Warning(s):
Drug abuse (overdose)
Explicit language
Suicide attempt
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Duff and I move like the speed of lightening, him getting his pants on and me just putting my panties on and his t-shirt that got pulled off, before we rush next door with Steven, seeing people scrambling out the door, into connected suites, flushing drugs, all while Sally and Slash are working on waking him up, smacking at his face, to no avail.
"Wh-What happened?!" I ask them.
"Someone fucking shot him up and he fell out." She states.
"Who?" I ask and she sighs.
"Vivian, we really don't have time for questions, help me get him to the bath." She says just as I'm looking over her shoulder where we're crouched over Nikki, to see Sparkie, shock on his face.
We make eye contact and I just know he did this.
"Vivian!" She snaps and I'm back to reality, helping them to drag him to the bathroom all while Sparkie takes the opportunity to get out of dodge.
Suddenly Slash starts crying hysterically, clearly drunk and under the influence of many different substances.
"Slash, calm down." Sally assures him as we get some cold water on Nikki's body, Duff and Steven still slapping at his face.
"Damn it, Nikki." Duff mumbles, trying to keep himself calm.
"Slash," Sally repeats as he starts getting louder and louder to the point it's hard to focus on the issue at hand.
She stands and goes to the bathroom door, and Slash stops crying in a second.
"I'm sorry to knock him out but the last thing we need is to get hysterical over this, we can get him back if we try hard enough." She assures us.
After another minute and nothing's changing, I get uneasy.
"The ambulance is on the way." I hear someone say over the noise of the running water and the blood throbbing in my ears from my mind racing.
My heart feels like it's about to burst, my lungs feel flat, like they don't have the muscle to expand and let me catch my breath.
Duff's t-shirt that I'm wearing is soaked with freezing cold water, Nikki's grayish-yellow skin now blue…
Steven tries to knock him awake with his cast--from an injury he'd gotten earlier this week--before me, Sally, Duff and him get Nikki from the cold shower and get him back in the living room floor, tearing at his shirt and the buttons fly off.
"Holy shit." Steven says just under his breath as I go to start cpr but I'm stopping when my hands hit something like ice.
I quickly see what it is and I nearly fall back.
It's my crucifix that I thought I had lost when I left it in Duff's hotel room a couple months ago…
"He knows." I say it with a panic in my voice, beginning to hyperventilate. "Duff, he knows."
Duff looks at me, confused and frantic before he eyes the crucifix and if he had time to think about it, he would.
"Viv, just stay calm." Steven tells me as Sally starts pumping on Nikki's chest.
"C'mon, Nikki," She pleads by the fourth round.
Nothing.
"C'mon, I'm getting tired." She states and Duff takes over while Steven waits by his head for any sign of life.
"Nikki, I swear to God if you die," I threaten him, running my hands through my hair, tears streaming down my face as I look at the smidge of blood on his forehead from where Steven tried to wake him up.
"Let me try," I sniffle as Duff continues chest compressions and in between rounds of compressions, I try mouth to mouth resuscitation.
The more time that passes, the deader he looks.
"He's not waking up," I tell them, my adrenaline starting to wear off a little. "Nikki's not waking up, what else do we do?" I refuse to give up, looking to them for plan B.
"Shhit." Steven sighs out, sorrow in his quiet voice as he starts to pace.
It's very evident they don't have a plan B as ambulance sirens wail in the distance, coming closer and closer at the speed of light.
"We let the paramedics try to bring him back." Sally says, continuing CPR, and the thought paralyzes me. "And if they can't then…"
She doesn't finish, as if not wanting to entertain the possibility of Nikki dying tonight.
Within the next minutes, medics are all but busting the door down with a gurney.
Duff pulls me out of the way and I await them to start CPR, or pull out a magical pill that they shove down his throat and he magically comes back to life.
They check his pulse while listening to his heart with a stethoscope, and look at each other.
"Call it." The first one sighs out and my reality is beaten into me with a two ton hammer.
My body and mind disconnect, my heart wrenching in my chest as my soul screams out through my throat, struggling to get away from Duff, as I plead, "Nikki, don't leave me!"
"This is Nikki Sixx, he's not dying on my watch!" The other medic snaps to the first one over my cries. "Grab some adrenaline!"
"Nikki, I love you, I love you, please don't leave me!" I shriek, my throat raw as I claw against Duff, trying to get away so I can go to him.
"He's been out for too lon--"
"He's not dying tonight!" He barks over him and reaches for their bag, uncapping a long needle and plunging it into Nikki's heart.
Nothing happens.
What my new normal is about to look like flashes through my mind and I can't bear to even imagine what living in a world without him would be like.
"Vivian!" Duff screams as he, Steven and Sally scramble to pull me away from the balcony railing overlooking a thirty foot drop as I keep a white knuckled grip on the steel railing, trying to pull myself away from them.
"Let me go with him!" I scream at them, trying to kick them away from me.
Paramedic number one sedated me while paramedic number two shot another dose of adrenaline into Nikki's heart...he came back to life while I was subconsciously praying I'd lose mine.
When I wake up, my head's groggy, my heart hurts, and my body just feels heavy.
I'm in a hospital bed, confused for a moment, until it all comes back to me in a sudden, thundering moment.
Tears come to my eyes, panic kickstarting the pounding of my heart as I try to sit up.
"Hey, hey," I hear my dad say, getting up from the chair next to the bed to see me, and I look at him, confused. "They called me a few hours ago." He explains, And I nod, my lip shaking as tears steadily roll down my cheeks.
"Is he…" I can't finish my question, scared of the answer.
"They got him back." My dad assures me with a nod and relief floods my body.
"Oh, God," I close my eyes and my dad hugs me tightly, my face buried in his shoulder. "Oh, God, thank you." I acknowledge God for the first time in a while, my heart tensing at the sorrow I was so close to facing in a reality where Nikki was dead.
"I'll go tell the nurse you're awake, they wanted to ask you some questions." He tells me after a moment and I nod.
He kisses my forehead and gives a reassuring smile before stepping into the hall.
I wipe my eyes and a doctor is stepping in behind my dad in a matter of moments.
He asks me questions about whether or not I've been suicidal in the past, if I'm still taking my antidepressant...I just say, "I've never tried to kill myself, I've never thought about it" and "No, I'm not on Nardil anymore, it made me worse."
He decides my attempt at hurting myself was a spur of the moment panic, not a contemplated plan come to fruition at unlikely timing, and with a referral to a new Psychiatrist, they let me out of the psych wing of the hospital.
Steven, Slash, and Duff are waiting in the waiting room of the E.R., and when we get down there, Duff sees me and stands up, stepping to me slowly before quickening his pace, wrapping me in a vice grip of his arms when he gets to me...I feel a few of his tears against my temple as he holds me.
When we pull away, I look at my dad, and he looks away from me for a moment, eyes on the floor, brows furrowing slightly…
"I'm just gonna go home with my dad for a few hours." I tell Duff quietly, wiping my tears and he does the same, nodding.
I give his hand a squeeze before stepping to Steven and Slash, who're both standing hesitantly...guilty expressions on their faces.
"We're sorry for scorin--" I shut Steven up, hugging him to me and he squeezes me.
"You could've ran like everyone else but you didn't." I point out, my voice hoarse from screaming during the night. "He probably wouldn't be here without you caring in the first place, so thank you." I add, looking at him, his tired eyes. I don't think he's slept at all.
I hug Slash next, feeling sorry for him since he and Nikki are like brothers at this point.
"They said he should be alright." He tells me.
"Dad told me." I reply.
"It used to happen to me all the time." He says next. "I just didn't think it'd happen to him like that." He adds. "That bad, I mean."
"He's sick, Slash." I repeat Duff's words, finally accepting the fact that Nikki really is sick. "He's just sick."
I finish saying bye and me and dad make our way to his car, and he fumbles in his pocket for the keys, getting it unlocked and I get in, staring at the windshield.
Dad gets in next and shuts the door, completely silent.
"It's been happening since September." I tell him, lowly, and something tells me he knows exactly what I'm talking about. "Me and Nikki separated after the Vanity thing happened in July and Duff and I started seeing each other in September."
"Does he know?" He asks and I sigh.
"I didn't think he did, until last night." I reply, feeling ashamed, sniffling.
"Can I tell you something I haven't told anybody before because your mother swore me to FBI level confidentiality?" He asks and I nod as he hands me a paper towel from his pocket.
"Your aunt Lily didn't get into heroin from her boyfriend she was head over heels for, they did it together, but he's not the one that introduced her to it." He admits and I furrow my brows. "Your mother was on methadone for part of her pregnancy with you."
"What?" I nearly snap out, shock shuttering everything I've been taught my whole life.
"She got untangled from that web by the time you were born because she wanted to be better for you, and that's why she's always been so hard on trying to have you make the right choices, she just didn't want you to end up like her, and when Lily kept struggling with drugs over the years, she felt like it was her fault because Lily grew up knowing Charlette was on it and she felt like she was the one who brought her baby sister into all of it--even though your mother was clean years before Lily even touched it. Then you and Nikki getting engaged, she just…" he trails off, sighing. "...I don't know, she just has her own demons she fights with, still, I guess. But she does love you, Vivian. And everything she's done has been to try to protect you from making the same mistake she did--even if it wasn't worth the emotional turmoil you went through, and there's no excuse for it. And I know I didn't protect you as much as I could have from her, as much as I should have, I was just used to being with her for so long...I took things with a grain of salt, and I wasn't thinking that you were too young to understand that you just needed to do that with her sometimes. Even now, when she drives me up the damn wall, I still find some good in it, because I remember that it can be so, so much worse. She was so much worse at one point." He informs me. "My point is, don't be so hard on yourself. You had an affair--God doesn't hate you for it, you're not a bad person or a sorry excuse of a woman or any less of a Christian. You're human. God is well aware we are all human and don't make the best choices sometimes. And given that I've been you before, married to what seems like somebody you love one day and then the devil the next, I can see why you wanted something that wasn't weighed down with the burden of a goddamn demon like heroin." He adds and I try to blink back more tears. "So the question is, now what?"
"I don't know if I still want a divorce." I confess, rubbing my lips together.
"You think?" He asks, a little smile on his face. "You tried to throw yourself from a two story balcony so you wouldn't get left by your momentarily dead husband, and you think you don't want a divorce anymore?"
I find myself chuckling at his point, wiping my tears again.
"I just want to get him back, Dad. The old him, because I feel like I've been married to a stranger."
"I think you need to go get help for yourself before you start trying to help him, though." He tells me next, reassuringly patting the crown of my hair.
"Okay." I nod and he reaches over and hugs me, kissing my hair before pulling back, cranking the car, sniffling.
"Alright, now, you're getting me teary eyed, you gotta stop that." He tells me and I laugh, just as a radio announcer states, "Last night, rock n roll bassist, Nikki Sixx, died of a heroin overdose at the Frankli--" my dad quickly cuts it off.
"I just wanna go home." I mumble.
"Alright." He replies, putting the car in reverse.
"I mean home-home, Dad." I clarify and he looks at me.
Mom was off at the women's Christmas dinner for church, so it was a perfect opportunity for Dad to have mercy on me and bring me back to the house I grew up in--that I hadn't step foot in for six years.
"You still haven't painted over that?" My finger traces over the measurements notched into the doorway of our living room.
"Your mom wants me to, but I'm not." He replies, putting his keys on the counter.
"Your mom won't be back for a few more hours. Why don't you go get some sleep that you haven't been induced into?" He suggests and I nod.
I step into my old room, nothing's been touched.
Dust has settled over old books, my desk, picture frames I didn't take with me...my bed is still unmade, exactly how I left it.
I get on the mattress, laying my head on the pillow, smelling the perfume I used to wear in high school.
I turn over and stare at my window, remembering all the times Nikki's climbed in to see me, and helped me down when I was sneaking out.
All the times Tommy would toss forbidden records up here for me to listen to when my mom wasn't here and the times my dad would help me out and hide them in his own stash of Charlette-band music.
I miss being a teenager.
I chew on the inside of my lip and look up at the ceiling, closing my eyes for a second.
I end up falling asleep, waking up to a single knock before the door opens.
The figure in the doorway is tall and lanky and at first I think it's Duff until I realize it's a brunette, his hair longer and more curly than Duff's.
"Hey," Tommy lowly starts, and I hear Heather downstairs laughing with my Dad.
"Hey," I sit up and he sits down on the bed next to me.
"So, I heard about Sixx." He tells me, slightly awkward, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Everybody's heard about him." I mumble.
"...I heard about you, too." He adds and I look at him. "I talked to Steven and Slash."
"I'm fine, Tom--"
"--Fucking knock it off, Vivian, damn it." He sighs out, standing back up, rubbing his face. "You're not fine. If you were fine you wouldn't have tried to do that."
"I'm depressed, Tommy, I think everyone freaking knows I'm depressed, and I've been depressed for years now, I'm not suicidal but I'm not the most mentally stable at the moment and I panicked in a stressful situation and did something without giving it a second thought." I argue, my voice shaking.
"Well, why not? Why not give it a second thought or something? You're not even together anymore."
"Because it's him, Tommy, that's why."
"You're not even together anymore, Viv--"
"--He's been all I've known for the past six years, Tommy, you can't expect six years of everything together to go away just because he fucked up."
"What about us, huh? Me and Vince and Tansy? We've been friends for years. You and me have been friends for nearly twenty years, Viv, and you were about to make all of it go away just because he fucked up." His voice cracks and I breathe out, my eyes watering as a result of him forcing back tears, rubbing his eyes.
He plops back on the bed, and buries his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees.
"I knew this would happen." He tells me next, sniffling. "I knew this would happen, and that's why I didn't want him going anywhere near you because I knew somehow, someway, he'd fuck you up, and he has. And I have, too, because I fucking let him." He adds, exhaling. "I know you don't want to live without him, but I can't live without you. And I know I've done a lot to push you away and I-I've taken his side over your's on a lot of shit but, Viv, you can't just decide to leave me without telling me, without giving me a chance to say 'goodbye,' and you can't…" he trails off, sniffling, quickly rubbing away at his eyes to block his tears from falling.
I don't say anything, because I don't know what to say.
I just wrap my arms around him, my cheek against his shoulder, my eyes closing as he starts crying quietly.
I rarely saw Tommy cry, the last time I'd seen him cry until then was when Razzle died…I don't know if he was crying over Nikki nearly leaving us, or me, but he didn't brush it off. He just sat there for a few minutes and let himself actually feel stuff. No drugs. No alcohol. Just actually allowing himself to process.
The next morning I wake up in Tommy and Heather's spare bedroom, Heather on one side, Sharise and Skylar on the other…all of them curled up with me.
It's heart warming knowing that I've managed to wrangle in some good, stable women into my life along the past several years. Making up for lost time with my mom and my aunt, I guess.
I think back to what my dad told me yesterday about my mom.
Who the hell would have ever thought that my mother would be into something like heroin at one point?
Despite not being able to forgive her quite yet for everything she put me through, I know my dad was right: she was just trying to keep me in line so I wouldn't make the same mistakes she made.
No wonder she lost her shit when me and Nikki went public with our relationship. All she could see was me losing myself in the money and access and swimming in melted black tar and China white.
I scoot to the foot of the bed, careful not to wake the girls and I go to the hallway and grab their phone.
"Hey, it's Nikki. I'm not here because I'm dead." Our answering machine beeps and I hang up, feeling a hole in my soul.
At least he made it home alright, I tell myself, tired of crying.
I hang up the phone and go to the kitchen to make some coffee, stopping by the counter to see "VIVIAN" written in big, black marker on a large manilla envelope.
I furrow my brows and open the prongs, pulling the papers out.
The top is labeled, "California Judiciary."