“Okay,” Nick wasn’t going to continue the argument on the silliness of her feelings. The feeling felt very foreign to her, she hated it and maybe that was just coloring her whole opinion. An outside opinion was probably more accurate and wasn’t that just what Rae gave her?
Dropping her head, Nick sighed. Now she was just parroting what was said to her. Had she been trying to stall Rae? Or maybe she just wasn’t thinking clearly enough to hold a normal conversation. “Sorry.”
Fidgeting as she tried to explain herself, Nick wondered if she even truly knew what she was trying to say or get at. When Rae laid out everything like that it just made her feel even sillier for the stupid way she’d been feeling lately. “I don’t know, nobody I guess,” she shrugged slightly. “Probably just letting the way I’ve been feeling make me think things that aren’t true, or like see things in a distorted kind of way. Although, I don’t know I think Maddie would have to think real hard on it before she helped me.” Okay, maybe she wasn’t giving the other girl much credit, but she didn’t say she wouldn’t help her, just that she’d have to think on it. “Honestly, I don’t know why I’ve been feeling this way. Because yeah, logic says I’m not alone or anything like that.” Having Rae kind of lay it out like that really did shed light on things, opened her eyes to the fact she did have people here who wanted her around and cared about her. So was she just being stupid or overly emotional about all of this? Probably.
Sighing heavily, Nick almost wished she hadn’t said anything about trying to hard. “I don’t think Dominic cares,” it was meant as a joke, a way to lighten the mood and take focus off of her for a moment. Letting a couple moments pass, she answered seriously. “Nobody has said it in as many words, but Maddie’s made it pretty clear that I’m just trying to be liked with all the things I offer to do.” And sometimes she did feel like she offered to do things so that she wasn’t alone, but that wasn’t trying to be liked, was it? She just didn’t want to be alone.
Was she an adult? Right now she felt like a silly little girl throwing a tantrum over nothing. Would Rae understand that almost every aspect of decision-making in her life had been made by her brothers and not her? Leaving Harlan, leaving Lexington, leaving New York City. All decisions made by her brothers and not her. “I’m just used to my brothers calling the shots on things,” she paused for a moment to truly assess what her feelings on leaving were. “I don’t think I want to go though,” because I’m afraid of going outside the walls. It was the unspoken reason Nick would remain here, even though it killed her that Benjamin would be leaving. “Sing Sing is home, I mean as much as a place like this can be. Plus babies grow so quickly I don’t want to miss watching EJ grow up.” Had she just made her decision? Her gut was had been telling her stay all along, so maybe that’s what she should do. “Oh I’m sure, although if I do ask around I’m not going to let the old creepy rocker guy know about it, he’s hit on me once and that was beyond gross.”