music for the neck downwards

a fight in blackpool

Shannon scoffed, "I was looking for the opposite, actually! I was looking for love!" It was the middle of August, but both Shannon and Andrew felt considerably cold.

Andrew's exaggerated eye roll was apparent from across the room as he yanked himself from the chair, ignoring Shannon's questions while he hastily pulled his jacket on. "I'm going for a round. Ta." He finally supplied, lacing up his boots.

"Don't get wasted, or you'll be well in it!!" Shannon called after him, desperately, though she knew it was in vain. Of course he was underage, being only seventeen, but Andrew O'Neil had been both blessed and cursed with a smooth mouth. He could talk anyone into anything, oftentimes past what was good for him. Shannon had no doubt as she watched Andrew stomp away that he would be getting into any bar he wanted that night.

She passed the time by worrying, as she always did. Attempting not even to think about Andrew by distracting herself, though even that didn't work. She wanted to go see Andy in the NICU, just to look at her baby, but it was late and Shannon already felt like the nurses despised her and she wouldn't want to impose. Seeing her own baby wasn't a right she felt she owned.

Shannon remembered, instead, when she was smaller and had been so eager to grow up. She remembered a time when she had pulled herself into the front seat, so her boots left a dirty mark on the darkness of the passenger side. The lines of Mary Janes left a reminder of her infancy, even if she was thirteen now, as she crawled into the driver's side; the shoes had been a silly teenage trend, and she had followed it.

Instead, she sits in the seat, smiling with a strange sort of nostalgia for a time she had never lived. Remarking how much bigger the passenger side is, and how different it is, and how grown up she feels, she traces the steering wheel and grips it as if it is a life source. She had been on a road trip with her father once, and he invited her to hold the wheel while he quickly checked the map, so she leant over and touched it with only her fingertips, feeling the material through it, like she had been invited, briefly, into adulthood. In a few short years, she would be sobbing on the bathroom floor with a little test in her hands, about to be exiled due to shame from her family, but at the time she didn't know that and so she crawled back into the passenger side before her father could return from the store. The sliver of adulthood, of independence, of freedom, was a secret for her and for her alone.

Outside the car, snow was falling.

The doorbell ringing repeatedly, mixed with obnoxious, repetitive knocking, called her from remembering. It was much later now when she answered it; the stumbling, decrepit Andrew greeted her very much like the stench of booze that hit her once she opened the door. "Oh, Andrew," She sighed, to herself, close to tears, "Why do you do the things that you do?"

In her grief, she hadn't noticed the person holding him up. A man, careful and strong, struggled under the weight of Andrew. He was considerably taller, but he had always been taller than most. Behind him, a woman was fretting, plump and kind-looking. Ashamed and embarrassed, Shannon pulled Andrew in; he was conscious but not quite, stumbling around with his eyes closed like a drunken fool. Shannon merely pushed him to fall over the couch, a hidden little amount of satisfaction overtaking her when his head uncomfortably fell against the hard armrest. Turning to his saviours, she looked towards the ground, "Thank you, sir and ma'am."

The woman stepped forward, frowning pitifully, "It's no trouble at all, dear. I don't mean to pry, but how old are you two?" Shannon, so used to these questions and the judgement that came with them, was unsurprised to find that the answers fell from her mouth without thinking, "We're both seventeen."

Another 'tsk, tsk' came from the woman and Shannon begged for the ground to swallow her whole. Later, she would wonder why she didn't just close the door considering they were on her porch, but she knew she couldn't. The little girl in her found the people older than her, her elders, superior; she was younger, and therefore not equal. The woman began in a caring tone, so foregin to Shannon, "You are brave, honey. So young to have a baby."

Shannon furrowed her brows, a protective hand flying to her stomach, "How could you tell?" Appearance was of utmost importance to Shannon, and she was on a plan to lose what little weight she gained from pregnancy.

"From the crib set behind you, darling, don't worry." The man said this time, pointing with the arm that was around his wife's shoulders, "I'm John Rivers, and this here is Barbara Rivers. We're your neighbours, just right there."

Shannon knew them. John, always with his glasses dipping down his nose, ran in his front yard with his children between work hours. Barbara would sit in the garden, tending to the flowers and watching, laughing, with the younger kids who were too young to play. Shannon put on her best smile and shook both of their hands, "I'm Shannon Kit, and this here is Andrew O'Neil... I think you'd like to meet him once he's.... Well, y'know, awake."'

They laughed appropriately, but it didn't feel very natural. Just as Shannon was about to close the door, Barbara stopped her, "Again, I apologize for prying, but where is your baby?"

Shannon took a long time to answer. Who would ask that of a stranger? Even John looked slightly appalled. If Andrew had been awake, he would've grown mad, angry even. Shannon then remembered that she was mad at him, and deciding to do something he wouldn't purely out of spite, she raised her chin defiantly, "He's in hospital. He's sick. Goodbye now."

"My goodness sweetheart, I didn't mean to offend! You see, my third child, Judy, was in the NICU," Barbara stopped Shannon from closing the door once again, "I just wanted to say... we're here for you. It's what neighbours do, isn't it? I insist, darling, come to us for help if you need, don't be shy! We have seven kids, we know how it is!"

Shannon didn't quite know how to react. It was clear that Barbara wanted to touch her in some way, to hold her cheeks the way she did her own daughters and hug her the way she did her own boys, but Shannon wasn't ready so Barbara held herself. There was a warmth surrounding John and Barbara, coming from everything about them but especially from their parental auras and their loving smiles, that was so new to Shannon it scared her. She opened her mouth and closed it a couple times, but all she could manage was, "Okay. Thanks. Night."

She closed the door.