Always, Huh?

Three - Coffee Sounds Good

Lily started to feel physically ill after her outburst in the corridor. She only managed to get through her first period of Biology and registration for History before she ran out of class to be violently sick in the ladies' room.

She stumbled down the corridor to the Nurse's Room. Nobody was sent to follow her or track her down. She was handed a few small tablets, which she pretended to throw down her neck, but she stowed them away in her pockets.

"I'll call for your mom to come pick you up."

"Can you - Call my dad, actually?"

"Sure," The nurse said, nodding slowly.

"Thanks," Lily croaked. She held her stomach and could feel it writhing again, "Bucket! Bucket, please!" She yelled and it only just got to her in time.

"Could I speak to Johnathon Darkston please?"

"Yes, yes, I understand completely, sir. But his daughter is sick and needs to be escorted home by a parent as soon as possible."

"Alright then. I'm very sorry for disturbing you sir," the nurse put the phone down. "Lily, I'm going to have to call your mother. Your father has very important business to be tending to."

"Fine."

---/|\---

The sleek black car was pristine, and at that moment Lily just wanted to ruin it by spewing out her insides. She sat in the back, bucket in her lap while her mom was sat twisted around in the driver's seat. They were parked in the front drive while Elizabeth gave her daughter a lecture on how it was the last time she was taking Lily out of school,

"It's your senior year, honey. If you want to get into a good college you really need to do well."

"Mom, I was vomiting all over the place! You're saying that next time this happens, you're going to make me stay at school?"

"No. Lily, I'm saying that it'd better not happen again," Lily sighed heavily in exasperation and got out of the car. She slammed the door as hard as she could, heard the reverberation throughout the suburbs and stormed into the house. Elizabeth was blinking rapidly, surprised at her daughter's sudden outburst.

Lily dropped her bag right in the middle of the hallway before running for the bathroom yet again.

She started to choke on tears, her throat burning. Lily promised herself that she was going to apologise as soon as she could drag herself away from the toilet. She didn't want to throw up in the middle of the word (would you?).

---/|\---

She was stuck in the bathroom until early afternoon, her throat was parched, her eyes were dry and her mouth was stuck with the bitter, disgusting taste of stale stomach acid. Lily had heard Nate come home and heard her mother leave for coffee with friends.

Nate's heavy metal music was as loud as it would go and he was, no doubt, in the kitchen downing a beer.

Lily staggered out of the bathroom and leaned against the door jamb of the kitchen. Crossing her arms tightly across her chest, she watched Nate head-banging violently and playing the air guitar,

"You know you're killing your brain cells? No wonder you're just the local pizza delivery boy without a girlfriend," He spun round wildly, almost knocking over his open can of beer, with a hand on his heart and a look of pure horror etched across his face. He slammed the pause button.

"What the hell? Lily! When did you get here?"

"About four and a half hours ago," She replied matter-of-factly.