Gateway Drug | Volume I

Gateway Drug | Part Ninety

"I know that." I state, matter of fact. 

And, boy, was I right.

"Did you two talk about the relationship you have with your mother?" Amber asks Nikki. 

"I haven't had time to because we've been dealing with a lot of shit right now." He states. 

"Okay," she nods in understanding, because there's no way she hasn't heard what we're dealing with, now. "Do you want to talk about it now, then?" She asks. 

"Yeah, I can." He agrees. 

"Okay, go ahead." She leans back, letting him have the chance to talk to me.

He just stares at me, sighing out, looking as if he's struggling with talking to me about it. 

"Nikki, if you don't tell her, she can't understand." She adds and he rubs the back of his neck, looking at her to help him a little bit. 

"Start with dad," she suggests. 

"He left when I was little." He says to me. 

"And mom…" 

"...And mom started spiraling when he left." He explains. "She and whatever boyfriend she'd have at the time, would drop me off with Nona and Tom for months at a time, then when she'd come get me she'd be with a different man--sometimes married to them." He continues. "And, me being the smartass I am, when I get old enough to want to voice my opinion, I'd bump heads a lot with some of the dudes she brought around and things would get physical." He says next. "But, of course, she wouldn't feel like dealing with it because I was always ruining her partying anyway, so she'd send me off, again…things got really messy when I was, like, thirteen. Me and her got into it pretty bad and she started in on me and I told her I just wanted her to fuck off--I was just tired of it, so I hurt myself and called the cops and told them she attacked me, and she was arrested and I was sent back to Idaho to be with my grandparents." His voice shakes a little and I feel my heart hurt in my chest. 

I remember Nona telling me he and his mom had a lot of issues with each other, but I didn't think it was to that extent. 

"Have you talked to your dad at all?" I ask him, furrowing my brows a little and he rubs his chin, shaking his head a little. 

"I tried, like, ten years ago, and he told me he didn't have a son." He states. "Mom's always said I ran him off, but I was only two, so I know that's bullshit." He adds. 

"When I talked to you about all of this, it was very clear that you felt discarded, inadequate, and abandoned, because you have spent a good part of your childhood yearning for your mother's approval." Amber says. "Do you think that's true?" 

"Yeah." He nods. 

"Jumping through hoops at times to get it, but still being ditched with your grandparents while she went on and pretended she didn't have a little boy she needed to be responsible for."

He agrees, again, and she gives him a smile. 

"A woman is who her mother makes her to be and who her father says she is. A man is who his father makes him to be and who his mother says he is." She tells us. "And you didn't have a father around to make you, and all your mother told you was that you weren't appreciated, you weren't approved of, you weren't worthy of the love and attention you deserved." She states. "And you married a woman whose mother made her to strive for this unattainable level of perfection and have a complete come apart when it can't be reached, and a father who told her she wasn't worth the trouble it took to protect her." She tells us."I want to know--because it is so evident that you two carry so much resentment toward one another--what is one reason--out of many-- that it's there."