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It was early morning at the Gallagher house. Kids were everywhere, rushing around to get all of their chores done before school. Lilian Gallagher was the only calm one of the bunch. She sat at the kitchen counter with her eyes half-open and sleepily ate her cereal.
Lilian was usually a morning person. She always got up early and did her exercises for ROTC training. However, this particular morning was different. She and Mickaela Milkovich had spent the entire night together fooling around in one of Mickaela's favorite abandoned spots. It was one of the best nights of Lilian's life. The redhead had barely gotten any sleep, so she was exhausted, but she'd also never been so happy.
Her drooping eyelids snapped back open when she heard her iPhone buzz. There was no way that Mickaela would be awake this early since she dropped out of school, but Lilian looked at her phone out of curiosity anyway.
She sighed when she saw who texted her, and she didn't bother to answer.
It was Lydia Lishman.
It had been a whole week since the last time that Lilian had talked to her. On that day, they had been out on a date at a lesbian bar when Mickaela came up to them from out of nowhere and started beating the shit out of the older woman without even an explanation. Luckily, Lilian was able to push Mickaela off of Lydia before she did any real damage.
After the incident, Lilian ran away with Mickaela to avoid the cops, and she hadn't talked to Lydia since. She should have felt guilty about just abandoning the woman like that, but honestly, she didn't.
That was the day that Lilian finally realized the truth: Mickaela was jealous of Lydia. The stubborn brunette really did like Lilian as more than just a fuck buddy. For the first time, Lilian knew that everything was going to be alright.
They both loved each other. After realizing that, Lilian couldn't bring herself to care about Lydia anymore.
Her phone buzzed again, and Lilian sighed. Couldn't the lady take a hint?
"You gonna get that?" asked Lilian's brother, Finn, from the other side of the kitchen counter as he hurriedly packed sandwiches into the kids' sack lunches.
"No," Lilian mumbled. "I'd rather not."
Finn noticed the look on Lilian's face and frowned. "You in any trouble I should know about?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Nah, it's cool," Lilian said dismissively. Finn and Liz were the only siblings that knew about her being a lesbian, but her brother really didn't need to hear about her dyke drama.
Finn shrugged. "Alright, it better be," he said with finality.
Finn's girlfriend, Jenny, bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen. "What are we talking about?" she asked, trying to join the conversation.
"Nothing at all, Stefanie," Lilian said grumpily.
"Hey! Stefanie Wilton was just an alias that she used to steal cars," Finn corrected her. "Her name's Jenny now."
Lilian rolled her eyes. "Whatever," she mumbled.
A phone buzzed again, causing her to sigh unhappily, but when she looked, she realized that it hadn't been hers. Instead, Jenny was the one who pulled out her phone and winced.
"Ugh, I gotta go," she said, swooping in to kiss Finn goodbye. "I'll be back tonight."
"Um, okay," Finn said. "You got a work thing?"
"Yeah, sure," Jenny said quickly. She ran out the door without any further explanation.
At the time, Lilian didn't think anything of it. Jenny acted weird all the time. She was always leaving for some kind of strange reason.
Lilian turned her attention back to her phone, but she didn't get another message for the rest of the day.
Jenny didn't come back home until late that night, but when she did, she wasn't alone. An old woman who smelt heavily of alcohol was hoisted over her shoulder. Jenny awkwardly dragged the stumbling woman into the house.
"Yer father's 'n asshole," the woman slurred, shouting loud enough to wake up the entire house. "Lock'n me outta my own 'ome."
Jenny tried to shush her, but it was too late. Finn and Lilian had already rushed down the stairs to see what all the commotion was.
When Lilian saw who Jenny was with, she immediately froze in shock. It was Lydia Lishman.
Lydia's eyes also widened in recognition. She attempted to stumble closer to the teenager, but luckily, before she could drunkenly reveal their secret, she tripped and Jenny guided her to the couch instead.
"What is your mother doing here?" Finn asked. Jenny hated her rich family, so she hardly ever spoke to them. Finn had met Jenny's family only once before.
"Uh…" Jenny said awkwardly "my father locked her out of the house, so she's been drinking since noon. Can she just stay here for the night?"
"Of course she can," Finn said. "I'll get a blanket and a pillow."
"What's going on?" Denny asked curiously, poking his head over the stairs. Carly was behind him, wiping the sleep from her eyes.
"Nothing, kids. Go back to sleep," Finn said soothingly.
The kids nodded and trudged back to their rooms. They were used to drunken outbursts in the middle of the night because of their mother, Francine. That kind of thing was nothing new.
Lilian sighed and quickly ducked out of the room before Lydia saw her again. She would rather not have to explain that she'd been fucking her brother's girlfriend's mother.
It was too fucking awkward.
Lilian had only just managed to go back to sleep when she was violently woken up again by her sister's cries.
"Get the fuck off me!" Liz screamed.
In the darkness, Lilian heard the loud thunk of a body falling off of Liz's bunk bed and hitting the floor. Liz quickly jumped off of the top bunk and ran to turn on the lights.
Lilian squinted in the sudden brightness to see Lydia on the floor looking dazed and confused. In the middle of the night, the woman had drunkenly found her way into Liz's bed. She must have been looking for Lilian.
"What's going on?" Carly asked groggily from her spot on the bottom bunk.
"I was… I was just looking for the shower," Lydia explained quickly.
"Who the fuck are you?!" Liz shouted, feeling confused and violated. She'd never seen the woman before in her life. When everyone else had witnessed Lydia being dragged into the house, she had been out on a date with Manny Milkovich.
"It's Jenny's mom," Lilian explained quickly.
Finn and Jenny burst through the doorway. "Why the hell are you guys being so noisy?" Finn yelled. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
Jenny frowned at the scene before her. "Mom, what the fuck are you doing in here?"
"Your fucking mother just came up behind me and grabbed my vag in my sleep!" Liz shrieked. She was so loud that even Denny had come out of his room to see what was going on.
"A-Are you sure?" Finn asked.
"Yeah. You think I wouldn't know when someone's trying to finger bang me in my sleep?" Liz growled angrily.
Jenny looked at her mom expectantly, hoping that she would deny the accusations, but Lydia said nothing. Her silence was all that Jenny needed to hear.
"That's it!" she cried, grabbing her mother and shoving her out the door. "I'm calling a cab and getting you a hotel room, and then we're gonna discuss this outside!" Lydia stumbled as she was harshly led out of the room.
"Kids, go into Denny's room and check on Lia," Finn said. "Apparently the grown-ups need to have a little talk."
Denny and Carly did as they were told, too sleepy to argue.
As soon as there were only three of them left, Finn asked Liz "are you okay?"
"Yeah, I guess," Liz mumbled in reply. "I threw her off right away."
Lilian sighed, the guilt of the previous week finally setting in. Maybe if she hadn't ignored Lydia, none of this would have happened.
"Lydia was looking for me," she finally admitted.
There was a pause.
"What?" Finn asked. Liz frowned in disgust when she realized what Lilian was trying to say.
"I've been hooking up with Lydia for a while now," Lilian explained awkwardly.
Finn wasn't disgusted or surprised. He never judged his sister's choice in who she slept with. He just sighed, exasperated with the situation. "You've been screwing Jenny's mother?"
Lilian nodded slowly. "I had no idea that's who she was," she explained. "I just… she's a nice lady."
Liz looked at Lilian like she was crazy. She had never understood Lilian's fascination with older women.
Finn shook his head and sighed. "Alright, you've all got school tomorrow," he said. "Just go back to bed."
After her brother shut the door, Lilian crawled back into bed and buried herself under the covers to get away from her older sister's judging eyes.
She didn't regret hooking up with Lydia, and she wasn't ashamed. She would fuck whoever she felt like, and if other people didn't like it, then that was just too damn bad.
When Lilian came downstairs the next morning, the crowded kitchen suddenly got quiet. It was obvious that everyone had been whispering about her.
She ignored the sudden silence and stomped over to the kitchen counter to shove some bread into the toaster. She felt everyone's eyes on her back, but when she turned around, everyone looked away.
The only one still staring was Jenny.
"I'm leaving early," Liz mumbled. Without another word, she was gone, slamming the door behind her.
"Me too," Denny said. "I have to prepare my speech for class president today. See you later!" He quickly grabbed his backpack and followed after his sister.
Carly kept eating her toast, blissfully unaware of the tension in the room.
Jenny, however, kept staring at Lilian. No matter where Lilian was, Jenny's eyes were permanently fixed on her. She looked at the redhead intensely, almost like she was examining every inch of her body. It made Lilian really uncomfortable.
"What are you looking at?" Lilian finally snapped. She followed Jenny's gaze. "You're not looking at my boobs are you?"
"No way. I'm not even thinking about your boobs… or your vagina… in my mom's mouth. Nope, I'm not." Jenny awkwardly shook her head. The image of her mother fucking a younger girl was too much for her to process.
Lilian rolled her eyes. "Good, then don't," she said. She got up to go to the bathroom and to escape Jenny's weird staring.
Carly's eyes widened in alarm. "Lilian's vagina was in your mom's mouth?!"
"Uh… no. It's just an expression," Jenny said lamely. "You know. Just a joke about lesbians."
"Is Lilian a lesbian?" Carly asked curiously.
"What? No, no. Of course not," Jenny said quickly.
"How do lesbians even have sex?" Carly asked again, determined to find out more.
"Don't ask me," Jenny said, getting up from the table and dumping her dishes in the sink. "I don't even want to think about lesbians right now."
She ran up the stairs, unable to handle talking about it any longer.
Lilian came out of the bathroom and sat back in her seat to finish eating her toast.
"So how to gay chicks even do it anyway?" Carly asked Lilian. "Little Hanna told me once that lesbians grow penises when they get horny. Is that true?"
Lilian just shook her head and laughed.