RE: Trailer Trash, 6 pt 1 (Patreon)

/// Author's warning: This one's headed in a pretty dark direction, if that's not what you want to read, I'm gonna recommend you wait a day or so until I can get 6 pt 2 finished and read them both together. You've been warned! Keep spoilers out of comments, please. ///

   A terrible screeching sounded out from the prototype MRI machine in the Emsie St. Juarez Pediatrics ward. The volume of the discordant squeal rose in both pitch and volume until it was an atrocious shriek, physically painful to hear, before muting with an unsettling pop as the electrical breaker finally blew out. All of the passerby within a several block vicinity of the facility cringed, many with their hands subconsciously rising up in a gesture to protect their ears—and then the power went out across all of Jeff county.

   Thirteen-year-old Tabitha Moore lay silent and completely still within the device when the backup power came online within the MRI room. A wispy blanket of acrid black smoke poured out of the enormous prototype contraption, and immediately choked the now very warm room—the fire alarm went off a moment later. The intense pain of Tabitha’s sudden head trauma had only just begun to subside, and it felt like she’d been staring in a daze at blood droplets dappling the floor of the Williams family lakehouse only moments ago. Staring now in disbelief at her own now too-plump hands, Tabitha Moore sagged beneath an anguished, horrifying sense of loss.

   She was back to the beginning all over again.

   No—oh no, no, NO! Tabitha sobbed, quaking within the hospital gown she found herself caught in. No. No. No no no. Oh God please, no. You can’t—you can’t take all of that away from me. I can’t do this again. You can’t take all of them away from me. YOU CAN’T.

   “Jesus fucking Christ!” The door across the copper-lined wall shielding of the room burst open and a technician rushed in, followed by a furious Mr. Moore. Tabitha’s ears still rung from the otherworldly clamor of the MRI going berserk, but she still heard her father yelling the same exact words as last time. “You get her the fuck out of there!”

   Every unwelcome sight her teary eyes took in confirmed the worst. The blue orthopedic cast with Alicia’s artwork on it— with her close friends signatures on it— had vanished like it never existed at all, revealing a pudgy but unbroken wrist and hand. Gone too were the lean, graceful muscles she’d honed over the summer, her hard-earned trim physique now once again just soft, doughy fat. It was the least of her worries now, but it still took all the self-control she could muster to not frantically claw and tear at the excess rolls of blubber with her nails.

   I-I can’t. I can’t. I-I can’t DO this again!

   Several figures pushed through the swirl of smoke and managed to pull the sliding examination table out of the enormous cylindrical aperture of the prototype MRI. It was unbearably hot now, and to her horror, in the waning light of the smoke-filled room Tabitha discovered that her fingers now appeared bloated, looking like stumpy-looking sausage appendages.

   In fact, she felt grotesquely swollen all over, her tissues... expanded, like a marshmallow microwaved for too long. Terror took over. Her breath hitched into tiny, useless gasps for air as she began to hyperventilate, and as the people were trying to help sit her up she realized her entire body was now shrunken, misshapen, her center of gravity agreeing that something was terribly wrong with her.

   Eyes stinging with tears, Tabitha looked up into the worried face of her father, and quietly began to have a nervous breakdown.

*    *    *

   There was little for her to say on the trip back home, and much of it passed by Tabitha in a blur. Her existence had only been rolled back by six months this time, but the significance of each of those lost moments took a heavier toll than losing the forty-seven years had before. She was shell-shocked and completely disconsolate, and none of her father’s increasingly concerned questions or strained assurances could penetrate through the raw trauma of the ordeal. Tabitha shrunk over against the passenger door, curled up her loathsome portly body as much as she was able, and wept quietly into her hands for the entire ride.

   After they arrived back in Sunset Estate’s lower park, Mr. Moore parked his truck and then got out, crossing around the vehicle to pull open Tabitha’s door and envelop her in a hug. She discovered she was still just full of more tears to cry, and she did, sobbing and wailing while she hid her face against his shoulder just in front of their mobile home. The sun was setting by the time she calmed down, but she was reluctant to follow him inside.

   It was bad.

   The interior of the trailer was the same awful mess it had been the last time; the carpet was dark and greasy, dirty dishes were abandoned everywhere, the air was so stagnant and thick with body odor it was stifling, and it was dark. The windows were once again all covered, all offending outside light smothered out with the blankets Mrs. Moore had tacked up over them. Not only did Tabitha have no motivation to clean everything up all over again—the feeling of being trapped in here again nearly worked herself up into another crying fit.

   Already trapped in this repulsive fucking body again, Tabitha thought, glaring down her fat arm at the hand with its chubby digits with a scowl. Least my wrist’s not fractured anymore. Just… it’s so hard to even feel positive about that. And... my head is still pounding. Was my head hurting THIS much from the trampoline fall last time?

   Mrs. Moore looked fifteen pounds heavier than Tabitha remembered, the first obvious indication she’d seen that the future Shannon Moore had gradually been losing weight up through Halloween. Not that it fucking matters now. Even moreso than a bit heavier and dumpier-looking, her mother looked resigned; defeated. The unattractive frown lines in her face just beginning to droop into jowls, and her eyes were dead and uncaring.

   It’s… it’s not fair. The gripping sadness Tabitha felt at seeing her mother back like this again was unbearable, a melancholy so intense that it staggered her, and she forced herself to hurry past Mrs. Moore. Things were so different. Everything was getting so much better. I’m—I’m gonna lose it. I’m losing it. I can’t do this again.

*     *     *

   Dinner was baked beans and toasted bread.

   “Hope you’ve learned yer lesson ‘bout those trampoline jumpers,” Mrs. Moore shook her head in dismay. “Yer lucky you didn’t break yer neck.”

   “Yes, Momma,” Tabitha nodded, not daring to meet her mother’s eyes.

   “Hmph,” Mrs. Moore let out a disapproving snort and then continued to noisily fork baked beans into her mouth.

   Somewhere, buried deep beneath the fatty tissue of this TRAILER TRASH awful HAG of a woman... is a former model and aspiring actress, Tabitha thought. It was difficult to believe. How did she come TO THIS? Is it like a role she assumed and just kind of lost herself in? Is any of this FEIGNED? Or, is this just the real Shannon Moore, when you’ve stripped away all of her hopes and dreams, when she’s fallen far, far past caring about anything or anyone?

   The prospect was a little sickening, and Tabitha tried not to think about what must have happened to Shannon Moore all those years ago on the film set of Lucas. She honestly didn’t ever want to think about that, or think about anything, right now. A migraine was continuing to grip her head in a phantom vice, and she was completely burnt out, emotionally exhausted from all of the recent misery. Rather than thinking or speaking, Tabitha carefully ate her portion of baked beans.

   Each forkful she removed from her helping, however, revealed a familiar cream-colored plate with a pink floral motif—the very same one her father had angrily dashed into a wall what felt like some months ago. The recognition brought her nausea back in full force, and she shoved the plate back from her place at the table and made an awkward dash down the hallway towards the toilet to throw up.

   I—don’t want to do this again, Tabitha thought as she hurled. I REALLY don’t want to do this all again.

   “Tabitha sweetie?” Her father called over. “You okay?”

   “I threw up,” Tabitha reported in a hoarse voice, stumbling towards the sink with her gaze averted. She refused to see her reflection in the bathroom mirror right now.

   “You threw up? Are you okay?”

   “...I threw up,” Tabitha repeated in frustration, dabbing water from the faucet across her face and then reaching for her toothbrush. “I’m okay. I just threw up. I don’t feel good.”

   “Well… alright, Sweetie,” her father sounded unsure. “You finishing yer dinner?”

   Tabitha accidentally looked up into the mirror, and a teary-eyed overweight goblin of a little girl glared back at her. It wasn’t a face she ever wanted to see again, and it took some presence of mind to keep her trembling hands from reaching up and clawing at her fleshy cheeks in dismay. She hated seeing this overweight face again, hated it, HATED IT.

   “No,” Tabitha all but snarled out in anger. “I’m not finishing my dinner.”

*     *     *

   Rather than beg off attendance like she had the previous time, Tabitha decided to just go to school the day after her MRI. After all, she was certainly in no hurry to bend over backwards cleaning house all over again. Instead she got dressed, disinterestedly chewed her way through a bowl of slightly stale, generic-brand Apple Jacks—without milk, the Moore family didn’t seem to keep milk stocked in the fridge—and then shuffled off to the bus stop in her grotesque, fat little body. When it arrived, she climbed aboard, unnoticed and ignored by the other middle-schoolers. 

   How many times am I going to go through this… this fucking FARCE? Tabitha wondered. Her mental state was deteriorating to begin with, and her spirit flagged further as she watched the morning scenery crawl by outside the bus window. The first time she’d left a life behind, Tabitha had been sixty years old—she’d had acquaintances rather than actual friends, and she didn’t leave behind anyone she was terribly attached to like a pet or a significant other. 

   This time, the friendships she’d fostered with Alicia and Elena had been painfully torn away from her, as if those experiences never existed. Losing them made her heart ache in ways she would never be able to put into words. The difficulties and happenstance she’d gone through getting close to her mother weren’t something she thought she could duplicate naturally either, and picking apart their complicated relationship with what she knew now felt… wrong.

   I’m... not going to make it, am I? Tabitha thought with a bitter grimace, resting her forehead on the back of the bus seat in front of her. If this THING I’m caught up in is going to repeat itself over and over, if it’s some kind of time loop… I’m not gonna make it. All the foreknowledge and experience in the world won’t spare me from severe clinical depression. Maybe SOMEONE could become hardened enough, jaded or DETACHED enough to cope with all of this—but it won’t be ME. Isn’t all of this mess way, WAY fucking worse than where I started from last time?

   Her mood continued to plummet upon arriving at Laurel middle school, and after climbing down off the bus, her unenthusiastic shuffle became totally discouraged plodding. Middle School. Middle school. Tabitha slowly picked her way towards the portable where Mrs. Hodge taught language arts—by first bell, the other students passing by made her feel like a squat stone stuck in the flow of a lively stream. When she stepped up into the classroom this time, however, she recognized several faces.

   An eighth-grade Elena Seelbaugh turned a derisive glance away from her when Tabitha looked over. The blonde teen instead leaned over to whisper something to her friend... Carrie.

   Tabitha knew it wasn’t rational to expect anything else from the situation, but the raw hurt that dropped on her was a crushing weight upon her psyche, and then the feeling of betrayal all but buried her. Clenching her teeth and blinking back tears, Tabitha waddled the overweight, rotund body she detested more than anything over to her assigned seat and climbed into it, gripping the edge of the desk and trying to reign in her emotions.

   It was impossible.

   Anger and shame rolled over her like waves, crashing again and again into jagged despair and sending up the tumultuous surf and spray of agony. Tabitha hadn’t quite taken a moment to dwell on the implications of her current situation until now, but she was increasingly sure that she’d been violently murdered by Erica Taylor at the Halloween party. Violently murdered. What felt like yesterday to her. The sheer shock and horror of it all weren’t something she felt equipped to cope with.

   Are lives really so… fragile? A really good hit to the temple with a baseball bat, and it’s just… OVER? Just like that? It’s suddenly all over? It certainly seemed logical, but found herself in disbelief and denial all the same. Hell—I wish it really WAS over. I’d rather it all be over than live through it all a THIRD FUCKING TIME.

   “Good morning, everyone,” Mrs. Hodge called out. “After announcements and pledge of allegiance we’re going through the last parts of our review section, and then I’m going to be giving out a language arts practice test. The practice test doesn’t count towards your grade, but it does include all the material that’ll be on the actual final, so I want you to please take it seriously. Some of you boys still have homework you haven’t turned in, so—”

   And CARRIE! Tabitha fumed, unable to bring herself to care about eighth grade language arts. Carrie tried to lure me out of the party, to where I’d be alone with Erica! She HAD to have known what Erica was going to do!

   The shock of returning back to May of 1998 again had occupied her until now, but when morning announcements came on over the school intercom, Tabitha was playing the Halloween party back over again in her head.

   It should have been safe—the party was SUPPOSED to be a safe place to meet Erica, Tabitha scowled. A lot of people were there. Officer Williams was there, there was ADULT PRESENCE at the party, even if they were mostly hanging out over in the kitchen and away from us kids. Erica SHOULDN’T have attacked me.

   Frustrated, Tabitha struggled out of her seat to stand for the pledge of allegiance, but she didn’t recite the words along with everyone else, or even glance towards the flag.

   But… she DID attack me. Assault me. Physically—with a WEAPON, even, Tabitha frowned. It hadn’t been expected. Erica had been characterized as petty and vindictive, but always clever, always one to kill with a borrowed knife, so to speak. Erica fueled rumors and set others against her, but she never used her own hand, never acted directly.

   Wait. That’s not entirely true, Tabitha’s frown deepened. She DID push me off the trampoline. Either her, or her sister did? Damn—wish I could remember more.

    After working the events over in her mind for most of Mrs. Hodge’s review session, the only conclusion Tabitha could arrive at... was that there was something serious going on within the Taylor family. Pushing her off the trampoline and threatening her had been done with the intention of separating her from Ashlee—and, they’d been successful at that. In her original life, Tabitha never tried to meet up with or hang out with Ashlee again. By the time of her next iteration, she’d barely even remembered the girl, choosing instead to put the uncomfortable situation completely out of her mind and focus on other tasks.

   But, they kept on bullying me at Springton High, and no one could really figure out WHY, Tabitha thought, her splitting headache only further dampening her already foul mood. So, when I point Mrs. Cribb in the Taylor’s direction, they of course find the bruises all over Ashlee. Since no one was keen on keeping me in the loop, I only have Erica’s words to go on—something about me taking Ashlee away from them. But, who actually got involved—who did Mrs. Cribb make that call to?

   Did she contact a social worker associated with her Springton school district stuff, or some small-town branch of child protective services? Tabitha wondered. Is there a DIFFERENCE, back here in 1998?

   In the future, she’d been on friendly terms with a very put-together woman named Mrs. Bethany at the Springton town hall, who managed those various local programs. Tabitha didn’t know who—if anyone—was assigned to that equivalent role back here in this time period. Just like the specifications of safety harnesses at the production plant, every little protocol and bylaw government offices dealt with changed all the time, in seemingly asinine little bureaucratic ways.

   If Mrs. Cribb had called the police, Officer Williams would’ve—or should’ve—probably had an inkling about Erica having this potentially dangerous reaction. Right? Instead, from what Elena mentioned the night before, and from that look Mrs. Williams gave Clarissa... it’s like they were expecting Erica to be… to be cowed, to be eager to apologize, to try and absolve herself of blame before the expulsion hearing.

   Which OBVIOUSLY was not the case, Tabitha grimaced. It was getting hard to concentrate with the way her head was pounding. If Erica had— 

   Drops of blood pitter-pattered down upon the print out of the practice test in front of her. Tabitha froze, staring at them for a long moment, and then touched a hand to her face to discover her nose was bleeding.

   What the—? Tabitha stared at her bloody hand in confusion, then cupped it beneath her face to try to catch the flow of red already dripping down her chin. This didn’t happen last time. What did I do differently?

   “Uhhh, Mrs. Hodge?” Elena’s hand shot up, interrupting the silence within the classroom. “Tabby’s bleeding!”

   “Oh, ew!” Someone nearby exclaimed.

   “Tabitha?” Mrs. Hodge hurried down the aisle of desks towards her. “Tabitha—are you alright?”

   Tabitha glanced up at Mrs. Hodge’s concerned expression in a daze, and then over to Elena. For a brief, fleeting moment, it felt like Elena spoke up because she’d been watching her— keeping an eye on her because she cared, because that’s what friends did. The blonde didn’t look worried about her at all, however. Instead, Elena wore an incredulous look of disgust, and then turned again to share a smirking grin with Carrie and her other middle school friends.

   “Um... no,” Tabitha finally said, feeling her eyes water as blood filled her palm and then began dotting across her shirt. “No. I am not alright.” 

( Previous, 5 pt 4 | RE: Trailer Trash | Next: 6 pt 2 )

/// Hoping to have 6 pt 2 ready either tomorrow, or the next day. This isn't a good place to leave you guys off at.