A/N: Trigger warning for eating disorders and slight physical abuse.
...
Lucy knows that it's probably weird for a place to be one of your favorite places to go when you've only been there a grand total of one time – borderline fucking crazy, even – but right now, she can't really find herself to care.
She's on the floor with her arms tucked under her head, drifting in and out of sleep while she listens to the steady rhythm of Rachel's pen scribble back on forth on her bed. (They originally planed to study together, but somewhere along the line of reading about Chemistry, Lucy decided she'd rather lay on the floor and take a nap.)
She hears her name being called and she mumbles a "Hmm?", not bothering to open her eyes or turn her face away from the carpet.
"You're falling asleep on me." Lucy slowly opens one eye and looks at Rachel leaning over the side of the bed.
She slaps at the pencil that Rachel prods her arm with. "Sorry. I'm kind of like, exhausted," she pushes out in a light laugh.
Rachel's eyes narrow and her lips purse and her brow creases for a split second before her features are back to default Rachel, all sparkling brown eyes and upturned corners of the lips.
"What?" Lucy asks and when Rachel shakes her head with a slight look of confusion she adds, "What was that look for?"
"I didn't give you a look."
"I'm not stupid." Lucy says, and then pushes herself up into a sitting position before leaning back on her palms. "You gave me a look."
Lucy stares at Rachel while Rachel stares back, and she's almost sure that she's not going to answer.
But then, "If you'd eat something, I'm sure you wouldn't be so tired all the time," slips out of Rachel's mouth and Lucy's eyebrows raise at the same time that her eyes narrow, and she's more than positive that her face probably looks a little deformed.
She's also more than positive that she would have preferred it if Rachel had just kept silent.
So she just sort of snorts and then falls back onto her back softly and says, "You bring that up every chance you get, don't you?"
She surprised when Rachel snaps back, "You asked me what the 'look' was about and I answered you, didn't I?"
Lucy feels properly chastised – and she can practically feel the irritation rolling off Rachel in waves – so she says, "Yeah. I – yeah," and then adds a much quieter, "Sorry."
Rachel softens and then says, "No, I'm sorry."
"I said sorry first."
"Can't we just both be sorry?" Rachel asks, and Lucy nods before scooting over as Rachel slides to the floor.
She lands cross legged next to Lucy, and Lucy can feel Rachel's knees pressing lightly into the outside of her arm. She glances up at the ceiling and just then notices the glitter scattered all around and assumes that it's supposed to look like the sky. (And she figures that it probably does, when it's dark outside and all the lights are turned off.)
Lucy looks over and watches Rachel reach out and take the frayed edge of her sweatshirt between her fingers and roll it around.
And it's just so weird how natural it seems. Like it's common occurrence for Rachel to just randomly reach out and fiddle with her (which, actually, it sometimes is, because even though Rachel respects that Lucy has some personal space issues, she's a really touchy-feely person).
Lucy wonders if she should feel obligated to do the same – like, trace the plaid pattern on her skirt or something – but that's just borderline weird, really, so she doesn't.
Vaguely, she hears the rumble of a voice in the background, and when she finds Rachel looking at her expectantly, she says "Huh?" and then blushes when she realizes that she kind of just grunted like a caveman.
"I said, you should get a new one." Rachel repeats, and then wiggles her finger through a hole in the pocket to prove her point.
"Oh." Lucy says. "Yeah, probably, but this one has, um. Memories and stuff, you know?" Memories of slushie stains and tons of gallons of Spray – N – Wash , but memories, nonetheless. "I can't just replace it."
"Okay," Rachel says, and then asks, "Are you staying for dinner?"
Lucy shakes her head and then pulls her phone out of the pocket that Rachel's not tinkering with and taps to her messages. "I've been given strict orders to 'not be home any later than 6:30'," she announces, and then turns the screen to Rachel so she can read the text from her mom.
Rachel's bottom lip juts out and Lucy feels her breath catch before she exhales it in a laugh and stabs Rachel's knee with the tip of her finger. "Stop it."
"So." Rachel says, and then turns her head to glance at her alarm clock before she says, "We have exactly one hour and forty-four minutes until you have to be home."
Lucy smiles. "Seems that way, yeah."
"What do you wanna do?"
"I'm content with whatever." Lucy just shrugs, her shoulders rubbing against the carpet before she crosses her arms over her stomach.
…
She doesn't know why she expects the house to be empty when she gets there, but it isn't, and, surprised, she makes her way into the kitchen and clutches one of the straps of her backpack as it slips on her shoulder. "Hi."
Her mom looks up from chopping something on the cutting board and gives her a small smile that seems almost warm and (gasp) motherly – not tight lipped and fake like she's used to – and returns her greeting before turning her attention back to the counter.
She asks, momentarily absent-minded at the strangeness of feeling comfort in her own home (how weird of a statement is that, really), "Is there a reason that I've suddenly gotten a curfew?"
Her mom glances at her before she answers, "You were out until after your father and I went to be, yesterday."
Lucy resists the urge to say, "I'm seventeen, and you were probably a little too tipsy to remember what time you even got home last night, so that's a bunch of bullshit," and instead chews on the inside of her cheek.
"Right." She says instead. "Okay."
And then it's just her and her mom and a not-awkward silence that's occasionally interrupted by the slap of a knife slapping against the cutting board or the hiss of something in a pan.
"What are you making?" She asks, crossing her arms and leaning forward onto them. She doesn't know why she's asking because she knows she's not going to be eating anyway.
And that makes her think of her conversation with Rachel earlier and she yawns subconsciously.
"Stir fry." Judy throws bell peppers into a pan. "It should be ready soon."
"Okay."
She hears the door creak open and then slam shut in the living room, and then heavy footfalls are slapping across the carpet and into the kitchen.
It's her dad, obviously she can tell, and like the flip of a light switch, something white hot and angry just flares up inside of her.
"Hi, honey," Judy says, and Russell moves over and kisses her on the cheek. "Good day?"
He waves his hand, "The usual," and then turns to Lucy and asks, "Aren't you going to say hello?"
She doesn't trust herself to open her mouth without the words fuck or screw you falling out, so she clenches her jaw and grinds her teeth and forces herself to put her head down and stare a hole into the counter top.
After a few seconds, she doesn't even have to look up to know that her mom's eyes are flitting nervously between the two of them (like they're in some sort of standoff, and she's waiting to see who's going to draw first) while also trying to finish making dinner. Lucy hears her dad's shoes tap against the floor as her moves towards her, and then her chin is jerked up harshly by his large hand.
His eyes flash dangerously and she glares back.
It hits her like two slushies to the face, and she sucks in a sharp breath when she notices that it's almost like looking into a mirror; his narrowed eyes are the exact same shade of hazel hidden behind her glasses.
She remembers the other day, when Rachel had to ask her if she was alright with gay people because her dad so obviously wasn't – isn't, and how she bit back that she wasn't her dad, and –
She figures that if there were anything in her stomach, she would have thrown it up.
"When I speak to you," he starts, slowly, like she's a toddler, and she grinds her teeth harder before she blows a harsh breath out of her nostrils. "You will answer me."
Lucy swallows heavily as the taste of bile creeps up the back of her throat.
"Do you hear me?" He says, and she feels the fingers around her jaw tighten.
Lucy nods, and his looks softens a bit before he releases her and steps around the island to the fridge. "Go to your room."
She slides off the stool to the clinking of wine glasses being removed from the cupboard.
…
She doesn't know what compels her to do it, really. One moment she's lying on her bed and the next she's staring at her phone and the message that she's just typed up and sent.
hey.
And then she laughs because for some reason, that little three-letter word looks so much more bleak that it really should.
Do you miss me already? I just saw you not forty-five minutes ago!
oh. sorry.
I was kidding. What's up?
For normal people, that wouldn't seem like a loaded question, but to Lucy it kind of does. Just a bit.
Well, not my mood! is a stupid response, even for her, so she settles with he standard; not much. you?, and then rolls over onto her back and sighs at the ceiling.
Nothing for me, either. I'm in the exact same place I was when you left.
Lucy smiles, and then pictures Rachel sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back against the side of her bed and her head turned down towards her lap, typing away on her phone.
Not for a lack of anything to say, but because there're too many responses bouncing around in her mind for her to pick just one, she says, haha, cool. and then presses send and instantly regrets it.
Not to be rude, or to pry (because I noticed that you don't like that. At all.) but are you alright?
fine. sorry.
No, no need to apologize, you just seem a little...
not alright?
Right.
And she's not alright, but she's also not not alright.
Because, yeah, her jaw is starting to smart a little bit, and it's pulsing in the shape of big fingers all up and down her face, and she's hungry to the point that it's actually causing her physical pain, but –
She's alright. She feels alright, at least at this very moment she does, and she figures it's probably because of a girl that's ten miles away sitting cross-legged on her floor in a short plaid skirt.
She thinks of Sam for a moment, and then is hit with a wave of guilt when she realizes that he's the one she should be texting and that he's the one that should be asking her if she's alright and that what he's doing at this very moment is what she should be trying to visualize, but it's not. It's all Rachel, and she feels horrible about it.
But it was Rachel's name that she scrolled to in her contacts and that hey. that she sent, that was to Rachel.
That has to mean something. It just kind of has to.
…
When she looks in the mirror in the morning, there's a light purple blot near her jaw, and when she pokes at it with her finger, it pulses with a tiny pain.
She's kneeled over in front of the toilet and dry heaving seconds after her mind comes to the conclusion that those are her father's fingers bruised on her face, and when she feels tears drip from her chin and into the toilet bowl, she doesn't know if it's from the pain of the heaving or something else.
She doesn't think he meant to do it – he was just disciplining her, because that's what parent's do when their children are disrespectful (and she kind of did deserve it anyway, really) – but then she's dry heaving again because she's justifying the fact that her father just caused her intentional physical pain.
He didn't mean to do it, though, she thinks, deciding how to style her hair so it hides her cheek.
He didn't mean –
He couldn't have meant to.
…
A/N: A huge thank you to all those who reviewed/favorited/followed this story.