Thread - Sarah & Lisa & the ghosts between WHO: Sarah and Lisa; appearances by some of Sarah's 'friends'. WHEN: Monday, 30th Jan, mid-day WHERE: McKinley High WHAT: Sarah happens across a few of Lisa's demons. Accidentally, she doesn't recognise them as the demons they are. WARNINGS: ghosts, mentions of alcoholism, neglect, substance abuse and dead families
Lisa had gotten into the habit of skipping at least one class a day. It wasn't something she did on purpose, not really, she never exactly planned ahead or anything, but more often than not, she missed one class a day. Today, it was physics. Not a huge deal, not a class she was horrific at, not a class she was fantastic at. It just was.
As with usual, she took the time to sit outside and smoke. Sure, she'd get shit for it if she were caught, but people around here just didn't seem to sweat shit like this, there was too much drama going on with a batshit crazy cheerleading coach and a fashionably challenged Spanish teacher. So she was left to herself really, smoking away outside.
She couldn't believe that in a day, she'd be legal. This shit wouldn't actually be a crime. She might actually quit.
Stumbling from the locker room, Sarah hadn't made much headway in her task. It was another one of those goose chases, she was sure. Mr. Parker was so fond of wild geese that she was starting to get sick of his little projects. And, she was missing class. Sarah almost never missed classes. Well, she did, sometimes. But not for silly little things like this.
It meant she had to circle around the building to get back to the main halls, because she wasn't chancing running into any half naked boys (and of course Mr Parker would send her into the boys locker room for this so called map) and having to explain that no, she was not a pervert, she was just looking for some secret map of accountant sheets that her dead friend was telling her about.
That was exactly how she almost fell over the girl sitting against the wall. "Ah!" Sarah ended up doing a little hop-skip-pivot thing to avoid trampling or falling. Not her most graceful manoeuvre, but then, she wasn't expecting the hurdle in human form.
"Jesus Christ," Lisa caught herself in the hand with the end of her cigarette, ultimately flicking the end off and chucking the smoke as she pushed herself upright, ignoring the sting of the burn on her hand. "Where the shit did you come from?" The burst of hair and the surprising outfit, Lisa wouldn't be surprised if 'Narnia' was the answer.
Spinning on her heel, Sarah forced a grin to her face, blinking owlishly at the dark haired girl. "Terribly sorry, I forgot to look before I leapt. Or maybe I looked and then I leapt, or I leapt as I looked. Is it leapt or leeped? Leeped seems like a terrible word, perhaps for a soggy vegetable. Leapt, however, that makes more sense." Sarah nodded her head, watching a flicker in the corner of her eye, something she was starting to get horribly used to.
Okay, forget Narnia; with that Cheshire Cat smile and the weird ramble of words, Lisa was pretty sure this chick was fresh out of Wonderland. And Alice she was not. Probably the fucking Hatter. Then again, the red hair and the outfit and was that a heart tattoo on her face?
"Right, sure, whatever." Lisa was way too sober to deal with this. And she wasn't even entirely sober. "Are you high?" It totally seemed like a valid question, because there was no way this was how people were meant to function.
Why did everyone ask her that? Did she have powder on her face? Was someone slipping her pills? She was fairly certain that neither were the case, and yet, almost everyone asked her that. "No." The flicker happened again, and Sarah's eyes trailed over, hoping it wasn't Astra or Spector, because things always got strange with those two around.
It wasn't though; just some disembodied essence, she had to guess, light alterations in the wind really. Like sunlight reflecting through cut glass. Sarah probably stared for a little too long, before glancing back at Lisa with a smile, "It's your birthday tomorrow?" Sometimes, she wasn't sure how these things communicated with her, they just did.
Okay, freak alert. "How the hell did you know that?" Because Lisa hadn't actually told anyone it was her birthday. Well, she figured Rory knew, but she'd been mostly missing him lately; with her grandmother dying and his grandfather being sick, she just wasn't up for dealing with the nostalgia of all that and his grief. It probably made her a total bitch or whatever, but she was being selfish right then and she wasn't up for dealing with that.
"I was told." Literally, just there. "Sometimes, you hear things on the wind, haven't you ever heard the whispers? Voices carry and secrets spread, you can't keep a secret surrounded by the dead." And that was never more true than it was right then. Sarah knew a lot of secrets, about people in school, about their parents, about teachers, about people long since gone. She knew them all because someone was still around who heard them, and ghosts liked to share things.
"What does that even mean?" Lisa had heard the saying; three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. But this was just insane. Sure, Lima wasn't exactly as run of the mill as Lisa had originally thought; for one thing people were developing these insane powers, and just about everyone had some kind of drama bursting out of them, like a fucking re-run of Dynasty (shut up, her Aunt loved it). Lisa was pretty sure Lima was just some kind of weird as shit colony or something.
"It means what it means," Sarah shrugged, not expecting to explain it in any way that Lisa would understand or accept as sane. Sometimes it wasn't in the least. "You should celebrate, birthdays are special, and only once a year. These are the days you're mean to hold dear." The flicker was there, almost beside Lisa, like it just gravitated towards her right then. It wasn't a spirit, not really, maybe just an echo.
"I'm sorry about your grandmother." That's what it was, the fading rays. It made sense. Sometimes, surely, they had to be there before they vanished completely. It took a little, but Sarah managed to work out just why the flicker felt familiar. It was because it was familiar, at least to Lisa. "I'm sure she'll be in a better place soon."
Lisa frowned again. She only talked to Alec about her grandmother, sort of to Dave and Olivia. Mostly just pointing out that she wasn't ditching but she had a funeral to go to. She still hadn't really thanked Dave for taking care of the cat and her pups. "Thanks." For the most part, Lisa wasn't entirely sure how she felt about her grandmother dying. It hurt like a bitch, cause it was another person, gone. But then again, her grandmother was a bit of a bitch herself. Lisa wasn't sure if it was her grandmother that made her mom pull away from her, or if her mom just needed the excuse to do it. "But whatever, y'know, she was old and, well, we knew she was dying."
Sarah nodded, because she could tell that the flicker hadn't been well for a while, sensed that there wasn't a lot of time, near the end. Apparently, the flicker had made peace with what would happen. The flicker was ready to leave. But then, why was it hanging around this girl? "It's not your fault, you know." Sarah didn't know why the words came out. She didn't even know what she was referring to. "What happened, how it happened. It's nothing to do with you, not really. It just is."
Lisa wasn't sure she understood either. "What are you-" Shaking her head, Lisa glared at the red-haired girl, trying to work out if she was crazy in the average way or if this was one of those crazy in a super power ways. "What are you even saying?"
"Harold."
That one word made Lisa turn sheet white. She backed away from Sarah just slightly and shook her head. Her mother never mentioned her father, never. The only time Lisa really got to talk about her Dad was when Michael was around. And that was growing less and less frequent. "What did you just say?"
"It's not your fault. What happened." Sarah wasn't sure what happened, or who Harold was, but it seemed like the flicker thought it was. Apparently, Lisa might be blaming herself for something she shouldn't be. "Sometimes, things happen, and you can't change them. People just can't keep going." There's something at the back of her mind. Cancer it says. She's not sure if it's the disease, or the star sign. Lisa wouldn't be a Cancer though, she's the thirty-first of January, she's an Aquarius. Probably the disease then. "Why do I want to call you LaLa?"
"Nana called me LaLa," Lisa turned sideways, leaning against the wall and slowly sliding down to sit on the ground again. "Before all the crap, on the phone, she always called me that." Lisa didn't exactly like the turn in conversation. It would be so much easier if Sarah was just psychotic and talking nonsense and not hitting far too close to home. She wasn't sure how Sarah would know she partially blamed herself, for something she knew she had no hand in, not really. It wasn't like she could've stopped the cancer, they couldn't have done anything for her Dad.
But sometimes, lately at least, she'd been wondering if her mother knew that. "I think my mom blames me." Lisa shrugged lightly, playing with the ends of her hair. Where the hell did these insightful people come from? Alec had just found her when she'd been ready to choke on the grief from her grandmother's death. And now Sarah just fell from wherever?
Clumping over, Sarah flopped onto her butt, sitting beside Lisa and crossing her legs. The flicker seemed to hover around Lisa, like it wanted to touch her, embrace her, comfort her. This was the same kind of affection she often felt from her own Nana, the way she reached out to touch, before dropping her hand and looking sullen and lost for a second. "What happened?"
"Not psychic?" It wouldn't surprise Lisa if she was, not really. "My dad got sick. When I was really young. My brother said he was sick before I was born, that he wasn't meant to live long enough to see me, but he did. He died when I was around about six or something." Lisa picked at the stitching on her boot. "Sometimes, I think I should've been better somehow, like," maybe she could've done more, helped better, actually been useful.
"There's nothing you could've done. Is there? I mean, I don't know too much about cancer, or people dying really, I only lost my Nana a while ago, and she's well, that's different. But sometimes people just can't get better. Like when I had my pet toad. I took real good care of him, I made sure his tank was all nice and he was all happy all the time and stuff. It was really hard work, but I did everything I could. But he still died. Because he wasn't meant to live that long or something. He still lived longer than most toads." She knew that likening her pet toad to Lisa's dad wasn't the same thing, but it sort of was.
Lisa just blinked at the girl, half aware and half not. She needed a fucking drink. She hated talking about her dad. Hated thinking about it all. It caused that horrible bubble of self-loathing to just filter up. The stuff back home; drinking and drugs and parties and random hook ups, it took her mind off it all. Random crimes, loitering places, just being with other fuck ups. Things were bubbling to the surface right then, and she was legitimately having the worst time of her life right then.
"Look, I know you're trying to help, it's sweet," it was odd how complete strangers tried to help her, while her own mother ignored her existence right then. With out Nana to dote on, without her elderly, dying mother to take care of Louise Lowel was without a doubt closing herself off. It wouldn't have happened if Michael were around, but Lisa wasn't her brother and she had no idea how to deal with this. "But there's nothing to do."
"You're the only one who can do anything." Sarah happened to agree, because if things didn't change, she was scared that maybe Lisa would end up being one of those friends, rather than simply a school mate. "Not everyone thinks bad things, you should call your brother." Apparently, that might help.
Pushing herself to her feet, Sarah gave a small nod. "Um, you shouldn't focus on the bad things, because there are good things around them. And when you only look at the bad things, you miss the good things. The good things are what make the bad things less bad." She offered Lisa a small shrug, smiling slightly at the flicker, before turning away. Lisa would need to figure things out herself.
Not that it would be easy done. She didn't know how the quirky girl knew much about her life, or even how she knew about her brother. Lisa barely told anyone one anything that personal. Fair enough if it was these freaky power things again, but Lisa was pretty much over all the crazy that this shit brought. She didn't want to deal with her mother, or her feelings regarding her dad and brother and grandmother. She didn't want to wallow in that grief as usual. She wanted to forget it all and just not have to deal with it.