Nick isn't quite sure how he ends up burying himself in Larry's shoulder (and what a turn of phrase; and he needs to stop, he needs to stop right now) and he doesn't care to know. It feels like safety, and like home, and all the parts of Boulder that let him become something more than he was when he walked into Shoyo.
No one is particularly strong in this room, Nick realizes, because they have a goddamn right not to be. He's all right with that, for the first time. He's all right with letting go, a little, just to know that they are not in this alone.
His age has always been a number, and just that. Nick has taken care of himself since his mother died, one way or another. It's not an uncomplicated thing, to let himself cry in sodden silence. But there has been so much time spent dry, years of it, and he feels every short year of his life now.
It doesn't last. It can't. These sorts of moments don't. What does happen is that Nick eventually lets go, pulling a sleeve over his hands to dry his eyes, and smiling in a wounded but indomitable way as he scratches: Missed me?
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No one is particularly strong in this room, Nick realizes, because they have a goddamn right not to be. He's all right with that, for the first time. He's all right with letting go, a little, just to know that they are not in this alone.
His age has always been a number, and just that. Nick has taken care of himself since his mother died, one way or another. It's not an uncomplicated thing, to let himself cry in sodden silence. But there has been so much time spent dry, years of it, and he feels every short year of his life now.
It doesn't last. It can't. These sorts of moments don't. What does happen is that Nick eventually lets go, pulling a sleeve over his hands to dry his eyes, and smiling in a wounded but indomitable way as he scratches: Missed me?