Only You - [Lip Gallagher]

and for that, they're willing to burn

"He seemed pretty serious to me." Carl says. "For a meth head he ran fast." Ian adds, "What the fuck did you two do in that storage last night?" I ask "Fucking Monica, fucking up our lives even in death." Lip scoffs, "Hey, shh. Don't let Fi hear you, she'll go ballistic." Ian says as they all walk towards the table to talk, I follow and sit next to Carl. "So how scary was he? Was he big? Was he tall?" Debs asks in a whisper, "Was he armed? Did he know my name?" She adds on, anxiously. "Because we can be pretty fucking scary too if we have to be." Lip says, "Agreed." Frank says, "Meeting adjourned." Frank says before getting up from the table and walking to the sink, "'Meeting adjourned'?" Ian questions, "You got some magical way to get seventy grand in meth?" Lip asks, "Will cash exchange suffice?" I ask, "What you got seventy grand I don't know about?" Lip scoffs, "No but I have some, Fi still has two bags somewhere." I defend myself. "You're the one who started this shit by robbing the storage unit." Lip scolds Frank as he walks back over to the table with a thermos full of coffee. "That was the old Frank! I'm young Frank. Maybe I'm not even Frank. Maybe it's Francis now." Frank says, "Are you high?" Ian asks, "High on life son. High on possibility." Frank sounds like a hippie. "If you don't help us out I'm going to take a tire iron to old Frank's head." Ian threatens. "You've been a drama queen since the day you were born! Screamed until you were fully detoxed." Frank chuckles. "Listen, this meth head doesn't know where we live." Frank says, "We just have to stay away from the storage unit." He sounds logical. "But, we don't know what Monica has told him." I add, "How do we even know they spoke?" Frank asks, "He said her name and he was sleeping in her storage unit." Carl defends me. "Shit." Frank mutters, "If he does find his way here, we stick to the story. Monica's meth lies with her, god bless her rotting soul." Frank says and then everyone starts shushing him; Fiona's coming downstairs. "Morning." Fiona says as she stares at us all at the table, "Morning." We all say back, "You're here early, Debs." Fiona chuckles, "Yup, gotta go." She says, getting up and rushing out. "Me too." Lip says and I look up at him, rushing out. He hasn't even said happy birthday to me, nobody has. When I said I hope everyone forgot, I didn't mean it.

I sigh as I stand up, "I gotta go too."

I huff as I plop down into my car, Happy Birthday, Sadie!

++

As I'm sitting in the parking lot of a grocery store, drowning myself in all the birthday freebies I got at the drive thrus, I get a call. I smile when I see it's Lip, did he remember? "Hey." "Hey, babe. You busy?" He asks and my smile grows slightly wider, "No why?" "Can I borrow your car? I have a friend who's in trouble." My smile instantly drops, "Who?" "Youens." "Yeah, I'll bring you my car. Where are you?" "I'll meet you at home." He says and I hang up the phone, I don't know if I'm going to kill him or myself; results pending.

++'

"You wanna come?" Lip asks as I throw him my keys, "Nope." I say, walking past him and into the house. I want to wallow in my self pity and not move until tomorrow. I know I say I hate my birthday, and I do. It just hurts when people forget, it just shows how unimportant I am. It's not like this is the first year they've forgotten, it's probably the third year; not in a row just happened three times. I get it, everyday at the Gallagher house is pure chaos, I'm just another part of it.

I'm woken up from my hermit crab nap to yelling coming from out back, "Where's my meth?" I hear a man shout, "Carl! Fiona! Sade!" I hear Ian's voice downstairs, "Carl's out back." I panic as I run down and outside, Ian follows behind, out of breath and holding the community bat. As we step outside we see a man, trying to drown Carl, "Hey!" Ian and I shout as we rush down, "Let him go!" Ian yells then starts beating one of the three men with a bat, another one grabs him and shoves him down, pointing a gun at him. "You want some too?" He asks me as I stand by the steps, "Stay back there." Ian fathers me from the ground. "Monica's dead! We don't know shit about your meth." I say, "Bullshit." The man holding Carl under the water scoffs, "Monica is indestructible, no way she lost seven pounds of meth." He says, pulling Carl up; hearing him gasp like that broke my heart, my poor baby. "Either she smoked it or she sold it or her fucked up family stole it. In any one of those scenarios, I am still owed seventy fucking grand!" He shouts, "Cash?" I ask, "I don't care how I get it, I just better get it." He says, pushing Carl into the water and rounding up his boys, "You know where I'll be. 24 hours, my money or my meth." He says, leaving the lawn. "Carl, baby." I rush over to him, pulling him into an embrace. He holds me tightly, breathing heavily. "You okay?" Ian asks and Carl nods, his eyes are bloodshot. "Come on, let's go inside." I sigh, "Sade, sorry your birthday has been shitty because of Monica." Carl says, "Shit, it's your birthday. I'm sorry, today has been hectic." Ian rambles, "It's okay, let's just figure out how to pay him back so he won't try to hurt any more of you guys." I say as we walk inside.