Work Text:
-PROLOGUE-
Natalie Scatorccio had never been one to believe in love.
She had never had any role models to prove it true. The closest she got to that, was the shitty romcoms that her and van used to watch on the lowest volume, curled up on her living room floor, trying not to wake anyone.
But even then, all she could focus on was the fact that she had to be so quiet, that the couple next door - her parents - were so quick to snap that they couldn't even watch a stupid movie.
There was a few times that she got ballsy, that she would turn the volume up a little.
Those were the night that Natalie let her self believe, just a little.
Those nights always ended in a few new bruises to hide under heavy jackets, harsh words, and an even heavier heart then before.
Natalie was twelve when she banned romcoms from sleepovers with van, she was twelve when her hope for love came to complete halt.
Why would she hold onto false belief? I mean, she dropped the catholic faith when she understood that her parents weren't taking extra communion each night, when she realised they'd never live up to the people god wanted them to be.
So why should she?
She was twelve when she realised that love wasn't real, it was fiction, and she never had time for fiction, not when reality was so harsh.
She couldn't afford any time to believe in such pipe dreams, not when she could hardly afford to live in the first place.
Love was a fantasy, all she knew was hate and survival.
Natalie Scatorccio was thirteen when she found love again.
She found something beautiful that made everything brighter, that made her heart lighter, that made her brain quiet.
She was thirteen when she started to understand her parents, their version of love, they they were always so furious with one another when they couldn't get their hands on it.
Natalie was thirteen when she started to fully understand how soothing and beautiful the effects of alcohol could be.
It kept her warm on the colder nights at home, it kept her asleep on the nights where the screaming was usually too loud to ignore, it kept her steady.
Natalie was thirteen when she found love at the bottom of a bottle, and all she wanted was to climb down the neck of it and let herself drown in the harsh sting of what she saw as love.
Natalie was fourteen when she finally understood the difference between love and comfort.
She was fourteen when the harsh sting drowned out the warm feeling of love she used to desperately cling to.
When it made the voices louder, her hands shakier, her pockets emptier.
She was fourteen when she realised that both things - love and comfort - were temporary, a high tha slowly demonised until it was a low.
A high that always ended up with her falling ten time harder.
Natalie was fifteen when she let herself fall into harder substances, when she went looking for comfort again, not love.
Never love again.
She snorted and took anything she could, tried whatever was handed to her, picked up a part time job to afford it all.
She never told her parents about it so that they couldn't use her money to fund their own habits, said she joined some stupid soccer team at her high school instead.
Natalie was fifteen when she lost her virginity, her and some guy she met at a party, both equally wasted, both finding solice in the comfort and discomfort of another persons hands on them.
Natalie let him hold her that night, well, she let herself let him hold her.
She disappeared that morning before he could wake up, and, hopefully before he had time to remember her face.
Natalie was fifteen when she solidified herself as the school burnout, as the person people felt free to shit on.
She figured, it was better her then anyone else.
She figured, she could handle it.
She figured,
She figured.
Natalie Scatorccio was sixteen when she joined the Yellowjackets team, running out of excuses to her fathers prying questions.
"Where's your uniform?"
"How come you haven't mentioned any games?"
Normal questions that could be framed as almost caring, but she knows that he's onto her.
He came into her work a few weeks back, as if he was looking for her, she had managed to duck into the backrooms before he saw her but, she knew it was only a matter of time before he figured it out if she didn't ramp up her defense.
So, she plays soccer now?
It was strange to her, how easily they let her on the team, she didn't have to try out or anything.
Shitty number she assumes.
She used to play soccer as a kid, kick the ball around with van, - who is still her best friend, and funnily enough, the teams keeper - but she stopped a few years ago.
Natalie was sixteen when she discovered muscle memory wasn't complete bullshit.
Sure, she wasn't the best on the team, but she certainly wasn't the worst either.
She was small and fast, and she had a hell of a fire in her that came in handy when needed.
(Although sometimes it certainly wasn't necessary, those were the days she usually warmed the bench)
But, she found out she didn't hate it.
She found herself sticking around the locker rooms after practise, joining in conversation, letting herself relax around this new team of girls who called themselves her friends.
Teammates, but they were practically synonymous to Nat, not that she'd admit that to anyone.
Natalie Scatorccio was sixteen years old when she first noticed Lottie Matthews.
Well, first really noticed her.
Of course she'd heard her name whispered around the school, who hadn't?
But she was sixteen when she really saw her.
Her long black hair, her deep, kind, brown eyes.
Natalie was sixteen when she first noticed Lottie, when she first noticed women.
Natalie was sixteen when she first noticed Lottie Matthews, and she was sixteen when she started avoiding her.