Author's Note: Okay so, this fic takes place during 4x03 - Pissters! when Nicky talks about being in love with Lorna and Lorna totally hears her. Here's my shot at angst but I realized that I may be more suited to fluff. I don't know, though, it was kind of fun to write. We'll see how this receives. :)
Without further ado, I present to you 'She Just Forgot, That's All' :)
"How did we become so broken?"
"We fell in love, and at some point, the people we love forgot to love us back."
…
Nicky hadn't necessarily regretted pouring her heart out like that to Brooke SoSo, so stricken with grief that she didn't know which way was up – or, would prefer it that way, it seemed like, but she did however, regret admitting it to herself.
She was in love. And love wasn't kind. It wasn't virtuous or whatever sort of sappy, optimistic shit that people said to keep their lives from fucking falling apart. Love was an addiction and since drugs didn't kill her – ha – why didn't drugs kill her? They should've fucking killed her.
An OD was quick enough, you just slip into a sleep from which you never wake up. Simple. Done. Unrequited love was slow, painful, tore you limb from limb. She didn't deserve that. And yet, here she was.
With her dark, lonely eyes that would look at her with such tenderness and trust, and long, wispy lashes that would graze gently against high cheekbones, it was physically obvious, and it was why Nicky had started calling her kid in the first place. Her predominant expression was one that depicted neediness and loss, lethargic and slow on the uptake, but innocent, oh so, innocent, just the same. Like a little lamb. Whose skin was white as snow.
Oh kid, Nicky sighed, staring at her back, straight and smart in that white lab coat. You have no idea, do you?
With her equally dark hair that fell through on its promise of exoticism, wavy and still against the blades of her shoulders; the lipstick that was all too bold but made a lot of sense once hearing her speak because that accent, that fucking accent, was this tortured cross of someone who spent half their time in the bustling depths of Brooklyn and the other half wrestling kangaroos on the beaches of Australia.
She claimed that it was Italian, and Nicky calledbullshit and without her name to prove it true, fucking Lorna Morello, it was likely that nobody else would believe her if she'd told them.
Fucking Lorna Morello, she was the epitome of that girl in that Nine Days song, you know the one, about the girl, and her story of how she cried a river and drowned the whole world.
You know the one, because if you were anything like thirteen-year old Nicky Nichols, you hung upside down over your bed, bit your bottom lip hard enough to draw blood as that song, like punk-rock meets Nickleback, blared deafly through your obnoxiously large headphones.
It was a time that she could never get back, the insanely obvious distaste for her parents, and anything orthodox, like Hebrew school or a hairbrush. If she could tell her thirteen-year old self anything, from where she sat now in a minimum-security prison in full blown riot mode, it would be this: kid, living life like you don't give a fuck about absolutely anything will get you nowhere. Nowhere good, anyway. Nowhere worth living. So, respect your parents okay? Respect their rules. Even though respect and common decency is not their cup of tea, it could be yours. It'll be worth it in the end. Maybe someone out there will love you for it.
Nobody was loving her now, but maybe, maybe, they could have. If she'd ended up somewhere else. Went to class and ran a brush through her hair every once in awhile like a good little girl. Didn't get mixed up in all of the fuck-up drugs, i.e. heroin, effectively aging her face twenty years. She could've been pretty. She could've been pretty like Lorna, not quite, but close at least, and then maybe, thisbeautiful girl who woke up with hope but only found tears, would love her back.
If it was only a fraction of how much she loved her, that was fine. She'd take it. She'd probably even die for it. Hadn't had to think about that possibility until now, but she would. No questions asked.
She wasn't sure if Lorna had heard her confession, as spontaneous and inadvertent as it all was. She'd lost the bumbling somewhere along the way, maybe it had been the invincible effect of the drugs, or the alcohol that came before, but either way, she was glad that she had.
Her parents weren't poor, but she was, at fifteen, barely holding down some lowlife fast food job where her manager was always two seconds away from firing her because of her 'rude and dismissive attitude towards the customers' but never did, even when she fucked up big; because maybe, just maybe, he could see that she, with her hair that resembled a dog's breakfast (her loving father's words), her faint but permeating smell of general uncleanliness, and the pathetic slouch to her shoulders, was worthy of pity. At least she'd been worthy of something. By someone.
Even if that someone was a forty-year old man with a paunchy beer belly and the breath of an alcoholic smoker. An interesting combination, really. Especially when the two of you are in the back kitchen, after hours, with his beefy hand up your skirt and his mouth so close to yours that you could taste it, could breathe it like it was your own breath, like choosing was an option. Did she mention that this man was her uncle? Oh, no? Sorry.
She'd told herself it was for the drugs. It wasn't the hard stuff yet, but it was something. Something to take the edge off. She'd figured that if it was going to happen anyways – her mother was either oblivious, or, and likely, after eight years, wittingly oblivious, which was worse, but either way, he still did it in the house, and even though she could justquit, she needed this job and it was likely nobody else would hire her in this town.
By now she had a reputation. The non-consensual sex with a hot and sweaty man was just simply a means to an end. A job. Money. The preference of her mother's plain indifference rather than blithe distaste because this girl threw her only brother in the slammer where he would be ass-raped over and over again. Forget that this girl was her daughter.
Your 'friends' Amy (that was such an innocent name, like a poodle-skirted cheerleader), and Tegan were waiting outside, loitering near the petrol station. They needed it, too. You couldn't let them down. You guys were going to smoke it in the playground near your house, on the carousel like a bunch of cliched misfit stoners in the movies. You thought it was cool. And besides, Tegan might love you. He hadn't said so directly, but you could tell. So, this was all worth it, not even for Amy, but for you, and for Tegan, because before you know it, it won't just be his joint he's sharing with you, or his Drambuie and root beer. It was only a matter of time.
Weeks later, after she'd caught Amy and Tegan making out on that park bench during one of their 'scheduled' nights, and had a down-low abortion, she'd realized that she was really intoAmy andtotally gay, and that was when her whole life fell apart. Or her real life started. Take your pick. Even now, sixteen years later, she didn't know what the right answer was.
Because, just like Amy, Lorna didn't love her. Just like Amy, Lorna was into boys with the taut torsos and with the coarse hair trailing a straight stretch from their bellybutton to their pelvic bone and, as it was rumored, beyond. And who was she, huh? She could never measure up to that.
She couldn't when she was a spindly, little Jewish girl, gone thirteen and begrudgingly celebrated a bat mitzva, as out of place at fifteen as she had been then; and she couldn't now, at thirty-one, halfway meeting the dumbass societal standard of lesbian equals butch, wasting what life she'd salvaged from the depths of a heroin addiction in prison, where she only fit in because she was part of the majority: gay, criminal, and stuck.
She was stuck here, in this damn place, and couldn't do anything about it. Couldn't do anything about the fact that Lorna didn't love her back. Maybe she'd heard her say it, out loud for the first time – as far as she knew, but Drunk Nicky was another story altogether - and maybe she hadn't. It all came down to if she was willing to risk either possibility.
Before she could make that decision for herself, she noticed Lorna staring. Not being a total space cadet, like usual, but at her.
"Hon I…"
She also noticed that they were now the only two in the pharmacy, alone, the queue of people had dwindled to zero. Who's the space cadet now, Nichols?
And she desperately wanted Lorna to just keep quiet, to not say anything, to let her live in the fantasyland she has the luxury of inhabiting, for just awhile longer; maybe until the end of her sentence, providing she didn't get any more time for stupid shit, so that when she got out, she wouldn't ever have to see her again, come face to face with heartbreak in form of a lithe, quirky, beautiful woman, her accent languorous, making Nicky feel like, in the sultriest of moments, she was fucking a barmaid in Roma, Italy, but it was also akin to nails on a fucking chalkboard.
"Maybe just don't – "
"Nicky – "
"Lorn – "
Something happened to her face, then. It had been easy to spot. Pity. Oh, please, God, no more fucking pity. Especially not from her. Christ.
"Nicky, I – I love you, I do, hon, really."
Well that just made everything one-hundred times worse. What's next? She loved her. Great, real nice.
"But – "
But what? She wasn'tin love with her.
"But I love my husband."
"Let me get this straight. You love me, but you'rein love with him."
Lorna nearly grimaced. As she should have. Nicky's tone was bitter, ruthless. She couldn't help it.
"Exactly. Oh, hon," she cooed, her own shoulders crumbling under the bearing weight of – could it be – guilt?
Lorna Strawberry Shortcake Morello was actually feeling guilty for something she should be feeling guilty about? Stop the presses! Ring the church bells!
"I'm so sorryhoney, so, so, sorry. You have no idea."
She touched her hand to Nicky's wrist and Nicky pulled away. She did have an idea. A really clear picture, actually.
Lorna retreated into herself, as if scorned, as if she'd been bullied by some teenyboppers one grade above her. She was hurt. And this time, Nicky let her hurt. Thought that she deserved to.
Nicky was learning now that love was not boundless, negating the optimism of those trapped in marriages, with kids and a dog at home, or those in an abusive relationship.
Love had boundaries. She could see it now. And for years, she'd been in an abusive relationship, while not physical, it was very much emotional, and the kicker was that she had not been in it under duress.
It was probably some sort of statistic, and she wondered now, what the numbers were as she looked into Lorna's open, concerned,pitying face. At her eyes limpid with the beginnings of tears, at her skin, nearly white, weathered by guilt and confliction.
How many women were in love with their abusers?
Was it subversive? She wasn't naïve. Of course, it was.
What about the men? How many men still loved the woman that abused them, and for the sake of not being so hetero, how many men still loved them man that abused them?
How many women still loved the woman that abused them?
Answer: At least one.
Lorna was never good at making decisions for herself. And that was fine, for awhile. There was some irony though, because somehow, with her sweet, demure, little act, Lorna called the shots in their relationship. Always had. Her fucking sexuality made everything so fucking difficult. She loves me. She loves me not. That's the game they play. Only, without the fucking flowers. But no more.
Nicky was fucking done. And it sucked, because no matter how thoroughly pissed off she was right now, she still wanted Lorna's hand to rub up and down her back in comfort. Still wanted to feel Lorna's fingers buried deep inside of her. Still wanted to pull her into her lap, touch her hair, kiss her head and say it's okay, kid. You don't love me, but it's okay.
How fucked up is that shit, huh?
"Nicky?" Lorna was saying, extending her hand to her again.
And it took every ounce of shredded pride and dignity to turn her back and walk away.
She could picture Lorna's crestfallen, crumbling face, the blush of her cheeks ruddy, her skin wrinkling with the onset of tears and becoming rough with salt as they fall. She could picture that sickening puppy-whose-tail-got-stepped-on expression alighting her eyes, eyelashes stuck together, her throat burning with shame and heavy with the effort it took to keep sobs at bay.
The vignette was so strong, so vivid, that Nicky almost gave in.
Oh, kid. She clucked her tongue in sympathy, nearly in empathy, one last time. Don't you worry. I'll be okay. It's you I'm worried about.