20. Nikos

20

NIKOS

I've never told anyone this story, besides the police who investigated it when I was eighteen. Of course my father knows, and still hangs it over my head like a rotting carrot I'm supposed to chase after.

Just the thought of voicing it aloud is painful, but Oli is persistent, which I find almost calming. Like someone else is taking control of something I've never been able to deal with.

‘Sit with me,' Oli pats the rusted iron chair on the veranda at the back of the house.

The sun beats down on me, making me sweat through the white linen shirt I'd put on to go shopping. I rip the sunglasses and hat off, no longer caring if it was a good enough disguise when I popped into the small town and brought supplies. No one seemed to notice me. If anything, the kind-faced Greek woman who'd served me spoke in broken English when talking to me, clearly telling me she had no idea I was one, Greek and two, the same boy she'd last seen over twelve years ago. My new American accent to my Greek must have made me seem like a different person.

I bury my face in my hands, unable to clear the image of Oli standing on the stairs. It wasn't the first time he'd used them since we got here, but it had been the first time without me standing right next to him. Seeing him, just stood there, on the very step that cracked my mother's skull open like an egg was terrifying.

You should really tell him how dangerous stairs can be… one wrong step and he'll have a nasty fall.

‘Take your time,' Oli encourages, reminding me I hadn't said a word since he ushered me back here. He places a hand on my back and rubs circles into my skin. ‘Did something happen at the shop? Crazed fans?'

I wish it was that easy. ‘It's not that. It's…' I look at him through damp lashes, the tears falling freely. ‘There's a reason I haven't cum here in so many years. I didn't plan to take you here, but when we got to the airport and saw all the media, I panicked and changed our destination.'

Oli doesn't pause his calming circles. In fact, he lays his other hand on my knee and squeezes. His touch alone anchors me. ‘We can leave, if it's easier?'

I shook my head. ‘I can't always run away.'

‘Run away from what, Nikos?'

His use of my name is jarring. I long for him to continue pretending we're strangers, using the nicknames as a way to keep playing this little game we found ourselves in. But since we arrived here, for two days now, I've been lava bubbling in a dormant volcano, ready to erupt. Seeing Oli on those stairs was the stone dropped into the chasm that broke down my defences.

‘My mother died here,' I admit.

Oli takes a moment to take in this information. His silence is so palpable I can taste the emotion in the hot air. ‘I'm so sorry.'

Normally people follow up sad news with an apology, but how could they possibly mean it? Except when Oli says it, he's so sincere I swear I believe him.

‘We don't need to talk about anything that will only upset you more,' Oli starts.

‘But I do,' I reply, the flood gates wide open. ‘I - I need to say it and maybe the memories will stop being so overbearing.'

I wonder if Oli realised that we'd hardly spent time in the house. Most of our days had been on the beach, the evenings out in the small garden overlooking the wondrous views. I have done everything in my power to dance around the ghosts lurking here, but all I'd done was push down the inevitable until it broke me from the inside.

‘Then I'm here, no judgement. If there's anything I can offer you, it's a safe space. Somewhere for you to put your secrets.' He leans his head on my shoulder, finding yet another part of himself to touch me with. We're practically conjoined by the time the secrets spill free.

‘My mother she - she fell. Down the stairs.' It was half a lie. ‘Seeing you on them just made me panic. It was a silly reaction. But the last time I saw someone I care about on those stairs, they didn't get the chance to walk down them.'

‘Oh my god, Nikos. That's awful.'

‘It was. I mean, it is.'

‘That must've been really hard for you and your father. Losing the pillar of your family like that.'

I drew back, the glare of the sun punishing me. With a shaking hand, I reach for the glass of chilled water Oli prepared for me. The contents slosh over the rim before the water reaches my mouth. I almost choke just trying to swallow it down.

I could tell Oli everything. What my father did. What he was still doing. But once the story was finished, Oli would go from pitying me to thinking I was the root cause of the evil. I caused it. Her death, although not by my hands, was my fault.

As I sit beside Oli, the rushing waves far below and the chirping of crickets surrounding us, my mind replays what happened in the moments before my mother's death.

I slip into the memory with ease.

‘Mum, hurry up!' I screamed at the top of my lungs, voice cracking from late puberty. I looked up the stairs, waiting for her to come for me. Our bags were packed and ready at the door. I'd borrowed a friend's car to get us to the airport, where cheap tickets had been booked to get us out of Greece.

She'd gone back upstairs for something. A picture. I saw it in her grasp when she rounded the top of the stairs. ‘I'm ready, darling.'

Father arrived home at the worst moment. If only we'd left sooner, then maybe she would've still been alive. Hell, if I'd not made her leave, if I didn't plan this all…

The bruise under her swollen eye was black and blue. Courtesy of father's fist the previous night - the last straw. When he hit her, beat her, it was always in places no one could see. But the fit of madness he'd last night was the worst yet. It was a miracle she was still alive.

A door slammed open. I heard father's booming voice as he returned home. He'd seen the car, the bags. Then he caught the two passports in my hand, mother at the top of the stairs - dressed for the first time in weeks. He knew what was happening. We were leaving him. Our abuser. Our monster. The man I'd watched beat my mother bloody for years. The man who terrorized me with threats of the same, which I was only spared from by my mother taking my place.

I was done letting him hurt her.

I placed myself before the stairs, trying to block him from reaching them. His fist was fast and sure. My head cracked back and stars blurred my vision. I was sprawled on the floor in moments. By the time I righted myself, father had climbed the staircase and stood at the top, grasping my mother by the shoulders, shaking her.

‘Get your hands off her!' I'd shouted, mouth full of blood.

‘Stop this,' mother pleaded, eyes pinched closed, clutching the picture in her grasp as though it was her lifeline. I'd see later what picture it was. One of me and my parents together, happy as we once had been.

‘Father,' I begged, ‘please don't do this. Just let us go.'

‘No,' he shouted back at me, still shaking mother. ‘You'll never leave me. Never.'

What happened next was so quick

‘Nikos,' Oli pleads. ‘Breathe!'

I snap my eyes open, blinking away the memory for a moment of clarity. It's still there, lurking in my mind, ready to sink its claws into me and drag me back into it.

‘It was all my fault, Oli,' I pant. My breath is coming short and sharp.

I don't see his reaction.

Instead, I watch as the phantom of my father pushed my mother from the top step, sending her helpless body tumbling down the stairs. Her scream cut short as her skull cracked against the two bottom steps. Blood pooled across the floor, spreading towards where I stood, helpless and afraid. All I could do was look down at the wide, terrified glint in her all-seeing eyes. Hair matted with blood, body bent, hand outstretched towards me, flashing me my first glance at the picture she'd gone back to collect.

She died because I made her run away.

‘This is your doing, boy.'

I looked up the stairs to where father stood, breathing heavy, expression the mask of the monster I knew him to be. I didn't think. I only acted. I bent down, picked up a shard of glass from the shattered frame, and ran up the stairs to face him -

Arms engulf me, finally dragging me out of the memory. I leave it behind, refusing to see what happens next.

‘Accidents happen, Nikos. The world is a terrible and cruel place. And sometimes, not everything has a cause.' Oli consoles me as my tears soak his linen shirt. ‘It wasn't your fault. It was no one's fault.'

It was there, on the tip of my tongue, to tell him that he was wrong. My father had killed my mother in a fit of panic and rage. But I could never tell anyone that. If I did, it would only invite more questions.

As my father told me that day, his arm bleeding where I'd slashed him, his neck bruised black from the grasp of my hands. ‘Your handprints are all over her, and now me. Tell anyone what I did, and you will be the one to be convicted.'

It takes a moment for me to gather myself. When I do, I give myself a few more selfish moments of Oli's hold before I pull away, dust off the emotion, and regain control. ‘I shouldn't have off-loaded that all on you. This is meant to be a nice break. A chance to get away. Instead, I'm spoiling it.'

‘Nikos Adonis Ridge, I swear if you say something like that again, I will take you down to the beach and drown you myself.' Oli is deadpan when he threatens me, and yet I know he'd never. ‘You're allowed to have emotions. I know you're used to being this super-star actor who's more robot than person. But remember, with me, you get to be someone else - your true self. We all have demons. Sometimes you banish them alone, and other times you need a little help.'

‘Thank you,' I say, wanting nothing more than to forget this conversation. Yes, it has lightened the load a little bit, but not enough. I will never escape my haunting past - not when my father still uses it like a noose, tightening year by year.

When I ran away from home after my mother's burial, when the police case was closed and confirmed as an accident, I never looked back. My father didn't get in touch until he saw me modelling in a magazine. His demands for money got bigger and bigger the more gigs I got. Then, when the acting jobs rolled around, I was practically giving every penny just to keep him from ruining the life I'd created. Everyone thought I'd blown my money on drugs, alcohol, and women. I hadn't had the energy to combat the assumptions, but it couldn't be further from the truth.

Nikos Ridge, the mummy murderer.

Nikos Ridge, his father's son.

Nikos Ridge, the monster.

‘There must be some nice memories here,' Oli says, cheeks reddening. ‘I found some family pictures, and you looked so happy. Carefree. Let's focus on those for the rest of the day, shall we?'

I swallow the bile down. The idea of Oli laying eyes on my father, even in a picture, makes me want to burn the house down. But he wasn't wrong. We'd had a good life before father lost his job and turned to drinking, that's when the physical abuse started.

‘There were a few,' I choke on a deranged laugh. ‘Just so long ago that it's easier to ignore, you know?'

‘I get it,' Oli says. ‘I challenge you, Adonis, to tell me one memory that you love about your mother. Something you did with her maybe. Let's distract you, and help you remember the good times over the…bad.'

Impossible. But for Oli, I would try.

I clear my eyes with the back of my hand. ‘Me and my mother, we used to cook together. In fact, it's thanks to her that I eat more than instant noodles and fried food every day. I'm not the best, but she taught me.'

‘See. That's beautiful. What was the one thing you used to cook together that you have fond memories of? Maybe we can do it together, refresh those memories with new ones?'

The answer was easy. In fact, it was almost divine. I hadn't had the connection until Oli asked the question, but as I did my heart swelled in my chest, tripling in size.

‘There was a dish, something sweet, that I think you'll enjoy.'

Oli leans in, leaning his head back to look up at me. ‘I'm listening.'

‘Loukoumades,' I say, cheeks pricking at the thought of them. ‘They're like donuts, but Greek. But the best part about them…'

‘Yes?'

‘Is they are drizzled in honey, Honey.'

His smile is bright and overwhelming. I long to imprint it on my mouth and think of nothing else but the curves of his lips. ‘That sounds -'

‘Like fate?' I answer without thinking.

‘Yes,' Oli replies, blinking at me, lost to the connection between me, him and my past. ‘Like fate.'

Not wanting to think of anything but this, I take his hand and guide him to the kitchen. When we enter, I don't even contemplate the stairs. I think of nothing but cooking with Oli, making new memories that would last a lifetime.

It isn't until we are covered in flour, our fingers and lips sticky with fresh honey, that I remember that, one day, this memory will also haunt me.

All good things must come to an end, sometimes that end comes sooner than we hope for.