A Different Kind Of Dysfunction - A Shameless Fanfiction (Book One)

Tessa had never snuck out before.

Not because she was a rule-follower.

Because there were never rules — just chaos.

Curfews didn’t exist in the Whitman house. Privacy didn’t either. Everything ran on survival, not structure. If you got through the night without a broken nose or a screaming match, you were doing great.

So sneaking out felt less like rebellion and more like breathing.

She just wanted one night.
One hour.
Something that felt normal. Stupid. Free.

Lily understood before Tessa even finished asking.

They slipped out after 1 a.m., while Adeline was passed out on the couch, one arm flung over a pile of laundry. Sophie was out at the Gallaghers’. Rory hadn’t come home yet.

The apartment was dead quiet.

Perfect.

They didn’t go far — just two blocks down to the playground behind the closed elementary school. Swings creaked in the wind. The streetlights buzzed overhead. Everything smelled like cold dirt and leftover rain.

Lily climbed to the top of the jungle gym and lay on her back, staring up at the gray night sky.

Tessa curled into a swing, legs tucked up, rocking gently.

It wasn’t much.

But it was theirs.

---

“This is so dumb,” Lily whispered after a while, smiling. “I love it.”

“I know,” Tessa said. “Me too.”

For a minute, neither spoke.

Then Lily’s voice cracked slightly. “I forgot what quiet sounds like.”

Tessa looked up at her sister, silhouetted against the flickering light.

Lily looked older tonight.

Not grown — but not fifteen either.

More like someone who’d been fighting too long to remember what soft felt like.

Tessa knew that look too well.

“Do you ever wish we ran away?” Lily asked suddenly.

Tessa didn’t answer right away.

She wanted to say no.

Wanted to say they had each other and that was enough.

But she couldn’t lie. Not to Lily.

“Sometimes,” she said. “Just... not alone.”

---

They didn’t see the headlights until it was too late.

A car screeched into the lot, tires sliding on gravel.
The driver’s door slammed.

And then Adeline’s voice shattered the quiet:

“Are you FUCKING kidding me?!”

Tessa’s stomach dropped.

Lily scrambled off the jungle gym like it was on fire.

Adeline stormed across the grass, jacket half-buttoned, hair wild, face tight with fury and something worse — panic.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” she yelled.

Tessa stood up slowly, guilt slamming into her like a truck.

“I’m sorry—”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it!” Adeline screamed. “Do you have any idea what could’ve happened?!”

“We just needed some air,” Lily said defensively, voice small.

“At 1 a.m.?! Alone?! Without telling anyone?!”

Adeline’s voice cracked.

Tessa blinked.

She’d heard Adeline yell before.

But not like this.

Not shaking.

Not with tears already brimming in her eyes.

“You think I don’t worry about you every second of the day?” Adeline said, her voice cracking again. “You think I’m not already terrified that someone’s gonna come take you all away?! That I’ll wake up and one of you will be gone?!”

Tessa stepped closer. “We didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t think at all!” Adeline snapped, wiping her face with her sleeve. “You’re just kids. You don’t get how close we are to losing everything.”

Lily’s shoulders dropped.

“I didn’t know you’d wake up,” she said quietly.

“I always wake up,” Adeline said, trembling. “I never sleep. I don’t get to. Because if I do, something bad might happen. Because if I do, someone might disappear. Because if I do—”

She broke.

The tears hit fast and hard.

Adeline collapsed onto the cold ground, one hand covering her mouth like she could hold it in, but it poured out anyway — heavy, ugly sobs that cracked something open in all of them.

Tessa froze.

Lily took a step back.

Neither of them had ever seen her like this.

Not once.

Adeline Whitman didn’t cry.

She yelled. She worked. She carried everyone.

But now she was breaking in front of them, and it felt wrong, like gravity reversing.

Tessa dropped to her knees next to her sister and wrapped her arms around her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, over and over. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Lily stood frozen for a second more — then dropped too, pressing her head to Adeline’s shoulder.

“I didn’t think,” she whispered.

Adeline clutched them both like lifelines.

Her body still shook.

But she breathed.

And slowly, the panic bled out.

---

They sat there in the cold dirt for a long time — the oldest Whitman and two of the youngest — huddled together under the humming streetlights.

When Adeline finally spoke, her voice was hoarse.

“I can’t do this without you.”

“You don’t have to,” Tessa said quietly.

“But you can’t scare me like that,” Adeline added. “I can’t survive it.”

Lily nodded into her shoulder. “We won’t. We promise.”

Adeline closed her eyes.

And for the first time in weeks, she believed them.

---

They rode home together in silence, holding hands.

Not because they were afraid of getting lost.

But because they finally realized what it would mean if they ever did.

[Word count: ~849 words]