Nick stumbled out of the house, took the passenger seat in my car, and hung his head low, clasping both hands on his neck.
“Don’t you dare fall apart,” I seethed, my heart pounding. “Get your shit together.”
“I just,” he muttered, then opened the window as if there wasn’t enough breathing air around. “I can’t believe he tried to kill himself again. What the fuck?! I spoke to himlastweek. He was fine…”
I couldn’t believe it either, but I didn’t question Adrian’s sanity. Nadia was my point of focus. I wondered why she ran home again. Adrian’s relapse seemed like not enough of a reason seeing that she went back to help him fight his addiction. One slipup wouldn’t drive her away.
What the fuck did he do?
Questions multiplied in my head like bacteria in a petri dish. The one I knew the answer to was why she hid in her apartment. Ty’s “she was in a bad place when she left” painted the picture.
Sometimes our mind is the most sophisticated of traps; the darkest of places… It’s the best company to the misery filling our heart.
She stayed away because she was too broken and didn’t want to drag us down. Tires of the BMW squealed when I slammed on the brake in front of Nadia’s apartment. Nick was out of the car first, suddenly alert and determined. We ran up the stairs, and Nick banged on the door, pulling on the handle which used to give way every time.
“Nadia, open up! I know you’re in there. Open up!”
Music played inside,Closerby Kings of Leon, muffled by something that sounded like repetitive, angry scratching or scrubbing. The hair on my neck stood on ends. The scratching stopped, and the music ceased to play, too.
“Open up!” Nick shouted again. “Open the door, Nadia or I’ll break it down! I know you’re back.”
We heard footsteps from within the apartment. The lock clicked, and Nadia rushed away, not bothering to open. Nick pulled on the handle, then pushed the door and let it bang against the wall like a clap of thunder in a silent night.
We walked in, Nick first, but he stopped in the doorway leading to the living room. Dozens of prescription bottles and different sized pills were scattered on the coffee table, and the whole room was filled with dark, creepy paintings and drawings of all sizes.
Stretched canvases were propped against the walls, the windows, and the couch. Mugs housing paintbrushes of different sizes stood on the windowsill and the speaker. The dining table and parts of the floor were covered with A4 and A3 pages of pencil sketches, some stained with a sludge of dark water that spilled from another cup which held brushes.
An easel was pushed between the couch and the wing chair. Paints, pencils and brushes were scattered on the couch, chair and the floor, the whole space littered with snapped pencils and unfinished drawings ripped to shreds.
A girl in white, the same one Nadia painted all those months ago, was in every single drawing. She was no longer a puppet, though. The strings were still tied to her hands and body, but no one held them in a tight grip. In all the haunting mess, Nadia sat on the couch, her head down, loose strands of hair covering most of her face, clothes splattered with black paint and fingers stained with pencil.
“I was going to come over next week,” she said, her voice tired. She gawked at the floor, toying with her fingers. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
Nick took a step forward, careful not to step on the art.
“Like what? Look at me and tell me what happened.”
She brushed her hair behind her ears and raised her head to look at Nick but chose not to glance my way.
Blood circulated in my veins, thickening with every inch of her face I uncovered. Wrath gushed through me and grew swiftly like something ravenous, all-seeing and demonic.
A purple bruise on her cheekbone, a split lip, a yellow bruise on her chin, and more on her neck.
My thoughts lost their former acuteness, spreading and unravelling different layers of endless, diseased reality. My mind raced, connecting the dots, simultaneously refusing to recognise that this wasn’t a dream.
And the violence… It quivered inside me like a loose, live wire, ready to unleash on the motherfucker who dared to lay his hands on Nadia.
“What happened?” Nick choked, glued to the spot. “What happened to your face?!”
The sight was too much to take for either of us. I dropped my gaze to the floor, bile coming up to my throat. I went through a fair share of shit in my life; I watched my friend die. I watched others die… dozens of soldiers, hundreds of civilians. I watched hunger, poverty and destruction, but nothing could compare to what I felt when I saw Nadia’s bruised face. My heart, mind and everything else were ripped open like a letter with a knife.
Every panic attack I witnessed, every sentence she spoke about her problems, her reaction to the news about Adrian’s suicide attempt and Nick’s screams when he found out about us all those months ago… It came back to me like the aftershock of an earthquake.
Small pieces of the puzzle fell into place. I finally understood why she was so hurt. I understood that her eyes were never filled with secrets. They were filled with despair.
Nadia chose that moment to look at me. Our eyes locked, and her face blanched with shame. My stomach twisted like a wrenched rag when she brought her hands up to her face to cover the bruises. I was on the verge of overloading; not far from allowing the wrath to take control, I clenched my jaw hard to keep it together.
I wanted to scream, hit the walls andrunto New York to tie a fucking rope around Adrian’s neck myself, but if there was ever a time for me to step-up, thenthiswas it.