Stay on the streets of this town, and they'll be carving you up all right

“I just… don’t know how to express it,” Gina said quietly. “What I want.”

Nick didn’t know how to respond to that question at first. He just stared at Gina as his brain struggled to catch up with the rushing beat of his heart. He looked at Gina and the pensive expression on her face.

There was weight there, behind her eyes. She was confiding in him openly and honestly, and being vulnerable with him.

It happened so rarely that he was seldom able to anticipate it. But, right now, he knew that he had to say something to her, to let her know just how much he cared about her and how much he wanted to help her work this out.

For both of their sakes.

“Gina…” he said quietly, gazing into her eyes. “I just want you to know… that I’m here for you. I want to help you in any way I can. So… if you’re having trouble with expressing yourself, then please, just… say it.”

Gina looked at him in shock. “Just… say it?” She repeated back to him, like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

If it was as simple as that… she wouldn’t be plagued with these feelings.

But…

She knew that Nick was right. If she kept her heart bundled up like this and refused to open up to him, then how would she ever progress from here? She needed to let Nick know how she felt, even if…

Even if nothing would be the same after she did so.

“Nick… it’s pointless,” she said, finally breaking her gaze from him. “What I want… it’s not… it’s not what you’re thinking.”

Nick honestly didn’t know what to think. Gina, she… she was behaving with a moroseness about her that he hadn’t anticipated. It was completely unlike the way she had been just a few minutes ago, as if the playful, lighthearted girl he’d been playing laser tag and pool with was just an illusion.

But… no, she couldn’t be. Nick knew Gina. He knew that… his friend was really enjoying herself. Those smiles hadn’t been faked.

Gina had been happy… but that happiness…

Was it because… she had been trying to run away from the reality in front of her?

Finally, Gina raised her head and looked Nick in the eyes again. And what he saw in those eyes of hers left him stunned.

“Gina…” he quietly addressed her, not sure what to say. She bit down on her lip, and shook her head.

“No… I can’t say it,” she finally replied. “This… this was a mistake.”

She clenched her teeth and started straining her face. It looked like she was trying to pull herself out of the sand again. Finally, after about a minute of constant effort, her face slackened and she let out a frustrated gasp of resignation.

“Ha… haa… I… I don’t get it…” she muttered, looking like she was ready to collapse. “I can’t get out of here…”

“Well… yeah, no kidding,” Nick said, feeling the crushing force of the sand bearing down on him from every direction. “I can’t get out of here either. We’re stuck in here, Gina, wasn’t that the entire point?” He reminded her.

Gina bit her lip and shook her head. “No, you… you don’t understand,” she mumbled, glancing down. “This is Dream Alley, remember?”

It took Nick a second to realize what she was getting at. But when he did, he felt like the biggest idiot in the world.

This was Dream Alley. In Dream Alley, the dreamer could do whatever they wanted. They could go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and make anything appear or disappear, just like a lucid dream.

If Gina wanted to be out of her sandy tomb, she could do so with a thought. But she couldn’t even pull herself free.

“I don’t get it, why isn’t this working!?” Gina was starting to get angry now. “I already decided, that it was pointless!”

She looked less angry now, and more like she was about to cry. More than anything, Nick wished he could free himself, so he could go over and comfort her. But he could barely wiggle his pinkies and thumbs.

“Gina!” He had to resort to his words, instead. “Calm down for a second. Alright?”

“Huh…?” Gina’s eyes flickered briefly over towards him, and her mouth twisted in surprise. “Nick… wh-what…?”

“I don’t know what’s troubling you,” Nick said quietly, “but… please, let me help,” he pleaded with her. “I’m right here. I know that… you’re really upset about something, and maybe I can’t do anything to make you feel better, but… think about it. If you can’t free yourself from that hole, even though you should have complete control over your dream, then doesn’t that mean that maybe a part of you… doesn’t want to leave?”

That’s how Nick saw the situation, anyway. He hoped that realization would shock Gina enough to calm her down, and give her a new perspective to look at.

But it washed right over her without so much as a change in her expression.

“…Of course that’s the case,” Gina muttered, suddenly sounding more tired than he’d ever heard her sound before. She looked at him with weary eyes, and shook her head. “You think I don’t know that? But… that part of me doesn’t deserve to have a say. Where was she when I needed her, huh? Nick? Huh?”

Nick didn’t know what to say to that. He just looked at Gina in confusion. “Gina… what are you talking about?”

It felt almost like he was talking to two people at once.

“Nick… tell me, how do you feel about me?” Gina asked suddenly, startling him.

“How do I-? Gina, you’re one of the most important women in my life, you-”

“Are you in love with me?” She wasn’t about to let him talk his way out of this confrontation with a couple flowery words. This was more serious than that. Gina stared intensely at Nick, her eyes burning holes into his chest.

“I… …Gina, when I developed feelings for you as a child, I didn’t even realize for myself what ‘love’ was in a serious sense,” Nick said, being as honest with her as he knew how to be. “And then, when I met you again, and got to know you… I was surprised, but… I still cared about you. I saw that the girl I had a crush on was still a part of you, no matter how much you’d changed. And I honestly think that, the more time I spend around you, the more I get to be with you on days like this, where we can just have fun together, the more I’ll fall in love with you.”

If the answer Gina was looking for was a binary “Do you love me, yes or no?” then Nick would have to answer yes. Because he did love Gina, but he also knew that his feelings were concrete enough to satisfy the spirit of that question.

Did he want her to be happy? Of course he did.

Did he find her attractive? Incredibly so.

Did he want to spend his life with her? Yes, if he could.

And those things were true of a lot of women, including those he knew for certain that he loved. But with Gina, everything was so much more complicated, even though it shouldn’t have been. Even though he thought that he’d long since moved past his guilt over what happened to Dakota, and shouldn’t feel bad about being with her again, there was something in him that kept him from being able to say with absolute certainty that he was in love with her.

Nick loved Gina, but his heart hesitated to define his feelings beyond that primal, intense emotional response.

But he couldn’t have a relationship with someone defined on such vague terms, not without hurting that person.

And hurting Gina was the last thing he wanted to do.

“…You said a lot just now,” Gina said, after a long pause. “Way more words than you needed to, Nick… you know that, right?”

There was a bitterness in her voice that made him shiver. He didn’t know what to say to her for a moment, so he just stared and let her intense gaze sink in.

“I…”

“I want you to say you love me,” Gina interrupted him. “Don’t get me wrong.”

Her expression darkened. “But… it’s not that easy, is it?” She asked. “That part of me… the part that wants you to say you love me… she’s not the one who gets to decide that. And… I’m not, either, am I, Nick?”

She shook her head. Or she tried to, anyway. It was the best she could do, given the circumstances.

“I am,” Nick said quietly, looking back at her.

“And you don’t,” Gina said. “Or at least… you shouldn’t.”

A chill struck his heart. The way she’d said that… it frightened him. It sounded too much like the Gina he’d been trying to turn her away from.

“Gina, where is this coming from?” He asked her worriedly. “Why are you talking like this? Didn’t you say… you’d finally come to terms with what you want?”

“What I want isn’t important right now,” Gina spat. “We’re talking about what I deserve here.”

The chill deepened. It was just as Nick feared. “Gina…”

“Stop it!” Gina snapped at him suddenly. “If you’re just going to say my name, then… …No, shut up, forget it…” She started shaking her head again. “Forget it…”

Nick had no idea what he should be forgetting. He just stared at Gina, and tried desperately to understand where she was coming from in this.

Why… why was she being so…?

He almost called out her name again. Almost. But he stopped himself at the last second, out of worry for her.

But he wasn’t sure if she would have even heard.

Gina was looking more tired by the moment.

“You love her, don’t you?” She whispered. “Mary.”

Mary?

“…What does Mary have to do with this?” Nick didn’t want to talk about her right now. If Gina was doing what he thought she was doing, this was about to take a dark turn.

“She saved her first time for you,” Gina bitterly murmured. “Because she was in love with you. It’s… poetic, really.”

Nick remained silent. He knew where she was going with this, and nothing he said right now would help her. It would just make everything worse.

“Did you enjoy having sex with me?” Gina asked him. “That first time… when we were together. That was your first time, wasn’t it, Nick? …Don’t answer. I know it was.”

The VP she’d earned was a pretty clear indication of that, if nothing else.

“I… enjoyed it, too. Even though it wasn’t exactly how I expected to have sex with you… it felt good. It was fun. And… for a moment there… I really felt something,” she said, almost smiling as she thought back to that night. “It was something that I realized I’d always wanted… to feel you touching me like that.”

She finally turned and looked at him again. “…You were the first boy I ever liked, Nick,” she told him. “Did you know that? My first love.”

“I… I didn’t know that,” Nick said quietly.

Gina shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. See… I ruined it. Your first time… it should have been special. But I ruined it.”

A surge of anger welled up in Nick’s chest momentarily. “It was special to me,” he said sharply. “Gina… that night, it was important to me. I treasure it. Don’t tell me that it wasn’t special, okay?!”

He didn’t want to get mad. He didn’t. But the way Gina was dismissing what had happened between the two of them…

“I know it was,” Gina replied quietly. “It was your first time, of course it meant something to you! But… it should have been better. You should have been with… someone who could treat you right. Someone who could share that special moment with you. We shared our first kiss together, Nick, but… but you were…”

She fought back the tears that were coming up from deep inside of her. The tears of that girl who had shared a covert kiss with the boy she liked in that closet all those years ago. The kiss that had ruined everything.

“…After all this time… if we were… going to have sex… lose your virginity… I should have been able to give you that. But I couldn’t. My first time? The first time I had sex? I was at a party drunk off my ass, with a guy who I barely even knew. I hardly even remember it. It was annoying and disgusting and… that’s what I wanted. I didn’t even care. Something that precious, something I should have been saving for someone I loved, and I just threw it away like it was nothing!”

The tears couldn’t be stopped now. They darkened the sand around Gina’s face as she wept openly.

“I know it shouldn’t matter… I know you don’t care…” Gina muttered. “I know, you don’t need to have some magical first time with a virgin, that… that’s insane, but… …You wasted your first time with someone like me, when you should have been with someone better. Someone who cared about herself. Someone who treasured herself. Me… even if I turn it all around… even if I’m a better person now… I can’t erase that, Nick! I can’t… I can’t go back to how I was!”

Gina looked back on her past and felt sick to her stomach. Partying, having fun, going to concerts and getting high, none of that was something she was ashamed of. Those were moments that she enjoyed. But… all the rest of it…

“You were trying to punish yourself,” Nick said somberly. It wasn’t his place to tell her that, but the words wouldn’t come from her own lips, so he didn’t have a choice. “Because of what happened to Dakota. You were torturing yourself out of guilt and destroying your own life. That’s what you told me, right?”

Gina let out a choked sob in response.

“…That doesn’t make you dirty, Gina.” Nick could see why she would feel that way, given how strict her parents were. With how she was raised… but that didn’t matter to him. “I don’t care that you’ve slept with other people before me. I don’t regret at all that you were the first woman I ever slept with. It felt right, the two of us being together! It didn’t feel wrong!”

“But… you can’t love someone like me!” Gina choked out. “Nick, you… you can’t! I don’t deserve it! I… I should have-”

“Gina, stop it!” Nick wanted to break out of the sand and shake some sense into her, but he was trapped. So, he put all of his desperation into his words and called out to her. “I get it, okay!? I get you feel like everything that happened was a mistake, and maybe some of it was, but so what!? You were punishing yourself for what happened to Dakota, but so was I! I tortured myself for years over it, and where did it get me? Nothing but misery! So, I tried to move on, but I kept making even more mistakes, hurting more people, until I just gave up entirely! We were both trying to endure our pain through any way we saw! If things had gone differently for me with Dawn, or Carly, fuck, what if Dani had been straight and returned my feelings back then, and I slept with any of them? Or Holly, or Mary, or Kim? Would you have thought I was dirty, then? For having sex with someone else?”

“It’s not the same!” Gina exclaimed. “You were with them because you had feelings for them! For me, it was just-”

“Just a way to punish yourself, right?” Nick knew her well enough now to finish her sentence for her. “Well, I punished myself too. In my own way. If I was capable of it, who knows, maybe I would have just had anonymous, meaningless sex with women who didn’t matter to me. Back then? When I was at my darkest point? Yeah, I thought about it. But easy sex isn’t exactly easy to come by for a guy like me, Gina. So, I don’t think you can really say that I was valuing my chastity or whatever more than you were.”

The truth was? If Nick had been given the option, when he was at his darkest moment, he probably would have done what Gina did.

Gina had never considered that before.

Not even for a second.

And now, she had to sit there and think about it.

“Nick… I…”

“We can’t go back, Gina, you’re right,” Nick said. “We can’t undo what happened. Neither of us is the same person we were back at summer camp. You went through some horrible experiences, I know, but that doesn’t make you ‘dirty’ and it definitely doesn’t make you unworthy of being loved! You’re allowed to want that, Gina! What we went through may have affected us, but that doesn’t mean we have to keep letting it define who we are, even now!”

Nick couldn’t let his own past define him.

“If I did that… I would have never left my house. I would have rotted away in that old place, never setting out into the world and opening myself up to the possibility of a new future,” he said. “I would never have gone into therapy… and I might not have ever reached this island. I wouldn’t have reconnected with the people I love, and I wouldn’t have met new people to fall in love with, like Rose and the other auditionees. My life would have been so much worse if I convinced myself that there was no way things could be better… and Gina, the thing I don’t understand is that you KNOW that it can be! You’ve BEEN changing!” He pleaded with her. “…Isn’t that enough?”

Gina’s heart wavered and her tears continued to pour. Everything Nick was saying, it resonated with her heart, but…

“But… even if I change… I can’t undo what I-”

“No, you can’t. But you don’t have to,” Nick said firmly. “Who you are right now is a wonderful person who can dream up a crazy place like this to have fun. Who can smile from the heart when she’s with me, even though deep down, she’s still carrying such a heavy burden. Don’t you see, Gina? That’s who you are, and that’s the person I want you to be! Someone who can be happy, and who can say what it is that they want from their heart! So, please… please stop holding yourself back because you think you don’t deserve it, Gina, because you do!”

Nick wished he could convince her. But Gina seemed shaken.

“I… I want to be sincere,” she finally admitted, putting words to the part of herself that she’d refused to confront for so many years now.

Nick’s words had rattled her. She’d poured out her heart to him, reminded him of all the disgusting parts of herself, and he had accepted them.

Deep down, she knew that he would. It was why she’d tried so desperately to keep those feelings to herself.

Because she didn’t want to be accepted. She didn’t deserve it.

Or at least… she’d always believed as much. But seeing Nick looking at her like that, eyes free of judgment, filled with understanding…

Gina’s heart caved in like a collapsing tomb.

“I want a sincere relationship with you,” she said, using the most erudite words she knew with her limited vocabulary. “I want love. Affection! I want… I want you… to be with me… because you want me. Not just my body, but my heart, I… I want…”

She still struggled to express her feelings. Because all the things she wanted, Nick had already told her that he was more than happy to give her. Which made saying it aloud seem rather silly and foolish of Gina.

But… she did it anyway.

“I want you to be able to love me, just the way I am.”

Even if she still didn’t think she deserved it.