GROWING PAINS , scott mccall

prologue

GROWING PAINS

prologue
[ season three - episode two]

𝐃𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐘 pink silk sheets were gathered at the bottom of her bed; her clothes strewn over the laminate flooring of her bedroom. Amongst them, the occasional screwed-up tissue, a sign of a sleepless night spent weeping. But she would never admit that. She had been raised in such a  way that admitting weakness was to admit defeat. Her mother was a proud and precise woman who had raised her daughter to believe "pretty girls don't cry", for that, Noelle would never have the guts to admit that she wasn't what her mother had always strived for. 

Clara Priestley had always imagined her firstborn being a son. A strong, handsome son who was going to make the family name a household name. It would begin with high school when her son would claim the most prestigious title a high school could offer- captain of the lacrosse team. He would get a sports scholarship, putting him through college, and eventually on top of the chain.  He would have the best the world had to offer. Her second-born would be a flawless daughter who would follow in her footsteps as she excelled in everything, especially looks. Her popularity, her wits. Every young girl would wish to be her. She would be incomparable. Clara Priestley would stop at nothing to get what she wanted.

She didn't care about the little things like feelings or dreams. If it didn't suit her taste or perfect image, she didn't care about what her children wanted. Her aspirations would be theirs too. She knew how to get them there, all they had to do was comply.

That was where she struggled. Getting her children to obey her. Her daughter especially. Noelle couldn't just sit and look pretty like her mother asked, she followed in the tracks of her father and brother, taking up multiple sports whether it was swimming or cross-country. Clara saw it as her daughter purposely going out of her way to infringe the very things she stood for. Noelle saw it as an excuse to avoid her mother.

She often made-up sporting events such as swim meets to avoid her dull home, since her father's death, she hated nothing more than being stuck in a house that had no memory of him. That home was gone. Destroyed. Now, she lived inside of the drab four walls that felt like a torture chamber. It hadn't always been that way. Her mother used to be better, still intolerable at times, but better. She was married, she had the Sheriff on her arm and was practically like the first lady of Beacon Hills. She was at the top of the food chain, the moment that it began to slip away from her, she turned.

Whenever she needed parental guidance, Noelle didn't turn to the woman who'd birthed her, but her two more bearable parental figures. Noah Stilinski, her best friend's father, a good friend to her own late father. Or Melissa McCall, her other best friend's mother. The two of them saw the young girl as their own, neither had been blessed with a daughter, a surrogate child was as good as they would get. And Noelle was a blessing to them. Them, a blessing to her.