Mine // Carl Gallagher

Chapter 6

     Sophia walked through her front door with a smile on her face and a heart full of happiness, something that she rarely had. Unfortunately, it was immediately flushed away when she saw her father having sex with a woman on the couch who wasn't her mother. She gasped and flew her hands over her eyes, "Oh my God! Dad!" He immediately stopped and looked at his traumatized daughter. She could tell he was on all sorts of drugs just by looking at him and it frustrated her so badly. His voice was deep and aggressive, "Go away Sophia. Leave! Now! Don't you dare tell your mother about this, just forget what you saw!" It hurt Sophia the most when he then continued making out with the random woman on the couch, right in front of her. Sophia started to cry and she just turned around and went back outside onto the sidewalk. She didn't even know what to do or what to think. She knew that her mother definitely had sex with other men, so it was only fair that her father got to have sex with other women, but it still killed Sophia to actually see it before her eyes. What would her mother do if she found out? Would they divorce? Probably not since her mother needed the money from her husband since she had no job. That was the only reason they stayed together.
      It was a fucked up situation and Sophia wanted nothing to do with either one of them. She just wanted to get away from her broken home and get her mind off of all the shit going on in her life. She just wanted someone to talk to, and the only person she had was Carl. She had literally no one else. Sophia didn't even care if they were friends or not, she needed someone and Carl was her only option. The crying girl wiped her tears and clutched the straps of her backpack because she just needed to grab onto something, anything. At the moment it was as if absolutely everything came crashing down on her. All the pain and emotions drowned her, making it hard for her to catch her breath. Warm tears streamed down her face as she walked straight to Carl's house. She would've walked to his house even if it was one hundred miles away, that's how bad she needed someone. Sophia didn't even know if he was the type of person to comfort people or listen to other people's problems, but she thought that she might as well try.
     Sophia stood before the front door and immediately knocked without even rethinking this decision. The minute she knocked, the door swung open and she was greeted by a girl who looked around her age. She was a bit on the heavier side and had reddish hair. The girl awkwardly stared at Sophia and said with a Southern accent, "Uh... can I help you, miss? You sure are cryin a lot, want a tissue?" Sophia wiped her tears and shook her head, "Um no thanks, I'm okay. Uh I-I'm Sophia. I know Carl and I really need to talk to him, is he home?" "Oh, well, I'm Debbie, his sister. And yeah he's here. Come on in, his room is upstairs. Second to the left." Debbie opened the front door wider and Sophia hesitantly walked inside the house. It was messy, but she couldn't judge since her house was just as messy (except her's wasn't messy with trash, but messy with drugs and alcohol bottles). It looked like a lot of people lived there. Debbie threw herself onto the sofa and turned on the TV as Sophia awkwardly walked up the stairs. She took a deep breath as tears continued to flow, she absolutely couldn't stop crying. Sophia stood in front of his bedroom door, thought about what she would say, then walked in... unfortunately forgetting to knock.
      She saw Carl sitting on the edge of his bed jacking off and she gasped and said, "Oh God I'm so sorry!" He yelled, "Shit!" and pulled up his pants. She quietly cursed herself for walking in on someone doing sexual things for the second time in thirty minutes. Carl groaned, "You can open your eyes now." Sophia slowly opened her eyes and closed the bedroom door, "I am so sorry I should've knocked." He looked pissed, "Goddamit I was just about to finish! This better be really fucking important." Carl threw himself back onto his pillow and scrolled through his phone. Sophia awkwardly sat on his bed, making sure to avoid sitting where he had been sitting, and continued to wipe her tears away. Suddenly she was at a loss of words as she just stared at the wall. Carl moved his phone away from his face to look at her and said, "Uh... are you crying?" She gave him a small smile as tears continued running down her face and nodded, "Yeah. Yeah I am. I'm really sorry to bother you, I just had no where else to go. You're literally the only person I have and I need to talk to someone." He put his phone away once he realized she was serious and sat up, "Oh. Well, what's wrong?" "Where do I begin? My mom is an alcoholic with no job who verbally abuses me everyday, my dad is a drug dealer who is high all the time and never pays attention to me and I just caught him screwing some random woman, we're completely broke and I don't know what to do anymore. I'm so unhappy, I've been holding in all these emotions for so long. I'm sorry, this must be really weird since we just met and barely know each other. I just had no one else to turn to and I couldn't handle being alone anymore."
       Carl didn't know what to even say, his mouth slightly gaped open. He was quiet for a couple minutes and then he cleared his throat, "I'm really sorry that you're dealing with all of that. But if it makes you feel any better, my life hasn't exactly been sunshine and rainbows either. Trust me though, it'll get better. It hasn't gotten better for me yet, but I know that it will someday." He didn't say much, but it was enough. She didn't know if it was what he said or the fact that it was coming from him, but she had stopped crying and was a bit calmer. Carl sat up and sat next to Sophia, also staring at the wall in front of them. It was quiet and content. She then sighed, "I don't know what to do anymore. I'm trapped. I can't do this, Carl. I can't handle waking up every morning to the sound of my parents screaming at each other and coming home to my dad fucking women in my own house. I can't listen to my mother slur her words and I can't watch my dad being as high as a kite. It's all... the... time. Every minute of every day. It's so exhausting. I've been so sad for so long and I'm tired of being all alone."
        Carl's pretty blue eyes were now filled with sadness as he was surprisingly very sympathetic, "Hey, you've got me now so you don't have to be alone anymore. You've got to learn to just tune them out, what they say is not important or true. They're idiots and you don't deserve their bullshit." Sophia slightly smiled and spoke up with a quiet, weak voice, "I don't know what to say, but thank you." He stood up from off the bed and said, "Here, let's get your mind off of things. I wanna show you something." Sophia stood up and watched him as he opened up his window. Carl crawled out of the window and signaled for her to follow him, then he climbed up the side of the house and onto the roof. She was right behind him as she climbed up a small latter that he had somehow attached to the building, then joined him on the roof. She saw that he had blankets, pillows, and a flashlight set up on the roof. He was sitting on a blanket and patted for her to come sit beside him. Sophia grinned as she said, "What's all this?" He smirked as he was pleased with himself, "I don't know what this is actually. I just come up here whenever I need to think and get my mind off of things. It always helps." It was now completely night time, the sky was almost black and millions of stars sparkled above them. He laid back and rested on a pillow with his hands behind his head, staring up at the night sky. Sophia awkwardly sat there and he smiled up at her, "You can lay down, ya know. I don't bite. Most of the time." She smiled back at him as she hesitantly laid next to him. It was strange, she felt like she had known him forever.
        Sophia spoke up quietly after a long moment of serenity, "I wanna know more about you, Carl. You pretty much know everything about me, actually. I'm not very interesting. Now it's your turn." He was quiet for a minute then said, "I'm Carl Gallagher, 16 years old, male, born and raised in the South Side of Chicago. I'm the leader of a small but deadly gang here in the hood. We mostly just steal and sell drugs. I've been to Juvie twice. I've been a total badass my entire life. I get all the chicks. Everyone loves me." Sophia slightly giggled at his sarcastic autobiography, "What about your family? I met your sister Debbie, she answered the door earlier."
"Well, I've got four siblings. Lip, Ian, Liam, and Debbie. Then there's Fiona and Frank. That's pretty much all there is to it. They're all fucking crazy but it's whatever, I love em. And also, if it helps, Frank is an alcoholic so I know what you're going through. It's tough man." Sophia was even more attracted to him now than she was before. Not in love, but she really did like him. He was a good guy and he understood her situation. Plus he did a good job at calming her down and comforting her, something she did not expect from him. She jokingly said, "Do you think I could be a drug dealer, too? We need the money. I bet I could be a good one." Carl chuckled, "Pff, in your dreams. It's a tough business!" The two of them laughed and then proceeded to stare at the stars.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A/N: I loved writing this chapter :) BTW I'm not very familiar with the show Shameless so please don't come at me if I get any information wrong lol