Junior year was the Autumn of their friendship. Things between Nicky and Lorna were changing fast, like the leaves on trees in October – turning from vibrant colors to rusty brown, until they die and fall slowly to the ground, only to be swept up and thrown away. Things were quite bittersweet, like a caramel apple on a September hayride that only tastes good until you realize that there is more of it in your teeth than in your stomach.
It was a crisp early November night in 1996 when they sat on the fire escape of Lorna's bedroom for one of the last times. Nicky was smoking a joint while Lorna cried over a boy who had slept with her and never called her back. Nicky held her best friend close to her heart (literally), and stroked her head as she sobbed. They were quiet for many minutes after Lorna's sobbing had faded into silent tears, and eventually nothing but a few dry-eyed sniffles. Finally, she sat up and looked at Nicky, her lips turning upward into a smirk as she scoffed,
"God, what the fuck is wrong with me?" Lorna asked rhetorically as she shook her head lightly and grabbed the joint from Nicky's fingers. She took a hit and coughed violently – as smoking was usually something that Nicky did alone. Lorna didn't particularly enjoy it or condone it, but her judgement was currently too clouded by grief for her to stay sober, "Why do I care so much? Am I crazy?"
"No, you're not crazy. But you do care too much. About stupid shit, and stupid people. Fuck this guy, he didn't deserve you. Just move on, kid. Find a better guy, one who won't take you for granted. Or better yet,
don't look. Wait for someone to find you. You gotta stop settling for dudes who'll just use you. You're worth more than that, and you know it as well as I do. You know I love you, but shit, you gotta stop wasting your time and tears on people who don't fucking deserve them."
Tears filled Lorna's eyes again. Not of sadness, but of gratefulness. She cracked a small smile as she nodded knowingly and wiped her eyes, trying to be rid of the mascara that now stained her face. She knew that Nicky was right – and she would try to follow to her good advice – but deep inside, a part of her also knew that she would never be capable a healthy relationship like that.
"You know what, you're right. Fuck him. He had a small dick anyway."
They laughed as Nicky lit another joint and took a puff, staring off longingly into the building across the street at a lesbian couple slow dancing in their living room. Lorna saw what she was looking at and sighed,
"Man, I've been so caught up in my pointless drama that I just realized what a selfish bitch I've been."
"What?"
"How are you, Nicky? How are things, you know, with your mom? Are you going to tell her?"
"I don't have to."
"What do you mean you don't have to?"
"Well, considering that she caught me with a girl the other night, I don't think that if I told her it'd be much of a surprise."
"Shit, the other night? Why haven't you told me?"
"Because it's not a big deal. It's not like she gives a fuck. To her it's just another addition to the list of reasons of why I'm a huge disappointment. Plus, you seemed really upset about the whole James thing, so I wanted to be there for you."
"Well yeah, I was upset, but you know you still could have and should have said something. It is a big deal, Nicky, you know it is. I really appreciate you wanting to be here for me, and I love you for that. But I want to be here for you too, and it's kinda impossible when you don't tell me anything."
"I know, fuck, you're right. I'm sorry."
"Oh, it's okay. Come here," Lorna said as gestured for Nicky to come closer. Nicky leaned over and sat with her head nuzzled into Lorna's shoulder. She went to take another hit when Lorna took the joint from her fingers, "Okay, that's enough for you. The whole fucking city can probably smell it. This was all you had left and you barely saved any for me, asshole."
"Well excuuuuse me for assuming that you didn't want any when you never smoke and you usually bitch at me for it."
"True, but tonight let's just forget that, because I can't be this sober while you're that high. It's just no fun."
Nicky looked up at Lorna and giggled, obviously starting to become influenced by the drug.
"I'm hungry. Do you have any whipped cream? I could really go for some whipped cream."
"Mayb- hey, sit down your ass down and give me a minute to finish, shit. Hey, who'd your mom catch you with anyway?"
"Mmm, this girl from my uhh, calculus class. What the fuck's her name, umm...oh, Jane. Y'know, that soccer team chick? With the sweet rack?"
"Isn't she dating that lacrosse dude?"
"Not anymooreeee. She realized she's gay, thanks to yours truly."
"Wow, nice work. So are you two like a thing now?"
"Ppfffttt, fuck no."
"Yeah. So what, friends with benefits?"
"Nahhhh. You see, that'd mean we'd have to be 'friends,' and there is no waaaayy I would ever be friends with someone like her. She wears tube tops and listens to fucking Journey."
"Journey? Shit. She must be damn good in bed."
"Barely."
At that, they laughed way harder than any sober person would. Lorna soon finished they both got up and climbed back through the window, adventuring into the kitchen to satisfy their drug-induced cravings – which usually consisted of entire cans of whipped cream and microwavable mini pizzas.
Nicky had spent the last year trying to convince herself that friends is good. Ever since their first night on the fire escape, she had felt differently about Lorna. The feeling came and went. It would hit her like a ten foot wave and then recede back out – but it always came back for more, just like the way the tides come up to kiss the shore – over, and over, and over again.
This wasn't much of a problem for Nicky. She was the master of suppressing feelings. Whether she knew it or not, it was what she did best. Lorna would talk about the boys she hooked up with, and Nicky would listen. Much to her surprise, it genuinely never bothered her. She didn't know this, but the reason she never got jealous was because deep down, she knew that Lorna's relations were all meaningless. None of those guys had any real emotional significance to Lorna. Yes, she could cry over them as if she had loved them for years, but Nicky wasn't even sure that Lorna would know what love was if it slapped her in the face. And that's what made it all the more difficult to be in love with her.
It was sometime that winter when Lorna exceeded any and all of Nicky's expectations. She had started going steady. With a guy who was actually decent (as far as guys go). Nicky couldn't help but hate him with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns. She was skeptical of him, thinking there was no way that he was worthy of her. Suddenly, suppressing her feelings started becoming harder. Every time Lorna would talk about him, Nicky wanted so badly to shut her up with a kiss. Instead, she would say "Can we like, talk about something else?" Every time Lorna would kiss him in front of her, Nicky so badly wanted to vomit all over her favorite pair of Doc Martens. Instead she would say, "Oh gross, get a room!" Every time Lorna would say, "Sorry hun I can't, I'm hanging out with Ryan today," Nicky wanted so badly scream into the phone at the top of her lungs. Instead she would say, "C'mon, you're blowing me off again?". Every time Lorna would hold his hand in the hallway, Nicky wanted so badly to run into the bathroom and cry. Instead she would walk up and say, "Whoa kids, leave enough room for the Holy Spirit!"
Nicky noticed her sarcastic comments starting to drive Lorna away. Lorna was slowly making less time for Nicky, and whether she meant to or not, she started feeling very distanced. So Nicky decided to try her best to cope with the situation without using sarcasm (her go-to defense mechanism). Much to her benefit, it worked. Her and Lorna hung out just as often as they used to, and Lorna was able to find a balance between her boyfriend and her best friend – but it was at the cost of Nicky's sanity. From there on out, she listened intently to Lorna while she spoke about him, no matter how long she went on for. She stayed quiet whenever they would kiss in front of her, no matter how badly she wanted to make a comment. She kindly said, "No worries, kid," when Lorna would deny her hang out invitations, no matter how unloved it made her feel. She smiled sweetly at them when she would pass them in the hallway, no matter how awkward it was for her.
Yes, the suppressing of emotions did become hard for a while. First it was easy. Then it was hard. In the end, it was effortless. Nicky became completely numb to the feeling. She no longer had to try her best not to scream, or to vomit, or to cry, or to kiss her. She no longer had to force herself not to make a sarcastic comment. She no longer had to force herself to engage in conversation, or to turn away from them, or to smile at them, or to accept the rejection. It became a routine, an unthought-about procedure. Nicky had even made efforts to hang out with them, and for a while, it worked. She learned how to play poker so she could join in with them and their other friends on game night. She watched The Godfather at least ten times so that she could understand and contribute to the references they always made. As much as it hurt, she loved Lorna, and if this boy was making her happy, Nicky wanted to support her the best that she could. However, if there's one thing Lorna could do damn well, it was seeing through Nicky's behavior to what she was really feeling. Other than it taking much longer to notice than usual, this situation was no different from any other. It wasn't until the late summer after junior year, nearly six months into their relationship, when Lorna and Ryan had emerged from the honeymoon stage – and Lorna finally noticed that Nicky had put up some mysterious new emotional walls.
"What's up with you lately?" Lorna asked one evening as they sat across from each other at their favorite pizza joint.
"What do you mean?"
"You've just seemed so...detached. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. How are you and Ryan doing?"
"Fine, I guess. But enough about us, seriously. I want to talk about you."
"Me? What's there to talk about with me?"
"Well for starters, you're not eating, and I know something's wrong when you won't even touch a slice of Gino's pizza. C'mon, what is it? You need to tell me."
"First of all I don't need to tell you anything. But second of all, you know that if there was anything to tell you, I would."
"Would you?"
With that, Nicky could no longer hide the tears welling up in her eyes. She unintentionally slammed her drink down on the table as she quickly got up and almost-ran out of the store and to the corner, where she started looking for a cab. Lorna was extremely frazzled as she ran to catch up.
"Nicky, Nicky wait! Wait, stop!" So Nicky stopped and turned around to face Lorna.
"What?"
"What the fuck is wrong with you? You're scaring me, Nicky."
"Oh! I'm scaring you?! Well you know what?! I'm the one who's fucking scared, Lorna. I'm scared out of my god damn mind!"
"What are you talking about? What are you so scared of?" Lorna questioned, as her vision blurred with the tears that were forming in her own eyes, tears that she wasn't quite sure as to why she was shedding.
"You! I'm scared of you! And I'm terrified of myself! I am so. Fucking. Terrified!" Her voice almost broke, but she stopped it. She needed to stay strong. She needed to try her best to make Lorna understand. Lorna's face shifted from a mixture of confusion and anger to deep concern when she noticed the lines of tears streaming down Nicky's face that had become visible because of the fluorescent lights and neon signs. The amount of tears Nicky had shed in those few minutes was more than Lorna had ever seen her cry in her entire life. This was so wildly off base from Nicky's usual behavior, which was frightening to Lorna. She wanted to move closer to Nicky, to look her dead in the eyes and find out what was wrong. So she did. When they were only a foot away from each other, Nicky started to back away, but Lorna grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to stay. Nicky struggled, but Lorna didn't let go. Her voice started shaking as she spoke, and all efforts to hide her nervousness failed miserably.
"S-stop. Nicky, stop. Slow down, and breathe."
"I-"
"-No. No talking, just breathing," Lorna comforted her as she usually would, but she was clearly confused. She reached over and wiped the tears off Nicky's face and said, "Okay. I need you to look at me. Nicky...fucking look at me!" she spoke sternly. So Nicky looked at her, and Lorna let go of her shoulders but held her gaze, "Now tell me what is wrong with you. Why the fuck are you scared of me? And of yourself?"
"I'm scared of you because I fucking love you, Lorna!" She was trying so hard to keep herself composed, but she knew she was close to her breaking point. So she tried to say all she could think of as fast as she could, leaving herself no time to back down and make up a lie, "I don't know when or why or how, but at some point, I fell in love with you. And I'm scared of myself because it's the weirdest fucking thing that I have ever felt in my life. I can't escape it, and I don't know what to do. It terrifies me. Not only because you are my best friend and you mean the world to me, but because love is something I have never experienced in my life. The closest thing I'd felt to love before you was the feeling I'd get when I listened to good music. But this is so much more than that. When I'm with you, I get this feeling, and I know that's it – that's what love feels like. And I would give anything not to feel this way, but I can't help it, okay? You gotta know that. I've tried so hard to stop it, to suppress it, to ignore it – but no matter how hard I try, watching you with Ryan still feels like a fucking stab in the heart. I've had to put every ounce of my effort for the past five months into being all buddy-buddy with him so that I wouldn't lose you," Nicky looks back at Lorna and sees her face of shock and disbelief, making her follow with, "It's becoming real fucking clear that I shouldn't have said any of this. I should have kept up that ridiculous charade so that I could still have you in my life. You mean so much to me, but that doesn't change the fact that you could never love me the way that I love you. You just can't," she finally stopped talking because she couldn't hold herself together anymore. She had just let Lorna totally and completely tear down every wall that she has ever built to keep this exact thing from happening. All she could do was look up at the sky and try to blink the tears away. Before she could try to say anything else, Lorna filled the empty space with the four most painful words Nicky had ever heard.
"You're right, I can't."
Nicky looked back at her and noticed tears dripping down Lorna's cheeks and off of her chin. She looked more truly upset than Nicky had ever seen her be while crying over any of the boys who fucked her over.
"I just can't. I can't love you, Nicky. Not the way that you love me. And it's just not fair for you to have to live with being my best friend when you feel something more and I don't. I never knew that that's the way you felt, and I'm so sorry. You always be my best friend, and I will always love you as my best friend. You have been a blessing in my life and you have complimented me in ways that no one else ever has. I have made all of my favorite memories with you by my side, and I will never forget that as long as I live, I promise."
Nicky wiped her face of fresh tears and turned to walk away. Lorna grabbed her arm and spun her back around, "So that's it? You're just gonna walk away from me?"
"You said it yourself, it's just not fair for either of us if we continue on this way. But thank you, kid. For the memories."
Lorna's grip loosened and Nicky turned and walked away for good. Lorna wanted so badly to say something, to feel something – but all she could do was let out a loud sob as she watched her best friend walk away for good. She looked at Nicky long and hard before she turned and walked the other way with her head to the ground, watching as her tears fell off her face and disappeared into the hot summer air. As she walked home, she let images of their best times together consume her every thought. She could just barely hear Nicky's one-of-a-kind laugh when she thought of how much fun they had pulling pranks on their Spanish teacher together freshman year. She could practically feel the way Nicky's sweaty hands felt when she thought about the way they wrapped around hers while watching scary movies alone in the dark when they were fifteen. As she walked past a Body Shop, she swore could smell the coconut conditioner as she thought of the way that Nicky's hair had always smelled of all those times that she held her close and comforted her out on that fire escape. Lorna wanted so badly to regret this, she wanted to have the courage run back and tell Nicky that she did love her in the same way. But she really thought that she didn't, and she really thought that she never could. She really thought she was doing what was best, what was right. However, in reality, she did love her – she was in love with Nicky just the same way that Nicky was in love with her. But that was the thing about Lorna Morello that Nicky Nichols always knew – she wouldn't recognize love if it slapped her in the face.
As Nicky rode home in a cab, the tears had stopped flowing. Not because she wasn't sad anymore, but because she had no more tears to cry. She had never been a crier, and could hardly remember any instances in her life where she had cried. But this was a time in her life where she knew she would let herself cry and cry and cry, over and over again, until she ran dry.
She looked down and noticed a piece of paper sticking out of her pocket. She hadn't worn this pair of shorts all summer, so she wondered what it possible could have been. She took it out and unfolded it. It was a wrinkled half a piece of loose-leaf paper with smudged pen writing, obviously having gone through the washer and dryer at least a couple times:
"hello nichols, (can i call you that)? this is just a friendly reminder that you are my favorite person and you are so amazing! i love you! xoxo, morello (can i refer to myself like that)? ps: i wonder how long it'll take you to find this, I know you hardly ever wear these shorts! written 7/27/96 :-)"
Lorna had left this note in the pocket of her shorts almost a year ago, and of course she just found it now. "For fucks sake," Nicky muttered as she admired it for a little while, until a few tears fell from her face onto the words "i love you!", blurring them out completely. After that, she quickly, and without much thought ripped up the paper and rolled down the window to throw it out. She rolled the window back up and leaned against it, wiping her face and trying to compose herself. The taxi driver could sense Nicky's mix of anger and sadness, and was obviously uncomfortable, so he turned up the radio. She had thought she was finally all out of tears, but as the familiar sounds of Oasis filled the car, she found out that she was dead wrong. She kept her head against the window while she cried silently; listening to her favorite band for what she knew would be the last time.
"but i hope you know, that it won't let go...it sticks around with you until the day you die...and i hope you know, that it's touch and go...i hope the tears don't stain the world that waits outside...where did it all go wrong?..."
