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10. He Thinks He's Helping
Leo walked arm in arm with Janet down the road holding his umbrella over them both. He loved her smile; it could brighten up in the stormiest day.
"I love you." He grinned, not remembering when he had last felt this happy. There was no specific reason as to why he was happier now than before, nothing particularly amazing or special had happened, but he just felt at peace with the world.
She smiled back at him, "I love you too." She felt the same. She loved the way the moon seemed to shine in his glistening eyes and she loved the way he made her feel.
"Thank you for a lovely evening." He bent in for a kiss as they approached the house, but was interrupted by a gasp.
"Who's that?" Janet was staring at what to Leo just looked like a lump if nothing in particular at the front door.
He focused in on this lump and noticed the sodden blonde hair, "Nikki?!" he ran towards her.
She had been waiting for them to return, curled up in a ball on their doorstep in the torrential rain. She looked up at them, "I'm sorry Leo."
"Oh God Nikki! What the hell are you doing here?" She was shaking like a leaf; she was wet through and had probably been so for quite a while. He picked her up as Janet opened the door, "Lets get these clothes off you."
"No!" she shouted, breaking out from the hypothermia induced haze.
"You can't get changed by yourself, not when you're like this. Will you let Janet help you? If not then we'll have to ring an ambulance Nikki." He told her as he laid her down on the sofa.
She could barely move. Hypothermia had taken a grip of her entire mind and body, and she had struggled to think about anything coherently even before coming out into the rain.
She let Janet replace her wet clothes with tracksuit bottoms and a thick woollen pullover as Leo (who was probably the owner of the pullover she considered) gathered up as many blankets as he could find.
When Nikki was lay under a suitable amount of blankets by the roaring fire with Janet blow-drying her hair, Leo picked up the phone to call Harry.
"Please don't ring him!" she managed to say.
Leo raised his eyebrows, "Alright then. You've had a row?" he signalled to Janet to turn off the hairdryer.
She nodded, "Things are hard. For both of us." She stared at the flames in the open fire dancing around the logs.
"So hard that you do this?" He sat down at her feet.
She nodded, "Yes." After a long silence, she decided to tell him, "I'm pregnant."
Both Leo and Janet's heads shot around to look at Nikki. How much pain could be inflicted on this girl?
Janet looked uncomfortable, "Leo, we probably should ring an ambulance."
"I'm fine." Nikki said, lying. She could slowly but surely feel the heat returning to her bones though. Despite herself, she burst into tears. "I can't handle all of this Leo!"
Janet stood up, "I'll make us some hot chocolate." She made a swift exit, knowing that it wasn't her place to be involved in this conversation.
Leo moved an armchair over to the head of a sofa, "It's definitely… his?"
She nodded, "There's no doubt about it." She moved her hand out from underneath the blankets, wanting Leo to hold onto it, which he did, "Harry told me that I should get rid of it."
He tried to rub some heat back into her still freezing hands, "And you don't think that that's such a good idea?" he asked.
"I don't know." She bit her chapped lip, "I'm only just learning to cope with everything else, I can't deal with anything new on top of the rest of the mess." She looked into Leo's big brown eyes, "These past few years you've been more like a father to me than my own dad ever was."
Leo smiled, "You don't mean that Nikki."
"Of course I do! I chose not to tell him about the attack, what does that mean? You're supposed to be able to talk to your father about anything, but I don't think I could possibly begin to tell him about all of this."
Leo bent down and kissed her slender hands, "It kills me seeing you like this Nikki."
"You're starting to sound like Harry." She said half-jokily.
Leo sighed, "He'll be worried sick about you Nikki."
She looked away from him, "I know. He thinks he's helping… I thought he was until tonight, but then I realised…" she trailed off.
"Realised what?" Leo asked as Janet returned with three mugs of hot chocolate.
"That I'm burying what happened to me for his sake. I can't bear to see him hurting and I hate being the cause of that hurt… but surely I'm hurting more than he is! I try to pretend that I'm over it, but I'm just not."
Janet sat at the foot of the sofa, "Have you tried telling him this?"
She shook her head, "Like I said, I don't want to hurt him." She said dejectedly.