Chapter Text
Nick shifted uncomfortably on the therapist’s couch and picked at a loose thread. How Charlie had done this for a decade, he had no clue.
“So, Nick. What brings you in?”
“Um, it should be on my intake file,” Nick trailed off.
The therapist’s eyes softened, and she cocked her head toward him.
“I know that. But I’d like to hear it in your own words.”
Nick fumbled for a place to start. His dad’s abrupt departure from his life? David’s reign of terror? He thought back to last week, the whole reason he had called to make the appointment. Charlie left sobbing at the kitchen table, shrinking away from Nick like if he touched him, he’d get burnt.
Yeah, their fight was probably a good place to start. Even though they’d made up that night, Charlie gently stroking Nick’s back on the couch, murmuring that he loves him, that he wants him to get help, that he won’t let Nick toss them away that easy.
“My husband and I have been thinking of starting a family of our own. And I want that, more than anything,” Nick said, taking deep breaths between each sentence. “But the more I think about it, and the more I grow to want it, the more I’m convinced I’ll fuck it up. That I didn’t learn the right things when I was a kid…that I’d end up hurting my child in some way.”
“Physically?”
“God no! No. No.”
“Okay. Have you told your husband you’re having these thoughts?”
“Yes that’s…we fought about it last week. We never actually fight. And I guess I got what I wanted from the fight. I proved to Charlie that I won’t be able to handle starting a family. I mean, he knew me when all the shit from my childhood came to a head. When my mum realized I was spiraling and totally desensitized to it all, just fighting to fight. He has a pretty full picture of how my life was up until meeting him. But I feel like it would hurt him to know how much of it I carry with me now.”
“Could you perhaps start by telling me?”
***
Nick steeled himself as David’s beat up car rolled up to the police station. It had become their Saturday night routine—Nick would wander around town with his rugby mates, content to get into any fight Harry Greene pulled them into, and David would pick him up when the group found the trouble they were hoping to get into and inevitably got rounded up by cops after a flurry of fists and blood.
He tried to puff out his chest as he slid into the passenger seat.
“Busted lip? Some Higgs ladies take you lot down?”
“St. John’s,” Nick muttered. “Just finishing something they started on the pitch last week.”
David didn’t respond, just lit his cigarette and turned up the radio before speeding out of the parking lot. The Nelson brothers didn’t talk much, and neither of them seemed to mind that. David abided by a stiff upper lip policy, meaning their father, their mother, and anything to do with feelings was strictly off the conversational table. Not that Nick would want to have a heart to heart with him about any of those things anyway.
If his mum noticed Nick’s busted lip or David’s still lit cigarette when the boys slid in through the front door, she didn’t say anything. She was still in her nurse’s scrubs, occasionally stirring spaghetti on the stove with a vacant stare at their grey countertops. Nick set down the day’s post—bills and a Department of Work and Pensions notice—before grabbing bowls for dinner and giving his mother a quick peck on the cheek.
“Hello, Nicky,” she said with a smile, only her sunken eyes betraying deep exhaustion. For months she had been petitioning the DWP for disability benefits as she sank deeper into the symptoms of her fibromyalgia, and each day she had to work a shift her pain and depression worsened.
“Go sit, Mum. I’ll finish this up,” he said, taking the spoon from her hand before she could even protest.
David was waiting for her in the living room, an envelope in hand. Nick kept his eyes focused on the boiling water, letting the steam tickle his sore jaw and lip, but strained his ears to overhear them in their living room.
“Take this and deposit it tomorrow morning,” David said gruffly, handing over the crumpled envelope.
Nick heard a crinkle of paper and his mum’s gasp.
“David, where did you…”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Jesus, David, of course it matters! If this is from where I think it’s from, then you could get taken away for it! Not to mention you can’t set this example for Nick!”
“I’m not his dad, I don’t need to set any examples,” David said through grit teeth. “You can either deposit it tomorrow and we can keep the lights on, or you can wait for the DWP to get its shit together. What’ll it be, mum?”
At that last question, David was shouting, towering over their mother who sat frozen on the couch, still clutching the envelope. Nick abandoned his post at the stove to stand silently in the doorway of the living room. He had always figured David would start peddling drugs—it’s what most 20-year-olds stuck in council housing did—but he didn’t think he’d be so brazen about it.
“I just didn’t want this for you,” their mother whispered. David hung his head back and rolled his eyes.
“Should’ve thought about that before you let dad leave,” he said, and shoulder checked past Nick to go back to town.
Sarah Nelson didn’t move from that spot on a couch for an hour.
***
“You say things came to a head in this year of your life. When did it start to change for you?”
“I guess the biggest wake-up call was when my mates found out our friend had been secretly hooking up with some year 10. And so one Friday night they…we I guess…all went out to beat up Charlie Spring.”