the dare (the mighty ducks)

chapter seventeen

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chapter seventeen: the five stages of grief

a/n:

this takes place over a, like, three-week period.
grief isn't linear. lou still has a long time until recovery. i just wanted to give y'all a taste of what she's really going to be feeling in this act of the story.

also, i am just trying to write therapy in the way ik it. therapy isn't the same for everyone, and no two therapists are the same.

tw(s) - oh boy. mentally ill stuff, lou goes through it (like t h r o u g h it), self-destructive behavior, delusional behavior, family fighting, strong language, and vague euphoria and phoebe bridgers references.

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DENIAL

She's very tired, and it's cold here.

Louise stares up at the sky with a blank expression, her exhaustion and the strain from the indirect sunlight pulling at her eyes. The chattering of her teeth echoes loudly in her skull and her shivering body occasionally convulses rather violently, but she still makes no move to leave the snowbank she's currently laying in. The snowfall started earlier last night and dragged on into the morning, the flurries that still fall from the sky getting caught in her eyelashes and feeling like little kisses as they melt on her cheeks.

"Oh my god! Is that your sister? She's going to catch her death out there!"

She read about lucid dreaming once and found herself utterly intrigued by the idea of dreams where you're aware that you're dreaming. That's what she figures this whole situation must be, a lucid dream (or a lucid nightmare? She's not sure.) The book she read also provided her with ways to wake herself up from lucid dreams- blinking, falling asleep, and reading. Well, she's been doing plenty of blinking and reading, and just cannot fall asleep, so she's resorted to unusual methods in an attempt to wake herself up.

Such as laying in the snow.

Distantly, she hears footsteps approach her through the snow, and James forces her to look at him by leaning over her.

"What're you doing?"

It takes her a moment to conjure the words, her tongue heavy in her mouth. "I'm trying to wake up..."

"Wake up?"

His face scrunches up with confusion as he cocks a brow.

She nods. "Mhm. I think- I think that recent events are just a byproduct of my over-imaginative, anxious subconscious. If I can just get cold enough, maybe I'll wake up and this will all be a distant, distant dream."

Her little brother stares down at her both sadly and inquisitively.

"I, uh, don't think you're dreaming, Lou."

Looking up at her little brother, she swallows past the lump that's making her throat tight. There's the familiar burn of oncoming tears behind her nose, but they don't well up in her eyes (she's been crying so much recently that she doesn't think she can cry anymore.) James winces at the sight of her lip wobbling.

"I am. I have to be."

Louise knows they think she's insane, in a sense. With the Riley family's toxic masculinity mindset of "feelings should be felt privately or not felt at all", it's no surprise that her family has been hovering around her like she's a basket case ever since she had her very public outburst at school- treating her as if she is going to, at any moment, break out into violence. But is this even that wrong? Is she really, in wanting to believe that none of this is actually happening and choosing to believe that her mind is just playing tricks on her, harming anybody (but herself)? She figures that, if she manages to shock her body enough, she'll be back at the night of her party. Except this time, Kenny will show up, because she won't be in the middle of a nightmare. He'll show up on time with that cute little smile, and he'll kiss her in the way that she likes, and he won't reek of some other girl's perfume. They'll dance together, and there'd still be adoration in his pretty brown eyes (adoration that hadn't been there in quite a long time.)