Chapter Text
There’s a certain relief when once you hit rock bottom, the comfort of knowing you can’t fuck up more than you already have. It was a rotten sort of comfort, but it was comfort nonetheless. It was the feeling of finality, of death, of knowing how much you’ve lost and the weight of it off your shoulders. Rock bottom felt a lot like death. She just didn’t expect rock bottom to have pancakes. The pancakes sucked.
Abigail Pent sat across from her. Pouring a – frankly – disgusting amount of syrup on her stack from the pitcher, which had been coated in butter and sprinkled with cinnamon. Compared to Harrow's untouched stack, it was unrecognizable as a breakfast food.
‘Not really breakfast.’ Harrow reminded herself, looking outside the night sky that engulfed the parking lot of the Dennys, she should be asleep.
Abigail Pent reminded Harrow of a church wife— not the kind she had grown up with, far from— a Ms. Pent wore soft pinks and blues and solid brown leather instead of the gloomy and drab blacks of Harrow's church. No, she reminded Harrow of simplicity. Her expressions were well formed, almost as if they came from a book, only marred by the wrinkles that sweetly dabbled her skin. Compared to Harrow's mother, whose wrinkles showed the stress and fear and pain of her life— Abigail Pent’s showed a life of immense joy. Harrow resolved to never look Abigail Pent in the face after this revelation, she chose her right shoulder to stare at.
“Like them? I had Magnus fire up the griddle— he was just closing when I picked you up.” Ms. Pent explained, pointing a butter knife to Harrow’s plate. Harrow took it at a sign to pick apart her pancakes more. Ms. Pent, who had started talking to try and begin a tentative conversation, gave Harrow a strained smile as she ignored her.
“You probably remember Jeannemary? Works here, not now though— far too late… My daughter. She would've been… a freshman when you were a senior,” Ms. Pent paused. Harrow ripped apart another piece of pancake. “She says you were a great drum major— even better concertmaster.” Pent tried, Harrow dunked a finger into her mug of coffee to wake up. The corners of Ms. Pent's eyes creased, crows feet deepening with an emotion that Harrow had never seen before— it felt like pity, paired with the furrowing of brows that came with worry. It made Harrow want to vomit or cry or do something else emotional and pathetic and degrading.
Whatever Ms. Pent was trying to do, she was tired of doing, interlocking her knobby fingers in front of her plate and staring at Harrow with a look that she had used a hundred and one times. Back when Harrow was still ‘Nonagesimus, Harrowhark’ on her counseling sheet— every week on Tuesday during third period in room B102.
“Harrowhark, I’m worried about you,” Ms. Pent stated. Harrow winced— Ms. Pent had said that more than she’d ever said her name.
Four years ago, no one would’ve had a reason to even think about Harrowhark.
Three years ago the idea of worrying about Harrow would've made her teachers laugh.
Two years ago it would have made her roll her eyes and tell you to mind your business.
A year ago, it would’ve been responded to with a ‘me too’.
And now, ‘I’m worried about you’ seemed to be everyone's favorite sentence to corner her with.
Abigail Pent, who had said something that Harrow had missed, moved her brows in a way that gave her three more prominent wrinkles on her forehead.
“Harrow, do you have anyone I can call for you? Anywhere you can go?” Ms. Pent said, slowly, as if it would make it easier for her to comprehend slower. It made Harrow want to start pulling teeth.
“Your worry is overstated, I’ll be fine— I just need to go home and…” Harrow closed her mouth involuntarily, grinding down on her molars. Her chest hurt, like her heart was being slowly pried from her ribcage with a paring knife. Ms. Pent gave her that incomprehensible look, that look she had never seen directed towards her— the look that made her feel there were spiders crawling up and down her esophagus.
“Harrowhark Nonagesimus,” Ms. Pent stared down at her, shaking her head with pity. The type that came from the spine and ran all the way up to her facial features. “Your parents hung themselves in the living room of your family home thirty-five minutes ago… You're not fine.”
Harrow looked into her mug, then at the Denny’s signage posted around the restaurant, then took a sip of her coffee. It was cold.
There was something wrong with her, something intrinsically and sorrowfully and wrong from birth. She was a pit, a hole at the center of her family that energy and money and resources had been poured into. And now she was all that was left of her family. In just one night, Harrowhark Nonagesimus went from an only child to the only person in her entire lineage and it was all her fault. Yet, Abigail Pent looked at her like she was a victim, like she was worthy of sympathy and empathy— even all the tears in the world.
All Harrow could think at the moment was the feeling of rope against her fingers and her parents' disappointment. All culminated into a single collection of five minutes, where her parents went from breathing and standing and holding her hand to hanging above her swinging back and forth— their eyes weren’t even closed.
Now Harrow was sitting in a Denny’s’, wearing a zip up — the drawstrings tied taut against her throat, the words Harvard University splayed cruelly across her chest— unable to go home.
Harrow broke down in layers.
First, she started to cry. Which was bad enough as she was crying in a Denny’s in front of her high school social worker— then she started to scream.
Harrow didn’t think she could be that loud, she didn’t believe she was capable of using the energy to push the air to her lungs and expel them out, it was beyond her. Harrow wasn't sure she'd ever wailed so hard, so viciously in her life— not even fresh from the womb. Yet she still screamed— she wailed— she sobbed. Her nose dripped snot and her throat grew sore but she still screamed. Then she started pulling.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus gripped onto her shorn hair and tugged hard, as if to forcefully eject the memory of her parents hanging above her, through her scalp. It hurt just right, stung in the correct way to hurt and satisfy her want for justice— justice against herself. Somewhere between the tears and the screaming and the pulling Ms. Pent and Ms. Pent’s husband had crouched down next to her, prying small fingers from short curls, and fussing over her like a scared child— like she was worth the concern.
It took one, painstaking, brutal, hour to calm Harrowhark Nonagesimus into a state that wasn’t dissociation or panic— and another dragging, painful, thirty minutes to coerce her into coming home with them. As if there was anywhere else for her to go— anything else for her to do.
-
Abigail Pent lived an enviable life.
She lived on 5544 Willows Share Road in a two story blue townhouse with a flower garden in the front. Inside of it she lived with two foster-to-adopt children and a husband who worshiped her like a modern goddess. All information Abigail Pent told Harrow on the drive to her house, goddess part included, to Magnus Quinn’s embarrassment.
She talked about her children, her husband, her life— as if it was the best thing to happen to her— which Harrow assumed it was. She seemed determined to not let a single moment in her car pass without conversation, even after Harrow had stopped responding and Magnus had repeatedly try to steer the conversation into silence.
It was nice, in a voyeuristic way, to lay down in the backseat of the Pent-Quinn-Chatur-Tettares subaru and listen to Abigail talk about their life after the past two hours. She learned that Jeannemary Chatur played the snare and was a drummer in a jazz band, Issac Tettares was a proud Eagle Scout and animal enthusiast. She was even let in on how Ms. Pent had a collection of bachelors and masters and only a single phd and had retired all of it to be a school social worker, for some reason.
By the time they pulled into the driveway of 5544 Willows Share Road, it was eleven at night and Harrowhark wanted to go home more than ever. She missed her bed. She knew far too much about the Pent-Quinn-Chatur-Tettares family than she ever wanted to know, and it made her feel full of something bitter and sour and unhappy. Like she had eaten a meal that was too big and missed the time when she was empty, missed when she didn’t know what she had until it was gone. Magnus Quinn helped her out of the subaru and shrugged off his large coat when he saw she was shivering, it hung down to her midcalf and in any other situation Harrow would’ve felt embarrassed at her stature, instead it felt fitting. She did feel small.
They hiked up the gravel path up to the front porch, all the way to a door that displayed the words Welcome Home above the doorway.
Mr. Quinn fumbled with his keys, pulling one from his carabiner and opening the door.
It was dark in the living room, Harrow took off her shoes at the door— the kitchen lights were on.
“Come on, in we go.” Magnus touched her shoulder and Harrow flinched him off, he retracted the hand easily. “Jeanne? Issac? We’re home— did you clean the stora… guest room?” Abigail yelled, Harrow flinched, she didn’t think a woman as demure as Abigail could get that loud.
Two voices spoke in a cacophony from the kitchen, yelling out positives.
The three rounded into the kitchen, which was just as homely and well used as the front of the house, at the dinner table— Harrow put faces to the names of Jeannemary Chatur and Issac Tettares.
She did, actually, recognize Jeannemary. They had been in band together, she played snare— Harrow tutored her in biology. Issac was younger, too young for Harrow and him to meet naturally, his face didn’t ring any bells.
Between Jeannemary and Issac was a large wicker open faced box, with a collection of miscellaneous items in it. A pair of halloween themed fuzzy pajama pants, a folded tank top, a bar of soap, half empty bottles of shampoo and conditioner, black nail polish, a snack bag of popcorn, and a box of tissues.
Ms. Pent laughed at it, a smile on her deepset face, Mr. Quinn shook his head.
“Hey Harrowhark! Long time no see—” Jeannemary greeted, nicer than she would expect, Harrow remembers not being fond of Jeanne— vocally. She nodded her acknowledgment.
Magnus motioned for her to sit down at the table, across from the kids, as they pushed it towards her.
“One foster-gift-basket, coming right up!” Jeannemary announced, Issac looking pleased.
“Mom set us up with these when we were kids,” Issac explained Jeannemary overtaking his sentence, “it makes the whole sleeping-in-a-new-place thing so much easier.” She finished, which started a small scuffle between the two, Issac had been keen on being the one to introduce the gift basket to Harrow. Harrow thought it was a misplaced gesture of affection, one she didn't deserve.
Harrow pulled the tank top from the basket and looked at the image on top— the words Jazz is to the Soul, What Therapy is to the Mind with a stock image of a saxophone terribly cropped and stuck on behind it.
“It's my jazz band's shirt.” Jeannemary told her, pleasantly.
“Long name for a jazz band.” Harrowhark murmured, Abigail Pent stood.
“Let's put you to bed Harrow… You didn't eat much of the pancakes— you want me to make something?” Harrow shook her head, too embarrassed to even consider the idea of eating a meal cooked by the hands of Abigail Pent. By all means Harrowhark Nonagesimus was an adult— but Ms. Pent had a way of making her feel fourteen again.
Harrow picked up the wicker basket, giving a nod to Issac and Jeannemary that physically hurt as a thanks, and followed the lead of Abigail Pent through her own house.
The Pent-Quinn-Chatur-Tettares household kept mementos like they were worth gold. Their walls were covered in photos, every surface that could display an art project or an award or even something as mediocre as a grade report with only two A’s was pinned onto walls or framed or displayed with affection to the person it was about.
Climbing up the stairs, there were pinned along the walls photographic evidence of each of their children aging. From a rough looking boy and an even rougher looking girl standing in front of the buttery blue townhouse, grimacing— growing into a teenage girl holding bouquets and drumsticks smiling— a teenage boy with his soccer ball and boy scout patches as proud as can be— it was loving and touching and so foreign to Harrowhark that it felt as if she had been dropped into a parallel universe where parents loved their children's interests as much as they did.
Harrow couldn't recall a time her parents had come to one of her oboe recitals— much less took pictures of them. It made her chest ache and her tongue twinge of blood, she was biting down too hard on it.
Harrow maneuvered past the stairwell into a room parallel to it. Ms. Pent opened the door with a creek— it was mostly empty sparring a desk and a bed on an old frame with an old drum set pushed under the windowsill, the drum stool was pushed as far as it could go down— as if a child was meant to sit in it.
At the foot of the bed was a collection of cardboard boxes— words like jm old clothes -- donate? and send back to mom written down on them.
With cold hands, Abigail Pent gently moved Harrow from the doorway down onto the bed, sitting down next to her and giving her that infuriating— sickening look.
-
Living in the Pent-Quinn-Chatur-Tettares household was like a xerox of what a family was supposed to be-- copied and copied again and again from sitcoms Harrow had never been allowed to watch into something real and rough and gritty but just as lovable.
Most days, Harrow laid down in bed— listening to her breathing and watching dust fly around the bedroom, interrupted only by Magnus or Abigail or their children trying to make conversation.
Harrow was unendingly grateful (and horrified) at their patience to her behavior. Harrow didn't offer a single word to them on the average day, but they took her silence in stride again and again— each day coming back with something else to talk about and a bowl of food.
Abigail was her most frequent visitor, all boney hands and soft intonation— Ms. Pent tried every opportunity to comfort Harrow when they talked, but Harrow wanted their conversations to be conversations of the future. Where she would go, what she would do, funeral arrangements…
Pent spoke with clinical affection and understanding— giving words like ‘Depressive Episode’ and ‘Shock’ and even ‘Dissociation’ to describe how Harrow behaved. Ms. Pent advised that she relax, take things one at a time. Advised that she grieved her parents death— in any way she needed. Harrow decided she would rather saw her hand off than listen to that advice.
Magnus Quinn came around often. In her state— she mistook his abrasive voice as anger until she grew familiar and fond of it.
He offered activities— usually events Harrow wouldn't usually ever go to. Like Jeannemary’s band’s summer recital and Isaacs volunteer job at an animal shelter to— ‘get her out of the house and into fresh air.’ Mostly, Harrow shook her head and went back to her upset— but sometimes she took the ever present offer to sit on the back deck and watch the deer— something Magnus enjoyed.
Siblings Chatur and Tettares were quick to adapt to their inapt houseguest. Jeanne had made a habit of cornering Harrow during her freshman year to ask all sorts of questions, such as; What song are you doing for your senior solo? Are you available for tutoring— all classes? Do you buy eyeshadow or is it natural? Who's that redhead girl who I see you with? Does she have a gym partner? Can you ask her if we can be friends? While Issac seemed delighted in the new conversation piece.
They came around often, with corner store snacks and their laptops every time. Jeannemary had a hundred and one stories to tell and hadn't learned to not talk during movies— it wasn't like Harrow was watching but it still annoyed her..
Harrow thought Issac was the easier 'twin’ to swallow. He liked giving himself piercings, hair dye, noise with words that he called ‘music’ and animals. Once— he had sat down on the guest bed with Harrow— and offered in a voice that implied grave importance to pierce her nose. “It's always helped me.” He told her after he saw her incredulous expression— Harrow appreciated the gesture, in her own way, but promptly denied it.
Harrow ate meals in her room and spoke of the future to Abigail who reminded again and again how much Harrow was allowed to stay as long as she liked— but at a point Harrow became restless.
A leech was all that Harrow had ever been. Small and bloodthirsty and all too needy. She leeched off her parents, from before her very conception, and proceeded to leech on the people who had taken her in— eating their food and laying in their sheets.
It was too much for her to stomach, too much guilt to weigh down on her shoulders— too much to put on the backs of Abigail and Magnus. So she phoned a friend.
Ortus was her cousin, and in many ways they were the same. They were both devotees to the catholic church, they both had an interest for old books (religious texts for Harrow—old poetry for Ortus), and they shared blood— as his father was her second uncle. As well as the fact that their parents had died on the same night.
Of course, they could never know if it was a suicide pact or a coqincidence that Harrows parents hung themselves at the same time as Mortus Nigenad but Hatrow didn't believe in coincidences. Especially coincidences that happened within twenty minutes of each other.
Ortus took his fathers death exceptionally well for the type of personality that he had— he was even in good spirits when Harrow called him from the Pent-Quinn-Chatur-Tettares house phone.
So, Harrow begged.
She begged him for help, for a place to live— promising the second she got on her feet she'd pay him back tenfold.
Ortus let her ramble for a while, silent across the line before— in his deep, shy, voice offering the attic of the Canaan, Iowa Catholic Church to her— as he had inherited the role of minister from his father, but not the family home and was currently, himself, staying at a studio closer to the city— and had no way to house her.
Harrow accepted, with a few more uncomfortable words of gratitude that she was sure freaked out Ortus a lot more than it embarrassed her, and hung up the phone.
Standing in the hallway of the Pent-Quinn-Chatur-Tettares household, Harrow steeled herself and walked into the kitchen— where Abigail Pent and Magnus Quinn sat— having tea.
Before they could express their excitement that Harrow had left the guest room, Harrow balled her hands into fists and simply said—
“Thank you for everything— but I'm moving out.”
-
Living in a church was like living in a perpetual Sunday mass. Thirty people were praying— someone else was crying— three or four groups of people were celebrating. Harrow had never thought of church more than the obligation she was bound to by her parents and Her Lady, but it was obvious that many people didn't have anything better to do— or anywhere better to go— than church.
Ortus was a good preacher, Harrow concluded during the hours of listening to his sermons from the attic. She had never known a version of Ortus that wasn't waxing and philosophical, so taking over the Sunday mass from his father seemed to be a calling for him. Even if he would probably be more at home at an open mic resighting spoken word poetry.
The attic had been gutted for her to call home was stripped down and empty— besides a mattress from the Pent-Quinn-Chatur-Tettares household and a poster from Jeannemary’s band Chaturbox that had been half heartedly tapped to the wall next to her cot.
The attic had never been finished so wood dust fell easily when she made walked around, the window facing north was made of stained glass that shined and shimmered beautifully in a rainbow of colors— until you had to wake up to it everyday at six in the summers morning— which quickly became an annoyance.
Most of the room was covered in boxes filled with bibles— old bottles of communion wine— and donations to the church that never found their way out of storage. Harrow had tried the wine— in an embarrassing state of desperation to stop thinking— and found it had turned to vinegar. Every bottle.
Harrow felt like a highschooler as she spent her days on her own. Wallowing. Specifically, her senior year in highschool, where she ruined her life.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus failed at the one thing she was supposed to be, successful.
She had always known what she was— not a person or a student or god forbid a daughter, Harrowhark Nonagesimus was the culmination of ten years of in vitro treatments— ten years of miscarriages— and ten years of debt trying to have her.
The sect of Catholicism her parents devoted themselves to believed the most holy thing a woman and man could do, was have a child to teach the word of the Lord, so Priamhark and Pelleamena had a child.
They tried to at least.
They listened to every piece of advice, every medical journal, every single trick in the book to get pregnant— and none of it worked.
The whispers at church got louder, the gap between them and their peers got wider, so they tried harder.
Every medication, every doctor, every fertility clinic they could find until there was only one option— in vitro. They failed ten times before they had Harrowhark, they had spent twenty thousand dollars having her.
Harrow was acutely aware of how much had been spent on her life, how much it cost to have her live. Her parents hadn't been rich by any definition of the word, but they had savings— savings they burned to have Harrow. So Harrow did what she had to, to make all the money and time and energy put into her worth it— she worked hard.
Honor roll, oboe practice, internships, scholarships, awards, everything she could— Harrow worked like a dog for. She studied daily, she worked harder than all her peers and excelled far beyond them— she was Harrowhark Nonagesimus. She had cost too much to fail.
Then something broke, something inside Harrowhark broke and it echoed throughout her body like a scream in an empty room.
It started with the first day of school she had ever missed, a cold Monday where she had felt more tired than she had ever been. Her body refused to move, her eyes closed involuntary— and she slept in.
It snowballed, of course it did.
Harrowhark went from never— in her seventeen years of life— missing an assignment— to having a laundry list of things undone. Her entire body shutdown, she couldn't do things that had been a breeze mere weeks ago.
She tried, oh she tried, to keep her head above water. Online work, emailing her teachers, asking for help but none of it worked. The overhead lights of her classrooms became too bright, she was more stressed than she knew what to do with, she was irritable, she was scared, she couldn't go through the motions she had trained herself to go through— so she burned.
Her parents were not quiet about their disappointment, her teachers were not quiet of their disbelief that perfect, prim, Harrowhark had crashed and burned.
She lost her place as top of her graduating class— she was no longer valedictorian. Her 4.8 had dropped to a 3.0, as for the first time, she failed a class. She failed AP English 4 first, and it branded her as no better than anyone else, it branded her a failure. By the time graduation came around, Harrowhark Nonagesimus not only did not give a speech, she did not attend. She had her diploma mailed to her home.
Harvard rescinded her admission a month later, and Harrowhark was nothing short of devastated.
Now she was here, lying supine in the attic of a church she had not grown up going to, and stared up at the ceiling— she had work in an hour.
Nothing could've prepared Harrowhark for the fact that at nineteen she'd be working at a Dennys’, truly, it was the worst possible outcome of her— break.
Like always, she had to thank someone else for the truly kind gift of work they had bestowed upon her. Canaan, Iowa did not have many stores, even fewer restaurants, and no places of high prestige to work at barring the local university and community college.
She just wished it hadn't been the husband of her highschool social worker to give her the job— what could be more degrading?
Still, Harrow struggled with her polo— which was terribly fitted across her chest and had strange stitches that made her want to vomit— and opted to stuff her waist apron into her Jansport backpack as she climbed down the attic ladder to the body of the church.
Ortus was standing in the nave of the church, sweaty in his high collared shirt as he stood near the altar, fumbling with a bible that looked older than the church itself.
Harrow, who would rather gut herself than get wished a good day at work by her very sweaty cousin, hunched down to the level of the pews and scampered out the front doors before Ortus could meet eyes with her.
Harrow was starting to have a lot of firsts after her parents hung themselves— she had her first meltdown in front of someone (Abigail Pent), her first time living alone (in the attic of a church), and her first time riding public transportation (which smelled bad).
Getting on was easy enough, a flash of the bus pass Abigail Pent had (embarrassingly) shoved into her backpack two weeks ago and she was seated in the back, repeating her stop in her head and holding her backpack to her chest like a shield.
The bus had what she assumed was the normal amount of people for two in the afternoon— including a woman with a sizable bust, a man whose hair was far too shiny, and a woman a few years Harrows senior with a groove between her eyebrows that she only now recognized as a stress wrinkle.
Harrow, who had always walked everywhere— or was driven around in a church van— was very relieved when the woman with the sizable bust requested the stop. As she had no idea how to do it.
She stood a bit too early and lost her footing as the bus came to a stop, and shuffled out the side door with the woman, man, and stressed lady.
Going into her first shift at Denny’s, Harrow wished she had gotten the pistol her father kept in the safe in his office after he had died, as she wished to shoot herself. Desperately.
No matter the fact that the Denny’s was managed by Magnus Quinn, who; within the first few minutes of training said the words ‘when you're here, your family.’, he could not make it an enjoyable experience. As it was a Denny’s, and thus was already weighing on Harrow’s soul.
Harrow decided that the mental capacity she had built up for nineteen years of her life, being used to memorize the menu and the correct way to clock in and out, was probably melting her brain cells. Still, she persisted.
As the morning shift cleared out, they were pulled into a ‘Family Meeting’ in the back. Which meant the servers and hosts for the night were all pulled into the walk-in freezer to discuss Harrowhark Nonagesimus’ employment.
The afternoon to evening shift of the twenty-four hour Denny’s owned by Magnus Quinn was run by— the shift manager, Judith, who had a deep wrinkle between her eyebrows that Harrow mistook for a terrible scar, hostess Coronabeth— whose breasts were too large for the medium polo shirt she was wearing, Naberius— a busboy that seemed to be the laughing stock of the evening, and Camilla, who was terribly normal and her fellow server for the shift.
“Harrowhark will be shadowing you Camilla— do teach her the ropes— Oh! And introduce her to the cook staff when you get the chance, I think she’d get on swimmingly with—” Magnus was cut off by the walk in doors opening.
Standing in the walk-in doorway, haloed by the intense lights of the restaurant kitchen, stood Gideon. In the line cooks uniform, with her apron pulled over her shoulder and her terrible red hair messed as she stared at the congregation with confusion— her eyes meeting Harrows on a second glance.
Promptly, Harrow threw up on the floor of the walk-in freezer.