A/N: Trigger warning for eating disorders and very slight physical abuse.
...
There's a knock on the door the next morning that makes her jump, and she composes herself before she says, "Come in."
She doesn't expect Sam's head to peek in her room, but when it does and he smiles at her, she smiles back and closes her book. "Hey."
"Hi." He says, and then steps into her room and over to the bed before plopping down beside her. "What's up?"
She shakes her head and then watches him push hair out of his face before she says, "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but..."
"Why am I here." He finishes. "Right. Well. You seemed upset last night, you know? And, I mean, I couldn't just..." He shrugs.
Lucy smiles. "Thanks, Sam."
He shakes his head. "It's whatever. But like, you're going to be an aunt?" He says, and those words kind of suck all of the warmth out of the atmosphere of her room. She feels her face drop and her throat constrict and then all of a sudden she's huddled into the chest of Sam's jean jacket and her face is damp.
"Hey, it's okay."
"I don't...even know...why...I'm crying." Is what she says between hiccups, and she wonders if Sam understood her through the blubbering.
Or, well, she doesn't know why she's crying about this, because (as dramatic and whiny as it seems) there are things for her to be crying about.
But then again, her sister has been throwing her life away, and this baby, her niece or nephew, is like the seal on the envelope holding Frannie's fate. The baby is unhappy-life insurance.
Sam's hand is rubbing up and down her arm, and she's actually kind of worried that she's gotten snot on his jacket.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Is what she says when she pulls away and wipes her face on her sleeve and Sam, god bless him, is just staring at her with worried eyes, completely oblivious (or just choosing not to notice) the face-shaped stain on his chest. "Geez, I'm a mess."
"Just to clarify." He says. "What kind of tears were those? Because they really didn't seem like happy ones."
Lucy doesn't even know, so she says, "It doesn't matter – and I'll like, throw your shirt in the washer or something if you want me to."
Sam waves it off ("Nah, it's fine,") and then flips his hair (which makes Lucy snort) and says, "So, other than that, I guess, how was Thanksgiving?"
"Like every other holiday. Yours?"
Sam shrugs. "It was good. Stacy and Stevie were sad because like, we only had turkey instead of turkey and ham, but you know."
Lucy nods, and then wonders what Rachel did for a second, because she had neither turkey nor ham, and when Sam laughs and says, "I dunno, probably chilled with her dads and stuff," she realizes that she was thinking out loud.
"Oh. Yeah. Probably." She says, and right after that, "Can we go to your house?" partly to change the subject, and also because it feels like forever since she's been over there.
"Of course – hey, I'll text Rachel and see if she can come over, too – we have some leftovers, too, so..." he pauses for a second, and looks at Lucy, and she clenches her jaw and moves over to her closet. "Never mind."
She just kind of wishes he didn't say anything at all.
…
She can't figure out how to solve her problems (well, she actually needs to figure out what all of her problems are, first) and so the logical thing to do is shoot animated undead. The rumble of the controller just sort of vibrates all of her emotions into numbness for a while.
"I see the appeal." Rachel starts, and Sam glances back at her before returning his focus to the screen. "Really, I do, but how you two can sit there hour after hour – "
"Has it been that long, really?" Lucy asks, and then pulls the left trigger.
"I – well, no, it's only been an hour and a half."
"Huh."
The round ends, and Sam's stomach growls, and he blushes and says, "Sorry," before getting up and stretching. His bones pop.
Lucy and Rachel head downstairs with him, despite his protests that "he's a big boy and can heat up some food by himself".
The microwave hmms while Lucy absently drums her fingers on the counter, and her lips tilt up into a small smile when she hears Rachel start humming a few bars under her breath next to her.
"You sure you don't – "
"I'm not hungry."
"You sure?" Rachel says, and Lucy looks over, ignoring the slight fluttering in her stomach when her eyes search out Rachel's, and frowns.
It's petty, and so stupidly stupid that Lucy can't even believe she does it. "Hey Sam, do you know Matt Rutherford?"
"The football player."
"Yeah."
"Honestly." She hears Rachel huff under her breath, and it's so...something, that she forgets to be annoyed with her.
"Why?"
"Um." Lucy says, and then looks at Rachel who answers, "I...like him."
"Oh." Sam says, and then nods before removing his food from the microwave and setting it on the table. "That's cool, I guess. He's a nice guy, you know. Kind of quiet, but whatever."
"Yes, I know, and I find that endearing."
Lucy almost, almost says, "I'm kind of quiet too, you know," but then she hears Sam say from the fridge, "Damn, we don't have anymore pie," and then watches him start rummaging through the cabinets.
Lucy turns to Rachel and opens her mouth to say something like sorry, but then realizes that she's not exactly sure what she would be saying sorry for.
Instead she stutters, "Um. Hi."
Rachel smiles, and Lucy just kind of softens. "Hi."
"Um." Sam says, and they both look at him turning a box over in his hands. "You guys wanna bake a cake?"
…
She doesn't know why, but the image of Rachel cracking an egg over Sam's head (and proclaiming "Vegan Power!") won't escape her thoughts.
Which was weird, since Sam used egg whites because his mom said they were healthier and because Lucy was pretty positive that Rachel wouldn't crack anything over anyone's head, least of all an egg over Sam's.
"Three cups of flour." Rachel reads from the box.
"You know, I'd get right on that." Sam says, shoulder-deep inside one of his cabinets. "If I could find a measuring cup."
"You don't bake often, do you?" Rachel crosses her arms, amused.
"How could you tell?" Sam grunts.
Lucy's eyes catch the flour bag sitting next to the silver mixing bowl, and she's struck with something an urge so childish and juvenile that there's no way she'll be able to not do it.
"Rach." She says, and as Rachel swivels around to face her, Lucy flicks a handful of powdery flour into her face.
Lucy just grins while Rachel sputters with her arms half-raised in the air. She hears Sam bump his head on something and mutter, "Shit."
"Did you just – " Rachel finishes her sentence by digging into a bag and flinging more flour at Lucy's face.
Before she knows it, the kitchen is bathed in a white fog and her glasses are caked and there's flour in places that flour should never be.
"Payback sucks, doesn't it!" She hears from somewhere close before arms wrap around her neck and a hand drops powder down the back of her shirt. "How does defeat feel?! Huh?!" Rachel's voice says into her ear from behind.
She wants to say, "Pretty damn good," because those arms are giving her a crazy kind of warmth (mostly in her cheeks) that she's not familiar with. She swivels around in Rachel's arms and smiles at the glint that she sees in those brown eyes.
"I win." Rachel declares, proudly, and with the white streaks all over her face, Lucy thinks that she's just about the cutest thing she's ever seen.
Or, wait –
But then Rachel's palm is on her cheek and her thumb is rubbing back and forth – over her bruise (which is mostly gone), and some slight pain appears when the feather-light touches cease for a second.
"Um. What are you doing?" It comes out breathless, and a lot more weirded-out than she actually is (which is not at all).
"Oh. You had...flour on – on your – um – "
Just then, Sam pops up from his cabinet clutching a measuring cup and then says, "Oh."
Lucy hopes he said it because of the current state of his kitchen, and not because Rachel's hands dropped guiltily from her shoulders as soon as he came in sight.
…
By the hums of affirmative coming from both Rachel and Sam, Lucy guesses that the cake is (surprisingly) good, despite having to open another bag of flour to actually have enough to start baking it.
Sam takes his and Rachel's plates over to the sink and starts rinsing them when Rachel calls Lucy's name.
"Hmm?"
"I'm sorry if I – well I know you don't really like to be, um, touched, and if I over-stepped any boundaries or something..."
Lucy wants to tell her that if that's what over-stepping boundaries are, then Rachel can over-step away, but instead she gives her a slight smile and says, "It's okay."
"Okay."
…
She's back home a few hours later, and when she greets her dad when she see's him sitting on the couch, he sighs and says, "Hello."
No where were you all day, no nothing.
Lucy wonders what he would do if she knelt down in front of him and pointed at the slight yellow blots on her face and yelled, "Do you see this? You did this, it's in the shape of your fucking hand."
He'd maybe smack her. Or calmly tell her to go to her room. Or scream and yell (and tell her that young lady's don't use that type of language, and neither do good Christians, and that he doesn't know what she's talking about, those bruises on her face, because he doesn't see anything) until his face was red and angry, like someone's cheek after they've just been slapped.
She's never seen her dad like that. She kind of wants to, because something about her father quivering in rage and sputtering in anger just seems so interestingto her.
But she doesn't. Instead she goes into the kitchen and opens the fridge and is surprised to see a salad with plastic wrap over it with a tiny sticky note bearing her name and a small smiley face.
It's her mom's handwriting, and for some reason imagining Judy scribbling Lucy and (after pausing a second and taking a sip of her wine) a hesitant smiley face makes her lips curve up slightly.
…
It's about 11:30 and she's just drifting off to sleep when she hears something hit the other side of her bedroom wall and shatter. She's wide awake now, and maybe a little bit frightened, because for a few moments it's just deafening silence.
But then there's the low rumble of voices where the shatter just came from, and Lucy creeps over before she presses her ear against the cool plaster and listens.
"God damn it, Russell, that's – " And then their voices quiet down, and it's just a quiet din of words that she can't understand.
She jumps, because there's a roar of "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?" and then an equally loud shriek followed by a harsh smack that makes Lucy gasp and jump away from the wall, heart hammering and hands clenched tightly at her sides.
She's not stupid, not by any means, but when she thinks, and realizes that someone just got hit, and it probably wasn't her mother, her cheek throbs, and something burns in the back of her throat for a second before she runs and slams down next to the toilet in her bathroom.
She's heaving, but nothing's coming out, and her stomach is clenching and a sudden headache is pounding in tandem with her heart and she's thinking oh my god, please help me, God.
She breathing heavy, and she blinks down at the white tile of her bathroom which just suddenly starts spinning, and she doesn't think she's ever felt so sick in her entire life. Then she actually does throw up, and how it makes it into the toilet and not all over her and the floor she'll never know.
…
A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews/alerts.
There will be a kind of sort of change of pace soon (like, next chapter, soon) so...yeah.