Nick rolled his eyes at the incessant doorbell, not taking his eyes away from the television in front of him. He stretched out on the floral patterned couch with no intention of getting up and getting the door. It was prime time television, all of his favourite shows were on and he wasn’t about to miss it.

“Mom, answer the door!” he yelled as the ringing changed to knocking and still no one opened the door.

“Is there a piano tied to your ass?” his mother yelled from the bedroom and Nick rolled his eyes. 

He slowly made his way to the door of the small house, somewhat surprised when he opened it to see Brian standing on the other side. 

“How did you know I was here?”

“Your mom may have moved, but only a couple blocks away,” Brian said with a chuckle.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, glaring at his former best friend.

“This is ridiculous, it’s been three days. I came to tell you that we’re sorry and we want to let you in on the store,” Brian explained. It had taken some serious convincing but he’d managed to get Howie and AJ to agree to let Nick work for them as a stock boy or in the retail end of the shop, but they wouldn’t agree to give him a partnership in the business. 

“Well I don’t need your pity. I don’t want or need shit from you,” Nick told him stubbornly.

“Look, we feel shitty about what happened and we wanted you to work at Tiger River.”

“Just so you know that is the worst name I’ve ever heard in my life. People are not going to come to your stupid store because it has such a lame name. I had so many better names in mind but no one even asked me,” Nick said. He’d been practicing all of the things that Elena had told him he needed to do, and had found that it was really easy to stand up to people who you knew couldn’t do anything to you. Brian wasn’t his friend; he wasn’t going to lose him as one if he talked back to him so he wasn’t stressed about ‘saying boo’ to him.

Brian crossed his arms across his chest, not having expected it to be such a challenge to get Nick to come back, “I’m sorry to hear you feel that way.”

“Well I do,” Nick shrugged, “I’m tired of you and your friends walking on me. You’ll see pretty soon how difficult it’s going to be for you guys when you don’t have me to shit on. You’ll see how hard it is to keep the house running smoothly when Cinderella’s gone from picking up after everyone.”

Brian laughed, “You make it seem as if we needed you. You were a convenience to us. You were just a butler.”

Nick’s mouth pulled into a firm line, “Where’s my stuff?”

“In the garage,” Brian told him, “We’re getting that money on Monday, and none of it is yours so I would recommend you get your shit and get out of my house as quickly as possible, and if you speak one word of what’s going on at the house to anyone, I’ll kill you. That’s not a threat Nick, I will slit your fucking throat, and I don’t care.”

If there was any truth to anything Brian said Nick knew it was that. Brian didn’t do well with snitches, so if Nick squealed about Elena or any of their plans, he had no doubt that he would be found dead somewhere, “You know I wouldn’t do that. I’m not the one that can’t be trusted here, I’m not dishonest.”

“I don’t know you at all anymore,” Brian said, “You’ve completely changed in the past couple of weeks.”

“For the better,” Nick added.

“Right, because living in your mom’s double wide that you two like to pretend is a house, sleeping on her twenty year old couch and doing her errands is really a step up from what you were doing before.”

“Touché,” he replied, reminded of his conversations with Elena and her use of the word. 

“Do you even know what that means?” Brian asked condescendingly.

Nick grinned, “It’s French it acquiesces a point as true,” he said cockily.

“Who are you?” Brian was completely clueless as to what had gotten into Nick.

“I’m finally myself,” Nick shrugged.

“Until your dad gets out and comes back here and you’ll end up back at my house because you know as well as I do that you can’t stay here.”

Nick moved to grab the door, ready to close it, “Thanks for your visit, I’ll come by and pick my stuff up later.”

“I’m sorry things have gone the way they have Nick, I really am.”

“You’re a really great liar Brian.”

Brian looked up at Nick and smiled, “You’re right, I am.”

Nick slammed the door and quickly pressed his forehead against it. His heart was going a mile a minute. He never thought he would actually be able to do it, to stand up to someone. Physical defence had never been a problem, it was like second nature but having to verbally do it was another ballgame entirely. It took quick thinking, wit, and smarts, and Nick was fairly confident that he did okay. Brian seemed to be put in his place and he was happy about that. They would see soon enough how much Nick really did around the house (he was Cinderella after all) and they would come begging. 

For now though he would have to go gather his things and find a cheap place to live, and a job. Brian was right in saying that Nick couldn’t stay with his mother. For some reason the woman was still married to the man who called himself his father. The same man who for years constantly abused both of them to the point of hospitalization. It came down to laziness for her, but Nick had long ago made it clear to his father that they would never see each other again. Even though they lived a few blocks away, they were not father and son and never would be and for that reason Nick couldn’t be camping out on the ugly floral couch come parole time. 

“Why didn’t you make up with him?” his mother’s angry voice broke his thoughts and Nick turned around to see her standing in front of him, arms crossed across her chest, looking pissed off.

“Why should I make up with him? He’s the one who was an asshole!” Nick defended. 

“What money was he talking about?” she asked, ignoring his statement, “If you were supposed to be coming into some money then go back there and apologize to him!”

Nick sighed and shook his head, “No! There’s no money, there never was. They never had any intention of letting me in on their stupid store.”

“Just when I thought you were good for something…” she grumbled and headed to the kitchen to grab a new pack of cigarettes.

“You should know better than anyone else that I’m not!” Nick said as he walked back towards the couch and the television.

He watched the TV until the news finished and he realized just how late it was. He needed a smoke, but most importantly he needed to go get his things from the house. Night time was going to be the perfect time to avoid the risk of seeing anyone he didn’t want to see. Plus, he only needed to get into the garage so they probably wouldn’t even know he was there. 

Nick grabbed his keys and a sweatshirt and drove the short distance over to Brian’s. He opened the garage and immediately started emptying the boxes with his name on them out of the small garage and into the trunk of his old blue Geo hatchback. 

He didn’t have a lot of belongings. All of the furniture that was in his bedroom had belonged to Brian, so it was just the rest of it that he needed. It didn’t take long to fill his car with what was left for him. It was kind of sad for him to see that everything he owned in the world fit in his small car. 

“Shit, my clothes,” Nick muttered, realizing that the bag he’d been living out of since he moved out of his room was not among the boxes. 

It was in the house. 

“I need to leave the keys anyway,” he reasoned to himself as he let himself into the house. It only took a few seconds to find the black garbage bag full of his clean clothes but Nick felt himself strangely drawn back to the room that used to be his. 

He was unsure about whether he should say goodbye to the girl. In the end though, she might like to know that he was leaving for good, and she probably wasn’t going to get Oreos and flashlights for the next few days. Not that she wouldn’t have already figured that out since it was Saturday night and he’d been gone since Wednesday. 

Against his better judgment Nick grabbed the keys off the wall and unlocked the bedroom. When he opened the door it was complete darkness inside, he couldn’t see or hear movement which he found very peculiar. 

“Are you asleep?” he whispered into the pitch black, stepping into the room. He wished he had a flashlight, or that she had it on. 

“I thought you were gone.”

Nick’s head snapped in the direction of her voice, alarmed by how strange it sounded. It was almost as if there was something in her mouth keeping her from speaking. 

“I came to say goodbye…are you okay? Where’s your flashlight?”

“Also gone,” she replied and Nick started to feel slightly worried by her speech.

“Did something happen?” he asked, trying to keep his voice down just in case someone was awake upstairs.

“I think they know my dad isn’t going to pay,” Elena whispered in return and he could hear how frightened she was through her tone. 

Nick walked outside the door quickly and grabbed a flashlight from the linen closet. It was always there in case of a power outage, which happened pretty frequently in the old house. He turned it on and went back into the bedroom, shining the light around until he found Elena sitting in the corner of the room. 

“Oh my god,” he said once he got a look at her face which was badly bruised. Her speech had been muffled by her fat lip, and she had dried blood caked under her nose and down her chin. 

“They had me read this speech begging my family for the money and recorded it,” she explained, glancing up into the light of the flashlight. 

“Let’s go,” Nick said suddenly, reaching out his hand for her.

“What?” Elena questioned, completely confused as to what he was doing. 

Nick took a quick glance around to make sure that no one was there then turned back to the girl, “We’re getting out of here,” he said, pulling her up off of the floor. He couldn’t believe that they would hit her. If he had been there he would have killed them. He had a distinct feeling that it was AJ’s doing, and it made him seethe with anger. His entire life he’d seen his father bully and beat his mother so there was nothing worse to him than someone who would dare hit a woman. They would pay for it, or rather; they wouldn’t be able to pay. There was no way they’d get the money if they didn’t have a hostage.

“Since when did the sidekick become such a leader?” Elena asked with her voice full of emotions. She couldn’t believe that he was going to take her home. She would have never expected it from him, and she was impressed to say the least.

“Well, some bitchy rich girl talked some sense into me,” Nick said, scooping Elena up into his arms after he sensed that her legs were a little weak. Probably from a lack of food, being hurt, and just sitting in a room for days. He wasn’t even concerned that as soon as he stepped out of the door all of his ski mask wearing would be worthless. She’d be able to see what he looked like, and potentially turn him in when she made it back home but he didn’t care anymore. 

He quietly made his way through the house and out to the car, speeding off into the night and hoping that they would have a few hours before anyone discovered that Elena, their meal ticket, was missing.