#i cannot go to work and walk 6+ dogs and clean up after 37 puppies while feeling like this

[threnodians]

when i feel like absolute trash garbage i either listen to hozier or kendrick lamar which. are two extremely different genres. but hey, both make me feel better and that’s what’s important

[hollywoodx4]

Sticking with the Schuylers (43)

Hi to all of the new readers who’ve just caught up...I don’t know where you’ve all come from but thank you so much for taking that time (all that time omg) to read this series. :) And as always for your lovely comments because they make me so happy I can’t even believe it.

 1  2  3  4   5   6   7   8   9   10   1112   I  13  14   15   16   17   18A  18B   18CI  19   20   21   22   23   24   25  26   27  28   29   I  30  31  32 33 34 3536  37  38  39 40  41  42  I  

Tagging: @linsnavi  @butlinislin @adothoe

Warnings: This story is pretty heavy on mentions of both physical and emotional abuse.

The yellow wallpaper had always been a bit much in this room; once spacious for an apartment, the girls’ back bedroom was closed off by bunk beds and clothes that littered the floor. The sunny yellow had been a forced compromise between soft pink, radiant purple, and electric orange in a conflict that just could not be solved. Shoving three girls into one room was far harder than the three boys across the hall. The Laurens boys had agreed on nearly everything when they were younger, from paint color to room arrangement to what time the lights would go off at night. Whether or not the male agreement had come from Luis’s forceful older brother style only the boys knew.

With Valeria’s girls, nearly everything had been an argument. Amaia, as the oldest, felt as if her vote in these matters counted more. She was always busy with her studies and her older friends, so much so that she'd often kick her two younger sisters out of the room to have ‘well-deserved privacy.’ Mari had just wanted to please everybody, as long as their opinion would include her small unicorn nightlight by the doorway. She could not sleep without it, and as much as the glow annoyed the older girls there was no sense in arguing with fear.

Emily had always been the headstrong one; she had no time for the arguments of others. If something annoyed her, she would be the first to let her sisters know. When it came time for a remodel of the bedroom they were severely outgrowing she'd made a compelling argument in favor of the orange paint she so loved, one which went in one of her mother’s ears and out the other. She had been listening to the fighting all day; they’d translated it to their play with their dolls and spat crumbs of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at each other. If the sisters couldn't agree, then Valeria would choose.

Tweety Bird yellow was the first sign of failure seven year old Emily had faced. She helped to paint with a scowl on her face which only grew in its stormy size when Amaia admitted how much she ended up admiring the color, and when Mari dutifully placed her unicorn nightlight back in its place. She still hated the color, even after Valeria let her choose orange sheets, or Mari gave her the bottom bunk so that she could build herself a little alcove. The walls were still glaringly, stupidly yellow, and nothing she said could change that fact.

She still hates the color of the room.

Emily no longer loves electric orange, at least not as much as she had as a child-definitely not so much as to paint a wall with the color. The walls in her own apartment are a standard white, a few smatterings of brick exposed here and there. The plainness of it all is a clear juxtaposition to the sea green sofa and red armchair and eclectic side-of-the-road furniture that make the living room pop with screams of mismatched color. It is still better than canary yellow, soft and unapologetic. Her slightly broken bedside lamp is far superior to Mari’s unicorn nightlight (which is still plugged in to the girls’ room at the Laurens’s, much to Emily’s chagrin). And all of it; her currently obnoxious roommates, the lack of privacy, the aggravating commute to the NYU campus…everything is better in comparison to putrid yellow.

Although this night, this back-and-forth with John, comes close to winning that space of annoyance.

Her brother is honest. From the moment she’d been able to walk, Emily had known that fact. Back then, when she was a follower to his sandbox adventures, he’d often wave her away with a roll of his eyes. She was too much for him; too clingy and too little and comparatively a lot to handle. She likes to think back on these moments, to remind him of those days as if they are completely over. That pull toward her Irish twin brother is not that intense anymore. She’d far outgrown her puppy-dog ways and hair in pigtails and bows. What she hasn’t outgrown, however, is her need for his guidance-whether she’d like to admit it or not.

               John puts around the apartment, shuffling in front of the couch with a spring in his step. The freckles that dot his cheeks lift and pull along with them, in a dance that taunts her with its unrelenting optimism. Emily’s posture slouches on the couch, so much so that her head is now resting on the cushion. Her feet, adorned in mismatched black and white socks, are propped on the coffee table so that the space between her hips and her toes is suspended in the air. She crosses her arms over her chest, drawing out a long and heavy sigh as he crosses her path once more.

               “You’re going to run out of oxygen with all of that sighing, you know.”

               “Shut up, John.” There’s a change in his eyes, one that is immediately noticeable although Emily can only see the corners of his eyes. It’s a filament flash, flickering in a burst only long enough to bring attention to itself. And then it dies, dissipates slowly although its bright and teasing warmth remains a stain on her vision as he wheels around to look at her.

               “I mean it, this is serious stuff-you might want to lose that attitude before all of this drama kills you.”

               “Okay, mom.”

               “Emmy,”

               “-Could you just shut the hell up and clean your apartment, please? Let me enjoy this peace before the ‘Little Women’ get here.” Her eyes are dark and laden with an unrelenting sarcasm that comes through the way they roll in her head; from the way that cynicism seeps through the alto tone of her voice as she attempts to win the argument. If she hadn’t been dragged here under the false pretense of just getting drunk with John and Alex, there would be nothing she’d have to win. After being lied to so outright, however, there is so much to make up for.

               Emily Laurens cannot see past the lie; there were seemingly no intentions in John’s mind other than attempting to fool her into thinking this night would be an easy, fun little getaway from the chaos her life had currently driven her into. That had been fine. She’d been excited for that. This next layer adds in an entirely new level of annoyance she hadn’t been expecting. Sitting on the couch waiting for an unsolicited night of socialization makes her blood boil and her body ache with anxious tension. She had never been one for surprises, or even socialization for that matter. John is well aware of the fact. He’s known his sister’s aversion to new situations for her entire life. This doesn’t seem to matter now, while he sends her optimistic grins every so often as they wait for their guests to arrive.

               The sisters are first, much to Emily’s dismay. They file into the room in a poetic synchronization that is almost sickening for her to witness. Angelica leads them, making their entrance by holding the door for her sisters and sending a loud greeting through the room. Eliza is next, holding a platter with some form of pastry that she brings straight to the kitchen. Then she’s saying hello to everyone individually. Her pause is brief with Lafayette, who nods before turning away from her completely. With John she stays much longer, spending a deal of time whispering in his ear. Emily crosses the apartment to greet her, shaking her hand with a bright smile and a warmth that sends John back a few steps. It is a bit taxing, the show she is putting on, but the way she makes herself radiate positivity is not hard when she feels it coming from every portion of Eliza’s being. Whether that positivity is as genuine as the public makes it out to be is an entirely different analytical nightmare-one she’d rather discuss with Alex than his ‘work the room’ girlfriend.

               The last through the door is Peggy-Emily can just barely make out her head of springy coils as she bounds through the door behind her sisters, her voice loud and raucous and immediately calling for Hercules. She makes herself comfortable almost as easily as Eliza had, kicking her feet up on the ottoman, her frame dwarfed as she curls herself into Herc’s side to show him something on her phone.

               There isn’t a word to describe the sensation that wraps itself around Emily’s body, coiling and twisting and fighting herself in such a raucous way that she pauses mid-conversation with John in an attempt to gather her thoughts. He calls her name, a quiet echo that doesn’t quite reach her well enough to resonate, or pull her from her state of shock. A soft canary yellow-failure-adorns Peggy’s waffle-knit sweater, which is far oversized with the way it dips down just above her knees. She tucks her legs under one another, taking a sip from Lafayette’s cup as her voice bounces off of the walls with a jovial sort of freedom. Emily scoffs, turning to her brother as her own hair flips over her shoulder in soft waves, an accidental embodiment of her own annoyance.

               “Can I just go? I mean you guys are pretty evenly matched now, I’d say. Why make the numbers uneven?”

               “Alex is still coming.” His voice is low, and although he completely ignores her requests she knows what his answer will be. It isn’t as if he would hold her hostage here in this tiny apartment, or force her to do anything at all. The door is only a few footsteps away, and with a good enough excuse she wouldn’t make a complete ass of herself if she just slipped away before the party even started. But then there is John…her brother, her closest friend. He pats her shoulder and nods, as if he knows the thoughts that are running through her mind at that very moment. His own collected energy moves through her in waves that keep her grounded to the floor. And then he knows, he’s aware of the fact that while she may not want to stay, she certainly doesn’t want to go back to her apartment right now. This is what he uses to tether her here. Her brother is too smart for her sanity.

               He pours her the drink of the night, concocted by Hercules after a binge of Food Network shows that had, by some magnificent stretch of fate, drastically improved his skills in the kitchen. This drink he totes proudly along, standing by the kitchen urging the newcomers to fill their glasses from the slow cooker. None of the roommates are sure where the device had come from, but Herc had pulled it out and dusted it off early this morning. It filled the room with the aromatic scent of apples and citrus and cinnamon, one that filled mugs and kept their company warm with its temperature (and the salted caramel vodka).

               “This is what you’ve been raving to me about all these years?” Emily smirks as she remembers the calls. Even from the first year of college, back when he’d lived in his crappy shared jail cell of a dorm with Alex and a communal bathroom, game night is something he’d talked very highly about. She’d never come before-back then, it had been strictly a guy’s night. She’d always wondered what the hype had been about. Now, she is able to witness it. John is a lax, leaned back presence within it all, sipping on his drink and letting the warmth of the room wash over him.

               “Yes.”

“So…you sit and get drunk and play video games?”

               “Basically.”

               “Well, now I can say I’ve seen it all. Nerd.” It’s a warm word, spoken with the affection shown through a roll of her eyes and a brush of her knuckles on his hair, ruffling loose tendrils away from its ponytail. He shoves her toward the couches then, plopping her down in an empty spot before sitting on the arm next to her.

               “Go. Socialize. Forget about her. Have fun.” Emily turns to see her forced company, expression flat and unchanging as she’s met once again with bouncing curls and the color of that painful bedroom wall.

               The door opens again half an hour later, a voice loud and resounding off the walls breaking the streak of billowing laughter coming from the living area as Angelica drives her little kart backward down the Mario racetrack. The tone of argument is sharp and cutting, lawyerly jargon spilled between tight lips and angered tones. His shoes are kicked off at the door and the chill of the outside air comes along with them. The game is paused as the conversation ends, with a huff and the plunk of a cellphone down on the kitchen counter.

               “Oh…hi, everyone.” Alexander stands still, his face reddened by embarrassment and a hint of anger left over with the conversation he had been having on the phone. His eyes are widened with the sting of surprise upon seeing the apartment filled with people.

               “You made it!” John is the first to greet him, shaking his head with a chiding smile. From the slight gape of Alex’s mouth he is sure that his friend had once again forgotten what day it is, maybe even where he lives. Alex shakes his head and pulls his jacket off, hanging it on a hook by the door before slipping next to Eliza on the loveseat. He takes a sip from the cup she has in her hand, kissing her forehead affectionately. Emily sits up in her chair as she watches the interaction. From her place on the couch she can see the slight tightening of the sister’s muscles, the way she crosses one leg over the other and keeps her eyes trained on the game.

               “We were wondering if you were going to show up.” Emily isn’t sure if the others in the room have caught it, the snag in Eliza’s tone as her fingers find the hem of Alex’s sweatshirt. The timbre of her voice raises on the last word, not in question but silent speculation. It’s enough to make Emily lean back on the couch, biting her lip with widened eyes as she whispers a curse under her breath.

               “You saw that too?” Peggy’s shaking her head, her voice just as low as their eyes remain trained on Alex and Eliza in curiosity. He leans over to whisper something in her ear and she pulls away, shrugging and keeping her attention away from him. Alex’s posture shifts-realigns itself so that he is able to wrap a hand around her waist. His head tilts but his voice remains too soft to be heard from their side of the room.

               “What’s he saying?” Peggy leans herself closer to Emily, shoulders brushing as she begins her own side-conversation with John’s sister. Emily seems to be just as invested in this as she is, eyes trained on the couple in sideshow speculation that none of the other company pays any mind to. The only break in contact is when Peggy is passed a controller, urged to beat Hercules as reigning champion. She steers wildly between watching her sister and the screen, Emily whispering updates consisting of broken-up information ceased from bad lip reading and assumption.

               “I don’t know what’s happening but now he’s getting up to get a drink. Man, your sister looks pissed. I didn’t know she had that kind of look in her.”

               “Oh, great. Are her arms crossed?”

               “No, she’s kind of...hold on, just look.” She puts a hand over Peggy’s, just long enough for her to spare a glance Eliza’s way. She groans under her breath, speaking through half-closed lips in an attempt to keep their conversation private.

               “That’s not good. She’s never testy like this. And that little leg kick she has going on? Nervous habit. It used to drive me crazy when we were younger.”

               “What did my brother do now, do you think?”

               “Who, me?” Emily ducks as the weight of John’s hand pats her head repeatedly, leaning into her and smothering her in a hug. “Look at you, making friends. Are you having fun yet, Emmy?”

               “Please leave me alone and move over before I punch you, Johnny.”

               Eliza lets out a slight laugh at the interaction on the other side of the room, where John and Emily have begun to wrestle each other with strength meant to embarrass rather than hurt. The room is filled with a sense of peace-of a calm she hadn’t felt in days. It does not wash over her in the way she had thought. It does not move into her body. The serenity travels around her in bursts of wind that come with Herc’s laughter, or Angelica’s celebration of another drunken victory. She can practically see it, the way its warm hues of color swirl around her. They never quite reach her, rather sway and ebb around an invisible shield constructed without her knowledge. She reaches out, attempts conversation that seems near impossible to continue. When Alexander gets back she grows silent again, trading her attempts at normalcy to let her head rest back against his chest.

               He can feel the hesitation in her movement. It’s minute, barely any different from her usual self. But he’s known her so long, and loved her so fiercely, that these details scream out at him in an immediate alarm. Her shift in position is only disguised by a yawn; where she’d usually curl herself into him or splay her legs across his lap, she keeps herself in line with the television and the games at hand. When his hands move to the waves that fall over her shoulders she is still. Where there would once be a kiss or a whispering of words laced in her dulcet tones there is merely a smile which barely reaches her cheeks. Alexander is left with one hand feeling stupid, coiling her silken strands of dark honey around fingers itching to wrap themselves around her. He sips from his drink instead, letting the boiling cider course a path down his throat. The burn does not shock him as he’d hoped. This is not a dream.

               He clears his throat, then, although the drink has not offended his palate. In an attempt to decipher what is going on he leans down to whisper the question into Eliza’s ear. He is met with an immediate chill as he pulls away from him, shaking her head.

               “Not here,” she says. Between the lines of her words her voice wavers, and it is only when her eyes finally meet his that he can see that she’s cried today-not so recent to allow puffiness or moisture within them. At the corners of her eyes there is a slight redness, where she must have been rubbing away the emotions he hadn’t been there to help her with. He wonders how many times this has happened since he’s moved, but the thought tugs too harshly at his heart. He doesn’t want to know.

               “Do you want to come over after or are you busy?” He nods, a response to the first question he can only make with movement. She does not return the warmth to his chest, then, as he expects. Alexander watches as Eliza rises from their recliner and grins at his sister, squeezing herself on the floor in front of her and Peggy.

               “Trouble in paradise?” Alexander jumps as the thickness of a familiar French accent sounds in his ear. Lafayette’s voice is a trumpet; although quiet in volume it rings with brassy tones that do not play gently with his ears. They reach a level he’d define as crass, if he’d be daring enough to utter the words. Instead he tightens the corners of his mouth, lowering his eyes at his roommate.

               “Fuck off, Laff.” Although Alex’s voice is terse and condescending his friend does not get the hint. He props himself up daintily on the arm of the recliner, leaning with one arm stretched along the back to keep himself up. From this vantage point he is able to look down on Alex; to see the path of his eyes cross the room to Eliza. It is almost hopeless, the way his once independent and reckless friend has transformed into a mess from just one turn of his girlfriend’s nose. This is the farthest Lafayette has seen him stray from himself; where a tomcat once sat is now a tiny, mewling kitten just waiting to be told what to do next.

               “Fine, I’m backing off. Just don’t waste your life on this one, okay? I’ve lived it.”

               Alex’s knuckles tighten around the nearest stitch of fabric he can find, gathering the cushion of the couch in his hands and squeezing as he lets out a breath of annoyance. The back of his head pinches where his hairline ends and his neck begins, and he counts in slow numbers with the silent movement of his lips. There are thousands of responses coursing through his mind, curses and filth and shouting that would get him into more trouble than it is worth. The only words he can manage are incoherent, mumbled and condensed versions of the image of a tirade just the skipping of a breath away.

               Lafayette doesn’t speak to him for the rest of the night.

               He does speak to everybody else, save Eliza. He rolls over her in conversation, passing through any form of contact even after she wins the tournament against him. She does not seem to be bothered, or even take notice of it. Eliza is passive; she floats through the haze of the party with only small additions to conversation, keeping her spot on the floor and stopping Hercules after he attempts to refill her drink for the third time. She builds a calm façade, one which is executed with flying colors through most of their friends.

               When the night is over she is the last of the guests to leave. Her sisters trail in front of her, laughing and hollering through the bitter night air in a tipsy sort of haze. Emily walks with them, teetering on sneakers not quite meant for the moisture of fresh, powdery snow. She takes Eliza’s place in the cab, squeezing between Angelica and Peggy with the first genuine smile seen from her all night. Her heart warms at the sight, and she waves the car off as Alex steps off the curb to hail their own.

               It is quiet; the air is thin and her breathing comes in a sporadic rhythm she is unable to control. While his hand hesitates to hold hers, moving on and off of his own lap, she glues her eyes to the window before accepting it. There is something foreign, a comfort that reaches her heart with simultaneous unease. She allows her mind to drift outside of the window, to a time much different than the rolling of tires against dark asphalt and the hum of classic rock coming through the radio. She remains in this place as she leads him up the stairs, through the door that had once been theirs. His askew letter A still accompanies the tightly curled E on its surface, and it sends Alexander some semblance of peace.

               The peace is disrupted by a broken sort of familiarity when Eliza opens the door. Their home-her home-seems barren although it has been decorated by a keen eye and her mother’s guidance. Alexander takes his shoes off at the door, propping them on the drying mat as he watches her mill about the room. Her nerves have manifested into tiny habits at this point; the straightening of cushions, a pull at her hair, until he can’t take it anymore.

               “Please just tell me what’s wrong.” His voice breaks a silence that had been coated in an eerie sort of vibe, one he hadn’t realized until his tenor cut through it, awkward and inquiring. Eliza sighs, nodding. She pauses in her wandering to fall back onto the coffee table, a foot clad in a long wool sock tapping the hardwood floor.

“I just….I think I’m just adjusting to this whole living apart thing, but I haven’t seen you in a while, and,”

“I miss you too, I miss this,”

“-You never showed up on Wednesday.”  Her interruption is so sudden, its pace so quick, that he has to stand still and let it run over in his mind before he can process it. His eyebrows quirk, just for a moment, before his jaw drops. “I called you, but you never picked up. I feel like texting would’ve been useless since you haven’t been lately, and then I called John and he said you were at the library.”

He had been. Wednesday was a more bustling day, from work to class and back again. But Wednesday had always been their day. They’d catch up on their shows, order takeout…no matter what happened during the week, he could always count on Wednesdays. And she could always count on him.

               Shit.

               He had left work and gone straight to the library, fragments of his current case study swirling in his mind just waiting to be deciphered. He hadn’t meant to stay long, only an hour or so. But suddenly the lights brightened, and his vision grew hazy. Suddenly he was the only occupant of the gigantic room, the minute sound of his breathing the only trace of life within it. He hadn’t even known what day it was then, hadn’t connected the dots from the similarity in his schedule to he and Eliza’s night. He’d forgotten. The realization hits him with an immediate apology, one that comes tumbling from lips that ache to brush against hers, to make her disappointment disappear.

               “I just wish…we haven’t talked all week. I know you’re busy, and I know how your schedule gets, but I just missed you. You weren’t calling me back, and then you didn’t come on Wednesday, and,”

               “I am so sorry. You don’t deserve that, Eliza, I swear. I never want you to feel like you don’t mean everything to me, or that I don’t care about you or I’ve forgotten you. It’s just been crazy lately and that’s no excuse, there’s no reason I shouldn’t have been there Wednesday night. I could never say sorry enough.”

               His eyes are wide and apologetic, with the depth she had gotten lost in just four months before knocking her off of her feet again. Her hand meets his shoulder, trailing down his arm in comfort and attempting to get his rampant rant of words to stop. Alexander nods at her silent concession, slow and meticulous as his anxiety yields to the calm of her touch. It’s uncertain, the way his heartbeat returns to the typical racing the lift of her cheeks brings him. It doesn’t seem fair. But she’s there, her fingers brushing the back of his hand, and he’s forgiven.

               “Well we have tonight, right? You can stay, we can pretend this whole moving out thing never happened…” She bites down on her lower lip then, looking up at him through eyes slightly widened by suggestion. He is sold; saying no to her had never been much of an option. Even if he had wanted to, by some stretch of an imaginary world, she always managed to draw him in. He wraps his arms around her waist, the taste of apple cider made sweeter by her lips as she hums in response to his touch.

               They have tonight; he lets himself fall to the couch, Eliza toppling over him, as his promise is painted in breathless words against her neck. There is simplicity in his presence, a fill in the hole she had created with necessity in place of her own desires. With Alexander there, his body pressed against hers and his love demonstrated so clearly, she is at peace.