Hawkins Unraveling

CH 7 : Coming To Terms

The fighting was loud. It always was. And it was always the same. She didn't need light to know what was coming next, and in a way the darkness that surrounded her felt like a bit of an embrace. The calm before the storm, and all that.

But then light pierced the darkness, just a flash, and the illusion of comfort was gone. In flashes, she caught glimpses of her mother's tears, her anguished face, and her father's anger, his raging fists. She listened there, in the dark, like so many times before as a child, as the two of them screamed at each other, at the insults they wielded like weapons. In a fit of bold confidence, her mother slapped her father across the face. In a bitter act of revenge, her father threw her mother down a set of stairs that were there even though, before, they hadn't been.

The outcome was always the same. The thud of her mother's body on the ground, the sickening crack of her skull against the tile, the unnatural bend in her neck, and the stillness. Always the stillness.

And as always, when her father turned to face her, he raged in her face like he had her mother's screaming the same insults over and over and over again. "You're worthless, you're good for nothing, you don't even matter– just like your mother." Except this time when his eyes would burn bright green in his hatred, instead they blazed a sharp, bright white, until somewhere in the mix of the hurling insults they morphed into scratched, bleeding, gaping holes. And with each new chant, those gaping holes drew closer and closer, and she couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't help but wait to be swallowed up.

-worthless, good for nothing, don't even matter-

-worthless, good for nothing, don't even matter-

-worthless, good for nothing, don't even matter-

And in the background, behind all of the chanting, there was a chiming of a clock...

June surged out of a tumultuous sleep, her body trembling and her skin tacky from a cold sweat.

"June."

She gasped, twisting her head to find Steve behind her– under her, too, since she'd somehow made it to his lap– with his hand outstretched tentatively, like he wanted to touch her but was afraid to.

"You're okay, June," he said soothingly, his voice pitched low. It had gotten dark in the room– had someone turned off some lights, or had it just become dark outside? It made seeing the others around her much harder, especially since most of them were asleep. Steve was awake, and so was Max. The younger girl sat in a chair in the corner of the room, and she was watching June with wide eyes.

"I'm okay," June mumbled, mostly for Max's sake, a little bit for Steve's and her own. Her mouth felt thick, and her body didn't even feel like hers. She pushed herself up, scooting away from Steve's lap– how had she ended up with her head there in the first place?-- and smoothed her hands over her face, trying to maintain an air of control.

Her hands came away with smears of blood from where they passed under her nose.

Fighting back a threat of tears, June balled her hands into fists on her thighs and pushed up into a standing position. "Be right back," she muttered hoarsely.

"June-"

She didn't wait like Steve wanted her to. She took the basement stairs two at a time, pausing at the landing only long enough to ensure she was alone, then moved down the hall for the bathroom. Thankfully it was vacant. She pushed her way inside, shutting the door just moments before someone– not someone, she knew it was Steve– rapped against it. "June, let me in."

"Can't give a girl a moment of peace, Harrington?" she joked, trying to cover up how nasally she was about to sound. Already her eyes were brimming with the tears she'd been holding back all day, and now that she couldn't hold them back anymore, she had to make them count. Real June would have a breakdown now, but that was all she could afford.