the 'brook action threads

It hadn't taken a full twenty-four hours after Stacey left Sam for word to spread.  Stacey moved into Mary Anne's apartment, filling her in, and she sent Claudia a short e-mail, hoping that her best friend would get on a computer in Japan sooner than later.  Claudia did and then made an international consolation phone call, but that only made Stacey feel slightly better.  Since she hadn't expressly told Mary Anne to keep things quiet, Mary Anne almost immediately told Kristy so that she could find out if Sam was okay.

Kristy wanted to give Sam time to tell the family on his own, but after a week she realized that he wasn't going to.  It was time to take matters into her own hands--like always.  So she picked up her cell phone and called her older brother.

"Hey, Sam, it's me," she said when he finally picked up.  "How are you?"

Prior to this weekend, Stacey had been excited to get Columbus Day off from work, but now she thought that work might have been the better option compared to sitting by herself in Mary Anne's empty apartment.  Mary Anne was visiting her boyfriend and her roommate was at work, leaving Stacey to sit and angst.
 
And she knew that she was angsting and that it would annoy the crap out of her if she had to hang out with anyone doing the same, but she was in the mood to feel sorry for herself and nothing was going to stop her.  Today was the anniversary of her miscarriage and it shouldn't have been a big deal; Little Elizabeth was clearly not ever supposed to make it and nothing could be changed about that.  Sometimes Stacey even almost forgot about her, but when she became broody she let it consume her and she fantasized about what life would be like today if her baby had lived.  Would she and Sam have gotten married?  Or would everything have gone the way that it did, anyway?
 
They hadn't spoken since Friday night and it was killing her.  She had hoped that he'd wake up on Saturday morning with the realization that he couldn't live without her and of course he wanted to marry her someday with no doubt in his mind.  Then he'd call and she'd rush home and they could be them again.
 
But no call came on Saturday or Sunday and now Monday was mostly over and there was still no word.  Stacey wondered if Sam even remembered what today was, but maybe he wouldn't call even if he did remember.  Maybe he hadn't figured out a way to tell her that his feelings hadn't changed and he didn't really want to be with her forever.

Maybe it was time to just give up.  He would have called by now if he wanted to, if he really cared.  And Stacey needed to stop replaying his promises in her head, the ones about how they'd talk soon and their relationship wasn't over.  Because maybe it was.

Stacey and Sam had been invited out on Friday night, but Stacey was exhausted from a hard week at work.  She was one of the lowest members on the totem pole at the financial firm where she had worked since August, and with the 2010 Fiscal Year coming to a close on September 30th, her firm had been going crazy trying to process everyone's taxes.  She'd done twelve hour days every day this week and now that Stacey was finally home and in her jeans and bare feet, she simply wanted to relax.

Relaxing had been hard recently, mostly because of work, but also because of Sam.  Stacey still loved him every bit as much as she always had, if not more, but she hadn't been able to make herself not care that he didn't seem to have any plans for them beyond the present.  They had been living together for years and had almost had a child together and yet no plans?

And that was another thing.  Monday would be the fifth anniversary of her miscarriage and because of all the stress that she was experiencing, Stacey was feeling it more this year than in the past.  She didn't want to be sad, but she just was.  She often thought that she should bring up her concerns to Sam so that he could assure her that of course he wanted to marry her and of course he wanted to have babies with her--even if he just wanted to wait on all that for a couple of years.  She was fine with waiting...as long as she was waiting for something that was definitely going to come.

She was pulled from her thoughts by Sam as he let himself into the apartment.  From her spot on the sofa, Stacey grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.  "Hey babe," she smiled wearily.  "How are you?"

Mallory hadn't spoken to Benson since the night of his party.

Well.

That wasn't technically true. They'd nodded to each other, and said hi, and other things you might say to someone that you were casual friends with.

But they hadn't talked, really talked, since the party.

She saw him sometimes at school. She'd decided to take a writing class, after all. Now it was halfway over and she still hadn't spoken to Benson. One part of her missed him desperately.

She knew that one reason that she hadn't spoken to him sooner was because of Brian. She loved him, but she knew he would flip his shit if he saw, or heard, about her speaking to Benson. He didn't like her talking to boys when he wasn't there, that was all. That was not perfectly reasonable, especially when said boy was her ex.

Still ... everytime she saw him, the butterflies in her belly began flying crazily. Today was no exception. Today, however, was different in that this time she wanted to speak to him.

"Hey," she said softly, touching his arm to grab his attention. She hoped he didn't hate her.

Stacey couldn't sleep.  Sam had passed out an hour ago, but she was still lying on her side in the dark.  They'd had another great weekend in Stoneybrook for Mother's Day, but once the celebration was over and they were back in New York City, Stacey couldn't help but feel a little...sad, she guessed.  She did her best to hide how she was feeling from Sam by telling him that she was tired.  So they had gone to bed, he'd gone to sleep, and she was trying not to move around too much so that she wouldn't wake him up.

Mother's Day.  Maybe it was silly of her, but Stacey couldn't help but think about how she could be a mother right now.  Little Elizabeth would be turning three right about now if not for the miscarriage and Stacey wondered what she would have been like.  She and Sam had talked about that before, but, as time went on, their baby came up less and less often in conversation.  She came up less often in Stacey's thoughts, too, but every once in a while it would really hit her and make her a little blue.

In her mind she was a Lizzie--happy, laughing, squealing even.  There would be toys and dolls and thick cardboard books scattered around their apartment--not this one, though.  They would have a two-bedroom if they had Lizzie with them.  Sam would have to keep Stacey from spending too much money on clothing for the little girl and she'd probably have to keep him from buying her too much candy--Stacey was sure that their daughter would have him wrapped around her little finger, after all.  And she was sure that her baby would have been beautiful, too.  She didn't see how she and Sam could produce anything less than perfect.

But none of that had happened.  Elizabeth hadn't made it and Stacey had never really become a mother.  She knew that she probably wouldn't be finishing up her Masters degree right now if she had a child, but she didn't know if that made her better off.  She also knew that having a kid right now wouldn't be great for them--even if she wasn't terrified of another pregnancy--but she wasn't sure how Sam felt about all of that.

It was perfectly okay that he hadn't proposed to her last month--really it was.  Stacey knew that they were still young and didn't need to get married yet, but that didn't stop her from wishing that Sam would bring up the subject.  They talked about the future sometimes, but he had never specifically said that they'd be husband and wife while they did any of the things they talked about.  She had never even noticed that until last month's non-proposal, but now it was on her mind.  She wanted to say something to him, to ask what he saw for them, but she couldn't make herself do it.  No matter how many times she told herself that of course he wanted to marry her one day, she wasn't completely certain.  And even though not knowing how life would be with Elizabeth made her sad, not knowing what Sam wanted with her seemed like the better option right now.

It was no secret that Greer hated thunderstorms and always had, so she really should have taken that into account when she bought her house along the beach in Malibu. Two stories high, it was smaller and more compact than most townhouses, but it had the advantage of not being attached to any other homes. The beautiful large windows had seemed advantageous, too, when she'd first toured the home and fallen in love with it, but now she could see every bit of the storm and she felt surrounded by it. Even closing the curtains didn't do much except shield her from the sight, but enhance the feeling that the storm was closing in on her. Even though it was far from a hurricane, she couldn't help but remember back to Hurricane Julie when she and Brad had....

 

( Read more... )

Mallory had managed to get through the entire day without thinking about Benson. Not that she thought of him a lot, but it was especially hard on her birthday, she'd found. Her favorite birthday gift would always be the graffiti on the water tower, that he'd painted for her sixteenth birthday.

However, as the night wound down and she found herself sipping a cup of tea at her kitchen table, she allowed her mind to wander.

She'd had a nice enough day. She'd gone out for brunch with Brian, and they'd spent the day together. He'd bought her a bouquet of roses, and a sweet card. It was.. a good day, for him. He'd made an effort to not be so irritable, for her sake, Mallory thought.

Still, Mallory couldn't help thinking of how Benson was doing. She missed him. She hadn't wanted to break up with him, and he hadn't wanted to break up with her. They'd both decided it would be for the best .. but sometimes Mallory wondered if it was, really.

Elise would know how he is... she thought, taking a final sip of her tea. Glancing at the clock on her wall, she was startled to see that it was 11:12. Definitely too late to call her now ... but maybe she would in a few days.

So it was that Mallory put her mug in the sink, turned off all the lights, crawled into bed next to Brian, and thought about Benson.

The elevator doors were just closing when Stacey heard someone shout for her to keep them open.  Barely in time, she stuck her hand in the way and the doors opened to show a dark-haired guy carrying two heavy brown boxes and making his way towards her.  She looked at him curiously, sure that he couldn't possibly be....

 

But then he looked away from the boxes and over at her just in time for both sets of eyes to grow wide.  "Ethan!" she exclaimed right as he said her name in the same surprised tone.  "Wha-what are you doing here?"

( Read more... )

Logan had ten minutes left of his shift and he was looking forward to getting home.  He'd been pulling over speeders, stop sign pausers, and violators of Connecticut's no cellphones while driving rule for a few hours and he was kind of sick of all the excuses.  Cookie Sobak claimed that she was on an emergency call, but when he asked who she was talking to, her story started changing until it turned out that she was on the phone with a nail salon trying to move back her appointment because she was late--and that also explained why she was speeding.  Yes, some days were like this, but other times he got some good stories out of the day to make it all worth it.  Or he did something that helped someone and that made it worth it, too.

Just when he was thinking that he could go home, he clocked a silver MINI Cooper going 40 in a 25 mile per hour zone.  Sighing, he flipped on the flashing lights and the sirens and then turned out of the side street where he'd been idling and followed the MINI Cooper until the blonde driver pulled over to the side of the road.  He parked behind her and let her wait until he'd filled out information on his clipboard before he got out of the squad car and walked to her car.

"Do you know how fast you were--ah, wow, hey, Shannon," he grinned as he recognized the blonde.  "Long time, no see.  How's my favorite co-associate member of the thankfully defunct Baby-Sitters Club?"

Days in the hospital could either be exceptionally good or terrible. Today had been the latter for Darcy. She knew it was always a bad idea to get attached to patients in the ICU, but Mr. Farber had been a grumpy, sarcastic old man – his personality matched Darcy’s almost to a T. She always tried to sneak him extra dinner, even though he complained every day about how terrible the food was. He was battling an aggressive form of lung cancer, and while he’d been in high spirits the previous day, he’d succumbed to his illness just hours before her shift was to start. It was the hospital life, and it wasn’t the first death she’d experienced... but it was quite possibly the hardest. Her coworkers had taken pity on her – none of them had really cared for Mr. Farber the way Darcy had – so they convinced her to go home early, which she appreciated and did.

Walking into her small apartment, she noticed the light on her phone flashing, indicating a new message. She assumed it was her mother or sister, who couldn’t ever keep track of her schedule. She pressed the button and opened the fridge, examining the contents as she listened to the message.
( ... )

The dimly-lit pub was the same shithole it had been since the first time Troy set foot on its permanently-sticky floor nearly ten years prior.  Anywhere else, a fifteen-year-old walking into a bar sounded more like the setup to a tired joke than a reality, but this town was a mecca of fake ID's and businesses that never looked too closely if they looked at all, and by the time most kids in Stoneybrook hit twenty-one, the novelty of buying alcohol was pretty much a thing of the past. 

And it wasn't like he had anything better to do on his day off -- Good Friday or some shit according to his boss.  Troy didn't really give two fucks; he thought all Fridays were pretty badass.

"Wanna split another pitcher?"  The blonde across the table could barely keep her head up as she asked.  Two-thirty in the afternoon and this was what his social life had come to, an endless cycle of sport-fucking bar sluts.   Like the magic of any good addiction, the high never lasted long enough and you ended up feeling emptier and shittier than what you started with.  "I just gotta pick up my kids by four or the sitter starts charging double... how fucked up is that?"

"Pretty fucked up," agreed Troy, who neither knew nor cared although, in a town where no one seemed to know what a fucking condom was, he imagined a sitter could charge whatever they damn well pleased.

"Hey... you mind gettin' this next one, too, hon?"  There was no shame in asking -- she still had three Easter baskets to fill, and she said as much to Troy when he obliged with a shrug.  "God... I hope the stores aren't sold out of that shit already," she mused.

"Yeah... me too," he replied vaguely, and if she noticed the ghost of a smile on his face, she said nothing -- assuming that, like everyone else their age, he had kids of his own waiting anxiously for the Easter Bunny to deliver Sunday morning.

"Fuckin'... Christ."  Ryan's gym bag hit the floor, punctuating the impiety with a dull thud.  While no one in the Stanley's piecemeal excuse for a  fitness center would mistake the slight-framed D.J. for a bodybuilder, it was not for lack of effort on his part. 

"I can assure you... I am not fucking Christ."  Per usual, Rocky was rooted firmly in front of the almost comically-large flat-screen, saving the world one level at a time via his ancient-ass Nintendo.  "Besides," he added, never one to miss a beat,  "he's hardly my type."

"Well, shet... " Much like Ryan's muscle tone, the slight effeminate timbre that had crept into his roommate's voice was barely noticeable, but distinct enough that the former could not help but mock it on occasion.  "I'm torn between 'go fuck yourself,' which... you'd take as a suggestion, and 'go to hell,' which... you aspire to do.  Goddamn, you suck."

"Only if you have cash, luscious," retorted Rocky primly. "And Rophenol," he added after a moment's thought. "Might... circumvent the whole awkward Coyote Ugly morning-after bullshit."

"Yeah, I'll get right on that.  Jesus... I'm not fuckin' Parker, for Chrissake.  And don't... " he caught himself quickly -- the use of both blasphemy and innuendo as adjectives around Rocky tended more often than not to open doors he'd rather leave closed, locked, and deadbolted.

Benson let himself into the off-campus apartment that he shared with Garrett Carver, one of Madeline's cousins, and immediately dumped his backpack on the floor just before flopping down onto a ratty old sofa that his mother had insisted that he remove from the Retlins' basement.  When a quick glance didn't turn up the TV remote, he started feeling beneath the sofa until he spotted it across the room on top of the TV itself.  Now he was faced with getting up to get it and turn on the TV or stay lazily on the couch.  Before he could make a decision, though, a knock sounded on the front door, so he stood up and walked over to answer it, making a detour by the TV set and grabbing the remote so that he wouldn't forget.
 
"Elise!" he smiled, moving back to let her walk inside.  "Garrett didn't tell me that you were coming."
 
This was his and Garrett's second year as roommates, having been introduced to each other by Madeline during Benson's freshman year.  He'd been skeptical of her prediction that he and her cousin would make great friends because he was used to her trying to prank him...and getting him to sign up to live with someone awful for an entire school year would be a pretty epic prank to pull, no matter how mean-spirited.  To his surprise, she'd been right; Garrett wasn't much like Mad except for his friendly, outgoing personality and he and Benson wound up having a lot in common.
 
Garrett met Elise at the beginning of this school year when he and Benson had a party at their new place, finally having moved off-campus.  She came up for the weekend for the party and to hang out with Benson, but Garrett had tagged along with them and spent his time trying to keep Elise's attention to himself.  Since she had arrived early on a Friday morning, they had the entire day together before that night's party.  When Benson woke up Saturday morning with a hangover, he shuffled out of his bedroom to find Garrett in the kitchen at the sink and Elise not on the couch.
 
"Where's Elise?" he asked, wondering if she'd managed to escape a hangover and was already out running or something.  Garrett turned around and Benson saw his eyes dart to his closed bedroom door before looking at Benson with a slightly alarmed look.  "Shit!  Is she in there?!  I swear to God that if you took advantage of her at all, I'm gonna--"
 
Garrett shook his head vehemently and threw his hands up in the air, defensively.  "No, Ben, I swear, nothing happened!  Well...I mean, some stuff happened--we made out--but that's it, I swear!"
 
Benson trusted that his friend was telling him the truth, but still wasn't happy about the situation until Garrett promised that he actually liked Elise and wanted to go out with her.  Shortly thereafter, they became a couple and Benson got used to two of his best friends dating each other.

"What the hell are you listening to?" Alana asked, making a face as she looked at the computer set up in the corner. Mandy had set it to start playing a song she'd found the night before, that really only appealed to her because it was sung in Russian. It was kind of boy band-ish, and had it been in English, she probably wouldn't have given it a second chance, but she had a weakness for all things Russian. Which really kind of sucked cause she had no idea what was going on -- she'd lost her only translator, and she wasn't going to get him back.

Looking up from where she was flipping through a magazine, Mandy shrugged. "I don't know how to pronounce it."

"It's crap," Alana decided, getting up from her spot on the couch to turn the music off, and put on some Escape the Fate. "There we go. That's music," she decided, looking pleased with herself, as though she'd just given Mandy a lesson on what good music was.

Mandy frowned slightly, but let it go. Maybe Russian music wasn't exactly "good", but it was the only time she heard anyone speaking - or singing, whatever - Russian any more. And sometimes, when she was having an Emo fit, she felt better listening to it. But she knew better than to try to tell Alana all that. The other girl wouldn't understand, she'd only say that there was better music suited to a bad day.

Standing up, Mandy grabbed her MP3 player off the little end table next to the couch. "I'm gonna head out for a quick run," she decided, not bothering to listen to Alana respond. At least then, she could listen to her crappy music in peace, without having to worry about it irritating Alana. "Be back whenever."

Troy did not know the sexy little brunette holding the empty red cup in his kitchen, but this was not uncommon, nor was it particularly important.  What was important was that she was in direct violation of the cardinal rule of The Spot, and as owner and self-appointed executive of the latter, it befell Troy to inform her of this. 

"You're breakin' the first rule of The Spot," he drawled with a casual nod toward the offending empty cup as she breezed past him.

"Oh... ?"  The inflection placed on these two letters was that of clear dismissal; the older boy who had spoken did not impress her, nor did his comment pique her curiosity -- in fact, the encounter as a whole had barely registered on her radar.   She was sixteen years old, full of youth, Jagermeister, and  the exhilaration of her first time at the 'Brook's all-but legendary party house.  Guys his age, she thought importantly, have no place at high school parties.  It was--

"Fuckin' creepy if you ask me," she divulged moments later after retreating to the tight-knit security of her entourage.  "I mean, Jesus... he's like twenty-three, eff-eff-ess."

"Troy? He's like... twenty-four or twenty-five, I think," corrected another girl.  "But... FYI?  You probably shouldn't say that too loud... we are kinda partying at his house and shit."

Katie didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to remember the abuse, and she didn’t want to see what love was doing to her now. But most of all, Katie wanted to live. Trouble is, when your husband has a gun in the house and has threatened to kill the kindred spirit that once tried to help you, to the point of where you were clinging to his back trying to take the gun from his hands; then you don’t have much hope of living. Not at all. And when nights go by with Ambien and the occasional glass of wine, you know you’re not alright. That you might never be. But the worst thing is that while you’re hoping to live, you’re also unable not to love. Because he is everything to you. Every breath and every heartbeat. The one who terrorizes, the one with the gun – he’s your saviour. And the father of your child. He’s everything.

“Kat Doll, did you wash my green shirt?” Katie searched her memory for all the laundry she’d done the other day and nodded her head confidently; sure she had.
“It’s up to dry” she responded with a clear voice, tickling Novelia under her chin, making the little girl squirm with giggles. Her daughter was eating mashed banana and as per usual, there was a minor mess going on in the kitchen. It didn’t bother Katie much though, growing up she’d been cleaning the house more often than not so she knew the mess would likely be gone in an hour anyway. Katie smiled as a piece of the banana ended up on Novelia’s nose, and then felt herself being pulled off her feet.
“You call this dry? I can’t wear this to work now!” Alex was holding a tight grip of her hair, and the toddler stared at them with empty eyes. Katie squirmed, trying to get out of his grip, but there was no way.
“I’m sorry, Alex, I’ll just throw it in the dryer for a few minutes and it will be fine” she responded almost pleadingly, her head tilted in an awkward position.
“I don’t have time for that! God Katie, why are you always so useless!” It wasn’t a question as much as a statement, and she took it to heart because she was useless. The awards on the shelf were still whole but they didn’t say much about her. That she was the only one who could make Novelia stop crying through song wasn’t exactly a Grammy.
“I’m sorry” she repeated, as she felt his grip around her loosen. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. I love you baby, it was just a bad move on my part. ‘Kay?” She turned around and put her arms around him, kissing him on the mouth. He didn’t kiss her back, but he also didn’t push her away. It was the next best thing.

( and all i need is you )