Chapter Text
“-And I didn’t wanna say anything, because eugh , the last thing I needed after all that was another kid on my ass correcting me on my lyrics, but they were really getting on my last nerves, so it was just a given that I snapped, right?” She pauses for a breath, leaning further into the vanity mirror and adjusting her blonde falsies. There’s a dab of glitter under her eyes she’s yet to spread, right beside a pearl gem. “They just went on, and on, and I needed them to stop.”
“Uh huh,” Zoey says from her director’s chair, scrolling on her phone. “When was this?”
“I just said,” she growls. “Yesterday. Nikki, do you still need the blue eyeshadow?”
“Huh?” Chloe stared expectantly, the blush on her face nearly glowing under the dim backstage lights. “Oh. No. I’m okay. I’m just trying to- Ugh.”
“Oh, I can help!” She springs out of her chair. Nikki drops her arms, letting the girl tie the white bows to her high buns - a homage to the pigtails she’d always worn back when they’d first created the band. “I can do your bangs, too… They’re due for a trim.”
“We’re on in five!” Marcus hollers from somewhere across the green room.
“Hey, did Trevor Chase tell you guys about the movie offer we got?” Chloe asks as she plugs in the iron curler.
“No?” Zoey actually looks up from her phone. Last month, she’d gotten her shag cut dyed dark, and the fans have still been going crazy. “What movie offer?”
“Apparently, this top-notch film production company came to us with a new movie,” she explains. “They thought our music was exactly what they’d been looking for in a soundtrack.”
A thrill raced up Nikki’s spine. “No way.”
“Yes way,” Chloe stared into her soul through the mirror, comically serious.
“Guys!” Brandon leaned against the vanity, a bomber jacket slung over his shoulders. There was a flame flickering in his eyes Nikki only saw when they were about to face the strobing lights and screams of their concerts. He slapped Zoey’s phone out of her hands and reached over the table to plug off the iron curler with a recklessness that had Nikki nearly smacked in the head. “We’re all waiting for you!” Sure enough, as he herded them to the curtains, Violet, Marcus, and Theo were already there, fiddling with their instruments and peering at the stage.
Nikki stole one look at the crowd and almost passed out. They looked like little stars, all drowned under the mauve lights, their concert wristbands glistening. Her heartbeat thrummed prayers against her ears. Chloe’s giggles were near maniacal. She gripped onto her hand with enough force to snap her pinky in two, swaying her to and fro.
“And without further ado: Actually, I’m Not Really Sure Yet!”
Side-stepping cords and defected instruments, the seven of them rush on-stage to be greeted by a flourish of glitter and drowning screams.
-
Like a broken record, the chants of the fans throb in her ears. Her make-up's melting, her head is pounding, her legs vibrate with effort every time she moves them, and the back of her sweater is entirely soaked. It's times like these that she wouldn’t give her career for anything else in the world. She wolfs down a painkiller and buries deeper in the cathartically cold floor of their tour bus.
“I have to say,” Violet mumbles from where she’s splayed across three seats, “That was a pretty good closing night.”
“It was better than pretty good!” Brandon throws a drumstick at her.
Jyrian, one of the girls in their touring crew, muttered her agreements around a water bottle.
When their bus reaches New York, Nikki almost cries. She misses Westchester, sure, and never forgets to visit, but when she moved to Manhattan after graduation with her girls, she’d known then that she could never go back. The rest of their gang joined soon enough; after that, it only took them a few months to churn out songs again in Brandon’s studio apartment.
The public's reaction was unexpected as well as exhilarating. They didn't hit the charts immediately, but after a two years and the consistent production of a single every two months, it took off. Their most recent EP had blew everything else out of the water, landing them a multi-platinum. She’d always wanted to turn music into a full-time career - she just never thought they could make it this far, selling AINRSY merchandise internationally and getting recognized on the streets every other day.
“Everyone’s up for drinks at Loud Geri’s , right?” Violet asked, flipping on her stomach so she can decrypt everyone’s expressions. The star piercing on her nose winked under the moonlight.
Nikki winces. “Sorry - I can’t make it.”
“What?” Theo scowls. “But it’s tradition!”
“I’ll just join next time." Her phone illuminates all of a sudden, brightness to the max, and it takes everything in her to not yelp as her retinas melt. She can barely keep her head up. “Don’t let me stop you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Forcing down another Tylenol, she half-hopes it kills her before the pain does.
-
In the fast-frosting wrath of October, Nikki welcomes the sharp wind willingly.
Late night strolls, despite the safety hazard, have always settled her. Her thoughts turn milky. Her brain detaches. At midnight, she’s free. No heat clinging to her neck; no whispers or pressing gazes across the street; just her and the satchel against her hip, cloaked beneath the stars, nestled under black refuge.
Well, more or less.
“So, that’s, uh… a ginger wrap, six chicken nuggets, and one soda?” the girl at the cashier stammers, eyes blown wide. She’s a little mousey, young - maybe fifteen - and by the AINRSY pin next to her nametag (Julieta), has definitely recognized Nikki the moment she stepped foot in the lackluster Fast Fry.
“Yes,” she tugs at her fringe, wishing it could swallow her entire face.
“Alright. I’ll ring you right up! And- well-” All of a sudden, something cracks in her expression and she spills like a floodgate. “I’m a really big fan of your band, I listen to your songs all the time, I don’t know, I went to your concert two weeks ago and it was the coolest thing ever, and it just - I… love your music. I was wondering if I could take a picture?”
“Sure,” Nikki nods. She’s still wondering how they’d be able to take one together with the counter between them when Julieta pulls out her phone and snaps a picture.
Not a selfie. A picture . A goddamned picture of Nikki alone in the middle of a vacant Fast Fry. She holds back a delirious cackle.
“Thankyousomuch.” She pockets the phone. “Your food will be ready soon!”
She’d been planning to take a seat and scroll through her feed, but the moment the girl rings up her order, she makes a beeline for the exit, exhaustion dragging her eyebags to the floor.
Nikki ends up slumped into the outer wall of the Fast Fry, her takeout bag in her lap, balancing the chicken nugget sauce on her knee. Across the road, a florist cuts away at the thorns of a fresh batch of roses, his little booth bathed in the yellow streetlight. She watches with mild immersion. Wonders who would buy flowers at all these days, much less flowers at 1:00 am - and much, much less enough flowers to keep the little shop from going bankrupt.
It’s not long before Fast Fry gets other visitors. From the upstreet, heels click towards the entrance, powerful and chic, but before the shopbell can jingle, the footsteps halt.
Above her, a strangely familiar voice remarks, “You’re that Nikki Maxwell.”
Her body freezes just as she's about to inhale another nugget. Dread fizzles through her spine. She must not have heard that right. She must be dreaming or hallucinating or finally going insane for the reason that she could not have heard that right, because- because-
In a pearl-white mackintosh and evening gloves, Mackenzie Hollister looms over her, a cunning smile gracing her lips.