Days in the Life of Fiona Coyne

by crazyzimbi

Summary:

Fiona Coyne's life in hookups and long conversations.

Notes:

Fiona and Imogen will end up together. While Imogen isn't in every chapter, she will be in most. This will have as happy an ending as I can concievaby give it.

Chapter 1: Victoria

As Fiona steps out of the Mercedes, hand in hand with the only person in the world who loves her like she loves him, she is scared. She may seem to be completely confident within herself and how she behaves in public environments, but really, that’s just the Xanax talking. Like any private school teenage girl in New York, she went through only one session with a psychiatrist (who was country club friends with her parents) before being prescribed a few uppers and a few downers, whichever a situation may call for.

This morning called for a downer, many, many downers. But she had Declan, so not all was bad. They were immediately bombarded with questions from Degrassi’s media person, Chantay, relaying the news that their move was nothing more than politics. Private school was bad for the image, as Declan would say.

From there, they were introduced to a subtly beautiful school president, Holly J, and a band of misfits playing music (noise) on stage. Peter and Mia came next, and both Fiona and Declan couldn’t help but give Mia a quick once over– she was gorgeous, the type of girl Fiona was used to seeing on the cover of the magazines she kept hidden under her bed. Yet, Holly J was still the person that she couldn’t shake from her mind.

Fiona can’t help but notice Declan’s immediate interest in Mia, revealing that their mother had an in with the New York fashion industry. She supposed that explained her sudden interest as well– whatever Declan wanted, she wanted, and vice versa. It had always been this way; Fiona’s birthday rolled around first, and whatever present she had been given was something Declan declared he must have as well. When his birthday came, their parents were never silly enough not to have a copy of his present for Fiona as well.

The diplomat shmooze fest, as Declan put it, was as obviously enticing to Mia as it was boring to Peter. But Fiona knew where Mia would end up tomorrow night. She was surprised, however, to see Peter alongside her.

Declan didn’t wait long to do what he’s best at, and when Peter was up on that stage, guitar in hand, Fiona couldn’t help but try desperately to keep a laugh in. Feeling bad for the boy, she tries to keep him company, firmly stating that dating him was absolutely not in her plans. When Peter mistakes Declan, her boyfriend, for the reason she doesn’t want to date him, she’s thrown off for a second.

“Shut up!” Fiona declares after her cousin announces how close the siblings are. Yes, they’ve been mistaken for boyfriend and girlfriend before, and yes, both siblings feel a fierce type of possession over the other. And they are very close. But it freaks her out slightly to have someone else acknowledge that.

Tori had always liked to dramatise the twins’ relationship, often ignoring Declan’s scowl, in favour of being much more interested in watching the guilt swirl in Fiona’s eyes. Not that she had any actual proof that Fiona and Declan were anything but close siblings, and with the secrets she knew about Fiona, she highly doubted anything had or would happen. There was still that delicious guilt swirling in her cousin’s eyes– although the word cousin was perhaps a misdirect, they were three times removed at closest.

Knowing what Fiona needed now, Victoria pulls out a little baggy; however, to her surprise, Fiona can only huff and move on. Tori was always high, which annoyed Fiona to no end, especially seeing as she couldn’t exactly partake in the fun anymore. This was meant to be a fresh start, and she had an image to uphold.

Still, Fiona found herself remembering all the parties that Tori dealt at in New York, how eventually her hand would find her own, and she would be swiftly led to the bathroom. Hands leaving hands and moving to hips, to the small of backs. Lips finding each other after taking a bump. The drugs stilling any thoughts on how wrong this was, how she should have been back outside letting the latest prep school boy her parents had tried to set her up with talk her ear off about something entirely inane.

The coke, the taste of sin on her tongue, the hands that set her skin alight– none of that was boring, and Fiona couldn’t feel bored; that only led to trouble.

Victoria was a ballerina once upon a time, and was as flexible as ever, even after burning out. It was marvellous and undeniably wrong; they were cousins after all. Yet, that wasn’t the part that scared Fiona; Tori was a girl, and so was she. But she attributed that unfortunate detail to being purely because of the drugs (sometimes she would pretend to be high so that Tori would kiss her; Tori always knew when she was faking it).

Looking at the baggy that had just been pulled out more closely, Fiona realised it looked different to the ones she’d seen in the past. Meth? Tori had never given her anything like that, and after seeing Peter galavanting around the party, she was glad. Fiona can’t help but feel bad for the boy.

(That doesn’t stop her from accepting a tablet or two of ecstasy. No matter how she felt the next day, Tori always made it worth it.)

That night, after everyone had gone home, and Declan had run off after Mia, or any number of the other girls at the party, Tori and her had shared a bed for the last time, Fiona swore it, and this time it was actually the truth.

Chapter 2: Charlie

Fiona has a choice. Tell Charlie that she’s an alcoholic at 17, that she can’t celebrate them being bed-bug-free with a bottle of cheap champagne as Charlie has planned, or distract Charlie and herself from that terribly wearisome conversation by kissing her. And possibly not stopping.

And if there’s one thing that Fiona Coyne excels in– it’s running away. So that’s what she does. She runs away from an unpalatable discussion about growing up with parents who never quite managed to be present enough to stop her from finding comfort in the rebellion of a stiff drink; about life as a diplomats child that always coincided with the life of a girl who had to grow up too fast; about the expectations of socialite life in New York; about Declan, how she had to drink to stop the thoughts of him and Holly J from becoming something she had to dissect; about Bobby and the abuse she suffered at his hands; about the crystal coloured carbonated syrup that resided in plastic bottles; about her desire to stop being unworthy, less than, other, herself.

Maybe if circumstances were different, Fiona would have told her the truth. If Charlie hadn’t mentioned her being underage and immediately jumped to Fiona having never tried it. Yes, anything slightly less embarrassing than having to correct her university girlfriend about having indeed tried alcohol in the past and liking it a little too much, and she would have done it– told the truth.

So, Fiona has a choice. And she makes it.

She leans down into Charlie’s space, grabs her hand and reveals how far she’s fallen for the older girl in the short time they’ve been dating. She assures Charlie that she’s done with slow, lifts one arm to cradle her face and finally kisses her.

When Charlie starts taking control of their movements, twisting them so that Fiona’s back is trapped between the couch and a warm, beckoning body– she acquiesces. After all, Fiona has always enjoyed losing control. At least this won’t land her back in rehab.

(This was far more than anything she had done with Tori. That was all hazy kisses, unpracticed touches, and enough guilt to make sure their eyes never met.

This, with Charlie? It’s not as scary as she had thought it would be. It’s also not as magical as she had thought it would be.)

After dreaming about this day, wondering if it would even happen for her, especially with a girl, she loses her virginity on a couch on a random Wednesday, an hour before first period. She supposes that’s just how things happen in the real world and not in one’s head. It seems fitting. After all, Fiona had never imagined her foray into alcoholism would start with a misplaced glass of Dom at her and Declan’s eighth-grade graduation in Hong Kong, so why would this be any different?

She enjoys the quotidian nature of it all. It makes her feel pedestrian, and that’s so much better than feeling ‘other’.

When Fiona finishes, she doesn’t feel like a changed woman, but she does feel loved. Charlie is sweet, doesn’t push for Fiona to return the favour, doesn’t expect anything more than what she feels comfortable with. Every bit the gentleman.

Breakfast is left uncooked and uneaten as Fiona rushes to get ready for school. By the time she’s out of the front door, Charlie is showering, and she is running late.

As the day passes, Fiona has time to think about what her choice means. For her sobriety, Charlie, their relationship. She realises that she’s going against everything her sponsor advises: she’s lying, she’s acting recklessly with her sobriety and her heart, she’s running away.

If she likes you enough, she’ll deal. Eli says this in drama class, but he’s such a hopeless romantic that Fiona doesn’t allow it much weight. There aren’t many people that would write a play for their ex, and maybe it’s the fact that Charlie’s medium of choice is a canvas rather than a stage, or maybe it’s that she’s not a hormonal teenager, but Fiona doubts any acts will open in her honour.

Eventually, she does come clean about all of it. Even about how keeping this a secret means that a relationship isn’t something that’s in the cards for her right now. Charlie is rightly upset but still entirely understanding. She’s a good person. Fiona is glad she shared this part of herself with her.

A few months later, when she’s about to be left all alone to fend for herself, she walks into Charlies’s gallery with a plan: prom. She expects that they can start again, right where they left off. Even with her big talk to Holly J about wanting nothing more than a friend, she finds herself longing to feel pedestrian again; to feel like a normal seventeen-year-old.

Instead, she finds herself wine-drunk on a fire escape, ushering a cat into a new life; a life without Fiona Coyne. It worries her– how much she believes a life can be improved by the lack of her presence. Her existence.

She never finds out whether Mr TuxedoPants’s life was better without her, but she does find out that Holly J is getting a new kidney and needs her best friend by her side.

Maybe Holly J’s is the only life that could improve with her presence. Maybe that’s enough for now. Maybe it has to be.