and - EDEN
It had taken twenty minutes for Nicole to stop crying, a further half an hour of Nathan holding her to calm her down and an additional ten minutes for her to fall asleep. Nathan was left to reflect on what he had just witnessed; he knew Nicole had issues with her family, but he hadn't realised it effected her so deeply. She had been wailing over the remarks Anthony had made.
Nathan had found out a lot about Nicole's family situation during the dinner that he only got to think about an hour later. Nicole hadn't seen their father, who struggled with alcoholism, for at least three years for some "good" reason. Nathan figured it was because he had been abusive to her and her mother. What shocked Nathan the most was Marcus' sudden snap statement; "She wasn't your mother". Not only did he figure that Nicole had a different mother to Anthony, but that she wasn't around anymore. Anthony had claimed that she had struggled with drugs, or had he claimed that Alicia had struggled with drugs? If so, who the hell was Alicia? A sister?
Nathan was beyond perplexed.
To clear his mind, Nathan had decided to search for the hoodie Nicole had been desperately searching for since he had arrived back from Brighton. Nicole's favourite hoodies of Nathan's was a two toned Hard Rock Cafe hoodie that Nathan's brother had bought him as a souvenir from his trip to Paris. It was the largest hoodie Nathan owned, because Luke had overestimated his size and bought the biggest hoodie he could find. Nicole slept in it as the material was thick enough to keep her from shivering throughout the night. She hadn't been able to find it for weeks, so she had resulted to layering two long sleeved t-shirts under another one of Nathan's hoodies. Nathan knew she still suffered; she still trembled beside him for half the night.
His first instinct was to go to the basement, because Nicole had a habit of hanging up clothes to dry and forgetting to bring them back upstairs. As soon as Nathan placed a foot outside Nicole's bedroom, he heard the shouting. It was coming from the guest room, and it was unavoidable on the way down to the basement, so Nathan quietly walked by.
Marcus was curled up in the corner of the sofa watching reruns of Two and a Half Men, though the shouting was drowning the audio. He had felt too uncomfortable to sleep in a stranger's bed, so he had decided to take the sofa. He didn't mind; he was one of those people who could fall asleep within seconds no matter where he was. Though, he wasn't sure whether he was going to be able to sleep through Lexi and Anthony's intense argument.
'What's going on?' Nathan asked, hovering by the basement door.
'Lexi is, to be quite frank, sick of Ant's bullshit.' Marcus told him, extending his arm out before placing it behind his head. His tone was somehow still slightly playful, though it become more serious as he asked Nathan, 'How's Nic?'
Nathan shook his head. 'She's asleep now, but I've never seen her like that. I know we've only been dating for a month, but that's the first time she's ever shown any sort of vulnerability.'
'She doesn't get upset as much anymore, but when she does, it is intense.' Marcus said. 'These past few years have been tough on her.'
'How come Anthony doesn't know what happened?'
Marcus sighed as he pointed the remote at the TV, the screen turning black. 'Nic didn't want to tell him.'
~
Nathan found Nicole sat in the stairway when he went to return to the bedroom. Her back was pressed against the wall, one leg lay straight in front of her, the other bent. Her facial expression was blank as she stared at the gap between the wooden railings. Lexi's anger was radiating throughout the house, the words sharp. Though she seemed deep in thought, Nicole cocked her head upward as soon as Nathan approached her.
He extended his hand forward, offering her the hoodie. 'It was in the basement.'
'Thank you,' She took it, pulling it over her head almost immediately. 'Nath?' her eyes darted toward him. 'Are you okay?'
Nathan was taken aback. 'Wha...what do you...mean, Nic, you're the one who's sat in the stairway listening to your brother and his fiancé fight over your dad.'
Nicole couldn't help but let out a snort. The sentence had sounded ridiculous.
'I've been a bad girlfriend, I've been so busy with rehearsals, I never asked how you were coping. I know you didn't go to the funeral.'
Nathan didn't know how to react. He took a few moments to stand there, his lips moving, but his voice unable to form words. Eventually he sighed, deciding to take his place on the stairs, his back leaned against the railings.
'You haven't been a bad girlfriend bonita, you've just been busy. And to be honest, I haven't really thought about it much,' he admitted to her. 'But, from what thinking I have done, I think the worst is over. I gave my inheritance to Hayley, and I didn't go to the funeral cause, it just, it felt wrong. I didn't actually know him, in fact, Nic, God this sounds so bad, but I feel like I've already mourned him. He was dead to me the day he lay a hand on Hayley.'
'That's okay, Nath, as long as you feel you have no regrets about it. Trust your gut.'
'Nic,' Nathan placed his hand on hers, stroking slowly with his thumb. 'I'm so sorry about tonight. You don't deserve this at all.'
Nicole's eyes diverted from the bed frame to her lap for a moment, her head hung. She sighed, squeezing her eyelids shut. The lights flashed in her eyes, and Nicole raised her eyelids, unfazed.
'She raised me on her own,' Nicole's voice was small, sad, her eyes distant. 'I was going into secondary when Dad took me in, because she was struggling with addiction. They had a massive fight when I was sixteen and Dad refused to let her see me. I wanted to move back with her, so I packed a bag and Marcus took the train down with me. Dad turned up that very night and h-' She paused for a moment, clamping her eyes shut. 'He hit her, over and over again until she couldn't move. Marcus called the police, Dad was arrested, I was almost put into care, but she got custody of me in the end. I haven't seen Dad since. She was in a really bad way for a long time after that. We could've gotten over it, we almost did, but we didn't have time. I left for Manchester and the distance was too much. She was planning to move up, just before she died. Car accident, I was told she died waiting for an ambulance.'
Nathan remembered the morning in Brighton, when Nicole had so freely greeted his mother and frozen in place. Nathan remembered the night he had returned from Brighton, when Nicole had told him that his grief would become manageable. His heart instantly felt heavier. In that moment, Nathan realised Nicole had been hiding hell from him. The glimpse of sadness that he saw in her eyes occasionally during split quiet seconds was grief. Nathan had known Nicole had been hiding a life from him, but he hadn't realised the extent to which it had effected her. That night, sat beside her on the staircase with Lexi's raging shrieks ringing in their ears, he understood why she was so closed off. His grip on her hands tightened.
'Why didn't you tell Anthony?'
Nicole's lip finally quivered as she hung her head for a moment. 'He thinks the world of Dad. I couldn't take that away from him.'
Nathan thought of Hayley. He remembered the night Luke and him had sat down to tell her of their father's terrible acts against their mother. She had shrieked at them, making it very clear that she wished that they had never told her. After that, every time Hayley returned from their fathers, she couldn't look their mother in the eye.
Nathan understood why Nicole hadn't told him.
