“This doesn’t feel right without Ryan.” Ned whispered.
“I know, but what can we do?” Rick responded.
“I’m gonna call him.” Ned said, pulling out his phone.
“Don’t you dare.” Rick hissed. “You remember the fight.”
Ned grumbled, and pocketed his phone. “I don’t like this.”
“Look at it this way. We see Ryan all the time. We haven’t seen Nick in…what…three years?” Rick asked.
“Something like that.” Ned replied. “So where is he then?”
They’d finished their current round of beer when they finally saw him enter the bar. Maybe it was because they hadn’t seen him in so long, but he seemed taller. Definitely more muscular. His hair was cropped short, though not quite a military cut. He was dressed in civilian clothes — jeans and a band tee. On his left wrist, he wore an array of bracelets, some of which had been crafted by Liv. His dark blue eyes scouted the room until he spotted the two of them. Nick broke out into a grin and made his way that way. It was then they noticed the difference in his gait. He was limping, and wore a brace.
“Sorry I’m late.” he said, as he greeted them each with a hug.
“You’re not that late.” Rick replied before they all sat down. In the meantime, Ned flagged down a waitress, and placed an order for a round of beers.
“How you doin’ man? Haven’t heard a ton from you these past few years. You done with the army, or just on leave?” Rick asked.
“What the hell happened to your leg?” Ned blurted out.
Rick slapped him upside the head. “Idiot. Don’t be rude.”
Nick laughed. “No, no, it’s ok. I figured someone would ask eventually.
“Well?” Ned asked, his curiosity eating at him.
“Shrapnel from a landmine.” he explained, picking up his beer to take a long swig.
“Ouch.” Rick replied, wincing.
“Damn, dude.” Ned
“I’m okay, guys — really.” he said, taking another long swig from the bottle.
“Alright, alright.” Rick said. “Let’s lay off the bad and catch up. This is supposed to be a good reunion, not a sad one. Drink up!”
They each held up their bottles to that declaration and drank, having a couple of beers a piece (though Nick had a couple more), and caught one another up on things that had gone on since he’d left. Ned, not realizing any better, would let it slip about Ryan’s doings once or twice, but Nick didn’t seem to notice, so Rick let it slide. When his friends had to leave, Nick called his friends an Uber, and saw them off, promising to go on a camping trip when they could get time off from their jobs. Once they were gone, Nick headed to his truck, stopping at a liquor store for some whiskey before heading home.
Presently, he was staying with his parents until he could save up enough to get his own place. Largely, he kept to himself, showing up for meals, and doing some light chores, though his mom didn’t expect much from him due to his injury, so his relegated only chore was to babysit his little sister occasionally — not so little anymore. When he’d left, she’d been ten, and now she was nearly fourteen. Liv had always been a handful, and now was no different, though something was different about her, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.
He entered the house as quietly as he could manage, making his way up the stairs to his room. If there was one thing he’d learned since living in Tennessee, it was that he could hold his liquor, and function perfectly fine. Once in his room, he closed the door and sat on the bed. Pulling the bottle of whiskey from its bag, and set the bottle on the nightstand. Looking around, he again noted that the room hadn’t changed at all since he’d left for boot camp years ago. His mom had only made sure to clean it, and not change anything.
There were memories everywhere, and he hated it. He hated being assaulted with memories of he and Ryan, and it would frequently push him into depression. With a scowl, he opened the bottle, and began to drink, in an effort to drown the memories and forget for a while.
~*~
There had been several camping trips since Nick’s initial homecoming. Now, this morning, Ned and Rick looked at each other with concern as they were packing up to head home. They were used to them all drinking overnight around the fire before retiring for the evening. But lately, they’d been noting Nick seems to be doing a bit more than a little drinking. Rick, being the more attentive one, spent time watching Nick pack up. Specifically, he notes the bag of can Nick was going to haul back to the parking lot and toss into his truck for later disposal. Some of those contents were courtesy of himself and Ned, but the rest? That concerned him. Just how much had Nick drank?
Rather than confront him, he decided to do some checking into things before confronting his best friend. Nick had recently gotten a job as a valet at one of the casinos, so he waited for one of his own days off, while Nick was working, to talk to Kevin, Amber, and Liv. It was mostly the adults talking, until Liv, who had been sitting and squirming a little, slowly raised her hand.
“What is it, squirt?” Rick asked her.
“Don’t call me squirt.” she retorted automatically.
“Sorry Liv. What did you want to say?” he responded.
“I’ve seen some bottles in his room, when I go to look for something.” she confessed.
“Liv, you aren’t supposed to be in your brother’s room.” Amber chided gently.
“I know that. But I look anyway. He’s always up so early, even before he started working. He wakes me up. So when he’s gone, I sometimes snoop.” she shrugged.
“What kind of bottles?” Kevin asked. “Beer?”
Liv shook her head. “Bigger ones. Whiskey, mostly. Sometimes other stuff.” she looked down, a part of her ashamed she had betrayed her brother, but when she looked up she was said, tears starting to form in her eyes. “Is Nick okay?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out, kiddo.” Rick said, walking over to ruffle her hair.
Amber and Kevin looked at one another, before Kevin got up, and headed upstairs. Rick followed. They entered Nick’s room, which was clean and neat, but they searched, and found some bottles, two empties, and a partial, just tucked under his bed.
“Someone’s gotta talk to him.” Rick said.
“I’ll do it.” Kevin replied. “He’s my son — I’d rather him be angry with me than with you.”
“You sure?” Rick asked.
Kevin nodded. “I’ll handle it.”
Standing, they both carried the empty bottles downstairs, and searched the kitchen trash briefly to see if there were any others, but they only found beer cans. Rick eventually left, before Nick would have come home, and informed Ned about what he’d learned.
“Should we talk to him?” Ned asked.
“No — Kevin’s going to do that.” Rick explained.
“Don’t you think we should do something?” Ned queried.
“I want to, yeah. But I need time to think of what to do. In the meantime, don’t say anything to him about it.” he stated. “Or anyone else.”
Ned nodded. Eventually, Rick came up with the idea to suggest attending Uni to Nick. The reasoning was that, between work and school, maybe he’d be too busy to drink so much, or find himself more involved and engaged.
The talk between Nick and his father seemed to go well, with Nick promising to do better. Likewise, the talk with Rick and Ned about school went well, with him signing up to become a music major, while minoring in history. To an extent, they were right. School and work kept him busy, and he’d taken over a portion of his parents’ basement to practice his music, something his parents were relieved to hear again.
The reality of the situation was much different. He was smart enough to invest his disability payments, checks from work, and tips, using them sparingly to occasionally gamble at a different casino, and add any winnings to his investments. This earned him more money, so he could keep his Dad’s old truck in repair, and keep him stocked in liquor.
He regularly lied to his family about where he was going to be if he were planning to attend a campus party. He would hide bottles of liquor around the house — something they never thought to check for. He still drank out in the open occasionally, but it was much less. During school hours, he would sneak drinks in between classes, telling himself it was in order to function and focus though the pain.
Nick refused to admit to himself that he had a problem. He refused to admit to himself that he was depressed, continually using his knee pain as a convenient excuse, while occasionally abused his pain pills when alcohol wasn’t convenient to drink at the time. With school, he was doing well, managing to obtain degree sin a good amount of time, as he took a heavy class load over the next four years. In part, this was so he didn’t have as much time to spend around family and friends so they could suspect he was still drinking.
Nick discovered he was a perfectly functional drunk during this time, another factor that fed into his desire to drink, with a mentality of ‘it won’t negatively affect me’.
~*~
When he went online to review the course catalogue for UNLV, Nick didn’t bother to look at anything other than the music programs. He opted for two things — the certificate programs, which would require him to study and create music for use in a professional field, and as a fallback, largely to appease his mother, he took the courses necessary to get a teaching license for music, though he was confident he’d never use it. Both the music classes, and the history classes, were fascinating to him.
He enjoyed the learning well enough, and then, there came the final project to complete his Master’s — create an album. The professor explicitly stated to use covers, and to try to be diverse in your selections. It took Nick time, but he eventually settled on a theme for his album — Decades. He would select two songs from each decade from the 60s to the 2010s.
Nick did not drink while he worked on carefully selecting the songs. He wanted to do songs that people might not think of right away when they think of that decade, as well as avoid love songs, so his process took time. He practiced, gradually narrowing down his list until he thought of two that would work for each decade. Much time was spent in the basement that particular year, until he was ready. Once this came to pass, he rented a studio in order to work, carefully laying down each instrument track, weaving them together so that it could play while he laid down the vocal tracks.
He almost didn’t make the deadline, he wanted too badly to perfect the process. But make it he did, and he was selected to perform some of his covers live at a campus show. Only the top students from each of the music classes got to perform a set, which would be recorded and placed up on the program’s YouTube channel. He did not share anything about the live performance with friends or family — nor that it was going to be posted. He did, however, save the videos and put them on his own YouTube, but kept them private.