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“Goddamn it! Fuck!”
Lup startled from her precarious reading position (upside down with her feet on the wall and her head off the bed, holding the book on the floor), and slipped off the bed with a loud thump!. She scrambled to her feet, rubbing her head with her hand, and came out of her dorm, heading towards the sound of the exclamation.
Pushing open the door to the stairwell, she saw her friend sitting at the top of the stairs, head in her hands. Scattered over the stairs below were papers, art supplies, and rumpled clothing. Sitting beside her was a large suitcase with a broken zipper and a stray sock hanging out of the gap. Lup could hear the girl’s laboured breath as she was on the verge of tears.
Gently, Lup sat down beside her, face filled with sympathy. “Lucretia?”
Lucretia jumped, then turned to see her visitor and wiped her face quickly with a sleeve. “Oh. Lup. Sorry, I must’ve… I just… it was…” she trailed off. She let out a long sigh, as if the very effort of getting those jumbled half-sentences out was an exhausting task. So very different from the normal, loquacious Lucretia Lup knew so well.
“Hey,” Lup soothed, putting an arm around her friend. “What’s up? Why are you back so early?”
Lucretia opened her mouth, but all that escaped her were a few fat tears. She croaked and hid back in her arms. Lup ran a hand over her back and shushed her soothingly.
“Hey hey hey… it’s okay. Everything’s okay. You’re here. I’m here. How about you go over to my room and take a rest on my bed? I’ll get everything here cleaned up for you. You got your keys?”
It said everything that Lucretia didn’t protest. She merely unzipped a small pouch on her suitcase and handed Lup the keys to her dorm. She whispered a small “thank you” before hurrying out of the stairwell.
Left alone, Lup took full stock of the suitcase scenario. She decided to bring the suitcase to Lucretia’s room and then do her best to bring everything else back in a few armfuls. It took her a few minutes, but her worry for Lucretia was a heavier burden than any bunch of laundry. The clothes were first, followed by the papers (Lup made no effort to sort them. Lucretia was going to have a hell of a time with them when she was feeling better). Lastly, she gingerly picked up the scattered pens, pencils, paintbrushes, paints, and papers. She winced as she dropped the art supplies on Lucretia’s desk. There were a couple broken pencils and some brushes with their heads mangled. On top of that, there were a few watercolour pages that had managed to get dirt marks from the stairs on them.
Still, this could all be managed later.
Closing the door behind her, she sent a silent prayer to anyone listening that the cleaning staff wouldn’t notice the extra occupant in the building returned before their scheduled time. The last thing they needed was the bureaucratic nightmare that would introduce.
She opened the door to her own dorm slowly. Peering in, she saw Lucretia was not asleep, but curled into herself on Lup’s bed, staring at the wall with watery eyes. Cautiously, Lup sat down beside her, a gentle hand on her hip.
“Hey,” she tried.
“Hey,” Lucretia croaked.
“You feel like talking about it?”
“No.”
“You want to stay?”
“Yes please.”
“Okay. Scoot over, then.”
Lucretia shuffled closer to the wall and Lup squeezed in behind her, the two just barely squeezing onto the twin mattress. She threw an arm around her waist and spooned her, trying to exude as much love and comfort as she could muster. She could hear Lucretia start to cry again, and felt her arm clutched like a stuffed animal to the other girl’s chest.
She didn’t say anything, but let Lucretia cry herself out in a safe space. Lup occasionally made calming noises of sympathy, but didn’t speak. Eventually, she heard Lucretia’s tears stop and her breathing even to a rate that told her she was asleep. Wiggling a bit to get herself more comfortable, Lup let herself doze as well.
When she opened her eyes again, Lucretia was awake.
“How are you feeling?” Lup asked.
Lucretia pondered the question for a long minute. “Shitty,” she decided.
Lup couldn’t help but chuckle, and she felt a small laugh from Lucretia as well.
“Yeah that sounds reasonable,” said Lup. “You wanna talk about what’s going on now, or what?”
Lucretia didn’t respond.
“It’s totally chill if you’re not up to it-“
“No,” Lucretia cut her off. “No, it’s not that. I… I want to talk about it. It’s just…” She sighed and rolled onto her back, dislodging Lup, and the two took a minute to readjust. “So… I… I came out to my parents.”
Lup couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on her face. She grabbed Lucretia’s hand and squeezed it encouragingly. “Hey! Good job! I’m so proud of you!” She pulled back and her smile melted into a grim expression. “I’m guessing they didn’t take it too well?”
Lucretia laughed harshly. “Yeah, you could say that. Apparently I’m not to return to the house until I’m their daughter again.” she scoffed. “Like I’ve changed.” She fell silent again for a while. “It is how it is, right?” she eventually said, and shrugged. “Guess that’s life now. Hey, you wanna help me look at a house for this summer?”
Lup frowned. “Whoa whoa there. Feels like you skipped over some bits.”
Lucretia shrugged again, though it was hard to keep a passive expression on her face.
“Look, Creesh, I get it.” Lup continued. “You think I can have Taako for a brother and not understand the avoidant shit? But that’s why I’m telling you that you can’t gloss over it. Don’t bury your emotions and hope they’ll go away. They won’t. Trust me. You’ll just end up with a fuckton of nightmares and emotional trauma.”
“I’m not burying anything!” Lucretia protested.
“Sure, sure. Not yet you’re not. But I know the signs. I know what you’re thinking. I know how this goes. You’ve gotta air that shit out with someone. Doesn’t have to be me, doesn’t have to be right now, but you gotta let it out.”
Lucretia huffed. “Okay, okay. I get it.” She rubbed her eyes tiredly. “You’ll want all the gory details, I suppose?”
“If you want,” Lup said. “Like I said, doesn’t have to be right now if you’re not feeling it.”
“No, I want to let it out. I want someone to know, at least.”
“Okie dokey artichokey.” Lup grimaced and Lucretia chuckled. “Ugh, never let me say that again.” She shuffled up to lean on her elbow and look down at her friend. “Anywho, you’re a writer. Spin me a tale, storymaster.”
Lucretia grinned, and Lup felt her soul lift just a bit. “Well, there once was a girl named Lucretia. She was not interested in men. No, she had her eyes fixed on women.”
“GAY!!” Lup interjected, and Lucretia whapped her arm lightly in admonishment.
“As I was saying, Lucretia knew in her heart that she could only be happy pursuing women. One day, she decided to break the news to her parents. They ought to know, she thought, as this was an important part of her being. It was tied to so many things in her life, and the pain she felt by not sharing it was beginning to weigh her down. Lucretia was a writer. A multi-faceted artist, really, but writing was what she knew would pay the bills.”
“Yeah yeah,” Lup teased lightly. “Can’t tell a story about yourself without mentioning the fact that you’ve basically conquered the fine arts as a whole. Please, go on.”
Lucretia paused for a moment, and got a sly glint in her eye. “Lucretia was vastly unappreciated by her peers. One in particular by the name of- OOF!” Lup hit her with a throw pillow and they both laughed. Lucretia continued. “So being a writer, Lucretia decided to write her confession in a letter. She gathered her parents and handed them the letter together. She sat patiently, watching their expressions anxiously.”
*
Lup noticed Lucretia’s skin begin to pale, and she struggled over her words a bit more. “They- her father. He… “ She swallowed the thickness in her throat. “As the girl’s father finished her letter, he grew redder and redder in the face. He snatched the letter from her mother’s hands and tore it into pieces. He started to scream about how she-“ There were tears in her eyes now and Lup grasped her hand tightly. “She wasn’t their daughter. She was filthy and wrong. She was making a choice to ruin herself and she was betraying them. The g-girl looked to her mother. Though she was trying to calm the father down, she still bore the s-same look of disapproval. It was her who told the girl to go pack.
“So the girl ran to her room. She could hear more yelling and slamming doors and cupboards downstairs and she- she was so sc-scared. When I got downstairs I saw that dad ripped down my pictures from the wall. There were holes in the drywall, he ripped them all out so hard.” Lucretia choked on her words and started again. “The girl- She- all she could think about was how angry her father was going to be with himself when he saw the state he’d put his house in. She sat on the stairs to put on her shoes. She saw him coming from the kitchen with a bird that she made in pottery class for her parents’ anniversary. Even when he grabbed her arm… he grabbed it so hard… even when he grabbed her and dragged her up she was more scared about what he was going to do to the bird than what he was going to do to her.
“When she got outside it was raining. She didn’t have a coat on and she only had one shoe on. The other was in her hand. She was yelling at her father to stop. Just… just please let me put on my shoes dad. Dad, please. My sock is getting wet.”
Lucretia couldn’t continue as her crying took over her speech. She covered her face with her hands and keened weakly as her shoulders shook with silent sobs. Lup held her so tightly. She didn’t let go.
“He broke the bird, Lup.” she cried. “He threw it on the driveway and it broke. And I couldn’t get my shoe on. He took me to the end of the driveway and just… pushed me there. And my skirt was getting dirty and my mum wasn’t saying anything. She was just at the door. She should’ve… she shouldn’t have let him make me get my skirt dirty like that. And I got my shoe on and just… walked to the bus. And I… I got here.”
**
Lup pulled Lucretia to her chest and rested her chin on top of her tight curls. “Hey… it’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe now, okay? You’re here. You’re my best friend and I love you. I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you. You’ve got so many people here, Creesh. There’s me and Taako, there’s Magnus, there’s Davenport… fuck, there are SO many people who love you. Who love all of you. And the shit your fucked-up parents did is never going to be okay, but you don’t need it to be. You’ve got a family, okay? We’re gonna look out for you. We’re not gonna let you go.”
Lucretia let out a long sigh and nodded against her. There were still tears flowing, but she had mostly gone quiet. Possibly fallen back asleep. Lup knew what it was to feel the emotional exhaustion of rejection. She’d always had Taako, though, to soothe that pain. She knew that she was going to do whatever she could to be that rock for Lucretia.
They laid there together until the sun was setting and their stomachs were both growling. Lup peeled herself away from Lucretia and sat up to get her phone.
“Hey, I’m gonna order us some bomb-ass pizza. How does that sound?”
Lucretia smiled weakly. “Sounds great. Where are you ordering from?”
Lup scoffed. “You say that like it’s a mystery. Koko owes me like a billion favours and their dorm’s kitchen has the better oven. You good for him to come over? If not, we can kick him right back out as soon as we get some of that good good ‘za, no issue.”
Lucretia let out a small laugh. “Nah, I miss him too. Actually, do you… do you think you could ask him if Magnus wants to come over too? I just… I really don’t feel like being alone right now and I could really use one of Magnus’ hugs.”
“Fuck yeah, dude!” Lup smiled. “I’ll get the boys to scoot their tushes over here A-sap.” She dialled her brother. “Hey! Koko! You’re making me pizza and then you and Mags are coming for a cuddle sesh with me and Lucy!”
“Lucy’s back?” Taako replied. There was a short silence where he worked out that something was obviously off. “Cool cool,” he recovered. “See you gals in a tight forty-five!”
Lup hung up and turned to Lucretia. “Sounds like we have a pl-“
Lucretia cut her off as she leapt forward and captured Lup in a kiss. Lup sat frozen in shock for a moment, and then quickly gave a small reciprocation before pushing the other girl away gently.
“Creesh.”
Lucretia was starting to blush and tears were reappearing in her eyes. “I’m sorry, I-“
“Hey no, quit that.” Lup admonished. “No need to be sorry. I just don’t think now is a good time. This isn’t about anything, okay? I’m just making sure my best girl is in the right state of mind before she goes on grand kissing ventures.”
Lucretia wiped a tear from her eye and laughed a bit. “Yeah, I get it.”
“Now, that’s not to say we can’t continue this at a later date, mind you…” Lup went on with an overly flirtatious tone that made Lucretia laughed more earnestly.
There was a small slightly awkward silence, where Lucretia didn’t know where to look, and Lup didn’t know how to approach her.
“…you wanna watch some Netflix?” she settled on.
Lucretia nodded. “Sure.”
They resettled on the bed into a more comfortable tv-watching position and sat leaning against one another with their legs entangled as they laughed at cartoons for the next hour.
Mid-episode, there was a knock at the door.
“Hey doofus! It’s your better looking evil twin here with sustenance!”
Lup leapt from the bed and opened the door to see her brother and the enormous human puppy that was Magnus Burnsides. “Okay dingus you can be the better looking twin or the evil twin, but you don’t get to claim both. Especially seeing as I’m the better looking evil twin anyhow.”
Taako gawked, appalled.
A quick but heated argument later, the four were sat on the floor and bed of Lup’s tiny room and munching on roasted tomatoes and three types of cheese. Lucretia sat on the bed with Magnus and shuffled closer to lean against him. As was his nature, he lifted an arm and pulled her in for a comforting side-hug that she gladly snuggled into.
“So Lucy. The fuck is up?” asked Taako bluntly.
Lucretia took a big breath. “Long story short; my parents apparently don’t have a daughter now because the baby they birthed is into women.” She took a bite of pizza nonchalantly.
Taako took a large angry bite of his pizza. “Fuck them!” he spewed with a full mouth.
Lup shoved him. “Ew! Taako! Your mouth was empty! Why did you even do that?!”
Instead of an answer, he shoved move pizza into his mouth. “M’hangry.”
“Was that hungry, angry, or hangry?” Lucretia asked with a confused face.
Taako actually waited to clear his mouth before answering, with one finger daintily pointed up, “While all of those are accurate, I was in fact saying ‘hangry’.” He took another bite.
“Okay, fair.” said Lup, grabbing another slice for herself.
Magnus turned to look at Lucretia with tears welling in his eyes. “That’s awful, Lucretia! I’m so sorry! You know we love you, right? We love you so much.”
Lucretia laughed. “Yes, Magnus, I know. Thank you.” They hugged each other tighter.
“What’s your plan now?” Taako asked. He seemed to be slowing down after scarfing a piece and a half down in roughly a minute. “We’re absolutely down to help out however you need, B-T-dubs.”
“Absolutely,” confirmed Lup.
Lucretia looked lost for a moment. “I… I haven’t thought about it too much yet. I mean, I always thought it was possible. I never wanted… but I knew that they might… I have a few plans written up just in case. I’ve already paid for my second semester stuff, so that isn’t an issue. I won’t be getting any more money for extras, but I never relied on that anyway. I’ve got enough money saved up from the past couple summers to last me through this summer if I keep working. And I’ve already talked to a financial advisor about starting out student loans. …Might actually be easier now that I can just tell them that I have no additional financial support.”
As she talked herself through her current standing, Lucretia visibly lost some of the tension in her shoulders.
“I think,” she said, choking up. “I think I’m gonna be okay.” There were fresh tears in her eyes, the emotions coming back in a big swell. The anger and frustration and sadness along with the relief that she might just be alright.
“Of course you are,” said Magnus, pulling her in for a full bear hug. “And you’re not on your own either. You could even stay with us for the summer!”
“Fuck yeah!” said Lup and Taako simultaneously, making Lucretia laugh.
“Thank you,” she said for what felt like the millionth time. Still not enough.
“Pfft for what?” asked Taako. “Being decent human beings? It’s no big, Lucy. ‘Swat we do. Though I guess you’re not used to it, what with those fuckwits who disowned you.”
Lup slapped his arm at about 45% strength. Taako yelped and attempted to roll out of arms reach.
“Fucking OW, Lulu!!” he said, aiming a much lesser kick in the direction of her midsection.
Lup swatted the calf approaching her and Taako retreated. “Be sensitive, you dick!” She hurled her crust at his head, where it bounced off his forehead and onto the floor. He stuck out his tongue and raspberried at her.
Lucretia couldn’t help but smirk at their antics. “Lup! It’s okay. He’s right. I mean, I still… I’m not ready to think about them like that really, but objectively, he’s kinda right.”
“Uh, yeah he is,” Lup said. “But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to learn how to phrase shit!” She glared at her brother. Taako made a mocking face in return.
“Really though,” Lucretia interrupted. “Thank you. Thank you. I… I know that I could survive on my own, but I don’t know that I’d want to. You guys have been my everything for a while now, but now… Now you’re really my everything. And I’ll never stop being grateful for that.”
No one said anything in response, but Magnus continued his hugs, and Lup and Taako scrambled onto the tiny bed to join. They each had a leg hanging off the bed and it was anything but comfortable, but it was still the best hug.
“Hey Taako we finally got you to join a group hug!” exclaimed Magnus excitedly.
“OKAY TAAKO OUT!” Taako yelled, his hands flying up as he practically repelled himself away from the others. “Better appreciate that shit because that’s the last physical affection you’re gettin’ from this boy for the next millennia thank you very much!”
Lup, in response, went over and grabbed her brother in a too-tight squeeze.
“Lup, stoooooooop,” Taako groaned. Lup kissed his cheek and released him.
Lucretia realized her face was sore with smiling. She mused on how glad she was too have these people in her life. These ridiculous people whose antics could lift her from the darkest sadness to laughter so quickly. It wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. The pain, though temporarily soothed, would always remain in some part. But she could soften it with time and love. And as the four of them talked and joked and laughed into the night, as they pulled in Lucretia’s mattress from her room to make a second bed on the floor, as she fell asleep with the sound of three people who loved her breathing softly, she knew she was going to be fine. Better than that, she was going to thrive.