Ten of Me ✓

Twenty-Five

NICOLE

Nicholas watched me with eyes wide with confusion as Dad took me by the arm and led me down the sidewalk towards his car. Tears were making my vision swim as I walked, so that I couldn't clearly see the path in front of me. I thought of Noah and our conversation and the fact that I'd almost gone to see a movie with him. What had I been thinking? I needed to distance myself from him, so that he couldn't hurt me again.

Hearing him say the things he had had wounded me yet again, digging a deeper scar into my heart that was already burning with pain. I didn't know what to do anymore, so I buried my head in my father's shoulder and cried.

After a silent car ride home, I went up to my room without a word and showered, rinsing out all of the hair dye and swiping off every last bit of my makeup. Dad hadn't yelled at me once, and something told me he wouldn't if I went back downstairs as Nicole and tried to forget about what had happened that afternoon. And yet I couldn't forgot--sobs racked my body as I stood in the shower and let the scalding water wash over me, as if focusing on the pain of the heat could make me forget the stabbing sensation in my chest.

Finally, I forced myself to get out of the shower, and after drying off and pulling on some worn-down sweatpants and a t-shirt, I found myself padding down the stairs to the living room. Dad was in the kitchen making dinner and Mom was sitting at the barstools, placidly running numbers on a calculator for her hair salon. Neither was arguing.

Biting down on my lip, I crossed the kitchen and pulled a baby carrot from the plastic bag Dad was using to make a salad.

"Feeling better?" he asked, his thick eyebrows furrowed tightly together. I remembered that I'd inherited his dark eyebrows, except when I was thirteen Mom had decided to pluck and shape them for me--they'd never looked the same since. Now, whenever I looked in a mirror, they looked too perfect, like arched little spider legs, with only the color as a reminder of my father's features.

I chewed down on the carrot, ignoring the dry taste. "I'm fine," I lied. Then, because I knew if he looked at me he would be able to tell, I turned towards Mom. She was never able to read my expressions as much as Dad, despite all the intuitive mother radar she was supposed to possess.

For the rest of the evening, my family coexisted in relative peace. Dad made a delicious dinner consisting of salad and penne pasta, and though Mom took her plate to her office so that she didn't have to eat with her husband, everyone's voices remained lowered and glaring was kept to a minimum. My hair, wet from the shower, dripped on the tile of the kitchen as I sat at a barstool, stabbing lettuce with my fork and saturating it with vinaigrette dressing.

Neither Dad nor Nicholas brought up the incident with Lindsay and Noah throughout our meal, and for that I was more grateful than they'd ever know. I wanted desperately to forget that it had ever happened, that Lindsay had ever been stupid enough to get close to him. My plan to show him that Nicole wouldn't show up for a date just seemed idiotic now, because I knew that Noah truly didn't care.

My little brother studied me confusedly as I ate, though Dad must have told him not to say anything because he kept quiet. He looked too grown up, sitting up at the bar stool with me and eating his dinner from one of our regular plates instead of his kids' plates with the different animal pictures on the bottoms. I wondered what he'd be like when he got older--if he would make the same mistakes I'd made. I wondered if our family would even be the same then.

I went straight up to bed after dinner, collapsing onto my bed and staring up at the ceiling for a long time. Eventually, my eyelashes fluttered shut and all I could see was a peaceful darkness. Despite everything, I hadn't slept so well since that fateful day when Noah Murdock had first asked me out.