[RP] And I christen you titanic, underestimate and swim

[ilikemyway]

It's a sore, sleepy Michelle that drags herself out of bed and into her sister's room, banging a fist on the doorframe and directing a glare at the alarm clock that apparently wasn't set last night. She has one arm wrapped around herself, and is angled in the doorway in the hopes that her sister doesn't see last night's black eye or the worst of the bruising where her tank top rides up. But dad is out, and mom is probably not waking up any time soon, and someone has to get her to school, so that'll be Michelle. Again.

"Come on, time to get up," she calls, or at least tries to before the last couple of words dissolve into a yawn.

---

Michelle is really getting sick of fast food.

She's getting sick of a lot of things, up to and including her mother's panicked phone calls and having to punch people in the face to get them to take her seriously, but mostly? She is sick of fast food. But she won't get anything else, because that requires being off the road for longer than she wants to. She's not sleeping as much as she should be either, but she can deal with that.

Hopefully it won't be much longer, anyway.

She pulls into a parking space and cuts the engine, taking a moment before she opens the door to close her eyes and breathe and hope that her sister's here, that it's not another in the trail of dodgy places she's racking up debts on this bender across Florida. Then she checks her gun, opens the door -- ignoring the small avalanche of McDonalds wrappers that fall out -- and heads for the entrance.

Comments

[foundmygroove]

Nat does not want to get up. She never wants to get up, because sleep? Sleep is good. Her pillow is over her head, one leg is hanging off the bed, and her arm is draped over her pillow.

She groans loud enough for Michelle to hear and get the point. She does not want to go to school.

[ilikemyway]

Her point is ignored. Her point has no bearing on the fact that she needs to go to school anyway.

"If you stay in bed any longer you're not going to have time for breakfast," Michelle points out, grabbing a pen off the dresser and flicking it at the bed. She'd rather not go in and pull her off -- both to hide the bruises and to keep from getting more sore -- but she will if she has to.

[foundmygroove]

"Owww," Nat groans. She flips the blankets off of herself and pops an eye open to look at her big sister.

"Why do I have to go to school?"

Nat isn't stupid, she knows all about the bruises Michelle tries to hide. She always notices the way her sister moves differently and acts differently. But she doesn't talk about it. Ever. Westens don't talk.

[ilikemyway]

"Because you still have a lot to learn," she says with her sweetest smile. "And because the law says so, and so does Mom."

And Michelle knows that Nat has to know, but still she tries hiding them, and plays them down when she can't. That's just what they do, and she wouldn't know how to do anything else by now.