Ghost of a Smile

It Hurt To Hear

Lynn Loud was playing with a fidget toy in her left hand as she sat in the waiting room with her family. She desperately wanted to bounce a ball against the wall or hit something with a baseball bat, but a hospital waiting room was no place for activities like those so she had to settle for the clicks of the red buttons on her toy cube.

"Mom and Dad will be here soon." Lori stated when she got off the phone with their mother. When she was seventeen she was often left in charge of the household and the younger kids, but now that most of the oldest girls were in their early twenties or late teens she didn't pay that much attention to what they were doing.

Lucy was the oldest out of the young kids, the girls, but most often Lincoln was the one left in charge of keeping an eye on the younger ones since he was sixteen now.

Lori felt awful. Just because most of her siblings were teenagers now and they didn't need adult supervision to do things doesn't mean they didn't need her. She looked over at her sister Lynn, the eighteen year old shaking her leg anxiously. Lynn knew about this and thinking back Lori is sure that Lynn had tried to talk to her about it before, but she was always busy with wedding plans or apartment hunting with Bobby.

"Hey Lori."

"Uh, not now Lynn. I have to meet Bobby about an apartment. We can talk when I get back." Lori said while looking for her car keys.

Lynn frowned. "But it's important."

Lori sighed. She saw the look in her sister's eyes. "Okay what is it?"

"It's about Lucy. I caught her in our room the other day and she was-"

"Lori! I found your car keys!"

"Great! Thanks!" Lori yelled excitedly catching the keys Luna tossed to her. "Sorry Lynn, I gotta go. Whatever Lucy did just try to get along until I find my own place, okay?" Lori said and rushed to the door. "We can talk more later!"

Lori frowned and tore her eyes away from Lynn. That day was exactly three weeks ago and since that day Lynn and Lucy had been very distant with each other. Lori knew something was wrong, but instead of asking about it she assumed they would get over whatever it was after she moved out and their rooms got changed.

She felt like she should apologize to Lynn for brushing it off. She got up from her spot by Luan and Leni to go sit beside Lynn. Luna saw Lori walking over and moved to sit on the other side of Lincoln so Lori could sit next to Lynn.

"Lynn-" Lori started. She sighed. "I'm sorry. You tried to tell me weeks ago and I brushed you off."

Lynn didn't respond. Her leg kept shaking and her thumb kept clicking the buttons on her toy.

Lori took a deep breath. "I feel like I failed as a big sister. I failed you and Lucy. I'm really sorry Lynn."

"I failed." Lynn finally responded.

"Lynn-"

"I knew and I did nothing. I failed. I failed at being a big sister. I- I- I failed Lucy." She admitted quietly.

"That's bogus." Luna chimed in. "You guys didn't fail. Don't bring yourselves down like that."

"Luna is right. No one saw this coming." Lincoln added. "Even if you knew Lucy was-" He gulped. "-hurting herself, you didn't know anything like this would happen."

"Do you really think she was trying to off herself?" Lana asked.

"Don't talk like that!" Lola snapped at her twin sister beside her.

"Well I don't wanna say the 'k' word!" Lana yelled back at her.

"Perhaps we should lower our volumes to ones more quiescent considering the state of unease present from our surrounding company." Lisa advised. She no longer spit when she talked, but she still had a slight lisp.

Although they were a larger family in numbers there were a few other families in the waiting room as Lisa pointed out to them.

Lynn fiddled with her fingers for a moment then she went back to anxiously clicking. "Y-Yes. She- She was." She choked out. "I knew, but I didn't do anything." She sniffled. "Lucy, she wanted-" Lynn fell silent when it became hard to speak, but she swallowed the lump forming in her throat and told her siblings what she should have told them when she first found out. "She wanted to die."

The responses were a mix of gasps and gulps with one very confused "Huh?" coming from Leni Loud.

"Lynn, when did you find that out? Was it the same day you tried to tell me?" Lori asked nicely.

Lynn shook her head and sniffled. "No. It was- when I was fifteen."

"What? But Lucy was only ten." Lori gulped. "She was suicidal? At ten? B-But that's so young."

"Is that why you guys started fighting more?" Luan asked.

Lynn solemnly nodded. "Part of it, yeah. The other part was-" She swallowed hard. "Lucy wants nothing to do with me. I- I don't even know what I did wrong." Lynn pouted. "She just started hating me. I don't know why, but when we got into that fight and then I shoved her and she- she fell out the window, after that she hated me. I pulled her back in!"

They all remembered that night. The night they were all scared Lucy would get seriously hurt. The night they heard Lynn and Lucy fighting and then they heard Lynn scream. The night they rushed to the room and found Lynn clinging to young Lucy's legs trying to pull her back up as the young goth dangled out the window of the second floor. The night Lucy Loud became distant from her family, more distant than she was before.

Lynn wiped at her eyes. "I was so scared she would get hurt bad. I apologized, you guys all heard me, but after you left the room and I asked Lucy if we were okay again she looked at me with this cold glare and said she hated me." Lynn sniffled. "It hurt to hear."

Lori put a comforting arm around Lynn Jr. then saw their father Lynn Sr. burst through the door with their mother hot on his heels.

"Mommy! Daddy!" Lily ran over to them with tears in her little eyes.