Nights Like This One { a joel miller fanfiction }

IV.

A.N. hi <3 i hope you don't mind how fast this bitch came out. i know algorithm gods say to wait at least a week between chapters, but i have to take advantage of the little free time i have, and after i get a chapter done and edited all i wanna do is put it out for ya'll to read. this is a lil breaking point for my babies but they still have a LOT to go. thanks for reading, you're all pretty and cool and wonderful.  

"Nothing's gonna hurt you baby. As long as you're with me you'll be just fine." — Cigarettes After Sex, Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby

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March 23, 2003

Sundays used to mean something.

The eve of another work week, laundry day, yoga down at Dolores Park.

Now Sunday just melted into the rest of the week, the only way she knew it was any different from a Tuesday or a Monday was because her grumpy contractor didn't grace her home with his brooding presence.

She felt heavy, like there was something large and solid sitting on her chest, keeping her from doing anything to break up the monotony. She'd printed out her resumes, some examples of her latest articles (regardless that they were now over three months old), but she couldn't seem to get herself to drive down to any of the headquarters to drop them off, that heavy thing keeping her hostage in this decaying house.

She tried to give herself some grace, a little patience, after all, she was supposed to be grieving— never mind that she'd never actually cried over her mother's death— but how long was such stagnation acceptable? Surely not much longer...

And what right did she have in blaming her inaction on her grief when she didn't even know if she was human enough to grieve? It was hard to grieve a mother who never actually wanted her, who said as much whenever given the opportunity.

You're eighteen years old, Lily, you're on your own now, figure it out. Your father and I are finally getting the life we wanted.

Still, she missed her, in a kind of innate, intrinsic way. Her mother was a part of her, even if that part was simply biological, it still felt like something was missing, something grounding, some floating thing that once kept her tethered, now severed— brutally ripped in two so that it dangled lifelessly off of her, no longer connected to anything else— just an extra limb, dead weight, that heavy thing on her chest.

Lily exhaled sharply, her ribs rattling at the motion.

Empty, but heavy, so, so heavy.

She hadn't felt like this when her father died.

Maybe that was because, despite her regret, her mother had at least tried. Tried to love her, tried to care, as repugnant as that was to think about— trying to love your own child, how fucking brutal. Her father never had, barely even recognized her existence unless he had something to yell about.

She pitied her mother, sometimes, when she was feeling especially merciful. She didn't know why she'd chosen to have a child so late in life, maybe the thought of one had been appealing to her, but the reality was certainly not something she'd wanted. Trying to force yourself to love something that you made, something you carried, something that held— perhaps— the pieces of you that you did not want to see reflected back must have been heartbreaking, disappointing in the most profound of ways.