A/N: Short chapter but I already had to change character narrative once, and didn't want to do it for a second time. Sorry for such a gap between updates. Cheers for all your continued support pals.
Lorna vaguely remembers once reading that sadness was nothing but the absence of happiness. It was probably in a text book or something at school; very little of what she studied (when she studied... which wasn't often) really went in, but sometimes the most irrelevant of passages would stick with her.
Whoever had wrote that particular article had obviously never experienced real sadness.
It's not that she's 'sad', exactly, but she can't put a name on what it is, and it's the only word that comes anywhere near to how she feels most of the time. What does she have to be sad about, anyway? She has a beautiful girlfriend (the word still feels foreign on her lips) who loves her. Who really loves her. A family who are trying their hardest to understand that the girl they watched go off to prison three years ago, and the woman who lives with them now, is not necessarily the same person, but who love her all the same. She doesn't have a job, but she also doesn't have bills to pay.
She has plenty of reasons to be happy. Nicky gives her new reasons every single day. And she is happy, sometimes. Sometimes, when she lies in bed, Nicky sleeping soundly beside her, she stares up at the ceiling and all she can think about is how much better everything is now, how lucky she is to have been given a second chance. The love she finds in Nicky's eyes, in the way she watches her when she thinks she's not looking, that tell-tale smirk tugging at the corner of her lips, makes her happier than she could have ever imagined being, even in her wildest dreams.
Sadness can't be an absence of happiness, because she is happy, but it's still there. She knows it can't be an absence of anything, or it wouldn't be so consuming. She wouldn't feel like it was swallowing her whole on her bad days, lingering in the back of her mind like a bad smell on the good ones.
Nicky asks her for about the tenth time to move in.
It's been almost a month since she got out, and admittedly, she's spent at least seventy percent of her time at the apartment, but the thought of making it official makes Lorna's head spin.
Against her better judgement – or, maybe, because of – she says yes. She can't help but notice the way Nicky's whole face lights up, even if she swallows the expression after seconds, buries it under her usual casual demeanour. It's still there, even for the briefest time. She covers it up with a joke, something dirty that Lorna rolls her eyes at, but it still makes her feel warm inside.
Breaking the news to her family, however, is something else entirely.
"I really don't think it's a good idea, Lorn," Franny says, and she's trying to be diplomatic – there's a kindness in her eyes, in the way she gently lays a hand on her sister's knee, in the gentleness of her voice – but all Lorna can think of is that first day, that conversation between her and Mikey that she overheard, that word. The word she's heard her father mutter under his breath, the word that fills the room once she's left it, the word that her father finally uses to her face to try and stop her from going.
"God-fucking-damnit Lorna. What is the matter with you? Did your ma and I not raise you right? You wanna ditch a perfectly lovin' home to shack up in some dyke's loft? That it?"
"Pops..."
"No, Francesca, you butt out of this for a minute will ya? I have had it. I have sat back and let youparade this new... perversion of yours for weeks, not sayin' nothing because you're my baby girl and I was just glad to have you back in one piece, but I'm not gonna let you ruin your life over some druggie lesbian whore, not whilst I'm still livin' and breathin'. Your ma would be turning in her fuckin' grave, you know that Lorna? You think your ma would be proud of her little girl the pervert?"
Lorna, tears in her eyes, juts out her chin, swallows, puts on a brave face, says in her strongest voice: "I'm not really sure she'd be proud of any of us."
If she wasn't sure about moving out before, she is now. She goes straight to her room and packs a bag, ignores Franny knocking on her bedroom door, trying to coax her out. There's not much to take with her; she hasn't replaced the clothes she threw out, got rid of practically everything. She chucks everything she does have into a duffle bag, along with the music box her mom gave her when she was ten, one of her stuffed toys, her make-up bag. Her toothbrush and everything's still in the bathroom, but she has a spare at Nicky's, and she doesn't want to waste any time. She pulls on her favourite boots and leaves the rest of her shoes piled up in the bottom of the wardrobe.
She has to push past Franny who is standing on the other side of her door. She ignores her dad's shouting when she crosses the lounge, ignores Franny's attempts to get her to stay. She fixes her bag firmly on her shoulder, and walks down the street faster than she thinks she's ever walked before in her life, and she keeps walking, not really sure where she's going, but needing to be as far away as possible.
Eventually, she calls Nicky to pick her up. She's proud of herself because she isn't crying, isn't already rethinking her decision. She's stayed strong. This is progress, she thinks. She might feel like she's walking away from an explosion, but she's walking with her head held high, and she's not stumbling, and that's progress.
"Are you sure you've got everything?" Nicky asks, sceptically, when Lorna dumps her bag onto the backseat and climbs into the front.
"Yeah. It's just stuff, y'know? I don't need stuff."
It's easy to become used to not having much when you've been in prison for three years. Materialistic things become unimportant. Besides, Nicky spent years going from hotel to hotel without stuff, so she gets where she's coming from, doesn't address the subject again, and they drive most of the way in silence.
"Something happened, didn't it?" Nicky finally says, cutting the awkward silence that's been lingering between them, "with your family? What happened?"
"I don't wanna talk about it."
"Look, I didn't mean to start somethin' up between you and them, y'know, I just wanted to-"
"I don't want to talk about it, Nick."
Nicky glances at her, frowns, "hey, I'm not the enemy here, kid. Come on. Talk to me. I thought we promised we'd talk things through from now on?"
Shrinking back against the window, resting her forehead on the glass, Lorna nods, squeezes her eyes closed. For the first time since she walked out, her actions actually register properly, and she starts to wonder if she made the right choice. Maybe there's some truth in her father's words. The Lorna who is sitting in her girlfriend's car is so unrecognisable from the Lorna who went to prison, the Lorna who wound her parents up with singing out of tune in their living room every day since she was six years old, the Lorna who crawled into bed with her mom after having a bad dream at night, the Lorna who would do anything her big sister said even if it meant getting into trouble. Even when she'd gone to prison, her family had still been there for her, hadn't they? Is it really the right thing to do, to turn her back on them?
She looks at Nicky. She tries to imagine how anyone can see Nicky and think the things her father does. She tries to imagine anyone saying a bad word about this beautiful, tender, funny woman, and actually meaning it. She watches her, the way her teeth worry at her bottom lip as she drives, the way her fingers tap against the steering wheel purely out of habit. Her hair's extra fluffy, and she isn't wearing any make up, not even her usual coats of mascara, and she looks so beautiful that it makes Lorna feel warm inside. Of all the people on earth, Nicky is hers, she's chosen her. And if her family doesn't understand that, doesn't want to be a part of that, then that's their loss.
At the back of her mind, a voice is telling her that this isn't going to last, that nothing beautiful ever lasts in Lorna's life, that one day the weariness in Nicky's voice, the tired look that sometimes drifts over her, will consume her, and Lorna will have nothing, nobody.
For once, she's strong enough to ignore it.
"We should go out someplace. See a movie. Have dinner," she says, her demeanour changing. Lorna stares at Nicky, at the way her whole face lights up when she smiles, how her nose scrunches slightly. She visibly relaxes, glances again at Lorna.
"Yeah? Where do you wanna go? Your choice. After all, you are my new housemate."
Nicky shouldn't have let her choose the movie.
Of course, she picks a romantic comedy that does absolutely nothing to stimulate Nicky's mind whatsoever. In fact, she spends most of the time watching Lorna, fascinated by how she can look so adorable whilst shovelling such huge handfuls of popcorn into her mouth. The movie theatre is practically empty, and Nicky can't stop herself from taking advantage. She wraps her arm around Lorna's shoulders, and when she feels her relax, lean against her, snuggle up, she lets her hand fall to the girl's breast, doesn't let go even when Lorna squeaks, tries half-heartedly to slap her hand away. She's nostalgic for the old days, where groping Lorna in 'public' (as public as the hallways at Litchfield were) was second nature. Even before prison, she wasn't exactly a stranger to PDA, to put it mildly. But Lorna's different, so she's behaving herself. Sort of.
When they leave, Lorna won't shut up about the film, but Nicky isn't annoyed because it's that dumb passion inside her that she's missed. She's actually missed Lorna talking full pelt about things she couldn't care less about. It's good to have a reminder of the old Lorna, to know she's still in there, to know that not absolutely everything has changed.
She has been better lately. She's still quiet compared to how she was, but when Nicky thinks about it, she realises that maybe that's an unfair analysis to make. In Litchfield, there were so many people, so many different things going on at once; maybe Lorna was always this quiet and Nicky just didn't notice.
She's loud when they're alone; when they're on the couch and Nicky tickles her just to make her squeal, or when she's singing in the shower, or shouting at some stupid soap opera on TV. She's loud when she's telling Nicky that she loves her, and when she's moaning her name between kisses.
They get take out, and go home – to their home, now – and Lorna reminds her just how loud she can be, over and over until they're too tired to function, and fall asleep, a tangle of sweaty limbs and bed sheets.
She promises Lorna she's going to help her get better, but she realises that she has no idea how to do that. She meant it, when she said it, meant it with her whole heart. Of course she did. But the reality is that she can't do it by herself. She doesn't know what she's doing.
After some deliberation, she decides one night, with Lorna fast asleep, to attempt googling it. Nicky's the kind of person who rolls her eyes at people's reliance on technology, but at the same time, will spend four hours reading about something ridiculous like whale genitalia on wikipedia. Google has been her friend for a long time, assisting in various late night research sessions, but never anything this important. She spends a good ten minutes deciding what on earth she should even be typing into the search bar.
Mental health is scary. This isn't news, but the articles are endless and with each new one she reads, a new concern grows. She looks at anxiety, depression, personality disorders, delusional psychosis; tries to go through the symptoms and analyse what sounds like Lorna and what doesn't. But it's impossible. Lorna has never been open enough about what's going on inside her head, and all this information does nothing but make her panic.
She's leaning her head back, eyes closed, surrounded by scribbles and snacks, when Lorna walks into the room.
"Nick? Whatcha doin' in here?"
Lorna sounds groggy, still half asleep. She's wearing one of Nicky's t-shirts and nothing else, and her hair is a mess of dark almost-curls. Nicky smiles wearily at her, puts her laptop away, welcomes her into her lap on the couch.
"I couldn't sleep," Nicky mumbles, pressing her lips into Lorna's hair as she settles against her, "you okay, kid?"
"Yeah, just wasn't expecting to wake up without you, that's all,"
She can tell Lorna's still sleepy because her words are slower than usual, and she's using the same voice she usually teases Nicky in, a dopey little smile on her face. It's nice. She seldom looks so carefree anymore. Maybe her moving in really was the best decision; she's becoming more and more the old Lorna every day.
Nicky has to remind herself that the 'old' Lorna wasn't exactly mentally stable, either.
Making herself comfortable, Lorna wriggles so her head is resting on Nicky's chest, and as much as Nicky enjoys the closeness, she's too close to the jagged scar that runs between her breasts, and it's uncomfortable.
"Man you have a pointy chin, Morello," she mumbles, and Lorna immediately moves, lays the side of her face flat against her skin instead, looks up at her with apologetic eyes.
"I like bein' able to hear your heart beatin'"
The corner of Nicky's mouth flicks up into a half-smile and she nods, "yeah... me too. It's good to know I've still got one."