I swiped my hands down my face suddenly feeling desperate for air. I needed to get out of here and clear my head. I was teetering on the edge deceiving myself by toying with the idea that I could be good enough and worthy of her love. If that wasn’t a joke, I didn’t know what was. I grabbed my T-Shirt quickly pulling it over my head before escaping the bedroom and the desire to give into my feelings. My legs quickly carried me down the stairs and I grabbed the keys that were on the table heading out the door without looking back or giving it a second thought.
I told myself that I wasn’t running away that I just needed a breather a moment to collect my thoughts and pull myself away from the fantasy that I could be the man deserving of Nikki’s love. She had a way about her maybe it was the way she looked at me making me feel like I was something even when I knew I was nothing. I started up the car and pulled out of the retirement community not giving two shits about the speed limit or the annoying bumps that got in my way.
I drove with no direction or destination in mind as I rolled down the windows of the car and let the fresh air engulf me. I tried to erase her face from my memory the way she looked at me when she told me that I’d always have her so sincere as she pleaded with my soul to believe the words she was speaking.
I came back to New York to bury my mother feeling more alone than ever before and found Nikki, who brought me out of the darkness that was bestowed upon me. Before my mother died, I was content with who I was figuring it didn’t matter if I was a closed off self-centered prick and whoever didn’t like it could go to hell. Then I was reunited with Nikki. I watched on as she dated that jerkoff all along thinking she deserved so much better than him she deserved someone who wanted to make her his purpose.
She had become my purpose. She was the reason I stayed in New York she was the reason I put any effort into trying to be a good employee of Victors. She was the reason I pulled myself together and got us the hell out of Temptations. She was the reason I began to smile again. She was the reason I started to live again. She made me want to make a life for myself, not just sail through life being just another nameless face. I wanted people to know me for my accomplishments and not my failures. I wanted people to know that I was the man that made Nikki Pastore happy simply by loving her with everything in me.
I pulled the car over to the side shifting it into park as I leaned my head against the steering wheel. In just a few weeks, Nikki had taught me to love without condition to speak without bad intention to give without reason and most of all care without an expectation. I loved her and it didn’t matter if she loved me back it was a gift, but the real gift was that I had been given the opportunity to love her. If I had learned, anything through the death of both my parents it was that life was short and a life without love wasn’t a life worth living.
My parent’s lives may have been cut short but in the short time they had been given their lives had been full, full of love for one another and for me. I had been foolish enough to think that my life stopped when theirs did that they were the only two people in existence that could love me. I was wrong. I could love again, I could live again and I could do it all with Nikki she could be my purpose.
I lifted my head from the steering wheel and gazed out the window into the darkness. I didn’t have to be alone anymore. I could turn my life around and let myself be happy I just had to be man enough to do so.
I didn’t want to be alone anymore I wanted to crawl back in bed with Nikki where I belonged. I put the car into park and made a sharp U-turn deciding that I was going back to Aunt Gina’s and I was going to wake up my girl and man the fuck up by looking her in the eyes and telling her that I loved her.
“Wake the fuck up little girl.” Someone shouted nudging me awake with strong hands. I thought I was dreaming at first and reached for Mikey but my hands grasped a sheet instead of his warm body causing my eyes to flutter open. I lifted my head and screamed in fear, taking in the man hovering over the bed dressed all in black. He was wearing a ski mask and the only feature of his I could make out were the cold green eyes that stared back at me.
“Get the fuck out of the bed and put your clothes on.” He said kicking the mattress for extra measure.
I clutched the sheet to my body as my eyes did a quick scan searching for Mikey.
“Looking for your boyfriend?” He laughed coldly. “He left you high and dry.” He cocked his head to the side. “Maybe not dry.”
“You’re disgusting.” I shouted as tears stung my eyes wondering why Mikey would leave me here alone or if this bastard was just fucking with my head. What if he did something to Mikey? He reached for my arm tugging me out of bed resulting in me falling onto the floor. “Get your fucking hands off of me, you filthy pig.” I said through clenched teeth the tears I was holding back falling down my cheeks.