This short chapter was somewhere just after the middle of my story, and was basically just a recap of Nicky's life after Gable left and up until he met Walker. However, whilst editing, I decided it really didn't add anything to the story and wasn't at all needed, and it kind of repeated a bunch of stuff that had already been said so I cut it out. But here it is for those of you who are interested in learning a little more about Nicky :)
Nicky
For
months after Gabrielle disappeared, she was all anyone could talk
about. Everywhere Nicky went, her name was brought up in hushed
tones, like they were talking about somebody who was already dead.
News that she had run away from her uncle's house had spread like
wildfire, and they all had their own theories – drugs, gangs,
pregnancy. Nicky just wished they'd all shut the hell up.
School was the worst. His classmates would stare at him as he
stomped through the halls, looking thunderous and angry and downright
miserable. They all seemed to want answers from him, as if he had any
more of a clue than they did. Where was she? Why did she run away?
Was it true that she'd died her hair blue and ran off with a lion
tamer from the circus? He'd only been outed as her boyfriend for one
damned day, but they all seemed to think that was enough for him to
be an expert on the subject of all things Gabrielle. And when he
yelled that he didn't fucking know where she was, they'd glare at him
like he'd kidnapped her and dumped her body in the river.
It all came to an end when Nicky overheard an idiot jock casually
joke about what a loss Gabrielle's fine cheerleading ass was on the
field. After Nicky punched him clear across the room and dislodged a
couple of his teeth, no one dared mention her name in his presence
again.
Without Gabrielle's kisses to make his days go by faster, school
became an unbearable form of torture for Nicky, and he couldn't wait
to scram. He graduated with surprisingly good grades considering how
little he'd studied, thanks to this natural smarts. But instead of
going to collage like his parents had hoped, he packed a bag and he
and his drumsticks moved to New York City so that he could pursue his
dream of drumming in a band.
For him, NYC was the obvious choice to chase music, and only the
smallest part of it had to do with how he hoped he might find
Gabrielle there; she'd always talked about how much she wanted to
live there, ever since they were children.
The change in culture was a huge shock to Nicky, who had never
really travelled anywhere before, and to his horror, he soon
discovered that the shadows he'd thought he'd imagined as a child had
returned. The more time he spent in the city, the greater in numbers
they became. He worked hard at pretending they weren't there,
unwilling to go through therapy again. This time, he wouldn't make
the mistake of telling anyone he could see them.
He was incredibly frustrated when he didn't immediately find a
band to play with – he'd kind of just assumed that as soon as he
got to New York, all of his dreams would automatically fall into his
lap. But the talent was a lot higher than he'd expected, and the
competition was fierce. Soon, he had to get himself a bar job to help
pay his rent, even with the money his parents sent him on a regular
basis. Life in the city was more expensive than he'd thought it would
be.
Nicky had been working at Jackson's Bar for about a year before he
met Ebo, Chim and Hadley. They made up three quarters of a small time
rock band. So small in fact, that Nicky had never even heard of
Puddle of Cat before. Puddle of Cat were using Jackson's to hold
auditions for a drummer after their fourth member had quit for
collage. Nicky auditioned, and he was in.
He once asked Chim why they were called Puddle of Cat, and his
band mate had given some nonsensical answer about the time he'd seen
a dead black cat on the side of the road and mistaken it for a
puddle. Nicky never did find out if he'd been lying or not.
They practised day and night for months, and they were pretty
decent. Decent enough to land gigs in clubs and bars all over the
city. Nicky was finally living the life he'd wanted, his time filled
with parties and women and great fucking music.
It was around that time Nicky first started experimenting with
drugs. Chim and Ebo encouraged him; told him that his music would be
better, that he'd have more fun, that he'd see life in a whole new
dimension. But honestly, he didn't need much encouragement. He wanted
to be a rock star, and rock stars were wild, right? And then, to his
absolute delight, he realized that when he was riding high, he
couldn't see or feel the shadows at all, and he didn't even have to
try to block them out. Life was awesome again, until he inevitably
came down and it was harder than ever to pretend the shadows weren't
there.
Puddle of Cat developed a name for themselves around the city.
People began requesting them, girls threw underwear at them on stage,
threw themselves at them back stage. Everyone wanted autographs. They
had freakin' groupies. Every fucker wanted a piece of them.
For Nicky, Chim and Ebo, it became less about the music, and more
about the sex and drugs. Their performances got sloppy, and
rehearsals were rare. Hadley tried his best to get them to buck up
their ideas. He was serious about only his music, and begged them to
clean up their acts so they could get back on track. He was the one
thin piece of string holding them together, and so when he eventually
gave up on them and left to pursue his musical career elsewhere, the
band fell apart.
Puddle of Cat was no more.
Not that Nicky, Chim or Ebo even cared. Or noticed.
Nicky's life was consumed by drugs and women. Three years passed
by in a haze of expensive highs and violent lows. On the rare
occasion that he didn't take anything, the shadows would bombard him
and literally drive him crazy. He'd scream and pull his hair out and
smash furniture until he could get his next fix. The people in his
life were in no better condition than him, and they didn't think
anything of it when he yelled at invisible shadows to leave him the
hell alone.
His parents constantly begged for him to get help. They offered
to pay for treatment, promised to be there for him every step of the
way. But Nicky didn't want help, and he cut them out of his life
completely when they kept pushing at him.
He was surrounded by messed up people just like him, and he had
never felt lonelier in his whole life.
Without the band or his parents, Nicky was soon out of cash. He
went back to Jackson's Bar for a time, but he'd become kind of a mean
little bastard and he caused too many fights, and Jackson ended up
firing him out of sheer necessity. Being barred from a seedy, run
down criminal hang out like Jackson's was a whole new low. He did the
only thing that, in his fucked up mind, he could. He started selling
drugs.
Obviously he was arrested. He was too dumb and careless to be
smart about what he was doing. He was sentenced to seven years in
prison, and it wasn't until he heard his mother's anguished sobs that
he realized how badly he'd screwed everything up. His life, his
career, his relationship with his family.
He hated himself; he wished he was dead. Everything would be
better if he was dead. He'd stop disappointing his parents, stop
hurting them. God, he wanted to die.
And then he was given a second chance at life. He was put into
some government programme, told he had a year to become a new person.
He took the chance with everything he had in him, even if he didn't
understand why it was happening.
His parents visited him as often as they could, and he was
incredibly humbled by them. After everything he'd put them through,
after every agonizing thing he'd said to them, they still took his
hands in theirs and told him they loved him more than anything. They
vowed to stand by him and support him as he turned his life around,
and they were excited to see the kind of man he would become.
Hadley was a surprise. Nicky had never expected to hear from his
old band mate again, let alone receive regular visits from him. He
was thankful to know that he had salvaged one truly great friend from
the wreckage of his past. Hadley was doing well for himself as a solo
artist, and had even appeared on small time television once or twice.
He'd worked his ass off and he deserved every bit of success that he
got. Nicky was genuinely happy for him, and was left in awe when
Hadley promised his support also.
Of course, Chim and Ebo never visited, and Nicky was glad as hell.
They were stark reminders of the life he wanted to leave behind, and
not the kind of people he needed around him when he was working to
get better.
He was given the option of quitting drugs cold turkey, weaning
himself off them slowly with medical help. He knew that neither
option would be easy, so he went turkey, which almost killed him. The
shadows returned with a vengeance, and he had to concentrate twenty
four hours a day to ignore them – he was constantly watched by
guards and he didn't want to make them suspicious. It was hard,
exhausting, and made getting better that much more difficult, but he
didn't want to risk one of the doctors catching on to his little
secret and having him committed to some no good mental facility. He'd
never taste freedom again.
At the end of his year, Nicky was assessed and deemed fit for
release. He was driven to the centre of New York City and handed a
wad of cash for somewhere to sleep. He asked questions, but the tight
lipped driver wouldn't answer him. Instead, he was given a half assed
cryptic warning about not leaving the city, and then he was on his
own. Confusion wasn't even the word.
However, he took the warning to heart, so instead of moving back
to LA with his folks like he'd planned, he crashed on Hadley's sofa
while he figured out the next steps to his ultimate goal – making
his parents proud.
Two weeks later, he noticed Stalker Babe for the very first time.
