IN WHICH after a friendship blow up, Talia Anderson chooses one friend over the other and realizes she either has to stay an ousted kook or learn to live life like a pogue. Problem one, she's a kook through and through. Problem two, pogue king John...
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❝can i exhale for a minute? can i get this out in the open? can i sit down for a second? can i breathe?❞
-exhale, sabrina carpenter
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chapter fifteen, A CHILD IN HER ROOM
Talia Anderson had never wanted to disappear more than during the car ride back to Figure Eight. Her mother was silent, knuckles gripping the steering wheel until white, her anger radiating off of her.
Talia felt like she couldn't breathe. Like the world was closing in around her. She felt hopeless and like the earth would stop turning. She couldn't stop her hands from fidgeting, picking at the skin around the fingers. She winced at the open wound she created on her thumb, pushing into the skin around it and forcing the blood to surface.
The girl stared at her hand, her eyes not able to look away. No matter how hard she tried, and she tried, she couldn't allow herself to look up and know how much further the trip would be. Talia simply didn't have it in her.
"Stop doing that. How many times have I told you that?" Laurel's hand swatted at Talia's, the girl jumping in her skin at her mother's touch. Laurel paid no attention to her daughter's reaction, she had told her time and time again that the disgusting habit she had would ruin her hands and the way they look. Talia, after all, was an extension of Laurel, and her reputation and appearance mattered, not that the spoiled rotten brat would ever care.
Laurel Anderson's grip on the wheel got tighter, if that were even possible. The woman's jaw clenching, and teeth grinding as she stared forward.
Talia was frozen, her body not synced with her mind, which was racing with anxiety. She was stupid to think that bubble wrap could be popped, not when her mother would encase her in it till she suffocated. Talia should have known better.
It was eerie, knowing what awaited her at home. No matter what her mother chose, she knew it'd be coming. Maybe she deserved it, she did disobey her. Talia's mind couldn't slow. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt as if she'd get sick. Her stomach turned in nauseating panic.
The turns of the road indicated they were almost home, and Talia started to feel outside of her own body. Screaming at the coward for sitting there and taking it. Screaming for her to get up, to push herself from the car, to do something. It was like watching a sick, twisted movie as the car slowed to a stop.
Both Anderson women stayed silent for a moment as Laurel turned the key and shut the car off. Talia could feel her eyes on the side of her face and swallowed hard, her throat drying out. The aching in her body repapered from the night before, the aftermath of her and the pogues' adventures. Her body betrayed her as it stayed frozen, the knowledge of what came after making it worse.
