Lucy sat on her bed and looked sadly around her room with a feeling of gloom hanging over her.
Her parents had redecorated her bedroom and gotten her new clothes for her birthday… but no one asked her what kinds of things she liked. They just bought stuff that they liked for her. Her clothes and her room didn’t feel like hers at all.
“Hey, Lucy!” her older half-sister, Mariah, poked her head into Lucy’s room. Mariah was a grown up and very, very cool, but she and Lucy were very, very different. Lucy always wanted to be with her big sister but sometimes, she thought maybe her big sister wouldn’t want to hang out with her if she acted too babyish so Lucy tried very hard to like the same kinds of grown up things that Mariah did. It was hard, though. Always pretending to be cooler than you are.
“Hi Mimi,” Lucy said with a half-hearted smile. Mariah couldn’t know that Lucy didn’t like her new room and wardrobe. She’d think that was babyish and then she wouldn’t want to play with her anymore.
“Mom and Pops say they just finished your room! Very spooky! I dig it!” Mariah grinned but her grin faltered when her sister didn’t return the enthusiasm. “Hey… what’s up? You don’t like your new room?”
Lucy shrugged. “It’s fine, I guess. I’ll get used to it.”
Her sister raised an eyebrow and knelt in front of her. “Except it’s not fine, is it?” she said. “Spill. What’s wrong?”
Lucy fiddled with her hands and chewed her lip. She wanted Mimi to think she was cool and grown up… but she didn’t want to lie to her, either. She was a grown up and Lucy knew it was wrong to lie to a grown up. “I guess… I don’t really like it… that much,” she finally admitted after some squirming. “Or my new clothes.”
Mariah looked at her sister’s outfit and then around the room, trying to find the problem. “You don’t, huh? What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s gloomy… and it makes me feel gloomy and I don’t like feeling gloomy,” Lucy explained. “I know I’m supposed to like gloomy stuff. I’m a vampire and a Goth on Mom’s side. Vampires and Goths like gloomy stuff. But I just… don’t.”
“Who told you that you had to like gloomy stuff just because you’re a vampire? Or a Goth?” Mariah asked with furrowed brows. Lucy shrugged.
“I’unno… Just everyone else does, so…”
“So what? You’re not everyone else. You’re Lucy. What does Lucy like?”
Lucy clasped her hands together and gave her sister an embarrassed smile. “Pretty things. Pink and sparkles and flowers and just… nice things. Happy things. I can’t go outside in the daytime to see all the bright, colourful things. So I want to have bright, colourful things inside where the sun can’t hurt me.”
Lucy held her breath after her confession, waiting for her sister to laugh at her and call her a baby. Instead, Mariah smiled and winked at her little sister, leaning in close like she was about to divulge a secret. “What do you say we go find all those happy things for your room?”
Lucy’s blue eyes lit up. “Really? Won’t we get in trouble for changing everything without asking Mom and Dad?”
Mariah shrugged. “I’m a grown up. I don’t have to ask them anything. I’m just gonna tell them. Go get ready. The mall’s open late today.”
“And where exactly are you two going at this hour?” Cassandra asked her daughters on their way out.
“Lucy doesn’t like her room. Or her clothes. So I’m getting her a room and clothes she does like,” Mariah said nonchalantly as she picked her sister up and tossed her in the air, making Lucy squeal with excited laughter.
“What? Wait–” Cassandra started but Mariah and Lucy were already on their way to the mall.
“I can pick anything I want, Mimi?! Really?!” Lucy said when they walked in the furniture store. Mariah laughed.
“Anything that’ll fit in your room and that I can afford, sure,” she said. “But Pops’ restaurant pays pretty good and simoleons are for grown-ups to worry about, not you. So don’t think about it too much. Just show me what you like.”
By the end of the shopping trip, Mariah’s bank account was almost empty but she wasn’t worried about her finances. She didn’t have a lot of expenses living with her parents and she wasn’t in a rush to move out until she was sure she could stay clean and sober on her own. She might as well spend her simoleons on her reason for staying clean in the first place.
“How are we gonna get all this big furniture home, Mimi? Are you gonna use your magic?”
Mariah laughed as she swiped her bank card. “Yeah, the magic of next day shipping.”
Despite their parents’ protests, Mariah refused to allow them in Lucy’s room the next day when new stuff started arriving at the house. She and Lucy spent all day replacing everything. The wallpaper, the carpet, and all the furniture went out to the curb and all the new stuff was brought in. Mariah let her sister be the boss and decide where she wanted everything to go. No one had allowed Lucy to have any input the last time her space was redecorated. This time, Lucy would get to create her own space that made her happy.
Late in the evening, Mariah finally got the last piece of furniture in placed exactly the way Lucy wanted it.
“Ready to bring in Mom and Pops?” she asked.
“Not yet! I wanna look pretty in my new clothes, too!” Lucy insisted. “I wanna look as happy as my room! Can I wear some of your makeup, Mimi? Pretty please?” she begged.
“All my makeup’s dark and gloomy,” Mariah laughed. “But I think I have some blush and lip gloss lying around you might like.”
Lucy changed into her favourite new outfit. Mariah brushed her sister’s cheeks with a little blush and showed her how to apply some clear lip gloss in the bathroom mirror.
“Okay, Mimi. Now I’m ready to show Mom and Dad.”
Cassandra’s eyes went wide and she placed a hand over her chest when she walked into Lucy’s bedroom with her husband. “It’s so… cheerful,” she commented with a frown.
“I know! Isn’t it pretty, Mommy?” Lucy was practically bouncing up and down with excitement. “And look at my new clothes! Mimi let me use some of her makeup but I promise it’s just blush and lip gloss, it’s not like grown up makeup,” she assured them.
“I see them. They’re very… sparkly…” her mother said uncertainly. “Um, sweetie? What was wrong with your old bedroom? It was so nice and dreary. Black is such a soothing colour.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Yeah. For you. But it makes me sad.”
“But I thought you loved black,” her father said in bemusement.
“Actually,” Mariah stepped in to defend her little sister. “No one ever actually asked her what she likes. You just assumed she was into the macabre aesthetic because everyone else in this family is.”
Lucy looked up at her parents with wide pleading eyes. “Please don’t make me put my room back the way it was and change into my old clothes. I love what Mimi got for me because I got to pick it out. Pretty things make me happy.”
Her parents looked at each other, having a silent conversation with nothing but their facial expressions. After several moments of this silent back-and-forth, they both nodded.
“If it makes you happy, sweetheart, then you can keep what your sister bought for you,” Cassandra said with a smile. “We just didn’t know you liked colourful things.”
“And we’re sorry we assumed and never bothered to ask, honey,” Caleb added. “We’re going to have to get used to the fact that you’re a big girl now with your own interests and tastes.”
“YES! Thank you thank you thank youuuu!!!” Lucy bounced up and down and hugged both her parents. “I wanna hang out with Mimi in my new room now, please. No grown ups allowed. Except Mimi,” she announced confidently as the queen of her new four-walled kingdom.
Caleb chuckled and shook his head. “Banned from the kingdom of Queen Lucy, are we? Alright, alright. Your mom and I need to get dinner started, anyway. You girls have fun.”
When they left, the sisters could just barely hear their mother mutter to her husband in the hall, “My mother is going to faint when she sees her in pink glitter at the next family gathering, Caleb…”
In honour of Lucy’s newfound freedom of expression, Mariah suggested they do their nails together so Lucy could have pretty pink nails to match her new clothes.
“Hey, Mimi? Thanks for still wanting to hang out with me,” Lucy said while they filed their nails on her bed.
“Why wouldn’t I want to hang out with you? You’re my favourite person in the whole world.”
Lucy beamed with pride when her sister said that. “I dunno, you’re just a lot older than me and a cool grownup and everything. I thought you might think I was babyish for not liking the grownup stuff you and Mom and Dad like. I wanted you to think I was cool enough to hang out with you.”
“Hey,” Mariah stopped filing her nails and looked her sister in the eye. “You know what’s cool as hell? Being yourself. That’s badass. Especially when everyone expects you to be like them.”
Lucy giggled. “You said bad words.”
“I did. You gonna tell on me?” Mariah grinned.
“Nope.”
Snarky Sims 