Back To You ~ (Cazzie Fanfic)

Pressure Cooker

C/W: Mention and vague description of parental domestic violence and neglect

Thanks for the comments and likes! It's nice and helpful to hear how all this is landing with you; what you like and are excited about.

I have a few more chapters written but need to fill them in with other chapters so I'm not sure how long that will take.

I had originally planned to have little flash forwards at the ends of some of the chapters but it wasn't working for me. So now I'm thinking I'll have some epilogues at the end of the story. I'm imagining like 5-7 more chapters to finish this out? Some short and some long. We'll see!

_________________________________________________________

The buzzzzzzzz, buzzzzzzzz, buzzzzzzzzz of her phone vibrating stopped Izzie in her tracks. She was in her dorm room packing her overnight bag with a neatly folded pile of clothes, pajamas, track uniform and her very organized toiletry bag. The bus for the UCLA track team's next out of state meet was scheduled to leave in an hour which would give her just enough time to meet Casey at her dorm so they could walk to the cafeteria and eat together before getting on the bus.

But now this. Dread flooded her body as she picked up her phone. When Sasha called it was never good news. Izzie put her headphones in and accepted the call.

"Mom?" Izzie said, zipping up her bag, voice tight with tense anticipation.

She wished she could just ignore the call but with Sasha it was not an option.

"Oh good. You're there. I just thought you'd like to know that ever since you abandoned us everything's gone to shit," Sasha said, acid dripping from her voice.

Izzie took a deep breath. She couldn't tell yet if Sasha had been drinking.

"What's going on?" she asked carefully.

"Like you care," Sasha spat.

Izzie closed her eyes, sinking onto her bed. She could hear crying in the background.

"I do care," she said evenly, "Did something happen Mom?"

"Chloe's being a little demon and Dylan and Gabby think you're a saint and that I'm abusing them-"

"That's not what I said!" Gabby roared from the background.

"Mom just stop!" Dylan shouted.

The crying continued. It was Chloe. That meant they were all home together which was a guaranteed pressure cooker for Sasha.

"Mom, is Chloe ok?" Izzie asked, trying to keep the tremor from her voice.

She had to handle this carefully.

"She's fine! She won't stop crying about nothing but she's fine," Shasha said, angry and flustered.

Something crashed and Dylan said, "Mom! Just stop!"

"YOU stop," Sasha shouted, "Get the hell out of my face! This place is a WRECK. If you guys can't pick up after yourselves, I will!"

More crashing.

"Mom, can Brian come get Chloe for a couple days?" Izzie asked, summoning every ounce of patience she could muster. "Do you want me to call him?"

There was a pause filled with more rattling and crashing. She could just picture Sasha storming around the house, throwing dishes at the sink and toys at her kids (or into the trash can) in the guise of "cleaning up."