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SKIN & BONES
iv. SKINNY BALLS

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AS IF FATE COULDN'T have a better sense of humor, it wasn't much later when Lorelai and her father rushed into the hospital. Contrary to popular belief, this was actually the first time the visit wasn't for Lorelai.

The feeble teenager's voice boomed throughout the emergency room as Lorelai roared, "Bella!" She sprinted forward with Charlie following on her tail, just as agonized as his daughter.

It hardly took them any time to locate Bella. Lorelai rushed to her sister's side as an elderly trauma nurse examined Bella's eyes with a penlight. On the next gurney over was a dark-skinned boy with guilt plastered on his features. Lorelai had a feeling he had something to do with the accident.

Charlie was panting by the time he found his daughters. "Bells, are you alright!?"

"What the hell happened!?" demanded Lorelai.

Wincing at the intensity of her family, Bella just squeaked, "I'm fine, guys. Calm down."

"You could've died!" Lorelai insisted. "After everything we talked about the other night—"

"I'm so sorry, Bella," called the guilty-looking boy. "I tried to stop."

Bella sighed and reassured, "It's okay, Tyler." It clicked in Lorelai's head that this boy, Tyler, was the one who nearly murdered Bella.

See, just a few moments prior to this very one, Lorelai had been cuddled up in bed, watching some God-awful reality show when her father had received a call about how Bella was nearly flattened like a pancake in the school parking lot. Lorelai had never rushed to the hospital so willingly in her life.

"It sure as hell is not okay," Charlie unhappily imposed as Lorelai added, "Seriously, Bella! Are you on crack?"

"Guys, it's not his fault—"

"We nearly lost you," interjected Charlie, a stern tone sewn into his voice.

"But you didn't," Bella instantaneously countered.

Lorelai fought back the urge to roll her eyes at this excuse. The sisters knew that her words were most definitely something Lorelai had said once or twice before. Still, she felt the need to hit Bella for being and sounding so stupid, even if it wasn't her fault for nearly dying.

"It's bad enough that one of us is already actively dying," Lorelai hissed. "I don't wanna have to worry about you, too!"

"Now you know how it feels," Bella remarked.

"Well, the difference between us is I'm classy about it, and you're a clumsy, stupid, dumb idiot!"

"It's not my fault the car was going to hit me!"

Charlie shot the one called Tyler a nasty glare, threateningly snarling, "You can kiss your license goodbye."

It was then when a new voice entered the scene. "I heard the Chief's daughter was here!" it exclaimed. "And it's not Lorelai this time!"

A grin grew on Lorelai's hollowed face. She could recognize that voice anywhere. "Carlisle!" greeted Lorelai as he approached the Swan trio. "It's good to see you," she added, feeling better knowing that Carlisle was here to help them.

Charlie just grumbled, "Couldn't have said it better myself."

Carlisle flashed the duo a smile, one that was so bright that it nearly distracted from the purplish eye-bags beneath his topaz orbs. He turned to the nurse, stating, "I've got this one, Jackie." The one named Jackie handed Carlisle the chart before strolling off to tend to other matters. Reviewing Bella's chart, he reached out and felt the back of Bella's head. "You have a nice knot growing back there, but your x-rays show no indication of concussion."

"I'm so sorry, Bella," apologized Tyler once again. "I'm really—!"

Spinning on her heel, Lorelai shot Tyler a look that could kill. She hissed, "Suck my skinny balls!" Then, she pulled on the curtain that separated the Swans from the boy. Even in the hardly satisfactory hospital lighting, the fear on Tyler's face was quite evident.

Ignoring her sister (which really wasn't very hard after years of practice), Bella revealed, "It would have been a lot worse if Edward hadn't knocked me out of the way."

Lorelai paused. "Edward?" Since when did they talk to each other? The last time Bella mentioned him, she hadn't mentioned anything remotely kind about him.

Charlie glanced at Carlisle. "Your boy?"

Carlisle merely shrugged, quickly averting his gaze back to Bella Swan's chart suspiciously.

"It was amazing," Bella pressed. "He got to me so fast. He was nowhere near me."

Smiling, Carlisle simply said, "As long as you're safe."

Had Lorelai not been so preoccupied with her sister's accident, she would have noticed how strange Carlisle was acting.

The Swans were in and out of the emergency room after about an hour. Lorelai was elated to hear that Bella was going to be fine, whereas Charlie seemed completely drained from stress. Lorelai had a feeling that the number of near-heart attacks his daughters constantly gave him would destroy him one day.

"I just have to sign some paperwork," Charlie informed the girls. He looked to the youngest Swan. "You better call your mother."

Bella's eyes widened exponentially. "You told her!?" shrieked the 16-year-old in question. "She's probably freaking!"

Charlie shrugged calmly as Bella lamentably stalked off to call her mother. Lorelai took it upon herself to laugh at the thought that had popped into her mind.

"Oh, God," mentioned Lorelai with a giggle, thinking about the disastrous vision that had been playing in her mind. "Renée's probably having an aneurysm or something right now." However, her smile faded when she noticed her father unhappily stared at her. "Aw, what? Am I seriously in trouble?"

"Lorelai, what was that back there?" demanded Charlie with a soft, yet stern voice. When Lorelai stared at him in puzzlement, he continued, "Suck my skinny balls?"

Lorelai's thick eyebrows shot upward. "Oh," she mumbled. "I thought we'd established that crude humor was one of my coping mechanisms."

Charlie sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Lorelai, this isn't funny. Your... Your condition isn't something to take lightly. It's time you start acting seriously for once," he scolded.

Lorelai was quiet. What was she supposed to say? Was she supposed to storm off in a frenzy? Was she supposed to start monologuing?  Was she meant to take his words with a grain of salt and realize that he was just stressed? What was Lorelai supposed to do?

Joking made all of this less real. Less serious. It raised up a fog that Lorelai could get lost in, and here her father was, trying to light her way home. She knew what all of this meant to him, how much his daughters worried him. But it wasn't that simple, and God, she felt horrible for it. She didn't know why she did this. She didn't know why she couldn't take this more seriously. All she knew was that she was just making everything harder for her dad, the same way she did for Renée.

"I get it," said Lorelai. "And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm not a person to you anymore. I'm your own personal headache. I'm just... a problem."

Frowning, Charlie said, "Lorelai, that's not..."

But he was at a loss for words. Lorelai didn't wait for Charlie to say another word. She left him where he was. Because despite all of this, despite all of her problems and her twisted way of thinking, he would be waiting for her at home, and it would all be fine. She had everything under her control.

And perhaps if that sequence of events had never occurred, then maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have seen something that was just downright unspeakable.

○ ○ ○

"I'm not a person anymore, I'm a problem? Seriously, what kind of edgy-teen shit was that?" Lorelai muttered to herself, stumbling aimlessly throughout the forest.

She wasn't sure as to how she ended up trudging from the hospital all the way to the forest. Her feet seemed to have carried her all the way there, almost as though it was an instinct. Though, was it really any kind of surprise? Whenever Lorelai felt judged or overwhelmed, she sought out nature.

Her frail fingers balled the ends of her flannel. The other held a cigarette—another one of the coping mechanisms she and her father weren't proud of.

The townspeople believed that the nearly 18-year-old girl could get away with underaged smoking because her father was the Chief of Police. The real reason was that she had persuasive abilities. No matter what her father did, she'd always find a way to get what she wanted.

"I feel like some angsty, emo music should be playing in the background right now," mumbled Lorelai. "God, I've really hit an all time low. I'm like a walking and talking edgy Tumblr post." She paused to chuckle bitterly.

Her laughter fell mute as a growling sound filled Lorelai's ears. For a split second, she thought it had been coming from her stomach as it gnawed at her inside. However, the soon realized that the admittedly concerning sound wasn't coming from her, but from somewhere else.

She paused. Was she really about to investigate this?

Her hand went to the pepper spray in her pocket. Her father gifted it to her after receiving numerous complaints of intense animal attacks recently. Lorelai wasn't sure what good pepper spray would do against a large animal, but she figured she wasn't going to go down without a noble attempt at fighting. She figured it would get her some points up in Heaven or wherever people went when they died.

Taking one last hit, Lorelai squished her cigarette with the sole of her shoe. Then, she cautiously moved forward, the pepper spray in her dominant hand. Lorelai inhaled deeply before pushing past a small collection of low-hanging branches.

What she saw after that would most likely scar her for the rest of her life.

The creature that had been viciously growling had been... well, a person. No, not an animal or even a Furry, but just... a man.

His hair fell down the sides of his face messily. His skin was pale, excluding the splashes of crimson blood that was scattered across his hands and face. His eyes were dark and sinful, despite being a lovely shade of gold to compliment his honey-blonde hair.

It seemed that he didn't notice Lorelai staring in a mixture of shock and awe until she gasped and nearly lost her grip on the pepper spray in her hand. He stared at her and she stared back, almost as if time had frozen. The only thing Lorelai could think of was: What the hell?

Lorelai jumped as another figure zipped into the area at the speed of light. "Jazz!" she exclaimed. Her raven, pixie-cut hair looked flawless and untouched, surprisingly like the boy's hair. "She's coming! I saw her! She should be here any—!"

Then, the girl paused, noticing Lorelai staring at them, clearly baffled. Her topaz eyes trailed over to the boy beside her. The situation clicked quickly in her mind.

"Shit." 

Revised: November 6th, 2019
Revised: May 23rd, 2024