Hey guys! It's been a while, I kinda given up on LFTG for a while. Yikes. And this oneshot is inspired by Dollhouse by Melanie Martinez. I'm in love with this eerie theme of a song.
Of course no one knew about Ally Dawson's family. No one ever asked. She sees things nobody else sees, that's why they don't know.
She begged for freedom. They think she is perfect. Perfect. That's something, Ally thought.
Play with your dolls, she thought. At least they're something that she CAN control.
Of course she hoped no one would ever know. But she wondered if the curtain opened to the left a bit too much on that Tuesday, or maybe if the smell of drugs leaked out of the windows yesterday. Would anyone notice? Who knows.
She holds on to what company she has left before she returns home. She prays her friends don't look past her, or look through the curtains to find a broken family. She doesn't want the uncontrollable sobs to be heard.
Her mother is an alcoholic, her problems drowning in cheap, sour flasks of rum. She almost always is seen passed out with dry tears and smudged makeup done the night before. She forgets about the broken marriage she can't escape. Well, until she wakes up.
Penny's pupils grow bigger with each sip and her face, lined with wrinkles pales in comparison to her dull, dark hair. Her veins weaken, her heart breaks even more and her mouth had forgotten how to smile properly.
"Mum. He's with another one." Ally whispers to her peaceful, crumbling woman. She's crying as soon as those words leave her mouth, her fingers touching the pearls on her wrists. She smells the breath on her mothers mouth and sighs in pity. She's so used to the wretched smell.
Her father. He sleeps around every night. The lipstick stains on his neck aren't questioned anymore. You can faintly hear him close the door and drive away until he comes back, shirt buttons hastily buttoned, tie loose and hair ruffled. He stopped loving Penny a long time ago. He returns home feeling just as unsatisfied as he did as he left the house.
"Um, I'm just going to the pub." He mumbles to Ally. Ally sighs and walks away from the changed man.
"Why are you doing this?" Ally whispers to the door, her tears running dry. Her father looks back at her momentarily, eyes full of regret. It's too late to turn back.
Her brother, sadly has a severe drug addiction. Of course all famous people crack and Austin 'Moon' has definitely cracked. Crack? Pot? Oh it's cannabis this time, Ally murmurs to herself.
"Fuck this." Yells her brother, high on cannabis every night since last week. Ally approaches him carefully, hugging him. "My future is bleak, I have a fucking criminal record."
"Just put this down, Aus." Ally soothes the shaken blonde. He throws his phone at the door after a while and pulls his hair while he cries into Ally. Ally kisses his forehead and sings to him, while he calms down.
"Ally, what do you want?" Austin asks her, he wonders how she puts up with everyone of them.
"A perfect family." She smiles, bitterly, emotionless and eerily. Austin has lost his big sister, in the midst of the poisoned family. Austin's tears fall on Ally's hair, while Ally remembers Austin before he was... Well this.
Austin is the only thing ever talked in the news, they still think he is the teenage heartthrob they all 'know'. His brown hazel eyes only ever light up when he's high. His blonde locks stick out at all angles because he's angry, he's sad, he's lonely and he's so incredibly misunderstood. His room is dark and reeks of drugs and sadness. He's so good at masking his emotions, his problems. But unfortunately... Ally is the best of them all.
Ally Dawson stands next to her broken brother at a photoshoot. Be a good sister. Be there for your brother. Put on a smile. Pose with him, and cover up your bags, your paleness and your sadness. Put on a pretty dress. Wear a fake persona. Because to Ally, the facade fits better than her outfit.
Austin flashes a smile and doesn't smell as bad as yesterday. She misses this, she thought.
"Perfect!" Yells the photographer, unbeknownst to the fact that they are anything BUT perfect.
Ally's smile falters as she nods and walks away, opening a text from her father.
'Will be home late.'
Of course. Ally laughs, throwing her head back, laughing so hard she starts to cry. People give her weird looks, they don't know anything, Ally in her mind.
Austin picks her up and lights a cigarette that Ally is familiar with the smell of and no longer has the need to take it out of his mouth, she has given up a long time ago.
When the siblings return home, they open the door to only find their parents fighting about how many nights Lester had been out late and how much Penny spends on being drunk every second. Ally hasn't seen them talk to each other in so long, let alone be in the same room as each other. They keep on fighting, throwing things at each other, cursing, regardless of the fact that their children are present in the room.
The 'disagreement' finally subsides when Lester storms out. Probably with another unfortunate slut, Thought Ally, Austin and Penny.
No one ever listens, Ally wonders, how could they not hear our desperate pleas?
Ally has been the outside eye to all these problems. It's funny how when relatives come over, the family turns completely different to hide their problems, the smell of despair is hidden over a plastic sheet of fake. Everyone buys it.
When the sunrises it's almost as if we're dolls and our plastic facades turn us into something we're not. Ally opens her door, opens her parent's to find them asleep together on the bed, struggling to hold on to what's left. Austin curled in the fetus position, hoping for the light at end of the tunnel.
After, isn't everyone wishing for that?
To have a perfect family?
With an alcoholic? With a father who commits adultery daily? With someone with a criminal record one wall away from her?
But it's too late for that, because Ally sees things nobody else sees. But one day someone will see what happens in that house.
"Please don't look through the curtains." She silently prays to anybody who walks past.
But no one ever listens, She's just the big sister isn't she? But then she's so much more.
Ally Dawson, mentally unsound.
Ally Dawson, the one who tries to keep the family going, even if there's nothing left.
Ally Dawson, daughter to a failed marriage.
Ally Dawson, sister to a drug addict.
Ally Dawson, looking towards an empty future.
Ally Dawson, professional at masking and lying.
Ally Dawson, wishing life was as simple as playing with dolls.
Ally Dawson, broken beyond compare.
And her favourite?
Ally Dawson, the big sister in the 'Perfect Family'.
Oh god. I actually enjoyed writing this, and I felt austin was the right character as her brother, no romance sorry!