Teenage angst can also be described as "severe depression" and "suicidal tendencies" from a doctor's perspective—something Gloria was used to. Through throwing up and starving herself and drug use and everything else under the grey, concrete roof of the Vault, Gloria coped. Barely.
That feeling in her chest, emptiness and apathy, wasn't angst. It was… something else. Something she has lived with for the past few years, if she remembered correctly. The days blended together, weeks and months were a blur, and she could forget about years. They were all the same.
She tried to drown out her father tapping his pen against a clipboard as he waited for her to talk. She didn't agree to therapy—it was forced on her when her father found her laying in a pile of her own vomit and blood and there was probably a gun or a knife or a noose involved? She didn't remember the details, only that it was her fourth time she tried to kill herself.
What a coward she was. She couldn't go through with it. Even as she begged for death every day of her life, she doesn't have it in her to take it herself.
"Gloria," her father snapped her out of her thoughts. She didn't bother looking at him as he continued, "How are you feeling?"
"Like shit." She stared at her hand before he began to write things down, the scratching of his pen against the clipboard was worse than the tapping. She didn't want to snap at him, though, that would only make it worse.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" He thought using his Dad Voice would make her talk, and he was wrong. She crossed her right leg over her left, and sighed, "Can I go?"
"I would let you go, but you haven't told me what's wrong."
Great. She closed her eyes and huffed, "I wanna kill myself. All day, every day. What's new?"
Like he cares anyway. He never bothered to ask her what was wrong outside the office. He only focused on work these days. Even if she had been working with him and his assistant Jonas for about a year, he still hadn't trained her to be a doctor. That was his job, too, not just hers.
Granted, she usually never went to work, but that's a different story.
It had been about three minutes and no one has said anything. Gloria knew it was because there wasn't anything to say, only a fake apology and an upped prescription of antidepressants.
Whatever. She shoved pills down her throat for fun, what's the harm in using them for actual medication?
Nothing had changed when she left the clinic after her appointment. She waved at Jonas as she passed him, and she assumed he was going into her father's office to suck his dick or whatever they did behind closed doors. It was none of her business.
Amata pushed herself off the wall when Gloria walked out of the clinic, giving her a patient smile when her girlfriend leaned against the wall next to her.
"It went that bad, huh?" Amata was always able to tell when Gloria was upset; she was always upset, though.
She nodded, taking off her glasses to rub at her eyes. She was tired.
"I told him I wanted to kill myself," She admitted, raising her glasses up to the florescent light above her head to check for smudges.
"Do you?"
"Yeah, all the time," she slipped her glasses back on her face and yawned. Amata gently touched her girlfriend's shoulder, catching the other's attention. "Come on, let's go back to your place."
Gloria grunted in frustration, crumpling up a piece of paper with equations and diagrams scribbled all over it and chucking it at her trashcan. It bounced off the wall and landed next it, and Gloria grew frustrated and threw her pencil too, which also missed its target.
She was about to stomp over to the trashcan and beat the living shit out of it (somehow), when Amata stopped her in her tracks, giggling, "calm down, okay?"
"Sorry," She slumped back into her desk chair and ran a hand through her hair. None of these equations were right, nothing would make her new invention work! Even her "genius mind" couldn't figure this shit out.
"Hey, hey, you can always try again," Amata threaded her fingers through Gloria's and gave her a small peck on to nose. Gloria blushed and shut her eyes. Even if they were alone, this kind of affection always made her flustered.
Amata smiled and leaned against the other, studying the models and equations on the blueprints in front of her, then asked "What is this, anyway?"
"It's an electricity rifle, um... like..." Gloria looked around the floor for a laser pistol she stole from the armory, and when she found it, she made sure it wasn't charged and held it up, as if to display a precious stone to a willing customer.
"Like a laser pistol, except with... electricity."
"What are you going to use it for?" Amata smiled, and Gloria laughed; not in a mocking tone, but out of her own misery, "It's never going to work, but I was hoping that I could use it to... I don't know... leave... the Vault." She said quietly.
"There's nothing outside, Gloria."
She looked away from her girlfriend, sighing, "I know, but anything's better than being stuck underground with people who don't care about me."
"Gloria Louise Hill, don't you ever say that again. I care about you, and so does your dad and Jonas and-"
"I know," She felt guilty that she hurt Amata's feelings, but there was only so much she could do. At the end of the day, Gloria was still depressed, no matter how many times Amata hugged her.
Gloria rubbed her thumb over the back of Amata's hand. Her own hand was cracked and dry from neglect and working with them so much, compared to Amata's hands. They were soft and gentle, and sometimes she used them to stim when she didn't have anything softer to rub her fingers against.
"I'm tired." Gloria mumbled. Amata nodded and led her to her bed, both of them kicking off their shoes and laying down wrapped around each other.
Compared to Gloria, Amata was warm and large and tall and soft and she smelled so, so good. Gloria wished she was too, but she was cursed with a small body and disordered eating habits. She snuggled into Amata's shoulder, letting the other wrap her arms around her and squeeze gently, "You're freezing." Amata whispered. Gloria huffed, "I know."
She could feel Amata smile against her temple, then kiss it gently, "I love you."
Gloria smiled for the first time that day, "I love you too."
The next morning, Gloria woke up alone. Amata must have left when she was asleep; not that she would blame her. Her dad would throw a fit if he found out they were dating.
While it wasn't illegal in the Vault, it was strongly urged to procreate and be exclusively heterosexual, both of which Gloria did not want to be.
What made matters worse, Gloria was dating the daughter of the Overseer, the leader of the Vault, so they had to be extra careful to make sure he doesn't find out about them.
She supposed it was because neither of them had any kids yet. Her father was able to do the same thing with Jonas, and wasn't too secretive about it.
It wasn't any of her business, just like her relationship wasn't any of his. She was thankful he didn't mind that she was gay, as sad as it was.
She rubbed her face with her hands a few times to wake herself up. She had to go to work today since she missed the past few days. It was hard getting out of bed every day.
She only ate a few bites of her breakfast while she dreaded having to work with her father today. Their relationship had become strained ever since she started therapy. She'd rather have someone, anyone else as her therapist, but her father was the only doctor in the Vault—well, except for her in a few years.
The walk to the clinic was longer than she was used to, since she didn't have the energy to walk at a regular pace. She considered sneaking off to the reactor room to drink herself into a coma, but she needed alcohol when things got worse than it was now. If things ever did get worse, that is.
Then she considered suicide again, but rolled her eyes at the thought of killing herself over having to go to work. Still, there were sillier things she's wanted to kill herself for.
She took a deep breath before she walked into the clinic. Her father was already inside his office, typing away at him terminal. She cleared her throat to catch his attention.
He quickly shut off the screen and turned to her with a smile, "Good morning, honey."
"Hi." She didn't have the energy to sound half as peppy as he did, even if he looked as tired as she did. He must have stayed at work late again.
He stood up and gestured for her to follow. He led her to the storage closet and put his hands on his hips, "I need you to organize everything in here. Take as long as you need. Please don't… hurt yourself."
Like she'd do anything like that in public. If she had her way, she'd end it in someplace no one would find her—shit, she got distracted again.
"Repeat that." She said softly, "Um, please. Sorry."
Her father gave her a patient smile and continued, "It's been a while since it's been cleaned up in here, I think before my time, so if you find anything useful, I'm sure no one would miss it."
Hm, that was unreasonably nice, even for him. He left her to her organizing, and she watched him greet his first appointment and turned her attention to the mess around her.
The clutter was mostly pieces of scrap metal and a few empty syringes. She was a little afraid there was some weird disease on them, so she emptied another box full of scrap metal and threw the syringes in it.
There was way too much stuff in here. The closet wasn't any bigger than her living room, but the sheer amount of useless trinkets that were lying around was astounding.
The Overseer would have a stroke if he saw how much stuff that was actually useful that was going to waste. Gloria sorted everything into two piles: useful and useless (in her opinion).
It wasn't too difficult to actually put things back into boxes and on shelves, but it was really time consuming.
It was also boring. Usually, she liked organizing things, even if it didn't show with the state of her room and, by extension, herself. She checked the time on her Pip-Boy. 12:32. It had been more than five hours since she had started cleaning. She turned on her personal playlist and sighed. It was a song she didn't like.
Still, she listened to it. It covered the annoying buzz of the lamp and the voices on the other side of the wall. She groaned and sat down on the ground.
Her father was right; no one would miss this junk. She definitely wouldn't miss anything here except—
A few feet away, hidden behind a few boxes and dust, was a taser. Something she definitely needed for a gun or… her electricity rifle.
She pulled the taser out of the crevice it was hidden in and brushed the dust off of its frame, smiling for the first time that day.
