House of the Rising Sun
Someday, love will find you
Break those chains that bind you
One night will remind you
How we touched and went our separate ways
– Journey, Separate Ways
Chapter One: It Doesn't Hurt Me
The morning dawned white and cool, with a crispness that hinted at the coming of Spring. Alice turned the gas-hob at daybreak, warming her hands over the flames, and Max slumped on the couch, dreary with sleepiness. This was the first time she had joined Alice for breakfast. It had been thirty-six days since Billy had passed, and the seventh of Susan and Neil Hargrove's non-stop arguing.
Neil had taken a seat at the dining table. Alice thought he'd slept well, the man who always complained of restless sleeping. It was her radio. She liked to push the tapes in when all was dark. The music made her forget, she said, of Billy and boys and bad men. Neil told her she consorted with the drunkards and impoverished stoners, occupying her time with such nonsense. And he'd rather she spend her nights as a street-walker rather than with a radio.
But Neil was pleasant that morning awaiting his breakfast, skimming the newspaper. He had been off work since Billy, and spent more time in the house, unlike Susan, who had taken to working at the Midnight Diner.
The warmth of scrambled eggs and bacon mingled, steaming, in the chilly morning house as Alice plated up Neil's breakfast and laid it down neatly. Max hunched in the corner of the chair, winding her tapes, trying to pretend she wasn't hungry. A faint wind blew across the windows. Down the chimney, breathed the stormy weather: the final goodbyes of winter.
Neil scratched his fork into the eggs, deep wrinkles shifting. His stumble shadowed his face, making him look older. He had a grim cast to his blue eyes, and seemed to mirror the darkness of his insides. He had taken off the false exterior, Alice thought, and donned the face of misery.
Her father raised a brow and shot a look at Max, twisting a pen in the cassette tape, and said, "Come eat your breakfast, Maxine." He lifted the black coffee cup to his lips.
Max glanced up. "I'm not hungry," she murmured. "I don't like to eat breakfast."
Alice ladened a plate, and stood still.
Neil placed the mug down with a noisy clang. Black coffee spilled over the sides, brown as mud in the dark. One of the cooking bacon strips spat fat on Alice's arm. Alice could not take her eyes off Max. The red hair curtained her face, reddening her cheeks.
"Max," Neil warned, low enough that the noise verberated the floor. He put a hand on the table, and Alice swallowed. "You will sit down to eat," Neil told her.
It seemed colder when Alice took a seat, though the heating had sparked by then and three bodies occupied the room. Alice cut her bacon, glancing at Max, her concentration hard to keep at the hearty meal.
"Farmer's market is open today," Alice said, "gonna pop in after work to see what cuttings he's got left."
"Sure," Neil said. "Get the fatty slices. They taste better." Neil's eyes did not look to Alice. He scarcely did anymore.
Alice was not sure. "The fat doesn't cook well," she said. "The ones without are much better."
"And who eats the most here?" Neil said, skewering the bacon with his fork. Max picked up her cutlery and started, and Neil glanced at her. The tension simmered.
Alice did not try to make another conversation. She chewed her food. Her trips to the market were routine, and she was thinking of them now. After a while, the sound of Neil's muttering rose, and Max scuffed her fork through her bacon.
So deep in thought was Alice that she never heard Neil until he tapped at her arm with his knife. "You in fairy land?" he asked.
"Me? Oh, no. Not at all," Alice told him. She looked up. Narrowed eyes and unhappy, sat at the head of the table, her father looked at her like she was a young teen again. "I was just thinking about work."
"Thinkin' about work?" her father asked.
Alice hesitated. "I like making a living for myself."
"Working and cooking, is this the modern woman?" her father sneered. "Why don't you get married and get a home of your own?"
"I can't afford to," Alice said. "I don't want to have children and be a house-wife either."
Neil pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. "That music telling you stories again? Those men at the shop teaching you things? You ain't got a life beyond that. This home, that I pay for with my hard-earned money, ain't got room for two women. Do you understand? The question ain't whether you want to be a house-wife, but when."
Alice had no answer for that. "I haven't met anybody," she said, uncertainly.
"You will," Neil admitted. "Spoke to Robbie at the Midnight Diner. You takin' over your mother's shifts. We get a real woman cooking, and you can stop moping about here. Some man'll come along and feel sorry for you."
"I have a job that makes me happy. When I've saved enough, then I'll be out of here, but not to be a house-wife."
That was when Susan Hargrove appeared through the front door. She smiled softly and sleepily. "Morning, my loves, what a long night." Then she spotted Alice and Max's tense expressions.
Neil chewed his bacon. "Long night, Susan?"
"Oh, yes, lots of police," she said. "Feels like a second police-station sometimes." She hung her coat on the rack. Max managed a small smile at her.
Susan found a bowl of bacon and scrambled eggs on the hob, with Alice leaving the syrup out. The late nights were hard on her body. She stood with a slight hunch, her eyes dark and shadowed by mascara. A yawn escaped her.
Neil picked his way through the gristle of his breakfast, stuffing the pieces in his mouth. Susan took a seat beside Max, pressing a kiss to her hair. Alice looked away as they shared sweet glances.
"Got some news," Neil said, picking up his coffee.
Alice was already opening her mouth. "D-Dad, really, I don't think I can," she pressed.
Neil raised a hand. "Alice will be taking over from you at the Diner," he said. "Need my wife back home."
Alice was afire with upset. She would have spurred her voice louder, but she had lost her ability to rise up against those in power and sat back in her seat. Max looked between them.
By then Susan had taken several bites. "What are you talking about, Neil? I'm giving you space and earning us money so you can… can grieve, Neil."
"I don't need to grieve," Neil told her.
"Yes, you do," Susan said. "I'm working so you don't have to."
Alice's heart was thumping in her chest as she sat back further.
Turning white, Neil's knuckles held the mug firmly. His jaw tightened, and the faint flash of annoyance burned in his eyes like a sparking fire. Alice glimpsed him placing his fork down, his fingers curling in. But it was how it shook that made her afraid. He seemed scarier when he seemed to be controlling some inner animal.
"I'll stay home with you," Susan said calmly. "I'll cook breakfast. We'll be how you'd like us to be."
Max said, "Alice's cooking is pretty good, though."
"But Alice has got to move on from us," Neil replied.
Alice tore her eyes away from him. That was when she noticed photographs were gone from the fireplace. She tilted her head and frowned. There were spaces between portraits of Susan's and Neil's wedding, and Max's school photo. It seemed that she had not lived there at all, assumedly because all of her photos were accompanied by Billy, there was no separating them as children. Alice stared silently.
"Oh, the photographs," Susan said, puzzled. "Where have they gone?"
Neil gave an angered snort, then waved his fork out as he spoke. "Have no need for them." Max turned around to look. "Ain't doing jack sitting there catching dust." Alice took her napkin and pressed it to her mouth. She pressed it against her face.
"They're precious to our family, Neil," said Susan. "Don't put them away."
"Ain't put them away," Neil said.
Max frowned. "Then, where are they?" she said. Her fingers curled into her palm. "Where did you put them?"
Alice tore her eyes away from the fireplace. She pushed her chair back from the table. The dishes washed their grease and oil under the tap. Neil and Susan continued to passively bicker about the photographs. Alice glanced back hesitantly.
"Don't look at me like that, Alice," Neil told her. "You don't give me that look."
Max gave him a nervous wonder, then swallowed as Susan said, "this isn't us." She stood up with her plate. "We don't have to do this." Alice stepped back from the sink and watched Susan begin washing. Her skin was dry and worn beneath the uniform.
"There's something wrong with this picture here," Neil said sharply, angered by the rising questions. "Since when did we start questioning my decisions in the house I've paid for?"
Alice's father stood and shoved the plate into her hands. He placed a hand on Susan's waist and pulled her to look at him. Alice stared up, at the wrinkles, all deep with anger.
A sudden silence descended over the room. Max watched them from her chair uneasily, and Alice dared not speak. Even Susan could not muster a word to soothe.
Neil visibly paled when he looked down at Alice in such proximity. "Now, give the plate to Susan?" He said. His voice broke the room like a knife cracking ice.
"Neil, we don't need to think about this now," Susan said. "Alice needs sleep more than I do right now."
"Alice needs to do what's best for this family," he said. "As soon as possible."
"She makes breakfast good," said Max. "Best I've had in ages." Her voice attempted to sound sincere, but there was a crack at the end.
Alice wordlessly chewed the inside of her cheek. The plate shook in her hands, as if taunting her that she was not strong enough to even crack it in two. "Okay," she murmured. "I'll do Susan's shifts."
"Wash the plate, Susan," Neil said for a moment he sounded like he did before Billy passed. "Then get changed and give Alice your uniform."
"She's already got another job," said Max, who stood from her chair.
Alice met Susan's eyes, her step-mother squeezed her hand. "Let's compromise, Neil. Alice keeps her jobs at the radio, and does half of my shifts."
"Hm?" Neil's eyes glossed, and he looked away. He clenched his fist. "Who will she meet in that dingy basement under the radio? The rats and virgins who think they're something special?" he said. "It was a small kindness to let her work there at all. She'll do better at the diner."
"Neil," Alice said. It never felt right to call him Dad, moreso now than ever. Everyone in the room looked at her sharply. "I cannot work day and night," she told him. "I will be exhausted."
"Exhausted? And you don't think I'm exhausted?"
"I know you're struggling, sweetheart," Susan said. "We all are. We all miss Billy so much. We are all in pain—let's not hurt each other more."
Alice saw her father's face change, saw he seemed to stand so much taller that the shadows in the room expanded. She hated Neil with all her heart. Even after Billy, Alice had an emotion stronger than pain.
Neil must've despised her as well. "You don't think I'm hurt when I look at you?" he sneered.
"Yes," Alice said softly.
"I see him when I look at you. Susan sees him. Max sees him. When you sulk around, we are reminded of what is supposed to be here."
"So, I have to leave?"
Susan pushed the plate into the warm water.
"Can't she take Max to school, first, Neil? Give the idea time to settle?"
Neil stepped back. He looked over Alice's face, a pained grimace growing on his lips.
"I don't want to see you," Neil said. "You come home when I'm in bed. You go to work before I wake up. Whatever photos you've got, give them to me. I am not here to coddle dead children."
"But I'm not…" Alice whispered, "I'm not dead."
"Neil, please," Susan said.
"Billy is gone, I can't look at my dead boy's face everyday."
"I'm not a dead b-boy," Alice's voice broke. "I'm alive. I'm here." Her words leapt you and grasped her by the throat. It was not until her voice cracked and she stepped closer to Neil that he really stopped to stare. By then, Max was on her feet, walking around the woods table, uncertain what was going to happen. "Please, can I just go to school?" she said.
"Let me take Max to school," Alice echoed.
Neil weighed his children long and carefully with his eyes. "Starting today, I don't want to see you. I can't bear to see my boy. Do you understand?"
Alice nodded slowly. Susan placed a gentle hand on Neil's arm, brushed it up his neck and kissed his cheek.
"You stay working, bringing in money for your mother until you've got enough to leave," her father said. "You work. I won't fund your wicked lifestyle in that basement, I swear that on my boy. And good God if I see you, you're gonna be sorry. Ain't no place for another woman in a grown house. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Neil," Alice said.
"But…" Max started.
"Everyone moves on, this is me protecting my family."
"We can be a family," Max said. "We could be a family."
"Keep your fantasies locked up, Maxine, get to school. It's time I get some order back here."
It was not until Alice was in the garage unhooking her motorbike that she allowed herself to exhale. She crouched, covering her face with her hands, and the heat of her breath burned red against her cheeks. Alice was wondering what kind of ordered family existed at all.
At the edge of the garage, Max hesitated.
"Allie?" she asked.
"What, Max?"
Alice could hear the wind in the trees, the buzz of car engines in the distance, the barking of suburban dogs, but Max was listening to her sister's breathing.
"You can climb in my window," Max said. She swung her skateboard onto her back and stood on the other side of the motorbike. She watched the curls shifting on Alice's head, and watched the shaking with her breaths. A moment later, she was on her feet, furiously rubbing her eyes.
"We can wait," Max said.
"I don't need to," Alice pressed, "don't want you to be late to school."
"I don't care."
"Well, I do. Your education is important."
"They're all assholes."
Alice gave her a long, tentative look. "Yeah, most kids are," she said. "Most adults are, too. Gotta make sure you're just a rich one with a good job."
Max scoffed and adjusted her cassette player.
"You gonna listen to that the whole ride?" Alice slid icily. "Don't wanna talk to me either?"
A sudden flash of hurt crossed Alice's face. She looked at the player uneasily, and then to her sister. Even Alice could sense their friendship cracking, though she did not have the strength to glue it together.
"It's fine," she said. "I get why… maybe that asshole is right."
"I'm tired," Max put in. "I don't know what else to tell you."
Alice went to swing over her bike, when she gasped and buckled, clutching her left leg. "Shit. Shit, man," she said, her voice breaking.
Max gave a worried step around the bike. Then Alice shot a hand out to stop her. She gave a rasping sob and stood up. "Never healed," she told Max. "Probably never will."
Max gave her sister a nervous look, then took her seat on the bike. Her sister sat down slowly and grasped her thigh with each movement.
"You should stay," muttered Max.
"I can't."
Their father shouted loudly inside and then a door slammed. Both girls waited for a moment, then they heard Susan humming sweetly in the shower. Alice twisted the key. The motorbike grumbled its first breath.
The bike weighed both girls carefully as they started from the garage. Then, they spotted the tin fire pit on the front-porch. Stacked within were the photographs from the mantle; from every album in the house. Coiling snakes of smoke rose.
Alice gave Max a sallow look. "No one can look at me without seeing Billy," she whispered. "I can't even look at myself without seeing him." The photographs curled up, a tidal wave of red flame spreading kissing those smiles with black ash.
A/N: setting the scene of max and alice before season four! hope i did okay, i know its a long chapter thank you already for two follows and a comment! Thank you Nya, i hope you like this chapter:)
pls excuse me watching eddie tiktoks
