Running Wild in the Night

Still Brian's POV

"So what's Nikki going to be doing while you're at school?"

Jimmy looked at me as we both sat down in our English class. "Today my mom is taking her to a psychology appointment. After that, I'm not sure. I know for a fact that Coley is going to get bored."

"Why do you call her 'Coley'?"

"I don't know. I guess I just stared calling her that when we were little and it stuck. I'm the only one she let call her that," Jimmy answered proudly.

I just shook my head and let myself get lost in my thoughts as the teacher, Ms. Atkins, started talking about what we need to look for in our senior books. The thing that my mind fell on was Nikki. She had a beautiful face with those dark emerald green eyes against her pale skin with her black hair framing her face perfectly. But, it was clear to see that there was only sadness in those beautiful eyes. Nikki looked like she felt lost in the world; like she had no one to turn to when in fact she did. I guess that time of her life that was wasted in an insane asylum made her feel like that.

How could a father do that to his own daughter? How could any parent do that to their child? Its not it was Nikki's fault that her mother died. Nikki was just as traumatized as her father when that happened, probably even more. She's still not even over it thanks to that piece of shit flesh known as her father.

"Brian!"

I looked up from my desk and saw that everyone was looking at me. Ms. Atkins looked at me like she was frustrated.

"Yeah?"

"I've been calling you for the past minute, Brian. What do you want to choose as your senior novel?"

"Oh yeah......uhhhhh Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," I said, thinking of the first book that came to mind.

"Alright, but that's a hard book. You might want to find someone who has done that book," she said, writing my choice down in her grade book.

Thanks to me daydreaming, I ended up picking a hard book for my paper. Rapturous.

During lunch, we sat at our usual table talking about absolutely random things. Johnny was back at it with the Rubik's cube trying to figure out how Nikki finished the whole thing in a minute. Zacky and Matt were discussing songs. Val was reading and Jimmy was pulling out what seemed like a sketch book from his back pack. "I didn't know you drew," I said.

"Ha ha, you know I don't. Its one of Nikki's old sketch books. I took it from her one year and never gave it back. She knew and didn't care. Hell, she doesn't even care now," he said opening it.

That's when we all got up and stood behind him, looking at all the old drawings that Nikki did. It was clear that she didn't like to color considering that they were all black and white but they were still amazing. She had drawings of animals, people, places, and just some random sketches that still looked amazing. There was one sketch that she did that was basically random flame-like designs but the way she did it looked amazing.* I don't know, its just hard to explain.

The rest of her drawings were just plain out amazing. The one that stood out the most for me was this one of a woman, standing on a dock, staring at the sun setting over the mountains. "Who is that," Val asked.

"I think that's her mom," Jimmy replied as he stared at it closely, "Yeah. That is Coley's mom."

I looked at it and saw the similarities between her mother and Nikki. It was clear to see where Nikki got her looks from. Her mom looked amazing. "Jimmy, what happened to her mom?"

He just looked at Matt and bit his lower lip. "She died in a car accident. And of course, Coley's dad blames her for that."

"Why? It's not her fault that her mom got in the car," I said.

"I know but he just blamed her."

I just pursed my lips and nodded. Not sure what to say or what I could say. The only thing I did was look at that one drawing and imagine what Nikki's mother must have been like.