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Strobe lights flicker and shine into Natalie’s eyes as she marches up the gravelly driveway. Seriously, Lot? All she can think about is the expensive liquor Lottie has likely procured and it makes Nat’s heart pound at how she will soon be able to forget everything. She pulls down the sleeves of her jacket, entering the mansion. Don’t need people worrying.
Natalie instantly makes a beeline to the kitchen, producing quite possibly the most alcoholic and disgusting drink ever, and in Natalie Scatorccio fashion, downs it. It stings deliciously and she can almost already feel the thoughts draining from her head. Yes. She’s already making another one when Van Palmer is aggressively tapping at her shoulder,
“Already going at it?” She grins widely and glances at Taissa, who is practically hanging from Van.
“The faster I forget, the better.” Van and Taissa both make a face at this, and they look at each other, worry in their eyes. Deciding they will do absolutely nothing, they quickly make an exit. Going to make out, Natalie bets. She scans the kitchen while grimacing at her most recent concoction, staring at the kitchen knives a little too long, wondering a little too much how many people would really care.
She walks away, settling on finding one Kevyn Tan, whose weed always fixes her problems. Nat finds him fiddling with a blunt, her one salvation, and quickly takes the seat next to him, fishing a lighter out of her jacket pocket.
“Almost finished? I desperately need some weed in my system right now.”
He looks up at her curiously before holding the now-wrapped blunt up to her with some sort of jazz hands gesture. She snatches it from his hands, and lights it. Nat inhales expertly and long, feeling the rush of the substance in her lungs. Perfect. She goes again, yearning for more. Kevyn looks at her weirdly, something close to worry in his eyes. Fuck’s sake, you too?
“Damn, Nat. No time to waste, huh?” He admires, taking the blunt back from Natalie to take his own hit.
“Need to forget I exist.” She mutters back, her words cryptic to him. He takes another glance at her mid-exhale. Stop looking at me like that. Nat gets up, whispering a half-assed “seeya”.
She finds somewhere to linger, fingers curled tightly around a whiskey bottle. Like father like daughter, her mind mocks, followed by flashbacks of her father with a bottle in his hand, his booming voice echoing throughout her skull. Enough, brain. It doesn’t listen. Her body aches where past bruises have bloomed, where she still feels the ghost of her father’s fist. She takes a big gulp from her bottle, willing her brain to shut up. Her eyes are glazed over, and she barely notices the hand reaching for her arm.
It grips tightly, and pain ruptures through her nerves, stinging. She grimaces.
“Ow! Motherfucker!” Her mouth reacts before she can stop it. She meets the eyes of Lottie Matthews. Those eyes..
Shock paints her face for a few seconds before morphing into worry. Not again.
“Um..sorry?” She pauses, loosening her hand, “Natalie, why did it hurt that much?”
Shit.
“You just..have a tight fucking grip. Do you work out or something?” She counters, desperately trying to change the subject.
“You’re lying,” Lottie states, because for some reason she cannot be fooled, “Don’t lie to me.” Her big doe eyes gaze into Natalie’s, almost like she’s trying to hypnotise her.
“I’m not lying, Lot.”
“Come on, Nat.”
“I’m not lying— Will you let go?” Nat tries to shake her arm free of Lottie, even going as far to smack Lottie’s arm in an attempt to get free and do the only thing she knows how. Run.
Lottie, forever caring, keeps her arm steady, but never tightening back up. She opens her mouth again,
“I’m not letting go until you tell me what’s wrong.”
Natalie hates this. Natalie just wants to run away. Why does everyone have to care and worry about her? Can’t they just leave her alone? In her fit, Natalie gets the bright idea to grab the bottle she put aside not too long ago, and hits Lottie with it. Not enough to injure her, but enough to get her stupid, gentle hand off of her. Lottie winces, flinching away from Natalie, her hand falling away. Wait.
Images of her father flash through her head, the countless times she flinched away from him, the bruises that he created, the look on his face, the whiskey bottle in his hand.
Her breathing begins to get heavier, and she looks back up to Lottie, who is clutching her hand. Fuck. No. You’re just like him. Her brain starts back up again. Like father like daughter. Always hurting those you’re meant to love.
Natalie takes one last look at Lottie before bolting. She frantically searches for the nearest door with a lock, passing by Mari and Akilah, who are laughing with eachother. You could never have a friendship like that. She passes by Jackie dancing and Shauna watching with longing. You could never love like them. Finally, she passes by Laura Lee, praying silently to herself for a drunk Van Palmer whose head is laying in the lap of a sleeping Taissa Turner. You could never be as innocent as her. You could never be like them. You are too broken.
Shutting herself in an unoccupied bathroom and locking the door, she presses her back against it, sliding down onto the floor. The dam inside her gives way, and she breaks into tears. Her arms sting, her heart aches, her throat burns. The intoxication in her veins does anything but help the flashing images in her brain. She yearns to rid herself from that man, but he lives inside her, rotting her very being.
Why her? Why couldn’t she be like them? Why couldn’t she be normal?
She curls into herself, scratching at the healing scars, and tracing over where Lottie’s hand was. She hurt Lottie. She really was just like him. His being settled into her veins, and made a home there.
Natalie shifts onto the tiled floor of the bathroom, laying there for what feels like hours, her eyes leaving a puddle on the floor. Eventually, they droop closed, and she falls asleep. On the floor of Lottie’s bathroom. Pathetic. Her brain spits at her. It always gets the last laugh.