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chapter six: i really feel that i'm losing my best friend (i can't believe this could be the end)

a/n:

tw(s) - friendship fallout, mentally ill behavior, eating disorder behavior and emetophobia warning (marked by ❖ so you can skip it!), and excessive use of italics

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Mr. Averman drives them to the school the next morning. Lester heads for the cafeteria after they bid him goodbye and Rory thanks him, leaving his girlfriend to go get ready in her dorm before they start class.

Rachel offers her a congratulatory hug and a red frosted cupcake, and, while she hates the position she's been put in, she can't help but feel a little better after it. She eats the cupcake in the silence that Rachel leaves in her wake and then, slowly but surely, gets ready. Having already showered at the Averman house, she does her skincare and then brushes her teeth before she exchanges the clothes her boyfriend let her borrow for clothes from her drawers. Her skull still throbs, faintly, from all the crying she's done, and she has to put concealer on to hide just how red everything is, but, eventually, she finds herself presentable enough to emerge.

She goes straight to her locker with her bags instead of bothering with meeting anyone at breakfast. It's too late to eat, now, but Mrs. Averman made her food that morning, anyway.

It turns out to be a grave mistake on her part, though, because that's exactly where Rick Riley knows to find her.

"Woo-hoo! Somebody pop the champagne." The dark-haired captain grins, leaning on the locker next to her like he didn't just startle her right out of her skin. "The Lorelei Myrtle is on our team. You're playing with the big boys now, babe."

She pauses in the middle of pulling a book from her locker to glance up at both boys with disgust and exhaustion intermingling in her expression.

"Don't call me that."

"Alright, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that, either."

"Enough with the stupid banter, we have a question to ask, don't we Rick?"

Rory cocks a brow at Rick as he shoots his enforcer a sharp look.

"Yeah... we do. What size are you in jackets? You'll need a varsity one."

"She's probably a small, I mean look at her."

She wrenches her arm from Cole's hand as he lifts it and shakes it for emphasis.

"Cole, shut up." He says coolly. "Now, Rory, your size?"

"Screw off, Rick."

"Oh, we're doing this again?" He asks. "I mean, I love doing this so much that I could do it all day, but we're going to be late to class if you keep this up."

Rory rolls her eyes.

"You're one of us now," Cole interjects again and nudges her in the side.

"No, I'm not."

"Well, your friends seem to think otherwise."

Eyebrows furrowed, Rory follows Cole's finger to find both Goldberg and Russ standing over by the former's locker. They are staring owlishly at her and the two varsity boys, whispering fervently to one another.

Her shoulders fall.

"Oh."

The first bell rings.

"Good luck. Come talk to me when you're ready to accept your fate."

She sneers at them both as they walk away and slams her locker shut, turning to look at Russ and Goldberg. They're judging her with their eyes.

"What?"

Without even speaking, they scurry away like bugs under a light.

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"Kenny--"

Rory, who was early to their second class in an attempt to make up for the fact that she was late to their first, watched as every single one of her friends walked past her to sit on the other side of the classroom. Even Fulton and Luis. It's Kenny's casual ignoring of her that really hurts, though, and she slumps down in her seat, casting her eyes to the floor.

If she looks over at them and sees them talking about her she'll cry.

She doesn't want to cry.

She doesn't know if she can anymore.

Adam comes in just before the bell rings and takes the seat beside her, his expression just as tumultuous as she feels on the inside.

Unlike her, he's able to look over at the Ducks, and he turns back to her with a frown.

"Is it me, or is there something weird going on?"

She shakes her head sadly, the corners of her lips turning down on their own. "No. It's not you."

Her voice cracks and she takes the time to clear her throat.

"Do you know what it is?" She asks, carefully looking around for the teacher who has yet to enter.

"No."

Rory wants to question him further, but she's cut off by their teacher walking in with an exuberant good morning class.

It's not a good morning.

It's not a good morning at all.

The forty minutes both breeze by and drag on agonizingly slow, and Rory is the first out after the bell rings. Adam chases her, and Averman clumsily tries to follow them.

As soon as she turns the corner to the adjacent hallway, Rory stops and leans against the wall, swallowing the urge to vomit.

What the hell was going on?

Why were they suddenly treating her as if she was invisible?

All of the concern they'd had for her well-being yesterday disappeared. All of their affection for her as a whole, actually.

It's as if she went to sleep last night their friend and woke up that morning a complete stranger who made the whole thing up-- some deluded girl who had a really good dream that felt a little too real.

And, the worst part of it all, she doesn't even know why.

"Hey, hey," Les says softly. "It's okay."

"No, it isn't."

Her father is the only person who treats her like this.

(How fucking dare they?)

Rory lets Adam squeeze her shoulder as Averman stands there, watching them, unsure of how to proceed.

"Maybe we should try to talk to Charlie?" Adam suggests weakly.

Struggling to keep her breathing under control, Rory, with grit teeth and a set jaw and tears in her eyes, nods.

Oh, she's going to talk to Charlie, alright.

He has a whole lot of explaining to do.

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Adam and Averman follow her around for the next few periods.

Rory doesn't complain. She kind of wants to.

Even though she likes their company and is coming to the understanding that it might be them against the world from now on, she can't handle the hovering. They're constantly asking her how she's doing. Treating her like she's on the verge of falling apart. Watching her every single move like she's not to be trusted-- like she's fragile, like they pity her.

Adam's known them for longer, she wants to say. Why aren't you looking at him like that?

He's never done this before. I have. Don't you know how many times I've done this? How many times people have walked out of my life? Turned their backs on me for no good reason?

That's the one fucking good thing about coming from a family that doesn't love you, Lester. You learn to live without it.

I am a plant that grows on rocks. A cockroach. I don't need love to survive. I don't need a support system.

That is my superpower.

Adam doesn't have any superpowers.

But she doesn't say any of it. Her tongue stays behind clenched teeth and her cheeks bulge with everything word she swallows as she smiles wide, tries a sense of being perfectly fine on for size, and tries to go about her day.

Rory does, however, manage to give them the slip just as the bell rings for lunch.

It's also, coincidentally, the first time she's alone with Charlie all day.

He freezes when he sees her. Just stands there, rooted in spot with wide eyes like he hadn't even considered that she would be angry with him, as she storms down the hallway toward him.

"Charlie."

Charlie swivels on his heel and tries to escape.

"Charlie Conway, you do not get to just ignore me like this!"

Whether it's the sharp tone or the sheer volume of her voice that makes him wince, she isn't sure.

Whatever it is, though, it makes him turn around and briskly meet her in the middle, dragging her into a supply closet that she hadn't known was there.

"What do you want?" He has the gall to ask her, ire lacing his words.

"What do I want?" She echoes, equal measures breathless and incredulous. "What do I-- I want to know why you and the rest have been treating me like I have the goddam plague! That's what I want, Charlie."

Rory emphasizes his name in a way that makes his shoulders sag.

"Why are you mad at me?"

"You're talking to them."

Her eyebrows pinch to the center of her forehead and she narrows her eyes, confused. "What?"

"I understand not being allowed to quit, but what I don't-- What I don't get is why you talk to them."

"To who? The Varsity kids?"

He doesn't respond. That's all the answer she needs.

Once, he'd said that if anyone ever said she was an optimist, they were lying to her. She wants to tell him that if anyone ever told him he'd make a good poker player, they were being sarcastic. She can read his face like a book.

Then again, that might just be a them thing. He doesn't know how to feel, and all she does is feel, and they work better as a team.

(Perhaps might've would've been a better word for it.)

The storage closet is hardly more than two feet in width in either direction. Chest to chest and face to face, Rory looks at Charlie like she doesn't believe what she's hearing and Charlie stares at Rory like she's Desdemona and he's Othello.

(How fitting-- Desdemona didn't do anything to Othello, either.)

"What the hell am I supposed to do, Charlie?" She asks, her eyes a little wider than they were before. "Be a total bitch? Get myself ostracized and then kicked off the team?"

"Yes! That's exactly what you're supposed to do! You're my friend! You're one of us!"

And, if she'd been shocked by his reasoning a moment ago, she's something more than after that.

"Jesus Christ, Charlie. That's not how this works. This is the real world--- I can't just throw opportunities away and count on the power of friendship to keep me afloat! Do you have any idea what my father would do if he found out?"

To that, Charlie scoffs. The hand he throws up dismissively almost hits her in the face.

"God, Rory, you can't blame everything on your father. At some point, you have to wake up and realize you're doing this to yourself."

"Oh, really? Is that how we're doing this, now?"

"Yeah." Charlie nods. "You said it yourself. You don't need love. You can climb the social ladder just fine because you can live without it."

Rory's nostrils flare and her eyes burn with tears.

"You know what, Charlie? I'm sorry that Bombay is gone, and I'm sorry that your mother makes minimum wage and that she walked out on your dad, but I have given you no reason to believe that I am not on your side other than existing."

Charlie winces.

"You-- all of you-- preach this wholesome, our team is a family bullshit but you only mean it about the remaining five of you that were there in the beginning. Any of the rest of us? The new kids? Adam? We're replaceable. We're not your family."

"You're a bitch." The word has no vigor behind it, but it hurts all the same.

"Yeah, well, I don't need anyone in my life who doesn't want to be there."

"Enjoy eternity alone, then."

Rory's hand twitches with the urge to slap him. She doesn't, though.

For a moment, she tries her best to figure out what to say, and wonders if it will even matter if she does anything. But, she decides, he's made his choice, and she leaves him with his decision and everything he's said, slamming the door to the closet behind her.

It doesn't all hit her until she reaches the lunchroom, though.

She stands in the middle of the cafeteria, a tray of food in her hands, and feels her stomach start to hurt again.

Les, from his seat at a table of kids who she once considered her family but can no longer stomach the thought of, is waving at her. Her heart says to go to him because he's her boyfriend, but she just won't sit at that table. Not now, nor ever again. They look to be getting on perfectly fine without her, anyway.

It's like she was never even there.

"Rory. Hey."

Rory turns to look at Rick as he puts a hand on her shoulder. He gestures over his shoulder to the varsity table with his thumb.

"There's a seat for you if you're interested."

She glances around him. Adam's sitting there at that table, sitting with kids who are the epitome of everything she hates about herself. He's got a smile on his face, too, but his smile is a different kind of desperate than Averman's-- a scared, unhappy kind of desperate. Adam wants to sit with their new team about as much as she does.

"I..."

It's like the air in the room has suddenly become too thin. Rory feels like she can't breathe, which makes her start to breathe too fast, and her head starts to feel lighter as she deprives it of oxygen. And her stomach hurts. It hurts, and, suddenly, all she can think about is the pain in her gut and the way the world spins around her.

"I'm not, uh, hungry..."

Rick's face twists with concern as she hands him her tray and leaves.

Her body is on autopilot as she makes her way back to her dorm. She isn't present in her mind until she shuts the door to their en suite bathroom behind her.

❖

Then, she sticks her fingers down her throat and forces herself to throw up what remained of her breakfast just to make her stomach stop hurting.

❖

After she flushes, Rory closes the lid and sits on it, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she starts to sob through heaved breaths.

Charlie was right.

She's going to be alone forever.

And, it's all her fault.

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a/n:

word count - 2400

poppies!charlie after breaking up with his gf and his bf in one day bc he's got daddy issues:

having violent flashbacks to promicide. iykyk.

on a completely related note: i have a playlist for every single potential ship that comes out of this fic. if I get enough desire for them, i'll let y'all have 'em.

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you!