Who: Sam What: A narrative: Realizations (and alter swapping) Where: The bus When: The morning after the party Warnings/Rating: Language, drug mentions
She had no idea why she'd agreed to go see the shrink later that day, just like she had no idea why she'd been ballsy enough to crash with Liam when he had a murdering psychopath on his tail. For months, anything scary was way off fucking limits, and yet she was rising the bus to work that morning having done two completely out of character things. Oh, yeah, and there was the fact that she was completely clean. Well, tweaking, but clean, and all because she'd promised the doc she wouldn't smoke, pop or inject anything before going to see him.
She didn't want to give the hotel credit, because fuck if that hotel deserved credit for anything, but she wasn't blind. She was young, stupid and defensive, but not blind. The thing she'd turned into the night of the party wasn't anything impressive. She didn't kill anyone, didn't fuck anyone. She did one tiny thing - she defended herself. That was all. No big fucking deal, at least not to the young woman she had been before the incident with Micah. Now? Now it seemed like the most impressive accomplishment anyone had ever managed, even though she knew that was completely ridiculous.
But she felt like she could maybe do this. Oh, anyone who jostled her on the bus ride still got a glare and (occasionally) a shove or punch, and everything surrounding her startled her, but she didn't pop anything to calm the feeling down. She had no idea if she was going to make it through the hour, much less the day, but she was willing to try, which was also something new.
None of it fixed her mounting confusion about things with Neil, but one thing at a fucking time. And anyway, it took two, didn't it? It wasn't like that trainwreck was all on her. But the night before had made her more aware of the shit she wanted, and it made ignoring the things she'd been ignoring for the past eight months harder than it normally was. Ok, so she wanted shit. Fine. She could admit that to herself. It didn't change anything. This wasn't some Disney movie where birds flew around her head and sang, and it sure wasn't an opera where Neil was going to suddenly be willing to die for her.
And just like that, shit changed.
Sam always heard Christine. Even when the other woman wasn't talking, she was there, present, annoyingly feminine and singing or humming something. There was always a presence, always that thing that was so unlike the rough girl from New Jersey.
And it was gone.
Just like that.
By the time the bus got close to work, something else had taken the singer's place, and Sam wanted to smoke some fucking meth just to keep from getting sad about it. If anyone had told her she would be depressed about losing the perpetually annoying French damsel in her head, she would have laughed her fucking head off. But there it was, and there was no other way to describe it; she was sad. And lonely. And fuck this.
She stayed on the bus. Work would cope, and it's not like there weren't a hundred construction jobs in Vegas if they fired her ass. She tucked her iPod buds into her ears, and she rode the bus line until everyone she recognized was off, and then she let herself cry.