Apocalypse, Steve Harrington

Chapter Forty-Nine. Love From Afar

FORTY-NINE
— love from afar

       SHE REMEMBERED GETTING a bicycle for her sixth birthday. It was pink, and had frilly streamers coming out of the handles. The tires were black, the seat was white, and there was a little basket at the front. Day and night, she rode that bike— she had callouses on her small hands from her grip on the rubber handlebars. One day, she strapped on her Mary Jane's wrong, and her foot slipped from the pedal— she hit the pavement with a smack, and practically skidded all the way back to her driveway. Tear-filled eyes, a quivering bottom lip, and a gash down her entire shin. She remembered her brother, offering her a hand, and her refusal of it. She limped home, and refused to cry, and clasped her hands together in silence when her mother ran a cotton-ball of rubbing-alcohol over the wound. Worse of all, though, was the scar it left— white and brown, stretching from right above her ankle to right below her knee. It made her itch.

    Now, at seventeen, she sat with a pair of tube-socks pulled halfway over her shin— partially, because she hated looking at the scar. Sprawled on the sofa, her shirt was lifted, scrunched directly below her ribcage. She saw the scars, from last autumn. She saw them, all five of them, the talons of the demodog that ripped through the flesh of her torso. The scars were puffy, and red, and made a dent in her skin. With the tips of her fingers, she traced over them, drawing around the edges of the haunting mark. She shuttered, the skin on her neck standing up. Lucy exhaled, and yanked her shirt to cover them.

She sat up, and pulled her legs to sit criss-cross. Her eyes were trained on the television, an episode of Diff'rent Strokes captivating her. To her left, her brother, his body curled in fetal position. He hadn't changed out of his work clothes— just a pair of red swim-trunks— and he smelled like wet dog. He wasn't snoring, much to her gratitude, but he slept like a man with sleep deprivation. In the kitchen, the microwave slammed, and her father groaned.

    Her eyes flickered between the television screen and Jim. "What's your problem?" she raised her brows, "you're taking it out on the poor microwave."

    A bowl of macaroni in his hand, he shuffled towards his La-Z-Boy. "When you were fourteen," he paused, to put the spoon in his mouth, "did you have a boyfriend?"

    She scoffed. Lucy fiddled with the charm on her necklace, and glanced back towards the screen, "switch it to girlfriend, and ask your son that same question."

    "That's. . . different," he dismissed.

    She quirked a brow, "is it?"

    Jim blinked, "you didn't answer my question."

    Her chest rose with an inhale. Lucy folded her arms over her chest, and lifted her shoulders with a shrug. "I mean. . . no. When I was fourteen, everyone had a boyfriend," she spoke, "letting Cam Quincy walk me home after school kind of meant I had a boyfriend, but did it really mean I had a boyfriend? No."

Again, he blinked. Jim sunk deeper into the chair, and ran a hand down his brow, "that just gave me an aneurysm."

    She adjusted in her seat, so both legs were pulled to her chest. Lucy narrowed her eyes, "why'd you ask?"

    He chewed at his macaroni angrily, "it's that goddamn Wheeler kid, I mean. . ." he slapped his palm to his forehead. "Could you talk to her? Girl-to-girl, before I go into cardiac arrest."