Page 82 of Your Fault

The stone was new and very clean, and on top of it was a vase with orange and yellow flowers, which made it stand out from the unkempt tombs around it. The inscription, in elegant letters, read:

JASON NOAH MORGAN

(1977–2015)

Underneath was an engraving of a figure eight knot on the immaculate marble.

33

Noah

Nicholas shouldn’t have seen that.

I felt my heart pounding faster and faster till it reached a fever pitch. When he finally looked me in the eye, I could see he was completely lost. And frightened. I didn’t like seeing him that way.

“It’s not what you think,” I said, taking a step back. This was what I’d been running from since the beginning, the thing I didn’t want him to know…

“Then explain it to me, Noah… Honestly, I’m trying to understand. I don’t think I’ve ever tried so hard to do anything, but you’re not making it easy for me.”

I felt ashamed because this was something so private, something that should matter to only me…and I didn’t want anyone judging me for it. Least of all him.

“What do you want me to say, Nick?” I shouted, trying to keep the tears gathering behind my eyelids from streaming down my face. “He was my father…”

“He tried to kill you,” he replied, confused. “He beat your mother, Noah. I don’t get it. What’s there to miss?”

His expression made my heart crack. He wanted to put himselfin my place, but it was painfully clear he couldn’t, and that was what divided us just then and what I feared might permanently tear us apart.

“You’ll never get it, Nicholas, because even I can’t control what I feel. I don’t miss him. It’s something else… I feel guilty for things ending up the way they did. In his heart, he…he did love me once.”

“You can’t look at it that way, Noah,” he said softly but firmly. “None of that was your fault. The problem is you’re just too fucking good! You’re incapable of blaming him because he was your father, and I get that, right? But you aren’t to blame for what happened… He was the one who signed his own death sentence the moment he put a pistol to your head…the moment he laid his hands on you that night, ten years ago.”

I shook my head. I had no idea how to explain myself, how to explain what I felt inside. Everything was so contradictory… He had hurt me… But what about all the times he’d held me, the nights he’d taken me with him to the track and we’d driven at top speed…when he’d taught me to fish…when he’d taught me to tie a figure eight…?

Nicholas closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine. “You’re still scared of him, aren’t you?” he said, then looked at me. “Even though he’s dead, you’re still scared of him. You still believe you owe him something, you feel guilty, and that makes you come here. That’s why you bring him those flowers he doesn’t deserve.”

My lip started trembling… Of course I was scared of him… I was scared of him more than I was of anyone. Fear was almost everything he meant to me.

I didn’t realize my hand had risen to touch my tattoo until Nick grabbed it and pulled it away.

“Why’d you get it?”

I took a deep breath, trying to calm down, but it was pointless. I knew why I’d gotten it, of course, but could I tell Nick? I saw my reflection in his pupils. And yet there was some essential part of me that was totally absent from that reflection.

“When you’re tied too tightly to someone…it hurts when you break free, but it’s either that or you’re trapped forever. And I’m one of those who’s trapped forever.”

Nicholas looked baffled. I think that was the first time I had ever seen him at a loss for words.

I hugged him. I didn’t want him to feel like that, especially not because of me. It wasn’t right for him to have to worry about this.

“I think you need help, Noah,” he said.

I pulled away. “What do you mean?”

He paused, cautious, then continued speaking. “I think you need to talk to an outsider, someone impartial…someone who can help you try to understand how you’re feeling. Someone who can help with your nightmares—”

“You do help me,” I cut him off.

He shook his head, suddenly sad. “I don’t, though… I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to get you to understand that there’s nothing for you to be afraid of.”