Hello again gamers, it is your girl back at it again with another chapter. This one has a healthy serving of angst. This chapter is also a Big Boy which take longer to post because I put off editing them. They tend to happen with Chase and Molly chapters because they're the couple I originally envisioned when starting this and I just love them so much. Warning, this chapter has mentions of postpartum depression and miscarriages. Next chapter should be soon since it's almost done because in my procrastination while editing this, I went a bit ham on the next one. Hopefully you lovelies enjoy! ~Shaymie

Molly

"Eyebrow plucking has to be a form of torture in some country."

Angela scowled as she stepped out of the bathroom, tailed by Julius, Kathy, and Luna. Molly had no clue how the three of them had fit in the tiny bathroom. While she had been busy baking some treats for her sister's date (she eventually decided on strawberry jam cookies, made with strawberries Angela had grown herself), they had all been getting her ready for her date. The hours of work were worth it, because Angela looked absolutely stunning.

Her medium-length hair had been teased into gentle waves and put into an elegant updo. Her make-up was minimal, something that Julius wasn't particularly happy about. Angela had insisted that since it was just Luke, she didn't need that much to impress him. All she'd let Julius and Kathy do was give her some eyeshadow, liner, and blush. Luna later added some peach lip gloss, saying that Angela's chapped lips were in no shape for kissing.

It was the first time in years Molly's seen her sister so embarrassed.

Angela's dress hugged her body well, accenting her toned stomach and well-endowed chest. It was a deep royal blue color, Luna having chosen the color since it was Luke's favorite. Underneath the dress was a pair of stockings. Reina had bought them for Angela as a gift, but she rarely ever wore them. In her ears were two piercings each, birthday gifts from Kasey a few years ago. She never got to wear them since Mikhail didn't approve of them. Apparently they weren't expensive enough for his tastes.

"You clean up well," Kathy grinned, snapping a few pictures of Angela. She was also dressed up for a date, donned in a green dress that complemented her eyes. Molly started packing the cookies into a tupperware container, setting aside a few extra for Maya. She briefly wondered if she should save some for Chase but decided against it. She wanted to make him something from the oranges in the orchard. The cake she'd made him for his birthday was nice, but she wanted to try making more orange desserts and she knew he would be honest with her if they came out bad.

"You say that like I'm always covered in dirt or something." Angela sat down on the couch and put her wedges on. She turned to Molly, a slight frown on her face. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"

"No no, it's fi- okay. I don't wanna get in the way of your date." She snapped the container shut and walked over to her sister, handing it to her with a small smile. She desperately hoped Angela didn't push the situation. She didn't want to go because she was scared of losing it in front of the entire town. She didn't want to cry in front of them. She would much rather stay at home instead. Lucky for her, Angela left it alone. Maybe because there were guests over and she didn't want to embarrass her.

She didn't know what to do with herself.

The house was eerily silent. Angela had moved back in shortly after her break-up with Mikhail, but she was never home. She was always out. Sometimes with Muffy and Reina. Sometimes she was unreachable. Normally their father would chew her out about that, but... he's not here anymore. He's gone. Dead. Thinking about it sent a fresh wave of pain to her chest. It wasn't fair. A work accident took him from them. Some idiot came to work drunk and got on the crane and he didn't hear the others calling out until it was too late.

The company gave them a settlement. Like money would fix it all. Like it would heal the hurt.

"Molly, are you awake?" She poked her head out of her cocoon of blankets at the sound of her cousin's voice. Fritz and his mother had come into town to help with the funeral. He gave her a nervous smile. Fritz was normally bouncing off the walls with energy, but when his attempts at cheering up the Parker siblings failed, his mother told him to tone it down. Molly tugged a blanket around herself as Fritz joined her on the bed, placing a small takeout box in front of her.

"What's this?" she asked, staring down at it numbly. She didn't think it was time for dinner yet. Then again, she hasn't really been keeping track of time. If Kasey didn't come in every day and practically force-feed her, she probably wouldn't even eat. He doesn't know that the food winds up flushed down the toilet half the time. She had originally started purging on Chelsea's advice so she could lose a few pounds but it's become hard to even keep anything down.

"It's cake. I saved some from dinner. I-I thought you could use some." She opened the styrofoam as he spoke and was hit with the rich scent of chocolate. Her mouth watered. It had been months since she's had any kind of dessert. The sweetest thing she's had since starting her diet was a fruit salad, and that was weeks ago. That tiny voice in the back of her head was yelling at her, telling her that she was going to ruin everything. For once she ignored it. Didn't people normally have cheat days?

"Thank you, Fritz."

After her father's death, Fritz was a godsend. Her friends had barely spoken to her, wanting to give her time to herself. Ash tried to be there for her, but she pushed him away. She still regrets those harsh words she'd said to him. He said it was fine and that he knew she was just lashing out because she was hurting, but that doesn't make it better. She hit him where she knew it would hurt out of spite. In fact, part of her had envied him. Even though he barely talked to his father, he still had one. He could call him and speak to him and visit him whenever he wanted.

She had lost that.

But while everyone else had left her alone, Fritz still spent time with her. She couldn't bring herself to kick him out, especially since they rarely saw each other to begin with. He let her pick what they did together. Most of the time they just watched movies, since she didn't feel like talking. He'd join her in her room, arms laden with bowls of popcorn and soda and other snacks that she hadn't let herself indulge in since she started her diet. She rarely managed to stay awake until the end of the movies. Fritz's warmth and the food sitting in her belly almost always lulled her to sleep. If it had bothered Fritz, he never said a thing about it.

I never thanked him for that, Molly thought with a frown as she tied her damp hair up in a bun, rolling her sleeves up as well. She was dressed in another one of Kasey's old sweaters, having treated herself to a bubble bath after Angela left. When Kasey had his big growth spurt in high school, she took most of the clothes he got rid of to use as lounging around clothes. He had nearly a foot on her—5'10 was not six feet, no matter how hard he insisted they were basically the same—so everything was comically big on her and fit on her like an oversized dress.

In the chaos that had been getting Angela ready for her date, Molly had neglected cleaning up the kitchen after she finished baking. She grimaced at the dried flour caking the counter and the dirty dishes piled up in the sink and quickly got to work. She normally kept the kitchen pristine in case inspiration for a new recipe struck her. Most everything she baked came from an original recipe of hers, that she kept jotted down in a binder full of loose leaf paper. She used to use her mother's recipes, but she can't even bring herself to look at them anymore...

It was a bad idea to stay home alone with her thoughts, tonight of all nights.

Even the normally soothing, mundane act of cleaning up the kitchen couldn't keep her mind from drifting off to a terrible place.

She shouldn't have snooped around. She should have just minded her own business and stayed blissfully unaware. But their father's room hadn't been touched in months and she felt awful just leaving it a mess like that. Angela and Kasey couldn't even bring themselves to go anywhere near the room so she took it upon herself to clean it. Fritz had offered to help, but she insisted on doing it herself. She dusted off all the furniture, made the bed, cleaned up the stray clothes laying around. They still hadn't decided what to do with his belongings. As she was cleaning off the bookshelf, she noticed several books that weren't like the others.

Her mother's diaries.

She should have just left them alone.

They always said curiosity killed the cat.

She wasn't sure how long she stayed in her father's room, reading her mother's diary. She had always been curious about who Amber Parker really was, having only seen her in pictures. She didn't even know how she died. She heard the stories Angela and Kasey had about their mother. How sweet and caring she was. How her chocolate chip cookies were the best on the planet. How she gave the best hugs in the universe. From a young age, Molly had always tried to be the embodiment of everything Amber Parker seemingly stood for. Her mother wasn't here anymore, so she'd just have to be like her.

Then she got to some of the later entries, from about a year and a half before she was born.

There was another baby before her. A boy they were planning on naming Kevin. Amber had lost him early in the third trimester. She was devastated, several of the pages still stained from where tears had fallen on them. There were gaps in the entries, ranging from just a few days to months at a time. The entries that were there were brief and vague, only mentioning that the twins were worried about her and that she'd been practically forced to go to therapy.

Then she got pregnant again. A girl this time, Molly. Amber was happy, of course, but there was an underlying anxiety in the entries. Pregnancy should have been exciting, but it was terrifying. She refused to let herself get too excited in case another miscarriage happened. Thankfully it didn't, and in the early days of summer, Molly Rose Parker was born. Angela and Kasey were ecstatic about the baby, arguing over who got to play with her first. Amber should have been over the moon with excitement. But she wasn't.

No matter how hard she tried, Amber couldn't bond with the baby. She couldn't hold her for more than a couple minutes before breaking down into tears. She couldn't even stand to look at her. The doctors diagnosed her with postpartum depression—

"Molly!"

Warm hands, much larger than her own, were on her shoulders. As her vision slowly cleared, she realized that she was hyperventilating. Salty tears fell freely from her eyes, some of them getting into her mouth. Chase was looking down at her, violet eyes wide with concern. When... When did he get here? She was still in the kitchen, but thankfully he had shut off the sink.

Her chest hurt. She talked about a lot of things during her therapy sessions with Dr. Kane, but this was one thing she's kept close to her heart because she didn't even know where to begin with unpacking it all. She tried talking to Chelsea about it, but her former best friend only shut her down, saying that she was ruining the mood. Maybe that should have been the first red flag.

"Molly, say something, you're kinda freaking me out here," Chase pleaded, squeezing her shoulders. That action grounded her. Made it just the tiniest bit easier to breathe. Her nose involuntarily scrunched up as she looked up at him.

"Don't... call me that..." She knew there were bigger things to worry about, like reassuring her friend that she was okay. But she didn't realize how weird it would be to hear Chase call her by her name. She could feel her entire body trembling from nerves and tried to will herself to calm down. Panic attacks tended to trigger her seizures and that's the last thing she needs right now.

"Are you serious right now, Freckles? You're having a panic attack in the middle of your kitchen and you're worried about what I'm calling you?" Chase ran a hand through his hair with a deep sigh, shaking his head. Molly realized that he was also breathing heavily. Though he was trying to seem calm, his hands were shaking. He tugged at his hair and looked down at her. "Are you alright?"

"...I feel kinda dizzy," she murmured after taking a few seconds to assess herself. "And my legs feel like jelly."

It's a miracle she hasn't collapsed yet.

"Hold still." She blinked, a frown on her face. She was about to ask him what for when he suddenly swooped her up into his arms bridal style. She yelped in surprise, her vision blurring with the sudden movement. She looked down with a frown, noticing that she had been standing in a pile of broken glass that somehow miraculously didn't cut her. She must have dropped a plate while she was washing the dishes.

Chase set her on the couch gently. Some foggy part of her brain recalled something similar happening just a little bit ago. She thanked him quietly as he grabbed the broom and dustpan and started cleaning up the mess. He looked at her over his shoulder, an eyebrow quirked curiously. She looked away, gnawing on her bottom lip. Why is it that he keeps seeing her at her worst? First he saw her when she was high off her mind on prescription pills, and now he's seeing the aftermath of a panic attack.

Why did he even agree to be friends with her after seeing what a mess she is?

"I brought some leftovers from dinner," he said, bringing her back from her self-deprecating thoughts. He gestured to a container sitting on the counter. "If you want, we can just watch a movie or something after I finish cleaning up. Unless you wanted to be alone—"

"No!" Her face flushed at her sudden outburst. She cleared her throat. "I... I don't want to be alone tonight. Stay with me. Please."

It was embarrassing how desperate her voice had gotten, but if Chase had any snide comments about it, he kept them to himself. He just went back to sweeping up the mess she made. Molly hugged a throw pillow to her chest, a small frown on her face. She used to be the one who took care of everyone, but now it's the other way around. Ever since her career ended, everyone's been constantly checking to make sure she's okay. She felt... pathetic.

"Freckles..." Chase coughed awkwardly as he finished gathering the last of the glass and tossed it in the trash. She looked up to meet his eyes, surprised to see that he was embarrassed. She's never seen an expression like that on his face before. There was a light dusting of pink on his face, going all the way up to his ears. "I'm not the best at talking. Or dealing with emotions. But you're my... my friend, so if there's anything you need to talk about that you can't with Angela, you can come to me. I'm not used to people trying to be friends with me, but you're... different."

"...Thank you, Chase." She released her bottom lip from between her teeth and gave him a weary smile. They've only known each other for a little while, but it almost feels like she's known him forever. She felt like she could trust him with anything. Unlike most people in town, he didn't care much for gossip. She just knew that any secret she told him would be kept safe. "I was just having a hard time thinking about my parents..."

As Chase got to work warming up the leftovers—mushroom ravioli, his grandfather's recipe, he said—Molly opened up about everything: the loss of her father, the way that their household would have fallen apart if it wasn't for Fritz and Aunt Dee's intervention, the discovery of her mother's diary and how she was meant to just be a replacement baby that turned out utterly useless and only pushed her mother further into depression. She stared down at the plate in her lap with a frown, but thankfully no more tears fell.

"I spent so long trying to be like her, doing what I thought would make her proud. I told Kasey and Angela that it was all my idea, that I wasn't doing it to be like her, but it was pretty obvious..." Molly stabbed a ravioli with her fork and sighed. The movie Chase had put on played forgotten in the background.

"And here I thought my family stuff sucked." Chase set his empty plate on the coffee table, eying Molly's half-eaten plate with a frown. Something about his stare made her quickly pop another ravioli into her mouth. He sighed and leaned back on the couch. "Listen, Freckles, you should talk about this with your siblings. Keeping that shit bottled up isn't healthy. Eventually you're just gonna explode again like you did earlier."

"...What is your family like?"

"Don't change the subject, Freckles." Chase's eyes narrowed at her, his signature scowl back on his face. She put her plate next to his, knowing that there was no way she could eat any more, and pulled her legs up to her chest.

"I'm going to talk to them about it. Promise. It's just... I've been trying for weeks to get to know you better and you always avoid my questions."

"It's not really that exciting a story. My parents decided they didn't want me so they gave me up to one of my mom's friends. She already had a kid so I guess we're like brothers or some shit like that. Her father got custody of us when she realized she couldn't afford to take care of two kids." Chase chuckled under his breath. "If you can believe it, that geezer is the reason I started cooking. I'm not social like Raeger so I'd stay inside with Gramps and help him run the restaurant."

"How old were you when you started helping him?" Molly instinctively leaned in closer, her eyes bright. She couldn't believe she had actually managed to get him to talk about himself. Something about it sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. Chase shrugged and scratched the back of his head.

"I can't really remember. I've been cooking for as long as I can remember. But when Gramps died, he left the restaurant to Raeger. I stayed for a bit, but eventually I decided to come here to study under Yolanda."

Raeger's restaurant... Oh! It suddenly clicked for her. She sat up excitedly, hands clapping together.

"Your brother is Raeger Mathers?" Chase nodded, confused by her sudden enthusiasm. She grinned. "He lives in the same town as my family! My cousin Fritz talks about him all the time! He really looks up to him!"

"Fritz Mills is your cousin? ...Actually, I see the resemblance. Small world." He picked up the remote and looked down at her, a tired look on his face. "I think that's enough of the heavy shit for now. Wanna restart the movie?"

"Sure." Molly settled back on the couch with a sigh. Now that the adrenaline rush from the panic attack was over and she had some time to calm down, she felt exhausted. Chase rewinded the movie back to the beginning. It was one of Angela's, some dumb comedy movie that Molly couldn't remember the name of. As the movie droned on, she felt her eyes start to droop. She fought to stay awake just a little bit longer, but eventually exhaustion won out and her head ended up on Chase's shoulder as she began to doze off.

It might have been her imagination, but the last thing she felt was him hesitantly wrapping an arm around her.