𝗡𝗶𝗸𝗸𝗶 𝗦𝗶𝘅𝘅 ~ 𝗢𝗻𝗲-𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 🤍

• 𝗜 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮 𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 ^ 🩷

•❤️•

Nikki's POV, 2002

I have many regrets, more actually than I care to count. Most of them by now I had made up for, or atleast accepted I'd tried even if I'd failed. But there were a few regrets that I hadn't remedied, one of them being a relationship.

A relationship I'd been in for years, and I'd messed it up. As I do everything. Y/N L/N, the woman who means more to me than anyone else ever had or ever could. We'd been together since 1989 and knew each other since '83, meeting through mutual friends.

We'd had a solid five years of our romantic entanglement where everything was perfect, then I just had a crisis. It started after the backlash we received after the release of our '94 album, all the fans hating us and essentially boycotting us because we were without Vince.

I, by far, handled it worse out of all of us, John was just happy to be where he was, but the rest of us knew we'd fucked up and all of us made bad choices because of it. The pressure of all that though got to me and began to rocky years of mine and Y/N's relationship.

We'd had a daughter, Aurora, in 1993, and so you can imagine when things started going wrong in 1994, it was Y/N and Aurora who paid the price. Y/N and I began to argue, and I mean argue. I was just such an asshole, always wanting to pick a fight for no reason and was getting back into drugs, cocaine to be specific which didn't help.

Very quickly, she grew tired of it and I couldn't blame her, so she walked out on me for the first time. I apologised, grovelled, said I'd sort my shit out, we'd be fine for a few weeks but then I'd just end up breaking that promise. It became a cycle, a cycle of hatred and forgiveness for a number of years, and it shames me to say the first five years of Aurora's life, she hadn't seen  Y/N and I happy together, all she'd really seen is us arguing and that wasn't healthy.

So, in 1998, Y/N left me for good. So, why am I still talking about it despite it being four years ago? Because I'm actually in a position now to fix all the bullshit that I put her through.

Even after Vince rejoined the band, I was still stressed out because of the record label pressuring us, threatening us, then that album bombed and it pretty much killed Y/N and I's marriage. We weren't divorced, just separated, neither of us had filed... I suppose we were both hoping to one day reconcile.

I say that like we hate each other, we don't, it's just awkward. There are so many things I want to say to her but don't know how to begin that any interaction with her is just awkward. We only saw one another when Aurora got dropped off at my place every weekend. 

She always asked me if me and mommy were ever getting back together and I always told her I hoped so, because I did. I'd gone to rehab this year, got clean and intended to stay completely sober, what I should have been all the way back in 1988, but all of us broke that sobriety to some degree within a year. We hadn't been in the right mindsets to do it but now, I was. And I'd stay sober this time, no matter what.

It hadn't at all been a walk in the park, I was struggling but determined. I'd been sober for three months and was now confident enough to try and talk to Y/N. We've been trying to talk to each other about things since I got sober, we'd call and talk, just casually, just as friends, so we didn't feel pressured and to ease ourselves back into a good place, a less awkward place. Then say we needed to talk things out.