stop! That tickles."

He stopped. Before, he wouldn't have. It was just another reminder of how different things were now.

"No, really. Do you really want to fix things, or are you just nostalgic?" Nina looked at Holden, searching for truth in his eyes. Before, she wouldn't have had to ask - but this was after, this was now, and maybe it could be rebuilt, maybe it could be better than before.

"Of course I do, Nina." He put his hand over hers, a familiar show of solidarity and friendship. "I miss you. I've missed you so much."

"I know," she confessed. "These past months... they've been hell for me. I don't know... I don't know how to live a life without you in it. It's like you're a part of me, my arm or my leg or my - " Heart.

"Yeah. I see you at school, and then I think, how did Nina get there? Why aren't we going to class together?" He let go of her hand, and put his arm around her shoulder instead. "And then I come home, and you're walking home from the bus stop, and I don't know how things went wrong that I don't even see you anymore - that I never see you anymore - "

His green eyes were dilated, glowing in the faint light, with an intensity that scared her. Was this what she thought it was?

Holden turned away, and she rested her head on his shoulder, not wanting to push this ceasefire too far.

The sun set, and Nina shared her blanket with Holden, the heat of him next to her a soothing presence, even with the memories of the last four months between them. Those months where they had both turned to things other than each other for solace; her to partying, and him to pot. But they were here now, and the scarf he was wearing smelled of cold air and pines rather than cannabis, and Todd had left, so maybe, maybe they could fix things.

The sudden revving noise of a car's engine broke the serenity, and both of them looked up.

"Hey, Nina!" It was Jacob, one of Todd's friends. "Coming to the party?"

Holden stood up, away from her, and took the thermos, which was long-empty. "I should go."

Nina swallowed. Part of her wanted to say no, stay, but other parts of her could already taste the beer, could already hear the beat of the music as she danced to it, could already feel Todd's hands on her hips. She was torn - though in her heart, she knew she wanted to be with Holden more.

But when she opened her mouth, he was gone.