Saint Nicholas (3 page)

He swiped his hand across his chin and without warning he took me by the wrist and pulled me away from Carmine’s. I didn’t protest, but rather just let him lead me down the street further away from danger. The feel of his hot fingers wrapped around my pale skin wasn’t lost on me. It was the first genuine human contact I’d had in many years, and it made my head feel fuzzy. It wasn’t supposed to feel good, I told myself, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the best feeling.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I wanna show you something,” he said.

Out of nowhere that song from Aladdin popped into my head, with the lyric
I can show you the world
, running through my mind.

My pulse quickened and I glanced away so Nicholas wouldn’t notice me smiling.

Show me
, I thought.
Show me the world.

* * *

We sat atop his apartment building on two lawn chairs overlooking the street. Off in the distance, the Hudson River gave way to New Jersey while the breeze blew strands of my hair every which way around my face, but I didn’t care. I felt alive for the first time ever, high above the world and with a guy I barely knew by my side, yet with him I felt safe, and that was all I cared about.

Nicholas picked at a thread on his shorts, but neither of us said anything for a long time. We sat in silence, taking in the smell of one another. His cologne made me want to bury my face in his neck and breathe deep while wrapping my arms tight around him, but the question he’d soon ask loomed over my head like a dark cloud, forcing me back to reality.

“So what was all that back there?”

I thought long and hard about what I’d tell him. Somehow the truth just didn’t seem right, like somehow it would shatter the moment. Besides, my father had always told me that if I breathed a word about what went on at home to anybody, he’d make me suffer more than I’ve ever suffered before in my life. I hated how afraid I was of him—of his threats—but it was what it was.

I shrugged but didn’t meet Nicholas’ gaze. I detested lying to him, but was it really lying if I never said anything at all?

He nodded. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

I quickly looked up to see the sincerity on his face. It was unmistakable, and made me want to cry. I’d always been forced to do things I didn’t want to do, and now here was someone the complete opposite of everything I’d ever known. He couldn’t possibly know how much those words meant to me.

Nicholas reached out and brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. The feel of his fingertips lightly making their way across my skin caused my breath to hitch and the hair on the back of my neck to prick up, and he smiled at the delightfully uncomfortable way he made me feel.

I forced myself to swallow, asking, “You always bring girls up here?”

“Oh yeah,” he said smugly, his hazel eyes narrowing into a mischievous look. “All the time. Helena and I come up here and fool around every once in a while.”

My face fell. Helena? Who was that, and what exactly did he mean,
fool around
?

Nicholas laughed. “Relax,” he told me, “Helena’s my little sister.”

Through closed lips I licked my teeth and scowled jokingly at him. He knew how he made me feel, and I liked it. Liked the way he wasn’t afraid to bust my chops over it, like it was no big thing because he liked me, too.

But as the minutes went by and we stared into each others’ eyes, with mine sometimes traveling down the length of his torso to look at his bare muscles, I got the feeling that this was something new for Nicholas. Maybe it was the way his knee wouldn’t stop shaking, or the way he fidgeted in his seat, but it gave me the impression that he hadn’t been with a lot of girls, if any, and I found that to be even more attractive. It was like he was putting himself out there, and for me. Doing something he normally wouldn’t do because his heart told him it was right.

I knew the feeling. I’d never so much as kissed a boy let alone sat so close to one outside of school. They were just as much a mystery to me as I figured girls were to them. Yet with Nicholas I wanted to explore. Unravel the wonder behind his laughter and smile, and get to know everything there was to know about him.

He held out his hand and without even thinking about it, I laced my fingers with his, letting them dangle between the chairs. He breathed deep, saying, “This is nice, isn’t it? Just two people, hanging out.”

I stared out over the Hudson and nodded. It was nice. The way he smelled, the way he made me feel, it was a nice vacation from my normal sadness, and as our clutched hands swayed back and forth between us, I wanted the feeling to last forever.

“Tell me something,” he said. “Anything. You pick. I want to know about you.”

“I don’t have a sister, or a brother, but I’ve always wanted one.”

“That’s cool. You got a mom and a dad?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, Helena’s ten and she’s a holy terror, but you can’t hate little sisters no matter how much you want to, huh?”

“Are both of your parents around?” I asked.

“I got a mom, and somewhere I got a dad, but don’t ask me where. He left about a year ago and never came back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s better off that way.”

I knew what he meant. Many a times I’d wished my father would just disappear and leave us for good, but I wasn’t that lucky.

“You go to 35?” he asked, switching the subject to school.

“Manhattan High,” I rolled my eyes. Just the thought of school gave me butterflies in my stomach, but I’d suffer through them if it meant not having to talk about family.

“What do you want to be?”

Again, I was left without an answer. I’d given up a while ago thinking about what I was going to do with my future, because there wasn’t any scenario in my mind that didn’t involve my father. If he had his way I’d be chained to the bed for the rest of my life, living with him until one of us was dead.

“C’mon,” Nicholas pressed, “you must wanna do something.”

I shook my head, my hair gently swishing back and forth over my shoulders. “I don’t know,” I said flatly.

He looked puzzled, but didn’t say anything else for a while.

I hated that I couldn’t just come right out and tell him what I wanted to. Tell him that my life was a living hell and that every part of me wanted to just run from it every second of the day, right up until I met him, and now I was more confused than ever but in a good way, because being there with him gave me hope. Hope that somehow I’d make it out of my crappy situation and find my place in the world.

“Well, I want to be a writer,” he said. “Novels, you know?”

And then he went on and on about the books he liked to read, and the kinds of stories he liked to write. I sat clinging to his every word. The last thing I would have ever expected a kid from Hell’s Kitchen to want to be was a writer. It shocked and intrigued me, both in the best way possible. Hearing the enthusiasm in his voice when he talked was contagious, and it wasn’t long before I had the widest grin on my face.

“What?” he asked. “You think it’s funny I wanna be a writer?”

“No,” I said boisterously. “I think it’s awesome. Maybe some day you could write me a story, and then I can open up a bookstore and sell it for you.”

His eyes narrowed into two slits and he looked at me disbelievingly for a second. “You bustin’ my balls, Sarah?”

I shook my head. “If I was bustin’ your balls, you’d know it.”

His eyes widened into quarters and he laughed the sweetest laugh I’d ever heard. Loud and full of life. Full of passion. I couldn’t help but laugh with him.

“Sure, you can sell my books,” he said. “I think that’s a
novel
idea.”

“Novel Idea, that’s what my shop will be called then.”

He squeezed my hand, offering me a cute, lopsided grin as he looked into my eyes, nodding ever so slightly as if acknowledging the connection we both shared.

When the conversation somehow made its way back around to family, I listened intently as he told me all about his father, who’d left them a year ago and what a drunk he’d been. When he mentioned the way he’d abused his wife with words and infidelity, I couldn’t believe how closely Nicholas’s life mirrored mine in some ways. He never mentioned his father beating him the way mine did, but he did talk about the way he made his son feel, which was the same way I felt. Worthless.

“So when he left it was no big thing, you know? It was like, the entire atmosphere in the apartment changed. No more walking on eggshells and stuff. Mom seems happier, though she has a lot to handle, but she gets by. I help her out when I can, cleaning and stuff with Helena. She doesn’t want me to get a job, just focus on school so I can get the hell out of here one day. What about you, you want to get out of here?”

“More than you know,” I said, alluding to my situation at home, but too afraid to say anything.

He didn’t press it, but I could tell by the way he looked at me that he was trying to figure it all out. His head cocked slightly to the side, the contemplative grin on his lips—it was all very pensive, and I just sat there, staring back at him for the longest time, wishing that I could listen to him talk forever without having to say a word.

“I should go,” I said as the sun began to drop in the sky.

Nicholas didn’t protest, but I could see the disappointment in his eyes as he stood up and wrapped his arms around me. We’d barely even breached the surface of who we were as people, or what this was we were experiencing, but it didn’t matter. With him I felt like I already knew, and all that other stuff was just filler. Yeah, it was important to me that he was a good person and he cared about who I was, not just what I could do for him, but honestly that was the furthest thing from my mind as his body pressed against mine and I could finally breathe him in the way I’d wanted to.

He didn’t hold on tight, but just held me close to him. Gentle. I could hear his heart thumping against his chest, beating fast like mine. This was so new for the both of us, and I wanted to look up into his eyes and tell him it was okay, that there was nothing to be nervous about, but I knew that wasn’t the case. There was a whole mess of stuff to be nervous about, and Nicholas didn’t know any of it.

I’d tell him, in time, but for now I just wanted to feel him close to me for a while before the other shoe dropped, because when it did I didn’t know if I could count on him to stick around.

* * *

We spent the entire week joined at the hip. Just the two of us. We ran around Hell’s Kitchen like a couple of demons, doing everything and anything there was to do together. We visited the bakeries, sat in lobbies of posh hotels until we got kicked out for making too much noise, window shopped at places like
Fine and Dandy
, and
Tagg
, and we spent all day Sunday at the
Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market
, an outdoor smorgasbord where you can find anything from clothes and food, to knick-knacks and hidden treasures. It was perfect, and the entire time Nicholas never let go of my hand and always kept me close, like he knew that was exactly what I needed to feel safe.

We talked, too. A lot. Well, mostly him, but that was okay. I could listen to his voice for hours and never get tired of it. Its deep, soothing sound was like honey in my heart, and each time he opened his mouth I looked at him and saw the passion in his eyes with every word he spoke. It filled me with the same feeling, like I could do anything in the world as long as I was by his side. Even stand up to my father, which was scary in its own right, but exhilarating at the same time because no other person had ever made me feel like that. Nicholas was the first, and I forever wanted him to be my last.

Carrying around our own twisty cones, we licked vanilla ice cream, walking hand-in-hand through the various vendors, stopping to admire their wares every so often. I paused to look at some tiny crystal animals on display, marveling over the intricate detail on a dolphin breaking through the waves, turning to smile at Nicholas, who had his eyes trained on me.

“What?” I blushed, busying myself with my ice cream.

“Nothing. It’s just…you’re so beautiful when you’re happy.”

I held his gaze, looking at him to see if this was some kind of angle he was playing, but there was nothing in those eyes but sincerity, and it made my heart swell with emotion. No one had ever called me beautiful before. Not like that. When I was a kid, maybe. Dressed in a pretty dress or whatever.
Oh, she’s so beautiful
. But the way Nicholas said it, like he meant it, it was music to my ears.

“You got a nice smile, too,” he beamed.

“Stop it,” I teased, bopping him on the nose with my ice cream. It left a splotch of white vanilla that looked hilarious contrasted against his olive skin, and I burst out in a fit of laughter as Nicholas stood there, feigning a look of surprise on his face.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, huh?” he joked.

“Yeah, I do,” I giggled.

“How about this? Is this funny?”

He smashed his cone against my face, getting ice cream all over my nose and mouth. I squealed in genuine shock and took a step back to allow some of it to drip to the concrete rather than all over my shirt. The crystal vendor—a Spanish man in his fifties with a thick black moustache—looked on in amusement, laughing to himself. I looked from him to Nicholas, who stood there with a grin of satisfaction on his face. There wasn’t a napkin in sight and I didn’t know what to do, so I started wiping the ice cream off my nose and onto my palm, licking it up as best I could. When I was sure I got it all, I raised my eyes to see Nicholas staring at me. Gone was the look of amusement on his face, replaced with something else hiding deep behind his eyes. A hunger that flashed like lightning before it disappeared in an instant and he smiled.

“You still got a little on you,” he said, taking a step forward.

“What? Where?” I wiped at the corners of my mouth but no ice cream made its way to my fingers. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I’m sure.”

Then he looked at the Spanish man who was still watching us, and winked. The crystal vendor grinned and nodded his head in my direction; like they were both in on some secret plan to make me look…I don’t know, silly? Foolish? Anything was possible at this point.