✯♛✯
𝐇𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐞 𝐀𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐚 was approaching the Island a day earlier than planned, Francine had spent most of her time helping the staff prepare her house for the storm. That day she was supposed to go help her mother run a few errands but to get out of doing something that would most likely be boring, she helped the workers fix her property. Her mother wasn't happy that she'd rather help the staff than her but Francine basically ignored her comments about how the workers were getting paid to do it, and how Sarah would help her family instead. She rolled her eyes at the last part, sure Sarah was her best friend but they weren't that alike.
It was ten o'clock at night and the storm was already picking up. The wind caused the house to shake and the rain plated onto Francine's bedroom window. She wasn't worried about all of that at the moment as she was currently in her room searching through her stuff. She was looking for a box that she hid in the back of her closet, away from anyone to see, especially her mom. She tore her whole room apart looking for the small pink shoebox that held her most important belongings. She hadn't touched it in a while so she didn't understand how it could've just vanished. She never took it outside of her room so that was the only place it could be, unless someone took it.
"Mom, Chris!" She called out her bedroom door, knowing that they were probably downstairs locking the doors and windows so they don't blow open when the storm gets really bad. The whole family was getting ready for bed and Francine was getting out her box. It was her 'good luck box,' she had received from one of her friends for her birthday after her parents split up. She was pretty sure that she had it with her every time there was a bad storm or something big and stressful was coming up.
"Fran?" Christopher peeked his head into the room, his brows furrowing at the state it was in. He looked around for the teenage girl, seeing her head pop up from behind her bed, looking distressed. "What's wrong?"
Francine ran her hand through her hair nervously as she paced around her room muttering to herself. Basically ignoring his question, "Where could it be?"
He opened her door wider, stepping inside. He hopped around, trying to avoid the clothes and books that scattered the floor. It looked worse than outside, and there was a hurricane going on. Christopher walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders gently, "What are you looking for?"
She shook her head as she walked away from him searching through her closet again, "I have a small, um, pink box. There's, like, important stuff in there and I can't lose it."
He nodded as he looked around the room for the pink box, thinking it was in the most obvious place and she just missed it while frantically searching for it. Once he couldn't see anything and Francine was finished doing the fifteenth search through her closet that night, he sighed. "It's going to be okay after the storm passes we'll ask the maid to keep an eye out while she's cleaning."
"No, no, no," She mumbled panicking over the lost item filled with priceless things. "It was in my closet, I-I didn't move it."
Christopher gave her a reassuring smile, trying to calm her down a little, "I'm sure it's there, you just missed it. It's probably under all this mess, so I suggest that you go to sleep now before the storm gets too bad and clean this all up tomorrow. Okay?"
She sighed, really not liking the idea, she needed her good luck box, she had it for every single bad thing that happened to her since she received it. If her mother found it she'd be dead, and the woman would probably throw the box in the trash. Francine inhaled deeply and nodded with a small smile, she had to try and get some sleep. She doubted that she would get a lot, with the storm going on, and the missing box she was worrying over would make it hard. She'd try though.
After seeing her nod, Christopher said goodnight and left her alone in her mess of a room. The teenager climbed under her covers and soon fell asleep to the sound of the hurricane outside.
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"𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐭 me help with that," Francine told one of the staff members as they were cleaning her lawn, the woman was having trouble lifting a big stick that fell over the backyard patio. She nodded thankfully as the two picked it up together, walking it to the pile of trash the others had put there for the trucks to take away.
Francine had woken up a few hours before and immediately looked out the window at the damage the hurricane had made. She saw that people were already outside picking up the lawn, it was almost back to normal, just a few places they hadn't got yet. After seeing people hard at work, she threw her hair up and got dressed to help them. On her way to the backyard, she passed her stepfather and mother, who seemed to be in an argument. She wanted to stay and eavesdrop, but there were people outside she wanted to help. From the small bit of the conversation Francine witnessed, her stepfather looked frustrated while her mother was telling him something.
Francine and the woman dropped the stick with the rest of the garbage, and the worker nodded at her. "Thank you, Miss.Castle."
"Not a problem, yell if you need any more help."
The woman nodded in response, going back to her job as Francine checked the time on her phone.
It was 12:30 and the power was still off at the house. Christopher had left a little while ago to get generators since people were saying that the power could be off for weeks. Francine sighed as she walked back into her house, getting a glass of water.
She was grabbing a cup when her mother walked into the kitchen, a deep frown on her face. "Chris told me about your missing box." Francine cringed at her mother's angry tone, she knew she shouldn't have bothered her stepfather. She should have known that he would have told her mother. There was a fire blazing in Katerina's eyes as she glared at her daughter. "The one that pogue gave you for your thirteenth birthday, don't think I forgot how happy you were when you got it."
"He has a name," Francine snapped back angrily, her mother just rolled her eyes. The girl didn't know what had turned her mother away from everyone on the Cut, she was born there and never lived with a lot of money before she married her current husband. She had to work for everything she had before, now she stayed home while Christopher went to work. Her mother just sent a rage-filled look at Francine's comment which caused the girl to shrink back slightly. She hoped that her mother still hadn't found the box. It was a wishful thought, she already knew that she found it. The teenager gave her mother a pleading look as she took a deep breath. "-mom please tell me you didn't do anything."
"Francine Castle, I told you no more," Katerina pointed a scolding finger at her daughter who clenched her fists at her sides. Frustrated tears welled in her eyes, angry that her mother not only went through her stuff but also took one of the only things that reminded her of her life on the Cut. Katerina held up a group picture of the five kids, Francine, and her four best friends, on their first day of middle school. "Now, have you, or have you not been with them?"
Francine shot her mother an incredulous look as she took a deep breath, trying to not get too angry. She couldn't help it, the fact that her mother was almost as hateful as Topper towards people that used to basically live at her old house, made her want to hit something, hard. "Mom, I haven't been hanging out with them. It's just memories, pictures, things I want to remember. Not everyone is like you, able to change her whole personality and drop her old life to start something 'better.'" She spoke with attitude and anger lacing her voice. "Those people in that picture were my family, you took them away from me-"
"-It was for-" Her mother cut her off, annoyance evident in her voice.
"Don't bullshit me with all that it was for the best shit, it wasn't," Francine spoke calmly, knowing that yelling wouldn't help. She still made her mother know she was fuming but didn't yell as she did so. "I'm getting tired of this, all of it mom. You used to be fun, make jokes, and let me hang out with my friends. Now, I'm not even sure I know you, all you do is drink fancy cocktails on yachts with your rich friends. I'm pretty sure I like dad more than you right now, and I haven't spoken to him in almost four years."
Her mother narrowed her eyes, at the mention of the man who left her with nothing. "Is that how you really feel?"
No
"Yes," Francine's voice never wavered as she spits out the answer that she knew would make her mother angry. Even though she didn't mean it, she despised her father for just leaving them one night without any warning. It was the end of summer right before Francine started middle school and JJ was staying the night. When she woke up her mother was still sleeping, she and her best friend were on their way outside when they saw a note on the table saying how her father left because he didn't want to live the way he did anymore. Francine, at first was shocked, he just up and left like it was nothing. She didn't know how many nights she spent crying in the arms of her best friends, never having an answer about where her father was. They were her anchor, they kept her going during the hardest part of her life.
She still didn't know where her father was to this day, all she knew was that he left her mother for a model he met while working on a photo shoot. Francine knocked herself out of her thoughts with a frown, looking at her mother's tear struck face. She shook her head and walked out of her house. She didn't know where she was going, all she knew was that she needed time to cool off, away from anyone she knew. She didn't know what happened to the sweet woman who would tell funny stories, the woman who thought that family was everything, blood or not. The woman who would let Francine's best friend stay over almost every night since their dad was MIA most of the time.
It was like once she remarried, her mother seemed to get completely brainwashed by the kooks. Not her husband, Christopher was one of the only kooks who were normal and weren't prejudice. He was friends with a lot of people from the Cut, that's how he met Katerina.
It was like her mother turned into the opposite of what she was before she moved, she barely spoke to Francine, the only thing she cared about was reputation and wealth. It was like she flipped a switch and her old mother was gone, all Francine wished was that someday, somehow, her mom would come back.
She wanted her old life back.
✯♛✯
𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 out almost all afternoon, walking around on the beach looking at the waves crash on the sand. She needed the walk, she calmed down a lot, but she was still ticked off at her mother. She walked back into her house, immediately running up the stairs to avoid crossing paths with the woman. She just hoped that her mom wasn't upstairs, or even worse, in her room.
The teen sighed in relief as she shut the door behind her, quickly looking around her room to see it now clean. She just assumed that the maid looked at it and cleaned it up for her. Francine walked to her, now made, bed, and jumped on it. She pulled her phone from the charger, having the generator now, so she wasn't living without electricity like the pogues, who couldn't afford a generator.
She was laying on her bed, playing a game on her phone, she couldn't call anyone yet because the towers were still down but she didn't really mind. Francine was humming a song lightly when someone knocked on her door.
"Francine, Sarah came over right before you came home," Katerina began, not even opening the door as she spoke from the other side. Francine was kind of glad about that though. "She told me that there's a party at the Boneyard, and she wanted to know if you would like to go."
Francine looked at the door with a thoughtful look, thinking about going to a party. It would most likely be a pogue party because it wasn't held at someone's mansion so her old friends would probably be there. She really wasn't in the mood to see them, well, she wasn't really in the mood to see anyone. But Sarah would be there, and she also didn't want to speak to her mother. After a few moments, she stood from her bed, "Did Sarah leave already?"
Katerina nodded even though her daughter couldn't see her, "Yep, she was on her way there when she came."
"I'll go." Francine smiled to herself as she walked to her closet looking through it for a presentable outfit. She didn't know what kooks wear to parties since she's never been to one. Maybe if she was still a pogue she might have been to a million parties, but since she changed social groups she wasn't very social. It was mostly due to the fact that she couldn't stand half the kooks on the island so she probably wouldn't survive a room filled with drunk ones. All the kook parties were strictly them but when the pogues decide to throw a party, the kooks don't mind crashing it. Most of those parties ended in a fight, Francine was hoping that this one would be different though.
Most of the time, when Sarah would ask her to go to a party, Francine would shoot down the idea right away. So tonight, most of the people there would probably be shocked to see her show up. It'll be the first party she would attend since freshman year when Kiara began going to Kook Academy and she forced Francine to go with her. The teen only thought it would be a good idea to go to this party since she was avoiding her mother at the moment. What's a better way to get her mind off things?
After about ten minutes of searching through her closet, Francine finally decided on wearing a high waisted pair of black denim shorts with a yellow and white striped t-shirt. She looked at herself in the mirror, not believing that she was actually going to a party. Sure, she would probably enjoy it and have fun, but it's been so long since she'd been to one. Francine smiled and took a deep breath, hoping to just forget about everything tonight and let loose.
Francine took one last look in the mirror, approving her appearance as she made her way out of her house and towards the Boneyard.
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Word Count: 2685