If We Walk Down This Road, 1/2 (Scyvie) - Ashley
It’s the final year of sixth form and stress levels are high for Yvie as she balances school work, Uni applications and her “part-time” job in a kids activity centre. However, things only get worse when her boss decides to hire his privately educated, definition of privilege daughter, Scarlet, as their marketing assistant and she rubs Yvie up the completely wrong way. Until, of course, she doesn’t.
Here goes a very late submission to the black girl magic fic! Hope you guys like it! This is a prequel of some sorts to my fics Got My Number and Girl on Fire but it works fine as a standalone so you don’t have to have read those to understand anything. Big thanks to @pink-grapefruit-cafe and @artificialortega for all the help, love and support with this fic.
Yvie loved her life. She wouldn’t have changed a piece of it for the world. Only, every now and then, she longed to be someone else.
This feeling usually arrived when making her way through the industrial estate, hearing the loud Kidz Bop music they were forced to play at her work ring in her ears before the building was even in sight. In fact, that feeling arrived every single time she walked towards her work, it was just something she had become accustomed to. It wasn’t the worst job in the world, she got to hang out with Jaida, Heidi and Priyanka on the weekends and the pay wasn’t awful. She just sometimes wished that after a long, frustrating day of writing essays she could stay on the bus until she arrived home, take a nice shower and do her homework with the telly on instead of hopping off after just six stops to put on a fake smile for a few hours and pray that no one was sick in the soft play area.
And on what seemed like the dullest Friday since she had started her job there, God (who she didn’t really believe in but had no one else to make the prayer to) decided that it most certainly wasn’t her night because a grand total of three kids were sick in the soft play instead of just the usual one.
So worth the twenty pounds she’d end off earning. So, so worth it.
Ready to throw her gloves in the bin, wash her hands at least four times and spend the rest of the night lurking at the back of the cafe until it was time to close, Yvie was stopped in her tracks when she returned back to her spot. Her spot that was currently occupied by a thin, unfamiliar red-head.
Pale legs poking out of a plaid skirt that reeked of prefects and lacrosse games, she stood out like a sore thumb against the bright yellow hoodies that made up their uniform (Yvie’s slightly stained with bleach and too short for her gangly arms). Yvie watched in silence for a second as the girl burrowed through the fridge, hearing a big, dramatic sigh of relief escape her red lips as she laid eyes on a Coke Zero.
“Can I help you?” Yvie asked.
Only it wasn’t really a question, Yvie using her level ten voice that was usually only saved for people who tried to push in the queue for the toilet on nights out or for idiots who answered easy questions wrong on Pointless when she watched it at Nina’s house. Annoying customers were normally only confronted with a mid-range level of anger on Yvie’s behalf, passive-aggressive rather than completely pissed off. As much as forever feeling the need to call out people in the wrong irked her, Yvie knew that she shouldn’t do that at work, leaving it for at home where the threat of being fired didn’t loom over her shoulder like the grim reaper’s scythe.
Something about this girl just threw that out into the window and sent it flying down the motorway at rapid speed, Yvie’s patience nowhere to be seen.
“Sorry.” The girl giggled. Actually giggled. “Took me forever to find the sugar free!”
“Normally you’d wait to be served it.” Yvie shot imaginary laser beams with her eyes. “At the other side of the counter.”
Yvie watched the girl pause, a coy grin on her face as her eyes danced between Yvie’s face and her own reflection in the clean glass.
“It’s a shame there was no one there to serve me!” She unscrewed the lid from the bottle, taking a swig and aaahing in delight as though it were the nectars of Greek gods.
Her voice was posh.
Not tea and crumpets, let’s-go-shoot-some-clay-pigeons posh but still posh nonetheless. She pronounced the Ts in her words in a way that neither Yvie nor any of her friends did and Yvie knew that if she wasn’t so furious she would have found it sexy.
She was always a sucker for a posh voice.
“Well, if you’d have waited two minutes then I would have been here,” Yvie replied, letting her nails squish into the palms of her own hands - a self-control mechanism that didn’t tend to work when your nails were bitten down to stumps like Yvie’s currently were (something she liked to attribute to the stress of her A-Levels despite it being a habit she’d formed as a kid).
It was safe to say she didn’t feel relieved.
Especially when the familiar lull of the owner’s voice boomed behind her. How perfectly convenient.
“Yvie!”
Normally Yvie would be relieved to realise he’d actually gotten her name right but her mind was full of other thoughts - supermodel shaped thoughts with blue eyes that were probably going to get her murdered.
At least she’d taken the rubber gloves off before she met her untimely end, she thought to herself, pulling the biggest ‘I’m sorry, I should be more attentive’ smile she could muster as she turned to face her boss.
“I see you’ve met my daughter!” He motioned to the girl.
His daughter, of course.
“Yes,” Yvie stammered, her cheeks red at the mistake she’d made.
The girl, her boss’ daughter, instead seemed nothing but amused.
“Scarlet’s here to help with our marketing; gotta make sure that personal statement is in tip-top shape ready for applications!”
Yvie felt his words crawl under her skin, the itch of casual nepotism. Casual nepotism that would probably land people like Yvie without a Uni offer. She never liked to think of herself as bitter when these situations arose, but this time she couldn’t deny that she was at least a little tart. After all, Yvie was pretty adamant that any Russell Group would favour the privately educated white girl who had marketing experience with a local business over the one who cleaned the toddler’s sick from the ball pit.
It really was as simple as that.
Yvie didn’t know if Scarlet failed to sense her discomfort or simply ignored it anyway as she moved over and held out her hand.
Yvie couldn’t remember the last time she had actually shaken someone’s hand but obliged nonetheless. Scarlet’s eyes narrowed slightly when Yvie met them, her face concentrated like she was about to be quizzed on Yvie’s appearance. Realising she hadn’t blinked since their hands met, Yvie pulled away quickly, the brightness of the centre snapping back into focus around her.
“I guess I’ll be seeing you around, then.” Scarlet took an extra big swig of the bottle before tossing it in the bin and leaving the cafe with her Dad.
And she wasn’t wrong. Indeed, Yvie found herself “seeing Scarlet around” on every single shift she was on the rota for. For an entire three weeks. Without fail.
She was starting to think the phrase, ‘bane of my life’ was an understatement for how she felt about the girl.
It’d started small, Yvie finding herself rolling her eyes whenever Scarlet came into the cafe for a drink. But soon Yvie started to believe that Scarlet didn’t just live in a different part of town but in a whole other fantasy that the rest of the staff were foreign to, parading past the trampolines once every hour as if the carpet were the runway at Paris Fashion Week.
“Do you think someone needs to tell her she’s not actually a real princess?” Yvie spoke into the walkie talkie, exchanging glances between Scarlet and her friend.
“Leave her be! She’s just playing with the kids, you witch,” Jaida responded from the opposite end of the park. “Stop being so cynical.”
Yvie was grateful for her work friends. Although she loved Nina and Brooke with every piece of her often cold, dead heart, it was nice to have found girls more like her at work. Girls who understood how it felt when her school told her she wasn’t allowed any “extreme” hairstyles and she had to take out her braids. Girls who also got told they were too confident, sometimes arrogant when all they were doing was being proud of themselves. Girls a little bit older and wiser (not that she’d ever admitted that she found them wise) who helped her love her skin just that little bit more than she already did.
“Yeah but she’s probably getting paid double what we are to swan about like that!”
Yvie raised her hands in the air to Jaida but didn’t get a chance to hear her response, turning the volume down to zero when she saw Scarlet making her way towards her.
“Hey, doll.” Scarlet plonked a notebook down on the counter in front of Yvie, a big grin of optimism filling the lower half of her face.
Her hair was down that day, soft ginger curls falling in front of her chest. Yvie had a sudden urge to push a strand back and tuck it behind her ear.
Why did the most annoying girl on the planet have such flawless bone structure? It simply wasn’t fair.
“Hello,” Yvie responded rather formally, reaching to grab Scarlet’s usual order. The faster she did so, the faster she walked away - so Yvie may or may not have been keeping a couple of Coke Zeros in the special fridge under the counter that was saved only for open milk bottles, just so she could serve Scarlet with the utmost efficiency.
A part of her just wished she would serve herself again.
“Oh no.” She shook her head, reaching out to touch Yvie’s arm and stop her. Yvie could hardly feel her hand through the thick hoodie, yet her heart still decided it wanted to start sprinting in the middle of the leisurely stroll it was taking before Scarlet had come over. Maybe she had to add the human anatomy to the list of things she’d decided she hated that week, right underneath her new English teacher and egg mayonnaise sandwiches. Her stupid, fat heart.
“I’m here for your interview!”
“Interview?” Yvie raised a brow and chuckled to herself. She wondered if Scarlet had ever actually had to be interviewed for anything in her life nevermind conduct one.
“For Instagram! I’m posting little profiles of all the staff, a little get to know me! It’ll help the youngsters really see what a family we are here!”
Yet another thing Yvie hated was how Scarlet always managed to talk like an edgy teenager and a middle-aged woman at the same time, figuring that was the first and last time she’d hear an eighteen-year-old refer to kids as “youngsters”. Or at least she said she hated it in one of the many Scarlet-included rants she’d had to Heidi the weekend before; she may have actually loved it. The two feelings were often blurred in Yvie’s brain, hard to tell one from the other in her web of brutal honesty and blunt opinions. She was ninety-nine per cent sure she hated it.
“I’ll get someone to cover your station and we can go natter in the staff room.” Scarlet took her lack of words as acceptance and turned on the spot.
Maybe Yvie was only eighty per cent sure.
Yvie had never seen Scarlet in the staff room before, watching most days as the girl took her snacks outside where she ate alone in her car. So it was strange to be cramped on the small sofa with her, both of them staring at the mirror in front rather than at each other. The smell of a ready-made curry that had been left in the microwave for too long that day was lingering warm in the air. Yvie took a deep breath and held it, scared that if she released it her body would touch Scarlet’s just that inch too much and then the entire world around them would explode around them, kind of like the curry.
“So, what’s your favourite snack from the cafe?” Scarlet held a fountain pen in her hand, ready to write. Yvie didn’t need to look at the notepad to know her handwriting was beautiful, a piece of art next to her own illegible scrawls.
“I don’t buy food here,” Yvie responded nonchalantly.
Scarlet popped the end of the pen in her mouth for a moment then let it rest back at the paper.
“You’ve never eaten anything here?” Scarlet questioned, clearly dissatisfied with Yvie’s answer.
“Nope. It’s far too expensive. I just buy my lunch at the off-license before I get the bus.”
“You know what I want you to say!” Scarlet whined. Yvie thought she would do great as a soap actress if the whole marketing thing never worked out for her. She had that dramatic flare mastered down to a tee. And the charming voice to match.
“I’m being honest.” Yvie half-chuckled. “I’m not a liar.”
“Well, I’m just gonna write cheesy nachos then!” Scarlet was trying her hardest to act serious but Yvie just about caught the quiver of her lip.
She wondered if Scarlet somehow knew about her love for cheesy nachos or if it was simply a wild coincidence, either way, she carried on to battle through the questions with Scarlet, praying that there weren’t many to go.
“Which party room is your favourite?” Scarlet still hadn’t lost her enthusiasm, despite having to write down three sarcastic answers as if they were genuine and completely make up new answers for another two so far.
“The volcano room. Normally older kids hire that out and they don’t make as much of a mess as the toddlers in the mermaid or the pirate one.”
Scarlet didn’t even bother to respond to that one, simply shaking her head at Yvie’s response.
“If you don’t like my honesty…” Yvie started, desperate to get back to the comfort of the park where she could swap spots with Jaida for an hour and bask in the comfort of the ball pit.
“I actually find it quite refreshing.” Scarlet gave an all-knowing smile.
Sometimes Yvie got scared that the girl was part-wizard and could see inside of her soul. After all, she knew which school Scarlet attended and she wouldn’t be shocked one bit if it was revealed to be some modern-day incarnation of Hogwarts (then again Yvie did kind of think that about any school with a tuition fee or Latin slogan, so she didn’t know how strongly her argument would stand).
“That’s weird,” she blurted back, unable to think of something quick and witty to say. Where was Brooke with her encyclopedia of shady comebacks when she needed her? Tempted to text her some form of a rant about the interview/ambush she decided against it, knowing Brooke had planned to spend the day with her new “almost-girlfriend” that she had picked up from the literal curb earlier that month.
“You’re weird.” Scarlet stood up, giving Yvie that smile yet again. Yvie knew it so well now that she should have been able to draw it by memory only she knew it would never be captured just right. Not even with all the pencils and canvases and colours that the rainbow had to offer.
She didn’t even try to come up with a comeback to that one.
“Now for the photoshoot!” Scarlet grinned, opening the door for the pair of them.
“Photoshoot?” Yvie’s head whipped around and fired red laser-beams at the girl from her eyes. There had been absolutely no mention of a photoshoot.
“Follow me, my muse.”
***
“Are you doing homework?” Scarlet craned her neck, making out Yvie’s hunched over figure behind the big coffee machine.
“Sorry.” Yvie stood up straight and made her way to the front of the counter, her brown eyes a little droopy compared to normal. Scarlet knew Yvie always played the ‘I hate my life and don’t want to be here’ game at work regularly, but this time was different.
If she were anyone else in the world Scarlet would have pulled her into a great big cuddle. But she wasn’t. She was Yvie. And Yvie hated her.
Most of the time Scarlet didn’t mind that Yvie hated her, she found it quite amusing winding her up and seeing her face scrunch up in frustration. She knew that her confidence didn’t always rub well with people but she’d always told herself that anyone who didn’t want to live in that world with her was simply missing out. Only sometimes she wished things were a bit different at the centre.
She guessed it was one of those days.
“No need to say sorry to me, I’m not paying you!” Scarlet made her way around the back of the cafe and entered. This was something she’d withheld from doing whenever Yvie was stationed there, after their first Coke Zero incident (which she, for the record, actually found quite funny), but the urge simply pulled her and when the urge took control, Scarlet’s will power was nowhere to be seen.
“Is this History?” Scarlet held the papers close to her face. She’d never suited her glasses and had made the executive decision not to wear them around the centre. This was probably some sort of safety hazard considering the fact there were kids jumping around left, right and centre that she was supposed to be constantly observing, but she simply pretended this thought had never even crossed her little air-head brain. Scarlet knew that it never hurt to look good. After all, you never know who could be sneaking glances at you through the gaps in the slush machines.
Scarlet knew exactly who was sneaking glances at her through the gaps in the slush machines. The constant squinting was worth it.
“I really am sorry. I’ve just been really busy and I’m trying to get all my references for Uni but-” Yvie started but stopped to serve a customer. Scarlet heard her voice waver slightly when she asked if she wanted a medium or large. It broke her heart into a thousand little pieces.
“Is it due soon?” Scarlet flicked through the questions. “I did this last term. My file is in my boot if you want me to get some notes out?”
“I don’t need your help.” Yvie took the papers from out of her hands and placed them back on the counter.
Scarlet knew that behind her constantly on-guard exterior there was a girl who just wanted to relax for a second and have fun. She caught her sometimes. Like the time Heidi queued the entirety of the Hercules soundtrack on their iPod and Yvie complained over the walkie talkie yet Scarlet saw her dancing to the songs in the back of the cafe when she thought no one could see (she may or may not have added I Won’t Say I’m In Love to her playlist that night). Or when Jaida fell into the big airbag and shouted at everyone to look away and Yvie released one of her big hearty laughs that managed to surprise Scarlet every time she heard it. She’d always try to catch Yvie’s face when the girls played their own version of Russian roulette with the bottles of cleaning spray that they thought no one else knew about, closing their eyes and spinning the nozzles then stopping to spray - Yvie dying with laughter every time the liquid spat on her jumper.
“If you’re stressed, I can help. You’re applying to somewhere really good aren’t you?”
“You don’t know everything, Scarlet. I told you already that I don’t need your help, I don’t need your special private school notes or whatever it is you pay to get taught.”
It stung. Those weren’t Scarlet’s intentions at all. But she knew how they must have come across.
“That’s okay.” She grabbed some cans of pop from the back and started to stack the fridge. “Just letting you know that the staff room is really dirty and someone needs to clean it.”
“What?” Yvie turned to face her. “Pri cleaned it yesterday.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to clean it again.” Scarlet made a point of looking at the camera in the corner that she knew her dad would glance at from his office every half an hour. “I’ll watch the cafe while you do it. And take those papers with you.”
“Do you even know how to make a coffee?” Yvie caught on, grabbing her notes and a roll of cloth for show.
“Oh my god. Yes, I go to private school but I’m not Paris Hilton! I can watch the cafe for half an hour.”
“Sorry.” Yvie smiled as she left. “And thank you. Really, thank you.”
And Scarlet felt that thank you deep in her bones, one she’d keep saved somewhere to replay on a day when she felt lonely. Only she began to think that Yvie should’ve taken the thank you back when she realised that she should have absolutely not been trusted to watch the cafe for half an hour.
Scarlet knew she wasn’t the best “employee” they had, spending most of her days taking photos, making social media posts and chatting with the little ones when they were done playing. But she didn’t know how quite bad she was until she had burned two toasties, overcharged at least five customers and accidentally poured one woman’s change into her cup of tea instead of her hand.
Maybe she should stick to Instagram.
She tried her hardest to help, cleaning the toastie machine as best as she could before Yvie returned but she knew that she had messed things up, creating more jobs on top of the ones Yvie already had to do when closing the cafe.
“Are you nearly done?” Scarlet heard her Dad ask Yvie later on as he prepared to lock up for the night.
“Sorry, I’m just trying to cash up the till. There are a few discrepancies I need to try and fix.” Yvie didn’t even look up from the tablet, punching numbers into the digital counter with frustration.
“I’ve got my car.” Scarlet blurted before she knew what she was saying. “I’ll help Yvie and lock up here when she’s done. Get yourself away, Dad.”
Scarlet looked at her phone, full of notifications from the girls’ chat: Naomi telling everyone what booze she was going to bring, Plastique asking what they were all wearing, Pearl waking up from the longest of naps to tell everyone she’d be an hour late. She didn’t read them all properly, sending a quick message before popping her phone back in her pocket:
‘I’ll be late tonight. Don’t wait on me xx’
It was the least she could have done.
They were silent for a while, the two of them all alone in the big airy building, the main lights switched off with only the small ones at the top of the cafe kiosk to help them see.
Scarlet did her best to help, double-checking Yvie had counted the piles of coins properly whilst she fiddled around the tablet. She figured that maybe silence was better for them, she couldn’t annoy Yvie with her dramatic exclamations and Yvie wouldn’t bombard her with unsought “honest opinions”.
Until that silence was broken with a bang, echoing through the darkness and causing Scarlet’s entire body to leap out of her skin.
Yvie didn’t even quiver.
“What the fuck was that?” She asked Scarlet, her thick eyebrows raised as she peered towards the soft play.
“That doesn’t normally happen?” Images of axe-wielding lunatics stowed away inside the slides flashed through Scarlet’s mind.
“Funnily enough, it doesn’t,” Yvie responded, still as sarcastic as ever in times of panic. “Put your phone light on.”
Scarlet didn’t really want to go and inspect the noise but she also didn’t want to wait in the cafe alone. She knew she was the perfect damsel in distress, axe murders would love her! Trying her best not to be a baby, she followed by Yvie’s side with her phone light guiding their path.
“What if there’s a bomb?” Scarlet placed a hand on her chest and felt Yvie stop next to her. “One of those ones with a remote control that detonates it!”
“You think someone planted a bomb in our play area? And waited to detonate it when no one was around other than me and you?” Scarlet knew Yvie was rolling her eyes as she spoke despite not being able to see her. “I honestly don’t understand how your brain works sometimes.”
“You love me really,” Scarlet responded without thought as they turned another corner. It was an automatic response she often used to her friends when they made fun of her, it felt weird saying it to Yvie. With anyone else, she would have brushed it off, but with Yvie it was different.
And then Yvie gasped.
Before Scarlet knew it her hand was in the other girl’s. It was automatic. She got a shock and Yvie was there. A patch of her hand turned cool where Yvie’s ring pressed against it.
“What was it?” She asked a second later, her brain too caught up with why her hand was gripping tightly onto Yvie’s hand and why Yvie hadn’t pushed her off to actually know what Yvie had reacted to.
“Nothing.” The hearty laugh came back. It was almost comforting in the darkness. “Just wanted to see how you reacted.”
‘Well there you go,’ Scarlet thought to herself as she looked down to their hands, not quite brave enough to say it out loud.
And then Yvie started to laugh, a noise Scarlet would never ever get used to.
“There’s your bomb.” Her hand slipped out of Scarlet’s and pointed in front of them, the remnants of a big silver helium balloon on the floor. “Good job I was here to protect you from that.”
Before she knew it they were back at the till, fixing each of Scarlet’s mistakes and counting out their float for the next day. They worked relatively well together, only managing to butt heads once more when Scarlet suggested they write out a whole new balance sheet instead of scribbling out a mistake and writing the new number next to it as Yvie wanted. She let it go in the end, her phone vibrating in her pocket with texts from the girls a constant reminder that she had a little red dress with her name on it waiting at home.
“Guess I’ll see you later,” Yvie murmured as they left the building, pacing down the road as Scarlet fumbled with the keys. She was a racehorse in the rain, taking her steps twice as fast as the average human as if the building was on fire.
“Where are you going?” Scarlet had to shout after her, half expecting Yvie to ignore her and keep walking anyway.
“Home?” She stopped up the road for a second and turned around. “Now if you don’t mind I have a bus I’m about to miss.”
About to insist she got in the car, Yvie was already far in the distance, slipping out of Scarlet’s vision in the rain by the time the doors were fully locked. Maybe wearing her glasses would have been useful after all.
Cringing as the puddles splashed up her legs, Scarlet ran to her car as fast as she could, throwing her phone onto the passenger seat and taking off down the road. Thankfully it didn’t take her long to catch Yvie, her dark hair poking out through her hoodie and already scraggly with rain.
“Hey!” She pulled up into the bus stop. “Get in, I’ll take you home.”
“What are you a stalker?” Yvie raised her arms in the air. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“You’re going to freeze.”
“The bus will be here any minute.”
Scarlet knew she should have just given in and turned around but she felt the guilt for their late departure weighing on her shoulders.
“Look Yvie-” Scarlet started but was cut off by a loud beeping behind her, just making out an angry bus driver in her rearview mirror.
“Move or it’ll drive past!” Yvie cried at her, the usual monotone of her voice rising in pitch.
“Sorry, what was that?” Scarlet attempted some humour, grinning from ear to ear as the bus pulled away. “Oops! Guess you’ll just have to have a nice warm lift instead of getting the bus with a load of drunkards.”
Yvie didn’t speak at first, simply pulling the car door open and plonking herself down, arms folded like a huffy toddler. But as Scarlet began to follow the directions she gave it was almost as if the other girl couldn’t help herself from falling back into their usual rapport of snide remarks and winding each other up.
“So do you always kidnap people in your Fiat 500 or is this something new for you?”
If this were any other member of staff, Scarlet knew she’d call them ungrateful but it was almost like her brain had learned a new language with Yvie, acknowledging and adapting to the different way she showed her emotions.
“You’re welcome.” Scarlet turned the heating up a notch, hearing the chatter of Yvie’s teeth between words. “And this isn’t even a Fiat 500.”
“Apologies,” Yvie responded. She was the difference between rudeness and bluntness that Scarlet figured many people couldn’t see, always honest and unbashful but never actually impolite.
Scarlet’s phone rang three times on their way to Yvie’s house and she didn’t even try to answer.
“Thanks for the lift,” Yvie whispered as Scarlet pulled up to the curb, the lights all turned off in the semi-detached next to them. “Even if you did leave me no other choice.”
Scarlet released a sigh and smiled at the return of the girl’s cynical side.
“There’s the Yvie, I know. Thought I’d lost you, being nice to me for a second!”
“Yeah well, you caught me on an off day.” She gathered her things and opened the door. “Don’t go telling anyone I went soft on you, I have a reputation to uphold.”
And she was up the path before Scarlet could think of a response, leaving her a baffling mess of feelings who couldn’t help but hear a certain laugh bouncing around inside the car even when she turned the music up loud and tried to distract herself from Yvie.
A distraction technique she had to use after every shift for a month.
Scarlet had never planned for the lifts to become part of her routine, it just sort of happened. She told herself that she wouldn’t have let one of the girls from school or her younger sister ever wait in the rain for the bus so it was common sense not to let Yvie do that either. After a little while of Scarlet ranting about how it was safer and faster for Yvie to go home with her instead of catching the bus every time they left work together, Yvie stopped trying to argue and simply started hopping in the passenger seat. Of course, she did this in the most classic of Yvie fashions and told Scarlet she was only agreeing so she didn’t have to listen to her whiney speeches about the dangers of the dark every night but it made Scarlet feel better still. Even if she did receive an average of three sarcastic responses to her comments each time.
Slowly but surely, the eggshell around Yvie began to peel away. Scarlet discovered through blunt replies Yvie loved learning about international relations and global conflict, that she wanted to go to Uni to study them despite the high offer and the money that went with the dream. Despite the fact that only one per cent of the campus she wanted to be a part of was black. Ignoring that her teacher had told her to play things safer.
Yvie was real and passionate and thriving and everything Scarlet admired.
Yes, she was still the same sarcastic self she always was behind the cafe counter but she was even more than that underneath the fluorescent lights in Scarlet’s car. A small chunk of the divide between them had been left at the bus stop in the rain while they basked in the warm air shooting out of the vents.
Scarlet was hesitant to call Yvie a friend, they didn’t really chat and gossip - as she did with Plastique, Naomi and Pearl - and when they did at least half of their conversation was made up of insults but Scarlet liked it. Yvie was a refreshing change from the girls she was surrounded with every day at school and Scarlet wanted to drink that in as much as she could. Even if Yvie did still hate her.
In fact, Yvie had started to use those exact words as a regular comeback to Scarlet’s dramatics, rolling her eyes to match.
“Would you hate me if we stop for food before I drop you off?” Scarlet asked one night. “I’m honestly starved.”
“I already hate you, don’t think food would change that.” Yvie laughed.
That fucking laugh.
Scarlet hoped she only-half meant it. But she never really knew for sure.
Making their way into the food chain, Scarlet’s mind was too consumed with the thought of what she was going to order to even realise that her friends were there until she heard her name.
“Hey, sweets.” Naomi smiled from the table. “I thought you were at your Dad’s work?”
“We were just on the way home and I got hungry.” Scarlet motioned to Yvie, stood almost a step behind her.
“Who’s this?” Plastique asked, raising a perfectly shaped brow.
Opening her mouth to speak, Scarlet’s brain went blank for a second. She obviously wanted to tell the girls about Yvie but never knew what to say, she didn’t even know what they were herself nevermind having to explain it to them.
How do you say, ‘this girl works for my Dad and I drive her home every night whilst we listen to Lady Gaga in almost complete silence except for when she insults me because she maybe hates me or I try to get on her nerves because I maybe fancy her,’ in a clear and concise way?
“Erm, this is…” She tried to start but was stopped by Yvie herself.
“I’ll go order our food.”
“Oh,” Scarlet turned, pulling her purse from her pocket. “Here let me pay.”
“It’s fine.” Yvie turned her back. “I guess I owe you a lot of petrol money anyway.”
Her words struck Scarlet a little different. They lacked any emotion, spoken from dead eyes and a stern face. She relived those words a lot in the next few weeks, popping into her head again at the most random of times. For they were the last words she heard Yvie speak for a while, ignoring any effort Scarlet made to chat, even when she gave her perfect opportunities to poke fun at her like bringing up her house team at school or her sister’s upcoming dance recital (Scarlet knew how much humour Yvie found in the fact that their names were just stupid ways of saying red and yellow and normally laughed whenever Scarlet even mentioned Lemon).
“I won’t be able to give you a lift home next week.” She’d told her as they pulled up to Yvie’s house, ready to explain that Pearl had bought them tickets to a theatre show and it started too early. But Yvie hopped out of the car before she could even finish, leaving Scarlet with even more confusion about how the girl felt.
Because Yvie was still Yvie after all. And Scarlet realised after that particular journey that it would take a lot more than a few rides home to get them anywhere close to being classed as friends.
An observation in Scarlet’s mind that only grew stronger over the weeks following, especially when she decided it would be okay to join everyone on one of their regular staff nights out. A decision tinged with regret as soon as she entered the pub.
“Dress was a big mistake!!!! Huge !!! xx” Scarlet texted her teenage sister aggressively from under the table as if it would somehow fix her situation.
Excited to hit the town with everyone from the centre, she’d spent all day getting prepped and ready, letting Lemon paint her nails as they pondered over what she should wear. Eventually, they’d settled on a shimmery gold Oh Polly number she’d worn to Naomi’s birthday the year prior, her jewellery matching just right.
Only that didn’t matter once she arrived, riving her necklace from her throat as soon as she saw the rest of the staff. With all the other girls in bodysuits and trainers, she was the definition of overdressed and out of place.
It started small at first, hearing someone whisper something including the word “Daddy” as she made her way to the tables, one of the girls from the front desk asking her if she was gonna be getting the rounds in all night.
“Scarlet, come sit here!” Heidi had waved at her over, allowing for a second to catch her breath.
Only her nerves didn’t go away once she joined their booth. In fact, they only grew larger when she caught Yvie’s gaze, her eyes wide at Scarlet in a face she’d never quite seen the girl make before. She’d fought hard to ignore it, but her eyes couldn’t stop from glancing back every few seconds, wondering what it was exactly that Yvie’s face was speaking into the universe around them.
Knowing Yvie it was probably something along the lines of ‘What the fuck is the primadonna doing here in that dress’ but she didn’t know for sure, trying her best to join in their conversation and catch the familiar side of the other girl she’d caught glimpses of over the past few months.
“So, whose ID are you using?” Scarlet asked her in an effort to make conversation, having learnt from the walkie talkies that Heidi was usually Yvie’s go-to girl when she went out with her other friends, despite them looking nothing alike.
“Here.” Yvie slid it across the table for Scarlet to examine, the other girls in the booth taking a look too.
“I know her!” Jaida exclaimed. “Chile, I did her prom makeup a couple years ago.”
“Perks of Brooke’s new girlfriend. I now have black friends that aren’t you guys I can borrow ID from. Not the best though, it’s a good job they never actually look properly.”
“Wait.” Priyanka raised two hands in the air. “You’re telling me that your gal Brooke has an official girlfriend? I thought they were just fucking about, damn!”
“Oh, not this again!” Heidi joined in. “We get it, Pri. You got together once and she didn’t remember your name. Move on!”
Scarlet checked her phone to see if her sister had replied but saw nothing, resorting to scrolling through her own photo album and reshuffling her apps so she didn’t look left out. Listening to the girls continue to gossip about people she didn’t know, Scarlet began to question the friendships she’d made at the centre, little voices in her head telling her that none of them would ever like her enough to open up and gossip with her as they did with one another.
For as long as she remembered she had always been confident, never caring what others thought of her. But as she started to gulp her drink down faster than normal, Scarlet felt that confidence slip away more and more. She was so far out of her comfort zone she couldn’t have made it back on a giant jet plane at full speed. And Yvie’s big brown eyes taking stolen glances at her didn’t make any of it better.
“It’s okay, Pri.” Jaida’s voice pulled Scarlet back into their conversation. “At least Yvie remembered your name when you two got with each other!”
“Oh, fuck off!” Yvie slammed her glass onto the table at the same time Scarlet spat some of her drink back into her own.
What an elegant lady she was.
She’d always just assumed that Yvie was into girls too. There was just something about hearing it for real that made Scarlet’s central nervous system stop working for a second, starting again with a scare.
“That was one time,” Priyanka cried from the opposite side of the booth, thankfully oblivious of Scarlet’s reaction.
Only someone wasn’t as oblivious. Someone was looking right at her and sending every thought, every feeling, every fear inside of Scarlet into overdrive.
***
Yvie wasn’t a stranger to awful dancing. After all, she had been friends with Nina for the majority of life, the girl whose feet were built of hard oak and desperation.
But this was something different altogether.
Watching Scarlet across the dance floor, the phrase ‘Bambi on ice’ brought a whole new meaning to Yvie. If she wasn’t so mad at her she’d go over herself, give the girl a twirl and watch as she missed every beat like she had no cares in the world. Only that wasn’t the case, because mad Yvie certainly was.
Yvie didn’t know why she felt so hurt, it wasn’t like they were friends? It wasn’t like she even liked Scarlet? But something about having to stand there while she scrambled for an explanation of who she was to her privately educated, life’s not fair, acrylic nailed girl gang made Yvie’s blood boil. And she’d never admitted it but she may have even shed a tear or two once her blinds were shut and she couldn’t see the not-Fiat 500 and the annoying girl who drove it.
To think she’d started to believe that she was only fifty-five per cent sure of her hatred.
“Staring much?” She could hear the raise of Heidi’s brow in her words as she spoke to her ear, the loud bass around them not heavy enough to drown out the accusation in her friend’s voice.
Yvie couldn’t even deny it, for she’d been staring at Scarlet from the moment she’d walked into the pub earlier. Of course, she’d stalked the girl’s Instagram enough to know what Scarlet looked like dressed up, rolling her eyes at the dumb self-indulgent captions that were always attached to her selfies. Only it was different in person, a mix of gold and warmth and beauty and envy that made Yvie want to snap a pencil in half (she settled for a paper straw instead which certainly did not give the same level of relief). She’d watched as Scarlet ripped a necklace from her neck earlier and longed to put it back on for her, taking her time to hook it on the right loop so that it would hang perfectly above her collarbone.
She tried to fixate on the memory of Scarlet squealing every time they went over the speed bumps outside of their work to give herself the ick. Only that image had become entwined with one of Scarlet getting out the car one night to help a cat out of the road and Yvie only felt more confused.
“I’m just judging her dancing abilities,” Yvie lied.
She knew it was a lie. Heidi, who once confidently believed that Jaida had found a ghost in the dodgeball cupboard, knew it was a lie. The whole club knew it was a lie just from Yvie’s expression. Did lying count as breaking your streak of tough love and honesty if you wanted to believe you were telling the truth so badly? Is lying even lying if it’s yourself you’re lying to? Yvie didn’t know. All she knew was that red and gold looked so good together it should have been illegal. Only it was herself breaking the law when her eyes met Scarlet’s again, holding for a second before she turned to walk away.
The songs all blurred into one once Scarlet was gone, Yvie’s brain out of focus. That was until she was snapped back by a familiar squark pulling her away from her work friends.
“Hey, Yvie! Or should I say Akeria tonight?” Vanessa grinned, a loved-up Brooke with her arm around the other girl’s waist.
“Thanks again.” Yvie tapped her nose, grateful for Brooke’s new relationship and the new friends that had come with it. “I owe you a drink.”
“So where is she then?” Brooke piped up, straight to the point and not wasting time with any cordial greetings on her best friend.
“Priyanka?” Yvie squinted in confusion for a second, wondering why Brooke wanted to see a girl she had previously hooked up with and usually refused to speak about when all she’d talked about for the past few months was how excited she was every Wednesday night to eat special chicken stew and watch soap operas that she pretended to hate at Vanessa’s house.
“No!” Brooke raised a hand to her mouth, her eyes leaping to Vanessa for a split second. “Ja’mie Private School Girl. I wanna see her in person.”
“Oh.” Yvie’s brain slotted the pieces together. Had she really complained about Scarlet that much?
“Is this the girl you always ragin’ about?” Vanessa joined in.
Okay, maybe she did complain about Scarlet too much.
“I’m not sure where she’s at.” She brushed them off, the memory of Scarlet telling her she couldn’t take her home anymore after seeing her friends tinging Yvie sharply, her face starting to flush. “I’m gonna go to the loo but I’ll get you that drink later?”
“Noted.” Brooke pointed a finger, the sound of their voices carrying as Yvie ran desperately to splash her face with some cold water.
Only she never quite made it to the sink, the sight of an upset red-head stopping her as soon as she entered the toilets.
Yvie went to speak but wasn’t given a chance.
“Go away.” Scarlet’s voice wavered as she knelt down, pulling jackets out from under the couch like they were infested.
“I can’t believe you didn’t pay for the cloakroom.” Yvie joined her on the carpet. “Out of character for you.”
“I said go away.” She turned her head to Yvie, her bloodshot eyes living up to her name.
Yvie felt the sudden urge to scoop Scarlet in her arms and cradle her there till the music stopped and the lights turned off and there was no one left in the building. She felt a need she never knew existed.
“Hey. It’s alright, I can help you…”
But Scarlet had already found her jacket and started racing out of the club as though her life depended on it.
“For fuck sake, Scarlet.” Yvie reached for her arm once they were outside, the cold air penetrating through her bodysuit and making her long for the comfort of her bed at home. “Just talk to me.”
She turned, her face illuminated under the street lamps, full of anger and sadness and perhaps a tinge of pain too.
“Why do you want to talk to me? You hate me.”
“I don’t.” Yvie squeezed her arm slightly and looked her in the eyes to try and show that she meant it. Because sometimes her words failed her and she struggled to sound sincere when in her mind she was, so she had to rely on her actions. All she had at that moment was a gentle squeeze to try and show Scarlet that she meant it. She didn’t hate her. She didn’t know when that had changed or if she’d really hated her in the first place but at that moment she was one-hundred per cent certain, the feeling was nothing like hatred.
Scarlet scoffed and pulled away, tapping her phone furiously with her nails. “You tell me you hate me nearly every day I spend with you.”
Yvie tried to argue back but Scarlet was on a mission, waving her hands in the air when she spoke.
“And if you’re not doing that then you’re bitching about me through the walkie talkies. Or giving me dirty looks. I try my best to pass it off and rise above it Yvie but tonight I just can’t anymore, I just want to live and breathe without you looking at me like I’ve shot Bambi’s mother. Like what did I even do to you?”
‘Everything,’ Yvie thought only it came out as a blunt “nothing” instead. “You’re the one that was embarrassed to be seen with me in public.”
“I wasn’t embarrassed, Yvie. Sorry it took me a minute to try and think of something other than ‘a girl I drive around even though she hates me.’” Scarlet kept taking glances between the road and her phone, not meeting Yvie’s eyes. “Or doesn’t hate me, apparently. And I just had plans after our next shift.”
Without knowing what she was doing, Yvie reached out to grab her hand, slipping her fingers through Scarlet’s and clasping like they had done the day Scarlet was scared by the balloon. Scarlet was right. Maybe she was too fast to jump to conclusions. She was up in the sky leaping on the trampolines at work whilst Scarlet was grounded by the cafe, taking herself to a whole new narrative that didn’t really exist. In other words, she’d fucked it.
“I don’t hate you.” Yvie expected Scarlet to let go. She didn’t.
“Well, you don’t act like it.”
But her hand didn’t leave, Yvie had hope. Not a lot, just a slither like the piece of Scarlet’s hair that stayed in front of her face when she pushed the rest back. But it was still hope, it was still something.
“Please just let me explain.” Yvie tried to make Scarlet understand.
She’d spent years trying to dial and change how she spoke. If the black girl in the class raised her voice then she was angry but if she didn’t put up a fight with her words then nobody would take her seriously. All she wanted was to be honest, but the words were flying around her head and wouldn’t stop to land. And then Scarlet’s Uber started to pull up and they were going even faster. Scarlet turned to look at her and Yvie watched as she opened her mouth for a second but no words came out, her eyes frustrated and begging Yvie to fix things.
She waited for the rejection, for Scarlet to push her away as she moved closer, for her to call Yvie crazy and jump in the car, ready to make her time at work even more of a living hell than she already did. But as her lips met Scarlet’s, it never came.
“Your Uber.” Yvie pulled away slightly, their faces only an inch apart and Scarlet gasping for breath. She could feel Scarlet’s sticky gloss on her own lips but didn’t dare wipe at it, wanting the moment to go on like that for as long as it could.
“I guess I’ve gotten used to riding in the car with someone.” Scarlet took her hand again once the car pulled up, their eyes communicating in their own language that Yvie didn’t have the words to explain.
Yvie pulled her phone out to text the girls and tell them she’d headed home, dropping another one to home with an excuse for staying out, feeling Scarlet on her neck as they clambered into the backseat. They didn’t speak for a short while, Yvie simply placed her arm around Scarlet’s shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if she hadn’t spent months terrified of making contact with her.
“I thought you couldn’t stand me,” Scarlet whispered in her ear, her hand burning hot on Yvie’s thigh.
Suddenly Scarlet’s flair for the dramatics was wiped clean from her mental list of things that irked her, replaced accordingly with the concept of clothing, more specifically jeans. Her jeans, that she regretted spending a lot of money on - wishing she’d settled for the paper-thin pair Nina had told her to get from Primark instead. In fact, she’d have paid more for the thin pair right then. Paid anything for Scarlet’s hand to live there just a little bit longer. Yvie let the back of her head hit the seat, lost in the moment until they pulled up to Scarlet’s house.
“We’ll have to be careful,” Scarlet spoke after unlocking the door. “My sister’s home.”
“Does noise even travel here?” Yvie looked around the foyer only half-joking, stopping to chuckle at a big photo of Scarlet and her sister as kids. “Adorable.”
“If you’re loud enough.” Scarlet raised a brow and motioned for Yvie to follow her upstairs, sending tingles through her body at her words.
“I don’t think I’m gonna be the one who needs to worry about keeping quiet.” Yvie let Scarlet lead her to her room, throwing themselves down on the four-poster almost immediately.
It felt weird finally being in Scarlet’s room after spending so long of interacting at work. She couldn’t say she hadn’t pictured it, often imagining Scarlet painting her toes on top of magazines or picking out her outfit each morning. Too distracted to get a proper look at all the photo frames and trinkets around, Yvie made a mental note to make a joke the next day about how she’d always assumed Scarlet had one of those grey crushed velvet headboards like the girls on Twitter.
It was crazy how something could feel so wrong and so right at the same time. Scarlet’s body pressing into her own, it was so insane yet made complete sense. She felt familiar.
Before she knew it Scarlet’s thumb was rubbing over the fabric of her bodysuit, teasing at her nipple through the lace.
Yvie had never been more grateful for her decision not to wear a bra.
“Are you sure you want this?” Scarlet asked her, pausing in her movement to look Yvie in the eyes and confirm. “We can’t go back.”
Yvie knew what she meant, thinking of all the shifts she’d have to spend with her, pinning Scarlet’s new promotional posters around the park, being watched to make sure she placed them in the exact right spots. She’d be unavoidable. But Yvie didn’t care.
“I’ve wanted this ever since you stole a Coke Zero from the cafe.”
Apparently, that was all Scarlet needed, taking the opportunity to smash her lips against Yvie’s, letting their bodies melt into each other. Again and again and again until Yvie was weak with fatigue and let her head hit the pillow one final time. Her vision blurred, she could just make out Scarlet’s figure among all of the stars as the girl switched off the bedside lamp and crawled into bed beside her. They hadn’t just shaken the earth but the whole solar system too, galaxies swirling around the room and lulling Yvie to sleep.
A sleep she’d have happily basked in forever if she hadn’t woken with a jolt the next morning, the sun beaming through the blinds to cast light on the empty side of the bed next to her.
“Morning,” Scarlet’s spoke from across the room, wearing a pair of glasses that Yvie had never seen before as she looked up from the papers at her desk. Yvie suddenly understood Scarlet’s constant examining gaze - she wasn’t scanning Yvie’s insides for error codes, just a tad bit blind.
Grabbing her phone from the bedside, a groan escaped Yvie’s mouth as she saw the time, of course, Scarlet was awake at nine in the morning after a night out. After what Yvie would estimate to be at least two hours of sex. Kind of intense sex. If it hadn’t been for Scarlet’s pretty face and messy hair then Yvie would have snatched the nearest pillow and thrown it over her head, instead, keeping an eye open to watch her whilst fighting exhaustion.
She wondered how long it would take them to address it. In the past, Yvie had never felt awkward discussing a hookup, giving a compliment or laughing it off as a drunken mishap like she had with Priyanka that time. The thought crossed her mind for a second, thinking she could make a joke about how smashed they were before ringing Brooke to take her home as fast as she could but Yvie decided against it. If Yvie was anything then Yvie was honest. And she knew what happened was not a drunken mistake. At least not on her end, she didn’t know if the same could be said for Scarlet, sat twiddling her pen around in her hand as though Yvie wasn’t lying in her bed and her gold dress wasn’t in a heap on the floor, thrown there in a moment of passion. Looking at it made her laugh, thinking of how fast she’d gone from describing Scarlet’s whining as the human equivalent of a dog whistle wit Jaida, to finding herself turned on by it. Scarlet must have noticed her looking, placing the pen down.
“I think you owe me a new zipper for that.” She pointed to the dress, raising a brow at Yvie.
“Sorry, I’ll take it to get fixed.” Yvie went to step out of bed before realising her own clothes were just as haphazardly spread as Scarlet’s.
“I’m kidding,” Scarlet smiled. “I’ll get you some joggers to borrow.”
“You own tracksuit bottoms?” Yvie fake gasped as Scarlet pulled open a drawer, surprising herself at how quickly they returned to their usual exchanges. There she was making fun of Scarlet for being all posh and dramatic, it was like nothing had changed. Except she was in Scarlet’s bed. Naked. And they’d had sex. Maybe a lot had changed.
“Oh my god, I just got it.” Scarlet pointed a finger to Yvie and let out one of her classic giggles. “That is hilarious.”
“What is?” Yvie pulled the clothes Scarlet had given her on quickly, automatically ready with her defence.
“That face you always pull at me! I honestly thought it was just your expression of pure hatred at my being but it’s not, you were eyeing me up!”
Yvie stifled a laugh at Scarlet’s hysteria, her cheeks turning the slightest bit red. “I don’t pull a face at you.”
“You so do. Like this.” Scarlet did her best to impersonate her.
“I don’t do that. And I don’t eye you up either, you’re so annoying.”
“Want me to prove you do?” Scarlet flipped the conversation and caught Yvie off guard.
She hadn’t expected round two to come at all nevermind that fast, but she most certainly wasn’t mad at it.
The same could have also been said for round three, which happened around a week later when Yvie just so happened to take her lunch break at the same time as Scarlet, following her out to her car and letting Scarlet drive a couple of minutes to somewhere more secluded. The sun beamed down through the windscreen and glistened on Scarlet’s pale skin as they moved together rapidly, the pair already becoming familiar with the little easter eggs that made each other tick.
“Ten minutes to spare, wow.” Yvie checked the time on her phone, allowing herself to lie back in as much comfort as she could given that she was in the back of a rather tiny car with a rather tall girl by her side.
“What are we doing?” Scarlet sat up, hitting her head slightly on the roof but not acknowledging it, a trait Yvie had picked up on before having watched Scarlet’s clumsy legs take many tumbles around the centre only for her to keep walking like it hadn’t happened (Yvie always found this funnier than the fall itself, especially that one time it was a running child that sent Scarlet tumbling, utterly priceless).
“Erm, lying in the back of your car trying to remember how to breathe?” Yvie knew it wasn’t the answer she was looking for but gave it nonetheless.
“No. This, us. What is this?”
Yvie wished she knew the answer. At first, she didn’t know how to approach her, bringing the borrowed clothes to work in a carrier bag ready to return, only to be left silent once Scarlet came to the counter to fulfil her caffeine addiction that day. But Scarlet managed to break the ice, making a subtle joke about her lack of regret as she took the bottle from Yvie’s hand. It was bittersweet - Yvie knew there was a clear distinction between having no regrets and wanting to do something again, and she was at least seventy per cent sure she wanted to do it again. Ninety-nine once the opportunity had finally risen again, Scarlet dangling her car keys in front of Yvie like the forbidden fruit of Eden. An apple she couldn’t help but take a bite from, no matter how much it would bite her back later.
So Yvie thought about her answer, she didn’t want to get this one wrong. The natural answer was that they were friends, only Yvie knew they weren’t. They were less than friends, they didn’t chat and gossip like friends and frankly she couldn’t stand Scarlet most of the time, the chatting and gossiping with her actual friends at work usually revolving around that fact. Yet they were also so much more, Yvie’s eyes followed the girl wherever she went like she was being guided home and her heart had just about snapped in two when she saw Scarlet upset.
Maybe it wasn’t Scarlet she hated but instead the way she felt about her. Or the way she didn’t even understand what that feeling was. Perhaps that is what she’d hated all along.
“I don’t know.” Yvie stepped outside to straighten her uniform and move to the passenger seat.
“You don’t know?” Scarlet joined her in the front, slamming her door a tad too hard once her foot was inside. “You always have an answer for everything.”
“Well, do you?” Yvie retaliated.
“I’m the one who asked in the first place!”
As much as she wanted to, Yvie couldn’t deny she had a point there.
“Well whatever it is, I’m glad to see we disagree on it already,” Yvie replied as Scarlet started to drive back to work.
“You can take me on a date sometime if you’d like.” Scarlet let the words jump out of her mouth quickly just before the traffic lights turned green, acting completely casual and nonchalant just like she had after hitting her head as if nothing had happened at all.
“A date?” Yvie’s voice raised an octave higher than it should have.
“You know where two people who kind of fancy each other go and get food? It’s a pretty basic term, I thought you’d know seen as you’re crazy clever and going to the best University in the country.”
Yvie choked on her water and sent it flying down the wrong way, a mess of coughs and splutters next to Scarlet’s pristine self. It wouldn’t have been the worst way to die, at least she’d never feel the embarrassment afterwards and have the dignity of knowing she’d given the girl a good time just before.
“I haven’t gotten in yet.” Yvie’s mind was thrown away from the conversation and back to the impending doom of her University application. Thank god she always had Scarlet to remind her of the massive feat she was trying to achieve.
“You can say no if you want, I don’t care.” Scarlet pulled into the car park, not really caring that her wheels were at a forty-five-degree angle and only just within the lines.
Yvie thought of all the times she had come up with convoluted methods to avoid Scarlet’s presence after their first meeting, of that first day she’d been given a lift home and how much had changed since then. Scarlet was confident and sometimes lived on a different planet to Yvie altogether but that didn’t hide her warmth, her wit or the big smile that came on her face whenever she tried to dance. And as much as she was shocked by her own thoughts, Yvie couldn’t deny that an evening with that warmth, wit and smile was all she really needed to relieve her stress.
“Well, where would you like to go for food then?” Yvie asked her as they entered the building, ready to part ways until the end of the day.
“Sorry, you’ll have to come up with that one on your own.” Scarlet grinned. “And please don’t fuck it up, Yvie.”