High School Never Ends Ch 06

Christmas lights twinkled on the nearby homes as neighbors began celebrating their holiday cheer. He took in the spectacle as he stood behind Skye at the window seat. It amazed Nickolas how so many people could be so unaware, could be so... merry, as if there wasn't a care in the world.

Wisps of curls danced along his neck distracted him from his current thoughts, bringing him back to the present.

To the girl in front of him.

He couldn't help but take in her scent. Take her in. Memorize every detail. Her wild coils, falling freely against her shoulders while she sat gazing out the window. He continued to stand behind her, taking in what she saw in her silence.

It had been over four months since Skye last heard from her mother and Nickolas could only watch, helplessly, as Skye withdrew from everyone around her.

As she sat before him, hardly a breath away, there was no awareness of him. She didn't even seem to sense his presence and Nickolas had never felt so distant to something so close in his life.

To call it frustrating was an understatement.

And yet he still stood there watching as the twinkling lights danced across her honeyed skin. She looked ethereal, a goddess even in her misery, and he wanted nothing more than to hold her. On their own accord his fingers reached for her. His arms outstretched before his mind caught up uncertainty for the situation at hand caused him pause.

How would she react?

What could he say to her?

Is this what she needed?

His hand hovered, his consciousness trapped in the ambiguity caused by the unknowns.

Would she let him touch her?

After all he was a major part of her suffering and isolation. If only he had reacted differently. Not responding so harshly when he had saw her and Daniel together, maybe she would've trust him enough to open up, tell him how she was impacted by the disappearance of her mother or she would've still trusted Daniel enough to confide in him what was going on in her head. Impulsiveness, it was his very own curse and because of it he feared he may have pushed her too far.

Fear was the one emotion that stood out clearly in the swirl of insecurity. It was raw, unmasked, and unobscured by doubt.

Nickolas knew fear well, it was his only companion when he was young, when his mother abandoned him and his father both. As the memories resurfaced, his heart rate began to pick up speed and his breathing started to become labored. This all while the child that he once was, full of apprehension and worry, began to claw its way back to the surface from grave where he was buried.

He needed to get a grip. The sting of his nails biting into his palms, as his fingers clenched tightly in fists, was enough to regain his composure. Out of sheer will, Nickolas fought to overcome the helplessness and anxiety of the dilemma he and Skye were now facing. The strain on his control by the fear that threatened to consume his was nearly debilitating.

He could taste blood. The coppery taste pooling into his mouth as he bit harder on the inside of his cheek.

Focus.

Breathe.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale... Exhale...

Focus...

Focus...

Pain was usually a good tool for him, but even when his nails dug deeper into his flesh and his teeth locked more securely into place, the blood a near stream in his mouth. Nothing seemed to work as it should. As hard as Nickolas tried to center himself and stay with the present, only previously failed attempts at making things up to Skye plagued his mind.

He had visited her every night the first week, climbing up to her bedroom window above the shop since he knew she wouldn't hear his knocks on the front door below her. His raps would go unanswered for several minutes as he hung precariously from the second story window before she would finally open it for him.

Silence was the only greeting from her each time she let him in and he didn't try to make small talk. By the time he would finish undressing, she would already be under the blankets. And Nickolas, clad only in his boxers, he would climb into bed with her, pulling her back onto his chest, cradling her in his warmth, actively trying to provide her with some form of comfort, even if it was only on the physical level and not the emotional one that she so desperately needed.

It was on the third night when she told him she still hadn't heard anything from her mother. They laid together in the dark every night since, not saying a word and that night started out just the same as any for them. He held her close, his arms enveloping him bringing her closer to his warm. The plains of his chest and chiseled physic now, practically, her bed,

Even in the humidity, they were covered with blankets and sheets as the ceiling fan whirled lazily about them. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet, he had almost missed it all together. Never heard her sound so fragile, even when she was unsure of herself. Her voice was so soft, small even, when she had spoken. He had to make sure he heard her correctly, but she was already asleep. Her chest gently rising and falling with every breath, the overwhelming need to protect her constricted his heart when he admired her sleeping form. She was beautiful, as her skin shone in the moonlight, he vowed, even if it was from herself, he would protect her.

Remembering that moment, when as he held her in his arms and vowed to protect her, was why he had been subtlety trying to convince Skye to file a missing person report on a daily basis. She didn't respond to him, not that he really expected her to, but she needed to know that her mother was not forgotten by anyone. It was a way to ease her mind that some one was looking for her. That Skye wasn't abandoned.

He didn't begin asserting himself on her again until she started missing classes. That confrontation had him restraining her her until she tired of hitting him. Seeing her in hysterics, her voice hoarse from her screams of frustration and pain, tears streaming down her amber skin, nearly did him in. It wasn't supposed to be like this, this anguish that she now had to endure, that anger that she must feel for him. Not that he blamed her. He brought more tears to her eyes than any one person should, and the tightening in his chest he felt when he saw her in such a state of rage and despair, his body shuddered from the memory. Even now, knowing that he was partly to blame for her distress, could undo him if thought about it for too long and didn't keep his emotions in check.

There were still no words for what he witnessed.

She was still raw. He was still raw, their emotions abrasive to each, causing them both untold damage, and he had decided at that time it was best that he hung back and let her heal on her own.

Their recent history continued to danced around him, torturing him as they showed how she went limp in his arms after she fought him. Taunting him as they kept him just out of reach of what he wanted most, her.

He saw the very instant she shut down on him and she hadn't came back. Her beautiful brown eyes became dull and lifeless. She had stopped talking, stopped responding and virtually went on auto pilot. It was nearly impossible to leave her after that, but he did. Thinking time apart would do them both some good, but when he got there the next night, it was like she hadn't moved, still wearing the clothes as the day before.

It was same the following night.

And the night after that. The only reason he known she had moved, was because she hadn't soiled herself, but he doubt she ate anything while he was away and he had to force her to at least drink water even as she turned away food.

"Skye, this isn't healthy." It was like talking to a wall. The helplessness was overtaking him as he watched her slowly wither away before him. He fought against the waves of panic as they hit him, but with each wave, the fight grew harder. Everything he tried wasn't working and if he didn't get her back soon, she was lose what she had worked so hard for.

"Look, I've let you rage, let you cry, given you your space, but now it's time to get your ass back to reality! You've missed two weeks of school already and you're starting to get behind. How is that gonna look on your transcripts, huh?" He shook her shoulders trying to get some response out of her, only dead eyes gazed lifelessly back at him.

Her grades meant everything to her, it was her only way out of this town. Nickolas knew that. The fact that it didn't illicit a response from her began to make him desperate. Fingers digging deeper into her shoulders as he tried to get a grip on his own turbulent emotions. If she was in any discomfort or pain, she didn't show it her face void and just as lifeless as her eyes.

It was like he was drowning, suffocating, the panic building and encompassing all the he knew, darkening everything it touch. If he lost her like this...

"Your mother Skye! What are you gonna tell your mom when she does come back only to find you couldn't graduate because you've missed to much school? Wallowing in your own self pity because mommy wasn't there to make you get out of bed!" Breathing heavy, he stared in her eyes, at her face, her lips, all the while his fingers continued to curl in her shoulders, trying to force her to feel something, anything...

Still there was nothing.

Time passed in the quiet. The silence stretching between the two figures in the room, pushing them farther away from one another.

That was it, all he had left to say. The last trick up his sleeve. Brining up her mom was his Hail Mary and he had nothing left to play. As her silence ate away at him, Nickolas could think of nothing else, but how wrong he had handled her, how wrong he had handled her situation. He knew her mom had left, he and Daniel both saw her leave in a hurry the day they had dropped Skye off, but Nickolas didn't know the full extent of it.

Not until Skye had showed up as his door in pouring rain, distraught, did he realize something was seriously wrong. It took a lot of misdirection and flirtation on his part with Mayor John Langston's secretary, Julia, to find out what, but it paid off when he got the deed to Skye's and Janine's shop, just not in the way he was expecting.

The normally comforting gesture of running his hand through his hair did nothing for him as the facts and the unknowns continued to goad him.

Did she know?

Should she know?

Could he tell her, her mother wasn't who she thought she was? A humorless laugh sounded from deep within his chest.

The fact that he even cared was enough to question his own sanity. But he knew things didn't go the way he expected it to when it came to Skye. She was different, her quiet rebellion and juxtaposing submission called to his own inner turmoil to respond and not think. In this moment, his response was to tell her the truth, tell her the woman she was mourning was a liar and not worth her tears.

Exposing every little secret

Every little lie.

But his rational self knew it wouldn't help her, not now anyways. Sighing, Nickolas settled on a compromise with himself. He would tell her when she was stronger, and he knew she would be. She had to be. If he told her now, it would shatter a piece of her that he wanted to keep whole.

If Nickolas knew what love truly was, he would've realized it was this moment when he felt it. However emotions, being what they were, a response, he chose not to analyze it, and instead settled with admitting, at least to himself, that he cared for her. It was easier that way and still justified his more noble actions.

With at least one of his inner demons calmed, the waves of panic falling back into the sea of the unknown, he could go to her and embrace her, encourage her, begin to expiate his many wrongs against her, starting by pulling her from the darkness he helped cover her in.

Nickolas awoke with a start, a sheen of perspiration covered his bare chest and neck. He hadn't had a nightmare since he was a child. It was unsettling that it was the same one he had after his mother left. In the dream, he was in someplace cold and sterile, the light was blinding as his own despair and terror took over him and then ebbed away into nothingness taking him away with it into the void.

It wasn't until he moved to sit up that his eyes locked onto Skye's watching him. He was startled to say the least. It's always unsettling to know someone was watching you sleep and with the unease still lingering from his dream, Nickolas was still a little on edge. He couldn't even remember the last time she had look at him with focused eyes.

"Skye?"

"Let's be clear about one thing. You don't get to use my mother against me ever. She's gone and I'm here. There is nothing else you can use against me. Now get out."

It took him a moment to process what she had said, he was so mesmerized by the sound of her voice, the strength behind it. Although raspy from lack of use of the past few weeks, it was still melodious to him, a wonderful break from the silence, even if he didn't approve of what she had chose to say.

"Skye—"

"I said get out!" Her tone left no room for discussion and Nickolas, not one to take defeat, had to reason his way out of her room.

She was talking again, she was no longer a walking zombie. With each knew realization, articles of clothing made their way from the floor back onto his body. He had succeeded. He had gotten her back and as long as she was alive and animated, he could atone for his sins against her and possibly win her the right way.

With each realization, there were new possibilities.

No he hadn't lost anything yet, but the strength in her eyes, so delicate and fragile in this moment and the seriousness of her voice told him, if he pushed the issue, he just might.

He didn't say anything as he left, climbing out the very window he entered hours earlier. There really wasn't anything to say and as he pulled into his own driveway, the drive home completed practically on autopilot, his headlights illuminating the one person he wasn't expecting.

"What do you want Daniel?" Nickolas was barely out of the car when he spoke. Daniel looked almost in as bad of a shape as Nickolas. With disheveled hair and dark circles under his eyes, Nickolas briefly wondered when the last time it was that Daniel had slept. From the looks of it, he hadn't been eating too well either, his clothes were ill fitting on his build, leaner than he remembered.

Nickolas didn't have time to worry about Daniel. He just wanted this night to be done and over with so he could find some sort of peace and take time to formulate a plan with Skye.

That damned silence again. At least there were crickets to fill it this time

They stood, sizing each other up.

It was grating his nerves that no one other than himself could articulate what was going on with them and he was the one with the emotional issues.

"Nick, I..." Shifting uncomfortably, Daniel stopped unsure what exactly to say.

"Damn it Daniel, I don't have all night. Why are you here?" Both parties were taken aback by Nickolas' level of aggression. They haven't spoken since that night and after being sent packing from Skye's place he really didn't want any reminders of his short comings.

"How is she?" When the question was voiced, Daniel came up short at the look Nickolas gave him.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now? You show up here to ask me how she's doing? You didn't think to go and see for yourself? Well, she's speaking now, no thanks to you. How about you go over there and see her. Go see what you had a hand in, you fucking coward." Nickolas was nearly inside the house, pushing past Daniel as he readied his keys. His voice dripped with venom at Daniel's audacity.

"I had no choice—"

"You've got some fucking nerve." The keys forgotten, all of Nickolas' attention focused on the fool in front of him. "Of course you had a fucking choice! You could've held me back. You could've stopped me, talked me down. Or better yet, you could've kept your fucking dick in your pants and we wouldn't even be here in this mess!" Daniel was pushed back by the force of Nickolas as he shoved him.

"Where do you get off coming over here anyway with the innocent victim act, huh?" Another hard shove. "We both know you are anything but." Nickolas hands where outstretched again against Daniel's chest.

"Nickolas, stop—!"

"I may be a heartless bastard, but at least I can deal with the fall out of my fuck ups head on, while you, you just tuck tail and hide like the bitch you are."

"How can you call me a bitch and a coward after everything we went through?"

"It's because of everything we've been through that I can call you both! I can't believe it took me this long to see you for what you really are.

"Where you not a fucking bitch when you tried to fuck Skye behind my back? Or how about when you didn't do anything to stop me, did that not make you a coward?"

"Fuck you! I was trying to do what was best for Skye!—"

"Or when you took advantage of the situation and used my rage to get what you wanted anyway. How did that not make you a bitch huh? How about when you were no where to be found during the aftermath to help fix what you hand in breaking, you fucking coward. Oh and let's not forget when you killed that girl in Waylee two years ago!"

"That's not true. Joanne killed herself and you know it." Daniel's voice was barely above a whisper, shocked that Nickolas had even gone that far with him. He knew he had fucked up royally with both Nickolas and Skye and he wanted to make it right. He just didn't know how. If anything he thought coming here tonight and waiting for Nickolas would put him in the right path.

"And I wonder who caused that?" Nickolas' voice was equally soft. Exhausted from all of his efforts at fixing everyone around him and it not turning out exactly how he wanted it in the end.

"Every year we went to that fucking summer camp, and every year you pinned over her until you finally grew a pair and asked her out. You built her up with false hopes and dreams of what we all could be, knowing good and well she wasn't ready for what we do. You fed her lies when you knew she couldn't handle the reality of it all just so you could get what you want and when it got too hard for you, you just ended it with her and she drowned herself. And who was left to clean up your mess then, huh? I burned that fucking letter for you so no one would ever find out she was pregnant Daniel, with your child and you destroyed her."

"You swore you would never bring that up again." Nickolas was too far in his rage to notice Daniel, each word a near physical blow, his body concaving with each hit, he could barely hold himself up.

"What's honor when you deal with people who have none? You tried to take what didn't belong to you and I won't let you destroy her like you've done the others.

We are a like in many ways, but the one thing that sets us apart is that I face reality, even when I screw up and until you do, your no good to anyone, not to me, not to Skye, not even to yourself." He closed the door before either of them could say anything else.

He shouldn't have thrown Joanne in his face like that. That whole situation...

God if only he smoked. A cigarette or some weed would be good right now.

Joanne and Daniel had an unsettling connection that, to this day, he didn't understand, but Daniel was happy with her and who was he to stop it.

He punched the wall. Paint and plaster fluttered and crackled as the pieces fell around his feet.

A cigarette seem really appropriate right about now.

Daniel was a sensitive soul, always had been. He didn't handle situations the way Nickolas would've, but he got the job done and Joanne was a situation that needed to be handled. Daniel had done everything he could to do just that, he just didn't know it would play out the way it did.