Saint Nicholas Read online

  Helena popped up off the bed and gave me a hug. She’d grown up into a beautiful woman. Nineteen now, and taking a year off before she flew out west to attend USC School of Dramatic Arts. It was hard to believe she was the same girl I used to have tickle fights with on the couch.

  “You stink, too,” she told me. “Why don’t you go take a shower.”

  She went back and sat on the bed. My bed. The couch wasn’t nearly as comfortable.

  Without saying anything I went to the bathroom, closed the door, and pulled Helena’s bra off the shower rod before turning the water to a nice, steady temperature of scalding hot. Once under the water, I stood there, my hands placed firmly on the wall, letting the stream gush over my hair and face. Straight away my brain started thinking about her again. Sarah. Morning, noon, and night she was all I thought about. Even when I was writing—or, trying to write—her face lurked behind the words like a shadow.

  If only I’d done more. If only I’d never left her and stayed to help her kick the habit. Maybe things would have been different. Maybe, maybe, maybe. My life was a constant stream of maybes. Maybes and what ifs. What if I’d just been there? What if I’d told someone about her father?

  Guilt was my only girlfriend now. Holding my hand everywhere I went. Following me around like a lost puppy day and night, waiting for me to feed it, which I always did so it’d stick around longer. I thought I deserved it. It was my cross to bear. Before, I at least knew she was somewhere out there. Alive and breathing and maybe even clean. Now she was nowhere, and everywhere. Haunting every waking moment, and cursing my dreams.

  I was crying. I didn’t even know it until a sob escaped me and I sat down in the tub, letting the shower wash over me. I didn’t want Helena to hear me, even though I’m sure I kept her awake last night. I knew she meant well, Ma too, but I didn’t want her here. I just wanted my privacy. At least then the only person who’d hear me would be Sarah.

  “Nicky, I gotta pee,” she knocked on the door, jolting me from my sorrow.

  I stood up and turned off the water, wrapping a towel around my waist. I was done anyway. So done.

  I opened the door and stood there, filling it. Dripping wet with red eyes that Helena ignored.

  “Damn, bro. You looked jacked.” Her eyes perused my muscles, but not in a creepy sort of way.

  Working out had been the only habit I’d stuck to all this time, and as a result I was built like a brick house. She felt my biceps and slapped me on the abs.

  “Scoot, I gotta go.”

  I moved out of the way and strolled into the living room, putting on a pair of week-old jeans and a t-shirt. Maybe later I’d get out for a walk. Head down to Cathy’s or something.

  Maybe.

  I didn’t, though. Instead I laid down on the couch and stared at my laptop from across the room until my lids felt heavy and I fell asleep, only to have nightmares about a girl who didn’t exist anymore.

  * * *

  Things didn’t get better after Helena left. They got worse, in fact. I thought I wanted to be alone, but having my sister around for that brief week only served to remind me how much I missed the ones I loved, which in turn made me think even more about Sarah.

  From time to time it would hit me that she was really gone, and those days were the worst. I’d never gone to the funeral—hell, I’d never even bothered to look to see her obituary. I knew how she died. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was an overdose.

  Jesus, if only I’d have stayed with her. The guilt was eating away at my soul day after day. Consuming me from the inside. Half the time I felt like I was going out of my mind. I honestly didn’t know if I wanted to live anymore, and on those days I’d sit on the couch just staring into the void, feeling my heart beat in the veins of my neck as they pulsed the blood through my body.

  Mostly I tried to keep busy. Lifting weights, writing; they were the only things I knew, so I did them as frequently as possible, even if I didn’t feel I was good at them anymore.

  I sat in front of the computer, pecking away at the keys while trying to string together coherent sentences that would form paragraphs that would form chapters, which would eventually lead me to the finish line of this latest book. It was a departure from my usual fare. No Blake Steel, no action. No nothing, really. I was just writing for the sake of writing. Usually I plotted things out, but as I’d come to discover, life is pretty plotless, so if I don’t know what’s coming next, maybe the reader won’t either.

  For four hours I pecked, pecked, pecked, feeling no more ahead of myself than when I started. I got up and went to the kitchen, stumbling around dirty clothes and notebooks. Man, I really need to clean. Bacon was on top of the fridge so I reached up and offered him some scratches while grabbing a soda.

  From the living room my computer pinged, and I remembered that I forgot to close my Facebook tab before writing. I don’t even know why I bothered to have it open. The only friends I had on there were Angie, Shakes, Ma, and a bunch of people I didn’t know who seemed to still like my books well enough and prodded me from time to time to write more.

  Taking my soda back to the chair, I plunked down and surfed over to my Facebook tab. Sure enough, it was one of my readers with a question about the next Blake Steel book. I didn’t have the heart, or the courage, to tell him there wouldn’t be another book in that series for a while, so I just made something up. Writer’s are professional liars, after all.

  Staring at my page for a while, I clicked on over to Angie’s profile. Her and Shakes had gotten married a couple of years ago, and though I didn’t see them much anymore or attend their wedding, we still kept in touch online, and every so often I’d get a note from them asking me how things were, how the writing was going—those sorts of things. Neither of them knew the kind of shape I was in and we never spoke about Sarah.

  She looked happy. The pictures Angie posted all showed her and Shakes with smiles on their faces, traveling the world like two bohemians. Shakes, believe it or not, fell in to some money shortly after I moved to Brooklyn. He’d picked up one of those scratch tickets on a whim, the kind that give you X amount of dollars a week for life, and wouldn’t you know it, the son of a bitch won. Had his picture splashed in the paper and everything. They were expecting their first child in a little less than six months, and knowing them the kid would be born on some tropical island and given a name like Karma or Liberty, or some bullshit like that. They weren’t the same people I remembered, they were better.

  Everyone had gotten better over the years. Christ, even ma had gotten married to Giorgio and moved from our crummy apartment in Hell’s Kitchen to a condo in Midtown. I hadn’t gone to that wedding, either.

  Yet there I was, still stuck in the past clinging to memories of days gone by about a girl I’d never see again. I was the only one who hadn’t managed to move on, and I didn’t know if I ever would.

  On a whim, I typed Sarah’s name into the search bar of Facebook. About a gazillion SARAH DANNIELS popped up and so I just started scrolling. I don’t know what I was looking for. Just killing time, really, until all the faces blended together to resemble hers. Her eyes. Her hair. If she were alive, what would she look like today? I tried to imagine it in my head, like she was here sitting on the couch behind me watching me write. Silently coaxing me along with her presence as if it were all the support I needed, because in a way it was. She was what I needed, more than anything.

  I stopped and narrowed my search, entertaining the idea of her still being alive. Where would she live? I typed in New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. The gazillion faces of Sarah Danniels went to a million, so I narrowed it down further, typing in her hometown and the high school we went to.

  I knew it was pointless to entertain my fantasies. She was gone, and nothing would ever be able to bring her back. For me to sit there and pretend she still existed was tantamount to hallucinating, and I thought if this keeps up much longer I’d have to commit myself to the loony bin.

&nbs
p; Hitting enter, I sipped from my can of soda and proceeded to spew it all over the desk when a profile matching her search parameters popped up.

  A surge of adrenaline coursed through my veins as anger rose up inside me like a volcano while I stared into the face of the girl I’d loved all those years ago. The girl I still loved with every fiber of my being.

  Who the fuck would do such a thing?

  I clicked on the picture and it took me to a mock profile of Sarah. There she was. I swelled up with tears as I stared into her eyes for the first time in seven years. The picture was older, one Angie had taken years ago of her sitting on the couch in my apartment. I gripped my computer mouse so hard my hand started to cramp up.

  God, of all the things to find on the Internet, a place where every desire can be fulfilled with just a few clicks, I find that. Why couldn’t I have gone looking for German porn, or cat videos?

  I scrolled down the page, reading the timeline as if that would give me some indication as to who this profile really belonged to, but all I saw were posts.

  Yesterday: Nothing like a good soak in the tub to cure what ails you.

  Two days ago: Just baked a fresh batch of cookies and the place smells like chocolate chips. Well, my night’s been decided.

  Last week: Just got back from Wegman’s and saw the cutest old man at checkout wearing a #1 Grandpa shirt. Adorable!

  Two weeks ago: Going to look at a storefront today for Novel Idea. Wish me luck!

  I froze at that last update.

  Novel Idea.

  That had been the name for our store when we were kids. She was going to open up a bookstore so she could sell all the books I was going to write. What a novel idea, we used to joke.

  Novel Idea.

  I stared at those words before scrolling back up the page. I clicked on PHOTOS and was instantly taken to pictures of a girl who was obviously older than the person she was when we were teenagers, but still looked just as good. Her hair was shorter, she looked clean and sober, and when she smiled her eyes still had that same spark of life in them I always saw when I looked at her.

  There was no mistaking it. It wasn’t some Photoshop job, or some elaborate hoax concocted to fuck with my head.

  This was Sarah.

  She was alive.

  Ma had lied to me.

  * * *

  “Four years, Ma. Four fucking years! That’s how long you let me think she was dead. Do you have any idea what that’s done to me?!”

  I screamed in her face. It had been a long time since I’d stood toe-to-toe with her, but the revelation that Sarah was, in fact, alive, warranted a trip out to Manhattan.

  She bawled her eyes out, trying to shield her face from me, but I wouldn’t let her. I gripped her bony wrists, holding them back, forcing her to look me in the eyes. It was only ten in the morning but already her breath reeked of scotch.

  “Why’d you do it, huh? Why’d you tell me she was dead? I trusted you.”

  “I’m sorry, Nicky. You have no idea. I thought if she was dead then maybe you’d be able to move on with your life. You felt awful for leaving her, and I just didn’t want you to feel that way anymore.”

  I shook my head, wanting nothing more than to punch a hole through the wall. Move on with my life? It all made sense now. Her words, whispered to me on the same night she’d told me Sarah was dead.

  I don’t mean to sound harsh, but…

  Jesus Christ. My own mother.

  “I found her, Ma! I found her on fucking Facebook!”

  She clasped a hand over her mouth like she was going to throw up, and choked back another sob. She looked at me then, her eyes filled with horror and regret.

  I thought about yelling more. Screaming my head off as if it would help. But the truth was, it wouldn’t. I was done. For the millionth time, I was done.

  I stormed out of her apartment, slamming the door behind me. A neighbor, an elderly man, popped his head out his door like a groundhog emerging from its hole in February. “The fuck looking at?” I growled as I walked by. He quickly went back inside and I found myself in Brooklyn an hour later, staring at my computer; all the anger at my mother gone now that I was looking at Sarah’s face.

  Words couldn’t even begin to describe how it felt knowing that she was alive, and my heart? Oh God, my heart. It thumped against my chest harder than it ever had before. It was like a bolt of lightning and I was the Frankenstein monster come to life. Damn she looked good.

  I didn’t know what to do. Everything in me wanted to contact her. Tell her I was sorry for the way we’d left things and explain why I hadn’t contacted her for the last seven years. Four because I was scared, and three because I thought she was dead. Even with all that running through me though, my brain was telling me to leave well enough alone. She was alive, and that’s all that mattered. There was no need to dredge up old ghosts. Just leave the past be and move on.

  But I couldn’t. Not after this. Not after everything I’d gone through. I’d proven to myself that letting her go was the biggest mistake of my life and somehow, some way, I had to get her back. I didn’t know what her life was like, if she was dating, married, any of that. I just knew I at least needed to hear Sarah’s voice one more time, even if it was for the last. Even if she told me to F-off and leave her alone, it would give me some semblance of closure, but seeing as how she was in the process of bringing Novel Idea to life, I got the feeling that maybe what I’d been going through these last seven years wasn’t all that different from the way she felt.

  I had to try.

  I took a deep breath and continued staring at her Facebook page. A Google search had turned up nothing for an email address. I figured this was as good a way as any to reach her. Hopefully she’d get the notification.

  Steeling my nerves, I began typing.

  Hi Sarah, been a while huh?

  Been a while? Geez, and you call yourself a writer. I deleted that and went for something a little more formal.

  Dear Sarah, I hope this note finds you well.

  Nope, not in this lifetime.

  My fingers hit the backspace button several times until the Post box was clear again. Then I realized that what I was typing was public. Shit, I didn’t want anyone else to see this. I quickly hovered over to Messages to open up a new chat box.

  After several more minutes of soul searching, wherein my nerves felt like they were vibrating through my skin, I began to think of something from our childhood. Something that only she would recognize as being from me.

  I typed my note, and when I was done I stared at it long and hard before hitting SEND.

  Five words. That’s all I needed. Just five, little words.

  Meet me on the roof.

  I closed my laptop and waited.

  SEVENTEEN

  - Sarah -

  Seven. Years.

  I sat on my couch, staring at the email notification.

  Nicholas Rossi has sent you a message on Facebook.

  I’d been at the sink washing up some dishes when it came through. I stood there with a glass in my hand, reaching into my pocket for my pinging phone, looking to see what was up. I figured it was Carter emailing me another budget report and didn’t think much about it. The next thing I knew the glass shattered on the floor and I was struggling to make it to the couch before my legs gave out.

  Seven. Years.

  The phone trembled in my hand. I hadn’t even opened Facebook to see what the message actually was. I just stared at the email. At his name. Nicholas Rossi.

  My cheeks flushed red and I balled my hand up into a fist, clenching it tight against my lips to fight back the well of emotions threatening to overflow my eyes. Many times over the years I’d wanted to contact him. To tell him how sorry I was for the way things ended up being between us, but I was scared. I’d only gotten clean in the last four years, and I thought if I saw him or spoke to Nicholas, it would trigger something in me and I’d relapse. I liked to believe I was stronger now than I was
back then, and had made amends with my most of my past, but I didn’t trust myself when it came to him. Ever.

  Swallowing the hard lump in my throat, I navigated over to my Facebook messenger. I breathed deep, bracing myself for the worst.

  The way we’d left things, with me in shambles on the floor, strung out on H—I had no reason to believe Nicholas had anything nice to say to me. Surely he’d moved on with his life. Moved on to someone better. Someone more deserving of the heart he had to give.

  So why was he messaging me in the first place?

  I wiped my eyes dry and focused on my phone, waiting for them to adjust to his words on the screen, and feeling every bit deserving of the hatred about to be spewed at me.

  Meet me on the roof.

  Immediately my mind flashed back to the early days. Before the heroin, before the hospital. To a time when he was my only buoy in the tumultuous seas that were my life. Things were so fucked up back then. I was fucked up back then.

  Meet me on the roof.

  Those were my words. Five simple words that told him everything he needed to know. They were my SOS, and at the sight of them Nicholas would drop everything and come to me and hold the crumbling pieces of my soul together in one last ditch effort to save what couldn’t be saved. Not even with love.

  I laughed through my tears as relief washed over me, curling my legs up underneath me on the couch. I could feel my heart pounding in my neck, and with each quick beat it brought me closer to feeling that same joy and comfort I’d known as a teenager whenever he was near.

  But what did I say to him? What could I possibly respond with that would justify everything that happened. Is that what he wanted? Did he want excuses or reasoning, or did he just want hello? Hell, maybe he didn’t want anything at all and was just—

  Stop, Sarah. Just stop.

  I took another deep breath, reminding myself of who I was now. God, in just a few short minutes I’d gone from the woman I’d become back to the girl I used to be, and after reflecting on it for a moment, that scared me. I didn’t want to be that girl anymore. I wasn’t that girl anymore. Maybe my life hadn’t gone down the path I wanted it to, but I eventually got to where I needed to be. Settled. Calm. In control. These were the things I knew now.