One Day at a Time - (Season One)

Chapter Three: Love can turn you into the biggest Fool

After picking up all her paperwork and setting up her next appointment, Marty decided that they might as well get her medications from the pharmacy before finally heading home to relax for a bit before her shift at the movie theater. Lukas didn't put up much of a fuss, especially not after she promised that he could pick out one candy from the front. Honestly, he deserved it since he'd been so good during her appointment. It was only after they'd finally settled at home that she received a not-so-welcomed phone call.

She'd been sitting at the kitchen table, helping Lukas with the minuscule amount of homework he'd been assigned, when her small and cheap flip phone started buzzing incessantly. "Sorry squirt, give me a second." Marty murmured to him as she dug out the contraption from her small purse. She lovingly stroked the newly printed images of her unborn children, unable to simply pass them by when her fingers skimmed them before picking up the phone without looking at the ID. "Hello?"

"Martina? This Madison Clark. Nick's mom."

Marty held her breath in, it had been a mistake not to check the caller ID. "Yes, hello, Mrs. Clark. This is... kinda unexpected, is there something that I can help you with?"

"Have you seen Nick?" was the immediate reply, "We're looking for him. He was in an accident recently," Marty's heart dropped into her stomach, "but he ran away from the hospital this morning." Mrs. Clark rushed out.

"I-I, no. I haven't seen him in three months." Marty stammered, trying to process the information being unloaded on her, "Nick was in an accident? Is he okay? Was he really hurt?"

Mrs. Clark sighed with disappointment, "He was brought in after he ran into traffic." she reported almost blandly, "Nick wasn't too badly injured, the majority of his problems are coming from whatever he was taking." she took in a frustrated breath that made the receiver crinkle loudly in Marty's ear, "Listen, Martina. Please just- call me if you see him or- or if he gets in touch with you."

"Yeah," Marty gasped. "O-Of course I will- I just—Mrs. Clark, I know, I know that you don't like me very much—but please, please, tell him to call me when you find him. I-I have something really important to talk about with him."

The other end of the line was silent for a moment. "I'll let him know," the woman said abruptly before hanging up the phone.

Marty let the flip phone slip from her grip and drop onto the table. She started to run her fingers through her short brown locks nervously, tugging until her scalp burned. God damn it, Nick. When she yelled at him to get the hell out of her apartment three months ago, it didn't mean that she hated him... or that she never wanted to see him again. Marty had just been so freaking furious, so hurt and betrayed that he'd brought that shit into her home where her baby brother could find it.

She'd been living with his drug addiction for years.

They'd been friends since they were in middle school. She'd been the only one to treat him the same after his Dad died, and he'd been the first person to overlook the 'creepiness' that the other kids said plagued her. Said 'creepiness' was only masking Marty's broken heart over the loss of her Papí and Marcos. Both of them had lost their family because of hit-and-runs... they'd bonded over their shared loss, and the friendship that had been born out of that pain was a strong one.

Whenever Marty had felt like she was going over the edge, mentally and physically, Nick was there to coax her down. Whenever Nick felt like he was shattering, she'd put the pieces back together. They'd found comfort with one another where they couldn't find it at home.

She'd always suspected that that was the reason why Mrs. Clark did not like her—that and for being the 'factor' that exposed Nick to the wonders of drugs.

Because even though Marty herself had never touched the fucking stuff, Nick had seen what Marty's mother would do to forget and numb her pain. It also definitely didn't help that Marty was a high school dropout.

Mrs. Clark was one of the guidance counselors at the high school that they'd attended, and if she remembered correctly- the woman was also seriously dating Mr. Manawa, the English teacher. Marty suspected that Nick's mother blamed her for many of the bad things that Nick decided to do after Marty dropped out of school.

After all, her best friend hadn't started shooting up until after Marty had left.

—And if those intrusive thoughts haunted her after it got dark, well, that was between Marty and the popcorn ceiling of her bedroom.—

Marty had done her best during the last few years to be Nick's safe haven. Even if, for the most part, he was no longer hers.

She would open up her apartment for him, and let him crash on her couch when it was too cold or hot for him to sleep on the streets... because Nick didn't want to get clean. He hadn't reached rock-bottom yet, and he wasn't ready to completely let go of his crutch. Marty had clothed him, fed him, trimmed his freaking hair, and tended to him when he was ill or hurt.

Nick was her family.

The only condition she'd ever given him was that Nick did not bring his drugs into the apartment.

She did not want that shit around her little brother.

Honestly, Marty didn't even want it around her.

But she loved Nick, and wasn't she a fool for loving a drug addict, so she made an exception for him.

And Nick, he'd done it—kept the pills or needles, or whatever he was addicted to at the moment, away. Because he knew, he knew how it made her feel. He knew that she blamed the numbness drugs induced into people for taking the rest of her mother away from them. For slowly killing her remaining parent and destroying whatever remained of Marty's childhood.

She knew that was the real reason why she'd felt so- so utterly betrayed when she found him one door away from where her brother was sleeping shooting up heroin in her bathroom.

It could also -probably, most likely- be because not three hours before she'd found him, Nick had pressed fevered kisses onto her lips. Marty had trusted him so much that she gave herself away to him. He'd made her feel loved and just alive. Like she was someone truly precious that needed to be treated with tender hands and loving words.

Marty hadn't cared for any of the faults that most, if not all, people would point out in a young man like Nick.

She didn't care that he tried to drown his pain with drugs.

She didn't care that he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. Or that he lived at home with his overbearing -Nick's words not her's- mother when he wasn't homeless.

She didn't care that he'd been expelled from Citrus Community College because of the pressure coming not only from the professors and school work but also from home. She didn't care that he didn't want to apply to a different school or get a job.

She didn't care about any of that. Because Marty loved Nick. She loved everything about him. All of the things that could be perceived as faults she loved too.

Marty had always loved Nick, and she'd been content with their role in each other's lives—but she'd thought... well, she didn't even want to acknowledge what she'd thought, not even in her own mind but... for a brief moment she thought—that maybe, just maybe, he loved her in that way too.

But even her hurt didn't mask her concern. Nick had run out into the street—and yeah, sometimes he had crazy ideas when he was high, but he'd never done anything that could put him in physical danger. Which sounded like an oxymoron because doing drugs could definitely put him in danger and could, in fact, kill him if the person he was buying from was selling tainted crap or if he shared a needle with someone sick... Marty was spiraling.

The point was that Nick was injured, and most likely detoxing, and he hadn't come to her. He always came to her.

She'd known that having sex with Nick was going to change things, but Marty had never expected for it to destroy everything between them. She never thought that she'd have to learn that Nick was hurt through his mother. The woman hated her. That Marty would have to try and get in contact with Nick through her.

A hand made its way down to her abdomen.