Chapter Text
"Helen, you open up right now!"
Family dinners were always awkward, even more so after one of the family members had just been released from an institution. She didn't even mean to throw that glass. She was just angry, and they were talking too much.
Every slam on the door sent a jolt of rage through her body, and she felt her nails digging into her palms painfully. Her breathing was erratic, trying to catch the air that had already gone from the room. Biting her sleeve, she let out a muffled scream. The tears hadn't stopped flowing since she shut her door and slumped back against it—she didn't know how to stop them.
The slamming was eventually cut off by someone's voice: Mum's, maybe Cathy's—fuck, she couldn't tell. She couldn't make out who was talking through the static; everything was too loud, too much, and all her senses had melted together. It felt as if every little thing was heightened to the max, and she just couldn't do it.
"Stop it," she could make out through the door. "Let me handle her."
Handle. Her breathing had since calmed down so she could focus on the voices, but her rage hadn't. She wasn't something to handle, and she hated that they all acted like she was. They couldn't handle her no matter how much they tried—she scoffed at the fact that they still hadn't learned.
"Lanie?" The voice on the opposite side of the door was now distinctly Cathy's—young, quite soft-spoken, though not as much as Mum. "Lanie, what's wrong?"
Scoffing again, Helen let her head drop back to rest on the door. She wasn't going to listen to her sister's bullshit pleas anymore. She always begged her to stay, to give Mum and Dad a chance, but for what? For the Norvilles to look like a normal, fully functional household? Fuck that. She was over it.
She looked straight forward to where her dresser and chair were. She hadn't realised how much of a mess she left her room in—most of her makeup was sprawled all over her dresser, and she remembered having a meltdown when she realised she forgot to pack it. There were clothes on the floor and draped on her chair, and abnormally, a neatly folded pile of clothes on her neatly done bed. Helen figured Mum must've been in, just for that.
She hadn't really gotten the chance to check all the little details of her room when she first got back, having only come in to toss her bag on the chair and then go down for dinner. It calmed her down slightly, letting herself relearn what once was her own space, the place where she'd isolate herself from the rest of the world for even just a small moment.
Turning her head to press her ear to the door, Helen listened out for any noises on the other side. There was silence, but she knew it'd only be a minute or so before Cathy came knocking again. She took the moment of peace to push herself up off her floor and towards her dresser, promptly avoiding her bed. In the corner of her dresser was the empty space where her record player used to live, the sight of nothing making her frown. It was only just over six months ago, but it felt like years since Dad took it out of her room, only to tell her she was going away the day after. She'd always joke about that to herself, seriously, what did he have against the Doors?
The bag on the chair was still packed. Helen only needed a moment to think before she unzipped it, tossing handfuls of items from her dresser into it at a time. She scrounged her room for any clothes she could fit in the bag, before stopping at the crate in the corner. Fuck. Her records. She wasn't just going to leave them in this place—she couldn't do that to them. Flicking through them, she eventually decided, albeit hesitantly, on two records she'd take with her: the first one she'd bought herself at thirteen, the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night; and her favourite record, the Doors' self-titled.
She placed her bag, along with her records, onto the chair, taking one last look around the room. It didn't feel like hers anymore, but she wondered if it ever really did. She paused when she caught sight of the bed once again. A sudden wave of anger ran through her then, causing her to turn around to knee the dresser out of rage. The lack of damage only made her more pissed off, and she suddenly felt the urge to destroy something, anything really. Feeling her jaw clenching tighter, she reached over and grabbed the corner of the sheets, pulling them off and tossing them across the room in one fell swoop. The clothes became scattered across the floor, though still remaining somewhat neatly folded.
It wasn't enough.
Turning back to the dresser, she caught sight of herself in the mirror hanging above. Her eyes were red, face blotchy and tear-stained. She felt and looked much older than she really was—the eyebags and eyebrow lines weren't doing much to help. Long gone was the little girl inside of her, forced to grow up because of things she had no control over.
She couldn't do it anymore. Grabbing the lamp on her left, she smashed the mirror—a noise sure to draw unwanted attention, but fuck that, it wasn't like she was staying anyway. Shards of the mirror fell onto the dresser, but Helen didn't flinch, nor did she step back. Using her arms to prop her up on the dresser as she leaned forward, she took a deep breath.
She had to get out.
After zipping up her bag, she tucked the two records under her arm safely. As she slung her bag over her shoulder, the bedroom door swung open, causing her to snap her head around.
"Lanie, what are you doing?" Mum asked, Cathy standing right behind her.
Helen couldn't help but roll her eyes at the whole situation. She didn't respond and only scoffed as she stepped towards the door, attempting to push past Mum and Cathy.
"Helen."
Sharply inhaling, Helen turned to face Mum.
"What is it, Mum?"
"Where are you off to?" Her voice was frustratingly calm.
Helen could only let out a dry chuckle, rolling her eyes. She didn't know why Mum was acting like she cared when she knew she didn't. They didn't mind if she was gone for practically half the year, but it suddenly became a problem when she wanted to leave? Bullshit, she thought.
Dad's footsteps became audible, the sound of his feet clomping up the stairs getting louder and nearer.
"Fuck this," she scoffed, pushing past.
"Excuse me, Helen?" Mum asked, voice still calm.
"I said fuck this!" Helen snapped, turning around to face Mum again. "I hate you, all of you! It's—it's—this family is bullshit. You think you're helping—just to let you know, you aren't."
The tears were threatening to spill again, but she needed to let this all out.
"Helen, you do not talk to your mother like that." It was Dad speaking from behind, where the staircase was.
"Oh, shut—be quiet!" she yelled, turning her head over her shoulder. Her grip on both her records and her bag strap were tightening. She had to leave, now.
Helen hated seeming immature, and she knew lashing out at her parents wasn't going to help her case on how they viewed her. She couldn't help it though; she was angry, and just needed to let it all out somehow. Still, it only made her feel worse knowing that she wasn't really getting to them, and that she was only sounding like an angsty hormonal teenager. Why did it have to be so hard?
"Lanie, when did you start feeling like this?" Every quiet word from Mum's mouth only managed to make Helen more and more furious.
"All the time! All the fucking time, I've felt like this! Every day of being here, every next day that I have to spend in this fucking place only serves to mess me up! And Jesus fucking Christ, I'm so tired of it," she lashed out. She couldn't help but chuckle; she didn't know what exactly she was laughing at, but she had to let it out. Maybe it was the stupidity of Mum and Dad; they were so ignorant that all she could do was laugh about it.
Dad shouted again, and it was clear he was only going to give her a scolding: "Helen, you do not sa—"
"Oh god, and my birthday too. Don't forget about my birthday! Oh, wait—it was last month. Where was I? Alone in fucking purgatory. No phone calls, not even a letter, nothing. How am I supposed to believe this is my fucking family, the same 'family' who put me there?" She was out of breath by the time she stopped talking, and there was a stabbing feeling in her chest, draining her of life. They weren't going to care; they weren't ever going to.
"Lanie, we—" Helen stormed downstairs before Cathy could speak. She didn't want to hear it—the us, the we—it was all complete and utter bullshit.
She could hear everyone's distant shouts and pleas as she opened the front door, but she wasn't looking back. As soon as the door shut with a loud slam, Helen ran. She ran as fast as she could to the only place she knew, and she wasn't looking back.
When she reached the door of the house, her nerves started to kick back up. Looking up at the cramped one-room townhouse, it suddenly looked much taller than its two storeys. Fuck, what if she had messed up the address? It was something deeply engraved in her mind but it still had been a while since she had last visited. Helen was scared her memory wasn't as good as she thought it was. In case she did mess up the address, she took a moment to tidy up her appearance, wiping her face with her sleeve and fixing her hair.
She held onto her records a little tighter as she walked closer to the front door, catching sight of her reflection in the window. Combing her fingers through her tangled hair once more, she figured she was ready. With a deep breath, she pressed the doorbell.
No answer. Of course. As she was about to turn away to leave, she was startled by the lock clicking.
"Helen?"
She looked up upon hearing her name, sighing out of relief. She couldn't help the smile that crawled on her face then.
"Jo," she sighed, her lack of air obvious in her voice.
✩
"You know, it's been too long, Helen," Joanne said, though Helen could tell she wasn't actually mad about it. They were best friends, and Helen had gone and disappeared for six months without notice, so if she had been mad, it definitely would've been within reason.
Joanne busied herself with doing something on the other side of the room, while Helen sprawled herself across Joanne's bed.
"I feel like you aren't as angry at me as you should be."
"Why's that?"
"I was gone, Jo. And like you said—it's been far too long."
"You know, it's not at all your fault."
Those simple words affected Helen deeper than she thought they would. Her chest tightened as she used her elbow to prop herself up slightly, getting a better view of what Joanne was doing: she was looking at the records that Helen had brought with her.
"It is, though."
"Oh, stop that, Helen," she spoke, words soft, but a complete contrast to the way Mum spoke. In Joanne's words lived a gentle sincerity, whereas Mum's words only served to control.
Joanne crossed the room to sit next to Helen, dropping a record on the bed while doing so.
"Doors?" she asked, a cheesy grin on her face. "When'd you get this?"
"Early this year," Helen shrugged. "Before I was gone."
"Well duh, I know that much, doofus," Joanne grinned, knocking Helen's shoulder with her own. "I'm just kidding, it's fine if you don't remember."
Picking up the record, Joanne tapped her finger on her lips, seemingly deep in thought. After a moment, she stuck her finger at Jim Morrison's face on the cover.
"Him. I like him," she finally said. "He's rather cute, isn't he?"
"What, Jim Morrison?" Helen chuckled, looking back up at Joanne.
"Yeah, what?" Joanne grinned, before suddenly looking down at the cover with a frown. The feeling of worry arose in Helen's stomach, before she spoke again. "Wait, Helen?"
"Yes?"
"It's been, what, six-ish months? In that time you were gone, did you get to watch the telly at all?" Joanne had a genuine look of concern and bewilderment on her face as she questioned her.
Helen cautiously shook her head, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
"Oh, shit—Helen! Do you know what this means?" She had since put the record back down and turned around to Helen, grabbing her by the shoulders while shaking her back and forth. "I cannot believe you didn't get to see them on Top of the Pops! Gosh, I just remembered—how did I just now remember? The whole time I watched it, I wanted to phone you so badly, but you hadn't picked up for a month already. I sat there thinking: gosh, if only Helen were here to see this. I remember you had told me you wanted to buy the record, I think when it first came out. You'd never told me if you actually bought it though."
You thought of me? "I'm sorry."
"For what, Hels?" Her grip on her shoulders gentled.
Everything. "I don't know."
Joanne pulled her into a hug then, and Helen couldn't find the strength to hold back the tears that threatened to spill any longer. It wasn't like she had to pretend to be strong around Joanne either way; she was safe. It wasn't like at school where she knew she'd get teased by the other girls, nor was it like with Mum and Dad where she was scared of looking weak. Joanne was something—no, someone—different; Helen knew she was the only real person in her life. Everyone seemed almost two-dimensional: they lacked sympathy and warmth, and none of them ever seemed to understand the way Helen worked.
And then there was Joanne.
Helen buried her face into Joanne's shoulder, trying to muffle her sobs. Joanne's fingers were gently brushing through her hair, holding her close. Through her thin knitted cardigan, Helen could feel every beat of Joanne's heart, feel the warmth radiating off her skin. Joanne was real, and she was right there. She was the only real person in Helen's life.
Helen didn't realise how tightly she was bunching the material of Joanne's cardigan in her fists until she let go, pulling away from her. One of Joanne's hands went back to rest on her shoulder, her other hand brushing away tear-stained stray hairs from Helen's face.
"It doesn't have to be now if you aren't ready, but you can talk to me, alright? I'm here, Helen," Joanne smiled, shaking her by the shoulders once more.
Helen felt herself begin to smile, turning back to the Doors record next to them on the bed. Roughly wiping the tears away from her face, she reached her free hand out to pick up the record. As she looked back up at Joanne, she felt her smile grow slightly wider.
"I'm going to put this on."
Joanne watched with a smile as she pushed herself off the bed. Turning away to find the turntable on the desk, Helen heard a small chuckle from behind her, causing her to whip her head around in faux annoyance.
"What's so funny, Jo? You think the Doors are a joke?" she grinned, flipping the record around between her fingers.
The comment caused Joanne to giggle loudly, but her expression turned slightly serious when she said, "No, no—it's just—I've missed this, you know."
Helen couldn't help the way her heart started to beat faster at that, nor could she help the way her own voice softened, becoming almost vulnerable as she said, "Yeah. Yeah, me too."
She turned back around to put the record on the turntable. After dropping the needle on the first track, Helen didn't turn around, but instead leaned over the desk on her forearms, watching the record spin. She smiled as she glanced around at the various scattered papers and trinkets on Joanne's desk. There were some battered textbooks in a pile, presumably from being left at the bottom of her backpack. Perched atop the stack of books was an old decorative mug—Helen remembered them making it in primary school, and she thought it was sweet that Joanne still kept hers—filled with an assortment of stationery and makeup brushes.
It was nice, she thought, how Joanne stayed the same person through all the years. Helen didn't know if she could say the same for herself—half of her childhood was blacked out in her memories anyway.
"What're you doing all the way over there?" Joanne asked, which caused Helen to snap out of her reminiscing and turn around. "Come here."
Joanne reached an arm out towards Helen, doing a grabbing motion with her hand. Her other hand stayed in her own lap, fiddling with the cuff of her socks. When Helen reached the bed, Joanne shuffled back to the headboard, patting the space next to her.
"So, how's school been?" Helen asked as she sat down on the bed.
"Wow, Miss Norville, you have definitely changed!"
She chuckled, nudging Joanne with her elbow.
"I'm just curious, ok? What have all the lovely young ladies gotten up to when I was gone?"
"Well, Miss Norville," Joanne mimicked in a faux deep voice. "I can assure you, they have been as delightful as usual."
"When I'm not there, of course," she rolled her eyes, laughing.
Helen's laughter died down when she realised how far behind she really was in school. She had never been one of the girls who actually enjoyed it—then again, who was?—but she'd push herself through just so she didn't fail; failing was the last thing she wanted for herself. There were dreams she had, and she needed to finish school and go to uni to achieve them.
"What's on your mind?" Joanne asked, obviously noticing the way Helen's face had slowly dropped.
The bed creaked as Joanne turned onto her side, propping herself up on an elbow so her whole body faced Helen. Helen looked down at her, watching the attentive look on her face.
"I'm fine, it's just—I really have got to finish school."
"Hey, don't stress," Joanne smiled, her fingertips brushing Helen's wrist. "We have next year. Just work hard next year, and it'll be over, okay? You can do it."
"Yeah," she sighed, looking down at where Joanne was tracing circles on her wrist. "You're right."
She still had her worries, but she found it hard to disagree with Joanne, especially when she was so sweet. It was even harder to focus on her fears when the next track on the record played, making Helen instantly sit up straighter. Smiling at Joanne, she reached out for her hands as she got up from the bed, singing: "Before you slip into unconsciousness, I'd like to have another kiss."
Joanne stumbled out of the bed as Helen tugged her, both of them being reduced to a giggling mess. Helen nearly fell over as Joanne crashed into her, but managed to use one of her hands to steady herself on the nightstand.
"...Chance at bliss—Dance with me, Jo!—another kiss, another kiss," she sang, dragging Joanne along to the centre of the bedroom.
The room itself was already quite cramped, obviously designed for only one person. Helen almost fell again as she knocked her shin on the bedpost, cursing under her breath. In the limited space they had, they began slow dancing to the music. Helen shut her eyes as they swayed, feeling the vibrations of Jim Morrison's voice in her chest. When she heard a soft giggle, she opened her eyes to be met with Joanne staring at her wide-eyed, a soft expression painted on her face. She was grinning in a way that looked like she just couldn't help herself, and Helen found that she couldn't either. She smiled as she sang along, words slowly becoming incoherent as they drowned in her laughter.
"What a gentleman," Joanne joked, doing a high-pitched voice.
Just as she spoke, Helen nearly tripped over her own bag that was on the floor, causing Joanne to giggle louder.
"Wow, did you just laugh at me? That's not very ladylike of you—I regret asking you for this dance now," Helen said, even as she pulled Joanne closer with one arm. "Come on, milady, let's—"
Cutting herself off, she couldn't help but laugh even harder at her own words—neither of them could. Joanne practically fell into her arms; at this point, they weren't dancing whatsoever, but rather tripping and stumbling all over each other. Helen laughed as Joanne tried to claw onto her sweater to support herself.
"We'll meet again, we'll—stop it!—meet again," Helen managed to sing in between bouts of laughter, Joanne accidentally stepping on her foot while she did so.
Joanne looked back up at her, the same expression in her face as from before. Her face was tinted pink, small tears visible in her eyes from how much she'd been laughing. Golden strands of hair were falling into her face; the sight a contrast to her usual tidied-up appearance, yet endearing all the same. Suddenly, the hands she had rested on Joanne's waist meant something else entirely, and the arms Joanne had draped around her neck were pulling her closer. Without thinking, Helen closed the distance between them, pressing their lips together in a soft kiss. As soon as she realised what she had done, she quickly pulled away.
They had been friends for too long for Helen to fuck it up now. She couldn't lose her oldest friend; she couldn't lose Joanne. Not over this, she couldn't.
Helen noticed the way Joanne couldn't really look at her, and the way her face had flushed a deeper shade of pink. She then glanced down at the cross necklace that dangled from Joanne's neck. All of this made Helen panic; her heart rate increased, but she couldn't find herself moving her hands away from Joanne's waist, nor could she find the arms around her neck pushing her away—they kept her close instead.
She opened her mouth to apologise, hands still frozen, but she only managed to mutter out, "Fuck, I'm so sorry, I wasn't—I just—" before being interrupted by Joanne, who's eyes were finally focused on her. To Helen's surprise, there was no disgust or anger in her expression, but rather a look of intrigue.
"It's okay, Helen," she whispered, giving her a small smile of reassurance. "I don't, uh—I don't mind."
She seemed to get flustered as she spoke, looking away from Helen with her cheeks flushing pink again. Rather than saying anymore, Joanne pulled her in for another kiss. This time, it was more sure of itself; both of them were still evidently nervous—Helen could tell by the way Joanne's hand shook as she moved it to cup her cheek—but they both were okay with it.
Helen was the first to pull back, resting her forehead against Joanne's as she let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding.
"Are you staying?" Joanne tucked a strand of hair behind Helen's ear, looking back up at her.
Helen softly exhaled in a chuckle, feeling her own warm breath with how close they were.
"Where else could I go?"
When we get back, I'll drop a line.