blueberry cheesecake, flavour of the day and rhubarb treat with hot fudge and whipped cream
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Unhappy
Rating: PG (language)
Challenge: FOTD: abstemious, Rhubarb ‘My Treat’ #12: a dab will do you (Adele’s parents and money management), Blueberry Cheesecake #25: hand to mouth
Toppings/Extras: whipped cream, hot fudge
Wordcount: 496
Summary: Another thing Adele Merritt can’t afford.
Notes: Starting on a brand new flavour! Marina’s treat. Also… uh, wow, young Adele is scary… Abstemious: Sparingly used or consumed; used with temperance or moderation. Marked by or spent in abstinence. EDIT: Could I have a tag for the Blueberry Cheesecake flavour please? Thank you! :)
“You are fucking pathetic,” the adolescent snapped, fingers raking through her thin brown hair, face ugly and twisted with lividness. She was scrawny and young, wrapped up in hand-me-downs, her lips curled into a feral snarl. Adele whirled around to face her father, nearly shuddering at the sight of him in his seat-a blob of flesh, a half-melted pudding with greasy hair and failing eyesight. The room stank of alcohol.
She hated it. The stains on the walls, the burns on the carpet… it made her skin crawl. For all of her life she had felt this itch behind her veins at the sight of mess that had constantly assaulted her; erosion and filth and rust and mould. It ached deep in the roots of her mind, twisted and curdled in her gut.
“We can’t afford it,” Aaron Merritt said fingers digging weakly into the armrests of the armchair. She wished she could snap them like twigs.
“Yeah… it’s only my fucking future at stake here. Nothing important.” The teenager suddenly smashed her foot into a huddle of empty cans, sending them flying in various directions, dribbling poison onto the carpet. Who cared? It was already ruined. “Maybe if you spent less money on your shitty boozing, I wouldn’t…”
…be unhappy?
Eh.
“Didn’t your mother send some money a few days ago?” Aaron asked, blindly searching for something to placate her, half-lost in a dopey hangover haze.
“A fiver?” Adele snapped. “What the fuck am I going to buy with that? One trip on the Tube?” She turned away and stalked rigidly out of the room, boots slapping against the floor. She tugged a jacket from a hook so hard that some stitches tore apart with a short yowl from the fabric and she stuffed her arms into it. “Forget it,” she muttered, mostly to herself. “Forget it.”
Much to her surprise her father actually heaved himself up from the armchair, shambling after her, dazed as he always was. Ignoring him, she threw open the door and stepped out into the street-the ‘street’ being the interior of a skyscraper, more like a corridor lined with doors leading to the dismal homes of the other twentieth-floor dwellers.
Wind whirled through the corridor in a whistling gale because someone had forgotten to close the doors that led out onto the walkway. Again.
“Dell,” her father said with a wheeze under his voice, swaying slightly in the hallway. She spared him one cursory look, hair snapping and flying about her head.
His eyes were watery and his skin looked like it was falling off of him. She was already taller than him. He looked pathetic, half-dead already. He looked tired and old, skin tinted with a sickly yellow, what had once been a sharp mind now blunt to nothing. He could scarcely remember his name on the bad days.
He looked like he needed help.
Adele slammed the door as hard as she could and walked away.
Title: Unhappy
Rating: PG (language)
Challenge: FOTD: abstemious, Rhubarb ‘My Treat’ #12: a dab will do you (Adele’s parents and money management), Blueberry Cheesecake #25: hand to mouth
Toppings/Extras: whipped cream, hot fudge
Wordcount: 496
Summary: Another thing Adele Merritt can’t afford.
Notes: Starting on a brand new flavour! Marina’s treat. Also… uh, wow, young Adele is scary… Abstemious: Sparingly used or consumed; used with temperance or moderation. Marked by or spent in abstinence. EDIT: Could I have a tag for the Blueberry Cheesecake flavour please? Thank you! :)
“You are fucking pathetic,” the adolescent snapped, fingers raking through her thin brown hair, face ugly and twisted with lividness. She was scrawny and young, wrapped up in hand-me-downs, her lips curled into a feral snarl. Adele whirled around to face her father, nearly shuddering at the sight of him in his seat-a blob of flesh, a half-melted pudding with greasy hair and failing eyesight. The room stank of alcohol.
She hated it. The stains on the walls, the burns on the carpet… it made her skin crawl. For all of her life she had felt this itch behind her veins at the sight of mess that had constantly assaulted her; erosion and filth and rust and mould. It ached deep in the roots of her mind, twisted and curdled in her gut.
“We can’t afford it,” Aaron Merritt said fingers digging weakly into the armrests of the armchair. She wished she could snap them like twigs.
“Yeah… it’s only my fucking future at stake here. Nothing important.” The teenager suddenly smashed her foot into a huddle of empty cans, sending them flying in various directions, dribbling poison onto the carpet. Who cared? It was already ruined. “Maybe if you spent less money on your shitty boozing, I wouldn’t…”
…be unhappy?
Eh.
“Didn’t your mother send some money a few days ago?” Aaron asked, blindly searching for something to placate her, half-lost in a dopey hangover haze.
“A fiver?” Adele snapped. “What the fuck am I going to buy with that? One trip on the Tube?” She turned away and stalked rigidly out of the room, boots slapping against the floor. She tugged a jacket from a hook so hard that some stitches tore apart with a short yowl from the fabric and she stuffed her arms into it. “Forget it,” she muttered, mostly to herself. “Forget it.”
Much to her surprise her father actually heaved himself up from the armchair, shambling after her, dazed as he always was. Ignoring him, she threw open the door and stepped out into the street-the ‘street’ being the interior of a skyscraper, more like a corridor lined with doors leading to the dismal homes of the other twentieth-floor dwellers.
Wind whirled through the corridor in a whistling gale because someone had forgotten to close the doors that led out onto the walkway. Again.
“Dell,” her father said with a wheeze under his voice, swaying slightly in the hallway. She spared him one cursory look, hair snapping and flying about her head.
His eyes were watery and his skin looked like it was falling off of him. She was already taller than him. He looked pathetic, half-dead already. He looked tired and old, skin tinted with a sickly yellow, what had once been a sharp mind now blunt to nothing. He could scarcely remember his name on the bad days.
He looked like he needed help.
Adele slammed the door as hard as she could and walked away.