chapter two
different ways of coping

Florence drove back to the Conklin house in silence, even music being too much for her at the moment. She took the spare key from under the mat, unlocking the door and walking into the empty house. Florence texted Steven reminding him to actually tell his mother that Florence was at his house without her knowing. She walked upstairs to Steven's room, flopping down on his bed with a huff.

She rolled over onto her stomach, picking her phone back up and facetiming Shayla. After a few rings, the girl picked up, a smiling Shayla popping up on the screen. "Hey Flo."

"Shay Shay." Florence greeted.

Shayla's eyebrows furrowed as she looked around Florence's surroundings. "Where are you?"

"In Steven's bedroom." Florence answered. "It was his graduation today."

"And you went, even after prom?" Shayla asked.

"He didn't do anything after prom." Florence reminded her.

"Exactly, he didn't do anything." Shayla emphasised.

"He called." Florence stated. "And he had Belly to deal with too."

"I know." Shayla let out a sigh. "How can I help you?"

"I need an outfit for this grad party later." Florence explained.

"You have options?" Shayla wondered.

"A skirt and then whatever I can find in the Conklin's wardrobes." Florence responded.

"Well let's embrace your inner Shania Twain with men shirts and short skirts." Shayla commented with a smile.

Florence let out a laugh, getting up from Steven's bed. She leant her phone up against a cup of water on his desk that was conveniently opposite his wardrobe. The girl opened Steven's wardrobe, rifling all of his t-shirts, picking out her favourites.

She let out a sigh when she realised she didn't like the look of any of them with her mini black skirt.

"What about that purple tee?" Shayla pointed out.

Florence turned, grabbing the t-shirt Shayla was referring to. It was an oversized purple tee with taylor swift across the front of it. Florence inspected the tee before shrugging, moving off camera to get changed.

She put on her black mini skirt pairing it with the purple tee which she tucked in slightly at the front due to it being very oversized. She put her converse on before stepping back in front of the camera.

"What do you think?" Florence asked, doing a little spin for Shayla.

"Absolutely breathtaking." Shayla answered easily, a smile on her face.

"Thank you." Florence smiled before it dropped, the girl letting out a sigh.

"You okay?" Shayla wondered.

"I just—I'm not sure if going to this party is a good idea." Florence told her.

"Why?"

Florence sighed once again. "I don't know, I'm dreading it. I'm only going because Steven convinced me too, I don't actually wanna go."

"When was the last time you went to a party?" Shayla questioned.

"Probably... Liam's party last summer." Florence replied.

"You haven't been to a party in a year?" Shayla's voice conveyed the same amount of shock that was displayed on her face.

"I've been busy." Florence explained.

"Daisy never dragged you to a party this year?" Shayla was still in shock.

"She tried, I never wanted to go." Florence shrugged.

"What were doing instead?" Shayla asked.

"Studying, talking to Conrad, on the phone to you, writing songs, I had no time to party." Florence replied, not understanding why Shayla was making it such a big deal.

"Right." Shayla nodded slowly.

"I mean technically the last party I went to was prom and we both know how that ended." Florence made a face.

"Okay I get that." Shayla agreed, also making a face.

"Exactly." Florence sighed. "Do you understand why I don't wanna go to this party now?"

"Yes but you still have to go babe." Shayla stated.

"I know." Florence pouted. "But I really don't wanna."

"I know honey." Shayla nodded sympathetically.

Florence let out a groan. "Can you pretend I have some emerge—"

The door to Steven's bedroom suddenly swung open cutting Florence off. The girl jumped at the sudden sound, placing a hand over her heart as she turned to face Steven.

"My god Steven." Florence exclaimed with an eye roll.

"Hi." He smiled innocently at her. "Whatcha doing?"

"I was deciding on an outfit." Florence told him.

"Which is see you did." Steven commented looking her up and down. "Very nice."

"You can thank Shayla for that, she picked it." Florence stated, gesturing to her phone. She watched as his smile turned into a grimace at the sound of his ex-girlfriends name. He looked over to see Shayla's face on the phone, her own expression mirroring his. Florence let out a small laugh, picking her phone up. "I've got to go, I'll talk to you later."

"See ya Flo." Shayla smiled.

"Bye." Florence waved, hanging up the phone. She then sat down at Steven's desk, pulling her make-up from her bag and reapplying her mascara. She made eye contact with Steven through her small mirror. "You okay?"

Steven cleared his throat. "Uh, y-yeah, I'm good."

"How was lunch?" Florence asked.

"It was good, my speech is trending on tiktok." Steven spoke proudly.

"Wow." Florence sounded impressed. "You send it to the others?"

"Forwarded it to Cam and your mum." Steven nodded.

"And Jere, Syd and Conrad?"

"I thought about it but I wasn't too sure they'd actually watch it nor answer it." Steven let out a sigh.

"I thought you spoke to them?" Florence furrowed her eyebrows, turning to face him properly.

"Nope." Steven shook his head. "Belly made it weird with Jeremiah and Sydney and Conrad just kind of went off the grid."

"Yeah he likes to do that." Florence commented.

"You still speak to him?" Steven asked.

"Sometimes." Florence shrugged. "He messages me but it rarely goes more than that since prom."

"Right." Steven nodded. "Let's get to this party then."

"Okay." Florence smiled, quickly finishing applying her mascara. She ran her hands through her hair a few times before nodding at Steven and following him out of the room. The two met Taylor and Belly, the four of them all walking down the stairs.

"Heading to a grad party?" Laurel asked as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Yeah, mine." Steven answered with furrowed eyebrows. "Me and the guys are throwing it, remember?"

"Oh right. Well, have fun." Laurel told them. "And don't drink and drive.

"Oh, don't worry, I promised Steven I'd be the sober driver." Belly explained. "Oh and I ordered you a pizza, okay, so please eat it."

"Don't worry about me, go." Laurel waved her off.

"All right. I love you."

"Bye."

"Love you."

"Be safe."

"Bye, love you."

The four of them walked out of the house towards the car, Belly driving them all to the party which was in full swing by the time they arrived. Florence let out a breath, following Steven into the party and forcing a smile onto her face.

She watched as Taylor ran up to her boyfriend, the boy picking her up as she kissed him. And then one of Steven's friends came up to them. Florence already wanted to leave. Steven then went to greet people and Taylor dragged Belly to get drinks leaving Florence alone.

Florence made her way inside. She got a drink, downing it in one before getting another one. Florence walked back outside, smiling at random people.

"Flo, Flo!" Steven came running back up to her.

"Steven." Florence smiled at the boy.

"I think you should use tonight to try and get over Conrad." Steven suggested.

"What?" Florence furrowed her eyebrows.

"Best way to get over a guy is to get under another." Steven shrugged. "Pick a guy, you're never gonna see them again."

"Steven—"

"This is your first party in ever, make it count, no more Conrad, no more late night calls." Steven told her.

Florence froze once again at the sound of her late night phone calls with Conrad. The two used to call each other all the time.

There was one night, she was writing songs, sat on the floor of her bedroom when Conrad phoned her. He updated her about his few days and she updated him about hers and then it got to the deep stuff it did every time they phoned each other.

"Did you know my dad cheated?" Conrad asked suddenly.

"Adam cheated on Susannah?" Florence wondered. "That's insane."

"Yeah. The first time my mum was sick, he had an affair with his secretary Kayleigh. I found out about it last spring on, like, the same day I found out about my mum's cancer coming back." Conrad explained.

Florence let out a small sigh. "How'd you find out?"

"Um, I came home early from school one day and... heard them fighting." Conrad hesitated and Florence could sense he was tearing up. "She was crying so much, Flo. She... I've never heard her cry like that before. So I left. I went back out, I drove around for two hours and came back and pretended now to know anything."

"I'm so so sorry, Con." Florence told him. "It sucks that you had to keep it a secret."

"Yeah, it's just exhausting." Conrad let out a small sigh. "I-I couldn't turn my brain off. It was like if you do that, then this horrible thing is gonna happen, but if you do this, then, you know, this catastrophic thing will happen."

"That sounds so stressful." Florence commented.

Conrad exhaled. "You've had to keep secrets though, haven't you?"

"Uh, yeah." Florence nodded. "I knew my dad was cheating too."

"How'd you find out?" Conrad wondered.

"I had a feeling, arguments got longer, my dad kept going out." Florence began to explain. "And then, I went to a party before last summer and on my way home I saw him with some random woman who looked like 20 in his car. I was so drunk that he gaslight me into thinking I was seeing things, and then I refused to go to another party and then the woman gave a speech at my high school because she was a student out our local college and I overheard her talking to one of the teachers about my dad."

"Woah." Conrad breathed out in shock.

"Yeah." Florence nodded. "It was crazy and I couldn't tell my mum but I knew she knew, the arguments told me and then my dad conveniently couldn't come to Cousins which isn't abnormal but he make up a lie to get out of it, that was weird."

Conrad hummed, exhaling once more. "Goddamn, it's 2.am. You said you have practice early, I should let you go."

Florence let out a small sigh. "It's okay, I like speaking to you. But there's a concert this weekend and some record label execs are supposed to be there."

"Oh my gosh, I'll definitely let you go. I didn't know that." Conrad smiled.

Florence pulled a face. "Five more minutes?"

Five more minutes turned into at least two more hours.

Steven clicked his fingers in front of her face, snapping her out of her little daydream. Florence huffed at him. "I'm not getting with another guy Steven."

"Your loss." Steven shrugged.

Florence laughed softly as Steven walked away from her to get a drink. The brunette found her own drink, a smile on her face as she mingled with the others. Then Milo's set began, and while the boy wasn't the worst singer in the world, Florence hung back in the crowd, not wanting to deal with Taylor's love struck comments about him as he sung some covered of a song he definitely told her he wrote.

When he stopped singing, Florence went to find Steven again. She found the boy with a few other people, including Taylor, who was sat on Milo's lap. Florence walked over to them, just as Belly was walking back towards the house.

"Belly, hey belly, come here." Taylor called her over.

"Hey, sis. Sis, sis, check it out, check it out." Steven held a can in his hand, stabbing it and causing the content to spray out all over Belly and Florence.

"Oh!"

"Oh!"

"Steven!"

"I can't believe you did that."

"This party sucks." Belly announced.

"Dude, it's beer, man." Steven shook his head. "It'll dry. Chill."

"I'm leaving, okay?" Belly stated.

"Wait, wait, did something happen?" Taylor asked.

"No, nothing happened. Whatever." Belly waved her off. "Steven, can you just get Spike to drive you home, please?"

"Spike? No, Spike-Spike is drunk." Steven told her. "You-you promised to be my sober ride tonight."

"Okay, well, I'm ready to go now." Belly shrugged.

"Okay but I'm not." Steven argued.

"Great. Then can you just call an Uber or something?" Belly wondered.

"Why are you being such a buzzkill right now?" Steven asked.

"Steven—" Florence tried to speak.

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I ruining your fun night, Mr Perfect Valedictorian?" Belly asked sarcastically.

"Kinda, yeah." Steven nodded.

"Okay, well in case you forget, which it clearly seems like you did, Susannah just died, so I'm a little bit sad." Belly spoke, tilting her head slightly. "But please, don't let that stop you from having the time of your life."

"Fuck you." Steven spat. "You know, I lost Susannah, too. Okay? You don't think I'm sad about that?"

"Oh what, were you crowd-surfing the pain away?" Belly retorted. "My apologies."

"No, you should apologise. You screwed up, and now everything is weird with Sydney and Jeremiah. I mean, they don't even text me back anymore because of you. God, Sydney didn't even go to Flo's graduation because Jere would be there."

"Okay, guys, listen..."

"Guys."

"That is not my fault." Belly told him.

"Isn't it? Hmm?" Steven spoke loudly. "I should be celebrating with them tonight, but they wouldn't come because you made things messy. You had Jeremiah and it just wasn't enough. You had to have Sydney, too. And because you couldn't choose, you ruined Conrad and Florence's relationship too. God, you are so fucking selfish."

"Steven!"

"God!"

"What?"

"Are you serious?"

"I had to have Sydney?" Belly repeated, her eyes full of tears. "Are you kidding? I was in love, Steven. Like out of my mind in love. What was I supposed to do?"

"Belly..." Belly scoffed, walking off. Steven looked at her sadly. "Belly."

Taylor rushed after her best friend while Florence looked over at Steven. "Seriously?"

"What?" Steven looked at her in shock.

"She's a sixteen year old girl who's mourning Steven." Florence stated.

"We're all mourning, Florence." Steven raised his eyebrows at her.

"I know, okay? But Belly doesn't see that, she just sees you having fun all the time, and that's okay, we all mourn differently. But you can't take your anger out on her, yeah she messed up but we've all done stupid things." Florence explained. "And Belly did not ruin my and Conrad's relationship. We both did."

Steven nodded slowly, "I get that. But Flo—"

"I know." Florence interrupted him. "You want everything back to normal, we all do."

"I want my best friends back." Steven pouted.

"I know." Florence nodded. "You still have me though."

"Always." Steven smiled.

"Always." Florence hugged him tightly. "But I am gonna head back to yours, I'm so tired."

"Okay." Steven responded. "How?"

"I'll walk, it's fine." Florence told him. "I'll probably leave really early tomorrow as well so don't be weird if I'm not there, okay?"

"Sure." Steven let out a small sigh. "I'll see you soon."

"See you soon." Florence waved goodbye, navigating her way to the front of the house and trying to figure her way back to the Conklin house. The girl let out a shaky breath as she walked down the street, everything was building up and she was trying so desperately not to break down.

Everything to too much for her. Since summer, everything had been slowly breaking down and she knew that sooner or later it would end, and she'd never recovered.

And so, to cope, she decided to think back to a time where life was slightly better. And this time, we were in October of last year, Florence had just opened the front door to reveal Conrad on the other side.

"Happy almost Halloween." Conrad greeted.

"Conrad." Florence was in shock.

"I know I'm not supposed to be here but I'm here." Conrad stated as Florence closed the door behind her. He held up some sweets with a small smile. "I brought candy. Do you want me to go?"

"No, no, of course not." Florence stopped him quickly, stepping in front of her. "Don't go. Just—what are you doing here?"

"Um, I wanted to see you." Conrad answered.

"Yeah, um, but I thought..." Florence trailed off.

"Wait, no, I know, I know, but you were worried about Syd and Jere and everything but I had a chance to talk to them, and Jeremiah's doing really good, actually. He's um, he's going on dates, y'know. And, um, he's been on this high ever since he got made homecoming king." Conrad explained. "Which Syd knows as well as so he's kinda fine with Sydney and Belly so you don't need to worry about rubbing this is Sydney's face anymore."

"So Jere's over... everything?" Florence asked.

"I think he is." Conrad nodded.

"So Syd and Bels are..."

"I think so." Conrad replied with a smile as Florence let out a breath of relief. "I don't think I could ever get over you. I mean, I'm not. I'm here. Whenever I talk to you, I'm just happy. And I just gotta say, standing in front of you right now, it's torture—"

"You know in musicals, when the actors burst into song because they've run out of things to say?" Florence interrupted his rambling. The boy nodded. "Sometimes it's easier to just kiss."

Conrad smiled, grabbing her hips and pulling her closer as he connected their lips. Florence wrapped her arms around his neck as she smiled into the smile. Florence allowed them to stay in the moment for a few seconds, it being their first kiss since the end of summer. The girl pulled away, staying close as they regained their breath before she connected their lips once again.

Florence snapped out of her memories as she arrived at the Conklin house. She didn't know how long she had been walking for but as she walked into the house, Laurel was still sat on the chair.

"Hi." Florence greeted with a small smile.

"Flo, hi." Laurel smiled at her. "Come sit."

Florence sat on the sofa, next to the chair Laurel was sat in. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah." Laurel nodded. "I'm sorry we didn't come to your graduation."

"It's okay, we all have things going on." Florence shrugged in understanding.

"That's not an excuse." Laurel stated. "You have been the most understanding this entire year. I mean between looking after Sydney while me and your mum were in cousins to no one being there for your prom to the funeral and then your graduation. I mean, you haven't held any of that against anyone."

"Why would I?" Florence responded. "We all dealt with the whole Susannah thing differently, and... we lost Susannah, and if I held things against people I would lose them too and I don't wanna lose anyone else. I can't lose anyone else."

"I get it." Laurel sent her a small smile. "I'm proud you by the way."

Florence sent her a confused look.

"For everything. For being you." Laurel answered. "But also... Princeton. The songs you write, everything. You're an incredible woman, Florence, and I'm proud of you. And I know your mum is too. And so is Susannah."

Florence nodded, eyes full of tears. Her mum hadn't been the most vocal about her pride in Florence over the past year, too focused on Susannah and after that Sydney to even pay attention to her middle child, leaving Florence alone to deal with everything.

"Thank you, Laurel." Florence smiled, moving to hug the woman. "I think I'm gonna head to bed, I've got a long ahead of me tomorrow."

"Goodnight." Laurel told her.

Florence walked up the stairs, flopping down on Steven's bed and falling asleep almost instantly, not caring that she was still wearing her party clothes, too exhausted to get up and change. The next morning, she woke up with a groan, rolling over and grabbing her phone to check the time.

Florence squinted at the bright scene, a notification catching her attention more than what the time was.

Missed call from Conrad

The girl unlocked her phone, clicking on the phone app to see that he had left a voicemail. Her eyebrows furrowed as she sat up, careful to wake a comatose Steven next to her as she clicked to listen to it.

"Hey Flo, um, I know this is weird and you're probably still at Steven's graduation because of course you went, because you're an incredible human being and his friend but—I, I need your help." Conrad rambled, his voice cracking ever so slightly like he was stressed beyond sense. "Everything's fucked. I, I don't know what to do. And I need you to help me. Come to—"

The voicemail cut off, too long for the answering machine's liking. Florence let out a breath, her eyebrows knit in confusion about where Conrad wanted her to go.

But if he needed her, she'd be there. And the first place to go was Brown University.

( 💌 ) isobel's notes
hey again
i HATE this chapter
i've decided i detest the bit by bit
of the flashbacks so for flashbacks
like prom and the christmas bit ( next
chap 🤭 ) it'll be all at the same
time then the rest of the rest of the episode
for example next chapter is
christmas stuff flashback
obvious cut
present time episode stuff