Warning(s):
Explicit language
Mentions of violence
Mentions of drug abuse
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"Hey, Viv, it's Tansy...I got your flowers and was calling to let you know I'm getting out of the hospital today, and I'm heading to the same place the guys are at, Nikki said it doesn't suck as bad as the other places they've tested out, um…" Tansy's sweet voice sounds over my answering machine. "...I'm really sorry for not calling earlier. I'm just now getting off methadone, so I've kicked smack successfully. I just wanted you to know I'm doing okay and getting some help, and Nikki called and told me you two were working things out." She adds. "Come visit me, soon, okay? We have a lot of shit to talk through, and I know we do, I just don't know where to start but I love you. I'll see you later."
She hangs up and I smile a little bit, rubbing my lips together.
I haven't heard anything on her since Steven told me she was in the hospital back in New York after her overdose not long after Nikki's. I sent flowers when he told me she had to undergo emergency surgery to cut a part of her liver out that was turning necrotic.
I hope we can get through things like me and Nikki are trying to do, I think Amber's going to try to bring Vince and Tommy in to talk about our relationships as a whole the session after this next one Nikki and I have...maybe Tansy and I can sit down a few times and hash things out, too.
I head to get a bath, but it's not long before my peace is soon disturbed.
This is the fifth time the phone has rung in the past two minutes, and I roll my eyes and pull myself out of the bathtub, grabbing my towel and stepping to the living room.
I already see my message machine blinking from unheard voice-mails, and I pick the phone up and answer it.
Before I can even say, "hello," Sharise starts in.
"Vivian, what is going on, why didn't you say anything about it, why--"
"Sharise, slow down," I'm bombarded with a million questions, paranoia making my chest tighten.
"Vivian, you're pregnant, apparently, that's what's going on." She clarifies, and I feel the color drain from my face.
"Did Vince hear that from Nikki and tell you or--"
"--You're actually pregnant?!"
"You didn't hear it from Vince?"
"No, Vivian, it's all over MTV!" She says next, not sounding angry at me, just shocked.
"What?!"
Just as soon as she says it, there's a sharp beep from the phone, indicating someone's trying to call.
"Gimme a second and I'll call you back." I assure her.
"Fuck that, I'm coming over." She tells me before hanging up and I take the next call while turning the TV on to MTV.
I just see a picture of Nikki and I on the screen as I hear, "again, congratulations to Nikki and Vivian Sixx on the news of their…"
"Hello?" I answer the call that has interrupted Sharise and I.
"Why the fuck is Page Six running a story about you being knocked up with Duff fucking McKagan's kid?!" Doc yells and I nearly fall out, starting to panic.
"Because I am, but I have no idea how the hell anybody other than Nikki and Duff know about it, Doc, I haven't even told any of my friends or family yet, I swear." I promise and I hear him curse and throw stuff around on the other end before calmly saying, "this isn't good, Viv."
"No, shit, Sherlock." I reply.
"I'm going to talk to Sixx, you just stay at home--don't do anything irrational, we'll take care of this." He states, hanging up.
My phone is ringing again as soon as he hangs up.
My phone starts ringing off the hook within three minutes and I have to step outside to the back yard with Whisky to get away from it.
I'm sitting on the edge of the pool when Sharise gets here, this look of disbelief on her face.
"I had to drop Sky by my mom's, what the hell, Viv?" She asks me, sitting beside me.
"I was gonna tell you and everybody once I got past the first trimester, Sharise, I promise." I say, honestly.
"I'm not mad that you didn't, I'm just...I didn't realize you and Nikki were sleeping together again."
"We're not." I state. "And Doc said that Page Six already knows it's Duff's and has it plastered everywhere so somebody said something to somebody."
"Duff?! Holy shit, Vivian." She breathes out, her eyes wide.
"This is bad." I squeeze my eyes shut, rubbing my face. "This is so, so bad, Sharise."
"What're you gonna do?" She asks me. "I mean...when did you two even start…you know?"
"September." I tell her.
"Are you gonna admit it's Duff's or just play it off as Nikki's publicly and then privately it's gonna know Duff is really it's dad or does he even want anything to do with it?"
"Yeah, he does, and Nikki's managing." I inform her, and she nods slowly. "It's nobody's business. It's not. So I shouldn't have to explain myself to anybody but I know everybody will want an explanation and we'll just admit it's Duff's and ignore the bullshit people are gonna throw at us...I just don't want to lose any friends over this…"
"If you lose friends over this, they're not your real friends, because everybody you're close with knows exactly what kind of marriage you and Nikki have been having the past year and you've both been struggling with different things and his affair with Vanity and so I think everybody should be pretty understanding of the situation." She tells me.
"They should be. Doesn't mean they will."
"Well, the ones who matter right now will." She reassures me. "And from what I've been gathering the last six months, that doesn't include Tommy and Vince right now because I already know they're probably gonna be on Nikki's side completely."
"Yeah, so will all of the fans." I mumble.
"Well, if you're gonna confirm it's Duff's, is he gonna come out and say that he actually did have an affair with Vanity or are you just gonna be the sacrificial lamb in all this?"
"I have no idea, Sharise." I admit.
"I think he should." She states. "Because it's not gonna be fair for people to think you just went to another man and 'cheated' on Nikki out of nowhere."
"It doesn't matter what Nikki says about the Vanity thing, he's just gonna be a God and I'm gonna be a whore." I argue, sighing out.
"You really think that?"
"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."
"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."
"Vivian." He says it as if saying, "you know that's bullshit."
"What?"
"The amount of times me or somebody would tell you to take your medication and you'd blow us off and just let yourself get more--"
"--You can't compare depression to drug addiction. Depression didn't turn me into a completely different person. You shot me, Nikki. You shot me. And that still didn't make you realize you needed to get sober."
"You've physically assaulted me and other people, Vivian, in a frenzy, and still didn't see the issue with your mental state."
"You've put your hands on me before, too, so don't make me sound like--"
"--I've grabbed you a few times and that's been when you were trying to beat me. So don't start that shit." He snaps. "The times I physically hurt you, I was doped up and wasn't thinking straight. The times you've physically hurt me and other people, you were sober, you just weren't taking your medicine. So you can keep saying that I chose drugs over you, but the amount of times you've chosen your pride and, 'I don't need to be on medicine,' over me is just as bad." He says. "If you weren't so damn angry all the time over tiny shit."
"No, no, it's not just her being angry over tiny things. It's you getting with a seventeen year old girl, and placing the responsibilities of a forty-one year old mother on her." She adds and he breathes out. "Your wife has been raising you the past seven years. She's your wife. She's not your mama. And you have been punishing her like she is. Her not wanting you to destroy yourself with drugs doesn't equate to the times your mother wouldn't let you dress the way you wanted to dress, or do the artistically productive things you wanted to do that she couldn't understand that you'd fight about. This woman was seventeen years old. You had no business being twenty-two and seeing a seventeen year old, let alone putting that much weight and expectation on her shoulders and getting angry and saying she didn't appreciate you because she didn't know how to handle it all while every year you'd push further and further." She goes on. "Years of anger and resentment and bitterness towards your mother, all turned loose on a girl who didn't cause any of it, just because she didn't want you running yourself into a grave." She adds, pointedly. "When me and you first started working together to get to the bottom of all of this, you told me that she went from worshipping the ground you walked on, to being an evil demon from hell--do you remember saying that?"
He hesitantly replies, quietly, "yes."
"Do you realize that you have done everything in your power to verbally, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually beat the hell out of the very girl who saw you as her God before she was even old enough to really know who God was?" She asks him. "All because the woman who made you feel like you weren't worth the trouble it took to stay around and raise you, was never there to answer for her actions so you started chopping at the next one in line."
"Okay, I get it, I'm fucked up, I fucked her up, I've ruined our marriage, it's all my fault, and she's the innocent angel who was seduced by me and dragged to hell, I get." He stands up.
"Nikki," Amber starts.
"Nikki," I say as he steps to the door, "we can't fix this if you--"
"--Yeah, fix this." He flicks me off before slamming the door.
I grind my teeth and stomp after him, ignoring Amber's warning against it.
"You are such an asshole!" I bark at him, following him.
"Wow, I've never heard that one before!" He laughs humorlessly.
"Nikki, seriously, she got all over me for being mad at you for sleeping with two-hundred girls, you can take her pointing out that you hate me because I remind you--"
"--I don't hate you, Vivian, alright?" He stops, turning to face me.
"Well, you're really acting like it." I cross my arms.
"I don't. I'm just pissed that you refuse to accept that I'm not the only problem in this shit show and if you wanna work on us you need to realize that you'r--"
"--Baby," I breathe out, grabbing at his hand and he rubs his forehead, "I know it's my fault, too, but it's just…" I blink back tears, looking away from him.
"...Just what?" He asks.
"Embarrassing." I wipe my eyes, sniffling. "It's embarrassing having to sit there, pregnant with another dude's baby, and tell a stranger about how I've abused my husband and people around me."
"You think it's not embarrassing for me to sort through shooting you and strangling you and still not walking away from drugs?" He asks. "Don't even get me started on having to tell you I've cheated that many fucking times and even had a mistress?" He adds…"I think I've embarrassed myself, and you, more than you've embarrassed yourself and me."
"I'm pregnant. And it's gone public. And it's not yours. And it's gone public. I think I've won with which one of us has embarrassed the other the most." I mumble.
"Well, I'm not embarrassed. Those people don't know shit." He tells me, furrowing his brows.
"I am." I say, trying not to cry again.
I'm taken back a little when he hugs me, tightly…"Why didn't you tell me about your mom?" I him, my face in his chest, tears rolling down my cheeks.
"Because I didn't want to bother you with it." He says.
"I wouldn't have been bothered by it, Nikki." I sniffle, looking up at him.
He blinks a couple times and breathes out.
"There's a basket on the closet shelf at home with several of my journals in it." He explains. "Filled with things I didn't want to bother you with." He adds. "I really think if you feel too embarrassed or ashamed, reading those will prove my point that I've been worse than you have." He admits.
"I'm pregnant--"
"--I know you are." He grabs the sides of my face, looking me in the eyes. "Just read them if you want to, but I say a lot of shit in there I wrote when I was high, so there's your warning." He adds.
"Are you sure you want me to read them?" I ask.
"Yeah."
I wish he would've said, "no," because I screwed myself over while reading them.
NIKKI
I turned into a senseless moron the second she got ahold of my hand, looked at me with watery, pretty eyes, and said, "baby."
I would've let a train hit me if I knew it would've made her feel less embarrassed and ashamed. I didn't think reading my journals would've made her feel better--just help her gain an understanding that she's the smart one out of the two of us…
If this was one year ago, I'd have her face down on a mattress, making up for our argument.
But obviously that isn't much of a solution...so I just pull away and smile with my teeth at her the best I can, feeling better when her thumbs graze over my dimples and she smiles, too.
"I'm sorry I was rude in there." She tells me, next.
"I'm sorry for being an asshole." I reply, honestly…
"Do you really think I look down on you because you don't believe the same things I do?"
"Sometimes, I guess." I admit to her.
"I don't." She tells me. "I never really have." She adds. "I just don't like when you make fun of it or mock it."
"...Yeah, 'Wild Side' was kinda a dick move…" I tell her and she looks at me.
"A catchy dick move." She says. "And I like the song, I just wish you wouldn't have made it simply to spite me for the most part."
"I'll try not to use my powers for evil against you again." I assure her…"But you gotta quit using sex to try to get out of stuff, and I will, too." I say next. "This shit's so hard because we don't talk about stuff, and we never have, and it's just better to go ahead and embarrass ourselves and talk about it instead of trying to fix it with something we can obviously go get from other people--and have gone and gotten from other people."
"And we can't blow up on each other when we do try to talk and work things out." She adds. "So no screaming at each other."
"And no hitting." I say.
"Ever." She agrees.
I hold my pinkie out to her and she smiles softly, taking it with hers before I kiss her cheek and pull her to me again.
I didn't know, a week from then, I'd be screaming up a storm from learning about seven fucking miscarriages from '83 to '87 that she didn't tell me about.