"Cold?"
"What?"
"Are you cold?" Nick pointed to her sweatshirt.
"Yeah I was getting a little chilly. I just got out of the shower, the air conditioning." She lied.
Nick noticed the beads of persperation on her forehead. 'Liar.' He thought to himself.
"Why are you staring at me?" Breanna questioned.
"No reason." He shifted his gaze.
"So what's the plan tonight?"
"What do you mean?"
"We doing anything?"
Nick looked back at her, "Nah, I thought we could just stay in and talk."
"What do you want to talk about?" Breanna shifted nervously.
"For starters, let's talk about why you came here."
"I missed you." She said trying to be sincere.
"Uh-huh."
"What?"
"Nothing." Nick looked away.
"What is it Nicky?" Nick turned to her with tears in his eyes,
"Why are you lying to me?"
Breanna didn't know how to react. She collapsed into a little heap and began to sob.
"I'm sorry Bre, I didn't mean--"
"It's okay." He got up and wrapped his arms around her.
"I shouldn't have lied to you." She sobbed into his chest.
"Shhh." He stroked her hair.
"How did you know something was up?" She looked up.
"I had a feeling, so I went through your stuff," he admitted.
"You looked at my notebook?!" She accused.
"I had to! You weren't telling me what was going on."
Breanna sighed and reached for her bag. She pulled her notebook and flipped to the last page.
"Remember that poem you wrote for me?"
"Which one?"
"Roll With It?"
Nick nodded. She pointed to the back page. On it was the poem he'd written when they were younger. "If you ever feel like noone cares, when you try your best, but you get nowhere, don't give in, cause the time will come again," he read aloud.
"When they criticize every move you make and you've had as much as your gonna take, don't you worry, soon enough things will change."
"Remember?" She asked.
"I made this into a song." He said.
"Did you?" She flipped the notebook back to page one.
"I read this everyday, every hard time I had... It was so comforting. I needed it and I needed the guy who wrote it."
"Tell me what happened. Please."
Breanna hesitated but opened the notebook.
"This is my daddy."
Nick looked at her and encouraged her to continue.
"He worked really hard for me and my mom. You know we didn't have much... we had enough. When I turned 13, I started to notice things about my dad I'd never noticed before."
"He came in late from work and always had a smell about him. It was the smell of smoke and beer. My mom told me it was for older people to handle and not to mention it."
"But, one night I came home and his car was there. He was never home when I got home. I could hear an arguement going on in the house when I walked up to the door. My mom was screaming and I could hear my dad shouting. Then the house went silent. I walked in the front door and my mom was on the kitchen floor. He had knocked her out."
Breanna paused and tried to choke back her tears.
Nick tensed up when she began speaking again.
"And that's when it happened. He...hit me for the first time. I screamed when I saw my mom and he walked straight up to my and smashed his fist to my stomach. I was dizzy and I fell back."
"7th grade. You were out for 3 days." Nick whispered.
Breanna nodded. "But that was only beginning Nick. There was so much more."
Nick stood up and grabbed a blanket, he sat back down and covered her up.
"I want to hear everything."
Breanna nodded and began again.
Chapter Two
Chapter Four
Roll With It Index
Nick Fanfiction Index
Backstreet Island