family issues.

the ability to change

Nick has been living with the Thompsons for some time. And a lot of things happened. She wanted revenge for the things that they did to her, her Dad and to her restaurant, Franzelli's. The family trusted her (Well, at least Liz and Ed did) but turns out she was a con artist and she even robbed a bank. In the end, the family was ready to welcome her and apologize her. She's family to them. And she's very grateful for that, really. She just... Can't see herself as a member of the family. It's too hard. She feels like she's betraying her dad. And to make matters worse, her father has been acting strangely towards her, which makes her blame herself for... basically everything.

As she wakes up in the middle of the night, at dawn, she completely loses her sleep. She just stays there, thinking. When she gets up from the bed, she carefully walks on her tiptoes, preventing Molly to wake up. She walks through the corridor and goes downstairs, glaring at the kitchen and going foward to take a glass of water, hoping it'll make her go back to sleep.

She takes a sip of the water she's holding, and puts the glass down. When she stops everything to think again, she feels tears forming in her eyes, and she even tries to hold back, but she suddently bursts into tears, her heart pounding fastly as she thinks on everything that happened to her on the past few days. Everything just happened so fast... And she's definetly not ready for It. I mean, she's a fourteen-year-old who's trying to understand herself. And understand everything that's going on on her life.

She just sits there, leaned on the kitchen bench, still crying and now sobbing, losing her breath slowly, she's thinking to herself things like "It's all my fault" and "I'm so sorry".

When Nick recovers her breath (not fully, but still), she goes upstairs and lays down in bed, trying to fall asleep again.

But... She can't.

When Liz wakes up early in the morning to work, she sees Nick in the kitchen, now on the dinner table, sleeping.

"Nick?" Liz goes towards her and taps her head carefully. But she gets startled and gasps.

"I'm up! Huh... It's already morning?" She glares at Liz's worried face and she sighs deeply.

"Yeah. So, how did you sleep?" Liz says, already knowing the answer.

"I uh... I slept well!" She lies, and Liz sighs.

"I know you're having problems lately, but you can't keep any more sec-"

"Shoot, I'm late for school! Sorry Liz, I gotta go!" She interrupts her and walks away.

"But it's not even 8 a.m.!" She says, but Nick is already gone. Liz sighs heavily and she looks at a sleepy Ed coming down the stairs. She walks over him and they change glares as Ed yawns.

"What's going on, honey?" Ed asks her, seeing her concerned face.

"It's just that... I feel like Nick isn't opening up to us."

"...Look, this is being difficult for her." He starts, thinking while he talks. "And we need to support her. We did pretty bad things to her and we didn't even know that It was something bad." He finishes, and she nods.

"You're right. So much drama, huh?" They chuckle slightly. Molly walks downstairs and grins.

"Hi guys. Morning. Where's Nick? She wakes up a little before me, but I can't find her."

"She left early." Liz points at the door and Molly raises an eyebrown.

"What? She always leaves with me for school." She looks at them, and Liz sighs.

"She is going through a lot, sweetie. Just let her take her time." Molly nods and picks up some bread.

Nick is walking down the streets, stressed out with everything. She finally sees the jail that her Dad is being kept. She walks over there and, before getting in, she sighs deeply, trying to recover herself psychologically to talk to him. Saying that she chose to stay with the ones that literally ruined their lives wouldn't be an easy job for her.