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Jess sighs deeply, groaning in frustration as her forehead thuds against the steering wheel. That was the third time she had circled past her usual parking spot and it had yet to magically open up for her.
If Nick were with her, he’d look at her with his dumb, handome face and go, “Well yeah, Jess, things don’t just magically happen because ya want them to.” Which, yeah, she knows that, but part of her thought that maybe tonight, by the time she made her third circle around the block, that guy who lives on the second floor and wears the brown scarf all the time would wake up and realize that, wow he really is in love with the woman-with-the-cute-skirts who comes over all the time but says they’re just friends. And he’d get up and rush down to his maroon sedan that’s parked in Jess’s usual spot and drive away to confess his love. And then scarf guy and cute-skirt-girl would fall in love and have three kids and live happily ever after. And Jess would get her parking spot back.
It’s a win-win scenario for everyone.
Or, at least, it would’ve been if scarf guy had gone along with her plans. Instead, he’s probably all snug in his bed, asleep and still wearing his scarf (because, really, no one’s ever seen him without it) while Jess is tired, cranky, and circling the apartment block for the fourth time hoping for someone to just move.
Normally, she’d already be home by this time, cuddled up on the sofa in her cloud pajamas with some warm tea and watching The Walking Dead with Nick or maybe Say Yes to the Dress with Winston since things had been a little weird with Nick ever since the whole kiss thing. The point is that, by now, she should be home. But, today, after weeks of trying to get her creative writing students engaged in her class (and one false start when Nick thought Edgar might try to murder her), one of her students finally came up to ask a question after class. And, Jess, excited that someone was finally interested in a not-creepy-way, didn’t even notice the minutes steadily creeping by during their conversation.
The problem with teaching creative writing to adults in a night school program – well, there’s a lot of problems with that actually, but one of them is that, when before she could have a lovely debate with her sixth graders about why not to use the “f-word” in class for an hour after class and then leave and go about her day as normal, now she has a single conversation with one of her students and it’s suddenly almost midnight and by the time she drives home, her parking spot is taken and she’s circling around the block over and over and over again.
Jess looks at the clock on her dashboard and does her best impression of Nick’s turtle face. She really doesn’t want to have to walk three blocks in the dark at 12:45 a.m., but she really wants to change out of this bra.
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Incidentally, it turns out that she doesn’t have to walk three blocks in the dark at 12:45 a.m.
The next four streets have cars parked bumper-to-bumper all the way down to the point that she has no clue how anyone is going to back out to get to work tomorrow morning. So, instead, she’s walking five blocks in the dark at 1:07 a.m. and seriously regretting that she ever wished that her students were more engaged in her class.
It’s dark, like very dark, and the city’s poor job of maintaining their area’s street lights is not helping the situation. Jess isn’t completely naive — contrary to what many-a-judgemental mean girl thought in high school, she knows that it isn’t smart to be walking alone late at night in their area, but her phone died while she was driving and she can’t just wait in her car all night. So she pulls up her big girl panties, grabs her purse and marches, intent on getting back to the apartment for some much-needed tea-and-couch time.
While she had been driving, the walk didn’t look too bad. But now, as she stares down the erratically lit sidewalk before her, she remembers that the blocks in their area are long.
Jess walks with purpose down the sidewalk, dreaming about the warmth (well semi-warmth in their drafty building) of the loft and getting to take off her flats and put on her bunny slippers. The first block passes by quickly as she speed-walks her way home. But half-way down the second block, the hair on the back of her neck stands up.
There’s this moment, like the one that you feel when you can tell that there’s someone outside of your door but they haven’t knocked yet. It’s not a sound, but like the second before her ears finally tune in and she can hear Winston shuffling his feet as he raises his hand to pound on the door. A beat passes before her ears pick up a sound behind her.
Her head whips around and, in the dim light of the nearly-broken street light above her, she can make out the sight of a man at the end of the block she’s walking on, heading in the same direction as her. It’s never been proven, but Jess swears that her big, buggy eyes let her see more than most people does because, even now, half a block away, she can make out the man with his head down and his hands in his pockets as he trudges down the sidewalk.
Jess’s heart skips a beat as her parents’ and friends’ and all of social media’s warnings about being a young woman and walking alone at night bounce around in her head. But she shuts her eyes and shakes the thoughts free, remembering when she told Nick a year ago that people are mostly good if you give them a chance. And then their landlord tried to have a threesome with them but that’s beside the point. She bets that this guy probably just got off a long shift, or maybe he’s a night school teacher like her, and he just wants to go home and kiss his wife before climbing into bed and falling asleep.
She’s pulled out of her thoughts about the man’s potential life by the sound of his footsteps, this time louder. Discreetly, Jess peeks backward once again and finds him closer than he was before. Her breath hitches in her throat. He must really want to get home to his wife. Maybe he has some kids, too, that are waiting for him to say ‘goodnight’ before they can fall asleep.
Without her permission, though, Jess’s feet pick up the pace slightly, the tip-tap of her flats speeding up as they echo along the buildings. She doesn’t want them to, but her feet speed up even more. Great, now a guy who just wants to go home to his family probably thinks that I’m afraid of him and feels bad about it. I’ve made his night even worse. She wants to call behind her to apologize, but somewhere in the back of her mind, Jess registers that his footsteps, too, have sped up. Heavier, louder footsteps than her light ones slap against the concrete, rhythmically.
When she glances back again, he’s drawn even closer to her, enough that she can make out his dark beard and dirty-looking jacket, and Jess’s heart hammers in her chest despite the fact that she’s telling herself maybe I dropped something and he’s trying to give it back to me. People are good just like I told Nick. People are good, people are good, they’re…
When she feels a hand land roughly on her shoulder, Jess knows that this time she’s wrong.
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He runs off with her phone and the cheap, knock-off purse that she got at a swap-meet that she went to with Winston. The pieces of her necklace are on the ground somewhere in the dark. She heard the charm clink against the asphalt when he finally tore the chain free. She doesn’t look for it though. He didn’t either as he ran off with the rest of her belongings.
The brick of the building against her back is uneven and sharp but Jess doesn’t feel it. She’s leaned over slightly. It’s her left arm bracing against the ground so that she doesn’t fall even though she’s leaning to the right side. Right now it’s numb, probably from the shock or whatever they say in those t.v. medical dramas, but in the back of her mind Jess knows that there’s something wrong with her right arm. It feels almost like a distant memory now, but if she thinks back hard enough, she can remember the cracking noise that she heard when he grabbed her by the wrist and slammed it into the building.
Breathing shakily, Jess uncurls herself and sinks back against the wall, her legs splayed out in front of her. With her good hand, she runs her fingers over the wide, ugly tear in her new tights. Distantly, she recognizes that she should probably be concerned by the bloodied skin beneath the rip, but all she can think about in the moment is that her new tights are ruined.
The apartment is still so far away and this wall really isn’t that uncomfortable. And her head, it just feels so heavy and she’s so tired so really, would it be that bad to just fall asleep right here in this spot…but wait, she promised Cece that she’d hang out with her tomorrow and if she stays here, she’ll never wake up in time because she doesn’t have her alarm clock and she’s so tired…
She has to get up. She promised Cece and she never breaks her promises. Plus, it’s dark and her glasses broke when she hit the ground the second time. Through the clouded mess of her thoughts, where the shock has just begun to wear off, fear takes hold. It’s dark and she can’t see. She can’t see who could be coming and, whoever comes next, well she doesn’t have anything left to give them.
Pushing against the wall, Jess slowly rises to her feet, her left arm beginning to throb painfully in time with her heart as her body protests her movement. With her big, blue eyes wide but dazed, Jess limps in the direction of the loft.
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Nick paces back and forth in the living room, his phone ringing for the fourth time before it’s sent to voicemail again. “C’mon, Day, pick up ya damn phone,” he mutters as he dials her again. When her chipper Hi, it’s Jess! is all he gets, he lobs his phone at the couch where it lands next to Schmidt who sits hunched over, as he only does when he’s really worried.
Nick looks at the time. “It’s almost two, I’m not waiting anymore. I have to go find her.” Winston and Schmidt get up to follow him without protest, the silence in the loft charged with their anxiety.
Jess teaches night school, Nick gets that, they all do. Hell, he’s a bartender, he understands keeping weird hours and so does Winston. She had texted him to let him know she’d gotten held up by a student so he wasn’t worried when 12:30 came and went and she wasn’t back yet like he thought she would be. After all, conversations could take a while. But then it was 1 a.m. and then 1:30 and now it’s 1:56 and his mind is running wild with worry for this damn girl.
He doesn’t care if she gets mad at him later or if it’s overprotective or “Auntie-Kate’d” (whoever Auntie Kate is) or whatever the hell Jess said last time he was really worried about her, Nick is going to go find her and bring her back to the loft because damn it, it feels like he’s about to have a heart attack and neither he or Schmidt had predicted that would happen for at least another seven years. Nick knows that he likes Jess a lot and that it’s a common saying that people use when they’re being gross in relationships, but he didn’t know that “you’ll be the death of me” was so literal.
Nick is yanking on a hoodie when the door handle turns and all three of their heads whip around to stare at it. The room heaves a sigh of relief. Jess isn’t even all the way in the door yet when the dam breaks loose.
“Jessica, where the hell have you been?! We were so worried. I couldn’t even go to bed to get my mandatory nine hours of sleep-”
“Girl, you better have a good-ass explanation or I swear-”
“Jess?” The breath that Nick caught in his brief moment of relief is stolen away again when he notices the large tear in her tights – her new tights that he knew she was so excited about – and the bloodied skin beneath it. He meets her wide, glassy blue eyes beneath her mussed bangs and takes three steps toward her as she collapses forward.
Nick lunges to catch her in his arms as she slumps against him. He lowers them to the ground gently, her full weight sagging against his chest as one arm clings desperately to his neck.
Dead silence rings out as they all watch the moment, watch her unfold. What’s that thing called? When you’re in the middle of the storm and for a moment it seems almost peaceful, but you know that it won’t stay that way? You mean the ‘eye’ of the storm? He can almost hear her teasing voice reminding him of another forgotten term, and if this conversation were in reality, he would argue back that it can’t possibly be ‘eye’ because that’s stupid. Storms don’t have eyes, they can’t see. But it’s not. The conversation is in his head because Jessica Day, who he can never get to shut up for a second, is soundless in his arms.
A loud, guttural sob shakes Jess’s body and breaks the silence. Nick feels more than hears it as the sounds chips away at his heart because suddenly she can’t stop. Painful, desperate cries pound into his chest as Nick looks down at her, distressed.
He wraps his arms around her more securely as he tries not to panic. “Jess, Jess,” his voice cracks. “Hey, what happened? What happened?” Only a whimper answers him as she tries to breathe through her tears.
Nick hushes her softly as he attempts to calm her down, but in his mind, his brain is running a mile a minute as he fears the worst. He looks up to Winston and Schmidt, who are looking down at them, worriedly.
As she cries, Jess grips the back of his shirt tightly and pulls him closer, as if terrified he’ll leave. When she buries her head in his neck, he feels it. The wet, sticky sensation as her hair brushes him. He meets Winston’s eyes the moment that the other man sees it too.
“Nick, her head,” Winston mutters, his jaw clenched in barely concealed anger.
Nick tries to lean away enough to look at her but if possible, her grip tightens even further and a strangled sound escapes her.
“Nick,” the broken cry slips past her lips.
He squeezes his eyes tight. “Okay, it’s okay, Jess. You’re safe, I promise.” A pained moan is her only response. Her hair brushes his lips as he dips his head to speak lowly. “Jess, I promise.”
A beat passes and the grip on his shirt loosens ever so slightly. It’s like the fight leaves her body as she lets him go. With gentle hands, Nick cups the back of her head and leans away to look at her face.
A map of small cuts pepper Jess’s face as a bruise forms on either side of the ridge of her nose. Carefully, he brings up a hand to brush her bangs away from her face. An angry wound marks her face, half-hidden beneath her dark hairline. A dark streak of blood trails down her cheek. Nick exhales shakily through his nose. Get a grip, Miller. Don’t you dare lose it.
“Why didn’t you call?” It’s all he can manage to squeeze past the lump in his throat.
She doesn’t react when his fingers brush her face. It’s like she doesn’t see him, her eyes fixated on the floor by the couch.
“I didn’t,” Jess whispers as if she didn’t hear him. “I didn’t know what he wanted.” Her face crumples before their eyes as she weeps, softer this time, into his shoulder.
Winston bows his head, his eyes thunderous. At his sides, his fists clench and unclench and Nick is sure he’s fighting the urge to run out the door and track down the bastard that did this. Instead, he pulls out his phone and dials three numbers as he glances down at Jess.
As he walks into the hallway and the line picks up, the words “friend” and “mugged” drift over the sounds of Jess’s quiet sobs.
Nick’s chest heaves. Jess’s words combined with her bruised and bloodied state don’t paint a pretty picture of what happened. And though she didn’t tell the whole story, Nick has seen enough in his life to connect the dots. Some asshole saw a young woman walking alone at night and decided to take advantage of her. Nick just doesn’t know in what way.
He runs what he hopes is a soothing hand over Jess’s back as he looks up at Schmidt. “Call Cece.”
Normally, Schmidt would resist what with his confusing relationship with Cece, but at the moment neither he nor Nick cares. Schmidt hovers nearby, but out of earshot as he brings the phone to his ear.
Knowing that the others will take care of everything else, Nick focuses all his attention back on the girl in his arms. His hand runs up and down her back in slow motions as he shushes her. “C’mon, let’s get off the floor,” he murmurs.
Sliding an arm beneath her legs, he cradles her to his chest and stands, making the short journey to the couch. Nick makes to set her down on the cushions but a panicked noise breaks from her throat. In her distress, Jess grabs at his shoulders with both arms. As her right hand brushes against him, she cries out. In the kitchen, Schmidt looks up in alarm.
“Hey, hey, what is it?” Nick sets her down on the couch despite her protests and kneels in front of her. Jess instantly curls in on herself protectively, her knees pulling up to her chest. A curtain of dark hair obscures her face and her arms are pulled in tightly. “Jess, honey, I need to see.”
Her head raises and bright blue eyes meet his. Lethargically, she raises her right arm toward him. Just peeking out from beneath her long sleeve, he can see the dark beginnings of a bruise wrapping around her pale wrist. Gingerly, he supports her arm with his own and peels back her sleeve. Nick breathes an apology when his fingers press against her skin.
The bruise has overtaken most of her forearm, stretching out toward her elbow and trailing onto her hand. But the darkest bruising surrounds her wrist, which has swelled dramatically.
His lips purse, shoulders slumping. “I think it’s broken, Jess. We have to get you to the hospital.” Her eyes squeeze closed as another round of tears spill over her cheeks. With her good hand, she grips his painfully tight. Nick’s heart squeezes because he knows that she’s saying I’m not okay. He reaches up with his other hand to cup the side of her face. “Alright, alright. I got ya, Jess. I-”
With his hand against her, Jess’s hair shifts and suddenly Nick’s throat goes dry. His breath catches as he searches for words. Circling her neck is a thin line of broken skin. Near the back, the skin is split angrily as a small trickle of blood seeps into the neckline of her shirt. But worse are the scratches. The deep marks that begin at her throat and climb down over her breasts before disappearing into the ‘v’ of her shirt.
He knows she sees him looking because her body begins to shake with quiet sobs. His eyes frantically scan the rest of her, terrified that something even worse happened when she was out there, alone. Her clothes are mussed and torn in places, but still on. She would’ve put them back on, though…
“Jess, did he,” he swallows, “did he…” Nick can’t force the words out.
Thankfully, mercifully, Jess shakes her head. “He,” her breath hitches, “he wanted my necklace. I couldn’t take it off fast enough and he was just so angry.”
Nick exhales a sigh as he tries to keep the horrific images from latching onto his brain so that he can replay them over and over again. She’s fine, it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. Yet a traitorous, small voice still whispers, But it could have.
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Soon after, Winston and Schmidt returned to the living room, finding Jess curled into Nick’s side as he held her protectively to his chest. As Schmidt went to pull his car around to the front of the building, Jess’s cracking voice called out, surprising them all.
She raised her head from the crook of Nick’s neck, and with eyes more alert than they’d been all night, Jess begged him to take Winston with him. Nick’s heart dropped to the floor as he realized that, maybe for the rest of her life, Jess would be marked by this experience. She would never again be as trusting, as open, and as innocent as she was just a few hours ago. That bastard stole something from her.
At her plea, they all stilled. His eyes filled with sad understanding, Schmidt walked over and bent to see her face. “Of course, Jess.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead and then left with Winston at his side. The door shut quietly behind them.
“My phone died.”
Nick furrowed his brow as he looked down at her, confused. Tears brimming in her eyes once again, Jess croaks out, “You asked why I, why I didn’t call. My phone died.”
He had forgotten that he’d asked that question earlier in a moment of pure terror and, if he could have, Nick would have gone back in time and socked himself in the face. He never had been good at saying the right thing.
Shaking, Nick had pressed his lips against the crown of her head. As his eyes slid shut, a few of the tears he’d repressed all night long fell into her dark hair. “It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault. I’m sorry.”
“My phone died,” Jess sobbed again, helplessly.
Nick pulled her in tighter, murmuring softly to her as she cried.
When the car pulled around to the front, Nick rode in the back with Jess. He would have, anyway, unwilling to let her out of his sight, but she wouldn’t release her grip on his shirt when they sat down. He held her the entire ride.
Cece was waiting for them when they arrived, hands pressed to her mouth as she took in her broken best friend.
When the doctors seated her on the gurney and pulled Nick away, Jess screamed and the sound tore at his heart. If not for Winston and Schmidt grabbing him, he would have sprinted after her, to hell with anyone who got in his way. As soon as they’re out of sight, he collapsed into a chair, head in his hands, and Cece’s quiet cries filled the air.
Now, they sit huddled in the waiting room. Tense silence pervades their somber corner and none of them are willing to break it, lest they break themselves.
Nick can’t get the image of her out of his head. The marks up and down her body, the defensive way she curled in on herself. Her cries were heartbreaking but the sounds that echo in his head are the terrified whimpers that she let out when she had recalled what had happened.
“He was so mad. I didn’t know what he was going to do. Nick, I was so afraid. He just kept pulling at my necklace and I-I couldn’t breathe.”
The back of his shirt is torn a little from where she had gripped it when they tried to pull her away from him
The door swings open and an older doctor steps into the room. They’re not the only ones who look up, practically the entire room does.
“Jessica Day?” They all stand. He eyes them. “Are any of you family?”
“Her family is in Portland. I’m her emergency contact,” Cece’s voice is firm and, even if she’s not listed as Jess’s emergency contact, Nick doesn’t think the doctor would have dared question her.
He nods once. “Jessica has a concussion and a fractured wrist, both of which are likely the result of blunt trauma from being slammed against a building.” Nick clenches his jaw, willing the rage to subside. “The cuts and bruises on her face are from broken eyeglasses. Those cuts and the ones on her neck and chest have been cleaned and dressed to keep out infection. Thankfully they are superficial enough that they should heal without scarring.”
Nick can’t help but think that those scars aren’t the ones he’s really worried about.
“We’ll be keeping her overnight for observation, but if everything goes alright as I believe it will, she’ll be able to be discharged in the morning,” he finishes.
“Can we see her?” Winston asks.
The doctor hesitates and for a moment Nick thinks that he’s going to be arrested for assaulting a doctor, but eventually he nods. “Yes, you can, but visiting hours are over. One of you can stay if you’d like but the rest of you will have to come back in the morning.”
The man is barely finished speaking before Nick is hurrying toward Jess’s room, the rest of his friends just a step behind him. He pauses before he opens the door, taking a calming breath, and slowly opens the door.
On the bed near the window, Jess turns at the sound of the door. Nick gives her a little half-smile as he enters, the others quietly filing in after.
Jess shifts, attempting to push herself into a sitting position. “Woah, hey, how about we not try to sit up right now,” Nick kneels next to her bed. He places a hand on her shoulder to guide her back down and Jess grabs it as she settles into her pillows once again, her eyes finding the worried faces of her friends in the room. He smooths a piece of hair out of her face. “Hey, kid.”
She squeezes his hand.
His lips twitch upward a little in a sad imitation of a smile. “Doctor talk to ya yet?” Jess shakes her head and looks at him expectantly.
Nick’s eyes dart to everyone else. Winston has pulled up one of the two chairs in the room and sits by the foot of Jess’s bed. Cece sits on the opposite side of the bed than him, her hand laying comfortingly on her friend’s leg, and Schmidt sits behind her in the other chair. They all look back at him and Cece nods almost imperceptibly.
“Well, you have a concussion,” his thumb traces circles onto the back of her good hand, “and your right wrist is fractured and the, uh, the cuts on your throat will go away. They won’t scar. The doctor says you’re gonna be alright Jess, but just in case, they’re gonna keep you overnight so that they can watch ya.”
Her eyes were fixed on their intertwined hands but as Nick finishes speaking, she looks up at him. He’s taken aback by the betrayed look in her eyes.
“Alone?” Jess whispers. Her voice is thin and rough from crying. Her eyes are wide and she shrinks in on herself, suddenly appearing painfully small in the hospital bed. It makes him feel sick, how terrified she is.
Before he can respond, Cece speaks. “No, honey, you won’t be alone. Not unless you want to be.”
“We’re here for you, Jess,” Schmidt says, all the usual pomp in his voice gone without a trace.
“However you need us to be,” Winston adds.
She looks at him and he nods. However you need me to be.
“The hospital says that only one of us can stay with you, though,” Cece continues, “so Nick is going to stay with you.” His eyes widen in surprise and Winston subtly kicks his leg, his friend having caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.
Nick resists the urge to look around in confusion at the other three. Not that he doesn’t want to be here for Jess; far from it, he’s been dreading the idea of being forced to leave her here after all that’s gone down tonight. He just assumed, though – and assumed that everybody else also assumed – that Cece would be the one to stay with Jess. In fact, he expects Jess to speak up and tell them that that’s who she wants to stay with her.
Instead, she looks relieved and gives them the first sign all night that she’s gonna be alright. “Okay,” a small, wobbling smile appears on her lips. He can tell that it takes all of her energy to keep it there, but it’s genuine all the same. The others can tell too.
“There’s our girl,” Winston grins. They all chuckle and Nick uses the opportunity to shift his weight a little bit. The loud popping of his joint draws all eyes to him and
he winces, rubbing his knee.
“Ah,” he coughs, “sorry ‘bout that.”
A giggle emanates from the bed and he looks over in surprise. Jess’s smile is a little brighter, her eyes a little less dull. She squeezes his hand again and he knows what she’s trying to say.
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The room is dark, the intermittent beeping of the machines by Jess’s bedside breaking the silence at a steady pace.
Their friends had left about an hour ago after a stern-looking nurse arrived to corral them out the door. Each of them hugged Jess goodbye, promising to be by early the next morning to bring them both home, and the guys clapped Nick on the shoulder. When Cece approached to give him a quick hug, Nick returned it, surprised.
Right before she pulled away, she whispered, “She feels safe with you,” and squeezed him just a little tighter.
Shortly after, a nurse rolled in a cot for him and settled it next to Jess’s bed. Now, he sat on the edge of it, hunched in exhaustion from the night. Jess had only just managed to fall asleep. It was painful to watch as she would shut her eyes for a few moments to try to find rest only for them to pop open a second later, scanning the room. Nick knew she was afraid that he would be there, as irrational as the idea was. When your eyes are closed, though, it feels like anything can happen.
Her eyes would land on him and it was like she remembered that he had stayed, so they would shut again. Eventually, Nick realized that he had to let her know that he was there with her even when her eyes were closed. That was how he wound up humming his way through what were, in his opinion, the greatest hits of all time as he watched her drift off into what he hoped would be peaceful dreams.
Nick allows himself to just watch Jess for a few moments. In her sleep, the darker, duller expression on her face fades and is replaced by one that is unburdened. The past few hours had been some of the most stressful and painful of his life and to see his… well her look peaceful again is like a balm for the ache in his chest.
He runs a hand over his face tiredly. It’s been a long time since he was that afraid, as afraid as he’d been when he saw the bloody tears in her tights, the smattering of cuts along her face, and the red ring around her neck. Nick exhales sharply, shaking off the thoughts of what if.
He can’t think like that. If he lets his mind wander, he knows without a doubt that he’ll go insane. This is Jess. Their Jess. His Jess, in a way that’s different than for the other guys, even before the kiss. And Jess is too important.
Even though they’d lived without her before – not even that long ago, to be honest – she’s changed their lives in a way that they can’t come back from. Their entire lives have been restructured in the last two years for the better, but if someone takes her away like someone tried to tonight, they’ll fall to pieces. And maybe Winston would get back up and put himself together slowly, dependable and more steady than the other guys, and he would eventually drag Schmidt back up to the surface with him, but Nick would never come back. He knows that.
Jessica Day is too integral a part of his life to remove. He was barely holding on by a thread before she busted into the loft with all her sunshine and trust and hopeful smiles that made him want to be more. Now, removing her from his life would be like drilling a hole into the bottom of a cup of water and giving it to a man dying of thirst.
The rustling of bedsheets from beside him draws Nick out of his dark thoughts. Jess’s face is twisted in fear and her arms are pulled in tight to her chest, the good hand curled protectively in a fist beneath her chin. He watches her chest heave once, twice, before a whimper breaks past her lips. A nightmare.
Nick is quickly beside her bed. She’s breathing harshly, twisting fitfully in her sheets as she tries to move away from the imagined (or remembered) threat. He doesn’t know what to do, how to help her without scaring her more. A sob catches in her throat and a tear trickles past her cheek and Nick knows he can’t let her stay in that dream any longer.
“Jess, Jess,” he runs a hand down her arm, flinching when she cries louder, “you’re okay, you’re safe. It’s just me. It’s Nick. I won’t hurt you, you know I’d never hurt you.” She gives a desperate, pained whine and he swallows roughly before shushing her soothingly. “Wake up, Jess. C’mon, come back to me. I got you.”
Her eyes fly open and she chokes on a gasp as she wakes. “Alright, you’re okay, Jess. I’m here. It was just a dream.” Nick brushes her hair out of her eyes, his hand resting against her cheek. Her face crumbles and she leans into his touch, shoulder shaking with her quiet cries. His thumb brushes back and forth over her cheekbone, wiping away the water as he murmurs reassurances to her. Jess’s casted arm reaches toward him and wordlessly he gets up from his knees and settles on the edge of the bed, careful not to knock into her. She curls into him, fingers fisting the material of his shirt as it grows damp with her tears.
He lets her cry, whispering that he’s here and that she’s safe, but knowing that nothing he does can take away the memories burned into her brain. She falls asleep a long while later, still safely in his arms where he won’t let anything get to her.
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She can’t stop staring at the closet door.
It’s almost a little funny. Jess hadn’t been scared of monsters since she was six years old. She remembers yelling for her dad to come check her closet every night before she would go to sleep just so she was extra sure that nothing would come slithering out while her eyes were closed. It was a fear she never thought she’d go back to, but it seems that 24 years later she’s found another monster to haunt her imagination.
It’s irrational and stupid and childish, but ever since she said goodnight to the guys in the living room and shut the door to her bedroom behind her, she hasn’t moved from her spot standing in front of her door.
This morning, she woke up still in Nick’s arms as he dozed while sitting up in her hospital bed. When he was holding her, Jess felt so safe that she thought that maybe what happened last night wouldn’t affect her as much as she thought it would. But then, their friends arrived and Cece held a change of clothes in hand so Nick let her go so that she could get out of the thin hospital gown she wore.
As soon as he moved away, Jess could feel the fear creeping up the back of her neck once again, grasping at the edges of her thoughts constantly. It made her want to run back to Nick and curl up against him again so he could chase away the cold, itching feeling that somebody was just waiting for her to be alone and vulnerable again.
But she couldn’t do that. She remembered the night before in bits and pieces. The attack, arriving back at the apartment, the bright lights of the emergency room and people asking what happened. But mostly, Jess remembered clinging to Nick as he caught her and feeling so, so helpless as he asked her what happened and she couldn’t get the words out.
She remembered his warm, low voice soothing her as she panicked, but wavering under the surface with fear as he realized how injured she was. She remembered listening to the boys make calls, feeling Nick carry her to the couch and check her over. She remembered screaming when the nurses pulled Nick away from her. And Jess remembered how utterly useless and helpless she was the whole time. It was like she had been catatonic. Her body was bruised but her mind was frozen, too, stuck in a loop of playing that horrible encounter over and over again in her head mercilessly, no matter how many other thoughts she tried to stuff in there to drown it out. It wouldn’t go away. And it made her into some crying, useless burden that her friends had to carry.
She couldn’t let them do that. She couldn’t cling to them and fall apart at the drop of the hat when some shadow in the corner brought her back to that dark street. Jessica Day helped other people, that was who she was. She had to be strong enough to hold herself together. She had to be brave. So when her friends brought her
home and Cece had left, she ignored the stares and the are you sures when she got up from her place on the couch and announced she was going to bed.
Even as each step that took her away from the guys made her stomach churn in nausea, she pushed through.
And now she’s here.
It feels secure here, her back against a corner so that nothing can sneak up on her.
It’s just a closet, Jessica. There wasn’t anything in it when you were six and there won’t be anything in it now.
But she had also believed her parents when they said monsters weren’t real when she was six. And last night she thinks that she may have met one.
Her feet are nailed into the ground. Jess counts to three in her head, even managing to rock her body forward on three, but they don’t budge and she remains rooted to the spot, staring at the closet.
Tears of frustration bite at the edges of her eyes. She swipes angrily at her eyes, so tired of crying even though it seems that her tear ducts don’t agree. Just do it, Day. Don’t be a burden.
A knock makes her jump. Jess spins around to face the door, heart pounding from the sudden noise. Reaching out, she twists the knob.
On the other side, she finds three grown men carrying bundles of blankets and pillows, each dressed in their pajamas.
“What are you guys doing?” Her voice is small and she’s annoyed with herself when it cracks halfway through the sentence. She’s sure that they can see her slightly damp, red eyes and know that she’s still a mess.
“Sleepover,” Schmidt says with a little smile, hefting his pillow a little higher in his arms as if to show her.
“Never had one in your room before,” Winston adds.
Jess exhales shakily and she’s angry at herself for the relief that floods her body at the thought that she doesn’t have to be alone. “You guys don’t have to do this.”
“We want to, Jess,” Nick looks at her, his eyes knowing. “You don’t have to do this on your own.”
She swallows and doesn’t break eye contact with him as she widens the door enough for the boys to file in. Winston and Schmidt throw down their pillows at the foot of her bed as they pass her, Schmidt crowing “Sleepover!” in a deep voice that makes her chuckle.
Nick walks in slowly after them, watching her the whole time. She looks back. For a moment, they don’t say anything. Then, he takes her hand, giving it a little squeeze. “We got ya. I’ve got ya, Day.”
Jess closes her eyes, letting the secure feeling that she felt last night at the hospital wash over her. “Thanks, Miller,” she whispers. The corner of his lips quirk up in a small half smile and he nods.
They fall asleep late that night. Winston comes prepared with a list of questions off the internet and insists that they all spill their secrets in proper sleepover fashion. Jess lets the sound of her friends’ laughter chase away the memories that lurk at the edges of her vision as she listens to their stories and petty arguments.
Later, Winston and Schmidt lay sprawled on the floor at the foot of the bed. They sleep between her and the closet and she knows that with them with her, nothing will come creeping out of the shadows. Jess lays curled on her side in her bed, sleeping peacefully with no monsters haunting her dreams. And on the ground beside her is Nick, always close by and always there when she needs him
When they finally fall asleep, Jess feels safe surrounded by her friends.