#hahahahah this is my distraction from zoom university

[circleofcavan]

Nebraska

Macey daydreams about spending winter break somewhere else, with some envy sprinkled in there, too; suite shenanigans and some $300 Bose noise-cancelling headphones. One-shot. Content warning: themes of parental neglect, mentions of alcohol use, smoking + abuse.

(Read it on AO3 here.)

There are moments when Macey wishes everything could just be stable and balanced.

“Normal” is too much to ask for; it’s a big ticket item that’s just out of reach, that she hasn’t worked quite hard enough for just yet. Instead, she’d settle for stable: an ideal situation with no boat-rocking, no absent fathers or narcissistic mothers, no forced appearances or quick-changes in the back of limousines, no hidden hangovers, no concealer on the bruises along her upper arm. Stable. Secure.

Idealistic. At this point in her life, there’s no chance she’ll ever know balance. If she keeps down the path that Gallagher has her going down, it’ll be a constant chase – maybe not a sprint, but a jog, and even that can get exhausting after a while.

She envies Cammie, even despite her hardships. Cammie has support, she has crumbs of normalcy to cling to, a warm home to run to during breaks and tight spots and panicked moments. She has options, even when she thinks she doesn’t. Even when she feels like every door is closed, there are always more.

Macey watches her chatting with Bez and Liz, her feet curled under a blanket, back to the wall of their suite. Cammie has a slight smile on her face, a fullness in her cheeks that made a return when she did, another escape on a lark that she magically realized had consequences; Bex is trying to reverse engineer a heist, Liz is French braiding Cam’s hair, which is brown now, thinner but longer. She can only slightly hear her roommates over the music she’s blasting, $300 Bose noise-cancelling headphones be damned, but she can imagine the conversation, more or less – more homework trouble, more boy trouble, more girl trouble, more acne trouble, more TV cliffhanger trouble, more “I can’t believe I got a B on this test” trouble, more normalcy. A feeling she’ll never have.

The conversation halts for a moment, all of them on the precipice of laughter, but they look to her, expectant, waiting on an answer; she points to her headphones and down to her book (Art of War, of course), and loudly yells “What?” as though she’s clueless and miffed, out of the loop. Bex laughs, Liz joins in, Cammie smiles and her volume goes back up. Stability. Everything is level again.

She’s damn great at playing the part, something she was born to do. (Is she talking about herself or about Cammie? She’s not sure. Projecting, much?) Macey is the perfect daughter, even when she’s a rebel; she’s the supermodel even when she’s strung out and hungover in the Great Hall at breakfast, stumbling through Farsi between sips of Gatorade; she’s America’s Sweetheart, Vermont’s darling, even though she hasn’t been back to Vermont in years. (Not that there’s anything there for her, aside from a hiking trail where she used to run or smoke cigs, plus the parking lot where she had her first kiss – awkward, sloppy and too much teeth – and her childhood home – her permanent address, she should say, because it’s not like she’s ever really felt like it was a home for her at all.)

They’re talking about winter break plans now. “Nebraska”  floats past the music, clinging to her brain, cloying and sweet. What she wouldn’t give for a proper, home-cooked meal, a scratchy wool blanket, a too-warm-but-too-cold room with a draft. Farm smells. Barn chores. Callouses. Sweat. Burnt coffee in smooth metal thermoses, a cold winter sun, some dustings of snow, a hot mug of potato soup – a too tight pickle jar lid. It’s so vivid it hurts, digging into her brain like it’s eating her alive from the inside out, starting at her brain and burrowing its way into her heart. Nebraska.

She can only imagine what that reality would be like; there’s something lived-in about it that she won’t be able to come close to touching, an inherent familiarity that she’s just not cut out to experience. Her winter break will likely be Aspen or Geneva, maybe both, and that’s a dream, too – she’ll probably see some classmates there as well, the ones that fit the Gallagher mold, the one that she’s apparently supposed to fit, too.

The trip will be booked as a family affair, but her parents will be anything but present, her mom chasing after seasonal ski patrol staff, college students in their prime, her dad on “work calls,” probably brokering some deal that will just line his pockets a bit more than his congressional salary. She’ll be drunk and alone, partying with ski bunnies or diplomats’ kids, settling into her old-money-rich-heiress role like she has so many times before.

Maybe if she’s lucky she’ll be able to slip away – if they’re preoccupied for a few days into the weeklong trip, she could pack a bag and hitchhike her way a few towns over, blending in like she’s new in town and visiting extended family, weaving a cover story for herself and patching it up every time she gets caught in a lie. She might have normal clothes on but she’s still anything but; they’ll remark on her beauty and her perfectly-manicured nails, ones that wouldn’t be in such pristine condition if she were just a girl from just a farm in just Nebraska.

Then she’ll get call after call to her phone, her parents demanding an appearance because it’s time to fly home now, and she’ll have to abandon the fake life she created for herself in this little mountain town, the cover that was just on the verge of being blown. She won’t be a girl from Nebraska with boy trouble and homework trouble and normal trouble, she’ll be the Macey McHenry, heiress and stone-cold bitch, sugary-sweet but too much to handle.

She’s not sure how Bex was able to get on her bed without her knowing, but she’s got a hand on the right ear of her headphones before Macey can turn to stop her with a bewildered laugh. “We’ve been trying to get your attention for ages,” Bex says, sitting back on her haunches, glancing at Cam and Liz. “What movie do you want to watch tonight? Tina’s running a Bourne marathon, but we were thinking Clueless, but then we realized you haven’t picked a movie yet, so it’s your call.”

Macey slides the headphones off fully now, settling them around her neck. She pauses her music. She pauses herself. Maybe this is the closest to stable and balanced that she’ll get: the closest thing to normal is four teenage girls watching 80s movies in their pajamas, LUSH masks smeared on their faces, shitty manicures and burnt microwave popcorn, falling asleep on the floor next to an overheated laptop and projector and her roommates, snoring softly.

Tomorrow’s Saturday. She could sleep in, pretend like the meal she’s having is home-cooked. She could wander around the halls and act like this was the home she deserved all along, because it was, and maybe even talk a bit more about winter break plans. Macey knows enough social graces to not invite herself to spaces where she might not be welcome, but maybe it could happen; maybe things will balance out in her favor. It might not be Nebraska, it might be London, or maybe it might just be here, in the mansion, if she can talk her way into it. The only people who normally hang back anyway are ones who either can’t go home or won’t go home, and Macey surely falls into both or either.

But that’s neither here nor there, and they’re still waiting on an answer. Macey dogears her book page, the same page she’s been stuck on this entire time, reading the same paragraph over and over, and sets it aside. “Clueless for sure,” she finally says, forcing a grin, cutting a glance at Cammie. “But only if we stay up way too late talking about how much Paul Rudd kind of looks like J-O-S-H.” (He doesn't.)

Liz squeals, Bex laughs, and Cammie blushes. Mace flashes her a knowing smile and grabs her blanket, ushering them up, while Bex says something about stealing cookie dough from the kitchen. Liz is convinced that they need to swipe Madame Dabney’s projector, even though there’s a perfectly good one in their room (apparently the one that isn’t theirs is 10 times more energy efficient and smells like the essential oil of their choice), and Cammie is watching her, grabbing her hand, helping her up. Cam’s hand doesn’t have callouses yet, but it will, and Macey thinks about what they’ll feel like after break. Will they be rough and ragged, or torn, exposing new, smooth, bright pink skin, the outline just barely visible?

Macey snaps back to reality for a moment; Bex and Liz have left on their respective conquests, and Cam is lingering near the door. “You coming?” she asks, gesturing to the hallway with her chin, and Macey can’t help but remember the annoyed (and annoying) girl that she met on her first visit, the one who just wouldn’t leave her alone. “You know we can’t let them traipse around by themselves; Liz will end up with a sprained ankle and Bex will probably burn the place to the ground.”

“Let’s do this,” Macey shoots back, grabbing a compact fire extinguisher that Liz had made in the labs a semester prior. This was normal. And she’d create balance and stability where she could, starting with her two renegade roommates. “I’m right behind you.”