Oh, you see that skin?
It's the same she's been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Daughters, John Mayer
This is what it feels like to be Beth Sanchez.
(fury makes your blood boil)
Amy's nose makes a satisfying crack and Beth reels, her heart is pounding and her knuckles hurt. Jerry is behind her; she can feel his hand hovering over her shoulder.
"Uh, Beth," he says, "Let's just go. Please."
Amy smirks, one hand clutching her nose. "Lucky you Jer," her voice is mushy and blood is starting to spurt through her fingers, "I hear girls with daddy issues go all the way."
"Need something else broken?" Beth yells. She grabs a fistful of Amy's hair and yanks her forward, "I got time before class, bitch."
She is rewarded, briefly, with a flash of terror in Amy's eyes.
.
Beth is eleven when she learns how to roll a cigarette.
It's night, she sits on the patio with her father and he shows her where to hold the paper and how to pack the tobacco, so it's not too dense. Her first attempt is misshapen and damp with her spit, but Rick takes it anyway and makes a show of lighting it.
"If your mother catches me, I-I'll be on the street," he says, smoke curling out of his mouth. Beth snorts. "You-you think that's funny? You little shit, come 'ere."
She sits in his lap and rests her head on his chest. He smells like mouth wash and burning hair, it makes her head hurt a little, but she closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. When he leaves, she always forgets the way he smells first, because there's nothing quite like it to jog her memory. Smell first, and if he's gone a long time, the way he looks becomes fuzzy, and she can't quite remember the color of his shirt or what the shape of his nose is.
"Mom's going to be home soon," Rick checks one of his watches, "Remind me your bedtime again?"
Beth shrugs, "'Bout an hour ago."
"Christ," he crushes the butt of her misshapen cigarette onto the concrete, "Uh, go to bed."
Instead, she goes limp in his lap and screws her eyes shut, feigning sleep, like she did when she was a little kid.
"Ay carajo," he swears under his breath. "You-you're being a real p-pain in your father's ass, you know that?"
Rick tucks his arms around her anyway. "I haven't done this since you were real tiny, Beth. So if I drop you, i-i-t's on you."
She opens an eye and loops her arms around his neck, smiling widely.
"And away we go!" he stands up, pretending to groan with the effort of holding her.
Rick takes long, heavy steps through the house, and drops her unceremoniously on the bed. He takes a moment to look around at her room, before sitting down next to the bed. She hopes he noticed the star chart above her, yellow highlighter dutifully marking her approximations of his travels.
"You guys painted," he grunts. He reaches into his lab coat for something, but pulls his hand back quickly, "G-got tired of pink already?"
"It was yellow," Beth says, "Not pink."
He must see the look on her face because he leans in close and says, "You know your old man's memory is shit."
"Yeah, I guess," she mumbles and presses her face into the pillow.
Ricks sighs and shuts the door behind him.
.
When Rick is gone (for days, for weeks), her mother comes to breakfast late with red-rimmed eyes. Beth watches her pin her nurses cap on and check her reflection in the toaster.
"Oh Beth," she says, kissing the top of her head, "We deserve so much better."
And Beth loves her mother, but she understands how Rick can leave and not miss them sometimes.
.
She sits on his workbench; it's cluttered with half finished inventions and piles of draft paper. Her mother is on call at the hospital and –instead of getting her usual babysitter– Beth was left with Rick. She reaches for a colorful jar, but he quickly snatches it from under her nose and places it on a high shelf.
"One sip of that, sweetie, and I'd have to scrape you off the wall," Rick tells her, "I wouldn't hear the end of it from your mom."
"Papá," she whines and reaches for the colorful jar.
Rick rolls his eyes and squats down to her level, "Didn't you-you hear me, Beth? You're guts will be everywhere! Do you know how much blood is inside a brat like you? It-It'll take days to clean up, Beth!"
"Don't be silly," she says, matter-of-factly.
Rick laughs, the real, doubled-over kind of laughter, and it's so out of place that she starts to giggle too. Suddenly, he snatches her up from the table and holds her upside down by the ankles. Beth squeals and stretches so her fingers brush the floor. He swings her back and forth a couple times, until her head starts to feel like it might pop. Rick pulls her back up and balances her on one hip.
"Like that, mija?" he asks her.
Beth shakes her little head, still giggling. "That's fun, Papá," she says.
He smiles at her and she is too young to see the sadness in it.
.
"I heard that alcoholic you call 'daddy' finally left you guys for good," Amy says over the noise of the cafeteria, "What's it like knowing your own father cares more about getting wasted than he ever did about you?"
.
Beth doesn't cry the night he Leaves. She cries after, spends hours every day behind her firmly shut door sobbing herself to sleep.
Things were bad.
"–THIS FUCKING MARRIAGE IS A JOKE–"
Beth lays on her bed and stares at the star chart hanging above her until her vision goes fuzzy. Her parents' screams are muffled through the walls and she tries to think of something (anything) else, instead of everything falling apart just outside her room.
She doesn't know what started this particular fight. It could have been anything really, and it built on the one yesterday, and the ones before it. Until this was a continuation of a Fight –capital 'F– that had been going on for months.
"–AND YOU SURE AS HELL DON'T CARE ABOUT BETH–"
It goes quiet after that. Beth feels lightheaded and squeezes her eyes shut. Don't care about beth don't care about beth, her mother cries inside her head. But she doesn't know what she's talking about, her mother just didn't understand—
Something shatters; a chair scrapes loudly against the floor, and then silence, again. The house shakes when someone (she knows who) slams the door. And Beth runs downstairs.
Her mother is sitting at the table, face in her hands and shoulders heaving with each sob.
"Where's Dad?" Beth asks, tentatively walking over, "Mom, where is he?"
Her mother doesn't say anything, doesn't give any hint that she even heard her. There is a noise outside and No- no no no. Beth sprints out the door, and sees Rick's ship flying away.
"Dad!" she shrieks after him, even though she knows he can't hear her.
Beth stands in the front lawn and watches his ship shrink and shrink until she can't pick it out from the mess of stars above her. She falls to her knees and stares at the sky, desperately looking for some small reassurance that he was out there.
He's going to come back, Beth thinks, he always comes back.
.
"How could you?" Beth cries at breakfast.
Her mother's face is tired, and her nurse's cap is crooked on her red hair. She takes a long drag from her cigarette and doesn't answer.
.
Beth pushes her way through the crowd that has grown around Amy. She's got a scratch under one eye, a swollen lip, and half the school as witnesses, which means the principle will be after her soon.
"Jesus, Beth," Jerry awkwardly falls into step beside her, "That was intense."
She doesn't say anything. She remembers the time she got into a fight with Emily Johnson in third grade and how Rick had come into the principal's office laughing his ass off and giving her a thump on the back. Tears well up in her eyes and she ducks her head so Jerry can't see.
"I'm leaving," she says.
"Like, leaving leaving?" Jerry asks. His voice is high with worry.
"No, dumbass, I'm cutting class, I'm dealing with this tomorrow."
This is what it feels like to be Beth Sanchez.
(your heart is too heavy to carry around for much longer)
a/n: I realized that in a lot (read: all) of my child Beth and Rick scenes, Rick carries Beth or holds her a lot. I just think it's such a "dad" thing to do, like hold your kid and let them use you as a jungle gym. Maybe that was only my dad.
Also, not really a fan of John Mayer. But his song "Daughters" makes me think of Beth so here we are.