BREAKABLE

Text ©2002 Roger E. Moore (roger70129@aol.com)
Daria and associated characters are ©2002 MTV Networks


[AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was one of the original versions of what finally became 
the tale "Winter in Hell." This early version took place during the summer, when Sandi's 
life began to come unraveled. All of this material is in rough-draft form.]


Feedback (good, bad, indifferent, just want to bother me, whatever) is appreciated. Please 
write to: roger70129@aol.com

Synopsis: In the summer before her senior year, Sandi Griffin's life takes a dramatic turn.

Rated R (explicit language, sexual situations, intense family conflict)

Author's Notes: The events in this story take place after the "Daria" TV movie, "Is It 
College Yet?" The story begins in mid-July, during Daria's last summer at home before 
she heads off to college in Boston, and before Quinn and her friends become high-school 
seniors.


MONDAY

	On a Monday, in the last week in June before her senior year, Sandi Griffin 
caught the flu. She woke up at three in the morning, aching all over, face and skin 
burning, sweating like a fountain even with the air conditioner on, the ceiling fan on, 
nothing but a tee and undies on, and lying on top of her sheets. She had to pee, so she got 
up and wandered into the bathroom--and began shivering like mad the second her feet 
touched the cool tile floor. What the hell is this? she thought, and hurried to finish and get 
back into bed A.S.A.P., shoving her legs under the sheets and light blanket, striving to 
save every bit of warmth. Christ, I can't be sick! This isn't fair! Things have got to get 
turned around for me right now, or this whole summer's going to be one big ball of crap!
	The ball of crap quickly got crappier. She fell asleep again, but when she woke up 
just before seven, her throat hurt and she had trouble swallowing. Everything was soaked 
with her sweat--sheets, undies, tee, pillow, everything--and she was still sweating. She 
forced herself out of bed and into the shower, shivering so badly she almost fell. 
Changing into sweats, slippers, and bathrobe, she wandered out of her room and 
immediately encountered Sam, who at age fifteen could finally look his older sibling in 
the eyes.
	"Jesus," Sam muttered as they passed each other in the hall, "you look like shit."
	"Go to hell." Sandi kept walking for the stairs, wondering if she could get 
downstairs without falling.
	"Bitch," Sam said pleasantly as he walked into his own room and shut the door 
behind him.
	Sandi maneuvered downstairs without too much trouble, got into the kitchen, and 
took her temperature with the digital thermometer in the cabinet. She ran a fever of 102.9 
with the worst sore throat she'd had in years, and she was starting to sweat again. She 
shoved the thermometer aside and noticed, then, for the first time, that someone had left 
the bourbon out. She considered pouring herself something, but her stomach wasn't 
settled. She'd just throw it right back up. She opened the refrigerator and stood there 
motionless, letting the cool air wash over her. She soon opened her bathrobe and flapped 
her sweatshirt, sending the cold over her chest. This was the worst flu she could ever 
recall.


and she stayed in bed and called Quinn and Stacy and Tiffany and complained, but only 
Quinn stayed on the phone for more than two minutes with her. Stacy was working at the 
[cheese] store in [mall] and said she couldn't take another break for four hours, she had to 
go back out and give away more free samples of the lite-beer-flavored cheese log with 
crushed peanuts in it, goodbye Sandi I hope you get better click. Stacy had never brushed 
Sandi off like that before. Sandi remembered now that Stacy was taking some sort of 
class to be a better person, an assertiveness class, and it struck Sandi that Stacy had just 
used what she'd learned from that class to be more assertive to her, Sandi. If Stacy had 
walked into Sandi's bedroom and slapped her and called her a bitch, the blow would have 
been no less deep.
	Dazed, Sandi next called Tiffany, but Tiffany was drowsy and not very talkative 
even for Tiffany, she was sitting in a deck chair by her parents' backyard pool under an 
umbrella with a fruity drink on a table beside her, and when Sandi was complaining about 
her neck glands being swollen she heard Tiffany snoring softly and realized that Tiffany 
had not been listening for the last five minutes at least, and Sandi slammed the receiver 
down as hard as possible and hoped Tiffany had the phone right up to her eardrum.
	"God, Sandi," said Quinn, five minutes later. Sandi could hear Quinn walking on 
a tile floor, then she heard a refrigerator door open and jars move around on a metal shelf. 
"That is just the totally pits. I can't believe you have the flu in the middle of summer. 
This just sucks out loud."
	"Am I disturbing you, Quinn?" asked Sandi, the old familiar poison seeping into 
her voice.
	"Disturbing me? No, why?"
	"You sound like you're about to have lunch. Perhaps I should call back when 
you're full and able to pay attention."
	She heard a soft thump as a refrigerator door shut. "Oh, Sandi, I'm listening. 
Nothing's going on here. Have you taken any medicine yet?"
	"I took three aspirin an hour ago, but it doesn't help. Perhaps I should take 
something else and see if that works. Everyone's gone, and the TV has nothing but 
reruns."
	"Listen, Sandi, how'd you like a little company?"
	"I dunno. You're probably very busy with whatever it is you usually do about this 
time, having lunch maybe, so I should let you go--"
	But of course Quinn showed up twenty minutes later with Sandi's favorite ice 
cream, a double scoop of French vanilla on a sugar cone, the only fatty treat Sandi 
allowed herself (one per week maximum), and Quinn sat on a chair beside Sandi's bed 
and they talked about being sick and going out with guys and the latest clothes and what 
the other girls were doing and what was left to do that summer and who there was left in 
the world worth dating seriously--but Sandi had said nothing about Gordon to Quinn, nix, 
nothing, nada, nothing at all. Gordon was her secret ace. Gordon was a guy Sandi could 
date in secret because he did not go to Lawndale, almost no one in Lawndale knew about 
him though he was Oakwood's star football player and the coolest of cool guys, and 
Quinn would never have the chance to steal him from Sandi as Quinn had stolen so many 
of Sandi's other dream guys. And Gordon was rumored to be good, really good, in that 
way Sandi had wanted to try out for two years now, and so they had done it, and


[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Several possible beginnings to this tale were explored. The 
following is another one that was also not used, incorporating much of the above. I tend 
to just write off the top of my head, so there are a lot of plot loopholes, etc. This isn't 
finished in any way, just a rough draft. Please forgive the errors.]


	Sandi Griffin wandered out of the Oakwood Medical Arts Building at 2:36 p.m., 
on a Friday afternoon in the middle of the hottest day so far that August, and she had 
nowhere in the world to go. She wore her ugliest outfit, the white skirt and blouse with 
the little yellow bears all over it, the outfit she never wore but never got rid of because it 
was the perfect example of the worst outfit ever, absolute proof that her Aunt Gladys had 
no sense at all about fashion when it came to birthday gifts, a thing to show to close 
friends only. Now the dress was a disguise, something she would exchange for another 
outfit and throw away so no one would know it was her who had been here, and the 
disguise would have been perfect except that Sandi came outside into the bright sunlight 
without first putting on her sunglasses and hair scarf. She'd completely forgotten them. 
Her mind was like a shatterproof window that has been hit so hard it turns into a milky 
spider web, still hanging in space in one piece, useless and beyond repair. You can see 
the shattered window but nothing beyond it, so the sunglasses and hair scarf stayed in 
Sandi's purse.
	Sandi gripped her ugliest purse of all with her right hand, every muscle in her 
body knotted by terror, the ugliest purse tucked under her arm and its ugly strap over her 
shoulder, and with every step Sandi knew something would happen, she would get 
bumped or her arm would be paralyzed or something, and she would drop the purse and it 
would fall open and in an eye blink out would fall the doctor's computer printout that 
looked like a coded message from Mars, on which was her name and the words 
Provisional diagnosis: Genital herpes and someone would see it and know Sandi has done 
it now, Sandi has genital herpes, and--like magic!--everyone would know, everyone 
would tell, and her mother would find out and throw her out of the house, but what did it 
matter now if she did throw Sandi out? What did it matter at all? It was as sure to happen 
as the sun was sure to rise in the morning.
	And she itched. Sandi thought would drive her mad if it did not kill her first.
	Sandi had no urge yet to cry. It was too soon, she was too wrung out to even start, 
and too much was left to absorb before she would be anywhere near crying. She stood on 
the street corner in downtown Oakwood, barely aware of how she'd gotten there from the 
Medical Arts Building, and sweat ran down her forehead into her eyes and down her neck 
into her bra. It was hot, so hot that images only a block away swam in the heat radiating 
from the street, and no matter what she did or thought, she itched. It was a hellish burning 
itch and she wanted nothing more than to touch it, to do anything at all to relieve that itch 
and make it go away, because the hellish itching was down there, in that place, but she 
knew she could never touch it because pus from the blisters down there would infect her 
fingers (the doctor told her) and she could get it in her eyes (the doctor told her) and she 
could suffer eye damage and possibly go blind (ditto), but what did that matter now? If 
she were blind, how could that be any worse than this? How?
	Sandi blinked, standing on the boiling street corner, feeling the ungodly itch and 
the weight of the computer printout in her purse and the trails of sweat soaking through 
the back of her ugly white dress with the yellow bears on it, her underwear sticking to her 
like a wet bathing suit, and she half-yawned without wanting to because she had been 
awake since three-fifty in the morning when she had to get up to pee, and the pain and 
burning she felt shocked her into full wakefulness. A shower didn't help, and soap in the 
affected area stung like crazy. Driven by a gnawing fear that she did know what the 
problem was, she sneaked downstairs into her mother's study at 4:30 a.m. and got on the 
Internet, and ten minutes later, she had the bad news in full color in front of her, courtesy 
of a medical website on communicable sexual diseases.
	At first, of course, as happens with everyone when confronted with the worst 
news imaginable, Sandi thought there must be some mistake. This was just impossible. 
This would not really happen to her. It would all turn out to be something else and she 
would soon forget it. For one thing, Gordon couldn't possibly have given it to her, even 
though he was the only possible source of the infection. She'd dated him four times, he 
was a super dresser, he knew how to get good beer and he had a cool red car and he was 
Oakwood's best football star, and she was on the Pill and secretly had been since June 
without her mother or anyone on Earth knowing,
	but she also knew that
	Gordon had promised to use a condom, but he said it didn't matter with her being 
on the Pill and it would feel infinitely better for both of them without the condom 
anyway, and he wouldn't let her see or touch him down there, and it was dark and the 
flashlight went out and there were rocks and sticks under the blanket that pressed into her 
back, plus the damn mosquitoes, and when Gordon tried to put it inside her, it hurt, it hurt 
a lot, she even cried out when he got it inside her that it hurt, and she remembered 
Gordon saying it shouldn't hurt that much, what was the matter with her, what was the 
problem, it would be great if she just relaxed, he knew just what to do even though Sandi 
had secretly read dozens of illustrated books on sex at various bookstores and she knew 
exactly what do to until the very moment she was actually doing it with a guy who said 
that he knew exactly what to do, a guy she thought it would be wonderful to do it with,
	but it hurt like hell
	and after a while he stopped doing it and got up mad and got dressed because it 
hurt her so much she was crying and Gordon said forget it, this is stupid, it isn't worth it, 
and he drove her home and let her out of his candy-red [car] after she fixed her makeup, 
and he never called her again. Gone, just like that. She couldn't get him at his home 
number, which turned out to be his father's phone number, and his father said Gordon 
had just gone back to live with his mother on the other side of Oakwood, like he always 
did at the end of summer, and his father wanted nothing to do with Sandi. He told her to 
stop calling, goddamn it, and he hung up. That was a week ago.
	On Tuesday of the same week, Sandi caught the flu. It sure seemed like the flu, as 
she ached all over and her neck hurt and she had trouble swallowing and she felt as lousy 
as shit. She ran a fever of 102 with the worst headache she'd had in two years, and she 
stayed in bed and called Quinn and Stacy and Tiffany and complained, but only Quinn 
stayed on the phone for more than two minutes with her. Stacy was working at the 
[cheese] store in [mall] and said she couldn't take another break for four hours, she had to 
go back out and give away more free samples of the lite-beer-flavored cheese log with 
crushed peanuts in it, goodbye Sandi I hope you get better click. Stacy had never brushed 
Sandi off like that before. Sandi remembered now that Stacy was taking some sort of 
class to be a better person, an assertiveness class, and it struck Sandi that Stacy had just 
used what she'd learned from that class to be more assertive to her, Sandi. If Stacy had 
walked into Sandi's bedroom and slapped her and called her a bitch, the blow would have 
been no less deep.
	Dazed, Sandi next called Tiffany, but Tiffany was drowsy and not very talkative 
even for Tiffany, she was sitting in a deck chair by her parents' backyard pool under an 
umbrella with a fruity drink on a table beside her, and when Sandi was complaining about 
her neck glands being swollen she heard Tiffany snoring softly and realized that Tiffany 
had not been listening for the last five minutes at least, and Sandi slammed the receiver 
down as hard as possible and hoped Tiffany had the phone right up to her eardrum.
	"God, Sandi," said Quinn, five minutes later. Sandi could hear Quinn walking on 
a tile floor, then she heard a refrigerator door open and jars move around on a metal shelf. 
"That is just the totally pits. I can't believe you have the flu in the middle of summer. 
This just sucks out loud."
	"Am I disturbing you, Quinn?" asked Sandi, the old familiar poison seeping into 
her voice.
	"Disturbing me? No, why?"
	"You sound like you're about to have lunch. Perhaps I should call back when 
you're full and able to pay attention."
	She heard a soft thump as a refrigerator door shut. "Oh, Sandi, I'm listening. 
Nothing's going on here. Have you taken any medicine yet?"
	"I took three aspirin an hour ago, but it doesn't help. Perhaps I should take 
something else and see if that works. Everyone's gone, and the TV has nothing but 
reruns."
	"Listen, Sandi, how'd you like a little company?"
	"I dunno. You're probably very busy with whatever it is you usually do about this 
time, having lunch maybe, so I should let you go--"
	But of course Quinn showed up twenty minutes later with Sandi's favorite ice 
cream, a double scoop of French vanilla on a sugar cone, the only fatty treat Sandi 
allowed herself (one per week maximum), and Quinn sat on a chair beside Sandi's bed 
and they talked about being sick and guys and clothes and what the other girls were doing 
and what was left to do that summer and who there was left in the world worth dating 
seriously--but Sandi had said nothing about Gordon to Quinn, nothing, nada, nothing at 
all. Gordon was her secret ace. Gordon was a guy Sandi could date in secret because he 
did not go to Lawndale, almost no one in Lawndale knew about him though he was 
Oakwood's star football player and the coolest of cool guys, and Quinn would never have 
the chance to steal him from Sandi as Quinn had stolen so many of Sandi's other dream 
guys. And Gordon was rumored to be good, really good, in that way Sandi had wanted to 
try out for two years now, and so they had done it, and so Sandi was here now on a street 
corner in Oakwood half out of her disguise and with nowhere to go but straight down.
	The flu had just been the herpes, getting started on its work.
	I can't get married, she thought, sweat running down her legs into her ugly shoes. 
Who would want to marry me now? I can't go out on another date. I can't have a 
precious little baby without having a C-section because my baby would get herpes, but 
how could I ever have a baby if I will never have sex again, just that one time with 
Gordon that will never go away as long as I live, my first and only time and that was IT, 
no one will ever want me for sex or love or anything ever again, and I can't even pee 
without biting down on something so I won't scream because it hurts so much, it burns 
like someone stuck a cigarette lighter right up to me down there, and why didn't it occur 
to me that this would happen? Why did I do it? I wanted to have a good time, that's all I 
wanted--I wanted to have a good time before Quinn had the same kind of good time, so I 
could say I did it first, with a really good guy who would give his best to me, and here I 
am now, and isn't that funny? Aren't I a scream?
	Sandi dully blinked. The light had changed, for the sixth or seventh time since she 
first reached the street corner, and she realized it was flashing WALK. She walked across 
the intersection to the parking garage thinking maybe a car will run over me and get this 
over with fast, I can put up with a lot of pain if it doesn't last very long, but it didn't 
happen, and she kept her hands away from where it itched, knotting her shoulders to keep 
her arms still and chewing down on her tongue instead. The back of her ugly dress was 
completely soaked through by now. She kept her gaze low as she walked across the street 
for the garage. She did not look up. She did not look around.
	She did not see Daria Morgendorffer and Jane Lane sitting in the Internet café 
across the street from her, watching her through tinted glass over their cups of exotic 
flavored coffee and wondering what Sandi Griffin was doing coming out of the Oakwood 
Medical Arts Building on a hot Friday afternoon, and why Sandi, the former president of 
the Lawndale High School Fashion Club, would wear such an ugly dress in public.

FINIS