Author's Note: This is partly based off the promo for 1x07 (namely, the next few days after Amy tells Karma they should break up). It is also partly a character study and uses some of my headcanon about Amy's life, especially her dad. So, anyway, I hope you enjoy!
xxx
schism.
Amy pictures a midnight blue Chevy sitting in front of her in the garage, in the spot that Bruce's pearl white Lexus now calls home. She pictures a small refrigerator in the corner, the bottom full of Bud Light and Corona and a box of ice cream sandwiches in the freezer. "So we both have a secret stash," she remembers, and she has to close her eyes to picture the way her father winked at her and the grin that covered his face. "Just don't tell your mother."
Her mother had gotten rid of that refrigerator the day after his blue Chevrolet rolled out of town. Amy remembers being ten years old and standing in the doorway of the garage staring at shattered glass and melting ice cream sandwiches, watching as rivers of beer and ice cream raced each other down the driveway.
Amy remembers her mother's constant frown after that. The way she locked herself in her room. The sound of her crying at night when she thought Amy was asleep. Amy still thinks about it sometimes (all the time) to remind herself that it's a good thing her mother has Bruce now, that it's a good thing Farrah and Lauren are getting closer, that it's a good thing that she has a chance to have a daughter who likes dresses and weddings and fancy desserts. It's a good thing that she can smile now, that she has people who can make her smile now, because all Amy remembers is months and months of trying to make her mother smile again and facing months and months of failure. (It took her four months, one week, and three days to make Farrah smile a real smile at her after her father left them.)
(She spent months trying to make her mother smile again, but Bruce can make her smile now just by walking into the room. She has tried for years to relate to her mother, to make her want to plan mother-daughter days and watch movies all day on the couch, but Farrah has already decided that Saturdays are set-in-stone shopping days with Lauren. Her mother, her mother, her mother – who sees Amy as too much of her father's daughter and as not enough of her own, who sees herself as more of Bruce's wife and Lauren's best friend – "and maybe one day she'll call me mom, too, Amy" – and their family, Bruce's and Lauren's, and Amy is just the leftovers from her last family. Amy's mother, but then maybe not Amy's mother. Maybe not in any sense deeper than birth certificates and tax deductions and this feeling in Amy's chest, this need for her love and approval and the gnawing feeling that she'll never get it, that she'll never be enough.)
The night her father left them, Amy had cried because she lost him.
The night after that, she cried because she lost her mother.
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The stars on her bedroom ceiling still bring her comfort, carefully placed by her and Karma in the fourth grade after she spent weeks not sleeping well and complaining about the dark. "I wasn't afraid, I was anxious. There's a difference," she still insists, and Karma still laughs. But it was hard to sleep when her biggest fear was waking up to find her mother had left her, too. (Because she had always loved the dark, until she had fallen asleep one night thinking she was safe and happy and that her father was just down the hall but when she opened her eyes he wasn't there, not in his room or the garage or even in the picture of the two of them that used to hang in the hallway.)
Sometimes she still has bad nights. Sometimes it's because of the thoughts of her broken family, because of the knowledge that Lauren has a room right across the hall and there's a man named Bruce in her mother's bed; sometimes it's because of school or a fight with Karma or a fight with her mother, or just the way she can never seem to turn her brain off, making the simplest things into something bigger and badder and more complicated, more terrifying than they really should be. On those nights the stars on her ceiling bring her comfort. They remind her of Karma's big brown eyes the day she had suggested it, so full of excitement and pride for coming up with the idea. They remind her of all the times they have laid on her bed and stared up at them, sometimes in silence and sometimes talking about everything and anything. It's enough to calm her down. It's enough to make her feel safe and loved and like everything will be okay in the morning.
Tonight it doesn't give Amy the same comfort. (It didn't last night, either, or the night before that, not since the last time she talked to Karma. Not since "I think we should break up. For real.") Tonight they seem to stare at her, making her feel weak and vulnerable and exposed. Like at any minute they may become real, may start to burn her and everything around her. It'd be only fitting, she figures, because it already feels like her body is on fire, like everything around her is melting away to ash.
It's almost enough to make her turn on her phone and call Karma. It's been 61 hours (and 32 minutes) but it's also four in the morning and she's afraid (afraid, not anxious). Afraid to see how many times Karma has called, how many text messages she's left, afraid to listen to the voicemails and hear how angry or hurt Karma is. She's afraid that she's hurt Karma, and at the same time she's afraid that she hasn't. She's afraid to turn on her phone and see that there's nothing there, no missed calls and no text messages and no emotions. She's afraid of the possibility that she walked away and that Karma didn't even care. (That she was finally the one to walk away, finally the one in her life to decide when something was over, and that the other person still didn't care.)
These sudden, new emotions for Karma make it hard enough for her to think. They make it hard enough for her to live with the idea of being 'just friends' and so the idea of Karma choosing to make them less than that is unbearable. At least this way, she feels suspended, in the middle of the divide – there is no way for her to know what Karma is thinking, how she is reacting, what she wants. She doesn't have to deal with either of the options awaiting her – rejection and pain, or guilt and pain.
At least this way, it was her choice. She made the decision. She made the choice and now she has to deal with it, has to take responsibility. It makes her feel a little better than if Karma had been the one giving their relationship the death sentence and cutting her out of her life.
So she leaves her phone off and in the drawer of her nightstand and hopes for at least an hour of sleep tonight, because then at least she'll have gotten an hour more than last night. (It doesn't happen.)
xxx
She misses family breakfast the next morning even though she's already awake. Nobody comes to wake her up, even though she hears Bruce knocking on Lauren's door at 9:30, letting her know that breakfast is ready. Amy tries not to let it bother her. (It does.)
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Her mother knocks on her door sometime in the afternoon. She waits until Amy says "come in" and that is enough to make Amy wonder what is going on. Farrah sits awkwardly on the bed and says that Karma's parents called her, asking if she knew what had happened between the two of them. Farrah hadn't even known they had broken up.
"It just wasn't working out," Amy says.
"You two have been best friends for years. What happened?"
Amy shrugs and picks at her comforter. "Things changed." She's surprised at how honest that feels, even if it is vague. "It wasn't – things just didn't feel the same anymore, I guess. Not like it did when we were just friends."
Farrah nods. She puts a hand on Amy's knee and Amy's certain that the comforting gesture shouldn't feel so foreign. "I'm here if you need me," Farrah says, and Amy nods and thanks her. Then Farrah stands up, straightens her blouse, and walks out while mumbling something about finishing the laundry.
It's the longest conversation they've had since the bridal shower. For a second, it makes her feel like there's a chance for them.
And it sucks, because at the same time that Farrah was comforting her, Amy knows that she was also glad that she and Karma had broken up. There was some part of her hoping that there was still a chance for her daughter to end up with a boy. And it sucks because just as Amy is reminding herself that her mom loves her, she hears her mom's laughter mingling with Lauren's across the hall and wishes that her mom could have stayed in here just a little longer.
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Amy decides that she may as well eat dinner with the family and so at five 'til six she starts to walk downstairs. Her brain is still in overdrive and she can't turn it off, so she is picturing the old family pictures on the walls and trying to force out memories of her father. She is trying to ignore the pang of hurt at not being invited to Luke's or family breakfast or to go shopping on Saturdays. It isn't working, not really, but she's trying.
Then she gets to the kitchen and sees her mom and Lauren clearing the table. She can see Bruce in the living room reading a book and she tries to tell herself that this isn't real. For the past fifteen years of her life dinner has been at six and it's not six yet. There's no way that they have already eaten.
"Did you already eat?" she asks, and no matter what she tries to tell herself, she already knows the answer.
Her mom at least has the decency to look surprised and a little guilty. "We did. I know you're upset about Karma so I didn't think that –"
Amy doesn't wait for her to finish before she turns around and walks out the door.
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Amy stands awkwardly in the hallway, trying to forget the uncharacteristically sad faces and lack of conversation that Karma's parents had greeted her with at the front door. Her knock on Karma's bedroom door is even more unsure and quieter than the one she had struggled with outside of the house, but she hears movement on the other side before she has time to return her hand to her pocket.
"What do you –" Karma stops short when her eyes fall on Amy. So many emotions cross over her face – surprise, confusion, happiness, annoyance, anger, sadness – and Amy isn't sure which one to focus on. (But she doesn't have trouble focusing on how beautiful Karma looks, even in sweatpants and a hoodie with her hair in a messy bun and the remnants of tear tracks on her face.) "Amy?"
She fidgets uncomfortably, refusing to look Karma in the eye. "I just wanted to –"
"I called you, like, a hundred times," Karma interrupts. "I left you a ton of voicemails and text messages. It's been nearly 76 hours, Amy."
"My phone has been off. I needed to think. There's so much going on right now and I just – I didn't know what to do, I still don't know what to do –"
"What's going on? Is this about your mom?" Karma softens a little bit, because maybe she just hasn't noticed how upset her best friend has been, maybe there's something more here than she had realized, but there's also a confused furrow to her eyebrows and she doesn't uncross her arms.
"No. Yes. Maybe. I don't know." Amy is frustrated, wants to groan and cry and run away or maybe just have an anxiety attack because why is she even here? She could have texted, or called, or something, and saved herself from this feeling, from wishing the floor would open her up and swallow her whole. She can feel the tears starting to push their way to her eyes and she shakes her head, takes a step back, tries to find the courage to keep going.
"Amy? Are you okay?"
"I just – I know I said we should break up" – and she feels the shake in her voice, hears the way it cracks, and she cringes, fighting the urge to screw her eyes closed. "But I guess – I needed to know if we were still family. If you are still my family. Because I – I don't want to talk about any of it right now but without you, I don't have anyone and I… I really need someone right now."
She feels Karma's arms wrap around her, pulling her in tight, and she immediately buries her head in Karma's shoulder as the tears start.
"Of course we're family. We'll always be family," Karma promises, and the heartbroken tone in her voice – the one that says, how could you ever question that? – only makes Amy cry harder.
Because a month ago, Amy never would have doubted it. But this feeling in her chest, this love that she shouldn't have, just keeps growing and nobody who has ever claimed to be her family has stuck around for long and she's not sure that when the truth comes out that Karma will still be there, either.