Giving Up

[intheheart]

Author: Kat
Title: Giving Up
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Giving up.
Notes: Maya has never before been mentioned. If you can correctly guess one of the two characters she has the most to do with, I will write you a miniature on any topic of your choice.
Warnings: Homophobia, teenage pregnancy, child abuse and neglect, physical and mental ableism, adultery, mentions of dubious sexual consent.



1. Selfishness

He isn't sure when it started. He isn't sure if he even knew it was happening. All he knows is that he woke up one morning and couldn't bear Cecily in the bed with him, couldn't imagine looking at her over the table for the rest of their lives. He'll always be grateful for their children, but he thinks one more day with Cecily and he'll do something drastic.

Maybe it's selfish of him. Hell, he's fairly sure it is selfish of him. But he just can't do this husband thing anymore.

He files for the divorce the next day.



2. Excess

Michael eases his way onto the bus and sits down in the priority seat, his foot aching. He got the cast off last week, and it still hurts to walk, or even put weight on it.

Someone clears their throat, and he looks up to find the guy across the aisle glaring. "That seat's for the elderly and disabled, son," he says, pointedly.

The same thing he hears every time he parks, every time he uses a cane. He's so sick of explaining when no one ever believes him.

"Fuck you," he says, wearily, and settles in to ignore everyone.



3. Treachery

They're using the PTSD against him. Jake can't even begin to believe it.

He can still hear his opponent's words echoing in his head. "Do we want someone who can't even govern his own mind governing our district?" the man had thundered. As if hundreds of politicians over the years hadn't been veterans, hadn't woken up in the middle of the night screaming.

Jake's not sure how the opposition even found out. He's very private about it-- it must have been someone in his office.

He's dropping out. This race is lost.

And, clearly, mental health education needs him more.



4. Rejection

Ivy writes to Valeria for six months.

Handwritten letters at first, and never mind the cost to mail to Britain. She thinks Val will be happy to have something she's touched-- she knows she's happy, when Val sends her a letter or two at first. Then Val starts emailing instead. The postage's too much, she explains, and Ivy switches to this new medium.

Then the emails trail off-- from every few days to every few weeks until Ivy stops waiting.

She knew this would happen when Val went back home. She knew it wouldn't work.

It still breaks her heart.



5. Corruption

The rot goes deep, but Joanna doesn't realize how deep until Baba moves back in.

Mema told him to go. Joanna still doesn't know why, but after that terrible night of screaming and silence, Baba packed his things and left. Two weeks later he returned, head hanging, and put everything back. He still hasn't smiled.

Joanna tries. She cuddles up to Baba, goes on her best behavior for Mema. She coaxes her sisters into behaving, makes special foods for both her parents.

Nothing works. Baba still won't smile. Mema still won't speak to him.

There's nothing more she can do.



6. Theft

Her hand shakes when she reaches for the pen.

It's not theft, Arelie reminds herself, and wraps her fingers around the pen, sets it to the paper. She's doing this of her own free will. She wants Ahava to have the best life anyone could possibly have- well, Maria and Lawrence can give that to her little girl. They already love Ahava desperately. She sees it in their eyes when they look at her. They will be wonderful parents.

It's not theft. It's an offering. It's for the best.

It's giving up.

She closes her eyes against tears, and signs.



7. Dishonor

Maya doesn't believe the first test, so she buys another, and then another when that one's positive too. A fourth, a fifth, a sixth, all positive, all glaring up at her in a row.

She's very definitely pregnant. And there's nothing she can do.

She sinks down to kneel on the floor, clenching her fists against her belly. Her boyfriend will abandon her. Her parents will disown her. Her siblings will stop speaking to her. She'll have to drop out of school.

She's fifteen years old, and her life is over.

Maya presses her forehead against the sink, and cries.



8. Shame

His GPA sucks hard enough to put him academic probation his sophomore year.

It's not his major-- he's making As in all of his criminal justice classes. It's the damn math and science classes, the ones he doesn't need but is required to take by the federal government for a "well-rounded" education. He hasn't passed a one. At this rate, it's going to take six years to get his degree.

Felipe can't afford that. Nor can his family help him. So he drops out.

He tries to tell himself there's no shame in it, but he can't quite believe it.



9. Calculating

When Olivia is about seven, Yvonne realizes that attending to her family isn't getting her anything.

Hugh never recognizes her effort anymore, just gives her weary looks when she doesn't live up to his impossible standards. Olivia listens to her and does what she says, but she avoids her mother as much as she can. The two of them are always going off together and doing their own things, leaving Yvonne alone.

Which, to be fair, is as she likes it.

Very well, then. She won't bother with them anymore. She'll pursue her own interests.

She thinks she'll enjoy it.



10. Sordid

For days afterwards, Aaron feels dirty.

It's not Lorelai-- well, it is, in a way, because it was her idea, her cajoling words that persuaded him into it. But it isn't her completely. It's the act itself, the mess and the squirmy feeling he still gets, thinking about it, like he's swallowed something wriggling. The memory still makes him queasy.

The worst part of it all is that Lorelai clearly enjoyed herself. She'll want to do it again. And he... he can't.

There's no point in continuing this farce of a relationship, if she's going to demand sex from him.



11. Victimize

The medication, and her therapist's horror, clears Olivia's mind enough that she can recognize what's been done to her.

She still can't shake the feeling that she deserves at least some of it. But all of it-- being stolen from her father and her home, degraded, debased and neglected for years-- no. She didn't deserve all of it.

With that realization comes another: she can leave now.

She owes nothing to Yvonne, a mother in name and biology only. She owes nothing to a woman who systematically tore her down, poisoned her triumphs, and broke her will.

She can leave.



12. Denounce

For months he tells himself it isn't anything.

Sure, Dad came and went at odd hours. Sure, he sometimes took phone calls and wouldn't tell Zack who it was. Sure, sometimes he smelled like perfume. But there isn't anything to it. Dad works hard, that's all. He went through a department store and the saleslady spritzed him. It all makes sense.

Except.

Dad doesn't see him, but Zack sees them, sitting together at the restaurant, nuzzling, kissing like Dad used to kiss Mom. And he knows what he didn't want to know.

He tells Mom.

What else could he do?



13. Hate

For a little while afterwards, Clara hates Kevin. She hates his smug looks and his faux concern, his arrogant certainty that he's right, that she's broken, that he's the one who can fix her. Most of all she hates the confusion in his eyes when she left-- he genuinely doesn't know why she left him, and that hurts more than everything else.

About the time she moves to New York City, she stops hating him. It's not a conscious choice; she's just so tired. She already hurts. Why does she have to hurt more?

She doesn't think of him anymore.



14. Doubt

Andy hates himself a bit for crying when they told him he had to leave .

It's not that he thinks he shouldn't cry. It's just... he hates that he ever thought he'd stay here. Why would he? He's a nobody whose mommy left him, a skinny little black toddler nobody wants anymore. Why should he ever stay anywhere?

He cries a little bit more when he's packing his suitcase, but when he clicks the latch shut and wipes his eyes, he promises himself he'll never hope again.

He's never going to have a home. It's time he accepted that.



15. Hubris

Brad is fifteen minutes late, which means he isn't coming. Gail goes back into her apartment and shuts the door, hard enough that Ivy, cradled against her shoulder, wakes up with a startled little cry.

She sighs, and sets herself to rocking Ivy back to sleep. It's hard to believe that, when she first knew she was pregnant, she dreamed of a life with Brad, of marriage and the baby, raising her together. Instead she's a single mother, because Brad will never be a father.

"Sh-sh," she tells her daughter, and curses herself.

She can't believe she was so stupid.



16. Injustice

"It's not her fault!" Michael's shrill young voice is rising, screeching over the roaring in Danny's ears. "I asked her, it's my fault, it's me, it's not her fault!"

Their mother ignores him, and lands another blow across Danny's backside, screaming herself. "Don't you ever take your brother into something like that again! How could you? He could die, Daniella!"

"She didn't do it!"

"How could you? How could you be so bad?"

Danny closes her eyes and grits her teeth against the pain, refusing to cry. So her mom wants a bad girl, does she?

Fine. She'll get one.



17. Dissention

Everyone says Melanie has the perfect life. Her mother, her siblings, Connie, all of them tell her they envy her. A gorgeous little house on base-- even though she hates living with the other Navy wives. A husband who adores her and their son, who lets her do anything she wants-- even if he's away all the time. A sweet, adorable little boy who never gives her any trouble-- even though she never wanted a child.

The pressure grows and grows in her head, as she tries to convince herself that she has the perfect life.

She can't even begin.



18. Vice

At the start of her marriage, Fatimah Amala couldn't imagine ever hating her husband.

Now, twelve years and six children later, she knows she can.

In an odd way, it helps. It glosses over the bone-deep pain, the constant question why, why didn't you love me, what did she have that I didn't. It takes the blame away, hides whatever's wrong with her that Farid could so easily leave her.

She shouldn't hate him. He's her husband, the father of her children. It's bad for the baby still inside her to hate so much.

She won't even try to stop.



19. Lies

Hugh can't remember the last time Yvonne told him the truth. He knows she's lying to him now.

"...so awful, you know how the traffic is this time of year," she's saying, glibly, explaining why she didn't pick up Olivia. Except it's three o'clock on a Saturday and the traffic is fine, and anyway she was gone for five hours.

"You know how it is," she goes on, brushing past him like he doesn't matter. "Sometimes you just get stuck."

He could question her, he knows, push through the layers of lies until he finds the truth.

He doesn't bother.



20. Flaws

"I want a divorce," Melanie says, and what can Nathan possibly say to that?

He could ask her to reconsider, he supposes. He could ask her to go to marriage counseling, so the two of them can close the rifts, smooth over the flaws and cracks in their marriage. He could tell her he still loves her, that he wants to work things out.

But her face is so set. He knows when she looks like that she won't give an inch. And he does still love her, enough to want her happy.

"All right," he says, and aches.



21. Grief

Henrik spent the whole of Thea's first battle with cancer telling her it would be all right, that everything would be fine. He's spent all of this battle telling her the same thing. That first time, she looked at him with hope.

This time she only looks at him with weary eyes. He tells her she won't die, and she only shakes her head.

She's asleep now, breathing in short, wheezing spasms. Not even oxygen is helping. The doctors won't tell him anything.

He holds her frail hand between both of his, thinks you can't die, and knows she will.



22. Fear

Gina's going to tell her parents today.

Coming out to Olivia was so easy it's given her a bubble of hope, and she knows she has to act before the fear sets back in. So she calls home, and smiles when she hears her mother's voice. "Mom? It's me."

"Gina!" Her mother laughed. "You'll never guess my news."

"I've got news too, Mom."

"Me first," Susanna says. "Your cousin Joseph thinks he's gay. Imagine that! Of course his parents are trying to help him, but he's insisting."

Gina's heart turns to ice in her chest.

She'll never tell her parents.



23. Flaws

There's nothing wrong with her. Summer knows this. Goodness knows her family's spent most of her life telling her that, and by now, she believes it. There's nothing wrong with her at all.

The problem is not with her family, or with her. The problem's with her boyfriends. All of them, without exception, have thought there's something wrong with her. All of them have tried to fix her. All of them have left her when they couldn't.

There's nothing wrong with her, but the rest of the world doesn't seem to know that.

She's given up trying to convince them.



24. Deception

Lars tried being honest, once. He tried telling people how he actually was, when they asked. He found out pretty quickly that they didn't want an actual answer, not even when they were asking from concern-- they wanted to hear 'fine' so they could move on with their lives.

He's not fine. He's so far from fine that he can't even see okay from here. His mother is dead, his family is grieving, and no one, no one at all, cares, and there isn't any point in anything, anymore.

"How are you doing?" people ask him.

"Fine," he always replies.



25. Guilt

"It's not you," Joy says, into the silence.

Aaron is frowning, and she bites her lip. "You're not breaking up with me because I'm asexual?"

Joy shakes her head, the guilt building. "No," she says, and impulsively decides to explain. "I asked you out because I really liked you, and I wanted to see what that would turn into. It turned into..." She hesitates. "It turns out I really like you, Aaron, but that's all. I want to be your friend. I just..."

"Don't want to be my girlfriend," he finishes, and nods. "Okay. That's cool."

She still feels guilty.