goddamngreta

[goddamngreta]

Hometown Blues Materlist!!!

Last Update: 9/27/23

Current Word Count: 2,175

Chapter One

Chapter Two

[goddamngreta]

Hometown Blues - Chapter Two

Summary: When a family tragedy comes knocking, Lily and her three brothers pile into their childhood home for the summer. Now as summer is ending, only Jake and Lily will stay behind to pick up the pieces at home.

Word Count: 1,364

Warnings: Complex Family Dynamic, Mentions of Death / Dying, Angst

A/N: Okay, sorry this chapter took awhile. I am working on setting up a taglist sign up but for now just message me if you'd like to be on it :)

She felt dumb doing it, crying. She knew it had been coming all summer, but she still felt incredibly stupid while it was happening. She also knew it was only a matter of time before her paper thin walls alerted her brothers to what was happening. 

Since she had gotten the infamous call she had felt like balling but the tears had never come. Jake had been the one to call her, so she immediately knew something was wrong. Jake never called. Texted, sure. Called, never. 

Lily had been sitting in the library hours deep into studying for the bar exam when her phone rang. She ignored it, whatever someone needed could wait she thought. She had to pass the bar. When her phone didn’t stop vibrating in her bag she phished it out, silently standing to take the call outside the library. When she saw Jake’s contact photo plastered across her screen it took everything within her not to answer the call on the silent floor of the library. 

“I’ll call you back in a sec… leaving the library” She texted back, fumbling her way past a cohort of students. 

“K”

The last time Jake had called her had been in high school when he wrecked the car that the four of them had shared. He was going to be late picking her up from dance practice, he said. The car was also missing a mirror he’d informed her. The phone call lasted under a minute. Maybe he’d crashed his car out in Denver, though Lily wasn’t sure why he wouldn’t just call Josh. 

That was the thing about Jake and Josh for the most part they were completely insular. It had never really bugged Lily; she understood that they had a special bond, a way of coexisting that she couldn’t understand, but it made times like this awkward. Lily knew nothing good would come of this conversation. 

Josh always made Jake deliver the bad news to Sam and Lily. That’s how it had always been. 

Stepping outside into the sun Lily took a breath. Maybe he was just checking in. After all Lily had spent the night prior venting to Sam about how horrible bar studying was going, maybe word had gotten back to him. Checking in was a brotherly thing to do. 

Finding a bench Lily sat down and redialed. Might as well get whatever this is over with. 

“Um hey…. Sorry I was in the library.” She said when Jake picked up on the first ring.

“Yeah that’s what you said.” He sounded stiff Lily thought, but then again they hadn’t talked in a while. Maybe she was just over analyzing the situation in her head. She hadn’t been sleeping well lately. 

“Yeah…” Lily didn’t know what to say as she dug for her sunglasses in her backpack. 

“Have you talked to mom yet?”

“Yet?” Lily asked. She had talked to her mom a few days ago but it was too late by the time she had finished ranting to Sam last night to give her mom a call. 

“Yeah. Did she call?” Jake responded still sounding rigid, like he was reading from cue cards. 

“No. Why? What’s up?” Lily had been dreading this. Whatever this was she wanted Jake to spit it out. 

“Is it too late for you to defer the bar exam?” He questioned. 

“Um… I mean I don’t know. That’s not my plan. Did Sam text you? I was being dramatic when I Facetimed him last night. I don’t want to push this off any longer. That would just stress me out even more, which I don’t think is even possible right now.” 

“I think you need to defer.” Lily could tell he was biting his tongue, holding something back. 

“I told you I’m fine! Sam was being dramatic I’m sure. I swear he’s more stressed for me, which I totally appreciate but like I’m fine I just needed to vent.” Lily rushed out. She really needed to get back inside to study and not have a weird conversation with her older brother. 

“Listen, you need to defer the bar and come home. I don’t know what you and Sam talked about last night or whatever I haven’t called him yet. I haven’t even called Josh yet. Shit, Lil” 

Lily blinked, sucking in a breath. 

“What do you need to call them about and why would I need to come home?” She didn’t want the answer. 

The line went silent, only Jake’s breath satisfying her concerns that he hadn’t hung up. 

“Dad called.” He finally started, his words slow and pinched, “Mom wasn’t feeling so good so they went to the doctor. They had to run some tests because they couldn’t figure out why she was in pain.” 

In that moment Lily knew. It didn’t matter what Jake would tell her next, her life would be forever changed. 

“This morning the scans came back. It’s …. um …. well dad didn’t want me to tell you because you're studying but I figured no way Sam would keep the secret from you. I haven’t told him yet but I just know he’ll ask if you know … plus no way you’d forgive us” He blubbered. 

“It’s uh… It’s cancer. Terminal.” 

Lily sucked in a breath. The trees in front of her started to spin. She said nothing. 

“I don’t really know much else besides the fact that I think we need to go home. Uh…. I think Josh and I will drive back, I haven’t talked to Josh yet. He’s at work and I wanted to sort this out first. We can stop and pick you up on the way. Sam’s going to have to fly. Um …. is his semester done? It’s done, yeah? I…. I’ll call him or you can I mean whatever I just think um yeah I think Josh will agree we’ll leave tomorrow we can get you by Wednesday……”

Lily was half listening. She didn’t know what to say or how to process it. She needed to pack, that’s all she could think about. She hadn’t done laundry in a week, she’d been so busy studying for the bar and now that was over done and gone. She would file the paperwork to formally defer her application that night. 

A harsh knock on her childhood bedroom door jolted her back to reality. Sam stood hands in pockets staring at his feet. 

Sam, the person she had to tell over the phone that he needed to get on a plane and soon. He had been understandably confused, wanting to know exactly what Jake had said.

“I don’t know, Sam. I really don’t know.” Was all she had to offer him. 

And now he stood on her doorway months later, a thing he had done hundreds of times in their youth. Big brown doe eyes staring back at her. 

“I don’t think I’m cooler than you.” He said, eyes darting back to his feet. 

“God Sam yes you do but it doesn’t even matter.” Lily said rolling her watery eyes as he shifted his weight from side to side, something he did when he was uncomfortable. Lily didn’t care, he had come into her room. If he didn’t want to talk he need to come over. 

“You have always thought you were cooler than everyone, that’s fine.” She continued. 

Sam looked wounded but Lily didn’t care she was so stupidly mad. Life wasn’t fair and she was so stinking mad about it. Sam would head back to New York in a few short day to finish the last year of his grad program and Lily would be left here with their dying mother. Where was the justice in that? 

She had made Sam upset she could tell. She could almost always tell what he was feeling. She just let him stare at her from her doorway as she started to sob again. As her shoulders began to shake she let her head fall into her hands, not caring to finish out the conversation. 

She could hear Sam shuffle over to her bed before easing down next to her. The pair didn’t exchange another word. 

[goddamngreta]

Hometown Blues - Chapter One

Summary: When a family tragedy comes knocking, Lily and her three brothers pile into their childhood home for the summer. Now as summer is ending, only Jake and Lily will stay behind to pick up the pieces at home.

Word Count: 816

Warnings: Complex Family Dynamic, Mentions of Death / Dying, Angst

A/N: I am so excited about this fic and where it's heading. Would love to hear from you all on your thoughts and I'll try to get chapter two up soon <3

The summer heat was unforgiving, any Midwesterner could tell you the feeling. The kind of heat where no amount of AC mattered. Summers' last stand. Lily let her head dangle off the edge of her bed as she tried to drown out the sound of her brothers too loud music from the next room. She had become rather talented at filtering them out over the years. They operated on a decibel level much higher than the average human’s. Only a few more days until peace and quiet she thought to herself, she could handle a few more days. 

The Kiszka siblings had reconvened in their childhood home for the summer, something that rarely happened. Under normal circumstances it was rare to get them all in the same place, but the circumstances hadn’t been normal for a while. So the siblings had jammed themself into their childhood home for the summer, a summer that was quickly ending.

Soon Sam and Josh would leave again, back to school and their lives. Then it would just be Lily and Jake, she could practically taste the awkwardness. Jake and Lily had never been particularly close. In fact Lily couldn’t remember the last time the two of them hsd purposely hung out together one on one. 

Lily groaned as she heard something smash to the ground. 

“Shit, my bad” Sam yelled, as Lily pushed herself off her bed. 

It was late, and their parents were asleep, and this house was not that big. It was times like these when Lily felt like a child, instead of her 25 year old self, trudging next door to scold her brothers. 

“You guys mom is sleeping” Lily sighed, peeking her head into the boy’s doorway. 

The bedroom was a disaster, it had been all summer. To be fair the three boys, who were now fully grown adults, had been crammed in the room for the summer, but Lily still was unsure of how it had become so dirty. 

“I said sorry!” Sam huffed, rolling his eyes and turning his back to her. 

“You yelled it actually, but whatever.” She responded annoyed that he was dismissing her again. 

Jake and Josh both stood next to the remains of a broken picture frame, making no effort to pick up the glass pieces that were strewn all over the floor. Lily eyed them. The pair had reverted back to the childhood versions of themselves this summer, constantly doing things in tandem. She was sure there was deeper psychological meaning behind that but she didn’t care to unpack that at this hour of the night. 

“You gotta chill out sometimes Lil.” Sam sam said leaning back on his childhood bed with a smirk on his face. 

Sam had a way of getting under Lily’s skin, he was perfect at it. It seemed to her that he had come straight out of the womb with the skill perfected. 

“Isn’t it time for you to leave yet? Don’t you have to go back to New York and be cooler than the rest of us?” Lily said, spinning on her heels, halting her journey back to her room. 

“Don’t fight.” Josh groaned, waving his arms in the air in no particular fashion, “We shouldn’t fight.” 

“We aren’t fighting.” Sam and Lily retorted, though neither of them truly believed it.

The pair had been one bad comment away from each other's neck all summer. They had found it impossible to function normally since returning home in May and now as August neared its end they hadn’t gotten any better at coexisting. 

Not caring for a lecture from Josh Lily turned to head back to her room, she was met with no objections. 

Flopping down on her bed she reached for her phone. No new messages, the same as it had been all summer. No one knew how to talk to her. She didn’t blame them, she wouldn’t know how to talk to herself either. She barely knew how to talk to her brothers all summer. 

The summer had been long, so incredibly long, and unexpected. Lily had assumed that after graduating from law school she would be a lawyer in a big city, only coming back to Michigan for holidays, and that had been the plan. Instead, while all her law school friends moved into their apartments in Chicago Lily sat on her childhood bed staring at the ceiling thinking about punching her younger brother in the face. 

Lily felt bad for lamenting, for feeling sorry for herself in a situation like this, but life was stupidly unfair. She should be in Chicago, Sam should be in New York, Jake and Josh should be in Denver, and their mother shouldn’t be dying. 

But life wasn’t fair and things didn’t happen according to plan. Wishes were left unfulfilled and prayers unanswered, and for the first time this summer Lily cried herself to sleep.