Erosion- Dreamwastaken x OC

Part 1

Motion Sickness- Phoebe Bridgers

<< There are no words in the English language I could scream to drown you out >>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Love is sitting in her room, like always. If she's not at school or work or cheer, she's home. Despite how much she dislikes living with her mother, there is not much other choice. Nobody really wants Love to be alone, not trusting her like she wishes they would. The only good thing her mother, Cora, did when forcing Love to come home was allow her to have the basement. At least now she can pretend nobody else exists. 

Love can hear faint footsteps on the ceiling, praying it isn't her mother. "Love, you have to get ready!" Jada, Love's younger sister, shouts from up the stairs. Leaving her room in general sounds very displeasing. She's always been a bit of an introvert but especially after her breakup with Dream. He helped her out in social situations more often than not. 

Love puts her blanket over head, almost hoping to disappear in their warmth. When there's another shout from the top of the stairs, Love yells back. "For what?" Jada's footsteps come running towards the door and she hears it creak open. Her sister sets a coffee on the desk next to Love's bed, clouded with books and notes and old dishes. Love is embarrassed about the mess but knows Jada has grown to understand her sister. 

"Block party with mom," She says simply, patting Love's head and exiting. Love genuinely admires her sister in so many ways. She is the absolute best sister that Love could need, despite her age. She brings her coffee, helps Love destress, helps her leave the house, helps Love try and regain her life back step by step. After losing one sister, Love developed a much stronger appreciation for Jada. 

After a few minutes, Love takes a deep breath and forces herself to drag herself out of bed then goes through the motions. Just doing the absolute bare minimum such as brushing her teeth and washing her face, putting on some makeup as well. It typically makes her feel better. Honestly, not everyday is like this for Love. Just when things get bad, she cannot pull herself out of bed or take care of herself. It feels like she's a burden to her entire family and Cora loves to make it known that she actually is. 

Love puts on a nice outfit and fixes her hair before walking out of the basement to greet her family, all of whom are sitting in the family room. "Finally," her mom comments. They all stand and walk. Jada waits behind for Love. Her relationship with Cora has never been very good despite all they have been through together. Cora has always felt burdened by Love and has never hid this. 

"What crawled up her ass?" Jada complains quietly. Love laughs lightly and continues on, the two girls following down the street. Love watches the people in front of them, she watches the ground beneath her feet, she watches everything else she can as she passes the house on her right. Dreams family still live there. Every time she passes it, she gets anxious and she avoids all contact with it. Not even that she is on bad terms with the people inhabiting the house, just a lot of memories. Love genuinely dislikes living on the same block as Dreams family, knowing he's close at most times when he's with his family.  

They enter the house only 2 doors down from Dream's place. Their mother would drag them to all these parties as a kid so Love is not too surprised she is here right now. "Cora! Welcome! Come in!" Their neighbor, Kathy, exclaims. Everyone loves, or at least pretends to, their family. More importantly their mother. Cora hands the plate of food she was carrying over to Love, embracing the woman and then heading off. Jada follows their mother, trying to find her friends. Love sets the food down, sitting at the island in the kitchen. People come in and out, Love just stares and continues to refill her plate with meaningless snacks. 

 "Love?" She turns her head quickly, face to face with Laura, Dream's mom. "Hi Lovebug! Long time no see!" She always called her Lovebug. It started when they were kids and it never went away. Not that she ever minded. Laura was the closest thing she ever had to a healthy maternal figure. Love's palms are sweating and shaking. This feels like an alternate universe interaction to Love. So out of place and wrong, like it's about to tear a rip in the fabric of the universe. 

"Hey!" Love begins to put on a façade. "It's been forever!" At least 2 year and 3 months. "How are you?" She is soon being embraced by the older woman who used to be essentially her mother. Love and Laura used to be very close. She always connected with Laura, from day one. In middle school, whenever something would happen, Love would turn to Laura every single time. No matter what, it would always be Laura over Cora. Nobody ever complained about this arrangement. 

"How have things been? Are you back in school?" Love realizes Laura probably doesn't know about the past couple of months. The past 2 years, actually. Time really has flew by for Love, having a really bad couple of years. 

"I've been good! Actually, finishing up the year cheering with the University of Florida," Laura gasps loudly, clapping her hands in excitement. Last time Love and Laura had talked, cheering was simply a thing of the past and hope for the future after her incident. 

"The gators!" Love is surprised by how excited Laura is for her. Or just in general. "I would love to come watch you soon?" Laura says it more like a suggestion and Love admires that. 

 "That would be really nice," Nobody comes to her games or practices ever. Her mom hasn't been to one since her freshman year. Dream used to come to every single one, no matter what. Sometimes he'd bring Claire or Collete or Cameron. But nobody, except the occasional Jada, have showed up to anything in a while. Love misses that emotional support of it all. 

The two slip into a comfortable silence, both thinking about their next words carefully when people approach from behind. Speaking of the siblings. Love's heart nearly stops. They haven't faced each other since everything. She's seen his brother and sisters since, purely by accident. But the two were very meticulous about avoiding one another. 

Dream feels as if he has just had the wind knocked out of him. Like he has fallen onto his back and cannot seem to catch his breath after. The two lock eyes, the emotions being shared unintentionally. Love does not have the emotional capability of handling this today. She did not want to be here in the first place, but now that he is here? She wants to completely disappear. It's hard to see him after everything that they've been through. After how it all ended. 

"I actually have to prep for practice soon," Love comes up with the lie on the spot, "It was great catching up." Love gives Laura and the two sisters a quick goodbye hug, rushing out of the house as quickly as possible. The world feels like it is going entirely too fast underneath her feet. Like she is spinning out of control and is going to fall flat on her back.  Love is familiar with the feeling of the world going too slow, like she is too much for it's axis. This is new. 

"Love!" Someone calls out loudly, snapping her out of her motion sickness. She's met face to face with the devil himself and again, the dizziness reappears. His eyes are staring into hers and she wants to break eye contact more than anything else. "Um.. you left this," He holds out her jacket. Love stares at it as she takes it from his hands. Neither say any other words.

 What could they say to fix any of this? 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Motion Sickness- Phoebe Bridgers

<< There are no words in the English language I could scream to drown you out >>