Cabin Fever

so much better

FYI:

· this one shot takes place about four years prior to top bunk and i'd like to believe this is canon bc look at all this high school angst!! but alas some things don't just match up with what happens in top bunk (ie el supposedly having not known legally blonde: the musical exists and grace having had constantly tormented el throughout highschool, etc but here we are) that i cba to sort out so we all gotta live with this

· i wrote this because i am having serious writer's block and i miss my children too much and i have fallen back in love with legally blonde (the musical ofc) and i needed some angst in my life so there here is my blood, sweat, and tears

· which also kind of means this is gonna be not very good like it goes nowhere it is literally just a pile of angst (think of it more as a snippet of their high school lives than something with an actual plot bc nothing gets resolved lol) sorry

· just to clear things up: there's a chunk in the middle where el and grace are arguing abt racism and stuff like that and are horribly politically incorrect; do not fret! their conversation does not reflect my views (dear lord no), but i made it that way to show how they aren't as mature as they are in top bunk (aka i know what they're saying is wrong please don't be offended please don't kill me)

· this is dedicated to mariam bc her eon one shots kill me (and are what gave me the idea to do this if we're being completely honest) and i wish i could do the same to you, dear readers

· i hope all you grace-haters out there who are reading this will finally learn to love my tiny blonde child as much as i do

 SO MUCH BETTER

GRACE UPLAND is an insomniac.

Who could blame her, really, when the moment she closes her eyes, the red spots dancing behind her eyelids morph into bloodstains and the silent cacophonies of crickets turn into distant moans?

She turns over in bed and her sheets are like snakes, clawing at her throat, rendering her unable to breathe. The sheen of sweat sitting upon her skin only contributes to the whole snake analogy she has going on.

January has become a difficult month for her. Two years ago, January meant new beginnings, fresh starts, letting go of the past, fireworks, countdowns with her mom. But that's the thing, that's where it ends – her mom. Two years ago, on the twenty second day of the year, her mom brought a gun to her head and that was the end of it. The end of the countdowns. The end of the spur-of-the-moment shopping trips. The end of Grace's consistent sleep cycle. And sure, January is difficult, but she gets the nightmares all throughout the year, and well, she'll get over that hurdle when she gets to it.

Bringing a hand to her cheek, she finds it comes off wet.

Grace is sixteen, for god's sake – she isn't supposed to cry. The sight of her is comical, she's sure. A sixteen year old girl in a pink onesie sniveling and sobbing into her pillow, snot running down the sides of her mouth, spit tacky and sluggishly crawling down her throat.

She tries not to shake too much when she climbs out of her bed to get a glass of water. Her dad is snoring obnoxiously from the room across from hers so she tiptoes down the stairs as quietly as she can. She completely abandons this tactic, however, once she opens the cupboard and a stout pink mug greets her. It's so completely tacky with the words "I Love Mom" sloppily painted on it by nine year old Grace, but Grace whimpers at the memory of her mom drinking out of it every time they'd have dinner together, up until... Until.

Her hands are quivering like leaves in a storm, that when she only means to push the mug to the side to get to a glass, Grace knocks the mug clean out of the cupboard. It lands on the counter and shatters into pieces.