Luca's Story Ch. 20
Chapter XX--Accusations
Wake up in the morning, stumble on my life
Can't get no love without sacrifice
If anything should happen, I guess I wish you well
A little bit of heaven, but a little bit of hell
This is the hardest story that I've ever told
No hope, no love, no glory
Happy endings gone forever more
I feel as if I'm wasted
And I'm wastin' every day
This is the way you left me,
I'm not pretending.
No hope, no love, no glory,
No Happy Ending.
This is the way that we love,
Like it's forever.
Then live the rest of our life,
But not together.
-Mika, "Happy Ending"
Luca woke up to the sound of Alan's voice.
"What the FUCK is this?!"
Looking around, Luca found herself in an awkward position. She lay on the couch, spooned up against Harold. His arms were hugging her form to him tightly, and there was a large stain on the front of his shorts that had soaked into her panties. Her skirt had hiked itself up through the night so that her slender legs and pink underwear were on full display. She bolted upright from the couch just as Harold began to stir.
"Alan! Where have--"
She was cut off by Alan's sudden lunge towards Harold. Having barely started to come into consciousness, Harold found himself being picked up by his baggy t-shirt, swung around, and pinned up against a wall--hard. Beccah was just walking down the stairs from Luca's bedroom. The two had apparently used Zee's old method of entry.
"Stop! You're hurting him!" Luca yelled, hitting against the otter's back. His button-down shirt was wrinkled and disheveled, like he's slept in it. His hair was tousled and his sleeves were in disarray. Beccah didn't look much better, her hair only half-held by the clips she had put in the night before, and her top was half off of one shoulder. Something seemed wrong in the back of Luca's mind, but she was too preoccupied by the fact Alan was now holding Harold by the throat, cutting off his air. "Nothing happened, Alan!"
"Bullshit!" The word was spat with such a terrible anger that Luca pulled back. She had never seen Alan in such a state.
"Please, Alan, let him go. We didn't do anything. We had been looking for you and Beccah all night and fell asleep on the couch. I'm sure you've had wet dreams before, too."
Alan seemed to start lightening up on his grip, and the thrashing Harold started to calm as air entered his lungs again. But the relaxation didn't start at the mention of wet dreams, Luca noticed. It started when she said "Beccah." She was sure of that. "Alan... where have you been all night? I tried to call you. What have you been doing?"
Alan had let Harold down by now, and Harold side-stepped the otter to go faithfully to Beccah's side. The otter simply turned halfway towards Luca, looking at her from the side, then swept out the front door, slamming it behind him. Nothing was said. Luca was left in the dark.
Turning back towards her friends, Luca saw her father in the doorway to the kitchen. He looked a wreck. She guessed he'd been in the office all night. "I'm not going to ask," Randal said, and turned back into the kitchen to grab another cup of coffee. Looking at Beccah and Harold, she saw Harold holding Beccah close in his arms. He was kissing the top of her head tenderly. She had her face buried into his chest.
"I'm sorry, baby, nothing happened. I swear," he was whispering to her.
As chilling as it was, Luca saw what Harold could not. Beccah did not look angry. What she saw on her best friend's face was relief. Luca immediately pushed the implications aside.
"You've reached Alan. Sorry I couldn't answer my phone..."
Luca hung up. She'd tried Alan at least fifty times that day. She looked over at the television in her room. Harold and Beccah were idly gaming. Luca didn't even know what game it was. She never bothered to get herself familiar. It was Alan's system that he'd brought weeks ago so that he and Harold could have matches together. It was strange, watching Beccah play video games. She never did that before. They hadn't even brought up what, exactly, Beccah had been doing all night. Luca still didn't think her parents knew she was here.
"Hey Beccah?"
No reply. The two were intensely battling it out. Beccah had some sort of large bluish sword that looked like it was made of energy, and she was desperately hacking away at Harold's character, who was trying in vain to ward her off with what Luca guessed was a pistol. When Harold was slashed down, Luca spoke again.
"Beccah?"
"Hm?" Rebeccah replied distractedly. She was already prowling for Harold's new hiding spot, after having some sort of announcement that Luca thought said "Running Ryan," but she could not be sure.
"Where were you last night?"
"Out."
"That's not an answer."
"What do you want me to say?" She said, slashing at Harold again.
"Where you were."
"I went out, I had a long night drinking and having fun. It was stupid." The reply was automated. It was a reply Beccah would give her parents when she knew there was no way of getting out of it without admitting at least a little guilt. There was something much more to it, Luca knew, but she thought about it a minute, and let things slide. She would corner Beccah while they were alone.
At the very least, targeting her best friend to try to help her with her problems was distracting her from Alan.
It wasn't long after sundown before Harold's cell was going off. His family had reached the limits of their patience. One night spent at a friend's was bad enough, but the whole day? They wanted their son back. Harold said his goodbyes and disappeared into the night, heading up to his house.
"Hey Luca?" Beccah said as they strode back into Luca's room.
"Yeah?" Luca said, flopping onto the bed, looking back at Rebeccah. The tone in Beccah's voice was odd, like there was something weighing on her. But as Luca watched her, she saw her best friend practically transform into a new bun. She brightened, looking at the calendar nearby.
"You're big b-day is only a week off. What are we going to do?"
"What?" Luca said, taken off-guard. She looked at the calendar. It was true. A week and it would be April 9th. "Right... I'm not sure. But I wanted to talk to you about something else, first."
"But your birthday is only a week away."
"Exactly. What happened last night, I think, is more important."
"I can't deal with this," Beccah said, turning towards the door. Luca moved fast, bolting in front of the door and leaning against it.
"You're not going anywhere, Beccah."
"Let me go! I just want to go home."
"Bullshit. You and I both know you're not going anywhere near your house. You're going out to drink and get stupid again."
"So what?" Beccah said, trying to push Luca out of her way. Luca pushed back. Beccah stumbled, fell on her ass, and bit her own tongue. She cradled her face in her hands, crying out. "Fuck! That hurt like hell, you bitch!"
"Good. Someone's got to knock some sense into you." Luca's voice was ice cold. She stood with arms crossed in front of her chest, leaning against the door.
Beccah was shocked for a moment, hearing the chill. She then smirked, her face of shock melting into a face of sinister bitch-hood. She stood up, wiping some blood from her lip that had come off her tongue. "Fine. You want to know where I was last night? I was at the Hudson Hotel, giving your man everything you never could."
Luca didn't want to believe it, her body didn't want to. But she could see it written in Rebeccah's face. Beccah wasn't lying, and she was throwing that fact in Luca's face. "No..." Luca whispered. The strength was draining from her legs. It was only faintly that she felt the pull at her arm, then the rough shove Beccah gave her from behind. Luca wasn't even there when her body tumbled over the edge of her bed, throwing her across and off the other side. Her false breasts were thrown into disarray, her hip slammed hard into the floor. Beccah didn't bother making sure Luca was ok. She simply opened the door and slammed it behind her.
Luca didn't bother getting up from that spot. Even with the massive bruise that was forming up on her side and the painful way her arm was twisted beneath her, she kept laying that way.
Several hours would pass until, finally, Randal knocked softly at her door. When she didn't respond, he opened the door. Looking in, he didn't see her sprawled behind her bed. "Luca?"
"Hm," she said. It was a slight, barely-there kind of sound. In Randal's half-dead state of exhaustion during this maelstrom of a tax season, he thought he was only imagining things.
"Is that you, Luca?"
"Hm."
He stepped in, and finally saw her long red hair extending out from where the foot of the bed ended. He rushed over. "Oh my god, Luca!" he shouted in surprise, rushing to her and cradling her in his arm. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," she said. Her voice was dead. The light that was normally in her eyes was dead. She let her body stay limp in his arms, even though her right arm tingled almost painfully with renewed blood flow.
Randal lifted Luca in his arms and lay her down on the bed, kissing her forehead. He straightened her top as much as he could, but could only do so much without laying hands on his daughter's "breasts" to fix them. "What happened?" He said, sitting on the side of Luca's bed. "You can talk to me, Luca."
Luca shrugged weakly. "There's nothing to be said. No matter what, I'll always be the boy that became Luca, not just Luca, born and true. I'll always fall second to the born females of the world."
"Oh Luca... that's not true..." Randal said, reaching out and brushing some hair from her forehead.
"Then tell me why Alan went and fucked Beccah," Luca said coldly.
Randal was taken aback. "He did what? I'll kill him," Randal said, his jaw hardening, his fists clenching. It would have been funny, seeing the slightly built accountant make like he was actually going to fight the young and fit otter, had the circumstances been different.
"No, dad. It's not his fault. He's male. He wants a female. Not a freak."
Randal calmed, shaking his head, looking at his daughter with sad eyes. "No, Luca, don't say such things."
"Why not? Do you really think I have just as much of a shot at finding a nice guy and having a blissful life as my sisters do?"
Randal paused for a long moment. Luca found a sick little triumph in her self-loathing path, but then he surprised her. "No, and that's why when you do, you'll know happiness the likes of which they never will. They don't have the blessing of fully appreciating the best things in life. I thought I had one daughter who understood that, most of all."
Luca's little triumph turned into a pool of guilt in which she felt she would drown. She didn't protest as her father pulled her up into a deep hug. In fact, she felt herself reciprocating the gesture, clutching Randal close. Then the tears finally began to break through, followed by a torrential flood. Finally, she could let herself cry. Randal simply held her that way, feeling his left shoulder get soaked. For more than an hour they would stay that way, until finally, Luca fell asleep.
Watching her for a long while, Randal realized he could only stand so much of this. He looked at Luca's calendar, realizing just how close they were to her birthday. A familiar pang of guilt hit him. There was a time where he could have celebrated with her, but when the tax season shifted in timing, his biggest maelstrom of activity engulfed her birthday.
That was when Randal made a decision to change his daughter's life.
The sun was barely starting to rise when Luca woke up Sunday morning. Her room was dark, and she had been tucked in. Her father must have left her all snuggled up like that for the night. It wasn't until she began to stretch the tiredness from her muscles that she realized a pair of eyes was staring in at her.
Luca gasped, instinctively pulling the covers up over her. The eyes were surprised, and quickly her watcher made his way towards the edge of the room. It was Zee. Luca dashed forward, grabbing her window and lifting it up. "Wait!"
Zee froze. He was about to jump from the edge of the roof. He turned, looking at her. His feline eyes reflected what little light there was brilliantly. He was caught. He relaxed, and made his way back up to the window.
"What are you doing out here?"
"I... had to see you," Zee said.
"Why?"
"Long story," Zee sighed, smiling sadly. "Do you mind if I come in?"