NICO~

(A/N: This is unedited, so feel free to point out any mistakes you find! I will try and update at least twice a week!)

"I'm sorry but I don't think you fit the position, please--"

"Why not!" The blonde girl exclaimed throwing her hands in the air. Her eyes were a soft brown, and wide, like a deer in the headlights. She had many great qualities, and a few bad ones I was willing to overlook, but I wouldn't have too because she looked like she was 16, ran away from home, and I could hear her no good boyfriend outside the door. I had seen him at the beginning, he had black hair, bright blue eyes, and piercings everywhere. I was even willing to try and ignore some of those things, but the no-good boyfriend was very homophobic and was wearing a shirt that said something about 'sins' and I wasn't going to try and overlook or ignore that. I don't go around wearing shirts exclaiming 'I hate straights' so why do you get to patrol around town in homophobic shirts? I could never overlook that, and I was sure the girl had similar beliefs.

"You don't get the apartment, but here's so life advice, Hunny, you should go back home, maybe put some clothes on, and dump that no good boyfriend of yours, you don't need a roommate, you need your parents how old are you 16? 17?"

"I'm 15, and he's good, he's really nice, I bet you would get along," She smiled and I wanted to throw a jacket over her tank top. I was 22, it would almost be illegal to live together.

"I doubt that," I smile at her once again, a fake smile, I haven't generally smiled in a while. "Goodbye Bethany," 

"Bu--I--Wha?" I closed the door in her face and walked over into the kitchen. Whenever I had a sucky day, like this one, I would bake. I mean bake a lot. Cupcakes, cakes, cookies, brownies, the list goes on. It calmed me down. If I wasn't going to be a writer, I would be a baker. One of the only reason I  didn't go into baking was I baked on crappy days. If I bake every day, what would I do on my crappy stressful days? Work? Yeah no.

I needed an outlet, I needed to have something to do because rather I wanted to admit it to everyone, I had issues. Having your mother die in front of your eyes, then your sister getting in a car accident, then your father leaving because I reminded him of his family and that it should have been me instead. Not to mention I think I had depression. I've been taking pills for it since my sister died when I was 10. When my dad left when I was 12, I was put into a foster home, and they really helped with the depression. (Note the damn sarcasm) all they did was give me the pills. They didn't help me, they just made sure I had them when I was supposed to and sent me to a therapist. Let's just say I ran away from the home as soon as I could, which was like a month later.

I didn't like my therapist at first. I hated her. Who was she to want to get to know me? Then I realized I was being ridiculous and we started talking. I had nightmares at night and Racheal, my therapist, really helped with that. She tried to tell me how to deal with them, her tactics worked sometimes but they barely worked. They just woke me up faster. We hadn't found anything to help the actual dreams or to help after I wake up. 

I was getting lost in thought. I hadn't slept more than three hours last night and was extremely tired, but I hated sleeping because I would dream of Bianca. I looked down at my hands and realized I had backed four batches of cookies, which meant an hour and a half at least went by, which meant the next roommate candidate was coming and should be here any second.

I hated the fact I was going to need a roommate, they would be there for my worsts, and my worsts were bad. Sadly I needed one if I was going to continue to pay rent. I could move to another complex, but this one was perfect. It was close to my university, so I was going to stay, and with a roommate. I started to throw the bowls into the sink when I was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Be right there!" I called out. I was anti-social. I had horrible people skills. The person by the door probably wouldn't want to be my roommate. I'm too weird. I'm creepy. I had gone through these words in my head every time someone had shown up. My palms would sweat and I would stutter my words. I was such a mess.

I walked over to the door and opened it. First impressions were everything to me, and he put on a good one. The boy was tall, maybe 5'11 ranging from 6'1, compared to my shortness, he was very tall. I was 5'6. I literally had to look up, to meet his eyes. His eyes were blue, all shades of blue, with specs of gold.

"Hi! I'm Will! I'm here to fill your roommate position, Ha sounds like I'm doing a job interview. Anyway, Hey!"

"U--Uhh H--Hey, I I am Uh N--Ni--Nico, and You Uhm can just--uhh follow me."

"Sounds great." He smiled as he followed me into my apartment. "Does your apartment always smell this good, because then I will literally do anything to live here!" He laughed taking in the scent of Vanilla cookie batter. There was a stack of baked cookies sitting on the island. I guess Will had located them and skipped over to them. "May I?" He laughed, his smile shone brightly.

"Uh--Yeah, and It only smells that way when I well uh uhm bake, whi--which is quite of--uhm--often," I kept stuttering my words. I couldn't seem to just form a regular sentence. Social Anxiety sucked.

"Oh, my gods!" He exclaimed, causing me to jump, I thought something was horribly wrong. "These are the best damn things I think I have ever tasted!"

"Oh, uhm thank you," I put on a slight smile. He really did act like he belonged here already. I didn't see any obvious signs that I would hate, but I knew I would have to ask a few questions before I really knew. "If you uhm don't uhm mind I--I would like too uhm ask a few uhh questions," 

"Can I continue to eat these cookies while we do so?" He laughed grabbing another in his hand.

"I don't care," I put on another small smile. It was genuine, but it was very small. I didn't want to come off as too creepy. I'm surprised honestly he didn't think I was the biggest creep in the world right now. I kept stuttering all my words, and I kept looking into his eyes more than I had wanted to admit. "What do you do in your free time?" I asked. I had to make sure it wasn't drugs or something like that. 

He let out a little laugh, almost a snort. "What free time? I go to uni across the road, and I'm studying to be a nurse, so I never really have free time, but when I do have a few minutes, I like to read, but there's this coffee shop I go to that at usually, it's really cool, highly recommend by the way, anyway uhm, I honestly don't know," He let out a laugh.

"Okay, uhm, what would you say your best and worst quality would be?" I asked hoping it wasn't like drugs or something. I couldn't have a roommate who did drugs or heavy alcohol. It would be too--ugh.

"Best, I'm really good at cleaning up after myself, and others, sometimes when I'm--That's what I do! When I have free time I actually like to clean, but that could also be a downfall because like I'll scrub the floors and--yeah, but one of the biggest downfalls is--uhm, I have a bit of ADHD, and some can find that annoying," He smiled at the end, lighting up the sentence, and he out another bite of cookie in his mouth.

"I'm s-sorry about this question," I paused and looked at him, taking a shaky breath, "Are you a drug addict?" 

"NO! Oh, gods! No! Do I look like a drug addict?" I could tell I really worried him. I started to shake my head left to right.

"No, you don't it's just important that your not," I gave another slight smile.

"I am addicted to sugar, self-diagnosed," He laughed taking yet another bite of the cookies I had made. "Which  is weird, because I study how bad sugar is for you but, I still can't resist this stuff," 

"If your worried about me choosing you, your the best option so far, I just need to make sure you'll be able to pay at least the next three months," I say, then heard a ding go off and walked over to the oven, where my recent batch of cookies was waiting to be pulled out of the oven. "I'll be right--uhm--back," I excused myself, he nodded his head in response. 

I walked over and pulled out the freshly baked cookies. I walked over to the island and placed them on a separate plate. I looked at the boy with a stern look. "Don't eat these yet, there hot," I walked back over to the kitchen to place the cookies tray into the sink. When I got back a heard a hushed yelp, then an "Ow," following after it.

"These are hot!"He said dropping one onto the white marble surface.

"I told you not to eat them, that they were hot did I not?" I asked sitting across from him, rolling my eyes. He really didn't help the blondes are dumb stereotype. 

"Well yeah, I thought I could handle it," He laughed picking the cookie back up. I mentally facepalmed at his stupidity. 

"You seem to be all set to move in, and I've hated you the least out of everyone I guess, so uhm, welcome, move in whenever, preferably before the 1st, that's when rent is due, and, oh, let me show you your room," I gestured toward a small hallway, that connected two rooms and a bathroom together. I walked into one of the rooms and held out my arms. "This would be your room, I know it's kind of empty, but yeah, there's a bed and a desk, and you can bring whatever you need. If you follow me here," I walked out of the room and into the bathroom. It was a lot smaller with white tiles and blue walls. "This is the bathroom, and you've seen everything else. I can work on getting you a copy of the key, and just text me when you want to move in, just so I know," I looked at him and he was just smiling away. How could someone be so damn happy?

"That sounds great! Can I move in tomorrow? I really love this place!" He had three cookies in his hand. Yeah, he had a bit of a sugar problem. 

"I--Uhm I don't see why not, I can uh get you a copy of the key once you move in, I don't think I can get it by tomorrow. Sorry," I sighed looking down at my feet. I really sucked at talking to people. 

"That's no problem," He paused and a giant grin became plastered on his face. "Roomie," I gave him a scowl. He was kind of weird. He also didn't seem so affected by my scowl. That was weird, most people quavered at the sight of my glares. 

"See you tomorrow roooomie!" He laughed grabbing another cookie and walking out the door. I got one last glimpse of his blonde curls, and then I closed my door. I had a roommate, great. I sighed out loud and walked into my room. I pulled out my laptop, it was a cheap thing, but it got the job done pretty well. It was Lenovo, an older model, it definitely could have been way worse.

The laptop itself was black with a bunch of stickers on it. I know it was immature but I liked to put stickers of my favorite bands and other random crap. I opened up an assignment I had in class to complete. It was a creative writing assignment. They were always my favorite. I hated having to write informative or any other type of writing, but I loved creative writing. I decided to go with the topic of a girl trying to escape a society and their expectations, but gave it a hunger games-ish twist. It wasn't copying because it was nothing like hunger games, it was just going with the concept that the world turned backward, but at the same time was more advanced, whatever. I was proud of it.

I finished the writing and started to think about the fact I was going to have a roommate. I had horrible nightmares. They could be caused by the multiple things that had happened in my life. My mother died, my sister dying, my dad beating me senseless, then leaving. Yeah, I had many reasons to have nightmares. I started to stress. What happened if I woke up screaming like I usually did, how could he react, what if I yelled something about myself I was ashamed of? Oh, gods, he was most likely going to move out after one week, then I would get evicted and have to drop out of college. I started freaking out, finding myself pacing around my room, I decided to do something I did when I was super stress, bake. (A/N: Yeah I know chapter one and a lot of baking, he's stressed out okay? Deal with it nuggets XOXO)

I had decided to bake cupcakes, I loved frosting them, and making the frosting from scratch, the more stressed I was, the more I would make things from scratch. I had pre-made batters, but I was freaking out so I was going to make every last morsel of those cupcakes from scratch. I poured the flour into a bowl. I put on some music in the background. I wasn't really paying attention to it because I was thinking about my mother's death, and my sisters, and my dad. I hated my dad so much. He was the actual worst. I didn't even want to think about him. He was so awful, and I hated anything I did that almost resembled him. He had horrible anger issues, he was a drunk, and abusive. Sometimes I would blow up, and I think it scared me more than it scared others. I am terrified every day that I one day will be like him. Whenever I have my blow ups, I think about when he would blow up and hurt me. It wasn't even always physically, sometimes he would just remind me of the pussy I was. He would call me many names, one of them being fag, I hated that word, I hated it almost as much as I hated my father. 

I looked down at what I was creating and I had very smooth batter. I apparently had been very aggressively mixing the batter. I took a deep breath shaking that cazzo out of my head. (Cazzo, Italian for dick, thought you would want to know,) I preheated the oven, putting the batter to the side, while I pulled out ingredients for the frosting. I decided I wanted to make orange frosting. I started to zone out, listening to the music in the background, trying to not absorb myself in everything that had happened in my past. I started to think about William Solace. My new roommate. I still couldn't stop thinking of his eyes. They were nothing like I've seen before. They had so many different colors. It was literally an explosion of blues and a hint of gold. I heard the familiar beep of the oven finishing preheating. I poured my vanilla cupcake batter into the pan and placed them carefully in the heated oven. Twenty minutes. I went back to the frosting. I was already calmer. Baking really did help me, plus now I had cupcakes for tomorrow when Will started to move in. I didn't know much background information about him. I should have asked a lot more questions. Where was his current residence? He could be homeless in his car, and nothing was wrong with that, but I feel as I should know that because if that was the case he could have stayed the night. I'm not a monster. 

A few moments later I had a batch of cupcakes sitting on the marble countertops, next to the cookies. I never really ate the food I made. I barely ate honestly, I should eat more, but I was just never like 'gods I need to eat right now,' I was more like 'food? ehh I guess,' 

I put the cupcakes in a container, followed by the cookies, placing them in the fridge, next to some more cookies and brownies, geez I had a problem. Once everything was squared away, I walked into the bathroom. I hoped in the shower. I stood there letting the hot water roll down my back. I looked at my arms and stomach, and generally, the rest of my body seeing all the scars my father and tormentors from my school had left. Then I looked down at my wrists. There were a few faint lines from when I had cut many years ago. I had gotten better, I used to cut daily when I was around 15 to 17.

About half an hour later I cut the water off and stepped out the shower, wrapping a white towel around my waist. I stood in front of the sink and put toothpaste onto my toothbrush. I brushed my teeth. Once I was done with my teeth, I took a smaller towel and rubbed my hair, leaving it a mess, but I didn't care.

I walked into my room. I wasn't allowed to paint the walls, so they were white, but  I had a black bedspread, black curtains, with gold accents, like I had a vase that was gold. It had a cool looking tree in it. That pretty much summed up my room, minus the white bookshelf filled with books. I really enjoyed reading. I laid down on my bed and wrapped myself in what I can best describe as a Nico Burrito, and I started to close my eyes. Usually, it took me hours to fall asleep, and that was if I even went to sleep, but tonight, I was so tired I went to bed almost immediately. 

"Mama!" I woke up screaming. I had the dream of how my mother died. She was murdered in front of Bianca and myself's eyes. It was a gas station robbery, she was cooperating but he still shot her. I heard he was caught a few years back, that's when I got bad. It brought back up all those memories that were still very painful, but it being brought up made it worse. In this dream, in particular, it was a very vivid memory. The man entered the store, he had brown eyes and bright green hair. He was a short man but very wide. He walked in an demanded my mama to give him all her money, she did. She didn't work there but he had already robbed the cash register, so he went for the bystanders. He noticed her wedding band. He demanded it and she hesitated, but she was beginning to take it off after she had looked at my sister and I. Before she could hand it over, a bullet went through her heart. The man took the ring, and left, leaving Me, Bianca, and three shot bodies, including our mama. While that part always scared me, and made me want to wake up, it never did. The part that always had gotten me was the part after she had been shot. She was still alive. Slowly dying. She looked over at me and my sister. Saying her last words to us.

"Nico, Bee, I love you guys, and If I don't make it--"

"Mama! No, you're going to be okay, you have too!"

"Bianca, please let me finish. I love you, and please don't--don't miss me too much, I love you, you will always make me proud, even when you mess up. I love you, I--I love you so much,"

"Mama, I love you too," I whisper, grabbing her hand. Bianca was holding her head up in her lap. We both sat there holding her, then our mother stopped breathing. That's when I lost it. That's when I always woke up screaming. Everything was so damn vivid. 

"Ma--Mama," I started breathing rapidly. I tried to calm my breathing. I slowly walked out of bed. I was sweating now and realized I was shaking. I took another inhale. Then exhaled. Inhale. Exhale. I was calmer now but didn't plan on going back to bed. I had only gotten three hours of sleep. Awesome. I walked into the kitchen and began to make coffee. I was going to need quite a bit of it. While I waiting for the magical drink, that had saved my ass so many times, to brew I got a glass of water. My throat was feeling sore from screaming for my mother that had been dead for 14 years. 

I made my cup of coffee, adding the correct amount of creamer and sugar (A/N, do you say cream or creamer? I have a friend who says cream, but I'm like wut?) Once I was done I searched through Netflix. I eventually decided on watching 'Friends' I couldn't get enough of that show. I sipped my coffee and watched my show, I would occasionally look over at the time. Seeing when most people would be getting up. I still had hours away from that time. After finishing my coffee, I had decided to search through Tumblr. That helped me stay awake, this was probably so unhealthy. I was so tired. I just couldn't go to sleep, in fear I would have another dream. 

I continued to scroll through Tumblr and did that until morning. I was going to have a roommate in less than 24 hours. Great.

Word Count: 3783