Chapter Text
1992.
“There are two colours in my head
There are two colours in my head
What, what is that you tried to say?
What, what was that you tried to say?”
Charlotte Matthews was not born ‘crazy’ . She had five normal years. Her family tends to forget that. She herself tends to forget that. Five years of solitude. Five years of silence. Five years of peace.
The next five years were not quite as peaceful. But ‘crazy’ was still not the word used to describe her. She’s just imaginative. She’s an introvert. She’s a nervous kid.
She might have been these things too, but the real problem was simple; Charlotte Matthews was unable to tell the difference between what was real and what was not.
The screaming started when she was nine. She heard it. Over and over and over again. Her ears hurt and the blood that poured from them tainted the soft skin of her hands that she had clasped clumsily over her head in a desperate attempt to silence those who spoke to her. The red infested them, seeping into her nails and leaving odd marks that she could not decipher. The only thing that could dull the screaming was to join in. Her parents did not understand. They could not see the blood leaking from every crevice of her body; they could not hear the sounds that hurt Charlotte Matthews so much. They only saw a screaming nine year old who pointed at an empty corner, bellowing bullshit about an ‘antler queen’.
Two pills a day takes the crazy away.
It took multiple attempts to get her medications right. Each new dose caused ten year old Charlotte to sink further into herself.
Lottie Matthews can tell the difference between what is real and what is not. Ninety percent of the time. Her medication helps her do that. Yet it places a barrier between her and the world. Like she is submerged in shallow water. She can still see everything, she can hear most things, but colours are muted and sounds are distorted.
That ten percent tries to haunt her on her bad days. People who aren’t there call her name and antlers edge at the corners of her vision. On her bad days she prays to anything that listens that the water she is submerged in grows deeper. She longs to sink further in. She wants to avoid the things that are not real and get lost in a haze of medication instead of her decaying mind.
Lottie delicately forks another mouthful of fried egg into her mouth. She sips her orange juice and diligently swallows the pill handed to her by Lisa, her maid.
Natalie Scatorccio has always been considered trailer trash. It doesn’t matter that she is fourteen years old (nearly fifteen thank you very much). It doesn’t matter that she didn’t have anything remotely close to a choice with where she lived. It doesn’t matter how hard she tries in school or how hard she avoids becoming her father or her mother. None of that matters. From birth, Natalie Scatorccio has been classified as trailer trash and that label will stick with her until death.
Nat smokes a cigarette out the slats of her bedroom window. She inhales shakily and exhales the smoke slowly. Trailer Trash.
She flicks the butt out of the window and pulls a fresh pair of underwear up her legs. She digs through her closet, searching for a clean bra and t-shirt. Nat quickly gets dressed (grey band t-shirt, black flannel, black denim skirt and her knock off doc martens that still cost her an arm and a leg).
Nat ties her lanky brown hair behind her, sighing. She’s sick of her hair. She glances at the clock next to her bed. Fuck it, she has time.
As Nat chops lazily at her hair, cutting slightly crooked, but not tragic bangs, Lottie slips into the front seat of her father’s car. He silently pulls out of the gravel driveway.
“Are you ready for your first day, Charlotte?”
“Yes father,” Lottie replies softly.
“Highschool. You’re growing up so fast, Charlotte.”
“Yes father,” Lottie repeats robotically.
“You’re mother and I will be travelling to Tokyo tomorrow for work. We’ll be back in two weeks. Lisa will stay with you, of course.”
“Yes father,” Lottie whispers, tears burning her eyes. She should be used to this. Yet somehow, each time they leave she feels the sweet sting of abandonment like it's a fresh wound. It’s not fresh. It’s an old wound. A very old wound that reopens every few weeks when she’s left alone again.
“I expect you to attend all of your doctor appointments. Without argument Charlotte. Lisa is not your mother, she should not have to deal with your… moods .”
Lottie is used to this speech. She gets this speech every time they leave. And every time she questions what the fuck it means. Lottie has never complained about attending her ‘doctor appointments’. Lottie doesn’t have ‘moods’, she has a mental disorder. Which is why she attends the ‘doctor appointments’ in the first place. And yes, Lisa is not her mother; yet she sees the woman twice as much.
“Yes father.”
Nat leaves her bedroom, feet gently plodding through the hall and towards the door.
“Natalie.”
Nat freezes, one foot out the door, one foot still inside. She feels her heart beating in her chest. Her breath catches in her throat.
“Dad,” she says, her fists balled up by her sides, her eyes blinking unnaturally fast. “I’m-, I’m just going to school. First day back.” Nat laughs awkwardly. She swallows down the bile rising in her throat.
“You cut your hair.” He’s sitting on the couch, last night's beer bottles surrounding him. Nat’s hand shakes by her side. Her chin quivers as yesterday's screaming match replays in her head.
“I like it,” he mumbles before sipping last night's warm beer.
Nat hates the genuine smile that grows on her lips. He likes it.
“Thanks, dad. I’m-, I gotta go.”
“Yeah, yeah. Have a good day baby girl.”
Nat leaves the trailer, smile still stuck on her lips. She grins a bit too hard, tugging her split lip so it breaks open again. She grimaces at the twinge of pain and stops smiling. One compliment and everything he has done magically disappears.
-
Lottie trudges her way through her first few classes, listening attentively, but not really giving a shit. She sits with her friends from middle school at lunch, pretending to care about their summer vacations. She doesn’t care. Not one bit. But these people are her friends. She should care.
“What about you Lottie?” Jackie Taylor questions with false interest that Lottie sees right through. Jackie doesn’t care. No one in this group cares about one another. Except maybe Shauna, who cares so deeply about Jackie it actually hurts Lottie to see how little Jackie cares in return. Anything for a bit of social status, right?
Lottie doesn’t care much for social status. But she supposes it is easy to say that when you are one of the popular girls.
“Uh, not much this summer.”
“God Lottie, you never do anything fun on your Summer break! I brought Shauna on my family vacation to…”
Lottie drowns out Jackie's nattering. Her Summer consisted of another change of medications. Another forced hospitalisation. Another Summer alone in her own head.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” someone mutters, eyes drawn towards Natalie Scatorccio who walks purposefully towards the new school building. She looks the same as she did in middle school, except a new haircut. It’s choppy, layered and cool. Lottie can’t take her eyes away from it. From her.
“ Trailer Trash,” Jackie utters with a high-pitched laugh following it.
Lottie swallows the biting reply forming in her throat and stares at the crumbling concrete beneath the bench.
It’s ironic in some fucked up way, that the people she is most afraid of are the people she calls her friends. If this band of gossip vampires actually knew anything about Lottie, their quench for drama would be satiated for months on end. Yet, Lottie voluntarily sits with them, flaunting her wealth as they do in a valiant attempt to avoid being the target of their soul-crushing attacks. Maybe by sitting close enough, their sharp teeth won’t suck into her neck. Maybe they won’t notice her. It has worked so far.
But as ‘Trailer Trash Nat’ walks past them, middle finger raised, a pang of guilt hits her once more. A pang of guilt that Lottie, of course, does absolutely nothing about.
-
Three days into highschool, Jackie forces Shauna to sign up for soccer tryouts. It’ll be fun Shauna, come on! She tries to persuade some other girls in her group to come too, but no one is interested. Lottie keeps her mouth shut. When she was younger and her parents were away, she used to play with Lisa. The soccer team could be fun. Still, the fear that is engrained so deeply within her soul begs Lottie not to. She doesn’t want another thing to worry about. But when she walks past the locker rooms and sees the way the other sports teams look at each other, the sense of comradery that they so clearly feel for one another…the green vines she feels deep down twirl their way around her insides, joining her intestines in a tight, balling, swirl that makes her stomach hurt. She sees the smiles the cheerleaders give each other and the rough hugs and pats on the backs the football players share and the vines twist so hard in her body she can’t breathe. She doesn’t think about the repercussions; she doesn’t consider if it is a bad idea. Lottie see’s how happy they all look in each other's company and she yearns for it. Yearns for genuine smiles and genuine laughter.
She writes her name on the sign up sheet with swirling letters, dotting her i with a heart and crossing her t’s with waving lines.
“Can I use your pen?”
Lottie turns to the girl behind her. “Yeah, sure.”
Nat scribbles her name under Lottie’s, her harsh lines slipping into Lottie’s soft ones.
“Thanks,” she mutters, handing the pen back to Lottie. Lottie keeps it in her hand for much longer than she means to.
She gets on the team. They both get on the team.
-
Lottie is better at soccer than she expected to be. Sure, she had played for fun with Lisa, but kicking a ball between two people (one of which is being paid to be there) and playing on a team are very different. But she’s good . Her long legs grace her with speed and an unnatural elegance with the ball. When she runs, feet entangled with the soccer ball, she feels as if she is dancing with it. Her brain and body are completely connected for the first time in years. It’s as if someone has gently lifted her out of the water. The colours aren’t muted and the sounds aren’t distorted, but their hand is still on her back, ready to pull her back under if things get dangerous.
Lottie smiles as she runs. Her hair blows back in the wind, the pink ribbons that Lisa had carefully intertwined through the thick strands are coming undone. She doesn’t care. Lottie runs faster, heaving in breaths of air while she still can. Soon she’ll be under water again (it's only shallow water, and there are air bubbles floating around, but nothing like the pure oxygen she heaves in now. It’s fake oxygen. Artificial air that is being pumped into her because her body doesn’t understand how to suck in the normal stuff properly). The ball becomes one with her feet. She approaches the goal, ready to kick-
Her body and mind become disconnected. Her legs fly out from under her and her head whacks against the ground as she lands. Her vision goes back to being distorted. The colours are once again muted.
“ Scatorccio! Bad tackle! What the hell!?” Coach Scott’s voice sounds far away.
“I’m sorry , it was an accident!”
“Hey, Lottie. Lottie can you stand?”
Lottie blinks heavily. Coach Scott is kneeling beside her, the rest of the team jog towards her.
“Yeah. Yeah I’m fine,” she mumbles.
“Our father, who art in heaven-,”
“Jesus, shut up Laura Lee,” Jackie yells.
Lottie slowly forces herself to stand, ignoring the way everyone is swaying slightly.
“Dude, you look like you’re about to spew,” Nat announces bluntly while scratching her head awkwardly.
“I’m fine.”
“Of course trailer trash plays dirty,” Jackie mumbles.
“Oh shut up, Jackie,” Lottie blurts out. Her eyes go wide immediately. She provoked the vampire. Fuck.
“Okay, everyone shut up! Scatorccio, take Matthews to the nurse, everyone else get back to the game. Teams are still fair, you’re both a player down,” Coach Scott instructs.
“I’m fine, really-”
“Yeah, she’s fine-”
“Both of you, go now .”
Nat grumbles something under her breath as she walks off. Lottie stumbles after her. Her left leg pulsates slightly with every step. She can already see a bruise growing there. She tries to catch up with Nat, but her head feels like a drum that someone is continuously whacking and Nat appears to be standing at a permanent tilt.
“Sorry about the tackle. It really was an accident-, Lottie? Are you coming?”
Lottie leans precariously against the bench on the edge of the soccer pitch. “Yeah. I stood up too quickly, that's all.”
Nat rubs her hand through her hair and sighs heavily. She walks back to Lottie and slowly throws one of Lottie’s arms over her shoulder. “You’re a fuckin’ giant, you know that Matthews? No fifteen year old should be this tall,” she quips with a slight smirk.
Lottie allows Nat to take some of her weight. “I’m still fourteen, Scatorccio .”
“You’re taller than my dad.”
“You must have a pretty small dad.”
Nat smiles at the taller girl and starts walking towards the main school building. “Seriously, I’m sorry I-”
“I’m sorry about Jackie. She’s being a bitch,” Lottie interrupts, her face quickly darkening to a bright red.
“Jackie Taylor has been a bitch since birth. It’s like a prerequisite to having that much money.”
Lottie’s face somehow reddens even further. At least the sickly pale glow has left her complexion. Nat’s hand grips the side of Lottie’s jersey. She can feel the thin fingers through the fabric. Her blunt nails tickle her skin despite the layer between them.
“You know my family is rich, right? Like, like rich rich. Problematically rich-”
“Jeez, way to be modest Matthews.”
“No, I just-”
“Relax, I’m fuckin’ with you. Of course I know you’re rich. Hate to break it to you, but all of Wiskayok knows you’re rich.”
Lottie hums half-heartedly. They finish their walk to the nurse's office in stilted silence, neither girl knowing quite what to say.
Nat slips out from under Lottie, letting the taller girl sit down on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs outside the nurse’s office. Lottie swallows her disappointment when she feels Nat’s fingers slip away.
“You know she’s just gonna give you an aspirin and call it a day, right?” Nat decides while leaning against the wall beside Lottie.
“Yeah. The joys of public school.”
“Why do you go to public school anyway? I mean, since you’re so rich. Like, rich rich. So problematically rich.”
Nat smirks at the shy smile growing on Lottie’s face.
“Look at Jackie. She’s like that while attending public school. Imagine what she’d be like in a private school. I don’t wanna be like Jackie.” She mumbles the last bit.
Nat bites her lip. She uncrosses her arms and slowly lowers herself into the chair beside Lottie. “You know, it’s not some heinous crime to admit you don’t like Jackie. I’m pretty sure no one likes her.”
“She’s my friend.”
“Why? No, I’m being serious. What can you possibly gain from being friends with her and her little disciples?”
Oh Nat, if you only knew.
Lottie picks at her perfectly manicured nails. She opens her mouth, but quickly closes it again. “I get…safety. There's safety in numbers.”
“We’re in highschool, not the wilderness.”
“Aren’t they the same thing?”
A slow smile slides across Nat’s face. “I guess you're right, Matthews.”
Nat waits with Lottie until the nurse is ready to see her. They sit in amiable silence for a few minutes, feet tapping tile and fingers grazing plastic.
“Maybe I’ll see you around Matthews.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you at soccer.”
Nat smiles again. Lottie finds herself entranced by the shape of her teeth. They’re perfectly straight and perfectly white. Lottie couldn’t say the same for herself. When her baby teeth fell out, two sharp fangs grew in their place. Maybe she really had been spending too much time with the vampires. Lottie closes her mouth, not wanting Nat to see the pointed teeth. Not wanting Nat to think she was truly one of them.
“That’s not what I meant, Matthews.”
“Oh. Oh. ” Lottie smiles again (lips sealed firmly over her teeth).
-
September ends quickly, bringing a cold October that has Lisa insisting on Lottie wearing an undershirt beneath her undershirt. She complains, but ultimately does as she is told. She wears a purple sweater with a pink sweater over it. The bunching of cloth bothers her profusely and the added layers are torturous in the heated car, but Lisa doesn’t give her much of a choice, mumbling something about lottie ‘being her responsibility’ and how it's ‘one of the coldest octobers in recorded history’.
Nat hides beneath three blankets, shivering feverishly and praying to anybody for her dad to pay their heating bill. Or at least pay to get the smashed living room window fixed. The cardboard taped clumsily across it does nothing to keep what little heat they have in.
She wears two pairs of socks on her feet and a sweater under her leather jacket and walks to school, trying desperately to ignore the chill that infests her bones. She sleeps through her morning classes, savouring the heat the school building provides her. She sits in the back of the cafeteria at lunch, mindlessly consuming whatever is in front of her. She eats half her lunch, before Randy Fucking Walsh spills his all over her.
“Natalie, are you okay?” Lottie asks, placing her arm on Nat’s wrist. She’s slightly breathless after obviously running to Nat, yet she still looks like a fucking Barbie doll. Nat pulls her arm away and storms to the bathroom, muttering a quick ‘I’m fine’ in her general direction. Who does Lottie Matthews think she is, anyway? Some rich saviour who can use her financial powers against fucking soup?
Nat storms her way through the bathroom door and strips off her leather jacket. Her sweater is covered in Randy Walsh’s mothers fucking mushroom soup. She pulls it gingerly over her head, trying to avoid getting soup in her hair (she is mostly successful). The hairs on her arms stand up as she is left in nothing more than her ratty red and black striped t-shirt. Nat wipes uselessly at the soup covering her sweater, but it's hopeless. She jams it under the sink. It’s a nice sweater. If Randy Walsh's soup becomes its downfall Nat would never forgive herself.
“Fuck,” she groans, placing her clammy forhead against the cool tile of the bathroom. A chesty cough bursts from her lungs and she can do nothing to stop it. And jesus it is fucking freezing . Slowly, Nat removes her head from the tiled wall, slips her arms back into her jacket and leaves the bathroom. She throws her wet, balled up, soupy sweater into her locker without a second look.
Soccer training is hell. Okay, no. Usually it isn’t. Usually it’s fun. Something Nat is actually good at. Something she excels at. But today, no one is having fun. Not one person on the team isn’t sporting a childish pout of misery as the wind blows the cold air into every crevice of their being. Nat sniffs futilely and wipes her nose against her hand. She kicks the ball back to Mari, who fails to stop it. Mari moans a complaint, wraps her arms further around her shoulders and stalks after the ball.
Beside her, Lottie does the same thing, causing Laura Lee to follow in mari’s footsteps (but with a much chipper attitude).
“Lottie, did you do that on purpose?” Nat questions with a light chuckle. She isn’t really friends with Lottie Matthews. But the girl is nice and surprisingly funny. It’s not that Natalie hadn’t tried to befriend her, she just wasn’t very good at the whole ‘friend’ thing.
“Yes. I wanted to give you this,” Lottie states before pulling a sheet of paper out of her bra. Her bra? Nat stares too long at the paper, at Lottie, at everything. Jesus stop being a fucking creep Scatorccio.
She takes the paper from Lottie's long fingers. Lottie’s skin is soft.
The paper is folded in half. In soft swirls the words ‘ Happy Birthday Nat ’ grace the front. She opens the card, revealing the continuation of swirling letters on the inside. A short, but sweet message wishing her a great day and signed by Lottie herself covers the typed words of Leviticus 18:22.
Lottie bounces up and down on her toes. Her lip is clenched in her teeth. She smiles briefly, before closing her mouth and biting her lip again.
For once in her life, Nat is truly speechless. And a concerning amount of questions swirl in her head like Lottie’s cursive swirl across the card. How the fuck does Lottie Matthews know it’s her birthday? Why the fuck did Lottie Matthews make her a birthday card? Is said birthday card ripped from the fucking bible?
“Lottie…is this paper ripped from a bible?”
The taller girl’s face is red from the biting wind. It gains a new flush (something that tends to happen to the poor girl quite frequently) as she considers Nat’s question. She swallows. Nat watches her throat bob up and down.
“...yes.”
“Where the fuck did you get a bible from?” Nat asks incredulously.
“Laura Lee is trying to indoctrinate me.” Lottie puts her hand down the neck of her jersey and pulls out her necklace. Nat can’t help but follow the girl’s hands. The necklace in question is a small golden cross.
Nat shakes her head, a laugh bubbles from her throat before she can even attempt to stop it. Lottie Matthews truly is a wonder. She smiles widely in front of Nat, her two sharp teeth on show. Nat can’t help but smile just as widely back.
“Dude…considering you’re out here ripping up bibles, I don’t think she’s great at this whole indoctrination gig. But I’ll give it to you Matthews, she’s definitely an improvement on your last friend.”
Lottie’s mouth closes as she seems to remember something. The smile is still there, but her lips are shut and they quiver imperceptibly.
“I’m still friends with Jackie. I just…I think I actually like Laura Lee. As a person. Don’t tell her I’m doing blasphemous shit, okay?” A look of panic crosses Lotties features briefly.
Nat can’t stop herself from laughing again. “Right, I forgot. You have to stay with your pack. Safety in numbers and all that shit?”
Lottie’s dark eyes flicker a little, but the smile still sits on her face.
“Relax, I won't tell Laura Lee that you’re defacing the word of our lord and saviour.”
Lottie laughs. And it's beautiful.
Nat laughs too, but it soon morphs into a chesty cough. She has to turn herself away from Lottie’s concerned dark eyes.
“Natalie-,”
“Burn out, you really need to lay off the cigs,” Jackie’s high pitched voice reigns through. Nat wants to reply, but her lungs are still refusing to cooperate so she settles on giving her the finger instead.
By the time Nat does manage to get a hold of herself, she realises that Mari and Laura Lee have given up on Lottie and Nat and are kicking a ball between themselves.
Lottie finds a spare ball and taps it towards Nat. Nat kicks it back carefully, ensuring that Lottie doesn’t have to leave to go get it.
“I’m gonna freeze my fucking tits off.”
Lottie laughs again, showing her teeth. Good. That’s what Nat was aiming for. Lottie acts differently in the few conversations she has had with Nat than she does with the other girls. It's how she acts with Laura Lee. She’s a completely different girl. She’s actually present. Nat barely remembers the girl laughing in front of her from Middle School. But the girl who shuts her mouth and smiles politely; the girl who blends into the background; the girl who becomes the wallpaper in a room; the girl who smiles softly at the right times and replies correctly… Nat remembers that girl. That girl smiled until her ‘friends’ stopped looking at her and then dropped it so fast you’d think it was poisoning her. Maybe it was. Maybe her friends were. Maybe they still are.
“You’re fourteen, you barely have any tits to freeze,” Lottie answers, mouth still open wide.
“Oh, speak for yourself, Lottie Matthews. And I’m fifteen; thank you very much.” Nat pauses. She catches the ball with her left foot and kicks it back to Lottie with her right. “And…thank you, for the card. I-, I love it.”
After training, Nat makes her way back to the locker room. She opens her locker only to cause an avalanche of pink to fall on her.
A bright pink sweater that is miles too big for her cascades into her arms. Stuck to it is a note, written in beautiful cursive across Romans 1:26 to Romans 1 something or other. Nat can't read the rest of the Bible words because Lottie's writing grabs her attention and she can't let go.
so you don’t have to freeze your tits off - Lottie x
Nat glances around the room. She was the last one in and the only one left in the locker room. She warily lifts the fluffy pink monstrosity by her nose. It smells like a forest. Like rain and trees and a little bit like cinnamon.
‘Everything
Everything
Everything
In its right place
In its right place
In its right place’