"You know, I can't smile without you~" Bella's enchanting voice suddenly peeked around the corner, her head popping out with a warm smile directed towards Ricky's past self.
"I can't smile without you~" Bella chuckled in her singing tone, dancing towards Ricky's past self who lit up at the sight of what appeared to be his loving mother
"I can't laugh and I can't sing, I'm finding it hard to do anything~" Bella danced towards him, prancing around the living room while Ricky's past self bobbed side to side to the tune of her lovely voice.
"You see I feel sad when you're sad, I feel glad when you're glad~" Bella strolled over to Ricky, grabbing both his hands and starting to do a little dance with the chuckling child.
She wore a sad expression, and Ricky's younger self instinctively mirrored it and then, as her face lit up with a smile, his own expression shifted just as quickly, perfectly matching the rhythm of the lyrics.
"If you only knew, what I'm going through~" Bella showed a pained expression, dramatically pulling Ricky closer as he giggled madly in her embrace.
"I just can't smile without you!" Bella declared overdramatically, grabbing his cheeks and peppering his face with kisses while he laughed uncontrollably.
"How touching." His subconscious smiled warmly, glancing at Ricky, whose expression twisted into pure disgust.
"It would be, if she wasn't such a psychotic cunt," Ricky hissed, watching as the woman pulled his younger self closer, forcing him to look into her deranged eyes.
"My darling baby boy, Mommy has to go out for a bit, alright?" Bella cooed, rubbing her cheek against his while Ricky's younger self giggled, nodding eagerly, oblivious to the real meaning behind her words.
"And remember, if Daddy asks where Mommy's been, you say?" Bella prompted, her voice sweet yet firm, guiding the eight-year-old Ricky towards a certain sentence of words as he puffed out his chest.
"I say, 'Mommy was with me the whole time' and always take Mommy's side!" Ricky declared with a proud salute, prompting Bella to twirl him around as she laughed warmly.
"That's my baby boy! And remember, no one loves or understands you like Mommy does!" Bella cooed, planting a kiss on teh younger Ricky's cheek, a gesture of reassurance before she turned and walked out of the house.
It was then that the younger Ricky stepped up to the window, his gaze fixed on Bella as she ran towards the car, laughing wildly with her friends, their voices blending into the day that would stay out all night.
Then, just before slipping inside the car, Bella turned back with a wide smile, pressing a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture before miming a zipper across them and without hesitation, young Ricky mirrored her perfectly.
Then, as Bella slipped into the car, young Ricky's eyes landed on the driver, a woman around his mother's age.
She gestured towards him with a warm wave, but there was something off about her gaze, something lingering, something predatory.
The current Ricky gazed at the scene with a blank, hollow expression, the memory pressing down on him before he turned away, his gaze drifting around the room.
This magic was born from the triggers in the mind, those fleeting details that stood out the most, linking memories together in a web of vivid connections.
The issue was that Ricky had no way of knowing what would trigger the next memory, as he was still learning the nuances of this magic.
So, he started roaming through the memory, moving through the familiar scenes, knowing that the next one could unlock something valuable, a deep, rich mine of untapped potential, waiting to be uncovered.
This world of his felt different, Ricky could sense that much, but there were similarities that clung to this new life that were vividly the same from his past life.
Every opportunity in this warped version of his past was a potential goldmine, and Ricky was ready to leverage the hell out of any advantage he could find.
"What part of this memory is the strongest, I wonder?" His subconscious remarked from the side and Ricky shot him a side-eye, gesturing toward a door as he rolled his eyes in response.
"Are you just here for commentary, or can you actually be useful?" Ricky asked, expecting some help from his own subconscious and instead, he watched as it blissfully pretended to be ignorant of the entire situation.
"If you put it like that, it sounds like I'm a bother-"
"Well, I'm glad we got that out of the way." Ricky said, walking toward the kitchen, only to suddenly find himself in his bedroom instead.
It was his childhood bedroom, a time in his life when he was transitioning into his teenage years, shedding the skin of a small child and inching toward something more complicated.
Right now, he was around thirteen, his hormones beginning to stir, evident as his teenage self slowly pulled a dirty magazine from beneath his pillow, glancing around nervously before opening it.
Ricky, however, ignored the scene playing out before him since he had already experienced it and was painfully uninterested.
Instead, he wandered the room, scanning the labels on his old toys and the crumpled wrappers strewn about.
"Coca-Cola can, a Kit Kat bar... c'mon, where's the juicy stuff?" Ricky muttered, sighing as he glanced around his room.
Ricky walked over to his closet, opening it with a sense of curiosity, as his subconscious observed the scene about to play out with an almost bemused expression.
"Is this where your obsession with sex manifested-"
"Ricky, are you in here?" A voice called out, the door creaking slightly open to reveal the same friend of his mother from the memory before, standing in the doorway with a curious glance.
"N-No!" The younger version of Ricky quickly shoved the magazine under his pillow, but her gaze drifted down to his shorts as she licked her lips.
The teenage Ricky followed her gaze, glancing down before quickly covering his shorts, his face flushing bright red.
Meanwhile, Ricky stepped out of the closet, frowning while scratching the back of his head while still looking around.
"Man, all there are are Playboys and old socks, let's go-" Ricky muttered absentmindedly, but then his gaze drifted as he saw the memory unfold before him, his subconscious wearing a sad frown on the side.
"Mrs. Henderson, it's not what-"
"Oh, dear. Call me Lindsy," Lindsy said with a warm smile, walking over and sitting on the bed.
The teenage Ricky inched further away, nervous at the woman lowering her cleavage into his view.
"And it's natural for boys your age to be curious about their bodies," Lindsy said softly, her hand slowly drifting to rest on his leg, causing Ricky's blush to deepen.
"But it's an adult's responsibility to help you truly understand those feelings. Don't you want to understand them?" Lindsy asked, her fingers tracing gentle circles on his leg as she slowly inched them up his thigh.
Crash
The teenage Ricky, caught in the whirlwind of the moment, subconsciously leaned back and fell off the edge of his bed.
His nightstand crashed down, and a green frog toy suddenly pressed a button, rolling to the side beneath the present Ricky's feet.
"Let me help you, Ricky. Let me help you release those pent-up feelings." Lindsy smiled, standing over the panting, flushed Ricky as her top slowly slid down as she crawled atop him.
"How old were you-"
"I was thirteen," Ricky interrupted his own subconscious but suddnely turned away.
His subconscious thought he couldn't bear to witness the loss of his innocence, but strangly enough he wasn't turning away from the scene before him, but from the door he was trying to avoid looking at.
"WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING!"
It was there, right in the doorway, where Bella ssuddenly appeared, fury evident in her stance.
She screamed at the top of her lungs at the scene of her best friend overing topless above her teenage son, her anger boiling over in the heat of the moment while Lindsy's head jerked to the side, her face immediately draining of color, growing pale.
"I-It's not what it looks like, Bella! He came onto me, and I had no choice!" Lindsy quickly pointed, backing away and scrambling for her clothes while the young and naive Ricky froze, unable to move at the words trickling from this lying woman's mouth.
"But she-" Ricky tried to explain, only to be interrupted by the waterworks of Lindsy.
"He threatened me, he said he would hurt my kids if I didn't go along with it~" Lindsy began to cry, her voice trembling as Bella's face twisted with fury as the young Ricky, still naked, slowly stood up.
"Mom, that's not-"
SLAP
In a strange turn of events, Bella slapped Ricky across the face, the force of it making him stumble to the side and slowly, he turned back, meeting the hollow, disgusted gaze of his mother.
This was the moment Ricky's innocence was stolen from him, the first false accusation of rape thrown his way, a seed that would eventually corrode him into the horrific man he would become.
The young and impressionable Ricky turned pale as he met his mother's disgusted gaze as her eyes looked down on him, as though he were nothing more than a pervert.
"I can't believe I raised such a vile boy."
Bella left without another word, helping Lindsy up and guiding her out of the room.
Meanwhile, the naked, younger version of Ricky curled into a ball, trembling as the distant wail of police sirens grew closer.
The present-day Ricky had seen enough and with a heavy sigh, he stepped through the door, only to throw his hands up in frustration as the next memory unfolded before him.
"For f*cks sake-"
"Your Honor, I have new evidence to support the claim that Ricky Freeman was the victim in this ordeal!" The lawyer stood up, raising a clear bag that contained a familiar frog toy.
His subconscious followed closely, manifesting behind him as they watched the courtroom unfold.
Ricky sat at the defendant's table, hollow-eyed and defeated, while across the room, his mother consoled Lindsy, offering comfort to the very person who had accused him, as he stood trial for a crime he didn't commit.
Bella hadn't even spared a second to believe Ricky, accepting her friend's words without question and going so far as to call the cops on him.
The only reason he was even here was that his father had paid for a lawyer, not to prove his innocence, but merely to lessen the conviction, choosing to stand by Bella instead.
"The court will allow it," the judge declared, motioning for the lawyer to proceed.
Stepping forward, the lawyer held up the green frog toy, pressing a specific button before raising it for the entire courtroom to see.
"Let me help you Ricky, let me help you express those pent up feelings."
Lindsy's own words echoed from the frog toy, filling the silent courtroom.
The recording sent a chilling stillness through the room, freezing everyone in place as Lindsy's face twisted in horror, while Bella stood in stunned disbelief.
"OBJECTION-" Lindsy's lawyer's face twisted in panic, desperate to stop the toy from playing its next damning recording.
"OVERRULED!" The judge thundered, slamming his gavel down as his expression twisted in disgust as he turned his glare to Lindsy, pointing the gavel directly at her.
"Bailiff, arrest Lindsy Henderson," the judge ordered, his voice firm and unwavering as the mere thought that he had nearly condemned an innocent child made his stomach churn with disgust.
"N-No, I can explain! Really!" Lindsy shot up from her seat, desperation clinging to her voice but the bailiff was already on her, seizing her arms as she struggled.
Meanwhile, Ricky remained still in his chair, staring blankly at the ground, his expression hollow, unmoved by the justice that had finally come too late.
Just because he was found innocent didn't erase the trial, the endless months of being torn apart on the stand, ridiculed by the very people he once thought loved him.
It destroyed him.
The loving, happy child who once saw the world through rose-tinted glasses was gone.
In his place stood someone who finally saw the world for what it truly was.
And what people truly were.
Monsters.
People always speculated about why Ricky became the way he was with some whispering about a crude, pervertedness that had always been inside him, as if he had been born rotten.
Others assumed he had simply chosen to be this way, deciding to give into his hateful, lustful tendencies.
But the funny thing was, Ricky wasn't some evil man who just woke up one day and decided to be a piece of trash.
He wasn't some villain who made a conscious choice to descend into depravity.
He was simply treated like one.
They called him a monster before he ever had the chance to prove otherwise, they cast him out, abandoned him, and let the weight of their own judgment crush whatever innocence he had left.
He was Frankenstein's monster, stitched together from the broken pieces of betrayal, pain, and false accusations, and just like the creature in the old tale, he hadn't started as a monster.
But when the world treats you like one for long enough, even you start to believe it.
At this revelation, Bella's hand shot up to cover her mouth in shock as her eyes flickered over to Ricky, and in a split second, her expression shifted.
She stood and walked toward him, her smile almost practiced, an attempt to mask the uncomfortable realization settling in, with fake sincerity plastered across her face.
Yet, she moved with a deliberate calm, as if trying to convince herself more than anyone else.
"Ricky sweety, mommy is-"
"Right, you were right." Ricky swatted her hand away, standing up with a hollow smile that didn't reach his eyes as he walked past the current version of himself, who merely side-eyed his younger self.
"I'm just some vile boy, so who cares, right?" The younger Ricky spun around, his hollow eyes filling with a pulsating, uncontrollable rage.
Tears trickled down his cheeks, but they quickly vanished as he turned and ran away, leaving the broken remnants of his innocence behind.
His subconscious watched as Bella chased after him, desperately trying to salvage her image and reputation, because that's all that truly mattered to her rather than the suffering of her own child.
She didn't care about Ricky, not really.
She didn't care if he was right or wrong; all she cared about was appearing on the right side to look the best.
But after siding with Lindsy, and hearing the testimonies of her ridiculing Ricky to his face, it broke him completely.
It left him spiraling, his young mind grappling with the bitter irony since if that's all he was, a monster, a piece of trash, then he might as well act like one.
"Can you believe IBM has been around this long?" A man on the side turned to his friend, pointing at the quarterly results they posted, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Well, if you've been around as long as they have, you must know a thing or two," the other man laughed, while the current Ricky nodded along with a wide smile.
"Wow, that must have been-"
"F*cking finally, thank god I got something good," Ricky thought, mentally noting it before the memory slipped away as he exited the courtroom.
"Alright, let's go," Ricky muttered, sitting up and watching everything fade around him while following the memory out, only to find himself standing in front of a gas station.
"RICKY, RICKY!" Bella yelled from the side, stomping over with a furious expression.
All the while the teenage Ricky sat on a car with a couple other delinquents, casually sharing a joint, his eyes barely glancing at her as the tension between them simmered.
"Who's the babe-"
"Trust me, guys, she's batsh*t crazy, totally not worth it," Ricky laughed, taking a slow puff and holding the smoke in his lungs before passing the joint to the side, his smirk never fading as he watched Bella's furious approach.
"DO YOU KNOW THAT THE HOA HAS FOUND OUT-" Bella screamed, marching right up to the teenage Ricky who blew the puff of smoke into her face.
COUGH
COUGH
Almost immediately, Bella let out a nasty cough from the secondhand smoke, her face scrunching in disgust.
The sight of her discomfort sent Ricky reeling with laughter, clutching his stomach as he doubled over, thoroughly enjoying the moment.
SLAP
In the next second, Bella slapped Ricky across the face, that familiar fury evident as the scorching redness bloomed on her skin, highlighting the intensity of her anger.
"HOW DARE YOU!" Bella shouted, pointing a trembling finger at him while the teenage Ricky merely flashed a sleazy smile, rubbing his cheek where her slap had landed, unfazed by her outburst.
"What did I do this time? Wait, don't tell me, did I f*ck one of your friends, except this time for real?" Ricky cackled, his laugh laced with malice, making Bella flinch.
The sound weakened her stance, and she immediately clutched her forehead, fighting the wave of frustration and anger surging through her.
"Did you steal the money for the food drive, the HOA is breathing down my back since I was in charge of-"
"Of course." Teenage Ricky didn't even try to hide it, taking the joint back with a nonchalant shrug, openly admitting to the very thing he was being accused of.
"W-WHAT-"
"I needed money for weed and besides, who cares about a couple of homeless kids." The Teenage Ricky honestly said, his blatant words making the others around him laugh even harder.
"Dude, I thought you were f*cking with us!" One of the guys by his side, Brett, nudged his shoulder, unable to handle the continuous stream of laughter flowing from his vulgar mouth.
"Y-You-" Bella was taken aback, stuttering the same words over and over again, her shock slowly giving way to a wicked expression as she grabbed Ricky's wrist, her grip tight as she tried to regain control of the situation.
"THAT'S IT, YOU'RE GOING DOWN TO THE HOA AND CONFESSING THAT-"
"What? That my mother abuses me?" The Teenage Ricky scoffed, yanking his wrist back since his strength vastly towered over hers since he was around seventeen.
It was at that moment that Bella froze, and with it, the teenage Ricky smiled, leaning back on the hood of the car.
He already knew what his mother loved most, and he was about to leverage it against her to get exactly what he wanted.
"Listen, if you wanna go down there and tell them then do it, I don't f*cking care." The Teenage Ricky said, taking another puff of the joint then handing it to Brett.
"But if you do, I'm just gonna go down there and put on a show about how my mother abuses me, blah blah blah," Teenage Ricky said, blowing out the smoke and watching it swirl around Bella.
The look on her face went pale as the weight of his words hit her, and for a moment, she was at a loss for what to do.
"I-" Bella tried to say something, but as she looked at Ricky, she realized she didn't have any control, any sway over him.
The realization hit her hard, and in that moment, she froze, completely unsure of how to respond or what to do next.
"Yeah, doesn't feel too good when you realize that no one will believe you, does it?" Teenage Ricky asked his mother, his smile bittersweet as he gazed at the woman who was supposed to love him and raise him with care.
His subconscious watched the scene unfold, seeing Bella angrily stomp off as Ricky's past friends congratulated him for finally standing up to his horrible mother.
"No sh*t, Exxon and Mobil exist here too?" Ricky muttered, completely unaware of the memory playing out beside him.
This entire time, he was surveying the gas station at the side, before finally realizing that ExxonMobil existed in his new life as well.
What caught him off guard and made him really take a second to think about it was the way the names were smudged together.
In the timeline he came from, Exxon and MobilOil were still two separate entities, competing in their own corners of the world.
But here, they were fused into one, their identities blurred into a single entity, an idea he hadn't fully grasped until now.
Exxon and MobilOil had merged in 1999, a business decision that made all the sense in the world on paper but still felt surreal to him at this moment.
But back in the 1930s, things were very different as the two had been fierce competitors, each vying for dominance in the oil market with the rivalry between them having been as intense as any corporate battle of its time.
Which was why Ricky couldn't really put it all together immediately and realized they must've merged or something along those lines.
"Noted." Ricky nodded his head, turning away from the gas station and looking around for the next door as his subconscious followed him along.
"Aren't you the least bit curious about your past-" His subconscious tried to prone his thoughts, really digging deep until the next memory settled in and interrupted it.
"You can't keep doing this, Slick! You can't keep drinking and snorting your life away!" Brett's voice rang out as in the blink of an eye, Brett had grown up, a stark contrast to the man Ricky had become.
Ricky, still stuck in his twenties, still haunted by his past, looked at him as if they were caught in some twisted time loop.
Bags hung heavily under Ricky's eyes, his face gaunt and tired, the remnants of sleepless nights and self-destruction.
Around him lay a mountain of crushed beer cans and scattered lines of cocaine, a testament to the chaos he had let consume him.
He was a wreck, both physically and mentally, trapped in a cycle that had no end in sight.
"Sorry for grieving," Ricky muttered, his voice hollow as he wallowed in self-pity.
At this point in his life, Cindy had finally cut him out of her life for good, refusing to take him back for the fourth time.
That rejection had sent him spiraling deeper, the weight of his mistakes and wasted chances crushing him further into the abyss that he was currently swirling in right this second.
"No, Slick, NO!" Brett yelled, covering his face at Ricky's piss poor attempt to guilt trip him.
"YOU CAN'T DO THESE SH*TTY THINGS AND FEEL BAD ABOUT YOURSELF LIKE THAT MAKES IT OKAY!" Brett roared, his voice sharp with frustration as he tried to shake some sense into Ricky as his hands clenched into fists, desperate to reach the friend he once knew, the one who wasn't lost in a haze of alcohol and self-destruction.
"Dammit Ricky, you need to be better." Brett's voice broke as he couldn't even muster up the strength to yell at Ricky who was barely even listening to him.
Ricky, the one hanging off to the side, was actually paying attention to this memory while looking at Brett.
By his twenties, he'd burned through every connection, every friendship, every person he had known in his teens, with only one left.
Brett was the last one standing, the last person still clinging to the wreckage of what Ricky had once been but even that was slipping through his fingers, like sand he couldn't hold on to.
"Listen man, I know you've had it rough and I'm not trying to-f*ck, I'm not trying to be that guy but when is it gonna stop?" Brett was frustrated that he couldn't find the exact words, interrupting himself before getting to the point.
"You're killing yourself man, you're f*cking killing yourself." Brett's tone was heartbroken, unable to even recognize what Ricky had become.
"Listen, y'know the company General Electric, the one I told you about way back?" Brett sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, feeling the weight of his frustration pressing down on him.
"I've been talking to some people there, and they're hiring. You could actually get a shot at something real, something solid. But you gotta pull yourself together, Ricky, just one last time, man, please." Brett was almost begging him at this point, wanting Ricky to desperately get back on his hind legs but the man only laughed.
"I f*cked your sister-"
BAM
It was almost instantaneous, Brett's fist moving without thought, landing squarely on Ricky's jaw.
The words Ricky had spat out were like the last straw, pushing Brett to act on raw frustration.
Ricky slumped over, blood streaming from his nose as he wiped it away with a casual motion.
He forced a smile, as if it was nothing, his eyes glazed over, but Brett could see the deeper layers of pain behind that grin.
But Brett just stood there, his expression a mix of disbelief and disappointment, unable to muster any more anger.
It was why his shoulders slumped, realizing that Ricky's refusal to change had broken something inside him, inside them both.
"Goodbye, Ricky." Brett's voice was flat, devoid of the familiarity and warmth that once existed between them.
He didn't even use the nickname anymore, just his real name, as though the bond they shared had unraveled completely in that moment.
As he turned and walked through the door, every step was heavier than the last, the sound of it echoing like the final nail in the coffin of their friendship.
"Y'know, he became a big shot after this." Ricky spoke to his own subconscious, his gaze fixed on his past self as he reached for a half-empty bottle of beer and chugged it down as if it were water.
"Did you both ever reconnect, ever get back in touch-"
"No, never spoke to him again." Ricky turned to the side, trying to find the door as his own subconscious frowned at this statement.
"But Brett was always a softy, even until I died, the guy would always post my bail but do it anonymously, as if I didn't know in the first place." Ricky had a reminiscent chuckle, finding the next door and walking through it.
"Couldn't you have reached out then, maybe he wanted to reconnect?" His subconscious asked, knowing that if Ricky would've shown the initiative then maybe they could've been friends.
"I think, in my own f*cked-up way, I thought I'd just ruin his life if I entered back into it, which I probably would've," Ricky said, letting out a sigh as he honestly would bet on that outcome if he even could.
CLAP
CLAP
CLAP
"O-Oh~"
Almost immediately, they slipped into the next memory, the scene shifting as they found themselves inside a cramped plane.
The uncomfortable faces of passengers were clearly visible, all eyes shifting nervously toward the tiny bathroom.
It was obvious to everyone that the small space was occupied, not by one, but two people.
"Phew~" The Past Ricky, now in his thirties, zipped up his pants with a relieved expression while a busty flight attendant eventually stumbled out behind him.
"HAHAHAHA!" Ricky immediately laughed out loud after seeing this, watching himself waltz to his economy seats as everyone surrounded him with their uncomfortable expressions.
Seeing an elderly woman glaring intently at him, Ricky winked at her as she let out an applaud gasp that made Ricky churn out an even louder laugh.
"I remember this, I joined the mile high club on this day!" Ricky excitedly said, walking with himself as his subconscious had a neutral expression.
"Dad, you're back!" A child that shared some similarities with him, excitedly said as it was revealed to be his eldest kid, Trevor.
"Yep and guess what your old dad just got for you." Ricky plopped into his aisle seat, rubbing Trevor's brown hair as he gazed up at him with his expectations building.
"What, what!" Trevor was almost hopping up and down, begging him at this point as Ricky spread out his hands.
"I got you your own personal meeting with the pilots!" Ricky revealed, watching Trevor leap into his embrace and hug him tightly with an ecstatic expression.
"YES, YES, YES!" Trevor repeated, his voice filled with excitement while Ricky stood by, watching with a smile, having completely forgotten about this moment.
"Oh yeah, I forgot that Trevor wanted to be a pilot." Ricky realized, remembering how obsessed Trevor used to be with planes.
"Dad, dad, did you know that all this plane was made by Boeing and that-" Trevor, in his excitement, shared his knowledge of the plane with his father as his subconscious turned to him.
"What happened?" His subconscious asked, observing Ricky's smile as he watched the scene unfold before he shrugged, and the memory gradually faded, transitioning into the next one.
"He grew up-"
"What is wrong with you?" Trevor, all grown up, asked Ricky, now in his forties, with a horrified expression since he came back with good news only to see something beyond his expectations.
"Is this true-"
"Trevor-"
"DAMMIT DAD, IS IT F*CKING TRUE!" Trevor waved the paper in his face, showing a heartbroken expression as he threw it on the ground.
Today was the day he learned he had passed the pilot's exam, only to be hit with a shocking truth from his examiner, who had accidentally let it slip.
"Ya gotta be more specific." Ricky, currently butt naked and reaching his forties, stood up with only a blanket covering his lower half as he usually slept until 4pm, and right now, it was noon.
"Did you sleep with my examiner?" Trevor asked, tears welling in his eyes at the painful realization that stood before him.
"Oh that, yeah I did." Ricky scratched his stubble, completely unfazed by the question as Trevor lowered his gaze.
"Oh don't be like that-"
"How could you?" Trevor asked, looking up at Ricky who only let out an aggrieved sigh at this question.
"Trevor, buddy, I did it to help you and-"
"How?" Trevor laughed, interrupting him while looking down at the exam that showed himself to be a failure, just like his father.
"How is setting me up for failure helping me? How is putting my future on the line, manipulating the situation, in any way helping me?" Trevor's voice cracked from his own emotions swirling around in his young and naive heart, his fists clenched as if to physically fight off the surge of anger and disappointment.
"Come on, Trevor, you're overthinking this. It's just one exam. You'd have passed anyway, with a little push, that's all-"
"Was it only one exam?" Trevor asked, showing a hurt expression that only worsened when Ricky looked to the side.
"Oh my god, you bastard." Trevor let out a broken laugh, the weight of the truth sinking in as he realized not only had he failed that exam, but every single one before it, too.
For all his passion, Trevor was not a good pilot, in fact, he was at the bottom of the barrel when it came to aptitude, barely scraping by with the bare minimum of skills.
Ricky, seeing Trevor on the verge of breaking down in tears when he failed the first exam, unable to cope with the reality of his failure as a father, took matters into his own hands in the only way he knew how.
But for Ricky, it wasn't about passing or failing, it was the painful realization that Trevor would never live his dream if this contiued.
Ricky had wanted to give him a chance at happiness, to let him feel like he could achieve something.
But for Trevor, it became a hard truth: no matter how much he wanted it, he just wasn't good enough.
"Trevor, you earned this." Ricky held up his hand, trying to calm him down but Trevor only gritted his teeth.
"BUT I DIDN'T!" Trevor shot back, his voice shaking now, the tears welling up and threatening to fall.
"This was my dream, and even then, you took away the one thing that was supposed to be mine, my chance to prove myself, and you tainted it with your inability to keep it in your pants!" Trevor lashed out, unable to hold back any longer, his frustration boiling over as he unloaded years of resentment in one heated outburst.
"Look, I know you think it's a big deal, but trust me, when you're out here, it's all about connections, not f*cking tests. You'll learn that one day." Ricky said, unknowingly speaking the words that would set his son on a path he would eventually follow, one that would shape his future in ways he couldn't yet understand.
Trevor didn't give Ricky another word, simply walking away and never looking back.
Even though he had passed his pilot's exam and obtained his license, he would never use it.
Instead, he would go on to found his own real estate firm, one built around the connections he gained by marrying into his wife's influential family.
The words Ricky had spoken to him that day, about connections being more important than tests, would become the foundation of his entire life, guiding his every decision and shaping the person he would eventually become.
"That seemed a little harsh." His subconscious added, trying to motivate any sort of response to the event where he forever scarred his relationship with his son and after that, really stopped trying to make any form of connections with his kids.
At that point in his life, after putting all that time into Trevor only to be hated and loathed in return, Ricky really stopped caring about what his kids thought of him.
He stopped making any sort of effort to be in their lives, resigning himself to the fact that no matter how much he tried, he would always be the villain in their eyes.
The exhaustion from constantly trying to win their approval weighed on him, and he came to terms with the idea that maybe it was better to just let them live their lives, even if it meant being a distant figure in their world.
"Hmmmm." Ricky simply hummed at it all, watching the memory fade into obscurity as his subconscious scrunched its brows.
"That's all you have to say? Hmmmmmmm?" His subconscious immediately lectured, following Ricky who suddenly found himself in Time Square.
"Oh will you shut up, I already know what you're doing." Ricky scoffed, side-eyeing his subconscious who flinched at the sudden accusation.
"What am I doing-"
"You're the part of me that's trying to relive all the bullsh*t that I ever ended up regretting," Ricky accused his own subconscious, already understanding what it was doing after having to relive all that crap in the courtroom.
"W-Whaaaaaaat, nooooooooo~" His subconscious poorly lied, literally being the polar opposite of Ricky who rolled his eyes at, well, himself.
"Whatever man, but bringing me to that court was actually messed up." Ricky shook his head, clearly not all that ecstatic about having to go through that another time.
"Okay fine, but these memories are serious, especially the courtroom, you were just a child-"
"You think I didn't know that? You think I wasn't here for it all too?" Ricky turned back to his subconscious, his voice sharp, as his mind flicked back to the countless moments of regret.
"Don't you f*cking get it, I didn't know anything, I didn't know any better." Ricky squared up his own subconscious, looking it directly into his eyes.
"I loved my mom when I was little, with all my heart, but that b*tch threw me to the f*cking wolves the first chance she got, because all she ever cared about wasn't me, but of what people thought of her." Ricky poked the suit of the mobster apparel that his subconscious was wearing before him.
"I didn't run away from her like I did with my dad or Danielle, I was forced into that sh*t, and yanked into everything I didn't deserve as a kid." Ricky finally had enough with his subconscious showing him all the stuff he didn't care to see anymore, since he had long moved past it.
"So don't lecture me about this and that, because I already know I'm gonna be better than her because no kid of mine is gonna feel worthless, just like I did in that courtroom or like how made Trevor feel." Ricky turned away, walking down the street, his eyes catching sight of his past self being thrown out of a bar, a puke stain smeared across his shirt.
These things, this past version of himself, didn't bother him because that wasn't who he was anymore.
Sure, it would always be a part of him, but the guy who stumbled through life, through the streets as he was right now, always drunk and constantly chasing a high to mask how worthless he felt, that wasn't him anymore.
Ricky had grown enough to see that.
"That's not me, that's who I was." Ricky gestured to his own subconscious, both of them watching the piss poor excuse for the man stumbling next to a fire hydrant before hurling up another mouthful of vomit.
'Johnson & Johnson, the family company Est. 1886.' Right in that moment, the screen mounted above his puking past self flickered to life, flashing bold, vibrant letters that immediately caught Ricky's attention.
"Alright, I think that's enough," Ricky muttered to himself and with that command, the memories dissolved, leaving nothing but a vast, empty white space.
It was then, as he scanned the void before him, that a stark red door stood out like a sore thumb, its presence undeniable, offering a clear path forward.
Ricky took a step toward it, then another, moving forward with a purpose that wasn't shackled down by all his mistakes, his regret, and his past.
"You could fix it, you know, you could save her this time." His subconscious suddenly called out, halting Ricky's footsteps as the white space suddenly fluttered, rippling like a disturbed mirror.
A whirlwind of memories swirled around him, vivid flashes of his biggest regret, each moment with his sister playing out like a movie in fast-forward.
Her laughter, their shared secrets, the carefree days of youth, they all unfolded in front of him, bright and full of warmth.
But instead of the usual bitterness that came with these recollections, Ricky felt something different.
A soft smile tugged at his lips as he watched Danielle's carefree laughter, her joy radiating through the memory, untouched by the years or the pain.
At that moment, he didn't feel the weight of loss or failure, he didn't see all the times he hurt her.
For the first time in a long while, he only saw her as she was, happy and alive, as if those moments hadn't slipped through his fingers afterall.
"Don't you want to reconcile with that memory, go back and say you'll stay?" His subconscious asked, the words hanging in the air like a heavy cloud.
It stood still, frozen in place, as if it couldn't move forward, tethered to the past, unable to leave behind the weight of what had been.
Ricky stood there, silent, his gaze fixed on the memory of Danielle, a bittersweet mix of longing and acceptance stirring in his chest.
He could feel the pull, the temptation to go back, to fix things, and undo all the hurt he ever caused.
"You could save her," his subconscious repeated, this time with a weight that seemed to press against Ricky's chest, forcing out a long drawn out laugh.
"Ha~" Ricky laughed out bitterly, ducking his head as his deceased sister's presence swirled around him, like a haunting reminder of everything lost.
Her laughter echoed in his ears, the memory so vivid that it almost felt real but it wasn't real, she wasn't real.
He turned around slowly, facing his subconscious, that part of him desperately clinging to the idea of undoing what was already done.
This was the part of him that wanted to always go back, to fix every little thing he's ever done and get it perfect, but that was the problem, he wasn't perfect.
No one is.
"The scars I have, we have, they aren't meant to be fixed." Ricky chuckled lightly, rubbing the back of his neck as he faced the reality of his own words.
It wasn't a bitter laugh, nor was it filled with regret.
It was the kind of chuckle that comes when you finally understand something deep inside, when you realize that you've made peace with the parts of yourself that hurt the most.
"They make us who we are." Ricky's eyes locked with his subconscious, breathless and nearly unable to speak at the realization of its counterpart.
"It took me a long time, maybe longer than most, to understand that we're not meant to go back and fix them." Ricky forced a bitter smile, finally admitting the truth to himself, rather than to everyone around him.
"Take from somebody who's been a f*ck up the majority of his life when I say, you can't live your past." Ricky relieved, spreading out his arms to the array of memories that flooded around them in the vicinity.
"You gotta live your life."
"And I don't let my regrets define my life anymore." Ricky shrugged, neither upset nor angry with himself, but simply grown enough to speak his truth.
"What's wrong with letting them define you, they made you into the man you are today-" His subconscious tried to speak, tried to convince him, but Ricky only shook his head.
"And they also made me a mess." Ricky laughed, wiping his mouth as he admitted the truth, though at the same time, it had turned him into a bumbling fuck-up.
"But what if-"
"What if I bought that stock? What if I didn't leave New York? What if I was some perfect guy who always knew what to do, could recall everything at the drop of a hat, and never made mistakes?" Ricky spread his arms, speaking over his subconscious as he watched it slowly close its mouth.
"Give me a break with your could-haves and should-haves." Ricky laughed, waving him off as he walked toward the door that had been placed just for him.
"The only way to fix sh*t is with your hands, not through what-ifs." Ricky turned his back on all the uncertainty that had bubbled within him through both of his lives.
"I'm not gonna sit around and wonder how I could've fixed things in the past. I'm gonna try to make it right, right here, right now." Ricky pointed to the ground beneath him, knowing he'd make mistakes, probably fail even more, but it was how he kept going and picked himself up that mattered most.
"Because it's like Lucky always says, 'If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a trolley car.'" Ricky laughed his way toward the red door, stopping at the threshold and turning around, not to face a heartbroken subconscious, but a happy one.
For all that Ricky was, his subconscious wasn't.
It was the part of him that always gnawed at his decisions, offering a second-hand opinion, one that was usually the right one.
And right now, it felt relieved that the last aching part of him had finally moved on, no longer living in the past.
Sure, he might take lessons from it, maybe even learn from it, but Ricky wouldn't let the mistakes of his past drown out the present.
This kind of realization had come to him many times before, but it was when he faced these scars and understood that instead of an open wound, he now looked down at himself, knowing he was truly healed.
And although they might hurt on a rainy day, it doesn't mean they'll ever stop you from taking that single step forward.
"Take care, loser." Ricky chuckled, walking through the red door as his subconscious smile, waving behind him as the door slowly shut on it.
"Take care."
Opening his eyes, surrounded by papers, he wiped his mouth and remained silent for a long time.
Even though he had moved on, the rain still poured outside, stinging those scars and bringing him to only one conclusion.
'I don't wanna be alone,' Ricky thought, opening his portal and arriving back at his car parked in front of the mansion.
Instead of driving through the gate, he turned the car around and headed to another house, more specifically, Profaci's old place.
Fiddling with his pinky ring, he looked up at the one thing he had been avoiding for a very long time and decided to finally confront it before walking up and knocking on the front door.
"Ricky?" Maria, who had been peeking through the door, opened it wide to find Ricky standing out in the rain.
"Can we talk?"