LOVESTRUCK ━ lip gallagher¹

13 | i'm like a wild dog

tw // mentions of abuse

★

AMARA LEANED AGAINST THE wall between the two eldest Gallagher brothers, her arm linked through Lip's as she laid her head onto his shoulder. They were in the courthouse—Fiona was trying to win the house back from Patrick. Amara decided that she hated courthouses as much as she hated police stations. They were two different sides on the same coin. There was hardly a difference, neither cared about the poor kids from the south side.

"Last night of Mom's ovulation cycle," Veronica mused, mostly to Fiona but her voice carried through the empty hall. "Thank God. She just needs to screw Kevin and not enjoy it. That's not unreasonable."

"You know, everyday I try to convince myself that we're a normal group of people, and then you say that," Amara muttered, and Veronica stuck her tongue out.

"What time is it?" Fiona asked, peering around Veronica to look at Jimmy, who was sat on the edge of the bench.

"Three-fifteen. Still no Patrick."

"That's a good thing though, right?" Debbie wondered, her voice making a sleeping Silvia stir and crack her eyes open.

"It's kinda a toss-up," Lip replied.

"If he does show, the judge gives our house away," Ian explained. "If he doesn't, he's probably dead, so we get to keep the house...until we all go to prison."

Right. Amara had forgotten about that. She shrank further against the wall, letting her mind whirl with the facts. Carl had sprinkled rat poison all over Patrick's sandwich while he'd been working at their house. It was a perfectly genius idea, of course, ignoring how everything could easily be traced back to them, and they could spend the next twenty-five years in prison for manslaughter.

"The estate of Ginger Gallagher," a man in a fancy suit called, stepping out of his office. He took one swift glance around the group before going back behind the door, gesturing for them to follow.

"Guys?" Carl interjected panicky, and they turned their heads to see Patrick wobbling over to them, his two sons behind him. He let out a wheezy cough, placing a palm onto the closest wall before he could fall over.

Amara's eyes narrowed to slits, before smirking. "You've looked better."

Ian lightly smacked her stomach, failing to hide his own turned up lips. "Shut it, Amara."

"Both of you, quiet," Fiona snapped. "Let's get this over with."

★

With Joe Gilbert being back in their cramped house, Amara was more stressed out in her bedroom than she was anywhere else at the moment. It wasn't helping that he was trying to gain custody of them (for his own benefit probably, no doubt, she just hadn't figured out for what yet) and that he seemed to be on something again, he was angrier now. Like he had been when she was a child, when he'd come walking through that door and shout and scream so loud Amara had brought a pair of earmuffs.

But she wasn't a child anymore. She wasn't going to crawl and sob under her bed while he got to beat her mother over the head with a beer bottle. She wasn't going to cower in the comfort of her home whenever he was around. She was stronger now. She could handle it. She could.

The pocket knife Mandy had brought her for her eighteenth birthday sat comfortably in her jacket sleeve. She was no murderer, obviously. But she was not about to go through the same abuse from her father again. She never would. Her legs were shaking as she stood in the kitchen with her grandmother, who looked equally as wound up. Clearly, she hadn't been expecting her son back. Or to see him so...twisted.