Brightly (Flicker #2) (62 page)

“Neither do I, but it’s sure as hell not this,” Jason said. “He hasn’t left the apartment since we came home almost a
month
ago. He’s not sleeping. He doesn’t eat enough. Everything pisses him off. I can barely get him to talk to me anymore. He’s miserable.”

“Amelia cut off one of his legs a few weeks ago,” Lee said, feeling oddly defensive. “Did you expect him to just shrug it off?”

Jason grimaced. “Of course not. But it’s starting to scare me. He’s completely hopeless. There’s no fight left in him. You know what I mean? I’ve never seen him like this. Never.”

Lee was silent at first, unsure of how to respond. When she thought of Nasser, shuffling around the apartment like a sleepwalker she couldn’t wake, she felt a sharp pain beneath her ribs. That told her everything she needed to know.

As badly as she wanted to believe that Nasser was getting better—or, at least, that he wasn’t getting worse—Lee couldn’t deny what she’d seen with her own eyes. He had grown increasingly distant and quiet since they came home, and when he did speak, it was often tersely, with less patience than she had come to expect from him.

On Siren Island, when Nasser was consumed by thoughts of the curse and plagued by blinding headaches, he hadn’t shared any of his concerns with Lee or the others. Instead, he had turned inward. He was so determined not to worry anyone else that he buried everything where nobody else could see it. He kept all his burdens for himself.

And he was doing it again: hiding from them, as much as he could. It was like Nasser had gone away someplace inside where she couldn’t follow.

“What are we supposed to do?” Lee asked finally.

“I don’t know how much more we
can
do. Actually,” Jason added delicately, “I’ve been thinking about Amelia’s offer again. That’s what I want you to talk to him about.”

Lee sighed. That was hardly the solution she was looking for. “We’ve been through this already, Jason.”

“Weeks ago, when we thought Nasser would be all right. That offer’s looking better and better all the time.”

“Nasser’s already made up his mind,” Lee reminded him. When Jason first told her about the offer, Lee had been privately relieved that Nasser had declined. After everything that had happened, she couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving. “We agreed that he’s not going anywhere.”

“I never agreed with that. Filo and Alice didn’t, either. You’re the only one who hasn’t tried to talk Nasser out of it.”

“Because I respected his choice.”

“A choice he made without taking any time to think, a week after he lost his leg, when he was on a ton of painkillers,” Jason pointed out. “Do you honestly think he was clearheaded enough to make any big decisions?”

Lee paused, choosing her words. Gingerly, she said, “I think, after Siren, Nasser deserves to make his own decisions about what happens to him.”

Jason looked like she’d slapped him. “Don’t use that against me,” he said coldly. “Don’t you dare. I made the call, and I have to live with it, but you can’t act like you weren’t on board.”

“I’m not saying you were wrong! I would’ve done the same thing, if it had been up to me. There was no other choice. But it’s not that simple now.”

“Don’t you remember what you told me? You said you would choose
him
. You said you’d choose whatever’s best for him, every time.”

“That was when he was
dying
, Jason!” Lee snapped, her voice carrying. A middle-aged man pushing a cart past them shot her a stern look, but she ignored him. “When he was
dying
and couldn’t choose for himself!”

“What do you think is happening now?” Jason demanded. “He’s self-destructing. Don’t pretend that you don’t see it.”

“Of course I see it! I just don’t know what to
do
.” She shook her head. “I thought I could make it better for him if I just tried hard enough, but no matter what I do, nothing changes. He just gets worse.”

“Because you can’t fix it that way,” Jason said. “People don’t get better just because you love them enough.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?” he asked. “You can’t be everything for him, all the time. You can’t be the one thing that makes it better. Nobody expects you to be that—
including him
. That’s too much to put on one person.”

She winced. She wouldn’t admit it, but that was precisely what she’d been trying to do. For weeks, she had tried so hard to be what Nasser needed, but she had no idea what that was.

“Listen,” Jason said, softer. “You and I both know that he’s not just going to snap out of it one day and go back to being himself. His leg is gone. He can’t walk, and he can’t cope with that. If he’s going to get better, something has to change.”

Lee could see where Jason was going with this, and she didn’t like it. “We don’t even know Amelia. She’s a stranger.”

“She saved his life.”

“That doesn’t mean we can trust her.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Jason complained. “Nothing she could possibly do would be enough for you, would it? And that’s not even what’s really stopping him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nasser’s not worried about what the Guild might do to him. He’s worried about what will happen to
us
. Right now,
we
are what’s keeping him here—you and me and Alice and Filo.”

Lee went very still. “He said that?”

Jason nodded. “He thinks going with Amelia is the same as abandoning us. That’s what he’s hung up on. That’s what he’s basing his decision on.
Us.
Does that seem right to you?”

“No,” she admitted. “But it
does
sound like Nasser.”

“Yeah, in the worst way.”

“Do you really want him to go?” Lee asked. “Really?”

“I guess you didn’t hear me the first hundred times.”

“So if he goes with Amelia and you never see him again, you’d be all right with that?”

Jason’s expression tightened. “You’re not the only one who’s afraid to lose him, you know,” he said. “But if that’s what it takes to keep him safe, then I’ll live with it. We can’t cling to him because we’re scared. We have to do right by him. He needs help that we can’t give him.”

“And you think he needs Amelia? The Guild?”

“Yes!” Jason cried, exasperated. “Open your eyes. An apprenticeship with Amelia would get him in with the Guild, which would set him up for the rest of his life. She can teach him to control his magic so he stops having seizures. She can get him a
leg
. I want that for him.”

“So do I, but—”

“But
nothing
. You know all of that can only happen one way.” He touched her arm, like he was trying to reassure her, but she shrugged him off. “I know you love him, Lee. But I love him, too. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Of course it does, but—”

Jason shook his head, just once. He looked so much like Nasser, she thought, not just in his features, but in the weariness that made him seem older than he was. He wasn’t the person he’d been before Siren Island.

“I love him enough to give him what he needs,” Jason said. “Do you?”

Lee swallowed. “Even if I agreed with you, he’s already made up his mind. I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Talk to him,” Jason implored. “Just talk to him. Help him understand that it doesn’t have to be this way. He’s not listening to anyone else.”

“What makes you think he’ll listen to me?”

“Oh, come on. He’s in love with you. He respects you. He always listens to you.”

“I’m not sure about that.” She shifted from foot to foot. “We’re not…. We haven’t been communicating very well lately.”

Undeterred, Jason said, “Try anyway. Please. I’m begging you to talk to him. He can’t be here when the Guild comes. He’s suffered enough. If we can get him away from that—”

“Nasser’s never budged on this, not for a minute.” Lee grabbed the side of the cart with one hand and squeezed the cold metal. “It’s not my place to mess with that, if he knows what he wants. I wouldn’t feel right.”

“I understand that,” he said, not unkindly. “But this isn’t about how you feel. It’s about what’s best for Nasser. Remember that.”

“That’s all I’ve thought about since he broke his leg in the first place. I’ve been trying to do what’s best for him all this time. I just don’t know if I…” Lee trailed off. Standing there in the middle of the clean, bright aisle, she felt abruptly lost. She didn’t know what she was doing anymore. It felt like there were no correct answers.

Gently, Jason asked, “What else is on the list?”

Lee consulted the paper still clutched in her hand, grateful that he’d given her an exit. The wheels rattled when Jason started pushing the cart again, and for the rest of the outing, Lee did her best to pretend that nothing had happened. It didn’t help.

Chapter Thirty-Three:

“What are you doing?” Lee asked, twisting around so she could see over the back of the couch. When Nasser got up to look for some reference books, he left his crutches and proceeded to hop toward the bookcases on the far side of the apartment.

Nasser paused beside the worktable, steadying himself against it with one hand. “Believe it or not, hopping is easier. The crutches aren’t worth it over short distances, and they make it a pain to carry anything.”

Lee shot him an uncertain look, but Nasser shook his head.

“It’s fine,” he assured her.

“I can—” Lee barely managed to stop herself in time. She’d promised herself that she would be better about all of this, to let him do as much as he could and maybe a little more, so she bit her lip and forced herself to leave him to it.

Still, it pained her to see him hop like that. In the beginning, Lee had often tried to talk to Nasser about the alternative to crutches, but he was unwilling to have that conversation, and after a while, she gave up. Maybe it was time for another attempt.

As Nasser pulled a volume from a tightly-packed shelf above his head, the book beside it liberated itself. Nasser moved automatically, reaching over and fumbling with his empty left hand to catch the book as it fell, and overbalanced. For a second, he wobbled dangerously, and then both he and the books were on the floor.

Lee jumped to her feet and was across the room in a moment, bending over him as he sat up. Fretfully, she asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He always said that, no matter what. The words had become almost meaningless to Lee. She no longer believed him. “Here,” she said, offering her hands, but he shrugged her off.

“I can do it,” he said stiffly.

She hesitated, then retreated a step as Nasser turned over and moved carefully onto his left knee. He braced his hands against the floor and pushed against it so he could rise, slowly and precariously, onto his good leg. As she watched him, Lee got the sense that he had gone through this process more than she had realized, often enough for him to look well-practiced. How often did this happen?

This wasn’t the first time Nasser had fallen, she knew, but it had been a while since she’d heard of any falls. He seemed to be doing well with the crutches, so by and by, she worried less. She told herself that he was adjusting, that he would be all right, despite what Jason said. As she watched him now, though, all the worries she’d tried to bury began to claw their way back up.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Lee asked.

“Yeah,” he said immediately, though his neck was reddening. Now that he was standing, he placed one hand against the bookcase for balance. “Don’t worry about it.”

Without thinking, Lee trotted across the room and fetched his crutches for him. Though he accepted them, his expression was grim, and it was only when she bent and started scooping up the fallen books that she remembered her promise to stop fussing. Lee winced internally. She had done well in the last few days, but the instinct was hard to resist. She wanted to take care of him. It was too easy to slip back into the habit.

When Nasser crutched toward the kitchen, away from her, Lee trailed after him. Gently, she said, “You need a wheelchair.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

“You can’t stay on those crutches forever,” she persisted. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I said
no
,” Nasser told her, in a tone that suggested the matter was closed.

For a second, Lee was thrown. She recognized that authoritative tone, but he’d never used it with her before. She’d thought it was reserved for Jason, Filo and Alice. Then she exhaled through her nose, frustrated by his stubbornness. Nasser was usually reasonable, more so than the rest of them, but when he dug his heels in, he was impossible. And lately, he’d dug his heels in a lot.

“It’s like you can’t stand to make anything easier,” she complained. “Even when you need something, even when there’s something I can help you with, you never say so. If you’d just tell me what you need, for once—”