Gateway Drug | Volume I

Gateway Drug | Part Ninety

"She's always looked down on me." Nikki says it. 

"Why?" 

"Because I don't live like she does." 

"Explain what that means." 

"She believes in God, I don't. She's spent our relationship sober, I haven't. She's more modest and conservative, I'm not."

"I don't resent you for not believing in a God and not being modest and conservative--those are a few of the things I respect about you, Nikki." I argue. 

"Bullshi--"

"--No, no, no cursing. Take a breath." Amber reassures him, calmly. 

"She hasn't let me do what I want to do. If I do what I want to do, she's on my throat over it or guilt tripping me or attacking me over it." He states. 

"Because all you've wanted to do the past three years is drugs, Nikki." I mumble. 

"Go back to guilt tripping." Amber tells him. "Does she put you on a guilt trip, or are you guilty after you do something you know she would not like for you to do and you beat yourself up for it?" She asks. 

"She just shuts down." 

"She shuts down?" 

She looks at me. 

"Why do you shut down when he does something you don't like?" 

"Because it's always drugs or something mean he does when he's on drugs, and I don't want to be around it, but most times I can't get away from it so I just go somewhere else, mentally." I admit. 

"And you see when she does that, and it makes you feel bad." Amber says to him. 

"Yeah." 

"That's not guilt tripping you, Nikki, that's her protecting herself because you won't." She points out. "Vivian, what's one of the reasons you carry resentment for him?"

"I'm not a priority." I tell her. 

"The amount of money I've spent on you since we got together, and you're not a priority?!" He asks me, pissed and shocked I have the audacity to say that. 

"Buying me a house and a new car and getting me nice things isn't showing me I'm a priority, Nikki, it's just you feeling bad for the shit you've done and buying me things to make yourself feel better for it. I'm grateful that you've made sure I've been taken care of in the sense that I've never gone hungry, I've never been out on the street, I've never had to go without utilities and hot water and things like that, and I've lived a spoiled life in terms of finances and the car I drive and the house we've lived in. You're a great provider--you just…we wouldn't be in this position if you didn't choose drugs over me." I say to him. 

"I haven't." He argues. 

"You blew off our wedding night to go to a party with Tommy." I remind him and Amber raises her brows. "Then you got in that accident on your way back home and hurt your shoulder and started smoking heroin to get through the pain so you could finish the album." I add and he rolls his jaw. "I love everything about you, except your drug abuse. And I've been so angry because there is no line with you. You just keep getting worse and worse and then turn around and convince yourself that I'm ungrateful and I don't approve of who you are because I'm perpetually bitter about the marriage I've been in--and it's all my fault in your eyes. Everything bad that's happened is all my fault." 

"I don't think that, I just put blame on you where it's due, you just refuse to see that you're a problem in all of this, too." He explains. 

"If you weren't on smack, we wouldn't have problems, Nikki."