Author's Note- This chapter contains two unpleasant things. The first is a single line of dialogue in Japanese courtesy of Google translate (ugh) and the second is the worst of the domestic violence that occurs in this fic. The latter is at the end, so if you are interested in reading this fic but don't want to read that, just skip the last scene.
Liz found, upon contemplation, that she couldn't resist Tsubaki's offer of assistance in learning the basics of wizardry. She had always had to make it on her own, but she wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to get ahead when it was practically handed to her on a naive, overly-trusting silver platter.
Well, maybe that was unfair. Tsubaki was pretty sheltered, but she wasn't completely naive. Operative word being "completely."
Ah, whatever. She was sweet, and she didn't seem to mind showing Liz everything that she'd learned.
It was kind of ridiculous how much she had learned, actually. Tsubaki said she had only been a wizard for about a week before Liz picked up her manual, but it seemed to have put her lightyears ahead. While Liz was stuck using physical aids like orange peels and men's leather shoes pulled from the 50¢ bin at Goodwill, Tsubaki was walking effortlessly on water. Liz kind of wanted to hate her for it, but Tsubaki made it so damn hard to dislike her.
It wasn't even that she was nice. Liz had disliked a hell of a lot of nice people. Tsubaki was just genuinely kind, and the sincerity made it nearly impossible to be bitter over her. So even though watching her work sometimes made Liz want to scream in sheer frustration, she also found that she was kind of fun to have around.
Plus, her wizardly tutoring was definitely a perk. Meeting up almost every day at the same park where they'd met became a habit over the next week.
They'd been focusing on suspending gravity, since it was apparently one of the easiest laws of physics to manipulate or something. It came easily to Tsubaki, with her seemingly limitless power, but Liz was, for lack of a better world, struggling.
"Goddammit!" she burst out, as the small stone she was trying to levitate shattered instead. "What am I doing wrong? I didn't pronounce the name of the rock wrong again, did I?"
Tsubaki glanced at her manual and shook her head with a frown. "I don't understand. A spell always works! That's one of the basic tenets of wizardry."
"Then why isn't it working?" Liz growled in frustration.
The other girl's expression turned pensive. "Maybe you've got some kind of mental block?" she speculated. "A huge part of this work is the wizard's intent, according to Marie. Are you really, um… what I mean to ask is, do you really believe in the spell? Are you truly putting your heart behind it?"
If Liz was honest, the answer was probably no. Ever since her first attempt at a spell had been a flop, she'd had a hard time believing that she was really cut out for this. Sure as hell wasn't going to make her give up, but it did make it difficult to just let go and give herself over to the wizardry the way Tsubaki seemed to do so effortlessly.
"Yeah, sure, of course," she said. "'Wizardry does not live in the unwilling heart,' right? That's what the book said."
Tsubaki nodded. "Right. That's why most human wizards are offered the Oath around thirteen or fourteen. The Powers That Be seem to want kids to have normal childhoods as much as possible, but the younger someone is, the easier suspension of disbelief is. That's why—"
"—why younger wizards are more powerful and you're so special because you took the Oath at sixteen but you're still crazy powerful for some reason, blah blah blah I know," Liz said derisively. "I've read the book, too." Not that the manual was easy to fully read since it kept fucking changing all the time.
Tsubaki looked taken aback at her harsh tone. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to lecture. Of course you already know all this."
Jesus it was hard to stay mad at her. "Yeah. S'fine," she mumbled. "I'm just frustrated." It was a hard thing to admit, but Liz felt bad for snapping at her… especially when she was pretty sure she was right. Her confidence was lukewarm, so her spells only half-worked, which was complete bullshit in her opinion.
But Tsubaki seemed to understand anyway. Her expression was empathetic and her skin was warm as she leaned forward to press Liz's hand kindly. "I know you'll get the hang of it," she said. "The Powers offered you wizardry for a reason, Liz. Somewhere in the universe there's a problem, and you're the solution."
Her intensity was too much, and Liz pulled her hand back. Tsubaki obviously noticed, but she said nothing, and her expression went blank.
Liz felt tension creeping up into the space between them, and rushed to fill the gap before it suffocated them. "Yeah, I'll figure it out. I mean, I'm getting pretty good with the Speech, it's only a matter of time, right?"
Tsubaki nodded, that soft smile of hers making a reappearance. "Yeah, you're picking that up so fast! You only took your Oath a couple days ago and I think you're already better than I am."
It was probably just a token compliment to pacify her, but coming from Tsubaki, it didn't sound like it. She always seemed so genuine that it was hard not to trust what she said.
Liz found it highly unnerving.
The benefits of having a nauseatingly sweet friend might be dubious, but the benefits of having a friend with a car were not. That in and of itself was justification to keep associating with Tsubaki. The free rides were fabulous, and Liz was determined never to pay for bus fare again.
Following their latest practice, Tsubaki dropped her off at the apartment after an intense afternoon of spelling— or attempting to, on Liz's part— left her too tired to walk back.
"Listen, maybe tomorrow we can try something else?" Tsubaki suggested as she pulled up in front of the apartment. "We could just… hang out, maybe?" Her big amethyst eyes were hopeful, and even though Liz knew she should refuse, because she didn't know Roxanne's work schedule tomorrow, she couldn't bring herself to disappoint her.
"I'm… not sure if I'll be free," she said slowly. "I've gotta work until eleven, but maybe after. Tell you what, stop by the Starbucks on Oakland at like five after and I'll let you know."
That worked, right? If she needed to be home with Patti, she could bum a ride and not sweat through her clothes walking home, and if their mother was going to be at work in the afternoon, hanging out sounded kind of nice. She hadn't just chilled with a friend in the longest time.
Tsubaki nodded. "That sounds good. I'll see you then?"
"Yeah. See you then."
The apartment was malodorous again when Liz opened the door, and her stomach sank when she saw her mother standing by the window, arms crossed with a cigarette dangling in one hand. Roxy was, clearly, home early.
Crap.
"Who just dropped you off?" Roxy demanded.
"Nobody," Liz replied sullenly. But she knew that wouldn't get Roxy off her back, so she added, "A friend."
She snorted. "You've got friends?"
"Brilliant comeback, does the diner have you doing standup instead of waitressing now?" Liz muttered.
Roxy's eyes narrowed and she stepped away from the window, walking closer to her daughter. "This 'friend' is a guy, isn't it?" she asked, ignoring Liz's sarcasm.
"No."
"It is! You're sneaking around having sex!"
Liz actually laughed at that. "Oh please," she said. "I'm not you."
The look on her mother's face was odd, a ruinous sort of anger Liz didn't think she'd ever seen Roxy wear before. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" she growled, leaning in so close to Liz's face that the reek of stale smoke on her breath overpowered the lit cigarette in her hand.
She shrugged, and leaned away with a wrinkled nose. "You tell me, you're the one fucking randos every other night," she said, thoroughly disgusted.
Roxy's hand shot out and she yanked hard on Liz's hair, tilting her head back painfully. "You don't know shit, you fucking brat," she hissed. "I'm sick and fucking tired of you judging me."
Liz grabbed her own hair above her mother's hand and pulled herself free. "Don't touch me," she snapped. She whirled and marched across to her bedroom door, pausing as she grabbed the handle. "And don't smoke in the house, asshole, Patti doesn't need to breathe that shit in." She hauled the door open, then slammed it behind her.
Patti was sitting on her beanbag chair, chin resting on her crossed arms on the windowsill.
"Whatcha lookin' at, Jellybean?" Liz asked.
"There's a bird that made a nest in Caroline's petunia basket," Patti said. "I didn't notice until today."
Peering over her head, Liz repressed a snort. The neighbor whose apartment shared a yard with their building hadn't actually planted anything in her hanging basket in years. Non-native flowers wilted in the course of an hour during a Death City summer, even in the shade. But Patti was right, some hapless bird had taken advantage of the space, and a pair of ugly little fledglings were lying in the nest. One of them was perched dangerously on the edge of the basket, flapping it's underdeveloped wings wildly and ineffectively.
Together, they watched the little bird's faltering attempts for a few moments more; then Patti said, "I wish you and Mom wouldn't yell."
Liz sighed. "I wish that, too."
"It's not gonna stop, though, is it?"
"I doubt it, kiddo." Roxy was Roxy, and Liz had an apparently pathological urge to wind her up.
It was almost funny, she thought. Now that she knew about the Lone Power, knew what to look for, she could see so much of Its influence in her own life.
Unless the bitch suddenly grew up— or at least grew a conscience— or Liz suddenly lost all of her scrappy willpower, they were going to be clashing until Liz was old enough to get out on her own and take Patti with her. Sometimes, Liz wondered if she was getting a little too old to keep picking fights with everybody, but it didn't really matter, did it? The world wasn't fair, and she'd never been able to make herself lie back and accept it. That went double when it came to her mother. Roxy was supposed to take care of them, to protect them, but she never had. Maybe things had been different back in Brooklyn, back before Roxy got pregnant and chased the religious bastard who did it to the other side of the country, only to get dumped when he told her the reason he had moved west was because he had been called to the altar of his Lord Lucifer. But if it had been different before that, Liz couldn't remember it. Her early life was mostly a blur, and her first truly clear memory was the day Patti was born. As far as Liz was concerned, Roxy has never been anything other than what she was now.
"The Lone One's got a real bad hold on you," she muttered.
"What?"
Liz blinked and looked down at Patti, who was watching her with wide eyes. "Nothing, Patti. Just thinking out loud, I guess."
"Okay!" Patti chirped, and went back to bird-watching.
With a heavy sigh, Liz left her to it; she walked over to the mattress, flopped down, and cracked open her manual to a page at random.
As it transpired, Roxy was going to be home the next afternoon, but Patti was going to a friend's house for a sleepover— something Liz would really have liked to know about before said friend's parents came to pick her up, but whatever— so it didn't matter.
Liz was surprised at how delighted she felt at the news. She hadn't realized how much she was looking forward to spending the afternoon with Tsubaki until it was a fixed plan. Somehow the soft-hearted girl had grown on her, and Liz couldn't even say she minded that much. There were worse things than having sweet, ridiculously hot friends with transportation.
Tsubaki picked her up after work as planned, though Liz found herself sweating on the sidewalk for nearly ten minutes after their arranged meeting time.
"What kept you?" Liz asked as she slid into the mercifully air-conditioned car.
Tsubaki looked pensive. "I had to tell my parents about me being a wizard," she said.
Liz blinked. "What? Why?"
She shrugged. "They noticed I'd been gone a lot and… well, Asian parents, you know?"
Liz didn't know, but she nodded anyway. She didn't bother to ask why Tsubaki hadn't just lied to them— Tsubaki's home life, she knew, was a thousand miles removed from her own. Besides, the girl was probably constitutionally incapable of deliberately misleading someone.
"Anyway, remember how I said I thought one of my parents might be a wizard since I found my manual on their bookshelf?" Tsubaki continued as she put the car in gear and pulled away from the strip mall Starbucks. "I was right. The manual used to be my mother's."
"Used to be?" Liz asked. "What, did she give up the practice or something?"
Tsubaki shook her head. "She just doesn't use the manual anymore. There are a lot of wizards who don't, actually, or at least, not in book form. Whales get their version directly from the Ocean, I guess, and even in some human cultures, nobody ever uses the manual at all, they just memorize all their spells."
"Wow," Liz said, choosing to ignore the mention of whale wizards because that was way more than she was currently ready to process. "Sounds… rough."
"I think it would be useful, actually." Tsubaki sounded thoughtful, but as she slowed for a stop sign, she shook her head again and sighed. "Anyway, I would have been here on time, but my brother didn't take it so well." She was silent for another long moment before she added, "I guess he figured out mama was— well, he didn't know about wizardry or anything, but when he was little he saw some of her spells by accident. I think he thought he was going to learn when he grew up. Except…"
"Except that you're already pretty old to be a novice wizard and he's like two years older, right?" Liz guessed.
Tsubaki nodded, lips pressed tight in a worried frown. She was silent for several blocks, and Liz wondered at the situation. Tsubaki's life seemed so backwards to her. She had some kind of unnatural, freakishly good relationship with her parents, but her brother didn't support her. It made no sense. If Patti had been the one to take the Oath and become a wizard instead of herself, she would have been thrilled. Terrified for her safety, sure, but happy to cheer her baby sister on. And here Tsubaki's brother was, pitching a hissy fit— from what she could read between the lines, anyway— because Tsubaki had gotten the magic instead of him.
But tense silence wasn't going to do anything to perk up Tsubaki's mood, and it was seriously killing Liz's enthusiasm for this whole outing before it had even started.
"Anyway, what did you want to do today?" she asked.
It was amazing how she could actually see Tsubaki pull herself together and put on a happy face. Liz couldn't decide if it was a good thing or not. "I was thinking maybe we could go to the mall?" she suggested. "There aren't really any good movies out right now and it's too late in the day to make driving out of the city worth it."
Liz felt her stomach sink. "I dunno, I mean… I don't really have much money to spend," she said slowly.
Tsubaki was smiling, though. "Looking at things you can't afford is half the fun, though!"
Spoken like someone who actually had anything she actually could afford.
She seemed to sense Liz's continued reluctance, and took her eyes off the road at a red light to give her a reassuring smile. "If you don't want to, we can do something else," she said. "I just thought… well, I'm pretty sure we could figure out how to change our own clothes with wizardry. Just rearrange the molecular structure of a garment to turn it into something different."
"What happened to this being a wizardry-free day?" Liz asked dryly.
Tsubaki's smile was just a bit mischievous. "Oh, it will be. But getting ideas for later can't hurt, right?"
Liz glanced down at the tangerine tube top and tattered jeans she'd changed into after work; the idea of swapping them out for a Chanel replica without having to spend a dime was deeply appealing. It might be a frivolous use of wizardry, but what was the point of being a wizard if you couldn't do nice things for yourself? God knew that was why Liz had signed her name on the metaphorical dotted line.
"Sounds like a plan to me!"
Three hours, four department stores, and countless changing room cell phone fashion shoots later, they were headed to Tsubaki's house for an extremely belated lunch. There were, in fact, a few shopping bags in the backseat, despite Tsubaki's initial assertion that they wouldn't buy anything. But she hadn't been able to resist a new summer scarf, and when she caught Liz throwing longing glances at a pair of disgustingly gorgeous leather boots, she'd thought nothing of buying them for her.
Rich people. But Liz wasn't going to complain. If anyone wanted to buy her stuff, she was definitely going to let them.
Tsubaki's house was nice. It wasn't, like, a mansion or anything, but it was a nice, two-story house in a nice, middle-class neighborhood. All tidy lawns, shiny cars parked in driveways, lots of trees leaning out over the sidewalk. Very pretty, very clean.
Liz was willing to bet, from the instant she walked in the door and saw that the entryway was paved with tile instead of carpet or linoleum, that even the microwave cost more than she made in three months. She had sort of been expecting paper walls and sliding doors like she'd seen on TV, but it was a western-style home, though from the moment she stepped in the door it was obvious that it had been decorated with the family's culture in mind.
"Let's go to the kitchen, I'll see what we have in the fridge," Tsubaki said.
In the kitchen, a boy a few years older stood staring into the open fridge, wearing nothing but a pair of black boxers.
Tsubaki dropped her face into her palm with a heavy sigh. "Masamune, why are you naked in the kitchen at two in the afternoon?"
He grabbed a soda and a bottle of cherry syrup out of the fridge and shut it, straightening up with a lithe kind of grace. He was strikingly handsome, with intense black eyes and a jawline that looked like it could cut diamonds. There was a family resemblance between him and Tsubaki, but where she had a flowery elegance about her, he was all planes and angles, as if he'd been sculpted from stone.
"Atsuidesu. Sore wa tonikaku, jibun no iedesu," he said, and even with the language barrier, Liz could hear the belligerence in his tone.
Tsubaki's eyes narrowed, and Liz thought it might be the first time she had ever looked anything less than poised and sweet. Interesting. "Speak English," she said. "You're being rude to our guest."
Masamune shrugged. "Hello, wizard sister. I'm guessing this is your wizard friend?" He put a noticeable emphasis on the word wizard, and Liz remembered Tsubaki saying that he wasn't pleased that she had been the one to be offered the Oath.
"This is Elizabeth Thompson," she said stonily. "And yes, she is a wizard, too." She turned back to Liz and her eyes softened back to the gentle warmth Liz had gotten used to seeing from her. "Liz, this is my brother, Masamune."
He had turned away before Tsubaki even finished the introduction, apparently ignoring her in favor of pouring both soda and syrup into a glass. He stirred it up with a spoon, then left both spoon and open bottle of syrup on the counter; he walked past them without another word, jostling his sister slightly as he passed.
Tsubaki sighed, shoulders slumping. "I'm so sorry. I promise he's not usually like this. I guess he's still angry from this morning."
Liz nodded as Tsubaki walked over to the counter where her brother had left his stuff. "Guess sibling rivalry is a thing, sometimes. I can't really empathize— my baby sister is… kind of my whole world."
"That's nice," Tsubaki said, a smile blooming on her face again, though not as brightly as the one she had worn a few minutes earlier. "Masamune and I were close as kids, but maybe we've drifted apart more than I realized." She was silent for a moment as she tucked the cherry syrup back into the fridge, then straightened up. "But I don't really want to talk about him right now. What did you want to eat?"
Five minutes later, once they had set themselves up with sandwiches, Tsubaki led her out the back door so that they could sit on the low porch behind the house. They munched on sandwiches in comfortable silence, and Liz admired the Nakatsukasas' back yard. It was a far cry from the sun-bleached patch of scraggly grass behind her own building, with a miniature palm tree and a little stone fountain that was probably a bitch to keep filled in the summer.
"I was thinking," Tsubaki said, munching idly on her sandwich, "maybe there's a way to help you get over your mental block. With the wizardry, I mean."
Liz looked over at her curiously. Tsubaki set her sandwich aside and leaned back on her hands, her long hair brushing against the stained wood of the porch. The afternoon light caught in the shiny black strands, setting her hair afire as if she'd woven a net of sunlight into it. She really was beautiful, Liz thought.
Unaware that she was being admired, Tsubaki continued, "When I first started out, I didn't immediately jump into spells, I just started by learning to communicate. Just… talking to things, you know?"
"Things meaning… like, inanimate objects?"
Tsubaki nodded. "It was easiest for me to start with living things. There's a camellia bush on the side of the house and talking to it was the first thing I did as a wizard."
Liz tilted her head. "Seems like a pretty small start for somebody who's supposed to be this magical superstar."
"It felt really natural," Tsubaki said with a shake of her head. "Communicating with the natural world really helps you get in tune with the heart of what wizardry's all about. That big rowan tree in the park where we met gave me a branch to make a wand. Maybe trying something similar will help you?"
She pursed her lips thoughtfully, chewing over the idea. "Well," she said after a few moments, "I guess trying it can't hurt."
Tsubaki slid off the porch and stood, offering Liz a hand to pull her to her feet. "Let's go, then! I'll introduce you!" she said cheerily.
As she followed the other girl around to the side of the house, a thought occurred to her. "Tsubaki, how do you make a wand?"
"Oh, it's pretty simple, really. All you have to do is peel the bark off a piece of wood— rowans and ash work best— and leave it outside on a night when the moon is full…"
Tsubaki, Liz was certain, had far too much time on her hands. How she could possibly know so much already about the ins and outs of wizardry, way more than Liz had learned, was beyond her. Either the girl had learned how to freeze time so she could study for a month, or she just did nothing but read the manual and hang out with Liz.
Either way, it was kind of a wizardly buzzkill.
Still, her advice about "getting in tune with nature" had actually been pretty good. Tsubaki's flower was a sweet little plant, as far as plants could have personality, and once Liz stopped trying so hard and just listened, it had actually been easy to go quiet and hear what it was saying.
Waving goodbye to Tsubaki over her shoulder, she entered her building with much more good cheer than she usually carried home with her.
So, naturally, there had to be bad vibes stinking up the place the second she unlocked the apartment door.
Roxy was flopped on the couch, still in her work apron, with her shoes littered on the floor beneath the glass coffee table. Her head rested on one armrest, and her feet were propped up on the other as she stared with glazed eyes at the TV screen.
"You left your book lyin' around," she droned, and to Liz's horror, her manual was sitting on the coffee table. But her moment of panic vanished as Roxy added, "Listen, do yourself a favor and don't read those trashy romance novels. The sex ain't realistic and getting ideas about how guys are gonna treat you right is only gonna let you down."
"Got dumped again, huh?" Liz asked, unable to suppress a smirk.
"Shut up." Roxy picked up the manual and, without even looking around, tossed it one-handed over her head.
Liz fumbled it, and had to drop the bag with her shoebox in it to keep from dropping the book on the floor.
At the heavy thunk of the boots against the floor, Roxy twisted around on the couch, peering over the armrest. Her eyes narrowed. "What've you got?" she asked.
Shit.
"Just some shoes," Liz said.
"The hell'd you get the money from?" she asked.
"I do have a job, you know."
Roxy's glare deepened. "You ain't got enough money to be spending shit on sixty dollar shoes. You're part of this household and we're all fuckin' broke so start acting like it. We've got bills to pay and if you want to stay here, you better start contributing."
Make that dumped and fired, Liz thought to herself. Her so-called mother might be a royal bitch, but she only asked Liz for money when she was out of a job again.
"Not really giving me much incentive to pay up," she muttered. Getting the hell out of here sounded fantastic.
"What'd you say?" Roxy hissed.
"Nothing, just thinking out loud." Liz made the executive decision to just walk away from this one. It wasn't even worth it and she needed to wash off the "outside in the afternoon in Nevada" sweat. "I'm gonna go take a shower."
She dropped her bag in her room and grabbed a towel before heading into the bathroom. She stripped, tossing her clothes on the counter where they wouldn't get covered in dust balls, and stepped into the shower.
Before she even turned the water on, she realized she had made a horrible mistake. The shower curtain had become a science experiment, and she was pretty sure all this mold had not been here the last time she showered. What the hell had happened?
She wrinkled her nose. The mold behind the toilet was disgusting enough, but the orange gunk creeping up in the sticky folds of the shower curtain was just one step too far. She was going to have to break out the bleach before she could even think about taking—
Wait. Wasn't this the perfect opportunity to practice working with living things?
Talking to Tsubaki's flowers today had been so much easier than just trying to force her willpower onto random laws of physics. Her vocabulary in the Speech was still kind of limited, but she wasn't hopeless at it without the manual. Definitely she could at least talk the mold out of growing on the shower curtain.
Mold, as it turned out, was alarmingly stubborn. Talking a living thing— even something as primitive as mold, only sentient in the vaguest possible sense— out of living in the way it was made to do was really difficult. The most she could do was de-lyme the shower head and convince the mold on the curtain to join its fellow colony under the toilet. If she could have sent both colonies to the condemned and empty building across the street, she could have gotten rid of the whole lot, but since she wasn't totally confident in her ability to transport them there, neither were they, so she was forced to accept a temporary compromise, and extracted a promise to stay put until she could work out a more permanent solution.
Oh well. At least she could shower without fear of slime. The crust-free showerhead was a nice change, too.
Guess I'm not a complete failure as a wizard, she thought, smiling slightly. I can actually do this.
Perhaps if Mai hadn't called in sick for her closing shift, if Liz hadn't volunteered to stay an extra two hours to fill the gap, it wouldn't have happened. Perhaps. But that extra $17 on her paycheck was too appealing to pass up, so she stuck around, much to Joe's approval. She could've done without the damn college kids who refused to leave for twenty minutes after closing, but it was still more money in her pocket.
Even as late as it was, the pavement was still warm through her shoes as she shuffled home. Her legs ached, her blood pressure had probably gone through the roof after forcing on that cheery customer service smile, and both her hair and her work uniform smelled strongly of a nauseating combination of coffee and the disinfectant they used to mop the floor. All she wanted in the world was a shower and about ten hours of sleep.
But when she got home, she could tell by the time she had shut the front door that sleep wasn't in the cards for her for awhile yet.
She saw Patti first. She was sitting by the door to the kitchen with a pack of markers, coloring something on loose leaf paper, but kept darting nervous glances to the other side of the living room, where their mother was waiting.
Roxy was, for once, not glazed-out in front of the TV. She was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, fingers twitching against the bare skin of her elbows. She had a feverish look in her eyes, pupils blown wide, and the whites were bloodshot as if she'd been smoking, but the apartment didn't smell like it.
It was sad, Liz thought, that she was too jaded to think maybe Roxy had just been smoking outside for once.
"Where the fuck have you been?" she demanded.
"Work," Liz muttered. "Unlike some people, I still have a job."
Roxy made a noise somewhere between a growl and a hiss. "You filthy little liar, I know you were out with some guy. He's been dropping you off here all the time!"
It wasn't even worth correcting her at this point. "Whatever, I need a sh—"
"Don't you walk away from me, brat! I got somethin' you need to see," Roxy hissed, pushing away from the wall she had been leaning against and stomping over to the coffee table. She snatched a piece of paper from the table and shoved it in Liz's direction. "Do you know what this fucking is?" she demanded.
"Maybe if you'd stop waving it around all over the place I could fucking see it," Liz sneered. Roxy was twitchy and a little too full of frantic energy, and it was making her nervous— this wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last, but it was always like walking a highwire to manage her like this.
"Liz, don't fight," Patti murmured, and Liz didn't have to look at her to see the pleading look in her sister's eyes.
Roxy managed to hold the paper still long enough for Liz to see the words Eviction Notice in bold print at the top of the page. Her stomach dropped.
"Didn't I fucking tell you to pay the goddamn rent a week ago?" Roxy spat. "You have no fucking respect—"
Liz laughed, and it tasted bitter in her mouth. "You're seriously blaming me for this? You're supposed to be the adult here, pay your own damn rent!"
"Guys, please," Patti begged, getting to her feet. "Please don't."
"I work hard to put a fucking roof over your head and feed you," Roxy snapped, advancing towards Liz. "The very goddamn least you can do is walk to the office and give them the check!"
"If it's so easy, why don't you do it?" Liz demanded. Her blood was heating up with every word out of Roxy's mouth, and she knew losing her temper right now was a seriously bad idea, but she just couldn't seem to help it. "You're not helpless!"
Roxy pointed a finger at her threateningly. "When I come home from work, I'm tired," she snarled, jabbing Liz in the chest, her sharp false nails scraping Liz's skin even through the thin fabric of her work shirt. "I'm not asking that goddamn much—"
"And you think I'm not tired after work?" Liz interrupted, her voice rising. "You can't even keep a job for a whole year, and I work my ass off to make sure that we're never short on grocery mon—"
"Mom, Liz, please—"
"Oh please, you're not tired because you've been working, you little slut," Roxy snapped. "You're tired from fucking whatever guy you keep—"
"I keep telling you, there's no guy!" Liz shouted. "I'm a slut? Please, you're the one banging randos every other weekend with your ten year old in the other room, you fucking whore!"
Roxy's face went dead white, and a kind of fury Liz had never seen before burst across her face. Before Liz even had time to process what had happened, Roxy's fist slammed into her gut with enough force to knock her breathless and send her stumbling back.
"Don't you ever, ever call me that!" Roxy screamed, raising her hand to strike her again. "I'll kill you, you fucking bitch!" Liz flinched for the blow, trying to simultaneously remember the words to a shielding spell and put herself out of the way, but she was backed up against the couch and there was no time to—
The sound of skin striking skin rang through the apartment, but Liz wasn't the one who took the blow. Patti had thrown herself between them, hands raised to push Roxy back, but she was too small.
Liz watched in horror as Patti fell, shoved to the side with how hard she had been hit, and crashed through the glass table, shattering it as she fell, and slamming her head into the metal crossbar.