SOUR

Drivers License

Reader POV

I was dropped into this world where everyone knows me as someone else and I wasn't even sure of who I was.

It was suffocating.

Nikki was this stranger now. A person who didn't drink more than a glass of wine at dinner or a beer by the pool. When I was thinking about going out to the Strip and partying, he was uneasy with it and would find reasons why you both shouldn't go. And though he was different and finally sober, something I had been urging for years, it was hard to see any of who he was before in him.

There were new things about him that made me love him. Like the way that he loved to cook now, even though he wasn't great at it. It was so funny to come down for breakfast and see Nikki rolling out dough or baking something from a flour covered cookbook. He loved wrapping his arms around me, his head nestled on my shoulder as he explained all this stuff about what we were making. Like how there ws gluten in the dough and we needed to proof the bread. It was this softer side of Nikki that eased my soul and had me seeing this whole life with him.

And there was Duff. This wild horse in the whole situation.

I had been so hesitant in the last month living with them both but one morning when Nikki had run out to do something with the band I was forced to talk with Duff and get to know him. And I could see exactly why I had fallen in love with him. He was the opposite of the NIkki I had known before, in the 80's. His kind words and funny jokes made it feel like we were best friends first and maybe had fallen in love as an added bonus.

And the fact I could see why I had loved both of them shocked me and made me even more nervous.

I tried to hide away, remembering who I was. I was spending as much time as I could alone. Soaking in the bathtub, doing yoga in the workout room, or going for walks to try and remember anything but nothing new had come back.

So now I was trying to just start living my life again. My life without either of the boys but maybe stepping back and trying to go back to work to find out who I was.

How was I supposed to love two people who felt like strangers when I wasn't even sure who I was?

I stepped out of the shower, working quickly for the next task. All of the boys were out and I had a twenty minute window to pull all of this today. Even my usual babysitter Slash had gone out to deal with all their band stuff. So I could make my escape.

I grabbed the keys to Duff's car, rushing to the garage, thankful that he had gone with Slash to the band meeting. Sliding in the front seat I turned the car on backing out of the driveway and started driving down to where my office was downtown.

As I sat at a light, my hand in my hair as I thought about the files I had been reading a couple nights before my blood suddenly ran cold. I didn't have my license. I didn't know how to drive and the office that I was going to was not where I worked.

I could feel the pain in my head again as my mind flashed, little movies started playing in my mind. Duff in the passenger seat as we drove around a graveyard, me screaming and hitting the breaks every other minute, the day I got my license, and driving down the coast with him, my hair flying in the wind in the rented convertible as we played music.

A beep made me snap out of it, eyes flickering to the green light and accelerating forwards. I pulled into the garage to my office, eyes looking for a place to park and heart skipping a beat when I saw a sign with Y/N McKagan. My own parking spot with Duff's last name. Another reminder that I was an imposter living a life meant for some other girl.

But I still pulled into the space, sitting in the car as I looked up at the building that I remembered interning in and now was supposedly one of the top lawyers for. A part of me felt proud of myself or of this other version of me who had managed to succeed with her personal goals and become something she had dreamt about. But I was also sad; I wanted to have the memory of my dream coming true. I had put all this work in and all I felt like I had was a parking spot with the name of someone I wasn't married to.