Work Text:
“This school is hell.”
His thunderous entrance is so typical, so a part of their routine, Victoria only glances up for a second, biting her lip in a decidedly disinterested fashion. Nathan is angry – these days it feels like he always is – and pacing, hands twitching frantically where they hang by his hips, arrhythmic and agitated. She lets out a tiny, impatient sigh, but there’s just a hint of pity in her eyes; she turns back to her book quickly so as not to let him see it.
“What happened now?” the words sound cold and quick even to her own ears, her shaking fingers pressing harder still into the binding of the pages.
Nathan makes a grumbling, growling noise under his breath, and Victoria watches him from the corner of her eye as he marches about the room a few more times. He finally comes to a stop next to her bed, and plops down, posture defeated. He glares at the floor and mutters some more, but eventually he takes a deep breath, one that raises his shoulders right up to his ears, and says, “People were whispering about me. All fucking day.” He collapses backwards, arms sprawled on either side of him. He hates how tight his throat feels, and when he speaks it’s almost against his will, as if the words are being forced out of his mouth. “Calling me shit like ‘psycho’ and-, and talking about what happened with my parents. They have some fucking nerve-,”
His voice catches, but doesn’t quite break, and he throws one of his arms over his face because staying still is agony. The familiar smell of his letterman jacket is a small comfort, at least, and the fabric is soft against the bridge of his nose. There’s a stinging in his eyes, a pain he is unwilling to acknowledge, so he inhales greatly, holds the breath inside him until the burning leaves his eyes and moves to his chest, a ball of fire where his heart should be.
The only thing that breaks him out of his mind is Victoria placing her hand on his leg, a welcome presence, small and warm. He lets go all at once in a loud rush of air through his nose, focuses instead on the gentle heat at his knee. There’s a beat of silence, as she tries to find the words and he tries to lose them.
“C’mon,” she says, and she hopes the grief in her voice will be mistaken for aloofness, “Let’s go for a drive.”
He lifts his arm up to peek over at her, eyebrows drawn together in a frown. He seems to consider her proposition very seriously, though she already knows his answer – this is as much a part of their routine as all the slamming doors and raised voices – before huffing, with an air of forced nonchalance, “Alright, but only if we listen to my music; not any of your Top 40’s bullshit.”
At that she has to roll her eyes; trust Nathan Prescott to go from crying in her bedroom to insulting her music taste. “Whatever,” snaps Victoria, and she moves across the room to grab her car keys from the dresser. She makes sure to turn her back fully, to give him some tiny amount of privacy with which to pull himself together. She pretends not to hear his muffled sniffling. When she’s facing him again, he’s sat upright on her bed, eyes only slightly red. “If it’ll get you to stop pouting.”
The smile he gives her is hesitant, but still very, very real.
++++
Sunlight pours in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, dappling the mahogany floor with warm puddles of light. The dining room is massive and lavish, yet despite all its decoration it still feels terribly empty. The table is always impeccably clean, as if no one ever eats from it, and all the chairs are pushed in all the way. Paintings hang from the three walls not composed entirely of windows, sitting in their gilded frames; the artwork features everything, from meadows to skylines, so that the wall is a patchwork of greens and greys and oranges. The scene is almost picturesque - beautiful and lifeless – if not for a freshly five-years-old Nathan, crouched over a pile of paper and pencils.
His legs are bunched up beneath him, folded crisscross-applesauce, and his upper body is almost parallel to the floor, bent at an uncomfortable angle. Today he is learning to write, and what better word to practice with than his own name? He writes it out, again and again, N-A-T-H-A-N - he mouths it as he goes, taking care to form each letter with his lips, tongue pressing into the gap between his front teeth when he reaches the th sound. He’s written it down so many times, he can no longer count the rows of Nathans on the paper, scrawled in all-caps, blocky and unsure. Pencils are strewn around him, as well as several pieces of paper covered in crossed out words (from when he made mistakes) and tiny doodles (from when he got distracted). It’s been hours since he started his self-taught lesson, but to him it did not feel that way.
When a gruff voice calls out his name, however, it feels like time has stopped. Nathan scrambles, grabbing every writing utensil and sheet of paper he can, shoving them into a makeshift pile. Things are supposed to be neat when his father is around. Even at such a young age Nathan knows that his dad only accepts perfection, and so he rolls his shoulders back and keeps his back straight when he yells in reply, “Yes?”
A broad figure appears in the doorway, dirty blond hair coiffed back expertly and clad in an immaculate navy suit, followed closely by the stench of cigars. He smiles languidly down at his son, though his shoulders are tense, arms held stiffly behind his back, the way he always stands. When Nathan was younger and less shy, he thought his father might be hiding something inside his large fists; a fairy, maybe, or perhaps a fallen star. It didn’t take long for Nathan to realize otherwise.
“Kristine tells me you’re learning to write,” his father says, taking a few steps closer to where his son sits on the ground. He looms over Nathan, as impressive and cadaverous as the room around them, and speaks in a bellowing voice. “She says you asked her how to write your name.”
Nathan shuffles the paper again, looks down at his slightly trembling hands as he arranges and rearranges the paper into a messy stack. There’s something about his father that always makes him feel so small.
“Yeah,” he responds abruptly, keeps his words quick and only absolutely necessary. His father smiles dispassionately, extends a large, calloused hand down towards Nathan.
“Can I see?”
Cheeks burning, Nathan gives his dad a single sheet of paper – the most recent one he was working on, where his handwriting is the best – and waits nervously. His father’s eyes flicker across the page, expression blank, and his detachedness only intensifies Nathan’s anxiety.
“You didn’t write our last name,” he comments eventually, and Nathan hates how he can’t read his voice at all, “Have you no pride in your family name?”
“I don’t know how to spell it,” is what Nathan settles on saying, although really he wants to ask what pride means, and what it has to do with names, but he knows to never answer a question with a question of his own. His father clicks his tongue, a sound that drips with disappointment, and moves to the table, pulling out two chairs; one for himself and one for his son.
“Come sit, boy,” he says, and it is not an invitation. Nathan obliges, clambering up onto the seat. He has to stand on his knees to see the tabletop at the same angle as his father, who has flipped the paper so that the blank side is facing him. He pulls a shiny silver pen from one of the pockets on the inside of his jacket, twists it so the nib is visible, and begins to write. Nathan is enraptured, awed by the fluidity with which his father writes, how he makes the pen strokes seem so easy.
P-R-E-S-C-O-T-T. The letters are smooth and slightly curly, much more graceful than the boxy ones Nathan had been so pleased with just a few moments ago. His dad slides the paper over to him, as well as the pen, and fixes him with an expectant stare. “Now you try,” the words are quiet but not quite soft, and Nathan licks his lips in concentration.
The metal of the pen is so cold in his hand, and far heavier than the lightweight wood of the pencils he was previously using. It’s a foreign sensation, one that makes his fingers shake, and he mentally berates himself for being so weak when his father is so effortlessly strong. He does his best to copy the word exactly, but his S is crooked, and the lines of the E are too long, and there’s too much space between the two T’s.
His father is still staring at him, and his silence is deafening. Nathan tries again, and again, and again, and the pen feels like ice in his hand, slippery and frigid. Eventually he grows tired of the repetition, and so places the pen gently on the wooden tabletop. His dad takes the paper from him, examines it carefully, and says coolly, “Do you know what our last name is?”
It sounds like a trick question, but Nathan responds anyway, just in case. “It’s Pres-Prescott.” The word is clumsy in his young mouth, though he manages it without stammering too badly. His father responds with nothing more than a curt nod. There’s a beat of quiet.
“And do you know what it means to be a Prescott?”
Nathan’s mind races, searching for a satisfactory answer, but he can’t find one. His mouth goes dry, so he just shakes his head back and forth instead of speaking. His father glares at him, and for a moment he wonders if he’s about to be berated – we use our words, Nathan, we use our voices – but what his father says instead is, “It means to have power. It means to have control.” He hands the paper back to Nathan, who takes it gingerly, “A Prescott is more than just a leader- he is a king. To be a Prescott is a privilege,” finally Nathan hears emotion in his father’s voice, an emphatic kind of calm yet deadly serious, “Not a right.”
The chair scrapes back suddenly – Nathan barely conceals his wince, though his fists tighten and crinkle the page – as his father stands to leave. The speech feels incomplete, and his words hang stiffly in the air like the paintings on the wall. Nathan watches his father’s retreating back with wide eyes, and waits until his footsteps have disappeared down the hall before turning back to the sheet still clasped firmly in his hands. He reads the rows upon rows of the one word repeated – PRESCOTT, PRESCOTT, PRESCOTT – and swallows the knot in his throat, trying desperately to ignore the ball of dread that settles in his chest.
++++
Soft blue light flickers around the corner, bleeding into the dark hallway. Nathan tries to move his feet slowly, socks gliding along the wooden floor. He knows Kristine is still awake – he knows she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks, and the fact makes his chest ache with guilt – but still feels like he should be quiet. He’s starkly aware that this isn’t his house, that he’s technically a guest here, even if he’s been one for nearly three months. His parents didn’t seem to care that he was gone, which was unsurprising but still left Nathan feeling hollow. It infuriated his sister though, and she would yell about it often, though never when she thought Nathan could hear.
“Why are they putting us through all this hell?” she would cry, voice full of righteous exasperation, “They clearly don’t care where Nathan ends up; they’re just too scared of the social backlash to say as such!”
He peeks around the wall, peering into the living room with wide eyes. The flat screen television is on, but the volume is turned almost all the way down to zero, and his sister is bent dutifully over her laptop on the couch. She looks terrible, eyes dark and hair greasy, pulled into a frizzy ponytail high on her head; another, more potent wave of guilt washes over him like a punch to the stomach.
He continues his silent trek through the house, making his way towards the sofa where Kristine is huddled. When he fumbles slightly and presses a hand to the wall to steady himself, she looks up. The grin she shoots him is lopsided and tired, but genuine, all of Kristine’s grins are genuine. “Hey, bro,” she greets him, and it’s so casual he almost forgets what a fucked situation they’re in.
Almost.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” he blurts out before he can stop himself. She looks almost as shocked as he feels.
“Go through with what?” she asks very carefully, tone gentle and cautious and pitiful, the kind one would employ while speaking to a wounded animal. Nathan feels a pang of frustration, because she knows exactly what he meant but is still being coy just to prolong the inevitable discomfort that always comes with talking honestly. It’s a skill they’re both working on; they’ve come from a long line of liars, after all.
He clenches his hands at this side and begins to pace, his trademark nervous habit. “Y’know what!” he barks, momentarily forgetting his rule about being quiet at night; at Kristine’s flinch he recalls it, and lowers his voice when he says, “This whole… custody battle… thing.”
She sighs, and gestures for him to come sit by her on the couch; he does so gratefully, because the only thing keeping him awake is agitation and all his limbs feel heavy with sleep. “Nathan, it’s been going on for months,” her words are even, her tone levelheaded, and not for the first time he envies her stability, “If I didn’t want to go through with it, don’t you think I would’ve decided as such by now?”
In the silence that follows, Nathan can hear the canned laughter echo from the television; it’s a Friends rerun (an older episode, if the way they’re dressed is any indication), and he watches the scenes flicker by with very little actual interest. He goes over everything he could say, everything he wants to say, but the words stay stuck to his throat, bitter and tarlike. He forces himself to say them anyway, though the pain is physical.
“I’m a handful,” he manages eventually, his eyes never leaving the screen. With his peripheral vision he can see his sister’s face blanch, her eyes widening; the light from the TV is reflected in them.
“No, you aren’t,” she says forcefully as she swings an arm over his shoulders and drags him closer to her, “You most definitely are not. Fuck mom and dad for making you think as such.”
Tears sting his eyes against his will, and all of his emotions intensify tenfold, a sudden rush that makes him dizzy. Nathan’s too fucking tired to be feeling so much at once, though, and he presses one hand against his eyes hard, until all he sees is blue and red stars. Kristine moves her hand up and down his back, a soothing motion, but the overwhelming sensation doesn’t leave. They sit there, in the almost-dark and almost-silence, huddled close and bathed in the flashing lights of the plasma screen. He lets her rock them both slowly, lets his eyes fall shut and pretends to sleep. In this moment even his head is quiet, the normally raucous cascade of sound dulled to an ambient hum. It’s a rare kind of miracle, and if he wasn’t so already overcome by emotion, he’d probably appreciate the inner peace more.
But a question still nags at the back of his mind; a haunting one, the kind he knows he shouldn’t ask, but has to.
“What if you don’t win?”
It’s a possibility, and a frightfully real one at that. She is, after all, barely an adult herself. She may be rich, and her longtime boyfriend may be helping with the legal fees, but their parents are richer. They have no physical evidence of the abuse, no easy way to prove anything was wrong at all. His testimony might not even mean anything, considering his mental health. This battle could end, after months of grueling work, only for things to go back to how they were before.
The very thought makes Nathan’s stomach churn. Kristine’s hands falters, fingers curling halfway into a fist. He lifts his face from his hands to stare up at her, to watch her chew her lip thoughtfully. Finally, she clears her throat, and whispers back to him, “We'll win.”
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
++++
The sand is cool and light as his hands sift through it easily; he molds it into a miniature mountain, then squashes it back into a valley, pulls and pushes it just to feel the grains slip between his fingers. Kristine sits not too far from where he kneels in the sandbox, scrolling through her phone and looking completely at peace.
Moments like these are rare for the Prescott siblings; Nathan inhales deeply, relishing in the taste of fresh air. In the distance, he can hear children playing, as well as the rhythmic creaking of the swings and thumping of the seesaw. His eyelids feel heavy, his breathing even and slow.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spots some very distinctly human movement, and when he turns he’s staring directly at a pair of knees clad in lilac tights. Hurriedly, his eyes flicker up to the face of the girl standing above him; she looks to be about his age, and Nathan couldn’t help but think she looks too formal for the park. She’s wearing a dress, with a sharp, square collar and black bow around the waist, like a belt. Around one of her wrists is a gold and purple charm bracelet that jangles quietly as she moves her hands to her hips.
“Do you have a little sibling at the birthday party, too?” she asks, her words sharp and to-the-point. It’s a little intimidating, the aura of confidence she exudes. Nathan blinks as the question slowly registers.
“What?”
His confusion makes the girl roll her eyes, but she doesn’t walk away. To the contrary, she takes a step closer, so she’s standing at the edge of the sandbox; he can see that she’s wearing shiny black Mary Janes.
“I’m only here because my dumb younger brothers wanted to go to some birthday party,” she spits the words with such passion, such honesty. It’s a kind of sincerity that’s alien to him, “And my parents don’t think I can be home alone without a babysitter.” Her nose crinkles and her mouth twists in disgust, as if the very idea tastes bitter.
Nathan shrugs, bundles his hands into fists in the sand, and admits, “I just like coming here.”
“Really?” she exclaims tactlessly, though she doesn’t seem to notice his wince, “But this place is for babies.”
While the words sting just a little bit, Nathan knows deep down they’re slightly true. He knew that playgrounds weren’t really made for twelve-year-olds, that he and Kristine were usually the oldest children there. But the park was a haven for him, a respite from the suffocating primness of his home life, not to mention the arguments. The park was extraordinarily normal, organic and messy and all the other things his parents hated. Kristine didn’t hate these things though, and she’s more than willing to catch the bus with Nathan and sit with him by the sandbox. He doesn’t come here for the swing set or the roundabout anyway; what he really loves about the playground is the sun on his skin, the way the smell of dirt clings to his hands, and how happy Kristine always looks when they’re there.
Instead of saying all these things, however, he just shrugs again. The girl huffs and crosses her arms, but there’s the ghost of a smirk on her face. “I’m Victoria,” she announces, chin tilted upwards proudly, “Victoria Chase.”
“I’m Nathan,” he responds, and if she notices that he left out his last name she doesn’t say anything. Instead she just sits down, right at the edge of sandbox, in a notably dainty way to keep her clothes from getting dirty. The two sit and chat and laugh together until Victoria’s nanny arrives and she has to leave. They hug goodbye, and when Nathan turns towards his sister, she’s beaming at him, a hopeful look in her eyes.
++++
The teacher is not speaking English.
At least, that’s the only conclusion that makes sense. His mouth is moving, and sound is definitely coming out (his voice is so, so loud, it’s nauseating), but Nathan can’t comprehend a word. The science teacher is speaking French, or Latin, or maybe he’s speaking in tongues, and Nathan is falling apart.
He’s supposed to be working, but the words on the page fall in and out of focus, rearrange themselves into poetry, and the teacher just keeps talking, on and on and on. Who fucking cares? Nathan wants to yell, wants to rip all of his hair out and all of his skin off, but he just settles with digging his fingers into the soft flesh of his forearm. The stinging pain is grounding, the only thing that feels real, the only thing solid in a room full of hot air and deafening sound.
There are so many voices. There is only one mouth moving.
He blinks tears out of his eyes, swallows hard, tastes vomit on the back of his tongue. He tries to breath in time with the pulsing in his brain, the ebb and flow of the entire ocean, and that’s it, isn’t it. His skull is full of water, swirling about and drowning his mind. The liquid leaks down his spine, and his bones feel frozen and empty. He wants to call out, wants somebody to come and rescue him from the undertow, but if he opens his mouth he knows all the water will come pouring out.
Nails digging through the dirt. Nail digging into his skin. Just focus on your breathing, Nathan says.
Tear out your veins, the voices say.
His fingers skitter over to his wrist, while the teacher goes on talking.
It feels like there’s a monster living within him, one with sharp teeth and large eyes and a human mouth; he grits his teeth, takes a deep breath to fill his lungs up as much as he can. He moves his hands down to his stomach, tries to count his ribs, tries to find the demon in his chest. There’s a precious beat of silence, as the roaring quiets down enough for him to hear his teacher say;
“—if you have any questions about the test next week, don’t be afraid –”
But as quickly as the clarity comes it disappears again, leaving Nathan stranded. He glances nervously around the room, at the other kids, because he can hear them whispering. Most of them are looking ahead, though some are facing their books, but he can hear them whispering, and they’re whispering about him. They can tell he’s going crazy, and the realization winds him. He has to get out of here. He’s falling apart.
His jaw drops open, hangs there uselessly for a moment as his brain tries to catch up with his body – everything is so disconnected, everything is so hazy and dark – but he finds his voice eventually. “I need to go,” he says, and then he stands up. The teacher is talking – of course, of course, he’s always talking – but Nathan doesn’t stay long enough to hear it; he runs. He bangs his hips against a few desks on his way out, but doesn’t stop until he has the door handle grasped tight in one hand.
The hallway isn’t any quieter than the classroom, the voices following him and the waves crashing against the front of his skull, so he dashes into the bathroom. He doesn’t even look at the mirror, he doesn’t think he could stand to see himself like this, just ducks into the middle stall. He clambers up onto the toilet, feet sliding about on the cheap plastic lid, and tries to make himself as small as possible. He wants to be left alone, all of this noise is making his head hurt, but the sea just keeps on roiling, like a fucking tidal wave. The whispers turn to screams in a terrible crescendo, overlapping until he can’t tell his own thoughts from their words.
“Stop talking all at once,” he yells, practically begging, “I can’t understand you when you talk all at once.” He slams his hands against the walls of the stall to steady himself, but the whole world is off-balance, and he feels like he’s falling. The toilet creaks under his weight. When he licks his lips he tastes the sea water rolling down his face, and he tries again, says, “I can’t understand you.” But the voices don’t get any quieter, the words don’t make any more sense, the tides will never stop turning.
All he can do is cry, until there is no ocean left.
++++
A sharp inhalation, air sucked in through teeth; it’s the sound that makes Nathan glance up from his math textbook. Victoria is fiddling with her earrings, obviously struggling with getting the hook through the miniscule hole, and is biting her lip in concentration.
“Your lips are gonna be shredded if you keep that up,” he deadpans, and she turns to glare at him.
“I don’t need your commentary,” is her retort, and then she returns to her mirror, admiring her newly applied jewelry. When Nathan rolls his eyes, he makes sure she can see it in the reflection, which she of course does; she huffs indignantly and twirls around on the heel of her foot. “What’s got you in such a playful mood?” She asks with raised brows, but Nathan just rolls his eyes again in response.
“Nothin’, really,” he says, returning the pages of his textbook. She considers him carefully, and a small amount of hope blossoms in her chest. She wanders back over to the vanity, conceals her smile by pretending to be very interested in the collection of lipsticks currently laid out on before her. This is the easiest conversation had been in a while, and the most relaxed she had seen Nathan in ages.
So she decides to try her luck.
“Well, I’m going out with some friends,” her tone is perfectly casual as she snatches up a nice raspberry shade of matte lipstick, “Do you want to come along? They won’t mind.”
The following silence is tenser; his shoulders have stiffened, but he tries to brush the invitation off. “Uh, no thanks,” he mutters, and while he had hoped the words would sound nonchalant, they come out bitter and abrupt. She swallows a sigh, schools her face back into an expression void of the frustration she feels.
“Oh, c’mon,” he grinds his teeth together; she can tell he’s losing his patience, but keeps pushing anyway, “It’ll be fun!”
“I can’t,” he tries again, this time using a different approach, “I have to study,” he keeps his eyes locked on the textbook in his lap as he speaks and makes a point to turn the page loudly. She doesn’t buy it.
She stands from her seat at the mirror, moves back across the room to stand in front of him where he’s sitting on her bed, legs hanging off the side of the mattress. “You’ve been studying for hours, though,” she wants to all but beg him, but her tone is still lighthearted, albeit awkward. He slams the textbook shut and puts it to the side, breathes in deep, and leans back on his elbows. The smirk he gives her is mischievous, but his eyes are stony.
“Why would I wanna hang out with those sluts you’re friends with anyway, huh?” he jeers, in the teasing way they always insult one another. She narrows her eyes; she knows what he’s doing. He’s trying to steer the conversation in a different direction, trying to return to the sarcastic jokes and fake mocking; he wants the atmosphere to be how it was before – relaxed, easy, and blatantly dishonest. It infuriates her.
“Don’t do this,” she whispers, and the roguish look falls from his face immediately, lips drawing back into a scowl.
“I don’t know what you’re talking ab-,”
“No,” Victoria cuts him off, voice dark and serious; he jerks his head to the left, and she watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows harshly, “We are talking about this- every time we try to talk about this you make it some kind of game, and I always play along, but not this time.”
“There’s a reason we don’t,” he mutters, and while he’s turned his head back towards her he won’t actually look at her, just keeps staring at his lap, “There’s a very good reason.”
She exhales through her nose, a distinctly impatient sound, and chews on the inside of her mouth. She knows she has to pick her next words very carefully if she wants to keep Nathan from storming out of the room. “We cannot pretend,” every word is slow, enunciated, and precise, “that things haven’t been fucked up since your parents left.” Finally, he raises his gaze up towards her; his glare is absolutely venomous.
She doesn’t even flinch.
“Things were fucked up before,” he barks, and Victoria rolls her eyes at the confidence in his voice, as if he expects the argument to end right then and there. This is just so typical.
“Fair enough.”
He breaks eye contact again, looking especially bitter that his plan to stop the conversation didn’t work. She takes that as a cue to continue. “I know it’s scary, and I know meeting new people sucks, but you need more friends,” he doesn’t look at her – won’t look at her, and she’s not at all surprised. “All this loneliness can’t be good for you.”
Nathan doesn’t try to deny it, though he wants to. The lies won’t leave his mouth, and instead he just exhales quietly, headache pounding behind his eyes. He’s always been isolated, always kept to himself, because there was no other option. A hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and he relaxes tentatively into it. Victoria has crouched down so that they’re face to face, instead of her looking down at him, and that alone puts him more at ease. But the indignant anger still boils just below the surface, and he shrugs out of her touch; she jolts back into standing position, arms crossed sulkily.
“I don’t get it,” she bites out, “You’re a good guy-,”
“Shut the fuck up-,”
“-when you aren’t being a massive douchebag,” she doesn’t even waver; he’s almost impressed, “People will like you, y’know. You’re not a bad dude, like, at all.”
His face darkens considerably at that, and he shakes his head until the tightness in his throat passes. “They don’t think that.”
“How- how can you be so sure of that?” snaps Victoria, “What do they even know about you?”
And Nathan laughs – a sharp, humorless sound – and it catches her off guard. He takes advantage of her surprise, begins to raise his voice as he barks, “What don’t they know about me nowadays! Do you forget what happened last year?” He’s standing now, and staring down at her with wide and burning eyes (though she can’t help but think he looks more tired than anything); he gesticulates wildly, movements erratic and desperate, “That shit was everywhere, all over the local news, it was unavoidable. And now, everyone in town knows me as the teenage psycho with the fucked up family!” On the word psycho, his voice cracks – with tears or with rage, neither can tell, “They’re all going to pity me!”
There’s a thump, followed by a series of clatters as the pots of foundation and tubes of lipgloss piled on the vanity go cascading down to the floor; the edge of the desk pokes into Victoria’s back, and she can’t hide her pained wince. The sound brings Nathan back to himself, snapping him out of his furious haze; they’re all the way across the room. With every step he had taken forward, Victoria had backed away, and all of the rage leaves him at once. His blood runs cold, as he staggers back, glancing nervously around the room, as if the walls might collapse in on him at any moment. When he finally works up the nerve to look back at Victoria, he is absolutely mortified, and the look in his eyes breaks her heart.
“They’re all going to fear me,” he whispers, his face hollow and gaze distant, like he’s somewhere far away. She rushes forward, but then stutters to a halt in front of him; sometimes he doesn’t like to be touched, she knows that, and her hands hover half way between them as an invitation. He’s too rattled to take them in his own, and instead walks backwards until he can fall onto the bed, shoulders sagging as if all the fight had left him.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Victoria says softly, staring at the spot on the wall above Nathan’s head, “I think people will realize you’re more than that.”
There’s a silence after that, a lingering one that weighs heavily on them; Victoria’s normally proud posture is bent, and Nathan has his arms wrapped loosely around his knees. Finally he speaks, though his voice is very small, “I can’t right now.”
She doesn’t have to ask what he means. “I understand,” she says hastily, but the words are kind, “I… totally understand, and I’m sorry. It was bitchy of me to try to force you to come along,” and while she’s smirking with false bravado, she has her arms crossed in an attempt to stop the trembling in her hands.
When he doesn’t respond, she lets out a silent sigh, turning back to the vanity. She looks at the mess now on her floor but can’t bring herself to be annoyed; she sighs again and bends down to pick up her purse, which had fallen alongside the beauty products. “I’m going now,” she tries to sound casual, slightly succeeds, “Text me if you need anything, okay?”
She has the doorknob in her hand and is just about to twist it when she hears, “I love you.”
Tears sting her eyes, and she takes a deep breath to steady herself before turning back to glance over at the bed. Nathan is still perched on the edge of the mattress, curled around himself timidly, but he’s looking up at her. She can see that his eyes are watery, too, and she lets out a tired chuckle, swallows hard, and says, “Love you, too, Nate.”
++++
The Two Whales is a rinky-dink little diner, but the homey atmosphere makes Nathan feel at peace. Across from him sits Victoria, chattering on about the new fabrics she had ordered and what she planned on making with them. The fashion talk is all Greek to him, but he doesn’t mind listening to her talk; it’s endearing, really, even if confusing. As she rambles, face lit up with excitement, Nathan eats his breakfast cheeseburger quietly. It’s a nice day out, if a cloudy one, and the weak sunlight leaks in through the water-stained windows, bathing the diner with a pale glow.
When the door opens from behind, Victoria trails off, looking up and over his shoulder at whoever just entered. Her hands – which had just been gesturing happily – are lowered to the table, folded neatly over one another. The change in disposition is odd, but not bad; Victoria is still vibrant, all perfect posture and bright eyes.
He’s about to ask her who has her so excited, but his question is answered by two girls appearing at the edge of the table; he vaguely recognizes both of them as fellow students from Blackwell. One is mousy and freckled, with soft features and a long-sleeved sweatshirt the colors of thistles; the other is tall, angular, with bright blue hair and an air of absolute confidence. The stark contrast between them is amusing, but somehow Nathan still feels like they fit together perfectly.
“Hey, Victoria,” says the brunette; she sounds a little bit unsure of herself, but still genuine. Victoria smiles back up at her, while Nathan just nods in hello, “Have you met Chloe?”
The other girl – Chloe, obviously – takes this as her cue to speak, “What’s up?”
“Hi, Max, hi, Chloe,” the words sound a touch stilted; Nathan gets the distinct feeling that this is one of the first times she’s spoken to Max. There’s a beat, and Victoria seems to consider something very carefully before finally saying, this time clearly to Chloe, “I’ve seen you around the campus before, putting up those posters of Rachel. She must mean a lot to you,” her voice falters, and Nathan sees her hands twist anxiously on the table, “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to lose someone.”
The condolences are awkward but authentic, Nathan can tell. He’s known Victoria long enough to know when she’s lying, and while she may be sitting a little stiffly in her seat, she’s still telling the truth. By the barely concealed look of contentment on Chloe’s face, he figures she can tell as well.
“Have either of you met Nathan?” she adds, to cut through the growing silence. Both girls turn towards him, and Nathan musters up some confidence; social interactions never came naturally to him.
“Hey,” he says to them both, with a little, self-conscious wave. To Chloe, he says, “I like your hair.”
“Why thank you,” she replies, in a playful tone with a flourish of her hands, though he has a feeling she’s saying it to Victoria, too. When Nathan responds with a smile, she turns to Max. “I’m gonna grab us a table,” Max nods in acknowledgement, which is all Chloe needs before she starts to wander off, though not before throwing a peace sign in Victoria and Nathan’s direction, as well as a quick, “See ya.”
Once she’s gone, Victoria looks back to Max. “So,” she all but chirps, and Nathan is shocked at how hopeful she sounds; Victoria never needed hope to get what she wanted, “would you like to do something, sometime, maybe? Go to the mall or whatever?” She punctuates the question with a shy shrug.
“That would be great, Victoria,” Max shoots back, nodding, “I think we could be really good friends if we got to hang out. Without all the bullshit.”
“Agreed,” declares Victoria, and she is positively beaming. Max puts Victoria so at ease, Nathan can’t help but feel a little more relaxed.
It’s with this new-found peace of mind that he manages to say, “It was nice meeting you.” He hates how anxious such simple things make him, and begins to regret the words altogether.
That is until Max smiles at him, grin just a tiny bit crooked, and replies, “It was nice meeting you, too, Nathan.” With a polite wave goodbye, she walks off to be with Chloe, in a booth at the far end of the diner. He can watch Max sit down and begin to speak with Chloe from his seat without craning, and at first the interaction leaves him with a warm feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. As he watches the two girls converse, however, it hardens into a cold ball of paranoia.
“They’re talking about me,” he mutters darkly; Victoria pauses, halfway through cutting into one of her apple sausages. Her brows furrow and she purses her lips into a small frown.
“Okay, one: you don’t know that,” she says, popping a forkful into her mouth. When he opens his mouth to argue, she holds up one finger daintily to signal for him to wait. He rolls his eyes but stays quiet anyway. She swallows and immediately picks up where she left off, “Two: even if they are talking about you, they could be saying nice things.”
That actually causes Nathan to pause, which of course allows Victoria to keep talking. “They could be saying that you seem cool, or nice, or whatever. Besides,” her expression softens, eyes downcast; she looks guilty, he realizes with a small jolt, “I wasn’t always the nicest to Max. But she was nice to me. Even though I didn’t deserve it.” The table falls quiet, but the bustling background noise of the diner keeps it from becoming too awkward. Nathan fiddles with his silverware as he waits for Victoria to say more – she always does.
Just as predicted, just as the silence gets a little bit too loud, Victoria pipes up. “She’s a good person. I think you two would get along.”
She says it with such conviction, such earnestness, that – despite his better judgement – Nathan believes it.
++++
It’s a Saturday night, and Victoria all but begged him to come along. She really likes this new group of friends she’s found – something he knew without her telling him; they were almost all she talked about anymore – but insisted it just wasn’t the same with no Nathan around. She swore, up and down, that the others would love to have him there, that he was one-hundred-percent welcome to join them. He wouldn’t admit it – barely to himself and definitely not to Victoria – but he’d been hoping she’d invite him along sometime. And it’s Saturday night, so what else could he possibly be doing?
That’s how Nathan finds himself sitting in the grass, surrounded by five other teenagers, two of whom he only met an hour or so beforehand. They’re hanging out in the old park, where he used to go with Kristine as a kid, but it’s empty except for them now. The sun is setting, painting the sky a dusty pink shade, dotted with wisps of purple clouds. The evening air is cool, but his letterman jacket is so, so warm, and he can feel Victoria’s presence next to him.
He leans back on one of the swing set’s bars, legs folded beneath him. Warren had called dibs on one of the swings when they had arrived, which went uncontested. In the other swing sits Kate, who lets her feet hang motionlessly (whereas Warren insists on pushing himself back and forth, like he’s still a child). Chloe and Max sit pressed together, and nobody says anything when they start to hold hands, or when Max lays her head on Chloe’s shoulder during one of the latter’s wild stories.
At first, Nathan stays fairly quiet, only speaking directly after Victoria does. Nobody pesters him to talk, however; they let him sit silently, and the lack of social pressure is like a breath of fresh air.
“This science project is such bullshit,” grumbles Warren, kicking at the dirt moodily, “I don’t wanna be stuck with fucking Ivan, all of his ideas are the worst!” When all he gets in response are a few sympathetic mutters (as well as one very unsympathetic snort of laughter from Chloe), he huffs. His glare flickers from Kate to Max to Victoria, before he tosses his head slightly back and bemoans, “Why is that you three get to be in photography class together, while I’m stuck with no friends in chemistry?”
“I guess we just aren’t nerds like you are,” Max responds, but she can’t keep the laugh out of her voice.
“Ugh, right,”Warren groans, “You’re all a bunch of artistes.” The word is dripping with derision, and spoken in a truly dreadful French accent. It makes Nathan chuckle, and the sound captures Warren’s attention immediately. “Please, Nathan, please tell me you aren’t one of them.”
His shoulders shake with muffled laughter, and once he’s sure his voice won’t waver with mirth he shakes his head, “Sorry, man. I’m in Ms. Dvorak’s short film class.”
“Really?” exclaims Max, leaning forward to smile at him; Warren returns to sulking, mostly ignored by everyone except Chloe, who throws a bundle of grass in his direction, “That’s so cool!”
Nathan nods, purposefully keeping his movements slow so as not to belie how flustered he felt, “Yeah, it is. And whenever we get group projects it usually ends up pretty cool, ‘cause you have to find some way to make both of your styles blend.”
“Huh,” hums Kate, and when she tilts her head to one side her bangs flutter across her forehead, “In photography you can’t really collaborate,” Kate always speak slowly, carefully, yet nobody ever even tries to interrupt her, “but I guess that’s because photography is really just a single snapshot instead of art in motion. It can only really show one point-of-view at a time. Cinematography doesn’t really have that limitation.”
In lieu of speaking, Nathan just nods again, and then Warren is back to complaining. From that point on, Nathan isn’t afraid to contribute to the conversation, and in fact heartily joins in. They chat about a myriad of things – movies, books, their plans for spring break – and it all feels so easy.
“Oh, wait,” says Max suddenly, cutting through something Chloe had been saying; Chloe pouts a little bit, but doesn’t say anything, and Nathan has a feeling that’s only because it was Max who interrupted her, “The sky looks gorgeous right now.” She reaches into the bag at her hip and pulls out her signature vintage camera.
“I was wondering when you were gonna take that out,” Warren snarks; Max just sticks her tongue out at him, before returning to the task at hand. She points the camera towards the skyline, which is dotted with square, squat little houses and towering pines. There’s a click and a flash as she takes the picture. She shakes the resulting Polaroid a few times, and then places it in her lap.
Now that the camera is out, however, she seems reluctant to put it away. She snaps a photo first of Warren, who sticks one leg out in front of him and throws a peace sign in front of his face; when Max giggles, he looks proud of himself. Kate doesn’t put up nearly as much fuss, just smiles demurely at her lap and flushes. When Max points the camera at Victoria, she pretends not to notice or care, but Nathan sees her roll her shoulders back and tilt her head up, in an attempt to come off glamorous.
But when Max turns to Nathan, he tenses up; she must sense his discomfort, because instead of pointing it at him, she leans forwards and asks, “Do you mind taking a picture of me and Chloe?”
He blinks, stunned momentarily, before shaking himself internally and reaching out for the proffered camera. “Of course,” the reply is automatic as he points the lens in their direction. Max sits back, wraps both arms sloppily around one of Chloe’s, and smiles sweetly. Chloe rests her cheek against Max’s head, and with her free hand she makes the ‘rock-on’ gesture. The camera is heavy in his hands, so it takes him a moment to adjust before he’s comfortable taking the photo. The Polaroid stutters out, and he grabs it quickly, clumsily attempting to mimic the shaking motion Max had done earlier (he can feel Victoria snickering behind him).
He hands the camera to Max, who thanks him softly, but when he moves to give the picture to Chloe, she grabs a hold of his sleeve. “Get on over here!” she laughs, but she doesn’t pull, instead waiting for him to accept the invitation. He wavers for a moment, but then Victoria’s hand is on his back, a welcome presence, small and warm. It’s all the push he needs, and with a tiny nod he goes to stand. Chloe grins wickedly and tugs, hard, on his arm, so that he’s collapses into the new-found space between her and Max, who’s angling the camera awkwardly in one extended arm. He’s sandwiched between them, left blinking owlishly up at the lens, and he barely even remembers to smile before the flash goes off.
As Chloe takes the new Polaroid in her hands, Nathan shuffles back towards where he sat before, feeling dazed but also somehow bubbly. Max cradles the camera carefully in her lap, and Kate is laughing quietly. The sky is rich and plum-colored, and if he squints Nathan can make out a few dim stars. He leans back on his hands, feels the soft dirt bend beneath his curled fingers. Warren is telling a cheesy joke, one Nathan is pretty sure he told earlier that night, and Chloe is holding Max’s hand tightly; he is perfectly at home, he decides. This is my home.
The happiness he feels is hesitant, but still very, very real.