Chapter Text
The scratch of pencil against notepad rasps across the tiny, white-and-blue tinted cage. So small, so suffocating of a room that, for the past five years— on and off, mostly on— Lottie Matthews swears she’s heard her own thoughts ricocheting off the walls.
She hasn’t had one of the girls as a visitor since ‘99. Van Palmer was the last to come, lingering in the doorway like she didn’t want to step in too far, as if the madness might be contagious. She’d said she hoped that Lottie got better and all, that she was praying for her, but she had to get out of this fuck-ass town. Then she was gone, crumpled wad of cash stuffed in her pocket, set off on a Greyhound bound for New York City. Lottie never found out what happened to her after that. Van never wrote, never called, never came back. All Lottie knows is that Taissa didn’t go with her. Something had been happening between them beforehand. Lottie had noticed it when they’d visit her together at first, then separately, but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. She longed to help them, but her head was so loud—banging, drumming, and whispering coming from every direction.
She wonders, sometimes, about the others. What they’re all doing, if they managed to escape the darkness that followed them home, if they’d eventually stitched themselves back into the world. She doesn’t blame them for not visiting her. She understands why they wouldn’t want to.
She wouldn’t want to visit herself, either. In the past two years, the voices have only gotten louder and hungrier. They hum and chant during the nighttime, sometimes morphing into a pitch so high her ears nearly bleed. It tells her that she can’t stay here. That she needs to go back. That she belongs out there.
She's gotten so used to how things are, how it’s just her and It. There’s the seasonal whisper outside the door from her parents, the only time they’ll be within five feet of each other, checking in on her like she’s a faulty appliance they’ve requested maintenance on. They don’t tell her directly, of course, but when they visit, she overhears their disappointment that she’s not all better yet.
“She’s not getting any better. Charlotte is still very, very sick.”
“Malcolm, she just needs more time.”
Time. Lottie finds them preposterous. As if time could quell Its hunger. If It goes unfed, time will only make it hungrier.
Besides, she’s developed a routine that time won’t interrupt.
Each morning, when the nurse arrives with her small paper cup, she plays along masterfully: she presses her special pill to the back of her tongue, sips her water, swallows. At least that’s what they think. The moment the nurse turns his back, she grinds the special pill to dust between her teeth, letting the bitter chalk coat her tongue before spitting it into her palm. Then, she smears it along her skin underneath her gown. That way, they can’t take It away from her.
For a while, no one notices. Not until Its hunger becomes too potent. Not until blood must be spilled.
She waits until mealtime, then drags the prongs of her fork across her palm, watching crimson pearl against her skin before spilling onto her white sheets. There’s sudden shouting. Hands grab at her, press her down against the bed. Then comes the electricity—white-hot lightning jolting her around like a ragdoll until she’s back in this room with a numb brain and no spirit left inside of her.
She doesn’t mind, though. She has taken the pain, then settled back into her routine throughout all her years here, no matter how they’ve upped her treatments or meds, swapped metal forks for wood, sent nurses to monitor her eating. She’ll always find a way back to It.
That is, until she hears her parents outside in early January.
JANUARY 2003
It’s a new year, they’ve told her. The nurses, the doctors, the therapists who come and go, murmur about the new treatment plans and progress goals she’ll have this year. But she already knew of the grand occasion.
It had wanted her to celebrate. Just a small offering—nothing drastic, nothing excessive. A few drops of blood. A blessing for the year to come.
She complied. She hadn’t thought that It was evil. That was quite reasonable of a request, in fact. Much lesser than what It’d asked of her before. The staff, however, did not seem to agree. They decided that this was infallible proof that their new treatments hadn’t been working. Her parents had been notified.
“That’s it, Emilia. I’m putting my foot down— this ends now. Do you have any idea what would happen if my partners found out about this? The rumors when she got back were bad enough.”
“Can’t we talk about this more? Switzerland is so far away from both of us. We can’t just up and send her there!”
“That’s precisely why we have to do this. It’s been five years. She isn’t getting any better. If we keep her here, she never will. She needs more serious help.”
“Malcolm…”
“I’ve heard great things about this institution. They’ve taken people even crazier than her and snapped them straight. They don’t coddle like they do here in America.”
The ringing begins again, high-pitched and insistent, overwhelming every corner of her brain. Not just simple noise, but screams, wails, frenzied voices telling her that she won’t be able to communicate anymore if she goes away—that it’s all over. That they’ll all be cursed for good.
She can’t do that to the others. Even if they don’t want to see her anymore, she still considers them friends. More than friends.
So she does the only thing she can. She promises It that she’ll come back if she can just do what she needs to do. It allows her to swallow down the rising panic, smooth out her voice, and put on a smile and a calm demeanor. For the first time since coming home, she speaks to her parents with more than one or two word responses— that alone widens their eyes with hope.
“I’m feeling so much better now,” she tells them when they finally come inside. “I regret what I did. But I promise, if you give me one more chance, it’ll never happen again.”
Her father hesitates, glancing toward her mother. They have some hushed deliberations outside the door, and Lottie’s not sure how her mother manages it, but they don’t pull her out of the institution in New Jersey.
She keeps her word. Never lets it happen again.
Because if she gets out of these four walls, It can find her again. Freely.
APRIL 2003
It happens faster than she can process.
Years and years spent here, so long and tedious that she’d begun to accept that it would never end. But this time, all it takes is three months.
Three months of perfect compliance with her new, promised routine. Each morning, she swallows her special pill without hesitation or complaint, lets the water wash it down her throat. At mealtimes, she clears her plate to white, never letting her utensils linger too long in her grasp. At curfew, she lies still beneath the sheets, eyes shutting the moment the lights click off. Eight to ten hours of uninterrupted, tranquil-dreamed sleep. And absolutely no communions in the middle of the night.
She complies at therapy sessions. She nods at the right questions. She voluntarily speaks.
When the time comes for her evaluation, she gives them exactly what they want. It’s easy to calculate that—the right words, the right tone, the right expressions. It feels like an out-of-body experience watching herself perform: I know I have an illness. Yes, I understand the importance of taking my medication. I feel much better now. No, I’m not experiencing any symptoms right now. The psychiatrists and social workers scribble down notes and try to appear neutral when she’s finished, but she sees the unspoken approval. They’re impressed.
Still, she hadn’t expected the clearance to come so fast. She thought they’d spend longer measuring and deliberating over her progress, ensuring that she wouldn’t slip back into old habits, considering her history.
But one morning, the doctor comes in and tells her that her discharge has been approved. Her parents are already on their way. The few belongings she has are packed in a cardboard box atop her mattress. Her clothes are neatly folded and set out on the bed. She sheds her white gown in exchange for pink cashmere and blue jeans— the same ones she wore when her parents first checked her in here. They don’t feel like hers anymore.
By the time she’s finished, her parents are waiting for her outside. The staff smile politely as they hand her tedious discharge paperwork, encouraging her to keep up with her outpatient appointments. Don’t stop your meds. You’re doing so well!
She isn’t sure if they really think she’s better, or if they just want to get her out of here so she’s not their responsibility anymore.
What she hadn’t anticipated was a full second evaluation. No, not from a doctor, not even from someone with any sort of medical degree, but from her father during the car ride home. He prods and probes, not-so-subtly trying to gauge her true level of sanity. He tries to find cracks in her answers. He doesn’t trust her.
When the blinker ticks at the intersection—one, two, one, two—it sounds oddly deliberate. Like a countdown to or a warning of something out to get her. It’s just in your head, she reminds herself, because that’s what the doctors would tell her. But if she stares and focuses too long, she’s afraid that whatever that’s out there will become real.
So she forces her eyes back to her father’s face. She thinks that there could be a tinge of worry somewhere in there, if not for the overwhelming frustration taking the lead. She can hear the edge in his voice. Every time she answers one of his questions, his fingers choke the poor steering wheel.
He’s waiting for a fuck-up to send her away again.
Switzerland, she assumes. She’s heard him bring it up to her mom too many times. Shipping her there would be easier for him—easier than bringing her home, pretending to be a father for a few short weeks before vanishing back into brokerages and business trips. Then she wouldn’t be a liability to his deals, if she’s locked away more securely.
When they pull into the driveway, she barely waits for the car to stop before slipping out and heading straight upstairs.
Her bedroom is exactly as she left it. White, untouched sheets stretch across the bed that’s decorated with pink throw pillows. Sheer curtains mute the daylight. Framed baby pictures and Yellowjackets team photos from each year are hung around walls and displayed atop her desk and drawers. This is the bedroom of the Charlotte Matthews before taking off for Nationals. Before meeting the Wilderness.
This bedroom feels foreign to her. It’s felt that way every time she’s stayed here since. She’d briefly been back for a few weeks after rescue, but some sleeplessness and mumblings during the nighttime were enough to sound off the schizophrenia alarms for her father. Since then, she has spent most of her time at the institution.
Now, all she wants is for her father to be summoned halfway across the world. Tokyo, Geneva, London— she doesn’t care where, as long as he’s gone. Before all of this, that would’ve sent her spiraling at night, staring at the ceiling at two in the morning, wondering why her parents don’t love her. Why she just couldn’t have been born more normal so that they would.
But now she’s counting down the days until he gets the call, or gets sick of slumming it in Jersey. She’s surprised he’s still here at all, staying in this house, when her mom is gone— nonrefundable tickets to Bora Bora with her boyfriend. It can’t be long until her dad finally returns to his Manhattan penthouse, or leaves for business. That’ll be the moment that she can reconnect with It.
The news comes a week later, when she comes down for dinner and her father’s cutting into his steak. When her fingers have barely touched her fork, because he didn’t remember that she doesn’t eat meat anymore, he adjusts his cufflinks, looks at her apologetically, and finally says:
“Charlotte, sweetheart, I’m so sorry to tell you this… I have to be in Amsterdam. You know, for the deal we’ve got with Bear Stearns.”
She doesn’t know. She hasn’t tried listening to his business jargon since she was thirteen, since she realized that trying her hardest to parrot back terms like equity and arbitrage opportunities wouldn’t make him love her enough to stick around.
And even now, with his dark brows drawing together like he might genuinely be sorry, like this isn’t the hundredth time he’s done this, she doesn’t let herself care. It hadn’t made a difference then, and it still doesn’t make a difference now.
What matters is It. He never liked what was inside of her.
So she grips the edge of the table, digging her nails into the wood to keep herself from smiling too hard. If she could, she’d pack his bags for him.
MAY 10TH, 2003
Headfirst in white, Natalie inhales sharply, a burn tearing through her nostrils and carving its path upward. The motel room spins around her, its stained beige wallpaper swimming in and out of focus. She breathes as a rush courses through her.
She rubs her reddened and raw nose with the back of her hand. Her head lolls back, and for a moment, she feels like she’s levitating— until gravity yanks her down again, pinning her to the chipping wooden chair.
She sways slightly, blinking through the blur. Across the room, through half-lidded eyes, she sees Travis Martinez sprawled across the unmade bed. His shirt is somewhere on the floor, his ribs poking against his skin, and his head is tilted up to the ceiling. Nat squints, a hazy frown settling in as she tries to determine if Travis is actually here or not. If they’d fucked, she can’t remember it.
“Fuck, Natalie,” Travis breathes, voice heavy and sluggish. “We shouldn’t be doing this again.”
She laughs bitterly. “Does it fucking matter?”
She turns back to the desk, fingers fumbling for her dollar bill. The coke is still there, lined up in neat little rows, waiting. It’s down to a science for her— rolling the bill, perfecting the parallel lines. She bows her head, nose hovering to catch the chemical scent. Just once more.
“Lottie. Where are you?”
It sobers her up. She jerks upright, heart pounding in her chest. The high curdles in her veins.
Fuck this.
Her palm nearly swipes across the desk, scattering the powder to the floor. If it weren’t her last bag, she would’ve fucking done it.
Her jaw clenches as she looks at Travis again.
“Really, Travis?”
He barely reacts, eyes glazed in little slits, lost in whatever fucking world he’s drowning in. He’s pawing at something— nothing— and Nat rolls her eyes. Is he fucking Lottie in his mind now?
Travis finally comes back down. “She– she says she’ll take me to him,” he mumbles. “She said so.”
Her fists clench. She’s going to be sick. She thought this was over.
She shoots up from the chair. Carefully, she sweeps as much as she can of the remaining coke into its tiny plastic baggie, sealing it and shoving it into the pocket of her ripped jeans. Then she hastily shrugs her leather jacket back on.
“Un-fucking-believable,” she spits.
“Wait, Natalie, don’t go…”
She sends a scoff in his direction, and then stomps into her Doc Martens, not bothering to lace them up. Travis watches her like he cares, like he’s going to stop her from leaving, but no words exit his mouth.
She pauses at the door, glancing back just one last time.
“For the record, Lottie Matthews is fucking insane.”
He doesn’t argue. Maybe he’s too far gone, or maybe he just knows she won’t listen. But she doesn’t want to hear him try anyway. She doesn’t want to hear him defend those hallucinations and visions, and whatever other bullshit that she tried to bring back from out there.
This is real life, but Travis is still stuck back there, back in whatever delusions Lottie fed his brain. The ones he swore to her he didn’t believe in anymore.
She stomps out of the motel, the door rattling in its flimsy frame after she slams it shut behind her. Her hand fidgets inside of the pocket of her jeans, scraping against crinkled plastic.
Fuck, she feels like she needs more. Like Lottie Matthews stole the high she was just on. Even when she’s out of sight.
Honestly, she doesn’t know where the hell she’s going to go now. Not back to Travis’s motel room, and definitely not back to her mom’s shitty trailer. Not like her mom would even want her back there, anyway.
She got kicked out of her last apartment because she couldn’t make the rent last month, since she fucked up and spent the last of what she had on this fucking coke in her pocket. She’s been stretching it out so it was at least worth something then.
Now she just drifts around couch surfing. Friends, when they let her crash. But most of them don’t anymore. Most of them tell her to fuck off, or they’ve already gotten their lives together. That’s how she wound up here once again, circling the drain with Travis Martinez in a shitty motel room.
She almost considers ringing up Kevyn Tan’s mom from a phone booth. It’d beat sleeping outside in the cold, that’s for sure. Kevyn’s long gone— his mom all but shoved him out the door to Montclair. After too many extra years of fucking around after high school graduation, plus drinking and going on benders with Natalie after she came back, his mom told him he’s got to move out and get a degree and a job. Now he’s studying criminal justice, of all things. Fucking ironic.
He doesn’t call her much anymore. He’s probably doing a hell of a lot better in college without Nat to drag him down. Maybe he’ll get his life together, show up as some clean and polished working professional in a few years. Maybe Nat will see him on the news, President of the United fucking States, and he’ll give a grand old speech about how much better his life got once he left Natalie Scatorccio behind.
Kevyn’s mom would probably still let her crash, just to keep her out of trouble. But that comes with the price of a morning lecture about turning her life around. You’re going to waste your life away, Natalie. Do what Kevyn did, before it’s too late. Go to college, Natalie. Get a job, Natalie. Grow the fuck up, Natalie.
She almost laughs aloud at the thought of herself enrolling in some hoity-toity university, pretending to give a shit about midterms and college football.
So she just keeps walking: aimless, unsteady, zigzagging between the sidewalk and road. Streetlights are bright, casting little golden halos onto the pavement that she hops over like a game. A car speeds past, missing her by just inches, and she barely flinches.
She laughs. The sound bursts out from deep in her gut, loud and uncontrollable. The thought of it— getting flattened by a car, smeared across the asphalt, left behind as a piece of roadkill. It’s funny. She’d be dead. That’s the fate she should’ve had. The fate she deserved.
But somehow, she’s still here. Alive, but she doesn’t understand why. What the fuck is she here for? There’s nothing left for her.
A half mile off the shitty motel brings the kind of shitty bar that attracts sleazy men with scuffed trucks who stand around outside lighting up cigarettes. Her feet take her closer to the bar, tempted to bum a cigarette from one of them. Hands still shoved in her pockets, her fingers twitch against the nearing-empty ziploc.
She lingers by the door, bouncing on the balls of her feet while her eyes scope the inside. A peek wouldn’t hurt, would it?
She’s got about five coke-stained ones in crumpled bills, not nearly enough for a drink even if she came at happy hour. Behind the bar, an array of liquor bottles shines, practically calling out her name. She wanders inside red lights. It smells strongly of cigarette smoke and faintly of marijuana inside. The crowd is nearly all men nursing pints of beer. She slides onto a barstool, observing.
The bottles are out of reach, too far behind the counter, and there are two bartenders posted, one on each end. But the man next to her with an intricately detailed sleeve tattoo is more interested in chatting up the only other woman here than his drink. A woman considerably younger than he is, probably barely legal, if even. She could swipe his drink with the flick of her wrist.
Her fingers fidget in her pocket.
Don’t.
But when her fingers suddenly run over plastic again, she gives the baggie a good squeeze, feeling just how little she’s got left. Her mind seems to quickly clear. Too quickly, so if she doesn’t act fast, her mind will start slipping. She’ll start feeling it again, seeing it in her head. The hunger. Blood dripping on the snow. Bones cracking. Laura Lee. Jackie. Javi. Coach Scott. Mari. Hannah. Gen—
Her hand moves. It wraps around the guy’s pint skillfully, and she hops the next chair over to shield it. The rim of the glass is at her lips. Cheap beer meets her tongue, flat and bitter, tasting like the piss beer that Jeff Sadecki and Randy Walsh would load up in kegs back in the day, but it takes the edge off for a second.
“The fuck are you doing?”
Nat doesn’t react at first. She’s too busy chasing that little lull in her head. But then there’s a rough tug at her jacket, yanking her sideways on the stool. She’s forced around.
She gets a better look at the burly guy, who’s staring her down now. Mid-40s, with a thick neck and hawk tattoo that wraps around one forearm. His other hand’s grasping her sleeve, knuckles gone white. Up close, he smells strongly of B.O. and cigarettes, which he clearly has tried and failed to mask the scent of with some cheap cologne. In hindsight, Nat figures it probably wasn’t the best idea to mess with him.
“You thought I wouldn’t notice, you stupid bitch?” he growls. “I paid for that.”
“I don’t want it anyway. Tastes like shit,” she scoffs, shoving it away from her.
Even with his drink returned, his anger doesn’t subside. His grip tightens, twisting the leather. He’s gritting his teeth. “You think you can—”
Then something changes. His eyebrows crease, studying her face. His grip on her jacket loosens now. “Wait. I know you.”
Nat feels it before he says it. The dread punches her, hot in the gut.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” He lets go of her fully, but it’s worse— he leans in closer. She can smell the beer on his breath. “One of those plane crash girls. Holy shit.”
No matter how hard she tries, she can’t escape it. She can’t escape what she did. Who she became.
“Fuck off.”
He laughs, his hand pressed against the bar top, trying to get closer to her. “Heard all kinds of shit about what happened,” he smirks. “I’ll let it slide if you tell me this: what’d you really do out there, huh?”
Her fists clench tightly. She avoids his eyes.
“They say you girls ate each other,” he continues, so greatly entertained by his own speculation. “Not just in the cannibal way, if you know what I mean.”
Nat glares directly at him. She watches how he wiggles his eyebrows, how he’s getting off on fantasizing about this.
“Say that again,” she warns through clenched teeth, “and I swear to God, I’ll fucking—”
He leans in, grinning. “You’ll what? Eat me, too?”
Nat’s eyelids hiccup. No better judgment left inside of her, mind too dizzy and cluttered, she surrenders control of her arm. It swings back and her fist collides with his face.
She wouldn’t have guessed it was a very hard hit, but she hears a thud. He stumbles back against the wall, sinking down. She should’ve stopped right there, but the second swing is already unholstered. She grabs him by his white t-shirt, hauling him up partway only to slam him back down. She just is so angry at the world. So rageful. She wonders at what point she became like this, or if it was always a part of her. If it has always been inside of her.
Again, again, again, even when her knuckles are splitting. It’s like the rage controls her. She punches him but she can’t feel a thing in her fist.
She doesn’t stop until she feels a hundred hands grabbing at her, restraining her, screaming in her ears. But she doesn’t give a shit.
Not until she sees her. Lottie. In the cabin. Horizontal. Every limb soaked in her own blood. Shauna above her.
Her chest starts heaving. She feels like she’s back there. She wants to throw everything inside of her up, clean out her insides of all the sick things she’s consumed. She moves back, hands pressed around her. It isn’t until she hears sirens blaring that she realizes she’s not in the cabin. The bartenders are still holding her back against the bar. That jackass is bloody on the ground, maybe unconscious, maybe dead. And there are cops flocking inside.
Guess she finally found a place to sleep tonight.
MAY 11TH, 2003
A piercing, relentless metal clang snaps Natalie upright so fast that her head feels like it’s cracking in two. The dark mattress beneath her is more slab than cushion, and her spine is aching from its nightlong wrestle with half the wall. She digs two fingers into her temple, massaging the throbbing ache inside of her head. She tries to produce spit in her cotton-dry mouth, her tongue curling and begging for a sip of water.
She rumbles out a groan, slumping onto her side. Her eyes catch her bruised knuckles, and that’s when it all hits her at once.
Cinderblock walls. Metal bars. No, no, abso-fucking-lutely not. She knew her life was headed downhill, but this—
She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to scrape together the events of last night. She remembers Travis and the motel. The coke. The blurring streetlights, the dingy bar, and the tatted dude who recognized her. Cops and patrons yelling at her.
“Scatorccio.”
Beyond the bars looms an officer, keys jingling like loose change in his hands. She flinches at the volume of his gruff voice.
“You made bail.”
Nat snorts a bitter laugh. “Bullshit.”
No fucking way someone is bailing her out of here. She remembers being booked, sort of— cops swarming her, flashbulbs popping when her photo was taken, some droning spiel about court dates and fines, none of which she can recall the details of now.
But the one and only thing she recalls vividly is the fear colliding with her chest as she thought about who she’d call. She doesn’t have a single person in the world who really gives a shit about her enough to waste their money on her, let alone drag themselves over to a police station for her.
She knows her mom wouldn’t, even if she had the money to. Kevyn and Rich don’t talk to her anymore. Taissa might’ve put up the money out of pity if she asked, but she’s so busy with her fancy Ivy League law school that Nat doesn’t know if she would’ve picked up—honestly, Nat doesn’t know if she’d want Taissa to pick up and have that tone of disappointment in her voice after hearing the next terrible decision that her so-called hero Natalie made. Besides, it’s not like they talk much these days either. Tai wouldn’t have known to come here unless Nat fought her own ego off enough to make the call.
And then there’s Travis, if he’s even awake. He was just as gone as she was last night, probably more-so, considering how they left things.
So she doesn't know how it’s possible that anyone is here for her. Who wasted their money on her.
But the officer is already twisting the lock, metal doors screeching open.
Hauling herself off the mattress takes immense effort, body protesting every muscle movement. Her balance wavers, nearly stumbling as her boots drag forward against the floor. The officer marches her down the hall, past the other cells, with bodies slumped in corners, eyes following her like rejected dogs at the pound.
They reach the processing desk. The overhead lights stab at her poor eyes. The officer shoves a clipboard her way, there’s paperwork she doesn’t bother reading; she just scribbles down NATALIE SCATORCCIO in illegible cursive on the line at the end. As soon as the pen leaves the paper, the officer snatches back the clipboard, barely sparing a glance in her direction. All she gets back is a plastic bag with a lighter and an empty pack of cigarettes before she’s being shown the door.
As she walks through the heavy doors, she feels just how sluggish her limbs still are. She cranks her neck around to mitigate the tension, and then—
“Natalie.”
Sitting on a bench on the other side of the lobby, with poised hands folded neatly in front of her, warm eyes and a pleased smile on her face.
Lottie fucking Matthews.
Talking to her like they’re running into each other at the goddamn local ShopRite. Like it hasn’t been five years since they’ve spoken to each other. Like they weren’t once tangled together in blood and muck and bone-deep desperation, barely hanging onto life.
Nat just stands there, blank and blinking, trying to make sense of the impossibility in front of her— Lottie, standing in front of her at the Wiskayok Police Department, posting her bail for her. Last she heard, Lottie was still institutionalized, doing so poorly that no one thought she’d ever be out.
She looks different. More put together than she has any right to be. She bears no resemblance to the wild-eyed prophet Nat remembers, palms dripping blood into snow, screaming and whispering to trees. This Lottie is dressed in a designer fur coat and skirt. She’s got smooth, dark hair, neatly waving, parted perfectly in the center. Bangs trimmed, swooped, and curled without a hair out of place.
And her doe eyes— Jesus.
They rake over Nat like she’s taking her in, like she already knows everything. Where Nat has been, what she’s done, how she ended up here. Nat can only imagine what a wreck she looks like in comparison: smudged eyeliner in raccoonish rings, tangled dark hair, and in the fucking county jail.
Lottie was supposed to be the crazy one. So why does it feel like Nat is a hundred steps beneath her?
The thought tightens her chest. “What the fuck is this?”
Lottie just smiles so innocently. “You’re free to go.”
The officer behind the desk doesn’t give a shit about this either, mumbling out some reminders of court dates. Nat barely listens, too busy computing what’s in front of her.
Her stomach turns. This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t— she doesn’t want this.
“I don’t need your fucking help,” she snarls, shoulders tensing. “You think you can just show up out of nowhere— what, like some goddamn guardian angel?”
“Natalie…”
“I didn’t ask for this, Lottie.”
Lottie sighs quietly, and just gestures to the exit with her head. Nat’s toes clench reluctantly in her boots, wanting to plant themselves here, wanting to stick it to her that she doesn’t need her. But almost involuntarily, she’s stumbling after Lottie out into the parking lot, her chest still scorching with anger.
“Just spit it out,” she demands once they’re outside. “What do you want from me?”
Abruptly, Lottie turns around. She stares in her direction unreadably.
“Nothing,” she answers simply. “I just wanted to make sure that you were safe.”
Nat scoffs. “Mhm. Sure you did.”
Lottie’s teeth graze her lips in something that looks like frustration. But she breathes out, not allowing it to overwhelm her. “Would you rather still be in there?”
If anyone else had asked it, Nat would think that question was condescending as hell. And maybe it is, just a little, but it’s Lottie, and Nat knows that she’s genuinely asking.
“No…”
“Okay,” Lottie says calmly. “Then get in.”
Nat’s lips pucker together, the weight shifting on her feet as Lottie’s head points towards a shiny silver BMW in nearly mint condition. That thing looks like it hasn’t gotten much use at all, if ever.
She doesn’t have anywhere to be dropped off. Maybe she should stay back in jail. Uncomfortably, she forces a scowl on her face.
“They let you drive again?” she jokes bitterly.
She swears hurt flashes across Lottie’s features for a moment, but she shakes it off remarkably quickly, and ignores her.
Lottie doesn’t ask her where she wants to be dropped, she just rattles with her keys and unlocks the car, waiting for Nat to get in. Nat hesitates, one, because that sort of pisses her off, but also because she feels like she’s walking into a disaster. This must be one of Lottie’s schemes— a ploy to get everyone back together, to rehash this shit, to do some kind of deluded blood circle.
A few minutes of silence, and Nat finally manages to ask the question. “Where are we going?”
Lottie doesn’t answer while she watches the cars on the road before making a right turn on red. “My house,” she finally answers. Nat stares at her. “You could use something to eat, couldn’t you?”
“I can get my own damn food, Lottie.”
Lottie’s head flexes, a quiet sigh of frustration finally slipping out. She glances at Nat intently. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
“Because,” Nat breathes exasperatedly. “You just woke up this morning and thought, Hey, I should go spend a grand or whatever the fuck to bail Nat out of jail, even though I haven’t spoken to her in five goddamn years?”
Lottie tilts her head, considering. “Not exactly.”
Nat scrunches her face. That’s all she has to say? “Oh, well, that clears everything up. Thanks, Lottie.”
She goes silent again, hands tapping on the steering wheel, in some kind of deep trance of thoughts. Nat wonders if it’s even safe for her to be driving like this. It feels like another ten minutes before Lottie opens her mouth again.
“I saw it last night,” she explains quietly. “In my dream. You were in trouble.”
Now Nat understands why she spent so long weighing if she should say anything. She is back to the same bullshit, apparently.
“For fuck’s sake, Lottie…”
Lottie raises her eyebrows, only the side of her face in Natalie’s view. “I was right, wasn’t I? I came here today, and you were there.”
“Great. Fucking fantastic. So you saw me fucking up in your dreams and just decided that I was your problem?”
Lottie’s gaze softens. “You’re not a problem, Nat.”
Something about the way she says it so sincerely makes Nat’s stomach feel funny.
She glares at Lottie, her stupid perfect hair and stupid calm look on her face. “I don’t need your charity.”
“I know you don’t.”
Lottie shifts again, looking at her as if she’s seeing right through her. She presses the brakes on the car, and then Nat realizes they’re here.
The fucking Matthews mansion. She hasn’t been here since high school.
Lottie shifts the car into park. “You’re free to do whatever you’d like, Nat. But I refuse to leave you without the option.”
Nat sighs harshly, peering out the car window, scanning around for some miraculous escape plan to present itself. Normally, she’d be too stubborn to accept this, but God, she’s fucking exhausted, and the alternative is spending the whole day floundering around for something to eat and a place to lie down, or giving in and seeing her mom again.
So maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world if she takes Lottie up on this. Just for one day, and then she’ll figure her shit out and never talk to Lottie again.
Nat presses her lips together. Lottie is looking at her patiently, but still waiting for an answer.
“Thank you,” she says quietly, looking down, unable to face Lottie. “For coming to get me.”
Lottie clicks something on the car to unlock the door. She nods softly.
“Any time,” she says.
Nat huffs out something between a scoff and a laugh. “Don’t say any time, like it’ll happen again.”
Lottie smiles softly, and Nat feels almost bad. It’s not like she ever showed up for Lottie. That’s what she doesn’t get the most.
When they’re outside, standing in front of the Matthews residence, and Lottie is looking at her again, waiting, Nat shifts a little.
“Just today,” she mutters. “That’s it.”
Lottie nods again. “Of course.”