Instant Family (SWSH Fanfic)

The Two-Sided Coin

Gloria's phone vibrated madly on the nightstand, shocking her out of her deep sleep. Her arms flailed wildly as she scooted over toward the nightstand. Her heart pounded loudly as she scanned the room, consciousness slowly seeping into her brain. She frowned as she picked up her phone.

No sign of Bea anywhere...

She scratched her head, bringing the vibrating phone to her face. A childhood photo of her, Hop, Sonia, and Leon flashed on the screen, Sonia's name blinking in bold letters over the accept and decline buttons.

Shit! I totally forgot to text her back...

She tapped the green button, bringing the phone to her ear.

"Hey Sonnie!" Gloria mustered the brightest, most awake voice she could as she sat up in Bea's bed, stretching her free hand to the ceiling. She couldn't help but yawn.

"Awhh," Sonia's voice crackled slightly through the phone speaker, her familiar tone made Gloria smile, "did I wake you up? I just missed you so much— I had to hear your voice!" A bright giggle sang through the phone, a bright smile spread on Gloria's face, she let out a happy hum.

Gloria tossed the covers aside, standing up to explore Bea's old room, "Nahhh... I mean sort of... what did you wanna talk to me about?" She once again dragged her fingertip through the row of medals, watching them glint in the sunlight flooding the room.

"Ahhh well... the other night, Marnie came by the house..." Gloria straightened up and rolled her eyes, letting out a sigh. "... sooo yeah... I just wanted to call you to check in on you, Nessie's with Marnie right now..."

Gloria stood up on her tip toes to examine the sparkling trophies that sat above the medals, reaching her hand up to drag her fingertips over the nameplate on one. She traced Bea's name. "I mean— I've been better? Marnie's the one who dumped me soooo... I dunno Sonnie, she's the last person on my mind right now..." she walked over to Bea's desk, smiling at how neatly her shorts were folded. "She really got me fucked up you know... did you know—" she pulled the drawer to the side of Bea's desk open, revealing a neatly stacked array of composition notebooks, "—when I asked her what I was to her, she literally said, and I QUOTE—" she lifted one out of the drawer, opening it up some place in the middle. She squinted down at Bea's incredibly neat handwriting, it looked like notes from a calculus class, "that all I was to her was a 'good fuck.' A GOOD FUCK!" Gloria continued to absentmindedly flip through the pages of the notebook, finding a strange satisfaction in Bea's astute and thorough note-taking and neat graphs.

"... Yikes... Have you talked to her since then?" Gloria heard wind whip at Sonia's receiver as she closed the notebook, fishing another one out of the drawer angrily.

"Psh. Yeah. She came over to Stow-on-Side and barged into my hotel room spewing more bullshit—" she opened the notebook, letting out a silent 'ooooo' as she scanned its contents. Physics diagrams were neatly drawn on the pages, labeled neatly with descriptions and highlighted with different colors, "— she decided now was the best time to 'confess'—" Gloria mimed air-quotes even though Sonia couldn't see, "— that she loves me. I gave her two damn good years of my life. Two full years of literal adoration—" she returned to flipping the page of the notebook, stumbling across a neat checklist that went over a unit on vectors, "— and in those two years she never once said she loved me. And I just took it. Maybe she's right!" She shut the notebook angrily, reaching back down into the desk to pull out another notebook, the collection of books growing slowly on top of the desk, "Marnie did call me a little bitch after all— and I just took her shit. Like a little bitch!"