Chapter Text
The dawn of the first day of summer vacation. When she slowly came to, the fresh high school graduate expected to hear the usual season antics. The ice cream truck twinkling its way to the playground… the neighbors mowing their lawn… some kid roller skating down the sidewalk too fast and their mom shouting at them to “Slow down!” or they’ll roll right into said ice cream truck.
Unfortunately, her parents never really caught that memo. Summer was just a more humid version of “You need to get a job!” this, and “You’re wasting your potential by not going to college!” that.
Christine Coffey loved her parents.
That sounded silly. Most people loved their parents; it would take a lot for someone to hate those that raised them. But Christine said it because she needed to remind herself not to lose it when they chip away at her mental stability. The past few years she had felt like a lab rat. Win first place, get the highest test grade, become valedictorian. And each time she’d achieve their expectations, her parents were proud, but that came with the “what’s next?” conversation. “What else can she do?”
They fed her, they made sure she did well in school, and they always came to her debate team competitions. She was actually embarrassed by that last part; she had to tell her dad not to bring a sign telling the other team that they were getting their asses handed to them. They believed in her too much, and that’s why through sleepless, study-filled nights, she’d have to remind herself that she loved her parents.
She grumbled into her drool-covered arm and forced her gaze to unblur when she heard the light rapping at the door. It was her mother; she didn’t have to see her to know it was her. Arthur Coffey didn’t knock. Blurry eyes blinked away a rough night's sleep to read the clock on the bedside table. Seven in the morning.
“Christine?” Her mother cooed gently, “Your father wants to talk to you.” Helen Coffey was a woman who was born in her prime and would eventually die in her prime. Grew up rich, captain of the cheerleading team, married even more rich, gave birth in her mid 20’s, and now does nothing but gossip with the neighbors over vodka lemonades and read the tabloids. Another knock, just a decibel louder. “Baby, did you hear me? Are you awake?”
A moment passed before she heard a delicate sigh. Another moment, then the sound of the knob turning. Christine fought the overwhelming urge to groan as loud as she could as she heard the door quietly swing open. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her mother– she loved spending time with her. They shared fond memories of prom dress shopping, going out to see a movie every once in a while, shopping trips where they’d splurge a bit which was always followed by a “Don’t tell dad!”. She could now even laugh when she reminisced about her mother instructing her how to put a tampon in through the bathroom door while all she could do was cry.
Her mother had always been a neatly wrapped bundle of joy and confidence, and it calmed her on days she needed it the most, like today for example. Except this morning, that package had been haphazardly tossed at her door despite the fragile label warning, and if she had lightly shaken the box she’d hear the light clinking of broken glass.
On instinct, she flipped away from the door to make her mother believe she was still sleeping. Mother knows best, though.
Helen gave her what little privacy she could offer her for the time being and sat on the side of the bed facing the door. A soothing hand trailed up and down the top of the sheets where Christine’s legs lay curled in on herself.
“I know this is going to be hard, but… you can’t avoid this forever.”
She almost wanted to keep pretending she was still sleeping, but her heart ached at the sound of her mother’s watery smile. She didn’t have it in her to ignore her mother.
“Okay… well what if I don’t want to?” Christine rasped out.
“Oh, sweetheart,” her mother sighed deeply and got up to move to the side of the bed Christine was facing. It forced her to look into her heartbroken eyes, and as much as she thought looking away would help, she could still feel them twisting a blade into her chest. “That’s the thing about growing up. A lot of things are unavoidable, and you’re gonna have to do things even if it scares the crap out of you.”
Christine Coffey loved her father. She loved her mother too of course, but somehow her father’s pride in her after winning a competition tasted so sweet she could cry. This was the same for when they argued, except he was disappointed, so it made her so nauseous and self conscious that she felt as if she was choking.
They had been getting into arguments more ever since she couldn’t commit to a school her senior year, but that was no surprise when he was trying to raise a lawyer in training. She only picked the debate team as an extra curricular in high school because Arthur said it would help shape her. She’d see auditions for the school musical, sports tryouts, even an art club she had a few friends in. They’d always try and get her to join, and she wanted to… but she couldn’t. When it came time to pick a school and she realized she didn’t know where she wanted to go, she also came to the soul crushing realization that she didn’t know what she wanted to do. She’d be committing her whole life to being a lawyer if she made the decision her parents wanted her to make, and she wasn’t ready for it. She was scared of what her parents were going to think, but she was downright terrified at the idea of committing to something she might hate.
“Here’s the deal,” Arthur Coffey muttered through the ever growing lump in his throat. He’d never admit it, and he’d deny it if anyone asked him, but he had cried during that argument because he knew it would be their last one. “You take a gap year. I’m willing to financially support you through it, but you have to look at schools in the meantime. You’d go to college next fall. I’d also support you through college… you don’t have’ta work at that Carvel place while you’re there.”
The dining room stood in grim, unmoving silence for a few seconds. Christine sat across the table from her father and her mother sat on her left. She picked at the skin of her thumb; she knew what she was going to ask, but she was too scared of his answer to say it. Like she had read her mind, Helen nodded her head gently in encouragement. So with a deep breath, she sealed her fate.
“What’s my other option?"
It was Arthur’s turn to take a deep breath. He removed his glasses and set them on the table with a lazy but patronizing shrug. “You move out. Get a job somewhere. Work there for a year, tops,” he spat as he weighed the options with his arms acting as the scales. His upper lip curled in feign examination. “Until you realize you were living easy here, and then go back to option number one.”
This was his plan for her before she was even born. Before he had even met Helen, actually. His dream was to have a family of lawyers all operating under one firm—his firm. He wanted to get rich, retire early, and with the passive income he’d earn from the firm? Get more rich. He became addicted to the idea of the Coffey Empire he had envisioned, absolutely obsessed, and it all started to crumble once Helen had complications during her pregnancy and couldn’t bear the thought of having another child. He’d almost left her, and he would’ve if it wasn’t for the one mistake he had made in his whole life. He never signed a prenup. Helen must’ve worn the pants back before her daughter was born, or sung a siren song, because Christine could not imagine her father not signing one.
“Daddy…” Christine spoke as evenly as she could, begging her tone not to crack. “I don’t want to go to college, because I don’t know what I want to do. But I do not want to be a lawyer.” It took everything in her to keep her arms at her sides and not defensively crossed over her chest. She didn’t want him to see how scared she truly was; not of him, but of her imminent future. She didn’t miss the subtle nod of pride from her mother, thankfully one that Arthur didn’t notice. That would have just stirred up a whole other argument, and Christine only had the stamina for one.
“Okay, so you don’t want to be a lawyer,” his nostrils flared. “But let’s face the facts, Christine. You can’t get a job, if you don’t have a degree.”
“If I want to go to school later on in life after I’ve figured out what I’m actually passionate about, I will,” she prodded her finger into the top of the table to emphasize her argument. “But it isn’t fair that you’re kicking me out because I can’t make a decision… you’re my dad.”
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, mumbled something about a disappointment, then suddenly stood up. The way his eyes bored into her’s, it was downright cruel. It was like he had just had his memories wiped of raising his one and only child. The tendon in his neck twitched as he sniffed loudly.
“Daddy… please,” she croaked. She watched through increasingly blurring eyes as he deeply exhaled and shook his head.
“You’ve got a week to leave. Better make a decision on where you wanna go… hope that task isn’t too hard for you."
She heard her parents argue from her place in bed under the covers. She couldn’t hear everything, but she picked up bits and pieces. Something about, “She won't last out there long… come running back…” He really was riding on the expectation of her going to law school for so long that he’d lost his mind. He’d gone delusional.
The ache in her chest settled painfully deeper when she realized she’d have to pack her belongings soon. There was no use arguing with him about his ultimatum; for all she knew, maybe he was right. Maybe she would come crawling back later, but then maybe he’d be kinder to her once he realized his little legacy would follow in the path he laid out for her. Thinking about it made her want to just change her mind now and tell him she’d start looking at schools today… but she just couldn’t ignore the feeling in her gut. That she was made for something more than a life like his: to get married and have children that would have to follow in her subsequent footsteps, and for them to do the same.
And so Christine had made the choice to leave once again. She went through her options, one of them being staying in Hartsdale, New York. She had grown up there, went to school there, got her first job there… but in the end, it was too close to her parents. No, she knew she had to go further, but she had to play it smart. She had to go somewhere where she knew people, where she had family. There was her dad’s side of the family… but she’d have to live under the same roof as his older brother, his wife, and their two kids. The youngest of the two wasn’t a total nightmare, but he wasn’t enough to save her from the rest of his family.
Then, there was her mom’s side of the family. The Buckley’s. They were nothing like the Coffey’s; they were welcoming, unjudging, caring. Plus, her younger cousin Robin was practically her sister, even if they weren’t raised together. But… they lived in Indiana.
The Buckley’s lived somewhere between Fort Wayne and Indianapolis in a small town named Hawkins. From her few memories of going to visit for the holidays, it was a depressing, cloudy town full of boring people. When she was younger she liked to imagine that they were living in a black and white movie because they hadn’t caught up with the rest of the world. She shivered. The midwest.
But she had no other choice, she picked up the phone next to her clock and shakily dialed their number she retrieved from her phone book. She didn’t have to wait more than five seconds for Robin to pick up, it was as if she had been waiting all day for this call.
“Buckley household!” her cousin cheered in a sing-song voice.
“Hey Robby, it’s Christine.”
Christine was elated to hear her voice, almost like the argument between her and her father never happened… so why did her stomach drop as soon as her cousin answered? Because there was a possibility that no matter how loving and accepting the Buckleys were, they wouldn’t take her in. While she quietly contemplated, Robin had no problem filling in the silence.
“...school’s finally out and my parents want me to work, can you believe it? I mean, can you even fathom it? I can barely put on my own two shoes in the morning and they believe I can be responsible for other’s needs?”
“Jeez where’re you working, a nursing home?” Christine quipped. Silence fell over the line for a brief moment, and it made her freeze mid laugh, only her eyebrows moved in concern. While she adored her cousin, she would never lie and say she wasn’t a little…sporadic. She’d forget her own birthday if her parents didn’t remind her every year.
She sighed a breath of relief when Robin’s raspy laugh moved through the speaker.
“Oh God, could you imagine? No, no elders will be parishing under my watch any time soon.”
“Well then,” Christine allowed herself to relax a bit, laying on her back and crossing one leg over the other, “Where ya headed?”
The younger of the two gave an obnoxiously long groan that trailed off into a dramatic sigh, which brought a genuine smile to her face for the first time all day.
“They want me to look for a job at this new mall they built in town. Honestly, I’d rather lick the bottom of several shoes than ring up people from high school who were rich enough that they didn’t have to find a job.”
Her stomach somersaulted. She knew she had to ask at some point, and now seemed like the perfect time–
“Christiiine. Why so silent?,” her cousin teased. “Is it because I’m calling out your family’s fabulously wealthy lifestyle?”
“Well…” she ignored the shot at her family and nervously swallowed, “I’m.. kind of in the same boat… except I can’t really stay here and work?”
“What? What happened to Carvel?” She heard Robin get up and start pacing on the other end. She may have never noticed it with the infinite thoughts going through her head at a time, but if someone Robin cared about sounded even the slightest bit stressed, she’d soak it up like a sponge.
“Do you have any of those over there?”
“...Do you want to talk about ice cream flavors?” she asked quizzically. “Am I getting some scandalous insider knowledge on a new recipe in the making? Why do you..”
Silence. Christine nervously tapped on the receiver for a few seconds while she waited for the gears in Robin’s head to finish turning.
“Oh. OH,” she stuttered out some other exclamations. “Oh. My. GOD. Christine! Holy crap! When are you guys coming up here?! Are you staying for the summer? My parents don’t even know—unless this was a surprise? For me?!”
“No, haha… nooo. It’s just me. For a while. Not sure how long.”
“...OH.”
The girls sat in silence once again, trying to read each other’s thoughts. Though one was raised completely opposite from the other, they were more alike than their separate parents, specifically their fathers, liked to admit.
“So, um… you wouldn’t happen to have a place to stay yet, would you?”
“No, not yet. I was just given my eviction notice today,” she laughed weakly, palming at her increasingly aching chest. She heard her cousin sigh full of contemplation on the other end, which filled her with more doubt. What was she thinking, that she could just move in on such short notice? Robin was a girl who wasn’t prepared for surprises like these, the slightest etch in her plans would set an alarm off in her head.
“Listen.. Um. I’m sorry for springing that on you, I get it if you guys can’t accommodate me.” Another beat of silence. Christine couldn’t stand it, what was she thinking about?
“Sorry, I’m just trying to figure out how we’re going to fit on my twin bed,” Robin mumbled thoughtfully. “Well, twin XL if my parents decide to give me the upgrade I’ve so desperately been needing. My feet are practically hanging off the bed.”
She almost choked on her laugh of relief. She didn’t believe in a God, or a higher power, but if there was one? It would take the name, face, and presence of Robin Buckley.
Two days later, the girls had figured out travel, its expenses, and her living situation. It was official: she would be staying at the Buckley house, and her aunt and uncle were nothing but understanding.
Melissa Buckley had said, “Anything that gets you away from my bore of a sister is A-Okay in my book!”
It’s not like her aunt and uncle were completely in the dark. While Christine’s grandparents adored that one of their daughters married rich, Melissa and Richard Buckley never liked Arthur Coffey. “Way too stuck up, that guy,” Richard always groaned, Melissa always hummed in agreement. Of course they would never get fully into why in front of the girls; they wouldn’t want to be the ones to expose them to family drama so young, but when Robin ran up to them after she got off the phone with Christine and did her best to explain why she needed to live with them, they happily took on the duties of what Arthur and Helen couldn’t fulfill.
They just had one rule: Get a job.
“You don’t have to get anything spectacular,” Richard chuckled over the phone the following day, “Just something that gets you some pocket money and gets you out of the house for the day. You could even get something with Robin! I’m sure she’ll be more motivated to get one with you by her side.”
Saying goodbye to her parents was as hard as she expected it to be. Why wouldn’t it be?
Alas, Christine Coffey loved her parents.
Her father was sitting in the dining room in his usual chair downing a glass of whiskey at nine in the morning. He couldn’t even look at her. Her mother was anxiously pulling at the bottom of her dress with tears in her eyes. She didn’t say a word to her father, went straight to her mother, and gave her a hug.
“Please reconsider sweetheart.” Helen begged with a downturned smile. Christine returned it with a shake of her head.
“I did for a minute, but I can't. Thanks for trying, though.”
Arthur scoffed with a roll of his eyes. She glared at him, hard. She wanted to hate him, but even after everything that happened, she still found it in her to love him. So while she glared, she also tried to remember what his face looked like.
With a heavy sigh, she turned back to her mother. “...I’ll call you at some point. When I’m ready,” she sighed. “Just remember that I’ll be safe with the Buckley’s.”
Her father never said goodbye to her.