Summar: Past instances that lead to Nicky's path of destruction.
Author's Note: I've been looking forward to starting this for a while and am really excited about starting this. With more details on Nicky's past looming around this season, I couldn't wait to explore more of her younger self and what may have lead her to troubled teen years and adult life. It won't be all doom and gloom, although it may get heavily angst. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
I
April 1991
The car journey home was something of self-inflicting. But it wasn't all out of personal fault or interest, at least, that's what a little eight year-old Nicky, sat on the back right passenger seat thought, while she was left anxiously overhearing her obnoxiously loud parents' conversation. Debate. Argument. A mixed bag of the three.
"I don't understand. Fighting? Last week it was pulling that other girl's hair, just for calling hers scruffy in fitness class – I mean, she has a point." Marka's neck turns to sharply eye Nicky. "That Hebrew teacher, what was it, Steward something? Thinks she's possessed. Too much to cope with, or something, I mean, I said don't think I haven't considered…It's like she doesn't care how this makes us or even herself look. Mind you, when she was four, I heard her humming The Addams Family theme song—"
"Yes, yes, I am hearing you, just like I did for the last five times, Marka, honey! But I am reminding you that I have an important meeting at one-fifteen, it is now one-ten. Nicky, I'll drop you off on the corner of the street, we can resolve this…Ridiculous issue later." Les Nichols rambled aimlessly. He took a stern glance in the rear-view mirror at his daughter while drumming on the steering wheel, frustrated. Before he stared back onto the cluster of traffic and ambience of distant beeps.
"She got what was coming to her. I'm not the one who deserved getting into trouble." The small strawberry blonde grumbled, sitting on her hands.
"Young lady, you don't get to decide who deserved what. We had to leave work just to come and get you!" Her mother argued. "Jesus, how do you think this makes me look?" Her daughter's eyes softened apologetically.
"But mommy, Paloma said if people make fun of me I should stand up for myself. That's what I thought I was doing." Marka let out a harsh scoff and folded her arms.
"Paloma doesn't know what's she's talking about. I don't even know why we've kept her around, you're getting too old for a nanny now."
"Oh, come on Marka, having a nanny is good for her, we don't always have to be home when she is, it's educational for her—"
"Well, if you want to keep paying for her then be my guest, but clearly she's influenced Nicole to start attacking people at school just because someone wants to call her a name. God, if this is what she's like now at elementary, what is she going to be like by the time she's teenager? And JI already sound fed up with her as it is. I know they tell mothers to look out for the terrible twos, but this…."
Her mother's rabbiting pressed on but seemed to fade to the depth of her mind when she resorted to take her wonder and gaze to the outside world. Most of the skyscrapers of the Big Apple became distorted through the specs of tiny lenses, as fat to jotted speckles of rain began to splatter the pane of glass that her eyes could just manage to reach. She knows it wasn't right, but why was it right for Jessica Powell to make fun of her? And for everyone else to laugh, and for teachers to soothe Jessica when she herself hardly even touched her?
Why do adults…
She strained to think of a word.
Contradict! Yes, that suited them. She'd recalled the adjective from last week, while Paloma read her a story and stopped to define several. Sometimes she felt like she'd annoy her. But baby books are for babies, and ones written for older people are far more interesting, she'd decided.
The point was, little Nicky felt almost tricked. She would take back the push, if she could. And maybe Jessica would take back the name-calling. Or maybe not. She was undecided.
Her ears and focus perked back to the sound of Les speaking. "So, what are we doin'? Leaving her at Pete's later?"
To that she felt herself shift unevenly. Now, she understood people as individuals have their own personalities. No one is the same and everyone is different. This applies to adults too, and while most seem to blend in with the super ordinary, boring, fun and extravagant amounts of adults she's come across in her life, from her parents, to random people walking past in the park. Uncle Pete was a character she couldn't quite…Determine. He seemed out of the ordinary and unpredictable in ways that she couldn't really explain. It was more of a feeling. But not a good one. A weird one. A feeling that made her feel…Uneasy. The word 'deranged' sprang to mind. Another word she'd looked up in a battered-up dictionary last week. Perhaps that word would appropriately define his characteristics. She often wondered if her parents or cousins noticed too.
Marka sighs, "looks like we'll have to. I already have to spend the rest of the day with her, besides, I'm meeting Aubrey tonight, anyway."
The car stops by a sidewalk and Nicky and Marka unclip their seatbelts and exit the vehicle. Les rotates his body towards his daughter before she closes the door. "I'll pick you up at four, and then you're going to Uncle Pete's house. No more screwing around at school and apologise to your mother."
"Okay." Nicky says, dryly. She shuts the door and the car diverts around the corner quick as light. As the two approach the front door, and Marka fumbles around in her handback for the key, the small blonde's eyes begin to well up. Her mother just sighs at her sniffling and barely meets eye contact with her own child.
"Nicole, this isn't worth blubbering about. Next time that girl, or any of her friends decide to pick on you, the best thing you can do is ignore them. Then you won't make a show of yourself in class and give me and your father a headache." They enter the hallway and make their way to the kitchen where Marka tosses her handbag onto the countertop.
"I'm sorry, mom." She sobs, dropping her school bag onto the tiled floor. The mother takes her coat off, wafts some stands of her hair behind her shoulder and shakes her head before she finally looks at Nicky. A tint of un-consensual sympathy somehow manages to meet her orbs
"Just…Don't do it again. You're already giving us a bad reputation at that school as it is. Go on, go upstairs, get out of your uniform and…Draw or something?" She stammers, unmindfully coming up with a random activity on the spot. "I've got phone calls to make."
Little Nicky complies. She drags her school bag with her, uses the cuff of her blazer to wipe away tear stains on her cheeks, but is still left wondering
What makes this all my fault?