Something New Yet So Familiar

Thanksgiving (Prt. 2)

A/N: realizing that this story only has a few chapters left makes me sad :/

Amber sat on the edge of her bed, hiding her face in her hands as she processed what had just happened. Being called a faggot or a dyke wasn't pleasant, but at least she was used to it and expected it. Same way she was used to and expected all the sexist, racist, etc comments made by her grandparents.

This, however, wasn't something she had expected. The idea of her cocaine use and abuse coming up at a Thanksgiving dinner in front of her entire family and her girlfriend hadn't crossed her mind once, as she was under the impression that Tom and Eleanor wouldn't bring it up ever again.

They claimed they would never bring it up after they first found out about it. To them, Amber using the drug was one of the worst things she could do. It was a crime for them, and made Amber a disgrace to the family. Granted though, they thought that way about weed, too, and as ironic as it is, the majority of the family were huge weed smokers.

Cocaine was worse and a lot more dangerous than weed, however, so the ravenette understood where they were coming from in terms of it being a crime and making her a disgrace. Same way she didn't care all that much when they said she would end up in a ditch or dead.

Had she continued using cocaine, then yes, that would've likely been the outcome, but it wasn't and Amber was no longer using. She stopped almost a year ago and had no intention of doing it again. Her usage was never an addiction, but it was a problem.

A problem that Amber knew she had to fix unless she wanted the worst of her life and future. And when she did and the news got out that it was no longer an issue, Tom and Eleanor told her they were glad, but never wanted to hear or speak about the topic again.

So nobody did. Nobody wanted to, not even Amber. The timing and the reasoning behind it all was too painful for the raven head to talk or think about in the first place, so she didn't. And her and Wes talked about it and agreed that they would keep it between the two of them until time says otherwise and until they were given a reason to talk about it.

Wes wrote I'm Full as a way to cope and let out his thoughts and feelings about the whole situation without letting the world know the full details of it, and Amber was more than supportive of his choice to do that. She, too, put it into art, often times writing poetry about it.

It helped, it got the feelings out and they could both talk and feel it all through without having to lean on their friends or family and bring up the very painful feelings and memories to their family and friends as well as to themselves.

Thoughts about telling the truth and revealing her usage issues came up in July, after Wes' show with Trevor and Cody. Amber decided that she couldn't keep that sort of information secret from Tara and agreed within herself that she would tell her about the situation when the time was right and she was ready to do so.

It took a few months, but the ravenette finally felt like she was in a good enough spot to talk about it again and reveal something as serious as that. All she needed was to just find the time and day to talk to her girlfriend about it, but other than that she was ready.

Yet that got ripped away from her and now she was here, sitting in her own room, wondering why her grandparents wouldn't just shut the fuck up, why her grandparents had to bring that up, why she was forced to feel that shame, and what did Tara think of her now that the truth was out, even if there was no explanation from Amber about what happened that lead her to do that in the first place.

She'd be lying if she said she wasn't terrified of what her girlfriend's thoughts on this were. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't afraid of how her girlfriend might've viewed her now either. She was extremely terrified and scared that this whole situation would make Tara view her differently, not trust her, and maybe even leave her.