Henry had been there. He and Katherine huddled into a booth together, eating, drinking, and talking for the rest of the night. They didn’t leave until the pub was closing down.
Even after the first couple of hours, I knew Henry was done. He’d never look at another woman again.
Then…Nell.
“I’m going to bed.” Her voice breaks through my thoughts. She pauses in the doorway, passing her gaze over me to look at her father. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sleep well,” he says.
“Good night, Nell.”
She meets my eyes briefly, nodding once before going upstairs. I stare at the empty space she left behind.
“Has she been okay?” I ask.
“She’s okay now.” The ice in his glass clinks. “For a while, she wasn’t.”
A knot tightens in my chest. “Because of Katherine?”
“And other things.” He frowns, deep lines etched around his eyes. “You ever hear of cutting?”
“Self-harm?” My blood freezes. “Nell was cutting herself?”
“I caught her when she was fifteen.” He swallows a gulp of scotch. “I’d had her in therapy after she found Katherine, of course. After about a year, she seemed to be doing okay. Her grades weren’t great, but I didn’t realize what a rough time she was having until I learned she was being bullied.”
“Bullied for what?”
“It wasn’t the first time.” Henry’s mouth twists. “She’d been jabbed before about her mother. Kids said she was crazy, a psycho, that kind of thing. It escalated when Katherine died. Rumors spread about her suicide. About the fact that Nell found her. Kids started telling Nell to kill herself or she’d end up like her mother.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I wish I was.” He runs his hand over his short, dark beard. “She had to deal with it at school, but a lot of it was also happening online. The school administration did what they could, or said they would, but it got to Nell harder than I’d realized. One day I found her in her bedroom, cutting herself with a razor blade.”
“Jesus Christ.” My chest burns at the horrible image. The fact that I’d had no idea. “Why?”
“She’d been doing it for months. Apparently she thought it would stop all her bad emotions or something like that. I learned as much as I could and talked to her therapist, but honestly, I never got my head around it. I just wanted to get her help.”
Goddammit. This is why she closed in on herself. And the reaction from her peers in class…The little bastards remember it all.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I take a swallow of scotch.
“There was nothing you could have done.”
“I could have come back,” I retort. “I would have.”
“I know.” Henry studies me with faint affection. “But I wasn’t about to interrupt whatever assignment you were on. I don’t think I even knew where you were at the time.”
“What kind of help did you get her?”
“I sent her to a youth health facility.”
Everything inside me tenses to the point of snapping. An institution. God knows Katherine had spent plenty of time in those. But Nell?
“That sounds extreme,” I remark, carefully keeping my shock under control because I know Henry would only ever do something like that if he thought it was best for his daughter.
“Maybe it was.” He shrugs and leans his head back against the chair. “But it scared me shitless, walking in there and seeing her cut and bleeding. At first, I had no idea what the hell was going on. I thought maybe she was trying to…well. Then she got hysterical crying because she didn’t want me to see her. I had to call 911 because I was scared she might get worse. They took her in for evaluation. A week later I sent her to Harbor View. She was there for six months.”
He falls silent, his forehead lined with deep grooves, his eyes dark. I know exactly what he’s thinking—that he’d had to go through the same thing with Katherine multiple times. Fear, hysteria, emergency, treatments.
Guilt claws up my throat. I’d gone four years constantly on the move until I’d been forced to stop. Now I find out Nell had also been in her own prison. That must have been the reason she stopped doing cross-country. Stopped doing anything.
I hate the thought of her locked up in a “health facility.” She’d always been scared of them. Worried she’d end up in one like her mother.
Henry had always worried about that too. More than “worried.” He’d feared deeply that his daughter would inherit Katherine’s unbalanced mind, her spinning highs and crashing lows, the chaos she left behind.
“Nell’s okay now?” I ask carefully, knowing he’ll read everything I’m not asking.
“She is.” The lines of his body relax, and he nods. “She hated being at Harbor View, but I think…or I hope, at least…that she realized it helped. The staff told me it took her a long time to even talk to them, and she didn’t keep up with her tutoring, so she ended up a year older than the other students when she went back to school. I think that was for the best, though, because academically she’s been doing very well.”
“Has the bullying stopped?”
“I believe so.” He squints at the fireplace. “I keep in touch with the administration regularly. And I’ve asked Nell, though I’m not entirely sure she would tell me if anything was going on. She only has access to the internet at school, and they disallow social media, so at least she’s protected from online bullying. Have you noticed anything about how she interacts with the other students?”
I don’t like the question even though I understand Henry’s reason for asking it. But answering it makes me feel like I should be spying on Nell.
“She’s doing well in class,” I answer evasively. “Hannah Meadows told me this is Nell’s third year taking art as an elective. She’s impressed with Nell’s work.”
“Her therapists at Harbor View told me she spent a lot of time drawing and writing stories.” Henry shrugs. “If it helps, then I’m in favor of it.”
“Has she said anything about getting involved in community art programs? Or taking art in college?”
“No.”
“Sounds like she should. She has the talent. Networking and socializing might be good for her.”
“I don’t know.” He frowns at his glass. “I’d like for her to make friends and go out on weekends like a normal teenager, but every time I question her about it, she has nothing to say. No plans. She’s never even been on a date.”
“Maybe she needs to meet people outside of Monarch High. If those kids bullied her, it’s no wonder she doesn’t want to be friends with them.”
“She needs to learn how to socialize with her peers.” Henry downs the last of his scotch. “She’ll have plenty of time to meet other people in college.”
“Is Evergreen the only college she wants to attend? Will she be able to study art there?”
“Evergreen is the best option for her.” Henry stands and sets his glass on the sideboard. “The art department isn’t that strong, but she can take some electives. She’s planning to major in library sciences.”