Allie's eyes were taking some time to adjust to the room, everything blurred and out of focus. She groaned as she tried to sit up, and quickly realized she was wet all over. Allie looked down and saw she was lying in a bath tub, still fully dressed. Allie groaned and finally managed to pull herself up a bit, before falling face first onto the bathroom floor. The door to the bathroom opened, and she saw a pair of sneakers approach her; as her eyes scanned upwards, she saw Nick's face, and she felt a sense of relief flood her body as he knelt over her.
"Allie?" he asked. "Why was I in the bath?" she asked, and Nick sighed, running his fingers through his curly brown hair. "I have no idea," Nick said, "but I can't do this anymore." "What?" Allie asked, sounding genuinely surprised, his admission fully bringing her back to consciousness; she struggled to stand up in the bathroom as Nick exited, and she slid on the rug, falling back down and shouting obscenities, before finally managing to follow him out to the hotel room they were in. Allie looked around for a moment, shivering, before furrowing her brow and asking, "why the fuck am I in a hotel room?" "All I know is you called me, and you were completely fucked up, so I came over," Nick said, "By the time I got here, you had climbed into the bathtub, could barely speak, and passed out. I just sat here and checked on you intermittently to make sure you didn't drown." "How sweet," Allie said, making him scoff. "Nothing about this is 'sweet', Allie, this is sick, and I can't take it anymore. You're fucking aging me by the day," Nick said, his voice rising, "You are in need of help that I cannot give you!" Allie leaned against the wall and rubbed her face on her soaking wet sleeve, her lips quivering, as she quietly whispered, "I'm cold." Nick sighed and walked over to her, pulling her arms down to her side and unbuttoning her shirt, pulling it off of her and then getting a towel and hairdryer from the bathroom. He wrapped the towel around her, then told her to remove her pants as he plugged the hairdryer into the wall near the television and turned it on. Allie shut her eyes, trying not to cry, as she kicked her pants off and stood straight up so Nick could dry her off with the dryer. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know," Nick said, "and I know you really mean it, but...this isn't fair to me. Every single day I have to wake up and worry whether or not you're going to still be alive. I shouldn't have to do that." "No, you shouldn't." "I need a break," Nick said, "You've shown you don't want to work with me, you've shown you don't want help from a professional. I need to take a break, Allie." "I understand," Allie said, her teeth somewhat chattering. Nick stopped blowing and set the dryer on the dresser, then put his hands on her shoulders. He put his forehead against hers, and she smiled. As Allie walked to the bed and sat down, clutching the towel tightly around her, she watched Nick gather his few things he'd brought with him - a book, a bag of chips, a few cans of soda, his jacket and his keys - and then looked up at him as he stood at the end of the bed, looking down at her. Nick smiled and touched her cheek again. "I'm sorry, Allie," he said, "You're really fucking cool, but I just...I'm not capable of dealing with this kind of shit. If you ever want to get real help, let me know. I'll do what I can then. But until that point, I think it's best we don't talk." "...i love you," Allie mumbled, and Nick sighed, kissing the top of her head. "I know you do, and I love you too, that's why I can't keep sitting here and watching you do this to yourself," he said, before turning and leaving the hotel room. Allie wanted to go to the window and watch him drive away, but she figured it was better that she didn't. Seeing him leave would mean he was really gone. That was simply too much closure, and she couldn't handle that right now. Instead, she stood back up, picked up the hairdryer again and continued warming herself until she was fully dry. Once Allie was dry, she redressed and left the hotel room, heading to her car. Allie got into her car and slid the key into the ignition, before adjusting the rearview mirror and noticing something in the backseat; a cardboard cutout of herself, back when she was new in Vegas. Allie turned and looked at the cutout in the backseat and groaned. "The fuck?" she muttered, "jesus that's unsettling." Allie backed out and started driving, heading towards Card Shark. Maybe they'd let her have a few drinks on the house before her show tonight. She'd just been dumped, maybe she could gain a few sympathy drinks out of the deal. But Allie had no idea just how much worse her day was about to get. *** "What?" Allie asked, her eyes wide. She was seated on the opposite side of Card Shark's owner - Tony Campini's - desk. He shrugged and light a cigar for himself and for Allie, which she happily took, before he leaned back in his chair and put his legs up on his desk. "What do you want me to do? Continue indulging in this self destructiveness? I'd be held liable if anything happened to any of the guests, or to you, if I continue to do so," Tony said, "and the fact of the matter is you've become a risky asset. I'm just telling you what my investors are suggesting I do, but thankfully for you, I like you, and I haven't decided what to do just yet. I want to give you a chance to fix your act." "My magic act or, like, my life?" "You know damn well which one," Tony said, chuckling, "So let me make it extremely clear for you, okay? You're basically on probation. I'm going to let you continue performing, but unless you get sober, or at least relatively sober, that offer won't stand for long. In the meantime, no more free alcohol in the casino, and I'm giving you a partner." "A partner?" "Yes," Tony said, shouting at the door, "Come in, please!" The door opened and a young woman, looking in her early twenties, entered. She was wearing button down slacks and a short sleeved button down shirt, with the collar done up. She had a messy mop of short red hair, and she stopped after reaching the desk. Allie looked from the girl to Tony, then back at the girl, jerking her thumb at her. "Her? Really?" she asked. "She requested to work with you, personally," Tony said. "Miss Meers, I'm Zoe, I'm an enormous fan," the girl said, holding out her hand to shake it, but Allie denied the request and looked back at Tony. "This is...ridiculous." "No, Allie, what's ridiculous is your goddamned behavior, okay?" Tony said, starting to sound genuinely irritated with her, "Now you two find a way to make this work, or she'll be your official replacement, alright? I'm not letting you mire my casino in your bullshit anymore!" "Oh, 'mire', wow, what a big word for such a big man," Allie said, annoyed, as she stood up and stormed out, Zoe at her heels. Standing in the hall outside Tony's office door, Allie continued smoking the cigar before looking at Zoe standing beside her. Allie headed to the elevator, Zoe keeping up with her, as she continued to puff cigar smoke in front of them as they walked. Once they reached the elevator, Allie looked at Zoe and sighed. "I'm sorry," Allie said, "I didn't mean anything about you, I hope you know that." "I know," Zoe said, "I understand. Everyone has a bad day." "My whole goddamn life's a bad day," Allie replied, "and this is just the icing on top. I'm a solo magician, and I worked hard to get to this point. I don't need any help, act wise. So here's how this is gonna work, alright? I'm gonna incorporate you into my act, but only so you can gain exposure. In the meantime, you won't tell Tony anything about my activities, deal?" Zoe stood there, slack jawed, contemplating this arrangement. She finally nodded, without uttering a word. Allie smirked and patted her shoulder as the elevator doors opened. "Welcome aboard," Allie said as they entered and she pressed the penthouse button, "So, what's your stage name?" "Well I know alliteration is an important thing, but it's kind of hard to find something that works with the letter 'Z', so I'm sort of stumped..." "We'll come up with something, don't worry," Allie said as the doors shut. *** Allie Meers was 11 years old when she was first given a magic kit. It was given to her by her mothers brother, Kenny, and she was thrilled to have received it for the holidays. She started practicing every single day, starting with simple card tricks and interlocking metal rings, eventually moving onto a few more advanced tricks within the year with relative ease. Turns out, Allie had a real knack for magic, and she quickly immersed herself in the world of stage magic, pulling library books and mail order videos into her world to teach her more. By the time she was 19, she had made up her mind to go to Vegas, and become a honest to god successful stage magician. When she first moved to Vegas, however, she began to find it incredibly difficult to find work in any outlet. She started by doing private parties, but this didn't pay well enough, especially for a supposed 'starter' in the field. Thankfully, by the end of her first year in town - on the verge of financial ruin and burnout - she was finally seen by Tony Campini. He told her he admired her moxie, her spunk, and, most importantly, her effort. He said he saw real potential in her, and a few weeks later, he offered her a small ongoing gig at his casino, The Card Shark. Sitting together in the green room after her last show of that year, the show which arguably gained her the success she'd continue to see for years to come, Allie told Tony, "What do you do when you finally achieve your dreams?" To which Tony replied, pouring her a glass of wine, "You hope you never wake up." As she sat on the couch in the penthouse that night, sipping an imported beer while Zoe stumbled around, taking in all the wonders of her career, Allie couldn't help but think that she didn't take into consideration that once you made it...you had to fight to keep it. Zoe's fingertips trembled as she reached to the photo on the wall and touched the frame, her breath caught in her chest. "Yeah?" Allie asked. "I was here, when you did this, with the tigers," Zoe said, "I saw this happen." Allie put her cigar out and sat upright on the couch now, watching Zoe as she turned away from the photo to face Allie, her eyes wide. "What was it like?" Zoe asked. "You mean to be that close to a tiger, or to feel that level of pain when it tried to rip my arm off?" Allie asked, and Zoe nodded; Allie smirked and leaned back on the couch, brushing her bangs from her face as she continued, "It was...life changing, in the worst kinds of ways. You don't ever really think about mortality being, like, a thing you have to face until it's staring you down. You were there, you saw what happened." "Did it hurt?" "It hurt like hell, yeah," Allie said, "I mean, I almost lost my hand, and I wasn't able to perform for months. You were there? That was almost a decade ago, you would've had to have been-" "Yeah, I was a kid." "Christ, what an awful thing to have to see." "You were my hero," Zoe said, surprising Allie with her bluntness as she shakily approached the couch and sat on the ottoman across from her, "I...I begged my parents to take me to see you, because I worshipped you. So my parents finally agreed to take me, and that just happened to be the show we saw. I was so scared you were hurt, my folks couldn't console me all night long. Even after all that, I STILL wanted to do what you do." Allie smiled, and nodded, "Well thank you, I'm glad to have had that kind of influence on someone." Allie pulled a small backpack to her side up from the floor and unzipped it, reaching inside and digging around until she finally found what she was looking for...an orange pill bottle. She uncorked the top and took two of them, then exhaled deeply and relaxed again into the couch cushions. Zoe didn't ask anything about them, figured they weren't her business, and instead simply crossed her legs and shook her head. "If you'd told me back then that I'd be working with you now," Zoe started, "I never would've believed it." "Here's to pulling one over the man," Allie said, clinking her glass against her nails and then taking another sip. *** "It's going to be a long road to recovery," the doctor said, "but you're young, you can absolutely do this. I'm going to give you prescription to Vicodin, but I think I should warn you that it can be highly addictive, and that many-" "I appreciate that," Allie said, sitting up best she could in the hospital bed, "but I don't have an addictive personality." "Even still, I think it's important that you make sure you don't overdo this," the doctor continued, "Far too many people overdose on painkillers every single day, and become highly reliant on them to the point where they can't function without them, and those are the ones that don't die. I'm just doing my medical duty." "Okay, thank you," Allie said. "A nurse will be in here shortly to clean your wounds," the doctor said, leaving the room. Allie laid back down and exhaled, shutting her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw a handsome man in a nurses uniform sitting beside her, gently washing her arm. He had short curly brown hair and green eyes. He dunked the small hand towel into a bucket of lukewarm water and massaged the wound where the tiger had nearly beaten clean through, smiling at her while he did it. "Does this hurt?" he asked. "Not really." "How'd you get something like this?" he asked. "I worked with a tiger. Won't be making that mistake again," she replied, "This is very sweet of you." "Just doing my job. Turns out that today I happen to really enjoy it," he said, winking at her, making her laugh, as he asked, "I'm Nick, what's your name?" "Allie Meers." "It's nice to meet you Allie." "It's nice to meet you too." From that day on, Nick and Allie would be in one anothers lives, eventually becoming a couple, and while Allie struggled with her painkiller addiction, Nick was there. When she tried to quit painkillers and go to alcohol as a substitute vice, he was there. When she dropped out of rehab and started taking the pills again, this time without a prescription and instead getting them off the street - a rather easy feat in a place like Vegas - he was there. Allie was a mess, and Nick was the one who always cleaned her up. Until he decided he couldn't do it anymore. In Nick's defense...he didn't know he'd always be her nurse, even once she got out of the hospital. *** When Allie woke up that night, Zoe was gone. She struggled to roll over and get off the couch, and even once she was up she didn't know why she'd bothered. So Allie walked to the minibar in the penthouse loft and got on her knees, tugging on the door until it opened. She gazed inside, and finally pulled a bottle of gin out. She sighed and sat on the floor, until she realized one of the magnets she had on the fridge had slid to the ground. She picked it up and looked at it; a photo of her and Nick in DisneyLand a few years back, back when she'd first started rehab to get off the painkillers. After being sober for a few months, he decided to take her on a trip, surprising her. Allie pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face in them, starting to cry. She cried for a solid twenty minutes before standing up, taking the bottle of rum and headed into the bathroom. The lavish bathroom of this Vegas penthouse in the Card Shark Casino was gorgeous, and it had a beautiful square black bathtub with gold trim. Allie undressed to her underwear, then turned the water on and waited for it to fill up with warm water, before climbing in and popping the top of the bottle off and beginning to drink. She liked falling asleep in the bathtub. It meant she might drown, and the tiger hadn't taken her out... ...so she figured it was up to her to complete the task. But she never really drowned. Despite the wins she had in the casino, she was never really that lucky.
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ABOUT
Allie Meers is what she dreamed of being since she was a little girl...a successful Vegas magician. The only problem now is she can't make all her problems disappear; Allie grapples with her strained relationship, crippling addictions and FBI agents on her tail, all while trying to stay at the top of her career. Archives
December 2023
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