“Fucking high school, dude. Whose idea was that? I thought I would have dropped out, like, on principle. Y’know, I’m all for education and everything, but the American school system is a sick joke. Total scam.”
“I never doubted you,” Angela said simply. “You’ve always been smart.”
"Uh, no shit,” scoffed Darlene. “Not because of that.”
Before anyone else, there was Angela. And those fucking sunglasses.
Set in pre-canon ranging from 2002-2011. | ao3
The first time Darlene ever heard of Lolita, she was 12 years old.
“You have to promise not to tell anyone I showed you this,” Angela stressed with the remote clenched between both hands. “I had to be sneaky. This one was in the restricted section.”
Darlene promised. She always promised, just as somberly as she was asked, despite the dizzying rush of euphoria threatening to upturn the edges of her mouth. She would wait for Angela to smile first and slip her hand into Darlene’s, which she always did, before letting her excitement shine through. It made everything else go fuzzy, like all that existed was their own little world. A secret one. A better one. She knew Angela had loved The Secret Garden, too. Sometimes Darlene imagined it was theirs.
Angela was 14, but to Darlene, she might as well have been an adult. It meant she was old enough to work at the Washington Township Public Library part-time, and to have access to the video collection without the burden of a paper trail. Darlene couldn’t even borrow things from the teen section yet. Not that it stopped her from slipping books under her shirt to take home anyway. Go Ask Alice had nearly tumbled onto the floor when she tripped on the leg of a chair on her way out; that hadn’t been worth the hype or the stubbed toe. But she’d devoured Girl, Interrupted. She wondered just what Angela was getting her into.
It wasn’t like it was the first time she had seen something that was made for adults. Elliot had been watching horror movies since before her dad died, when he was younger than her. It was a point of pride to the siblings that they could handle just about anything. For all intents and purposes, desensitization was family tradition—something that was true both on and off screen. It wasn’t like they could ever run to their mother. Magda’s idea of comfort was a dispassionate, “Get used to it.” through a mouthful of cigarette smoke at best, or an oozing welt as a reminder of the real horrors of the world at worst. They had learned that handling fear on your own was preferable to another dime-sized burn mark that meant long sleeves for weeks even in the middle of summer—which it was, then.
But Lolita wasn’t horror. It was… beautiful, in a way that unsettled Darlene's stomach and made her heart beat fast. It was… wrong, in a way that reddened her cheeks and made her squeeze Angela’s hand, studying her face as if wondering how she should be feeling. The only light in the room came from the chunky TV set a foot or so in front of them, dancing in Angela’s wide eyes as she stared utterly enthralled at the scene in front of her. She was beautiful—everything Darlene wasn’t, delicate, blond, and so… normal, comparatively. No, that wasn’t fair. She knew Angela carried the death of her mother as heavily as she carried the death of her own father. But there was something so steadily in control about Angela that she admired. She never screamed until her throat was raw, or smashed anything just to feel it break. Never shoved or punched or threatened. She never doubted that no matter what, everything is going to be okay. When things were bad, she buried herself in something else. Books, movies, TV shows—usually romance, or adventure, never too far out of the realm of possibility. From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was the unfaltering answer to the question of Angela’s favorite book for years. She kept it in her bag and took it everywhere she went. That was, until Lolita.
Watching Lolita was merely the catalyst for Angela to read Lolita, which took longer than most of the books she read. Probably about a month. Maybe two. Darlene knew because she paid attention to where Angela’s bookmarks rested as they inched their way through the pages, because Angela was the type of person who used bookmarks, which was probably a requirement to work at the library—but Darlene wasn’t going to ask any questions that might sound stupid. She carried that book around and studied more than read it, like it was a puzzle or a math problem. Darlene tried to read it exactly once and understood immediately why. The prose dripped with floral self-indulgence, painted in wild delicate strokes that were vivid, but felt tedious, even for someone who liked to read. The movie was better. Or, at least, that was what Darlene settled on at the time.
By the end credits, Darlene hadn’t been sure that they’d watched the same film. Angela’s eyes shone with mist, one hand clutched to her chest and bunching her shirt between her fingers. Where Darlene swam with a confusing mix of nervousness, flush excitement, and heady fascination, Angela seemed to ache with something more melancholic. Next time it better be Interview with the Vampire, she thought to herself. Now that was worth mooning over.
But Angela wasn't so quick to move on. That night marked a bigger change in her. A week or two later, she purchased a pair of golden sunglasses with heart-shaped frames from a mall kiosk when she happened upon them. For the entire summer they sat either on the crown of her head or the bridge of her nose for as long as she was conscious. Darlene thought she wore them well. By the school year, freshman Angela was sketching old-fashioned suits and bow-ties in the margins of her notebooks, plaiting her hair in braids, growing fascinated with boys and men and the way they might look at her. She cast longing glances in classrooms and grocery stores—toward gross, old creeps, Darlene would describe candidly, to indignant eye rolls from Angela. She played along with Angela’s fantasies because to do otherwise was a stark reminder of the developmental gap between them, which had been ignorable in most meaningful ways until then. That consideration felt like ice in the pit of Darlene’s stomach. It was enough to decide that she, too, loved Lolita. When she helped pin back stray blond hairs for Angela’s braids, it was close enough to true.
Eventually Angela stopped carrying the book. By college, she had long moved on. The summer after graduation meant picking over her childhood bedroom as she prepared to move into her first apartment in the city. Elliot had graciously agreed to start loading the already-packed boxes while Darlene and Angela fussed over the remaining items. The two of them were sweaty for the lack of AC—that, Angela had taken already, knowing that the rising heat of a stories-high New York apartment beat out the second floor of a Washington Township family home any day. It was from between the headboard and the mattress that Angela dug out the sunglasses, only slightly scratched, and laughed. She held them up and shook her head.
“You remember these things? I can’t believe I still have them. I thought I lost them after your high school graduation—”
“The night we broke into the pool?”
“When you shoved me into it because I told you I wasn’t going to commit public indecency on top of breaking and entering? Yeah. That's the one.”
“Bitch. That is not how I remember it,” Darlene protested. “Besides, skinny dipping is not public indecency for girls like us. It’s public service.”
“You were pretty plastered,” Angela's laugh was light, dismissive. “You probably don’t remember most of it.”
That wasn’t true. Darlene remembered.
Elliot had been having some kind of episode for the past few weeks, which extra sucked because it meant that, considering she wasn’t even sure her mother would have attended her own daughter's funeral, it would leave her with no one to look out on in the audience as she walked across stage. Not that she wanted to do that. In fact, it was a major relief to unburden herself from the expectation. It wasn’t like she had paid for the cap and gown anyway. Fuck a ceremony.
So she’d called up Angela, who had been there about as quickly as anyone could get from the city to the suburbs of New Jersey. When she arrived, those damn sunglasses were back with her. They were hiding in the back pocket of a pair of old cutoffs, she told Darlene as she lifted them up over her forehead. Then the massive, rocking hug, a lean back to really take her in. Look at you. How does it feel to be free? The frames held her hair back from her round, beaming face so that Darlene could see the pride in her eyes. She had to say it felt pretty fucking good, right then.
The public pool was a detour, and short lived one at that. They were forced to give up soon after Angela’s impromptu baptism when they heard movements from inside the building. Darlene caught sight of the glasses at the lip of the pool on their way out. They had been knocked off before Angela hit the water, and Darlene clutched them tightly in her fist until they made it the several blocks back to Angela’s house. Looking over their shoulders, a trail of splattered drips and wet footprints behind them, intoxicated by their own stupidity, they ran all the way home. Darlene had borrowed some clothes, ones Angela hadn’t worn since high school—ones she might have worn that Lolita summer, though it blurred together now. They’d curled up in Angela’s family living room then, too, passing one of Angela’s surprisingly neat joints back and forth and sipping directly from a bottle of sparkling white wine—distinctly not champagne, because neither one of them could afford that. They’d made each other laugh until they cried imagining someone chasing after them, and when Angela slipped her hand into Darlene’s after their laughter had died into quiet, fond smiles, she leaned her head onto Darlene’s shoulder.
“Congrats,” she said softly.
“Thanks,” said Darlene. Being crossfaded had her feeling uncharacteristically sincere. “Wasn’t sure I was going to make it there for a sec.”
“What do you mean?” Angela lifted her head to look at Darlene’s face, searchingly. She frowned.
Darlene gave a simple, sharp exhale, colored by the awareness that her giving a shit was funny in itself. “Fucking high school, dude. Whose idea was that? I thought I would have dropped out, like, on principle. Y’know, I’m all for education and everything, but the American school system is a sick joke. Total scam.”
“I never doubted you,” Angela said simply. “You’ve always been smart.”
“Uh, no shit,” scoffed Darlene. “Not because of that.”
Angela turned fully, tugging Darlene’s hand until they were face to face. “What, then?”
"Ugh. You're gonna make me say it." Darlene huffed again, one side of her mouth twisting down as her lips parted, then both sides curling up into something wry, almost embarrassed as she found her words. “It wasn’t so bad when you were there,” she admitted. Elliot, four years older, had graduated in spring and been entering college by the start of her freshman classes. His absence was default. It was Angela who had been there for at least the first two years and taught her everything she knew about surviving in such a Neanderthal wasteland. She stared down at their interlaced fingers and put her second hand atop of them, rubbing a thumb over the back of Angela’s knuckles. “But…”
Something brushed Darlene’s cheek. Her eyes flicked back up to Angela’s, who, she realized with a jolt that made her acutely aware of her whole body, was now much closer than she had been. Angela's fingertips traced down, then curled under her ear, threading into her wet hair and leaving her palm to warm her jaw. She ran her thumb over Darlene’s cheekbone and exhaled with a tenderness in her eyes that made Darlene’s throat tighten.
“I know,” Angela whispered. “You're not crazy. I missed you, too.”
The distance between them closed like it had never existed in the first place, Angela’s lips so soft against hers, so unlike the rough, expectant kisses she was familiar with from boys, or the nervous fumbling of first-time girl-on-girl-kissers. She pressed against her with certainty and sweetness and Darlene felt herself lean in, untangling her hands from between them so she could wrap her arms around Angela’s torso and pull her closer. Her shirt rode up to reveal the pale skin of her stomach and back with the movement. Darlene’s hands ran over the warmth of her and then found purchase on her hips, fingers digging into her back and her thumbs hooking under the waistband of her pajama shorts as she tugged Angela's full weight on top of her. Angela pulled back and looked down at her with heavy lidded eyes, chest heaving now, and Darlene, lips parted, staring with fogged wonder, desperate for her to return to—
Angela shrugged in the silence. She turned the sunglasses over in her hands. “I don’t have much use for these anymore. You think I should toss them?”
Darlene blinked herself back to reality, jumping suddenly toward Angela and snatching them from her hands with something almost primal in her eyes. “Hell fucking no. Don’t. I’ll take them.”
“Jeez! Alright, D. They’re yours.” Angela gingerly pried the glasses back from Darlene’s fingers and unfolded them, then carefully, with both hands, tucked them behind her ears and settled them on her nose. She adjusted how they sat from the corners and then crossed her arms, scanned Darlene over. “You wear them better, anyway.”
The lenses darkened the room, but even that couldn’t make Angela look any less radiant as the sun played against her hair and set a shine in her eyes through the window beside them. (Or was it because of what she was looking at?) Darlene pushed her glasses up at the thought, even though they were already perfect. She peered past Angela at the mirror mounted atop her dresser and caught a glimpse of herself. Her dark hair made the golden frames more obvious, creating a striking impression. Darlene had to admit they were pretty cash. Angela saw her looking and smiled widely, as if to say, Told you.
(Did Angela remember? There was no fucking way she didn't. They never even finished the bottle. Flashes of sour, sticky wine stains from where it tipped over in response to one of their stray limbs. Angela's startled gasp as the glass rolled across the floor, and Darlene's brazen disregard as she used the opportunity to slide her tongue into her mouth. Not that Angela had complained at all, with the way she--no, no, no, shut the hell up. Not now.)
Darlene nodded at her before taking them off and tucking them into the neck of her shirt. For once in her life, she wasn’t exactly sure what to say, so she settled on sitting at the edge of Angela’s bed, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. She tapped them on a bruised knee and glanced out the window, where she could see Elliot still struggling to arrange the pile of cardboard boxes in the back of Angela’s dad’s Corolla.
Angela followed her gaze and sighed deeply. “We should probably help him,” she said finally.
“I suppose,” Darlene drawled, not particularly enthusiastically. She looked over the bedroom in front of her. It still looked like Angela’s, but now with slightly less of the accouterments that gave it the degree of character she always remembered it for. Angela intended to find a home for them in the new apartment. Darlene, with a pang in her chest, wished she could find one there too.
“Come on then,” Angela insisted, pacing over to grab her hand and yank her up. “Last one down’s a rotten egg.”
“That is beyond stupid,” groaned Darlene, but when Angela dashed out of the room and down the stairs, she was right behind her, because sometimes chasing after Angela felt like the only thing in the world that made sense.
thinking about darlene being years younger than angela and elliot, always feeling compelled to be mature for her age, running to keep up with them and always with something to prove... i imagine the way angela takes darlene's hand to show her something in the apartment after she's totally lost herself as a mirror of every time angela sat darlene down to watch one of her favorite movies, the way darlene would be so euphoric to be seen as worth including she'd focus with all her might... angela being the one to show darlene lolita a few years after it came out in secret and the two of them secretly poring over the book because they were kind of darkly enchanted with the movie (something they recognize was probably formative in the wrong ways later. but darlene always thinks of angela and she keeps it close because angela, at the end of the day, sits in her heart in a way no one else can.)
the complications of your first love being imprinted so irrevocably on the DNA of what you consider home. the background process of their presence, almost taken for granted until it crashes and the dependency becomes clear. gah. the idea of the painful recognition that to acknowledge or truly pursue the pangs of attraction is a bad idea both because of their age gap (darlene's feelings would be more obvious to her than angela for a long time) and because of elliot, let alone the fact that to jeopardize the only good part of your childhood.... i think that in the back of their minds similarly to how elliot thinks of angela they were kind of waiting for each other. WHEN ANGELA AND SHAYLA KISS.... theres some part of her that thinks of darlene
