Patience

25

July 24, 2020

Karen had started out the Pandemic with Stevie, Lori, Stella, Tori, and Lindsey but it was becoming increasingly clear to everyone that Karen and Lindsey could NOT get along so as soon as the Shelter in Place was lifted around May she went back to her Condo for the Safer at Home part of the Coronavirus action plan leaving the Buckingham's and Lori together. 

However, as of June, they were REQUIRED to wear a mask if they were out in public and Tori wasn't handling it well. LA Models still wasn't open and she was slowly running out of money, despite Stevie transferring money into her bank account. Right before they went full into lockdown Stevie and Tori shared financial information so Tori had access to her mother's bank accounts and vice versa. The stimulus check however was enough to pay off her car and only to pay off her car. But Tori wasn't handling it well because the masks that Lori found for them and the ones that Margi Kent had sent to Stevie were tighter in the face and they made Tori relive her trauma from her abuse. 

Chad had choked her multiple times and had held his hand over her face while he was beating her to stop the echoes of her screams throughout the house almost every time he'd beat her. Not to mention she had asthma. So every time she'd wear the stupid thing her chest would tighten and she'd start to panic. Therefore Lori had started going on their very few grocery runs. They had gotten into a routine where they'd go grocery shopping the third Wednesday of the month and they'd just overhaul the store as much as they could. 

The whole entire family had started staying up until the wee hours of the morning but Stevie would stay up a little later than the rests so when she walked into Tori's room and picked the black and white polka-dotted mask that Margi had sent them up off of her dresser and handed it to her Tori just cocked an eyebrow. 

"Karen's not leaving her Condo I guess someone in her building was exposed and she's self-isolating. Lori's gone to the store, Stella can't drive, and I've forbidden your father from leaving this house because his heart surgery about killed his immune system and I have an eye appointment at eleven. I can't drive, I need you to take me." Stevie explains.

"Mom I can't..." Tori starts pushing her hand and the mask against Stevie's body but Stevie retaliated and grabbed her wrist giving it a tight squeeze and Tori flinched staring down at her comforter.

"I don't give a damn about your supposed excuses as to why you don't want to wear a mask. I'm asking you to do something important to me and I'm your mother so you're going to do it. Put that fucking mask on your face and let's go." Stevie hisses still not letting go of her wrist.

"You're hurting me..." Tori whispers and Stevie's eyes go wide and she drops Tori's wrist.

"I'm so sorry baby I didn't..." Stevie starts.

"Save it. Get your fucking shoes on." Tori growls shoving past her mother. 

***

Tori was rocking back and forth sitting on the chair in Stevie's exam room as her mother was in the exam chair just leaning back waiting for the optometrist. 

"Tori Paige, take my picture." Stevie points to her purse on her child's lap. 

Hearing her mother takes her out of her thoughts but then she quickly feels the suffocation set in. Once she snaps her mother's picture she sinks back into the chair and goes back into her own little world, scratching at her neck. Stevie watching on and rolling her eyes at her child. 

In Stevie's eyes, she's overreacting plain and simple. It's just a mask doctors and surgeons wear them all day every day and Tori can last an hour with one on. In her opinion anyway.