Chapter 1: Nikki Richardson.
Whenever I hear people say I'm so lucky, I really don't know what they mean. I only had the privilege of having a mum, up until I was five years old.
Young. Innocent. Didn't even know what lung cancer meant.
My mum wanted us to live a good life, having her by our side, she could if lung cancer wasn't there, sucking every piece of life out of her every time she took in air.
Her parents were wealthy. Being the only child, she had plenty to inherit. By the time I was three, I already had four million dollars to my name. Never understood the meaning of the word 'poverty'.
I remember vividly, the day she died.
I was sitting beside her, whispering childish stories to her sleepy ears, smiling from time to time at her comments and gestures.
Then she just stopped.
No warning. No alert. She just....left.
Five year old me panicked.
"Mum?", I try calling her attention, my voice shaky, and my eyes were already piling up tears.
Silence.
"Mum?", I call her again, with my voice louder this time.
Silence.
I yelled for my dad immediately, and he came rushing in with a doctor and two nurses by his side.
"What happened?", my dad asked, kneeling in front of me, with tears slowly running down his cheeks.
My gaze was fixed on the doctor's facial expression.
He looked at my dad, and sighed.
The doctor later said two words that I already added to my 'never forget' list.
"She's dead", he whispered. My heart sank, tears coming faster than my words did.
My dad walked out. First time ever I saw him cry, nose pink with sadness.
I wrapped my little fingers around my locket.
Solid gold. My mum's photo fixed firmly inside it.
As soon as I was about to toss it open, nausea sets in. My vision is completely blurred out by dizziness.
I felt like my body was betraying me. Consciousness looses meaning, as, for the first time in my life, I fainted.
When I eventually regained my sense of vision, I was in the car with my dad. Balanced comfortably in the front seat. My dad keeps looking sideways, like he's expecting someone.
"I'm waiting for a friend", he says to me, answering my hidden thoughts. I nodded rapidly, like I knew the person he was expecting.
Just then, some idiot is staring intensively at my dad through my window, smiling idiotically.
My dad smiles back, turning his attention to me, changing his emotion instantly.
"You have to move to the back seat", he says abruptly, wiping the sweat off his face.
"Why?", I asked him, as my place had always been in the front.
"Why?, because I said so, now pick yourself up, and move to the back!", he ordered, instantly instilling fear into me. I obeyed immediately, landing myself at the back seat of our SUV, with a small jump.
Then, my dad lets in the lady to seat next to him at the front. Running my innocent eyes over her, I noticed that she's very indecently dressed. She balanced herself next to my dad, giving him a kiss that lasted two seconds longer, forgetting there was a child sitting behind them, absorbing all that explicit content.
She turns her attention to me, face wrapped with shamelessness.
"Hi, I'm Nevada", she said ever so quirky.
"Nikki", I replied without curtesy. She turned to her phone next, leaving the three of us in awkward silence until we got home. The drive was long, silent, and somewhat tiring.
Nevada's jaw was left hanging at the beauty of our home. She just couldn't stop staring.
"It's magnificent", she muttered quietly, much to my dad's amusement. He let her in, leaving me alone behind them, strolling quietly, in order not to disturb them.
When we got inside, I suggested taking Nevada to one of the guest rooms, but my dad shunned me, taking her into his bedroom instead.
I had to survive on cookies that night, since no one wanted to make dinner. I didn't even bother to shower that night before going to bed.
I literally cried myself to sleep. My little fingers folded tightly around my locket, begging her to come back......but she didn't. With tears in my tiny eyes, and pain in the pieces of my broken heart, I folded myself slowly under the duvet. Memories I couldn't even recall happening, kept on replaying in my head.
It was going to be tough without her, I knew, but I was gonna pull through, at least for her. And with Nevada around, and dad acting like a complete stranger, the word confusion became more difficult to explain.
***** " Don't worry sweetheart, mummy's gonna be with you everyday. Every hour, every minute, every second, I'm not leaving you....ever" *****.
I woke up, heart pounding, brain overthinking. "Mum?", I called, wondering if she was actually there....
Silence.
Tears ran down freely from my little eyes, fear was no longer a word, I was so scared I couldn't breathe.
I ran to my dad's room, pounding on his door, begging him to let me in.
"Daddy?, daddy I'm scared, please let me stay with you, daddy please!", I yelled from outside.
"Go to your room Nikki, I'm kinda busy", he said harshly, and left me to drown in my own silence...and tears of course.
What changed? He was always the one to cuddle me after nightmares like this. What happened?
"Such a nuisance " Nevada whispered.
It was her.
I just ran back to my room, begging my eyes not to fall out because of how much I'd cried.
I hated the fact that she wasn't here, protecting me, tickling me, cuddling me, but there was something she taught my infant brain, that was number one on my 'never forget ' list.......
...If life didn't give you any lemons....
.....It gave you some legs.....
.....Go buy yourself some lemons....
