ADRIAN'S RETURN WAS THE MAIN TOPIC DURING BREAKFAST. While the Allan women ate their waffles, they talked about what their plans were once he returned. It was tradition for them to watch some sort of movie or do something altogether as a family when he returned.
It was one of the few times that Brooke felt as though they actually wanted her there. Though she always did wonder what her father did when he was gone. He never went into specifics, saying that he didn't want them to worry about his job and how they had to make money; all they had to worry about, he said, was to be happy and do the best that they could.
It was a nice sentiment, really. Brooke did love her father, he never once told her to give up doing art, going so far as to buy her supplies while he was gone. It was just proof that, sometimes, he did notice her.
"Flash can't drive us today," Liz said, walking out of the house towards Jason and Sally Avril who were sitting in the car out front, "He drives his sisters now, and there's not enough room."
Brooke raised her eyebrows, surprised. "I thought he only had Diana, he has another sister?"
Diana Smith was Flash's adopted sister, or so it's been understood, and the two girls never spoke, but Brooke didn't have anything negative to think of her and, she hoped, the feeling was mutual.
"Yeah, her name's Jesse, she's really sweet," Liz replied, and that was the end of the conversation.
The two stepped into the car and, suddenly, Liz was too focused on talking to her friends that she didn't care to include Brooke. So, as usual, the girl stuck in her earbuds and stared out the window, not speaking until they reached the school.
"What do you think we should do tonight?"
Brooke paused as she reached for the door to the school, surprised. She looked over her shoulder to see Liz standing behind her, patiently waiting for a response.
"Sorry?" Brooke asked, still opening the door and stepping inside, in case her sister was somehow asking someone else other than her; her sister rarely ever spoke to her when she had other people she could talk to.
"When dad gets home," Liz explained, the two walking side-by-side, "What do you think we should do? I have to make posters and stuff tonight for leadership, so it can't run super long."
Brooke shrugged. "I don't really care, what do you want to do?"
Liz shrugged as well, their shrugs being near identical—one following slightly after the other. "I'll come up with something. Let me find you during lunch, we'll discuss."
Brooke nodded, wishing that her heart didn't pick up with excitement at the prospect of spending time with Liz. "Yeah, sure!"
The older girl grinned and squeezed her shoulder. "Great! See you then!"
As she made her way towards her first period class, Brooke couldn't help but smile. She was actually looking forward to the day.
º º º
Brooke groaned and glanced at the clock, tapping her finger against her temple. A minute had passed since the start of the class and she wished it would move faster. They were discussing the scientific probability of certain aspects of sci-fi movies and someone had suggested they watch original Star Wars trilogy.
She wasn't an immense fan of Star Wars, if she was completely honest.
She enjoyed it as any other person did, she looked forward to all the new movies as any casual fan did, she did love the newest movie with the very diverse cast, but she didn't see the appeal of knit-picking.
So she decided to draw.
She decided to try and do storyboards, something that she would never do otherwise. She wasn't a comic artist or an animator—while she loved movies, she couldn't see herself working in the animation industry in any way, it just wasn't her thing—but she did appreciate learning different techniques and learning.
So she did quick sketches of the scenes in her sketchbook, making small rectangles for all of them. She filled up two front and back pages before giving up, having to close her eyes for a few moments, her head hurting from the rapid glancing.
She decided to just draw the characters after that, paying idle attention to the movie. She was in the middle of drawing stars around a pink Darth Vader helmet when she heard a short gasp to her right.
Across the short distance between the edge of her table and the edge of another, a boy was looking at her sketches with wide eyes.
"Those look great."
She didn't quite look at him, humming, preparing herself for the inevitable set of questions she always received once people learned that she could draw, or saw that she was drawing something at all. "Thanks."
"Do you just look at the picture for a second and just draw it out perfectly, or what?" he asked, still leaned over to look at her work.
That was a question she never received. She stammered out a response, taken aback, "Um...I guess so? I mean, he shows up a bit and I've seen his helmet a lot...I do reference things, though."
"Cool," he said, sitting back correctly in his seat, the boy next to him raising an eyebrow at him. "You're really good at that."
She smiled slightly, surprised. "Thanks."
She continued to draw as the movie progressed, continuing to check the clock, eagerly anticipating the arrival of lunch. Towards the end of the class period, she opened up a fresh page and did a quick permanent marker sketch of the Darth Vader helmet surrounded by textbooks, the same ones on the boy's desk.
When the teacher paused the movie, turning on the lights, two minutes left in the period, she ripped it out, placing it on his desk. Most people asked her to draw them something or other various questions that bothered her to no end.
He hadn't asked her any of the dumb questions, so she drew him a picture. She heard him whispering some of the dialogue to the boy next to him, so she figured he'd enjoy it.
She meant to catch his name as she went—they had a large class and there was no set seating chart, making learning names difficult—but forgot in favor of rushing down to the art studio, packed lunch in her bag, hoping to make it there before River.
Little did she know, the boy she had given the picture to had stared at it long after the bell had rung, too awestruck to touch it. It wasn't until it his impatient friend had tugged him away, mumbling about not wanting his ex-girlfriend's godbrother to bother them again.
º º º
"—he gets really into Monopoly, though. I beat him last time and he made everyone pancakes but me."
Liz laughed as Brooke retold the story of when they all decided to play Monopoly and she, to the surprise of everyone, herself included, won all the same color spaces and, eventually, the entire game. No one ever finished an entire game and, yet, she had.
"Well, we can't keep playing Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity is too..." the older girl trailed off, letting the silence speak for itself.
The girls were planning on a board game they could play with their father. They had an entire section in their small off-basement dedicated to board games they had accumulated throughout the years, and they figured they could go in and find something.
"Maybe we can play Sorry, that's an old one," Brooke offered, struggling to come up with names of other board games. She purposefully ignored River who was giving her weird looks behind Liz's back.
"I love that game!" Liz gasped, "That's perfect. We'll play that. Okay, I gotta head back to the cafeteria, but this was great, glad we could figure it out."
With that, the senior rose to her feet and walked out of the art studio, now on her phone, casting on last wave to her sister over her shoulder before disappearing from view. With that, the nice moment was over and Brooke was back to being alone.
Well, almost alone. Immediately, River walked over from the other table, taking the seat that Liz had just been occupying.
"Why was she here?" she asked, as if Liz were a repulsive smell she was glad to be rid of.
"Our dad is coming home, so we're gonna have a family night. We've been doing board games recently," she explained, trying to keep the mood as light as possible.
River snorted. "That's pretty cheesy, don't you think?"
Brooke shrugged, wondering if Liz thought the same thing. "I mean, I guess? But it's something we always do."
River sighed heavily. "My parents don't even sleep in the same room together."
Just like that, Brooke had to swoop in and comfort her friend. It was a common occurrence, really, and while she didn't want to seem as though her friend's problems were a burden, River made her feel guilty for having a family that was, for the most part, a good one.
So that was her lunch. It was all normal, really, with River talking about her family, scoffing at Brooke's attempts to cheer her up, making scathing comments whenever she promised to include her in important moments of her life—the most specific being the idea of her having a wedding, as River is set on the idea of the neither of them finding love because they're the "awkward ones"—when the girl felt as though Brooke would abandon her, making her promise that they'd go to the same college together.
"Your sister is the worst," River spat towards the end of the period, "She thinks she's so popular and so great. Do you see all the makeup she wears?"
"She doesn't wear a lot," Brooke said softly, "And if she did, so what?"
River rolled her eyes. "It's so slutty. Everyone think she's so great, but she's awful, you said it yourself!"
Brooke had never once said that her sister was awful, not that she'd ever tell River, the girl would never believe her. So she swallowed the lump in her throat and let the girl continue on her tirade, waiting until she moved onto other topics.
By the time the bell rang, River had cried and Brooke felt numb to her tears; before, she had internalized them, cried with her, panicked over her. But over the summer, something had changed. Now, she couldn't feel much at all.
She sighed as she tugged on her backpack, heading to class with River still talking next to her. She didn't really feel like joining in on family game night, now that she thought about it.
º º º
Whenever Adrian returned home, they brought home takeout from one of their favorite restaurants. That night, they had Italian, much to the delight of the man and his daughters.
"How was your trip, dad?" Liz asked, twirling her fork in her spaghetti, not stopping until it was all neatly wrapped around the metal, easily sliding it into her mouth.
"It was good, gumdrop," he said around his food, grinning at his exasperated wife, "How was school, sorry I missed your first last day."
"It's alright, it was good," she said, nodding to herself, "It was good. We already need to start planning for Homecoming since we're probably going to be changing our minds a lot."
"You sure you want to be in charge of all these things, you have a lot on your plate as it is," he said, looking at his eldest daughter with a concerned look, looking over to his wife for help.
"I got it, dad," Liz said, rather shortly if you were to ask any of her family members. No one commented on it, all of them going back to their food.
"How's the art going, pumpkin?" Adrian asked after a few minutes, turning to look at his youngest daughter who was taking a long sip of her lemonade.
She winced at the taste, shrugging in response, her father laughing as she tried and failed to unhinge herself from the way her eye was closed shut. "It's going the same as always. Thanks for the sketchbook, I really liked it."
"Did you already fill it up?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
She nodded. "Yeah, I finished it completely today, I got a new one after school today, I was gonna break it in before bed."
"Well, I'm glad you've found something you really like," he said, nodding again to his wife who nodded as well, distracted by the quiet conversation she was having with Liz.
After a few more minutes of conversation and eating, the dishes were all put away and the family made their way to the living room, Liz going into the basement, pulling out the Sorry board game.
"What took you so long, gumdrop?" Adrian asked, almost nervously, sitting next to his wife, Brooke sitting across from them.
She sighed, setting it down. "It's dark down there and I had to rearrange the entire set up, it was too messy."
Their mother sighed minutely, but made no comment, ignoring Liz's sharp look of hurt. Trying to ease the tension, Adrian opened the box and began setting up the game, Brooke helping him, reading out the instructions.
The family got into the swing of things easily and soon the house was filled with the sounds of laughter and shouting, Adrian crying out dramatically whenever anyone passed his player or sent him back home.
Brooke laughed as she played, her mother getting fiercely competitive when she was close to winning, hitting her husband with a pillow when he sent her back to square one, the two teenagers shrieking with laughter, Liz begging her to do it again for her Snapchat.
The Allan-Toomes household was a nice one. Not perfect, as many—the members included—were led to believe, but nice.
º º º
Brooke had broken in her sketchbook to the point where she was awake past midnight. She checked the clock and shrugged, climbing off her bed and stretching, heading to the kitchen; she would regret it in the morning.
As she made her way to the kitchen to get herself some food, she caught sight of light streaming from the bottom of Liz's room. She walked towards the door, intrigued, opening it carefully.
She found Liz sitting hunched over various posterboards, markers scattered in an ordered chaos on the floor, the girl pausing to arrange their order, but not in a straight line. When she heard the door open, she looked up, like a deer caught in the headlights.
She relaxed the moment she realized it was Brooke, shaking her head. "I thought you were mom," she whispered, motioning for her to close the door and step inside, "She always gets mad when I stay up too late for this."
"I thought mom liked you going all for this, dad's the one who gets upset," she whispered back, frowning at the scene; she didn't like the idea of her sister overworking herself.
"Mom thinks I'm crazy, remember she took me to that one doctor?" Liz sighed, shaking her head, "I usually work on this stuff in my closet, but since dad just came home, I figured it'd be safe to work out here. Will you tell?"
Brooke looked down at her sister who was kneeling on the floor. Everything in her wanted to tell her mother, to let her know that she was worried about Liz. The compulsions were fine and that was a matter all on its own—something they had already addressed—but allowing this to continue without any acknowledgment was something else entirely.
But Liz was holding out her pinky by this point and Brooke couldn't say no. She she locked their pinkies, silently promising not to tell their mother about Liz's late night habits.
She walked out of the room, making her way down the stairs to the kitchen pantry, pulling out a few granola bars and a bag of vegetable chips, pulling out bottles of water from the fridge.
Heading back to her room, she paused at Liz's, moving towards her, holding out the chips and a water bottle, waiting until she took them so she could place them wherever she felt comfortable.
Liz silently thankedher, barely pausing her fluid motions, writing over the pencil marks she made on the banners.
Brooke made her way bag to her room, collapsing next to her sketchbook on the bed. She picked up her pen to continue drawing, only to find that whatever drive she had had before standing up was now gone.
Setting it aside, she closed her eyes, trying to tamp down all the guilt that was rising in her chest.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
( 11.15.17 )
You guys like my references to Lonely Hearts? This story is intertwined with that one, if you didn't know, and it's just really nice to mention Diana in passing, it's as if she's really part of the movie, I don't know, I'm weird.
Also, another Ned interaction! Wow, can you believe it? Such a pure boy.
I don't have much to say other than I gave Liz compulsions (idk what to call them, but it's what I kinda have, it's an OCD thing you feel)
So anyways! That's all I have to say so thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!