| 000 |۶| Biography |
[28 Jul 2011|05:37pm] |
Denise Ava-Marie Nichols
“Denny”
So many swears had never come out of Emily Georgiana Rochester-Nichols’ prim and proper mouth as they did the night that her second eldest daughter was born. The sound of, “DAMN IT, DENNY,” could be heard echoing from the white washed, sterile walls of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. Father and first born, Angelica, waited patiently for the newest addition to their family to arrive. After twenty-two hours of intense, hard labor, Denise Ava-Marie Nichols was born on June 21st of 1990. It was pure coincidence that the child’s initials spelled the word ‘damn’ and that was the only word that Emily had been able to utter properly the last six hours of her labor. The Nichols patriarch, Denis Eugene Nichols, thought it wise not to point this fact out to his young wife who was already threatening to divorce him for getting her pregnant in the first place. Nor did he think to remind Emily that they had planned on having four more children before it was all said and done – he was better off letting her think that this would be the last time that she would go through so much trouble for one squalling infant. Though Denis would have preferred a son, he was not unhappy with such a darling little girl to spoil.
Denise, or Denny as she would be called by her father, was quite an affectionate, outspoken baby. She began chattering nonsensical words earlier than expected and she was speaking in full, easily understood sentences by the age of two, and reading by the time she was four years old. At the age of four she was caught up to her sister, Angie, who was barely two years older than Denny. The little blonde with the biggest eyes you ever did see was the pride and joy of her father’s life and he had no problem carting her with him where ever he went. Emily was just as fond of her daughter but had a harder time showing the child the kind of affection that Denis did; especially after the addition of their third child, Dinah Jane, born just after Denny’s second birthday. Where Denny had been a bright, inquisitive child, Dinah’s development was stunted considerably in comparison. When the youngest of the trio had not started talking by the time she was three years old Denis and Emily decided it was time to have her tested. A then fine year old Denise was told that her perfect baby sister had been diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Because Dinah would require a lot of care and attention, Emily and Denis decided that they would not have any more children.
To say that Denny’s childhood was easy would be a lie. The middle Nichols' child had been more than excited for the addition to their family and had even chosen her baby sister’s name from her favorite children’s movie, Alice in Wonderland. Finding out that Dinah would be nothing like any other little sister she had heard of was disappointing but that did not make Denny love her any less. Denny was as involved with Dinah’s care as anyone else in the family and could often be found following Dinah’s nurses around with her big, watchful eyes. Before she was eight years old Denny knew how to do everything in order to care for her sister and didn’t mind helping out from time to time. However, Emily was far too overprotective of her special needs daughter and kept shooing Denny away when it came to the more important things such as medication and feedings. It seemed only fitting that they should have such an extraordinary child and then such a challenged one to balance everything out. In the beginning Denny and Dinah attended the same private school in Los Angeles, but after a few years Emily found a school centered on the development of special needs located in a different town.
Junior high was a turning point for Denny who was finally separated from the comfort zone that her sisters provided and she was thrust into social settings provided by Emily who wanted nothing but a normal life for her older daughters. Dinah attended St. Christopher’s School for the Mentally Challenged while Denny was driven further out of the way to an all-girls Catholic school. This distance between the two sisters during the day gave Denny the opportunity to learn how to socialize better with her peers; though she still spent a majority of her free time with Dinah, Denny was able to make friends with some of the girls at the school and soon they started doing everything together. Denis was a hard working man who had taken a gamble on a dot-com venture that ended up bringing the family a considerable wealth – that was how they were able to afford such costly private schools for all of their daughters and extensive care for Dinah that exceeded all requirements. Denny, still as bright as she had been when she was a child, received a lot of attention from her father in the form of lavish gifts. Calling her spoiled was not far off the mark, though Denny insisted she earned everything she was given.
It was not hard to see why Denny had the reputation of ‘Rich Bitch’ when she was given a 2006 Mercedes-Benz SL-Class convertible for her sixteenth birthday in pearl white for having perfect attendance and a 4.0 grade average without breaking a sweat. She was also given her very own credit card, in her father’s name, that same year that had a limit of five thousand dollars; Denis was always very good about paying off the debt at the end of every month. While Denny never reached the five thousand dollar limit it was common knowledge that she had the ability to do so without question and that fact made her a tad more popular than just her looks and personality alone would have. Though Denny attended an all-girls school she had plenty of opportunity to fraternize with members of the opposite sex at the many co-ed functions that the school offered with their brother school. The cheerleaders for St. Mary’s would perform at lacrosse and basketball games for St. Francis. Her sophomore year was the first year that she made the cheer squad and every year after that she rejoined with a hefty donation from her trust for new uniforms and funds to attend functions.
It was shortly after her sweet sixteen that the most tragic event of her life happened. Denis Nichols’ SUV hydroplaned into the path of an eighteen-wheeler the weekend of the Fourth of July, 2006. He was killed instantly, while Angie, who had been in the car with him, survived a few hours only to pass on at the hospital. As far as everyone was concerned, Emily handled the loss of her husband and eldest daughter far worse than either of her remaining daughters, but in all actuality Denny was heartbroken beyond repair. Emily was more public with her despair while Denny bottled her feelings up inside and took over as the reigning decision maker during the first few months after her sister and father’s death. Once Emily recovered with the help of mood altering medications, Denny was pushed to the side and all but forgotten by her mother who submerged herself in the care of Dinah and left Denny to her own devices. There had been a subtle tension between eldest daughter and matriarch for several, several years, each competing for Denis’ attention and Emily losing out more often than not. As a precaution Denis had set up trust funds for both of the girls and had kept a lot of the stock that he owned in their name. This did not mean that he left Emily uncared for; a third of his wealth was left to his wife so that she would be settled. With this wealth she packed up and moved her two children to Key West, Florida. Where she was from, originally. Though this move only lasted a year before Emily grew homesick for the land where she spent so long with her late husband. It was hell for Dinah, and for Denny, to be uprooted not once, but twice in a year's time. However, both girls were glad to be home.
The rest of Denny’s high school career was a blur from the self-medicating and the fast living that she was able to do while keeping the façade of little miss perfect under wraps. Plenty of whispers were shared between her peers but proof of the drinking, the alcohol, and the sex was never truly found. A few of the boys from St. Francis had been caught boasting of their conquest of the stunning blonde with the deep, soulful eyes, but as her mother taught her a woman’s reputation was all that she had, and Denny’s M.O. was deny, deny, deny. You think she would have learned her lesson the first time around when her first boyfriend ‘comforted’ her less than a week after her sister and father’s death and abandoned her the day after the funeral. However, she did not. You think she would have learned her lesson when her next boyfriend left her at the restaurant where they were dining before Prom her senior year. However, she did not. It was her very last high school boyfriend that tipped her off to the ways of men; he had made a video of one of their sexual exploits and posted it on the internet.
It was a scandal that did not make it very far before Denny shut it down. Her reputation as a bitch helped make her case as she presented the extremely ex boyfriend with a law suit that there was no way out of. They settled out of court as his parents didn’t want the attention to reflect on them. Denny was given a substantial sum of money due to the emotional trauma that it caused her and in return all criminal charges against him were dropped. The restraining order was kept in effect and the way that Denny had handled it made it difficult for him to remain at that school. After just a semester trying to cohabitate with Denny at the same campus he transferred. This time she had learned her lesson and there would be no more boyfriends in her life to ruin it any further. Denny was of the opinion that the only man a woman could trust was her daddy, and her daddy was never coming back. Her lack of a love life gave her plenty of time to focus on her studies as she was planning a career in law, and it gave her plenty of time with Dinah.
 Denise Ava-Marie Nichols
Prefers the nickname Denny
Born June 21st 1990; making her nineteen going on twenty
Has one sibling, a younger, mentally challenged sister named Dinah, who is the love of her life
Very estranged relationship with her mother who spends most of her time caring for Dinah
Her father was killed in an accident just after her sixteenth birthday
Wears the title of ‘Rich Bitch’ proudly
Usually abstains from men as they are the definition of vermin
Has always been her daddy’s princess and just because he is gone that doesn’t mean she stopped being royalty
Drives the very same 2006 Mercedes-Benz SL-Class convertible that she was given on her sixteenth birthday
Has never had to want for anything a day in her life and it shows in the way that she acts
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