Ayo, I've been super excited to get started on this story! I thought about doing a Post-Covid story surrounding the kids for a long time. Thank you for all the support!
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Ear buds blasted indie rock into developing ears as girlish eyes stared above at her bedroom ceiling. Long thick and often flat chestnut brown hair fanned along her disheveled white pillow with precious freckles dotting her cheeks and trailing across her nose bridge on against pale porcelain skin. The girl cute in picture, tragic in more than one unbearable way in her twisted day-to-day life.
The tennis ball she caught from another toss-up hit the already chipping ceiling, nearing her 'Hang in there' cat on a tree branch poster hanging flat-side facing down. The irony slapping her in the face as she heard the front door of her Denver apartment slam close.
"Lilah!"
She lifted her torso upward, hoping to get a few hours of silence in while she got her homework done early. If she was lucky she could've had a lonesome dinner by herself. She adjusted the fallen straps of her bluejean overalls falling down her white and purple striped tee and rolled at the ankle cuffs over her white sneakers. The closer the sound of rapid heels approached, the more she picked at the colorful pins and smiley face buttons she decorated her overall strap with.
Her door nearly fell off the hinges from the scuffed stiletto heel kicking it in. Attached to the long legs of the voluptuous platinum blonde with brown low-rise leather pants matching her brown and gold-strap six inches. Her leapord print cami barely covered the cleavage spilling from her showing hot-pink bra with heart shines along the straps. Gold earring hoops to match that framed a skinny, pointy-chinned face with a fresh layer of fake tan over her natural pale skin.
"What're you doing here?!"
Her daughter pulled the earbuds out, her music now a faint background against the bedsheets. "I don't-"
"What. The fuck. Are you doing here?! You were supposed to be out!"
Lilah planned to head to City Park to feed the ducks while they were still about before winter. Only to find the area under construction and the birds temporarily moved. So much for having a single happy place in this whole city.
"I changed my mind.." Lilah instead said.
"I'm supposed to have Johnny over! If you made any friends this wouldn't be a problem!"
Lilah pulled her phone aside, numbing out the berating.
"Do you avoid being a normal kid just so I have to deal with you?!"
The little girl couldn't deal with the exhaust after another day barely getting through the group of girls at her downtown school that insisted on tormenting her. It was enough to come home to the same type of mean girl but in an adult form.
"If you want dinner you better make it before he gets here."
Her door slammed at the same time Lilah threw herself back onto her mattress, turning her song up to max.
"Ella, hold still."
Heidi tried to keep the squirming six-year-old still on her lap. Raking a storm of red curls aside to part her hair neatly where her mother could clip in the yellow bow clip. The little girl requested it specifically to go with her special dress, but Heidi often was reminded how easily a child's mind could be changed. Especially her over-electrifying first-grader Ella Brofvloski.
"It hurts!" She complained.
Heidi gave up, carefully brushing it out of her curls. The mother always had flatter hair since she was a girl herself. So learning how to maintain both her children's auburn-red mess of curls was definitely an additional challenge as their mother.
"Then no matching with your dress."
Ella firmly considered it, and Heidi knew her decision would be flipped on its head once again. "I want the bow."
Her mom sighed despite her small smile, trying to part Ella's curls and carefully digging the bow's clip in again.
"Ow!"
The man she possessed that red-head gene from entered then, in his usual day-to-day work attire of an orange jacket over his light green tee. Paired with his forest-green dress pants and brown oxfords. Grinning through that full-grown beard that was always Heidi's favourite feature of his.
"He's in the zone," Kyle couldn't help but enthuse. "Gonna knock it out of the park."
With their eldest kid speaking that night in front of the entirety of South Park Elementary and parents combined for October's Mental Health Awareness week, both parents couldn't hide their pride. Kyle especially who always knew his son Adam would have a knack for public speaking like him.
Heidi shifted her daughter off her lap, letting her scurry out of the room. "Kyle."
"Heidi?" Her husband retorted sitting close to her. He was unshakeable when in such a giddy mood.
"Don't overwhelm him."
It was a blessing and a curse seeing themselves in their children. Adam may have been the spitting image of Kyle in more than just face, but Heidi saw herself in him too. And not always the version of herself she adored when Adam was easily riddled to a similar anxiety as her own. Especially when speaking in front of an auditorium of people.
"Do we need to dress for this thing?" Heidi looked down at her own day clothes. Her usual oversized pear-green turtleneck hanging loosely over her black skinny jeans. Accessorized with her go-to dark fuschia mesh flats and tear-drop red earrings. Tucked away underneath her long grown ashy brown locks she kept in it's usual low-maintenance floppy ponytail with loose curtain bangs framing her oval ivory face and button nose.
"We're just fine. I'm not gonna wanna stick around with PC longer than I have to," Kyle spoke of his boss and their children's principal. The man had a shorter temper than he did compared to when they were students.
Heidi could tell this night was stressing out Adam and that never made it fun for him. "We owe him an ice cream for being brave."
Kyle hugged her tightly by the shoulder, melting that stress slightly by a kiss on the cheek. "Him or you?"
"Ha, ha."
Lilah pushed her unfinished bowl of Kraft Dinner further on her bedside. She hated for dishes to stay out long in her room for longer than necessary, but unfortunately it was a common occurrence when banished to her room with no interruptions. Part of her wondered if she could reach the fire escape from her window with enough reach. Then again, a kid splattered on the sidewalk from a third-floor fall was probably not on her mother Sasha's list of things to deal with.
The music booming from the living room received a few noise complaints from the old woman below by the sound of her broom hitting her ceiling and Lilah's bedroom floor. Since Sasha slept through most of the day, Lilah was usually on the receiving end of those complaints despite how little the girl couldn't really assure it wouldn't happen again. She wasn't gonna lie to a poor old woman. With Sasha and Jack..John..whatever his name was a few bottles and lines deep, they probably started having sex on the couch while it wasn't even ten o'clock yet. Lilah decided she better get some sleep before tomorrow's science quiz on the earth's systems. Science was her favourite subject and if she admitted that the praise her teacher gave to her somewhat lifted a confidence she hardly recognized in herself for years.
Still, even she knew her mother's sex noises could outdo the top volume of music she usually played to try and blur it out. With no human interaction buzzing underneath, Lilah figured maybe Sasha sent the guy packing with blue balls. It was a curse that she knew what that meant.
Lilah looked for her PJs as uncoordinated footsteps approached her room, figuring her mother was about to drunkenly bust in and cry more tears over another failed date. Lilah would keep quiet and listen. The last time she tried to intervene she got a backhand from her mom for being high and mighty about a situation she hardly understood.
The cloud of alcohol and cologne that entered instead startled Lilah. Attached to the tall, dark and handsome guy in leather and jeans Lilah hardly recognized but figured was the newest of her mother's.
"I knew she was hiding another bitch..back.."
Falling flat on his face, Lilah stepped back as nearly became a pancake. The whiff of his cologne no longer blocked the other scent she'd thought was just the amount of cigarettes they had before it was mixed with a burning fabric smell.
Hell in a fucking handbasket.
She dashed past the fallen. She shoved her way down the hall to where the music led her and the small fire beginning to blanket over the alcohol-soaked carpet from the abandonned cigarette. Sasha topped off with another line of coke over her lip as she stared blankly at the ceiling from where she laid on the couch. Barely flinching by Lilah's shake of her shoulders.
"Mom!" She cried, shaking Sasha with fingers digging into her slipping bra straps. "MOM! FIRE!"
"Shut up.." Sasha tried swatting her off with no real lift in her arms.
"MOM, PLEASE!" Lilah screeched in fear of the flames igniting by the trail of booze. "You threw the fire extinguiser out-!"
Her reddened eyes sharpened. "Sleep with him instead, you little slut...he's not leaving without a dick-in.."
She cried as she scrambled over her mother, tugging on her wrist to get her up. Barely making it as her mother fell on top of her stomach-first and Lilah yelped.
Lilah never bothered to explain to anyone that male visitors and her mother's rage were often the reason she would barricade her doors. She a man like that was looking for more sex when Sasha didn't deliver. Lilah would spend her whole life locked in her room if Sasha didn't get semi-use out of her using her daughter as a charity case for more money on random escapades. Afterward leaving her daughter home weeks at a time while she went to go spend her new money, only to come back with another dangerous man. No batted eyes. No care. Not since Lilah was five and Sasha saw her as less cute and not the mini-Sasha she'd always hoped for.
Unable to lift the weight of the woman off her, neighbours started to pound on the door as Lilah cried for help.
Heidi let go of Ella's hand as she went to sit with some other first-graders in the school auditorium. The mother and her husband looked over the crowd to search for the other couple they expected to be there tonight. As a spiky-haired blond in green waved them over with his dark-haired, blue-clad husband with the aging hairline next to him, they began scooting through the crowd.
"Big turn out." Heidi observed.
"Hey, guys." Craig greeted, offering the two seats next to him and Tweek. As Kyle and Heidi took them, they looked once more to make sure Ella hadn't run off too far. "Exciting night."
Heidi nodded. "Adam can hardly breathe, he's so nervous."
"I know that feeling," Tweek agreed, remembering a performance or two he'd done in this auditorium. "But, good for him for being so socially defiant at a young age."
"That's our boy," Kyle felt it was only fair to gloat. "When the debate club voted him best presenter for Mental Health Week, he was a shoe-in for tonight."
Maybe part of it being his field of work and it being his kid, but Kyle had an unshakeable pride about him over this. Heidi smiled his way, his excitement aas always so adorable.
"And Remi's performing tonight," Heidi wanted to add to the two proud fathers.
Craig exchanged a happy look with his husband, anticipating the performance of their daughter. "Her and the rest of choir, I didn't know there was a surplus choice of mental health songs out there to sing about."
Heidi chuckled before her husband nudged her arm to warn her of the storm approaching behind her. As a group of chattering moms nearby with plastic-looking hair and flapping big lips got her attention.
"Oh, no.."
"Heidiiiii!"
Heidi groaned inwardly as the dads snickered at her distress. She got up to meet the moms she was never really close to due to their extreme judgement. One time Heidi's bakesale cupcakes aren't moist enough and boom. She's an outcast to the snooty-moms club she never signed up for in the first place.
"Heidi, sweetheart," a blonde gushed with a cheek kiss exchanged. "Loved that last post on your blog. You're such a wit!"
Heidi chuckled with slight embarrassment. Even it being her career, she was never fully used to compliments on her writing. "I didn't think you read my blog."
"Oh, Cheryl introduced me. Didn't you, Cher?"
"I told Tif that you wrote the funniest thing about weddings-gone-wrong. What'd you call that one, again?"
She giggled fakely. "'My Big Fat Bullshit Wedding.' I wanted to bring back bashing parents and in-laws, somehow."
Tiffany grinned all thirty-two of her white veneers. "Personally, I thought that one was a little dry. Kind of like your cupcakes!"
A chorus of obnoxious laughter and Heidi could only smile awkwardly at being seen with the school's PTA she-devils.
From backstage, a small hand parted the heavy show curtain to observe the building crowd. Red auburn hair like his little sister's but cut short with a go-to long dark blue shirt he wore over his regular blue jeans. Trying to look as natural and honest as he could for his speech.
"I dunno about this, dude.."
Looking over at his best friend, a crew-cut brune and peach-faced Liam Donovan, Adam nervously pleaded for help.
"It's fine, say some dumb stuff about anti-depressants and you're good," the fellow fourth-grader insisted.
"It's not about anti-depressants, it's about recognizing therapy benefits from a young age," Adam tried before he huffed. "Whatever, let's just get this over with."
"Those sixth-graders are gonna make fun of you for kissing-ass to your dad, again."
Adam rolled his eyes. "Don't remind me..he's got such a boner for this stuff.."
Both the juvenile fourth-graders cackled, as an aged PC Principal came by them sternly. "Enough of the chuckles, boys. This is a serious subject matter."
"Sorry, sir.."
The adult gave Adam a small nudge. "When I announce you, that's your cue to come take the podium."
The principal went on stage to get the crowd to quiet as the boys watched from the wings. The old man took center stage with a mic firm in hand as he tapped on it to get the overhead speakers to thud in anouncement.
"Alright, everybody, listen up," PC started. "Welcome to our Mental Health Awareness Week assembly. We have a few students lined up who have dedicated their performances and presentations to spreading the word across all elementary schools in America. But before we get into it, we have last year's debate club finals winner here to give us a firm explanation of the benefits of starting therapy from a young age and how it creates a healthy conversation. If Adam Brofvloski would join us on stage."
Adam clutched his cue cards and left the dark of the wings upon his cue, entering the stage lights blinding him from seeing the source of his applause. As he came and awkwardly placed his notes on the podium with a stepping stool in place, he adjusted the mic PC hooked in for him. Coughing to clear his throat as the audience he was glad he could barely see calmed to quiet.
"Um.." the eldest Brofvloski child started. "I guess you know what I'm here to talk about.."
Heidi chortled, as did Kyle. It was a good day to be proud of him. In moments as such, Heidi had the utmost gratefulness that both her children had no problem being their best selves in their own skin. Her lovebugs. Her bugs, she called them since Adam was born.
"Our bugs.." she whispered softly.
Kyle hummed in happy agreement as Heidi nestled her head into the crook of his neck.
Backstage, PC watched with crossed arms as Adam continued on subject. Planning to lay low between announcing each student though he was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. Turning to his long-life partner and co-worker Vice Principal Strong Woman.
"They're here."
"What, now?" He brought her further away from where the audience could hear. "We're in the middle of an assembly."
"They gotta discuss it now, I'll take over if need be."
PC sighed, following his wife out of the auditorium side doors to where the social workers waited where Strong Woman had led them. One of them happily greeted the heads of the school with the usual charm these types of workers were trained to maintain. With kids mostly, that is.
"I'm sorry to interrupt. We called the front office about a temporary student transfer with our set-up?"
PC shook their offered hands. "Uh, yeah. We'll make it a happy welcome. Do we know the family?"
The worker opened the kid's file. "They told us over the phone the Cartman name has a history in your school record."
A whole other night passed when it was set in motion and far out of his control.
He was getting through his fifth relapse when social services called him about his only kid in custody. He couldn't let his pill of an AA sponsor know he had a few drinks after a bad shift again. And since Kevin McCormick decided to give Eric Cartman a chance at working at the auto-shop, the once-homeless bastard couldn't afford losing community-housing at this rate. It was a shitty enough apartment as is.
His sponsor left with the full pack of beer Cartman unwillingly hung over only for his ex-wife to call from Denver right after. Still in his blue button-down and cargo pants shop uniform with a thick-lettered 'Eric' yellow nametag sewn into the peck. A faint grey stubble across his rather large face and disheveled chestnut hair with againg grey at the sideburns, as he fell into the beated loungechair stinked with his last cigarette. The whole, grey-carpeted, stain-walled place smelled like an ashtray. How else could he ease the headaches and bad nightmares when he was sworn off from a drink?
"She's better off in custody.." Cartman muttered into his phone, not liking what his ex implied.
"The commercial won't let us audition when they find out I let CPS take her! It looks bad on their casting!"
Sasha always had fixations that were better-spent time than watching their kid. The latest; Local commercials to make an easy buck. "And I should care about your untalented non-career, why?"
"UH! You're one to talk!" She screeched. "The court date is in a few months."
"I'm not taking her for a few months. And I'm not taking her when your ass loses. It's a stupid idea."
"Relax. My lawyer will win her back over whatever shit representation you get. I need Lilah for the Nestea Commercial audition, they take mother-daughter duos with cash right up-the-fuck front, baby!"
Cartman snorted. "That's gay. Who's the mother and who's the daughter?"
"Just watch her, you pig. And don't bottle feed her any beer, I don't need her coming back to the city a junkie like her old man."
She hung up before any details could be given on just when the hell CPS would be contacting him. He threw his hand-me-down cell to the equally browning couch, leaning as far back as his lounge would let him.
If she thought this was a gateway to a better life, Lilah Cartman better not get her hopes up.
To be continued...