Dricki: Space Jam

Chapter One

Nicki had just gotten home from an interview for a second job when she received a call on her cell phone just as she was stepping out of her heels. All she wanted was to take a quick shower and wash off the day before going to pick up her daughter but that wasn't going to happen.

"Hello?" she answered the phone after realizing it was her sister Michaela who was babysitting her daughter.

"Nicki we're on our way to the children's hospital downtown. Naomi's temperature spiked." she tried to be calm, not to alarm Nicki but her motherly instinct kicked in as soon as Michaela said her daughter's name. She had been sick for the past three days and despite the doctors saying it was nothing but a bad cold, Nicki knew something was wrong.

"I'm on my way." Nicki threw her phone in her purse and changed into a sweatshirt and jeans in less than a minute. She put on her Nike running shoes and then got her keys and purse. After locking her door, she took the steps two at a time from her third floor apartment and ran to her car. She wouldn't have been alarmed if Naomi had been sick all day but Nicki thought she had been getting better.

Nicki stuck her keys in her ignition and when the car didn't start, she broke down. There was so much weighing on her. Bills upon bills, barely keeping a roof over her and her daughter's head, Naomi being sick and now her car. Nicki fought the urge to punch the steering wheel and tried to start the car again. After two more tries it started and she brushed her tears away and put it in drive. Nicki raced to the hospital as fast as she could without attracting attention to herself. When she got there, she threw her car into park in the nearest space she could find and raced into the emergency room.

She looked around frantically until she saw her sister. "What happened?" she walked over to Michaela.

"I don't know. Her fever spiked suddenly and when...when we got here...she stopped..." Michaela started to stammer as tears filled her eyes.

"She stopped what?!" Nicki yelled causing others in the waiting room to look in her direction.

"Naomi stopped breathing." Michaela finally got out and Nicki suddenly felt lightheaded.

"Where is she?" Nicki asked through tears. This couldn't be happening. Not to her. Not on top of everything else.

"They took her to the back to get her on a ventilator. They told me had I waited any longer she probably would've died from oxygen deficiency." Michaela was crying along with her younger sister. Even though she was two years older than Nicki, at twenty-three, Nicki had been through more than she would ever be able to handle. That's why she strived to be just like her younger sister. Strong, determined and a fighter for what she believed in. As long as Michaela could remember, Nicki was always the one to defend her. In the third grade she'd fight her sister's classmates for her just so her sister wouldn't mess up her hair. No one was going to touch her big sister if she had anything to do with it and 'til this very day, Nicki still would fight for her.

Both of them had been through abusive relationships but the difference was Nicki let her fiancé go. She wasn't going to sit around and be a punching bag and when she found out her sister was going through the same thing, Nicki went right to their house and beat him with the nearest object that was heavy enough to get her message across. He never touched Michaela again.

"I'm so sorry Nicki. After everything you've been through...everything you've done for me, I can't do one simple thing." she cried on Nicki's shoulders and Nicki used all of her strength to rub her sister's back when she really needed someone to be doing that exact same thing for her.

"It's not your fault 'Chaela." Nicki sniffled. "She was sick when I took her to you remember?" she asked and felt her nod her head.

"I'll never forgive myself if something happens to her." Nicki heard her sister mutter and she sighed and pulled away. She knew she could stand there crying because then her sister wouldn't be able to pull herself together.