Pairing: Massington
Disclaimer: All characters are property of Lisi Harrison. Setting is AU.
Notes: This was one of the first stories I ever wrote for the Clique archives. While reading old emails during work, I realized how much I missed this story and these characters and how I wanted to revisit it. So this is Maybe It's Time To Come Home, revisited and retweaked. Enjoy!
It's only 7 pm on a Friday, but Bree and Ana are already emptying Mr. Pincher's liquor cabinet into their Louis Vuittons.
Sometimes the kids at school ask me why Ana and Bree go so hard on the weekends. I always tell them that they need a way to cool off after all their honors classes during the school week. Of course, I'm the one doing all their honors homework—History and English just don't come naturally to the girls.
So the real reason they're already taking shots off Ana's bathroom counter? They're functioning alcoholics, just like the rest of the kids at Lakeside Prep.
"Okay, okay," Bree slurs. She's five shots deep, and I know that if I don't hide the Absolut bottle from her soon, she'll start getting the spins. "Whose house tonight?"
"Jeremy won't text me back," Ana whines.
"So we'll go to Tyler's," Bree snaps. "Jeremy's still mad at you for puking on his dog last weekend."
"Don't remind me," Ana giggles and stumbles into the shower. I catch her and prop her up.
"Don't fucking touch me," she snaps, pushing me into the toilet. "You're such a goddamn buzzkill, Massie."
I've heard worse from them before. I'm the third wheel, the whipping girl. The useless one. I'm also wealthier than the two of them put together, and that's why they keep me around.
"Somebody has to drive you, remember?" I say gently.
"No!" Bree yells. "I want to drive myself!"
"Race you!" Ana shrieks.
"Guys, please," I beg, but they've already taken off through the front door.
Technically, we shouldn't be driving at all. But like most parents in our tiny Orlando suburb, the Pinchers have already bought Ana a Mercedes, two years before she'll even get her license. The neighborhood police just look the other way when she drives it to the mall on the weekends.
I don't know how, but they've found the keys. And now they're starting the car.
"Get it, loser!" Ana yells, revving the engine. I crawl into the backseat and pray that this will be okay. Tyler's house is four blocks away. We won't even be leaving the neighborhood.
"Please just be careful, you guys," I beg. Ana backs out her car and promptly knocks it into the neighbor's trash can.
"You're distracting me," Ana slurs. "I wish you weren't even here, you know? I wish you would stop weighing us down all the time."
"You act like you're above everyone else," Bree hiccups. "Fucking prude. I'm Massie Block. I don't drink or smoke. I don't let guys touch me. I'm keeping my legs together until I'm married. Grow up and have a fucking drink."
"Guys, watch out," I say. Bree curls her perfectly manicured fingers into tiny fists.
"That's it," Bree says, and she sounds almost sober in her conviction.
I don't realize what she's doing until it's too late. As Ana speeds up, Bree reaches into the back seat, opens up my car door, and pushes me out the side.
I should have worn a seat belt, I realize as my body hits the pavement.
-four months later-
To: massiekur
From: sexysportsbabe
Subject: chilly scenes of winter
I swear, if we get one more inch of snow up here, I'm declaring this place the New North Pole and learning Eskimo language.
How's physical therapy going? When do you get your stitches out?
-x-
To: sexysportsbabe
From: massiekur
Subject: Re: chilly scenes of winter
I'd kill for some snow right about now. It's five days to Christmas and it's still 80 degrees out.
Physical therapy is what it is. My head stitches won't come out for another five weeks. I wonder if I'll ever be able to wash my hair with actual shampoo and water ever again.
So remember that Big Important Talk that my parents pulled me aside for last night? Turns out it was about where I'll be going to school next semester. I obviously can't go back to Lakeside, so I figured they'd sent me to Locke or the public high school. But they want me to go somewhere where the kids don't know what happened to me and why.
So they said that they knew how close I was to Nana and Granddad. And they see how much I email you, and they certainly never hear me shut up about "my friend Kristen from the cruise." They want me to go somewhere where they know I'll be away from Ana and Bree, somewhere where I'll still be with family but already know people my age.
They've already enrolled me at Octavian County Day. I'm moving to Westchester!
-x-
To: massiekur
From: sexysportsbabe
Subject: Re: chilly scenes of winter
NO FREAKIN WAY
YOU'LL BE LIVING HERE? GOING TO OCD FOR HIGH SCHOOL? MEETING ALL THE PEOPLE I'VE TOLD YOU ABOUT?
This is the best Christmas present I've ever gotten. That's AMAZING. I stalked down your grandparents—turns out they live two streets over from me, also in Pine Parks. Did you know that your granddad does News 12 Westchester with Dylan's mom?
Send me your flight info asap, I wanna be there the second you step off your plane!
omg I just can't get over this
-x-
Massie Block carefully shut her Macbook, giving a small smile as she looked around Terminal 6 of the Orlando International Airport. In all her 14 years of coming here, the people were always the same: bratty, Mickey Mouse-ear sporting, sticky little kids with their tired tourist parents, all wearing Columbia fishing shirts and beaten-up Keds. Ana and Bree would have turned away in disgust at such a blatant display of middle-class living, but Massie didn't mind. She'd seen enough people during counseling to know that there was so much more to life than a monogrammed Jon Hart bag.
"Massie?" Kendra Block murmured. "Your phone's ringing."
Massie's pale, nail-bitten hand reached into her Lilly Pulitzer carry-on tote and snatched up her ringing iPhone. The caller I.D. read, "Ana Pincher".
"You've reached Kathy at Planned Parenthood, how may I direct your call?" Massie snickered into the phone.
"Oh, shut up Massie, where have you been this whole morning? You weren't at Starbucks, you weren't in the courtyard, you weren't even hiding out in Barnes and Noble like the bookworm little loser you are—"
"Ana, I'm at the Orlando International Airport."
"What? I thought we talked…you said you wouldn't do it, that you wouldn't move!" It was the first time Massie had ever heard the girl utter the faintest trace of concern for her.
"My mom thinks I need a fresh start," Massie began, annunciating every word. "She thinks the people at Lakeside are a bad influence and that a new environment would help."
"And why the hell would she think that?" Ana snapped, as if she and Massie hadn't gone over this several times before.
"You know why, Ana," Massie sighed, frustration saturating her tone.
"So what? Bree went to rehab, I went to juvenile detention center, and you had just a couple of cuts on your head."
"Ana, I've been in physical therapy for four months. The doctors have had to operate on my fracture twice. I've been in homeschool this whole semester. It's been so much more than a couple of cuts. We're through. I'm leaving."
Massie dropped her phone back into her bag and sighed, involuntarily rubbing the stitches just above her left ear. Kendra looked at her daughter in concern.
"I think you made the right choice, you know." Kendra said, putting one arm around her daughter's thin, tense shoulders and using her free hand to turn Massie's phone off.
8:45 flight for Westchester County, New York boarding in 10 minutes. Repeat: 8:45 flight for Westchester County, New York boarding in 10 minutes. Unaccompanied minors, please report to any nearby personnel to help you board.
Kendra gasped. "This is it!" Massie gathered up her bag and leaned in for a goodbye hug from her mother.
"I'll be okay, Mom," Massie whispered. "I'll make you proud. No trouble in Westchester."
"I trust you," Kendra stated simply before releasing her daughter into the hands of a frumpy flight attendant.
Massie had ended up at the back of the plane, in a window seat with nobody next to her. Once she was adjusted in her seat and got over the overwhelming scent of airplane food and coffee breath, she promptly fell asleep.
When she slept, she dreamed, and she knew that it would be the same nightmare she always had. As always, it started out with her in the backseat of Ana's Mercedes. Massie felt her stomach lurch as Bree pushed her out of the car, but instead of tumbling onto the pavement, this time she flew gently out the window before landing in Kristen's front yard.
Massie's eyes snapped open as the plane began to dip and shudder. She slid open the airplane's window shutter to find a cloudy blue morning. She smiled, not only because she was finally in Westchester, but because the nightmare she'd been having for the past two months had finally turned into a sweet dream.