It takes you all of thirty seconds to decide, another twenty to make the call and so thatâs less than a minute and thenâŚ
Well, then thereâs nothing to do but wait and letâs face it, youâre fuck all at that. But, even though itâs the longest ten minutes of your life, you do manage to spend all 600 seconds of it not doing anything to actively making this any worse, so at least youâve got that going for you.
A winâs a win, right? No matter how small.
Youâre about to crack, about ten more seconds from losing your nerve and turning right around, walking right back into the diner and right up to Reagan and putting your lips right on hers and yes, that is an awful lot of rights and yes, you know theyâre all mostly wrongs, but itâs been ten minutes with no Reagan and no Sophie, neither of them looking for you, and that's left you alone with just your thoughts and those are about the worst fucking company you can imagine.
You used to think no one could have more insane plans per minute than Karma.
Oh God, were you wrong.
Your hand is on the back door, the one leading from the break room to the alley and you know youâre on the wrong side of it, but that hand⌠itâs pressed against the door, holding it shut cause apparently some part of you still has some fucking sense but that sense is just about worn thin, like barely frozen ice youâre about to fall right the fuck through and thatâs when you hear it, the sound of your savior, the familiar rumble of your motherâs engine.
Her carâs engine. You havenât heard her engine rumble since the last time Bruce came back to Austin to visit Lauren and, as Farrah put it, âthese things just⌠happenâ and yes, you do realize now that these things do indeed just happen.
And you realize even more than youâd like, right now, in this so very rumbling (the car) and stumbling (you) (thatâs all that youâve been doing for what seems like forever now) and barely holding it together - and, in the case of that door, shut - moment, that you are far far far more like your mother than either of you ever imagined.
Once upon a time, that might have been a good thing.
Thereâs no reason - except sentiment and guilt a heart not quite as broken as it should be and yup, you are just so her - for Farrah to still be driving that big old fucking boat (a Goddamned yacht) of a car that Bruce bought her in those last few months of their marriage. It was all circling the drain by then. Her affair with your father (and yes, thatâs as odd to think as it is to say) coupled with Bruceâs wild all or nothing homerun swings at provingâŚÂ somethingâŚÂ about his manhood or his prowess or some such macho bullshit (hence the yacht) was nothing short of a walking, talking, nonstop disaster (Epic Fail would have been kind) and it was all you and Lauren could do to, somehow, sometimes, look away.
âItâs like a car wreck,â you said. âLike a ten car pile up and youâre so worried someone might be dead, but you canât stop looking and wondering and then⌠youâre almost disappointed when theyâre not.â
Lauren nodded and watched - with horror and fear and rapt attention - as Farrah tried, and mostly failed, to appear something close to grateful or happy or anything other than the oh my God, why? she was feeling, but not saying, as Bruce gave her the grand tour of her new wheels.
The tour lasted like twenty minutes and you swear that was just the time it took to walk from one end of the fucking thing to the other and did someone say overcompensation?
âSometimes,â Lauren muttered, turning to go back in the house (the one she was increasingly concerned wouldnât be hers much longer), âitâs time to quit the CPR and just give up the ghost.â
Sometimes, she said, itâs time for the head to tell the heart what it already knows.
Dead is dead. And there ainât no coming back.
Lauren, youâve decided, wasnât wrong. (Like thatâs something new.) And, you know that your call to make⌠wellâŚÂ the call (to your mother) and your hand pressing shut on the door (to the diner) (to Reagan) is your head talking to your heart.
Youâre just not sure itâs listening yet.
(Actually, you're absolutely fukcing positive it isnât but youâre equally as not sure you want it to and yes, thatâs as confusing as it sounds and you know it must mean something when all of this shit with Reagan and Sophie and Reagan and Sophie is all so royally fucked up that itâs actually enough to make you miss Karma and her mixed like a Long Island Ice Tea signals.)
(It means something.) (God help you if you have the first fucking clue what.)
You watch as Farrah squeezes the yacht down the alley and alongside you and youâre diving into the passenger seat almost before sheâs even had time to slow down, not that the sheâs actually going, you know, fast. For all itâs size and power, the yacht goes zero to sixty in about a fucking week but even as slow as it is, it still takes a good four or five more feet before your mother is able to actually bring the beast to a complete stop.
Farrah clutches the wheel and lets out a long shuddering breath as the brakes squeal so loudly youâre sure they heard them in Dallas (or, you know, behind that door thatâs still not opening even though youâre not holding shut anymore.) Since the damn thingâs not moving anymore and she needs a moment to collect herself again - now your mother is also turning, which means, unfortunately, taking a good long look at you.
And if the long slow sigh isnât a tip off how that she doesnât like what she sees⌠well⌠it really is. Youâve been hearing that sigh from Farrah for years and yes, youâre used to it, but letâs face facts here. Thereâs a metric fuckload of things youâre used to.
Sophieâs crappy coffee. Karmaâs two am drunk texts. Sophieâs snoring. Laurenâs looks (you even have an alphabetical list of what every one of them means.) Sophieâs habit of brushing her teeth with your toothbrush, Sophieâs incessant need to play that fucking Lola Montez song every time some new girl turns out not to be the girl, Sophieâs borderline obsession with finding a way to use the dancing lady emoji in every text conversation.
Youâre sensing a pattern here.
(Besides the pattern of your roomie being somewhat nuts.) (Takes one to fucking know one.)
And yes, that pattern - the real one - is that you are used to a ton of things and now damn near every one of them feels like a thousand tiny knives in your heart and yes that fucking sigh from your mother is one of those.
Farrah is your OG. She was the first one you let down, the first one you failed. Clearly, not the last, but thatâs not the point right this second.
She reaches out - the mother in her still seeing you as a tiny, as her little girl, even if youâre, you know, a grown up now (supposedly) -Â her hand hovering in the air just above your eye and itâs like you can feel the gentle brush of her fingers coursing through the air and youâve got no earthly idea how you manage to not flinch, to not pull away.
âIt looks worse than it is,â you mumble, your eyes unable to meet hers and that little lie is really just for you, cause this is Farrah weâre talking about.
She can always see your truth for the bullshit it is. At least when she wants to.
Her hand drops back to the seat between you and you let out your own slow, staggered breath, one that you hadnât realized you were holding in. âYouâll want to ice that,â she says, âwhen you get back to the dorm. Before the swelling really sets in.â And then her hand is back on the wheel and the beastly yacht is slowly working its way to the other end of the alley.
The dorm. The dorm.
Well fuck.
Every inch the yacht chews up and spits out is one inch and then two and then six and then a whole fucking foot and 5,280 of those makes a mile and like ten of those makes a spot in the parking lot outside your dorm.
Which is, you know, not just yours.
How that particular thought didnât occur to you till just now, well, who the fuck knows? Sure, you have some other⌠things⌠on your mind, but letâs not bullshit here, OK? Those other things? Like 99.9999995 percent Reagan - and 99.9999994 percent of those thoughts involve her with far less than 100 percent of her clothes - and like⌠the rest, which is more maths than you can handle right now are all Sophie, so maybe that explains how the whole dorm thing slipped through the cracks.
And oh, how you wish there was a crack or two you could slip through right now.
Farrah doesnât say anything else - and neither do you, not until you hit the highway and thereâs enough distance between you andâŚÂ them⌠that you feel you can breathe again - and you can tell, surprisingly, that neither of you even wants to say anything.
Youâd expected a lecture or, at the very least, a stern talking to. But Farrah, you realize, has come to the exact same conclusion you did in the ten, fifteen, twenty seconds before you made the call. The damage has been done. And thereâs nothing you can do, no words you can say, no Harry Potter spell or crazy monkeys with typewriters that will even begin to come close to undoing it.
Youâve made your bed - and itâs in the fucking dorm - and now youâve gotta lie in it. (And yes, lie is the right fucking word.)
Unless⌠maybe you donât.
The idea comes fast and hard (yes, like Reagan did when you did that⌠thing⌠with your tongue and your hands and oh, why canât you stop thinking about that?)
(Dumbest. Fucking. Question. Ever.)
You shove those thoughts away (for now) and focus on the idea, the one that seems so simple and easy and perfect that you canât believe you didnât think of it before now. Itâs the oh so you solution.
Itâs running. Except, sort of, running to instead of away, or at least you can claim it is and youâre the only one who can call you on that bullshit and you figure youâve got at least⌠a week, seven days⌠before youâll do that.
You donât look at Farrah as you speak, focusing instead at the white lines counting down every one of those 52,800 feet. âSo,â you say, as the car shudders its way onto the highway and the air returns to your lungs for the first time since you saw your phone in Sophieâs hand. âI was thinking⌠I kind of miss you. And home. And so maybeâŚâ
Farrah doesnât give you an answer. But when she exits the highway some 15, 840 feet sooner than she should, well, that tells you all you need to know.
Home is where the heart is. Or, you know, where it hides.
That âitâ is an ice pack and no, it doesnât do much of anything, not for the pain or the swelling you can already feel starting in your cheek and around your eye, or for the regret and all the burning self-recriminations that started long before Sophie drilled you in the face. The bitter and painful cold of that ice, pressed tightly against your eye, doesnât do much of anything for any of that.
The feel of Reaganâs hand, holding it there? Well⌠that does a lot. More than it should, more than youâd like.
And now thatâs just another of your fucking lies and you know it even before you think it. Youâd like - love - that touch to do even more, to make you feel more. You could quite happily spend hours or days or, you know, the rest of your life, letting that touch make you feel everything.
Youâre pretty sure (past pretty) (more like totally, completely, infinitely sure) that, no matter what happens here today, no matter how many more punches you take, or what comes after, that no matter how many other touches there may be from other people in all the time still to come, hers is the touch you will always remember, the one you will always compare every other one to.
And they will all come up lacking. Sorely.
Which is, you know, the problem in a nutshell. Or, you know, in something else, what with your allergy and all and, yes, youâre totally debating what the problem is in, just so you donât actually have to face it - her - cause she's right there, with one hand holding the ice to your cheek and the other⌠oh, the other.
That other is slowly and carefully and delicately brushing the hair out of your face, gently tucking it back and away from the ice. That other is treating you more like the victim that you know you most certainly arenât and not the criminal, the perp - and letâs keep it real and call it (you) what it (you) is (are) - the bitch, that you most certainly are.
The other is just Reagan being Reagan and, until this very moment, that was something youâd never even considered as anything but a good thing.
Chalk that up as one more thing youâve ruined.
You push yourself up from the chair, the one she sat you in, tucked away in the employee break room in the back of the diner, her hand - the other - dropping uselessly to her side as you clutch the ice pack yourself, wincing as you accidentally press it too hard against your skin, the rough corner of the plastic coating catching your cheek and if Sophie hadnât managed to draw blood, youâre pretty sure you just did.
Reagan takes a step back, leaning against the wall and even now, even after years apart, you can still read her. The way her arms fold, crossing against her chest, one leg bent at the knee, foot pressed against the wall as if sheâs ready to push off, just waiting for the starterâs gun, the signal to run. Again.
OK, that last bit might be a little projection. (Might be?) (Might be?) It was you who was always the runner. Though, in all fairness and yes, now seems like a perfect time to start being fair to you, itâs not like Reagan was just blameless in that.
You ran. But, it wasnât like she didn't push.
(And no, youâre not the least bit concerned that you might be blaming the victim, here, or, at least, one of them.)
Still, you can read her - read her eyes as they find the floor - read the way her perfect brows knit together and thereâs that crinkle between them, the mark of her 'deep thoughtsâ and you know you shouldnât, but you canât help remembering a time when those deep thoughts were almost always either worries - about Karma and about you and about you and Karma, mostly - or they were musings on what might happen five, ten, or fifteen minutes later, when everyone else was finally gone and it was just you and her and a lot of clothes that would be just as gone, just as fast.
Somehow, you doubt either of those things are going through her mind right now.
And somehow, even after all this, even after Sophie and Sophieâs broken heart and Sophieâs fucking hell of a right hook, youâre still disappointed by that. And that, is the real problem and you may not know much about nuts (take that any way you like it) but you know enough to know thereâs no shell in the world big enough for that.
âI probably had that coming,â you say, mostly to break the silence before it chokes you both. âI just never knew she could punch like that.â
Reagan mercifully leaves the 'probablyâ part of that alone, choosing to ignore the fact that reality was somewhere north of 'probablyâ and closer to 'absolutelyâ or 'definitelyâ or 'she could have jumped on you and pounded you for an hour and it still might not have been enoughâ. âThree years of Krav Maga in high school,â she says, without looking up, the criss-cross of her arms tightening against her chest. âShe never told you?â
You shake your head, slowly, and even that little bit of movement sends more fresh ripples of pain cascading through your cheek and your jaw and now youâre suddenly overjoyed that youâre in a restaurant that serves nothing but eggs, cause youâre not quite sure if youâre going to enjoy chewing again any time soon.
Reagan nods. âShe had a crush on the woman who taught the class,â she says. Thereâs just a hint of a smile there, you can see it, and even that tiniest of hints, very nearly does to your heart what Sophieâs fist did to your face. That was your smile, once upon a lifetime ago. âAnd then she ended up hooking up with this whole other girl, one she accidentally punched in the face during a class,â she says, and thatâs when those eyes come up, finding yours across the tiny room, and you think youâd give anything to hold them there forever, but youâre almost definitely sure, youâve lost the right to hope for that. âI donât think this is gonna work out quite like that.â
You and Sophie making out? Yeah, no. You doubt thereâs even going to be any making up, much less hooking up.
The ice pack shifts under your hand and a chill trails down your cheek. âSophie never said anything to me aboutâŚâ You trail off, stifling the moment of indignation or jealousy or whatever the fuck it is youâre feeling about Sophie sharing something with Reagan and not with you. After all, itâs pretty damn clear who the real Khaleesi of Never Mention is in this equation. âYou two must have talked a lot,â you mumble, shifting the ice slightly, wincing again as the cold finds yet another spot to burn.
Reaganâs voice is as soft as youâve ever heard as she damn near whispers âAll last nightâ and the silence that follows hangs heavy and loaded, the 'after she found outâ left unspoken but sure as fuck not unthought.
All last night. All last night⌠well⌠all last night, you were wallowing in your misery again and Reagan was doing the work, all the heavy lifting, picking up the pieces of not just one, but two relationships youâd taken a damn flamethrower to.
Yeah, you so had that punch coming. And then some.
Reagan watches as you fidget with the ice for another moment and then, suddenly, sheâs right there,her hand covering yours, and she guides you in steering the cold, her other hand catching you by the shoulder even as you start to pull away. âHold still,â she says, or, really, commands (and no, you're not thinking of other times sheâs used that tone, not at all, because, even you know that right now your face is the only thing that should be getting wet.) âIf you donât ice this properly now, youâre going to look like youâre smuggling golf balls in your cheeks tomorrow.â
She pauses, waiting, because - much to your surprise - she can still read you and this is an Amy moment, if there ever was one. Come on, golf balls in your cheeks?
That shit writes itself.
But maybe youâre older or wiser (or maybe just massively distracted by the way the fingers of her hand on your shoulder are brushing against the bare skin of your neck) but whatever the reason, you keep your mouth shut.
First time for everything, right? Except, you know, for you not screwing over your best friend with your apparently insatiable appetite for fucking the exact wrong person at the exact wrong time.
Reagan, satisfied that the ice is properly positioned, takes a small step back, but that hand, oh, it doesnât move.
Or, really, it does, just not back (and away) like the rest of her, but rather down. As in slowly down the length of your arm. It takes all of three, maybe four seconds, but thatâs a thousand times longer than it probably should, something far closer to a forever, and you are utterly and completely aware of every single moment. Reaganâs eyes are locked on yours the entire time, your heart a stuttering tick-tock clock in your chest and you swear someone has cast a spell on it, slowing the time down, stretching every moment into lasting an eternity thatâs still over far too soon.
God, you are so absolutely screwed.
Reaganâs fingers dance across the border between short sleeve and bare skin, tickling their way past your elbow, down to your forearm and then your hand. She doesn't hold it, and she doesn't take it - and you don't give it, even if every part of you is screaming that you should - but her fingers curl against you, digging into your knuckles, before she finally (far far far too late) pulls her hand away, taking another - bigger - step back.
âSorry,â she mutters, staring down at her hand as if it somehow betrayed her, as if she doesnât understand what the hell it was doing.
That one word, that one fucking syllable⌠it kills you⌠and all you want to do, all you need to do, is scream at her, that she shouldnât be sorry, not for that, and not to you.
No.
Thatâs another one of your lies - this one to just yourself, except your self ainât buying it any more than anyone else with half a clue would - cause that is so not all you need to do. What you need, what every part of you aches to do, is to reach out and catch that hand and take it, and hold it, and tell her that you know (now) you never should have let go of it, not then, not now, not ever.
Anything else would be a lie.
And maybe, you think, now is the time. Maybe this is the moment when all the lies end and the chips fall where they may, even if every one of them is a little bit of Sophie, a tiny or not so tiny sliver of her heart and, no, youâre not thinking about what kind of friend that makes you, no, not at all, cause if you doâŚ
You canât.
You just⌠canât. Not this time. Not with Reagan and not with this second (or is it third) chance, not with an opportunity to, for once, be utterly and completely honest in every way. That, you know, is whatâs always been your downfall, your Achillesâ heel, the thing that did you in and not just with Reagan. With Lauren, at first. With Karma, obviously. With Sabrina, even if in that case, doing you in meant doing her for far longer than you probably should have, given that she wasnât the one in your heart - another lie you told yourself - and even with Sophie.
You never tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. With you, itâs always been fragments and fractions and asides to the audience (read: Shane or Lauren or whoever was the ear on loan at that particular moment.) Maybe, you think, itâs time to go all in, to place your bet on honesty and coming clean.
Maybe, you think Reagan getting dropped on your doorstep was the universeâs way of giving you a chance and maybe, you think (again) thereâs only one way to find out.
âReagan, I -â
And, maybe, the words die in the air as she turns. Her hand - that same hand - finding the handle for the break room door, tugging it open (and itâs so much more than a tug, too violent, too much force and power and, almost, desperation), her feet crossing the threshold even before itâs swung open and even you can see that, can recognize it for what it is.
Of course you can. Takes one to know one. Itâs what you do.
âWe should probably get back out there,â she says and yeah, sheâs pretending - and doing it well - to have never heard you. âSophieâs still waiting and waitingâŚâ She hesitates, one foot in and one foot out, but you know thatâs just a function of movement, itâs not a metaphor in the slightest.
That foot might still be there, but Reaganâs already gone.
âWaiting just leads to wondering,â you say, incredibly proud of yourself for not choking on the words. âAnd wondering⌠well⌠that just never ends well, does it?â
Reaganâs hand tightens on the door and for a moment - a fucking tick and a fucking tock before the clock breaks - you think maybe sheâs changed her mind.
âNothing ever ends well, Amy,â she says. âSometimes, all you can do is manage the pain.â
The question comes without thinking. âIs that what weâre doing?â
She shakes her head slowly, that foot finally finding itâs way out the door. âNot very well,â she says. âNot very well, at all.â
And then thereâs nothing but her back and the sound of her steps echoing (far too quickly) in the hall and thenâŚ
Sheâs gone.
And the only thing you can think is that this must be what itâs like, to be the one thatâs left, rather than the one that's leaving. So, yeah, maybe, you think, you had the right idea in the first place, all those other times, cause it seems so much better to run, than to be run from.
Thereâs silence. No. Not silence. Silence. Like, itâs so quiet you could hear yourself breathing, you know, if you were. But youâre not. Your breath has stopped and oh, if only your heart had stopped with it, instead of doing a fucking drumline in your chest, the beats ratcheting up harder and louder (those you can hear, thrumming in your fucking ears) and thicker than any Reagan has ever laid down.
Fuck. Reagan.
(Yes, youâd like to.) (Again.) (And that's so not the point.)
(Except it kinda is.)
Sheâs right there. Right there and yes, youâre emphasizing things a bit, but she's right fucking there and Sophie is right⌠there⌠like the other there, the across from you, staring into your eyes and daring you to try and spin some bullshit to get out of this there.
And youâre tempted. Sorely tempted. Tempted to the point of desperate cause, right now, the only way you seeing this end is you, alone, sitting here eating eggs you never fucking wanted, while the two people who just might matter the most to you are⌠wellâŚ
Just say it. You know youâre thinking it.
Theyâre gone. Again, in one case. And for good, in both.
So, yeah, youâre tempted to try and weasel your way out of this, to try and sell Sophie on some utter bullshit and hope (fucking pray) that Reagan goes along with it, that maybe together you can convince her not to ditch you both, even though thereâs a pretty good chance (like 75%) (at least) that one of you is going to end up with a very Sophie-less life.
The thought of it being you absolutely breaks your heart. Yesterday notwithstanding - and all the pictures on your phone and all the feelings you never really felt for anyone else, not even the girl you dated for two fucking years also notwithstanding - youâre used to a life without Reagan. You can't imagine one without Sophie. So, youâre crossing your fingers and maybe your toes and offering up a few silent prayers.
Youâre praying for Reagan to get dumped. Again.
God, you suck.
But⌠how about that bullshit? Hmmm⌠letâs see. Maybe the classics?
(Theyâre classic for a reason, after all.)
Itâs not what you think.
That one is always an option. Lord knows, you used it on Karma a time or two or, you know, six hundred. Except, well, that was easy because you always knew what Karma was thinking.
Sabrinaâs a bitch. Sabrinaâs going to cheat on you. Sabrinaâs going to break your heart.
Itâs funny⌠in the end, Karma wasn't entirely wrong. But thatâs pretty much par for the Karma-course. Sheâs never entirely anything.
But the trouble is, Sophie isnât Karma. (And, any other time, that so wouldnât be âtroubleâ.) You donât know what she thinks. Maybe sometimes, like maybe when sheâs watching Beckyâs ass as it saunters away or like when sheâs had one too many and sheâs staring at the pictures of you and Farrah and Lauren that sit on your desk, looking lost and more than a little jealous, the wish for a family like that practically written across her face. But right now?
You havenât a clue.
You know that she knows - she fucking told you that like five seconds ago - but you donât know exactly what she knows or how she knows.
And then you spot your phone, resting on the table under her hand, the phone you havenât been able to find since you left (fled) (the word youâre not looking for is fled) Reaganâs apartment and, yeah, now youâve got a pretty good idea about the 'howâ, at least.
âI always told you,â Sophie says. Her voice is soft and thereâs no anger lacing her words and ohâŚÂ fuck⌠that just terrifies you. âSomeday you were gonna leave this in the wrong place.â
She slides the phone across the table, unlocked (she knows the code and yes, you realize now that might have been a dumb idea but, hey, itâs not like you havenât had more than a few of those lately,right?) and the screen open to your gallery.
Which, to your eternal fucking horror, means open up to Reaganâs almost nude body, sprawled out on your high school bed, with your high school self curled next to her, equally as 'almostâ and what was that about dumb fucking ideas?
Apparently, there not just a recent thing.
You hear Reagan gasp - short and surprised, like those times when you snuck up on her in the shower and slipped your hand between her legs (that one time) (and she slipped and fell and almost cracked her head open on the tub and you both resolved that all⌠shenanigans would take place on dry land) and, yes, just as pained as that time - and it occurs to you that she showed you the picture she kept (if dropping it on the floor counts as showing and oh, it fucking does and you fucking know it) but you never showed her yours.
Thereâs a metaphor in there about hearts, but youâre not about hearing that, right now.
âI can explain,â you say, the words bumbling and stumbling their way out of you before you can stop them and you wish you could, cause even though - maybe - theyâre true? Not bullshitting doesnât solve the far bigger problem.
You donât know who youâre saying them to.
Sophieâs hand lingers by the phone and all three of you stare at the screen, in all itâs nekkid glory - and no, thatâs not weird at all - until the tiny bell over the front door chimes and Reagan has to actually, you know, do her job, and go seat someone. A little old couple, shuffling in for their morning eggs (they can so have yours) and if you looked, youâd see them - all of like a hundred and twenty combined - still holding hands like a pair of teenagers.
And if you could tear your eyes from the screen, youâd probably note that youâve never seen Reagan move quite as fast as she does bolting from the table, not even the night she almost broke up with you at Communal.
And youâd probably wonder if thatâs an almost she wishes she could have back.
But you canât look away and itâs not just because itâs Reagan and sheâs almost naked or just because your brain - traitor that it fucking is - is remembering exactly how she felt that day, that whole afternoon when Farrah and Bruce were at some dance recital thing for Lauren and the two of you had the house to yourself.
What does it say about you that you can remember every sight and sound and touch and feel and taste (oh⌠the taste) from just those few months with Reagan and yet, you can barely even remember how Sabrina sounds when she laughs?
Two fucking years.
You know what it says? It says you suck. Like a black hole.
But, you really canât look away because thereâs nowhere safe for you to look at. If you look at Sophie, you know what youâre going to see. That look of sadness, of betrayal, her eyes filled with the sad realization that you are just like them.
And Sophie has a long list of 'themâsâ to choose from. You just never imagined youâd be on it.
âYou canât even look at her, can you?â
How the fuck does she do that?
âIt makes sense,â Sophie says, her hand slowly drifting back to her side of the table, out of your sight. Itâs almost like sheâs not there and oh, how that stings. âYou donât really handle guilt well.â
The response is automatic. Defensive. Blame shifting at itâs finest. âI donât feel guilty about her,â you say. âReagan⌠she⌠it was a mutual thing. Not like I forced her or something.â
Would you? Would you have made a move, would have you pushed it, would you have instigated - more than you did - if sheâd tried to resist, to hold out?
You squeeze your eyes shut and yank the phone across the table, locking it and clearing the screen. Some questions, you know, are better left unanswered.
âI feel bad for what we did to you,â you say, realizing halfway through that you don't know that Sophie knows what you two did, but, really, it doesnât matter. Because that isnât even on the same scale, like not even the same planet, the same universe as the lie, as not telling her the moment you and Reagan met in the hall.
And isnât that always the way? In the end, itâs all about the didnât versus the did. And, in your case, the lie⌠those words you didn't say, you know, are so much worse than the deeds you did. You would have thought youâd have learned that lesson from Karma, from Liam, from Reagan the first fucking time.
Apparently, you would have thought wrong.
âNot gonna lie,â Sophie says, and that fucking calm and collected and not even hinting at anger or sadness or much of anything - she could be a fucking android right now - tone is driving you crazy. âYou hurt me. You both did.â She drums her fingers on the table in front of her, you can feel the vibrations. âBut how mad can I really get? Whatever you did to me, itâs not half as bad as what you did to each other.â
That's enough to make you look, to pull your eyes from the phone, to stare across the table at her in shock and confusion. âWhat we did to each -â
You never do get the 'otherâ out. She moves faster than you can think, and all you can think is that itâs been building inside her, ticking down like a bomb. Maybe it was the way you looked at her, maybe it was the confusion in your voice, maybe it was the sight of Reagan behind you, helping that little old woman into her chair, seeing you and her even sort of together.
Or maybe it was etching your name on that list of 'themâsâ, of realizing how badly youâd hurt her, of how broken every single rule was. The sense of betrayal and rejection washing over her and soaking into her skin and needing somewhere to go, some way to get out.
Then again, maybe she was just really pissed.
Whatever it was, it spurred Sophie into action, sent her shooting out of her chair, leaning across the barely there table and - with somewhat surprising force - landing a right hook to your face that would have made Ronda Rousey (before she sucked) proud.
It sends you sprawling backwards in your chair, clattering to the floor, your head coming to rest within spitting distance of that old womanâs shoes, staring up at the ceiling and willing yourself to ignore the shocked - and concerned - look on Reaganâs face as she looks down on you.
âThat mad,â Sophie says - and that tone, the other one, the calm fucking Spock-bot emotionless tone - oh, that is so fucking gone. She pushes back, away from the table, her chair legs scraping across the floor. âI guess I can get that mad.â
A/N:  I swear on⌠somethingâŚ. Iâm going to finish this.  Almost there.
Previous Chapters
Amy doesnât understand.
Not that thatâs anything new, itâs not like itâs the first time (or second time or third time or fourth time or the you get the fucking idea time) someone could say that about her cause, letâs face it, thereâs a lot Amy doesnât understand.
The list - and itâs not a Karma list, but it damn near could be - is long and varied. Thereâs the appeal of kale, why anyone would willingly listen to reggae, and how on Earth anyone could think blondes have more fun (like, seriously, has anyone checked her life circa all of fucking high school?) And then thereâs math. As in all of it. As in everything beyond addition and subtraction and even, sometimes, those and itâs not like she hasnât tried to learn it or even had help with it.
Lauren spent the better part of two years in high school going over the quadratic equation and the Pythagorean theorem (as in over and over and fucking over) and the only thing Amy ever really understood - and still understands - is that a-squared plus b-squared equals her needing a fucking drink-squared.
âI have a calculator,â Amy said - also over and over and fucking over - ignoring Laurenâs rolling eyes and protestations about broadening horizons and well rounded education and critical fucking thinking. âA calculator and a cell phone. A fucking smart phone, and both of them can do math a thousand and one times faster than old Pythagoras ever even dreamed of,â Amy said, and that was the point at which Lauren almost always gave up.
Not that Amy was done.
âAnd, more importantly,â she said, always punctuating this part with a wagging finger, âif I had a dime for every time I have ever needed or will ever need to find the length of the third side of a triangle, do you know what Iâd have?â
Lauren never answered. Sheâd learned the math on that one, the law of diminishing returns.
âIâd have zero fucking dimes,â Amy said. âThatâs what Iâd have.â
Clearly, Amy did understand the basics of currency.
So thereâs math, obviously, and kale and reggae. But thereâs more personal stuff too. Like, for instance, Amy doesnât understand - like at all - how the whole Karma and Lucy thing happened.
âKarma was faking,â she says to Lauren or Shane or sometimes Reagan, but only when sheâs drunk or exhausted or looking for a fight and no, that has nothing to do with how fantastic (like even more than usual) makeup sex with Reagan is. âShe was faking and now she's kissing and just how the hell does that happen and no, Iâm not jealous, Iâm just confused, cause Karma's kissing and itâs my sister and stop giving me that look, Iâm just trying to understand.â
And you can so add in why everyone (read: especially Reagan) thinks Amy ought to let that particular sleeping dog just fucking lie to the top of the list of things that Ms. Raudenfeld just doesnât understand.
(Even if she really does. Like really really.) (But it's Karma. And Lucy. And seriously, W the absolute F?)
More? You need more?
Oh, there's more.
Amy doesnât get - like at all - why Lauren is so pissed at Theo for choosing to go to a good school (at least he's going and not just staying and no, sheâs never said that out loud and if you think she might, well, where the fuck have you been for the last two years?) She doesnât have the first damn clue how Bruce puts up with her motherâs continued fixation on everything Jack does.
Or why Jack does anything.
She is utterly - like 100% times infinity (and beyond) - bewildered by the sheer physics of her girlfriendâs eyebrows. There hasnât been one moment since the first moment when sheâs understood even a little of why Reagan is with her. And, more than all the rest, Amy doesnât understand how anyone could have ever cheated on Reagan.
âI get the literal how,â she told Lauren once - one of the many many many times Lauren wondered if being real sisters was worth it (she always decided yes, but stillâŚ) - âlike I understand the mechanics of it, but seriously? The desire, the want to. I just donât get it.â
What she does get?
Sheâs incredibly grateful that someone (hi Shelby) (you bitch) was that stupid.
So, yeah, thereâs a lot of things Amy doesnât understand and now, right fucking now, you can add a tiny velvet box, held out in front of her - daring her, calling to her, a fucking Siren song of temptation sheâs barely resisting - to that list.
Also: how Reagan could think that now (right fucking now, as noted) is a good time to propose given, you know, that they just got back from visiting Amyâs soon to be new home. The one thatâs 511.9 miles away (she can use Google Maps, too) and, really, thatâs more like a world and, last time Amy checked, that world wasnât going to be including Reagan.
Stupid world. Stupid fucking waste of a world.
âNo.â Reagan says and Amy nods, even though itâs not a question. âNo,â Reagan says, again, and it's still not a question but Amy nods again anyway which, to her, seems at least slightly counterintuitive (at best) and fucking rude (at worst), like sheâs not just saying no.
She's hammering it. Sheâs driving that no nail right between those perfect brows with every fucking nod, but she canât stop.
Sheâs a motherfucking bobblehead.
âItâs not that I donât want to,â Amy says, finally finding a word that isnât ânoâ. And it really is the truth, she does want to. If thereâs anything Amy does understand, itâs the very simple - and yet massively complicated - idea that she wants, more than anything, to spend the rest of her life with Reagan.
Just, you know, not right now.
Reagan arches a brow (fucking physics) and Amy does her best not to get distracted. âI do,â she says and no, the irony of that phrase is not lost on her. âI just⌠I mean⌠I didn'tâŚâ
She sighs and drops her eyes, but not far enough that she misses Reagan taking a step back, just one, crossing her arms over her chest, the tiny box (Goddamn Pandora, thatâs what that shit is) disappearing from view.
âNo,â Reagan says, mulling the word over, rolling it round and round, letting it sink and soak in.
âReagan, baby -â
And if thereâs one other thing Amy understands, itâs that that - fucking baby? - was just about the worst thing she could have said, and if she didnât understand it?
Allow Reagan to explain.
âBaby?â Amy tips her head back and curses the fucking stars for letting her speak. âSo now this is a 'babyâ moment?â
Baby moments (aka a lesson in the Amy Raudenfeld Handbook for Dumbasses):
Reagan, baby, it doesnât bother me that Karmaâs kissing my sister.
Reagan, baby, of course your ass is still bangin in those sweatpants.
Reagan, baby, I know you wanted to go away this weekend but KarmaâŚ
Reagan, babyâŚ
Amy watches as that one brow goes from cocked and loaded to full on ready for space launch and she backpedals furiously, even if she doesnât actually, you know, move. âLet me explain,â she says (pleads.) âPlease?â
Reagan says nothing and Amy knows thatâs as close to permission as sheâs gonna get.
âItâs not that I donât want to,â she says again and Amy knows that every word out of her mouth is a tiny little shovel that just keeps digging and digging and digging. âI do. I so do. But, I just didn't⌠see it coming.â
Ainât that the fucking truth.
(and for once, with Amy, it might actually be the whole truth)
âThere was no warning,â she says and there wasnât. There wasnât a warning, there wasnât a hint or a moment when even the thought of it - marriage - crossing Reaganâs mind crossed Amyâs at all. There were no funny looks from Lauren, there wasnât a single attempt at subtle probing from Karma (or, you know, not so subtle, cause, well, Karma) and there was just no way Reagan had been planning this and at least one of them didnât know. âAnd youâve just been so distant,â Amy adds and yup, she still sucks at math, and oh, look, the first ever pair of fully orbital eyebrows.
âIâve beenâŚâ Reagan takes another step back and turns, facing off to the side, looking out over the view theyâve shared so many nights. âDistant,â she mutters but Amy notes that, as annoyed as she sounds?
Sheâs not disagreeing.
âYou have,â Amy says, pushing her luck, yes. But really, what does she have to lose at this point? âAnd itâs not like Iâve been doing much to fix it,â she says quietly. âWeâve both been ignoring the gorilla in the room so long, we never even noticed the wall it was putting up between us.â
âElephant,â Reagan says, not even needing to look to see the confused look crossing Amyâs face. âItâs the elephant in the room. Itâs bigger than a gorilla and less mobile, so it just kinda sits there taking up space and⌠and itâs a figure of fucking speech so⌠just never mind.â
Elephants. Gorillas. Fucking monkeys, thatâs all they are. Monkeys playing around and keeping secrets and not talking about the things that actually matter.
âHonestly?â Amy says. âI wouldâve been less surprised by a break up.â
And oh, why does she ever fucking speak.
But, again, it should be noted that Reagan doesnât say a word in argument. And Amy does note. Oh, how she fucking notes.
âItâs crossed your mind,â she says, âhasnât it? Ending this before I lea⌠before I go to school.â
Reagan stares at the ground, the box squeezed tight in her hand. âLeave,â she whispers. âThe word you were looking for, the one you couldn't say? Itâs 'leaveâ. Before you leave.â
Apparently theyâre not ignoring the elephant anymore. Theyâre fucking riding it.
âReagan, you know thatâs not what Iâm doing,â Amy says. She takes one hesitant step towards her girlfriend, who doesnât even so much as move. âIâm not leaving. Iâm going to college. Yes, itâs another state and itâs far away and it wonât be easy butâŚâ
Amy trails off, no fucking idea where sheâs going with this, but she canât help remembering that, historically, the trail off has never been their friend.
âBut itâs what you have to do,â Reagan says. âItâs your dream and I want it for you.â She chuckles and shakes her head. âSometimes, I think I want it for you more than you do.â
âRea⌠â Amy closes the distance, her arms snaking around Reagan and she lets out a breath she didnât know she was holding as she feels the older girl sink into her embrace. âI love you,â she whispers. âYou⌠youâre my everything. And I know you think this is the way to keep that, to make sure college and distance doesnât ruin it⌠ruin us. But marriage? I mean someday, maybe -â
Reaganâs head snaps up and she swivels in Amyâs grasp. âWaitâŚÂ what?
"I said youâre my everything and I know what youâre trying to do and why, but -â
Amyâs arms fall to her side as Reagan takes a step back, holding up a hand to shush her. âNo,â she says (irony) (again). âNot that part. The other part.â She watches as Amy goes over it in her head, slowly retracing her words. But, as usual, impatience wins out. âMarriage,â Reagan says. âYou said marriage.â
âWell, yeah,â Amy says with a small nod toward the box. âThatâs what I was trying to say. We canât get married or even engaged. Not now. Not for this.â She shakes her head. âThatâs why I was so surprised. I didnât even know you were thinking about it.â
âWell,â Reagan says, reaching out and taking Amyâs hand, dropping the box into it. âThatâs probably because IÂ wasnât.â
Seven Years and One Month Ago
The room is small. Like teeny small. Teeny tiny, smaller than her apartment small. Like small enough that Amyâs room back home might laugh at it (and swallow it), like small enough to make the 'size doesnât matterâ joke die on Reaganâs tongue.
It would just be unnecessarily cruel.
Reaganâs not sure - cause sheâs never actually seen it - but she suspects that even the Spawnâs nursery might be bigger than this.
(The Spawn = the baby = a name most definitely not on the list = exactly what Reaganâs going to call it - in her head - until they come up with a name.)
(And by 'theyâ she 100% means Karma and by 'untilâ she 110% means always. Like forever.)
Sheâs gotta think, even if she canât be sure - not Spawn sure - that the nursery is bigger than this, again, not that sheâs seen it. And yes, thatâs been mentioned (once or twice) (usually by Karma) (and by 'usuallyâ she means⌠you fucking know what she means, weâve been doing this shit long enough, no?) but it does bear repeating. You see, Reaganâs the only one who hasnât seen it.
And it should be noted that that isnât hyperbole or exaggeration, not in the slightest. This isnât one of those 'only oneâsâ like 'oh, youâre the only one whoâs never seen that movieâ - like Amy and Princess Bride, once upon a time - when thereâs literally thousands of other people who have never actually seen it.
Reagan really is the only one.
Karmaâs seen it, which is to be expected since itâs in her house. Not that thatâs weird at all, nope not one single tiny bit. Shaneâs seen it too, but - again - kinda expected since lately he basically lives with the Ashcrofts and no, thatâs not weird either.
(It is.) (It's weird.) (So fucking weird.) (So weird that even Liam has commented on it, going as far as to outright ask Shane if heâd gone straight - Karmasexual, that was his term and Amy almost fucking died on the spot - and yeah, Shane might have brushed it off and laughed at the very thought, butâŚ)
(He might have laughed just a bit too hard.)
So, Karma and Shane have seen it but they live with it. And Liamâs seen it cause, well, duh, and Laurenâs seen it (which means Theo has seen it) because, well, Lauren.
Cause Lauren and cause her weird bond with Karma and yeah, Lolo was still Reaganâs BFF but this thing with her and Karma⌠it'sâŚ
Weird.
Whatâs weirder?
Farrahâs seen it.
Farrah.
And Amyâs seen it because Farrahâs seen it.
âMolly asked me to come see the nursery,â Farrah said out of the blue, one Wednesday and Reagan remembers it was a Wednesday because Wednesdayâs are spaghetti night and the kitchen already smelled of Bruceâs special sauce - a phrase Reagan never thought she would ever utter or like - and Amy was already trying to sneak a taste out of the pot.
âWhat?â Amy said, spoon dripping red sauce onto the stovetop and God, could she ever eat anything without dripping something?
(Obviously, the answer is 'not if sheâs doing it right and you so need to get your mind out of the gutter.)
(Not that Reagan wasnât thinking the same exact thing.)
Farrah took the spoon from her daughter before Amy splattered the floor - again - and dropped it in the sink. âShe asked me to come check out the nursery. She said she wants another motherâs opinion and, apparently, the other PFLAG moms donât have my⌠taste.â Amy rolled her eyes and Reagan chuckled, both of them knowing exactly how Molly had hooked Farrah.
With her? Flattery really will get you everywhere.
âIt would be impolite for me not to go,â Farrah said, lightly slapping Amyâs hand as she tried to filch a piece of garlic bread from the loaf by the sink. âAnd I am not going alone.â
It was simple, Farrah said, trying to convince her daughter to accompany her. A five minute visit, she promised. In and out, no harm, no foul, quick like bunny rabbits, done in a flashâŚ
âFuck it,â she muttered under her breath, running clean out of cliches. âEither you go with me, or thereâs no camping trip for you and Reagan next weekend.â
Reagan could see the wheels spinning in her girlfriendâs head as she remembered camping, which, really, was remembering the table and the bed and, oh, that spot on the rocks down by the lake where those two teenage boys stumbled upon them and finished off puberty in about ten seconds flat.
Which was three seconds longer than it took Reagan to finish off Amy once they realized they had an audience, but that was neither here nor there, because what was here was Amyâs intense desire to not go there - she hadnât been in Karmaâs house in months and that had been weird, at first, but now it was more⌠comfortable - but Farrah was holding all the cards.
So, yeah, Amy went. And then Bruce went because⌠well⌠Reaganâs never been sure why but sheâs got ideas (mind, gutter, you get that idea, right?) and then Jack - fucking Jack - went too (and oh, to have been a fly on the window for that five minute car ride) because of the whole mentor-slash-father figure-slash-sure, he can be a dad to fucking Liam thing and where Jack went (and where Karma was) then so went Lucy and so, yeah.
Only one.
Sometimes - usually when sheâs trying not to think about it, which is like all the times - Reagan thinks thatâs pretty much the sum total of whatâs going to happen to her. The only one. The only one not moving on, the only one not moving up. The only one not growing and not changing, the only one not trying.
The only one left.
(And not just left behind, though, yeah, thatâs the biggest bit of it all.)
So, sheâs never seen the nursery and she doesnât think she ever will, but sheâs gotta think itâs bigger than this⌠room. If thatâs what you want to call it. Reagan can think of other words.
Hole. Closet. Dent in the fabric of space and time. Tiny little hidey hole. Cupboard under the fucking stairs and nobodyâs sending a 'Surprise! Youâre a wizard!â note here.
Oh. And one more.
Hell.
(That last one, obviously, has less to do with size and more to do with location, as in it's not Austin, and kinda everything to do with the way Karma and Molly are already softly whispering about where she and Amy can put their stuff and how cozy it will be and oh, yeah, cozy with the girl she was once in love with, cozy like no room to move or think or breathe, gonna be on top of each other⌠yupâŚ)
(Hell.)
Farrah leans against the door - like thereâs anywhere else she could stand - and surveys the room with a quick (very quick) (like Barry fucking Allen wouldnât be able to keep up quick) sweep of her eyes.
âIt's⌠homey,â she says, her lips pressed in a tight smile and yes, Reagan can add 'homeyâ to her ever expanding list of synonyms for 'ridiculously fucking tinyâ. And yes - again - sheâs totally noticing the way Farrah canât quite look at her, like her sorta-mom knows exactly whatâs going on inside her head. She probably does.
Farrah is a lot of things. Dumb ainât fucking one of them. But knowing what Reaganâs thinking and being able to convince her that sheâs wrong are two very different things and, realistically, thereâs not much chance Farrah could pull it off.
Still⌠it might be nice if someone tried.
âIt has character,â Molly says - another synonym for the list - running a hand over the not too rusted metal bed frame of the bottom bunk. âOr it will, once the girls get through with it.â
Reagan tunes out as Molly starts in with a list of things the girls can do - at least she knows now where Karma gets that particular habit - especially when that list starts with taking the bunks apart and putting the beds side by side like a fucking sleepover.
Karmaâs standing at the other end of the beds and she, at least, has the courtesy to blanche at that idea and she shoots Reagan a quick look, one the older girl thinks is supposed to say 'Iâm sorryâ and 'that's not gonna happenâ and, yeah, itâs not like Reaganâs really worried about that.
Much.
âItâs a room,â Karma says, steering her mother off the discussion of the beds and where to put them and how theyâll be sleeping in them - cause, yeah, sleeping is the concern - and back to more practical matters. âDorm rooms arenât meant to be palaces,â she says, forgetting (or trying to) the fucking suite Laurenâs got at Yale. âBesides, weâll be busy in the city and on campus and doing⌠you know⌠college things. Weâll probably only stagger back in here for sleep and a shower.â
Her eyebrow arches of its own accord, Reagan fucking swears.
âShowers,â Karma corrects, almost (but not quite) immediately. âPlural. One for me. One for her. Totally separate and not at all at the same time and yeah⌠so⌠â
Reagan shuts her eyes as a hush falls over the world - or at least this tiny (so fucking tiny) little corner of New Orleans. She tries to ignore it, to not let it steer her into thinking about how silent her actual world is about to go.
And she remembers a time when she was so much better at trying.
Itâs Karma who breaks the silence - and oh, thatâs a shock - the desperation to salvage this trip before it⌠well⌠before it becomes everything theyâve all been expecting it to since pretty much the moment they left Austin, echoing in the pitch of her voice, cracking out almost an octave too high. âSo,â she creaks, pausing to cough and reset. âMaybe⌠we should go check out the rest of campus? Iâm sure Amyâs ready to sample the cafeteria, right Aimes?â
Eight eyes turns as one to look at Amy, who hasnât said a word or even moved - like, not even an inch - from her spot by the window since the moment they all dogpiled into the room. And none of them, except maybe Molly (whoâs still murmuring about the fucking beds) are surprised by what they see.
Reagan gets it first, of course, the moment she catches Amyâs eyes. She's so not surprised, not by the look - she expected it - but maybe a little by how much it still manages to break her heart, all her expectations be damned.
She sees it first and then itâs Farrah, only a half a heartbeat in front of Karma and it's her - of all fucking people - who reaches out, one hand brushing gently against the back of Reaganâs arm and itâs supposed to be comforting, itâs supposed to be a signal, a 'hey Iâm still hereâ and a 'itâs gonna be fineâ. 'Itâs just a lookâ and 'thereâs nothing to worry aboutâ.
But, really? All it is a sign. A fucking neon blinking billboard in the night, screaming that that is utter bullshit, because there's everything to worry about. Because that look? That one Amyâs casting out the window - the one actually sort of big part of the room, overlooking campus with the flickering and blinking lights of the city in the distance - that look isn't just anything.
It's everything. That look speaks volumes, even if it only says two words.
Iâm home.
(Technically, that's three, but who the fuck is really counting?)
For the first time she can ever remember, Reagan looks away from Amy. She has to, she has to drop her eyes as if sheâs been staring too long into the sun and oh fuck no, she is not going to cry, not here, not now, not in front of⌠well⌠any of them. Sheâs not. She wonât.
She already is.
Itâs Karma, again - and fuck all, when did she get a clue? - who bails her out. âCome on,â she says, crossing the room and tugging Amy by the arm towards the open door. âGreasy college food awaits,â she says, ushering her best friend and Molly and Farrah out into the hall, glancing back one last time at Reagan, staying behind to collect herself.
Alone.
Oh, like thatâs going to help.
But then, like not even a minute later, itâs Karma - again - coming back through the door, a half crumpled paper in her hand, as she strides across the room (itâs like two baby steps, thatâs all it takes) and shoving it into Reaganâs chest.
âYouâre an idiot.â
Reagan blinks back the tears, her hand coming up to take the paper, crumpled as it is, noting, barely, a bunch of those little tear off tabs at the bottom. âWhat?â
âAn idiot,â Karma repeats and they both remember a time when she wouldnât have dared to say something like that to Reagan - it was right after the time when that sort of thing was all Karma could say to her - and thereâs a look in her eyes that Reagan doesnât quite recognize.
Right up until she does and it clicks where sheâs seen it before. The night of the party. Right before Karma kissed Amy and itâs been so long since she even thought of that, but now it comes rushing back, water crashing over the levee, and oh⌠this⌠whatever it is, it really isnât going to go well.
Color her fucking surprised.
âYou think this is her new world,â Karma says. Her hands are on her hips and sheâs trying to seem all determined and tough, but that look in her eyes dispels that right fucking quick. Itâs a look of sad resignation, of knowing what she has to do, but really not expecting it to amount to fuck all in the long run. âYou think sheâs coming here and itâs all going to be new and different and exciting and it is. But you think⌠you think sheâs going to find something here.â
Something. Someone. All the somethings, all the someones.
Reagan sags down onto the bottom bunk, the paper still clutched in her hand. âYou saw her, Karma,â she says. âSheâs not going to find something here. She already has.â
There isnât much Karma can say in argument. They both saw it. Thereâs no arguing with the truth. But when the hell has even the cold hand of the truth slapping her right across the cheek ever stopped Karma?
âYouâre right,â she says and yeah, thatâs making Reagan feel just a metric shit-ton better, like seriously, go for a career in counseling, Karms. âAmy has found something here. A chance to be something other than her.â
Reagan wants to ask - she wants to fucking scream - just what the hell is wrong with just being her? Amy. Shrimps.
Hers.
âCan you imagine, Reagan?â Karma asks. âA chance to be something other than the girl Jack left and the girl Farrah basically tried to replace. Something beyond the once fake lesbian and the 'myâ in Karmy.â
Or the 'myâ in Reamy. Same difference, right?
âAnd donât you even go there,â Karma snaps - sheâs legit pissed and Reagan didnât see that coming - staring down at the older girl still slumped on the bed. âDonât go substituting Reamy for Karmy in your head, because we both fucking know itâs not the same. It never was.â
Damn. When Karma goes for insight, she goes hard.
âThis is everything Amyâs dreamed of since she was seven,â Karma says and Reagan doesnât have to ask why that age, she can still see that fucking photo on the living room wall as clear as day in her head. âBut see, hereâs the thing, Reagan,â she says, squatting down to force herself into Reaganâs vision. âThose dreams we have when weâre little?â Karma drops her head with a slow, sad shake. âSometimes, we get stuck in them and we canât see past them and we canât understand that⌠when we grow up, those dreams should too.â
Yeah⌠not so sure theyâre talking about Amy anymore. At least not only Amy.
âShe gets that, you know,â Karma says, smiling, but barely. âAmyâs dreams⌠they grew. Bigger than getting out of Austin, bigger than college, biggerâŚâ She shakes her head again, the 'than meâ left unsaid. âShe understands that.â Karma stands and walks to the window, looking out at the city. Itâs everything they talked about since they were little, everything two tiny girls once thought meant⌠everything.
But everything tiny must grow. And everything that growsâŚ
âIt changes,â Karma says softly, focused on a light in the far distance, a blinking speck just under the horizon. âTime changes and people change and prioritiesâŚâ She leans against the glass, close enough to blur her own reflection and yeah, that seems just about right. âWhat was it you called this?â she asks. âAmyâs whole new world?â
Reagan nods. âIt is,â she says. âA whole world of possibilities.â She doesnât know how else to put it, to make it obvious that it isnât the people sheâs worried about, it isnât the thought of Amy falling in love with someone else that scares her.
Itâs the thought of Amy falling into life. Without her.
âItâs a world of chances, Karma,â Reagan says. âSo many chances for her, just like you said.â
It's almost funny and Karma almost laughs. This, of all the times, is finally the time Reagan chooses to listen to her. âYeah,â she says without turning around. âA world. But thatâs just it. It's a world⌠not her world.â Karma turns from the window, staring at Reagan, and the older girl can see her heart - and itâs not quite breaking, but itâs not quite all in one piece, either - right there in her eyes.
SometimesâŚÂ usually when she least expects it and always when it seems most capable of absolutely wrecking her - Reagan understands perfectly why Amyâs never let Karma go.
âThis is all wonderful and great and so many chances and itâs going to be an incredible time for her,â Karma says. âBut youâre her world, Reagan. You have been since the moment she met you.â
âKarma -â
âNo,â Karma says, cutting her off. âYouâre not going to tell me different because⌠well⌠youâre just not. Itâs the truth and we both know it.â And they do, even if one of them never wanted to believe it and the other oneâŚÂ canât. âShe would drop this,â Karma says. âShe would walk away from school, give up on here, move back to Austin⌠Amy would throw it all away for you. All youâd have to do is say the word.â
Reagan doesnât offer up an 'I never wouldâ. Why bother? No one goes around telling everyone that the Earth is round or water is wet.
What is understood? Doesnât really need to be discussed.
Karma steps back softly toward the bed, reaching down to tap the crumpled paper in Reaganâs hand. âAmy would give up everything for you,â she says. âShe already did.â
I choose you. I choose us.
Reagan glances down at the paper, at the tabs at the bottom, the phone number printed on them in neat twelve point font. At the words, just beneath Karmaâs finger, still brushing the paper.
âMaybe, Reagan,â Karma says. âItâs time you returned the favor.â
Amy doesnât understand.
Yes, weâve been here before. Recently, even. Some things⌠well⌠they just donât really ever change.
But, apparently, some things - and some people - well⌠they do.
The box - now open and resting in the palm of Amyâs hand - doesnât hold the ring that Amy was both expecting and fearing. Sheâs relieved, really she is, but thereâs just the slightest rustling of something else starting to shiver inside her. Itâs not disappointment, it canât be that, cause letâs face it, even for Amy, that would just make no sense.
She said 'noâ, after all. Why would she be disappointed?
(Why, indeed?) (But thatâs a question - and an answer - for another time.)
(Like a few years later, right on this spot.) (But weâre getting ahead of ourselves and we wouldnât want that.)
So, itâs not a ring, though, really, could anyone blame Amy for thinking it was? A tiny velvet box, held out to her by the love of her life (something she has never doubted) and there was such anticipation and hope dancing in said love of her lifeâs eyes - and oh, how long has it been since Amyâs seeing either of those in Reaganâs eyes - and itâs all happening in a spot so definitively and uniquely theirs.
Come on, thatâs like something out of Proposals 101. How could Amy think it was anything else?
Well, for starters, she could have remembered this was Reagan and Reagan doesnât do anything 101.
Or, you know, she could have just opened the box.
And found the key.
âA key?â
Never let it be said that Amy doesnât, at least, have a firm grasp of the obvious.
âI donât understand.â
Oh for fuckâs sake⌠here we go again.
âI mean, I understand,â she corrects (and she sorta does) (kinda) (maybe) (not really at fucking all). âI know what a key does and what itâs for, but⌠I already have a key to your place.â
Penny in the air.
âYeah, I know that,â Reagan says, remembering quite clearly the moment she gave Amy that key. (It was a Tuesday and you know what that means.) (That it was a Tuesday.) (Not every day is a special food day, you know.) âIâm going to need that one back,â she adds, gently nudging Amyâs hand - and the box still in it - a little bit closer, urging her on, leading the horse to water, trying to teach the man to fishâŚ
Oh, fuck the metaphors. She wants Amy to look at the tag - the tiny tag tied to the end of the key with tiny pink string that Karma gave her - like she desperately, achingly wants her to look at the tag and put two and two together and come up with four. Math even Amy can do.
âBack?â
Thereâs a ripple of pain trembling in Amyâs voice that Reagan didnât expect, which isnât much of a surprise. Truth be told, she didnât expect any of this. It never once crossed her mind - or Karmaâs or Laurenâs - that Amy might see the box and think ring and then make the jump from ring to proposal and even if she (or they) had?
Not a one of them would have thought 'noâ would be the answer.
So, yeah, this is going about as bass-ackwards as it could possibly go and see? This is what you get when you listen to an Ashcroft.
âYou want your key back?â Amy asks, again and oh, shit, sheâs going to cry, Reagan knows the signs and, even if she didnât, the tears already leaking are a pretty good tip off. âBut, I mean⌠why⌠â
The trail off. Fuck all, itâs the trail off.
Amy blinks her eyes, flushing the tears and - Reagan knows - trying to gather her strength, fixing on her 'Iâm not hurting and itâs all good, no worriesâ face. Which looks oddly like her 'I want a doughnutâ face, but then most of Amyâs faces do.
âI mean, itâs fine, Iâve got it right here,â she says, shuffling the box into her other hand and reaching for her pocket. The keyâs there, right where it always is. Amyâs lost the key to her house three times, the key to her car four times, and the key to Laurenâs journal (donât ask, just donât) once, but she has never not known where that key is.
She loves that key. Itâs her⌠thing. She finds it. When sheâs stressed or terrified or worried about Jack or the future or pissed (at Jack or the future) or just missing Reagan because sheâs working her fourth straight late night catering shift. Amy finds it and she holds it and she runs her fingers across the teeth of it, tracing the grooves, the jagged points of the metal soothing her until whatever it is? It passes.
Reaganâs hand on her arm stills her movement, but that just sets those tears bubbling right back up. This is it, Amy thinks, this is that breakup that she wouldnât have been surprised by. A thousand thoughts wash through her mind, tidal waves crashing against the rocks, but one cries out louder than the rest.
I canât.
And she canât. She thought she could. She thought - on those dark nights when even the key didnât soothe - that if this is what Reagan was going to do, if this is what Reagan thought was best, wellâŚ
Then fuck her.
âI had a speech,â she mutters. âIt was a good one. A tough one. All about how if you couldnât just be happy for me and if you were going to let milesâŚ.â Amy shakes her head. Words. It was all just words and she's known that all along. She canât lose Reagan. Not like this. Not like at all. She twists her arm in Reaganâs grasp, slipping their hands together, fingers lacing like they were made to do nothing else.
Fuck the speech.
âI wonât,â Amy says. âI wonât go. Iâll stay. Iâll stay here and go to UTA and Iâll live on campus, Iâm sure I can find some nice girl to share a room with, one thatâs not Karma, one that would never look at either of us like that.â
âAmy - â
She hears Reagan - sort of - but talks right over her. âTheyâve got a⌠decent⌠film program and sure, Karma will be a little pissed, but weâll be fine. Weâve survived worse.â
âAmy -â
âAnd it doesnât matter, anyway,â Amy says, rolling right along. âCollege is just⌠college. A lot of very well off and quite happy people never went to college, you know.â She squeezes Reaganâs hand in hers. âYou didnât go, and youâre doing just fine.â
âAmy -â
âNo,â Amy says, another shake of her head, standing up firm and tall. âIâm not giving you the key, Reagan. If I give you the key then thatâs it and that canât be⌠that wonât be it. I just wonât let it.â
She takes a step back, trying to tug her hand free to show her resolve and all, but Reagan wonât let go. And if Amy had thought, even for a second, that there was any real chance Reagan ever would?
Well, then she just didnât understand Reagan at all.
âShrimps,â Reagan says, finally getting her girlfriend to pause, to slow down, to put the resist at all costs train back into neutral. âThe key,â she says. âThat one,â she adds, nodding towards the box. âLook at it, at the tag.â
Amy glances that way, almost afraid to let Reagan out of her sight, as if she might vanish into the ether if she looks away. Reagan lets go of her hand and Amy reaches over, plucking the key from the box, reading the tiny lettering on the tiny tag.
215 Treme Street. Unit 1C.
âTreme Street,â she says softly, the pieces settling into place âThatâs like three blocks fromâŚâ
Her eyes light up and she looks from the key to Reagan and back to the key and back to Reagan.
And for once?
Amy understands.
âYouâre coming? Youâre coming to New Orleans with me?â
Reagan nods. âYeah,â she says. âRecently, someone⌠surprisingly wise⌠pointed out that maybe it was my turn.â
The tears are back and itâs all Amy can do not to throw herself into Reaganâs arms right then and there. âYour turn for what?â
Reagan thinks about it for a moment, searching for the right way to put it. âMy turn,â she says, smiling, âto try orbiting my world, for a change.â
Amy shakes her head, the confusion back in her eyes, but that's⌠well⌠itâs OK. Reagan understands enough for the both of them.
(Like sheâd ever give Karma credit. Out loud.)
She catches Amyâs hand and pulls her close, slipping her arms around the blondeâs waist as she sinks back onto the swing. âDid you really think Iâd break up with you?â
Amy shrugs and then nods and then, finally, slowly shakes her head. âMaybe for a second or two,â she says. âBut I knew better.â
Reagan breathes - for what feels like the first time in forever - as Amy leans into her, her girlfriendâs lips brushing lightly across her own. âYou knew, huh?â she asks and Amy nods.
âYeah,â she says, turning and settling lightly on Reaganâs lap. âI know,â she says. âI know that wherever I am?â Amy clutches the key - her new key - in her hand, fingers already memorizing the grooves and edges. âYouâre never far.â
Her Latest Flame Chapter 12: Hidden in Plain Sight
Previous Chapters
So.
This was new.
There had been a time (or two) (or maybe more and she just didnât want to think about that right now) (especially now) when Reagan had been on the other side of this equation. When sheâd been firmly on Sophieâs side. A time or two (or, oh fuck it, four) when Reagan had been the one slowly turning circles - literally and in her mind - feeling that sickening feeling, that pain mixed with jealousy mixed with the urge to duck and cover as all the pieces seemed to click into place by falling square onto her.
A time or four when sheâd been the one cheated on. When she was the cheated, instead of the cheater.
Maybe (not really maybe at all) that was why she didnât say anything, not a single word in her own defense. Maybe it was empathy or sympathy - one kind of âthyâ or another - that stilled her tongue as she simply stepped aside and let Sophie pass, let the other woman (oh, wait, that was Amy) slip inside the apartment without a word.
Or, maybe that was just because, really, what the fuck could she say?
She could have tried. The words came to her, easily and quickly. The words sheâd heard before, the explanations that seemed so⌠easy, so obvious, so perfectly typical.
Maybe a little 'Itâs not what it looks likeâ? Well, maybe it wasnât. Maybe Sophie was reading this entirely differently, thinking it was a one time thing - and oh, how sick Reagan felt at that notion, that maybe it was - and maybe she hadnât pieced any of the rest together.
Not yet, at least. But she would or, in the end, Reagan would tell her because if she didnât, then Amy would, for sure, because if there was one thing that Reagan still knew about her ex?
With her, the truth would always out. Maybe not willingly or pleasantly or in a way that actually did any good for anyone, but it would.
Reagan considered - for about ten seconds - trying a bit of 'I can explainâ? She knew that was always good, a classic, a canât miss, probably line number one on page number one of the So You Got Busted Fucking Around handbook, the definitive guide to what to say when you get caught with your hand between some other girlâs legs.
Except⌠she can't explain. Reagan doesnât know how it happened (lie) and she doesnât know why (bigger lie) and she has absolutely no idea how she feels about it.
OK, Pinocchio. Whatever you say.
(Your nose is showing)
And even if she could explain - and she so fucking can, but she so fucking wonât because, recent choices notwithstanding, Reagan isn't stupid - thereâs a bigger problem. Those legs she got metaphorically caught between?
They donât belong to just some other girl. Not for her.
And not for Sophie either.
That means the lie is out and the explanation is way out and, really, that leaves Reagan with only one thing to say. The one thing she knows is absolutely true and absolutely wonât make even the tiniest bit of difference, but she says it anyway.
âIâm sorry.â
The words slip free in a sigh as she shuts the door, leaning back against it and she wishes them back between her lips almost before theyâre out. Reagan knows those words - those words in this situation - as well meaning as they are, she knows thereâs only one person in this equation that they do anything for.
And itâs not the one they should.
Those words are for her - the wrong her - and all they do is slap a band-aid (a tiny one, one of those miniscule round numbers meant for a paper cut and this is a fucking chest wound) on her guilt. If she was Sophie, Reagan knows, those words would probably be met with scorn or derision.
Or a right to the fucking face.
But she isnât Sophie and Reagan knows Sophie wonât do that. There will be no punching.
(And, later, Reagan will wonder exactly how many times in one day can she be wrong?)
So when Sophie doesnât say anything back, the silence is almost a relief - and Reagan's almost ashamed to even think that - and she doesnât even look in Reaganâs direction. That would only distract her, would take her focus from the slow and steady appraisal of every single thing in the apartment.
Fuck. Reagan knows that look. She hates that look.
It isnât so much the look as whatâs in it. The question. The questions, plural. None of them good, and the answers⌠oh, the answers are so much worse.
Did they do it over there? (Yes.) (At least some of it.) Were they one the couch when they kissed? (Does up against count as on?) (As if that would help.) Did they kiss? (Yes.) Or was a kiss too⌠intimate? (No.) Or is that who they were, who they are? (Were, yes. Are⌠who the fuck knows?) Were they intimate, more than just a quick fuck, more than just some instant attraction they couldnât ignore - no matter the consequences - more than just a desperate need and lust? Was there actually something there?
Reagan knows - knew - the answer to that. And she knew the other answers would hurt, would wound, would cut.
And that one would kill.
Her mouth was dry and her lips couldnât part and the words⌠well, this time they seemed bound and fucking determined not to come out no matter how hard she tried.
Which wasnât all that hard. Not really. Not at all.
But, in the end, it didnât matter. Cause Sophie had the question.
âYouâre her.â
And, apparently, she had the answer too.
âYouâre her.â
The first time she ever kissed a girl - really kissed a girl, not some stupid peck on the cheek playing some stupid game with some stupid boys - Sophie knew. She knew she was gay, she knew that, for her, it would always be girls and only girls, she knew that her life had irrevocably shifted with the touch of just two soft lips.
What she didnât know was how the hell she hadnât known.
Sort of how she was feeling just then. If, by 'sort ofâ, you meant exactly. Exactly how she was feeling right then. How? How had she not known?
It was all right there, if sheâd only looked. Literally all right there, in the far corner of the room, the spot Reagan had breezed over in the grand tour, the one Sophie herself had ignored - she had had far better things to look at - tucked away in the shadows next to the bookcase, by the window.
DJ gear.
Two turntables and a microphone ran through her head and Sophie almost smiled but then, instead, she remembered. (As if she could have forgotten.) It was all right there, in that corner, two decks, a pile of tangled headphones and cords. A stack of vinyl as high as her waist. It was all right there.
It was always right there.
âIt was there,â Sophie said, softly. âThe night I was here. When you wereâŚâ
When Reagan was ready. Ready to forget. Something Sophie wished, right then (and five seconds later, and an hour later, and an hour and five minutes and one punch later) she could do. Forget.
âItâs funny,â she said. âThe stuff we donât see. When we donât want to.â
Reagan took one short step toward her, one hand reaching out, but not quite getting there, not landing on soft skin or wrinkled shirt, catching nothing but air. That was Reaganâs choice - an idea that seemed to cover a brand new multitude of sins - because Sophie didnât flinch. She didnât pull away, didnât make a mad dash toward the door.
Reagan didnât touch her - Sophie had an inkling that would never happen again - but Sophie stood her ground.
âYouâre the ex,â Sophie said, surprising even herself with how little bitterness there was to it, how even that word - 'exâ - didnât snap off her tongue like a curse. âYouâre the one that dumped Amy in high school,â she said, her eyes never leaving that darkened corner. âBecause she wasnât gay enough for you.â
Thereâs a moment - itâs brief and passes quickly, though maybe not quickly enough - when Sophie can feel Reagan fighting it down. That urge to protest, to argue, to say 'no, thatâs not the way of itâ (read: thatâs some bullshit.) Sophie can almost hear the words battling it out inside the other woman, the other words, the other reasons, the ones sheâs sure Reagan has spent the better part of two years trying to convince herself were the real reasons.
Karma. Amyâs lies. Liam. Karma. Amy just wasnât ready for a relationship. Karma. Their lives were going in different directions and it just wasnât there time and it wasnât really anyoneâs fault.
Did she mention Karma?
But - and this time itâs to her credit - all her (inner) protestations aside, Reagan doesnât argue with the simple truth.
âI was stupid,â she said, taking a step back, her hand slowly dropping back to her side, as she confirmed Sophieâs suspicions without, you know, actually confirming. âStupid and young and Iâd had my heart and my trust broken.â
There was a split second of pause, a humming moment of silence when they both waited to see if Sophie would point out the obvious: she knew the feeling.
âWhat your ex did to you⌠the 'phaseâ one?â Sophie nodded slowly. âWhat she did to you, it just sucked.â
She heard Reagan take a short quick breath behind her, the knowledge sinking in. Sophie knew. She knew all of it. She knew about Charlotte and she knew about her and she knew about her and Amy and about her and Amy and the breakup. Sheâd known all of it, all along.
Everything except the one part that mattered.
âItâs my own fault,â Sophie said. Sheâd drifted somehow - Reagan didnât understand how she hadnât seen her move, she was looking at her the whole damn time - and was now by the gear, one hand lightly brushing against a pair of headphones. âI was the one who made the rule, I was the one who said no names.â
She laughed then. A soft, hollow, itâs not funny, itâs ironic - like actually ironic, Alanis - little cough of a laugh. One word. One name. It all could have been prevented with one damn word.
âIt was that night, wasnât it?â she asked. âThe night I⌠introduced⌠you two. That was why you bailed on our date.â
Reagan slumped back hard against the counter, as the memory of Amyâs face - of Amy's everything - rounding that corner in the hall outside their room, flooded her. âYeah,â she muttered. âThat was the first time weâd seen each other since⌠well⌠since she tried to get back together with me.â
Itâs Karma, isnât it?
And then it was Reaganâs turn to laugh - though hers was just a touch more bitter, a shade more 'should have seen this comingâ - because, well, yes.
It really was karma.
Sophie took another few steps, her fingers drumming atop the stack of records. In a bad movie or a TV show - the kind of shit theyâd show on MTV, probably - sheâd pick one up. Smash it on the floor while Reagan watched. And then another. And then another. One for every one of those multitude of sins.
The records stayed neatly stacked. Sophie wasnât a rager, she wasnât the kind for tantrums, she wasnât a violent angry woman.
Not yet, anyway.
âWhy didnât you?â she asked, surprising herself and Reagan. âWhen Amy came to you and asked you to take her back, why didnât you?â
She left the rest of that mercifully unsaid. You werenât in love with Heather, not even then. It was still Amy, even then. You hadnât let go, even then. You never let go.
I know. Because you told me.
âIt wasnât that simple,â Reagan said. She pushed off the counter and crossed the room to the couch, her defeated and guilty posture slipping aside, replaced by⌠something Sophie couldnât quite read. âI had Heather and AmyâŚâ
The rest of that sentence screamed itâs way across the room.
Amy had Karma. Or, more accurately, Amy had her want for Karma. Her need for Karma.
âShe wasnât running to me,â Reagan said. âShe was running from Karma. Why would I have taken her back?â
The word - love - rolled its way up from inside of Sophie and she had to bite it back, gnash it crush it beneath her teeth. Ten minutes ago, she would have said it.
Ten minutes ago, she might have believed it would have mattered.
âShe came to you,â Sophie said instead, marvelling to herself at her grasp of the blatantly obvious. âDidnât that count for anything? Amy could have gone anywhere but she -â
Reagan cut her off so softly, Sophie almost didnât hear her. âShe did.â
She turned to the older woman - the one sheâd thought⌠well⌠what sheâd thought or imagined or projected or fucking dreamed didnât seem all that relevant now - and watched as Reagan slowly, but inexorably, crumpled, sliding down along the arm of the couch, her knees coming to her chest.
There were tears in her eyes - fucking tiny puddles that Sophie could still imagine falling into and God, when was that going to stop? - but Reagan was refusing to let them fall. Maybe she thought she didnât have the right (she really didnât) or maybe she thought crying would just piss Sophie off (it probably would) or maybe, really, when it came right down to it?
Reagan had cried enough damn tears over Amy Raudenfeld.
(She had.) (She most definitely had.)
âShe did go anywhere,â Reagan said. âOne minute Amy was standing in my doorway, wanting me back. The next she was on a bus.â She wrapped her arms around her knees. âShe told you about the bus, right?â
Sophie nodded, a glimmer of understanding - and fuck all, that wasn't fair - slipping in. Amyâs bus stories, the tales of her summer on the road, were the one set of stories where they didnât need the rules about names.
Amy didnât remember most of them anyway.
âI heard all about it from one of my friends in the band,â Reagan said. Sophie stood rigidly in place, refusing to even acknowledge the faint hint of sympathy or empathy - fuck all the 'thyâs, fuck 'em all to hell - she felt tingling its way up from her toes. âEvery little detail cause, letâs face it, wild child Amy is an awesome story. And letâs also face it, I was over her, right? I was with Heather, after all.â
Reagan shook her head and swiped at one eye with her sleeve. Sophie leaned up against the bookcase and slowly sank to the floor across from her. She watched as Reagan fumbled with Amyâs phone, the one sheâd never actually put down.
âThat summer, Amy couldâve gone anywhere,â Reagan said. Her thumb ghosted across the screen, her touch light and tender as it slipped across Amyâs smiling face. It was the touch of a lover, and Sophie had to look away. âAnd she did. She went anywhere⌠anywhere else.â
Reagan didnât say 'leaving me heartbroken, leaving me in a loveless relationship, leaving me wondering what might have beenâ.
She didnât say 'leaving me with the wrong girlâ.
She didnât say it. But Sophie still heard it.
The phone slipped from Reaganâs hand, clattering on the floor, landing squarely between them and neither of them made any move to pick it up. âAmy just walked right out my door and she disappeared.â
She glanced around the apartment, as Sophie tracked her eyes, knowing exactly what she would find. No one but the two of them, anywhere in sight.
âApparently,â Reagan said, âsome things never change.â
Fooled Around and Fell in Love Chapter 8: Once Upon a Time
Previous Chapters
It wasnât Lauren.
It wasnât her car, actually, the one Amy heard in the drive. And that meant she didnât hear a key in the lock or footsteps in the hall and all that meant that it wasnât Lauren coming in, excited and happy and relieved to see Amy there, in her room and her bed instead of across the hall with that other her.
Which left Amy sitting there, alone in the dark, for what seemed like forever.
It wasn't really forever (in the end it wasnât even like twenty minutes) but it seemed so much longer. It seemed like forever, at least to Amy, what with Reaganâs voice still echoing in her ears and that look on Karmaâs face still playing over and over again before her eyes and what with the feel of Laurenâs bed - so familiar and yet so different and new and yet so right (and just a little dirty) - underneath her. It felt like days or weeks, like she was waiting on the end of time and it just refused to fucking get there, and Amy tensed at every sound, flinched at every noise, damn near jumped out of her skin at every creak and moan of the house.
Not a one of which was actually Lauren.
It didnât happen all at once, it didnât even happen right away, but slowly (and so surely) that all got to be a bit too much. The anticipation turned to fear (what if sheâd been in an accident?) and the nerves turned to panic (what if Amy was too late?) and the worry turned to hands clutching at Laurenâs duvet as Amy tried to get control of her breathing, tried to steady it before it went and took on a life of its own, before it got to be too much for the rest of her and Lauren - when she finally came home - ended up finding Amy passed out in her bed, hyperventilated right into unconsciousness.
That would not be good.
And it wasnât like that was the only way for this to all go ânot goodâ (or not well or whatever) and seeing as how there were so many not goods, Amy didnât really see a need to add another one to the list, so she took slow, deep breaths and counted to five and shut her eyes against the dark (and wondered why she hadnât thought to turn on the damn light) and tried to focus, tried to steer her mind to what she was going to do when Lauren walked in, what she was going to say.
Amy tried - for once in her life - to not let herself get caught up in the moment, to not just react and to think and plan and actually be ready.
Yeah. Like that ever had a chance.
It might have, maybe, possibly (no, it fucking wouldnât have) if that hadnât been the moment, if that hadnât been the instant when those creaks and groans of the house were - very clearly - not just creaks or groans but steps. Footsteps, in the hall, outside the door, tearing through the silence of the house and kickstarting the thwump-thwump-thwump of Amyâs racing heart in her ears. It was shock, she thought, that did it. It was just so sudden, the slamming realization that now was now and that now was here and ohâŚÂ fuck⌠she had no plan and she had no clue what she was going to do and definitely no idea what she was going to say cause every word she knew had just fled her brain on a supersonic flight to fucking nowhere. It was all happening so fast.
And that was all just so much bullshit.
None of this was happening fast. None of it was quick and none of it was a shock, not if she really thought about it. If Amy did that, if she let herself replay it all in her head, she knew the truth. Nothing - not one single moment ofâŚÂ them⌠not since that first maybe accidental but not even close to a mistake first kiss - had been sudden. All of it, everything since that moment, had been building and building and building, scaffolding up and up on itself, sneaking up on her and slowly burrowing its way into her life and her bed and her heart and nowâŚ
Now it was here. And all Amy could think was that she wished sheâd had more time.
Amy found herself wishing Lauren had stayed out later (really, that Lauren had never gone in the first place, butâŚ) and that maybe sheâd had the night to sleep on it (like she would have slept a fucking wink) just so she could make sure she knew exactly what she wanted to say because she didnât want to say even one thing wrong (though it seemed like she probably already had) (and that most of those wrongs involved the word - the name - of the girl still sitting across the hall.)
Or, maybe, Amy thought, more likely, it wasnât the things she'd said that were wrong.
It was the ones she hadnât.
Amy heard those steps in the hall and she tensed - her fingers crushing the duvet - and she felt her heart go a-racing from the shock.
Or maybe, she thought, more likely (and yes, she was sensing a pattern) it wasnât the shock that was doing it. Maybe, more likely, her heart was reacting to the girl and not to the sound. Maybe her heart hadnât skipped a beat in fear, maybe it had just sped up in anticipation, the way it always did when she saw Lauren, when she saw her coming down the hall or brushing her teeth in the morning or whenever the tiny blonde snuck into her room in the morning for a quick kiss that never ended up being quick (or just one.)
Or maybe, Amy thought, her heart was actually slowing, it was calming and finding some peace and relief in knowing that Lauren was finally home and whatever reasons sheâd had for taking so long to get there didnât really matter anymore cause Lauren was home and Lauren was safe and now Amy could get her heart back under control and back to normal or - really - whatever the hell passed for normal now because Amy had finally realized that when it came to Lauren and her heart, there wasnât a normal anymore and she had no control over that - or it - at all.
And now, thanks to Reagan, Amy had realized something else.
She probably should have told Lauren that.
She was about to get her chance.
It wasnât Lauren.
The door creaked open and Amy had to blink against the sudden light - the flashes and flickers from her own room - that split the dark and haloed their way around the figure in the door like she was some sort of⌠angel.
A Karma shaped angel.
WellâŚÂ fuck.
Someone, Amy decided - God or fate or the universe or all of the fucking above - had a truly sick sick sick sense of humor. Or just hated her.
Or, you know, both.
It wasnât Lauren coming in, it was⌠the other one⌠and it killed Amy, at least a little, to think of Karma like that, but it killed her - like a lot - to even think of Karma at all right then and right there and if she hadnât been panicked before, Amy was sure she was now, sure that yes, the night was indeed full of terrors, the kind it seemed there was no help for, the kind nothing could stand against.
Her hottie DJ couldnât and a summer apart couldnât and even the might of Liam Bookerâs magic peen couldnât.
Amy suddenly understood exactly what Lauren was so scared of. And she didnât blame her in the slightest.
âAmy?â Karma asked, blinking her eyes to adjust, trying to spot the blonde somewhere out there in the dark. âAre you there?â
Of course she was there. She was always there.
Amy knew she shouldnât have been surprised that it wasnât Lauren (she hadnât heard a car or a key) or that it was Karma because⌠wellâŚÂ of course it was. It had always been Karma. It had been Karma for Reagan and it had been Karma for every girl Amy had met or kissed or even talked to over the summer. But those werenât the problem.
The problem was - always was - that it was always Karma for Amy.
âYeah,â Amy said, wishing she hadnât. âIâm here.â
She was sitting in the dark, but everything was suddenly soâŚÂ light⌠for Amy. So clear. She saw it all just as Lauren did. It had always been Karma, it was Karma, it was always going to be her. Karma was why they kissed - that first time - and Karma was why Amy had outed them to everyone and Karma was why Amy said 'mineâ and Karma was why Amy had promised 'you run, I chaseâ because Amy just couldnât do or think or feel on her own. It was all justâŚ
Karma.
It wasnât, of course, it wasnât her at all. Not for Amy.
Another thing she probably should have told Lauren.
âIt is true?â Karma asked - whispered, like she was afraid to say it out loud - and even that soft, her voice carried in the silence of the house and Amy almost told her not to shout.
Amy didnât answer her. She didnât move and she didnât speak but she did wonder if, maybe, if she didnât do much of anything, if she didnât even so much as breathe, if (like magic) (like some real Harry Potter level shit and not that David Blaine crap) she could just vanish, if she could just fade away into the dark, leaving Karma there just talking to herself.
She had to admit, it wasnât the worst thought, vanishing before Lauren got back and saw Karma there - the truck in the drive and her shoes by the door and Karma herself, half in and half out of Amyâs room and, really, was there ever a more obvious metaphor - and she had to watch the equally inevitable shut down, watch the way Laurenâs eyes would slowly die right there in front of her, watch her girlfriend fold in on herself andâŚ
âSheâd be rude,â Amy whispered. âSheâd be rude and sheâd be mean and sarcastic and sassy and snippy and cut us both off at the knees.â
âWhat?â Karma asked, the whisper gone.
âLauren,â Amy said, trying to get her fingers to relax, to release the duvet and the tension, but it wasnât working. âIf she saw you here and she thought⌠sheâd go mean.â
Karma took a step into the room, the door shutting softly behind her and if it hadnât been so dark she might have noticed the small scootch Amy made further away on the bed. âItâs Lauren weâre talking about,â she said. âShe's always mean.â
âNot to me,â Amy said. Not anymore, she thought.
She was never quite sure when that happened, when it changed, but at some point Lauren had stopped beingâŚÂ Lauren. At least around her, at least when it was them. Amy had seen it, a little, had watched it happen long before the kiss.
At first it was just Lauren not tuning her out, Lauren actually listening. And that was one thing when it was because Amy was trying, because Amy trying was most often trying to talk about her, about how she was dealing with the Theo breakup (just fine, thanks) or her moment in the sun as the Savior of Hester (not nearly as much fun as the movies make it out to be.)
And when Amyâs texts and calls and Skypes over the summer were all for her (and none for Karma cause that would have kinda defeated the point) and it slowly became both of them trying and Lauren wasnât just listening but she was talking and she was nice, it was impossible for Amy not to see it.
Or, if she was being honest, to fall for it. Hard.
âYeah, well,â Karma said, âshe's still like that. You saw how she made Brandi cry in gym class last week.â
And Brandi had spent most of the morning making snide comments about Narcs and people not being able to see people for who they really are and how some people were so desperate for love theyâd do anything. Or be anything.
If Lauren hadnât cut her with words, Amy might have just cut her.
âMaybe sheâs nice to you,â Karma said, stressing the 'maybeâ just a little more than Amy was comfortable with. âBut sheâs still a bitch to other people.â
And that was just it, wasnât it? Somewhere, somehow, sometime, Amy had stopped being other people. Even before the kiss and certainly after it (and, without a doubt by the time Lauren had run crying from Reaganâs apartment) Amy was anything but other.
âUnless⌠maybeâŚÂ except as in⌠'other' half.â Amy mumbled, her thoughts jumbling and stumbling and bumbling their way out of her mouth and sheâd half forgotten Karma was even there.
But she was.
âWhat?â Karma asked. âOther half? As inâŚÂ Lauren? As in yours?â
It wasnât the words that got Amyâs attention, it was the tone, it was the sound, it was the way Karmaâs voice knifed its way through the dark, the anger and the pain and the anger and the denial (and did she mention the anger?) that dripped off her voice like rain off a roof.
âLauren is not your other half, Amy,â Karma snapped. She took three more steps into the room, putting herself front and fucking center, right where Amy would have been looking if sheâd been looking anywhere but down at her hands. âI donât know what the two of you are, but itâs not that.â
Because that was them and that had always been them and that would always be them.
âYouâre right,â Amy said and she could hear the exhale of relief from her best friend. âLauren isnât my other half. That makes her sound⌠incomplete. Like sheâs something less without me and thereâs nothing⌠less⌠about her.â
Karma glared (not that Amy could see) (or was looking) into the dark. That wasnât what she'd meant Not at all. Lauren wasnât Amyâs other half cause Lauren couldnât be Amyâs other half cause that job was already taken.
âYouâre doing it again,â Karma said, not that Amy had the first fucking clue what it was. âThis is Reagan all over again.â
That got Amyâs attention which, usually, was a good thing for Karma.
If she could have seen Amyâs face in the dark, she might have known. This?
Not usually.
âReagan?â Amy asked, half intrigued, half confused, and already all annoyed (and about three-quarters pissed.)
âYes,â Karma said. She took a half step toward the bed, but something (sixth sense, intuition, the tone of Amyâs voice forcing a slow but long overdue realization to start sinking in) made her think better of it. âYou were just like this with Reagan,â she said. âJumping in with both feet and gung fucking ho and not thinking about how much you didnât know.â
âI didnât know?â Amyâs hands twitched around the duvet. Later - much much much later - sheâd actually be grateful to Karma for, at least, easing her nerves.
Karma nodded, the gesture just barely visible. âYou two were so different and so wrong for each other in the end, but you didnât knowâŚâ She took another halting step. âDid you even know her last name?â
The duvet dropped from Amyâs hands as they balled into fists in her lap. âAnd youâre telling me I donât know Lauren? Is that it?â
âWhat Iâm saying,â Karma said, âis that youâre going in blind. Youâre not thinking clearly, youâre just so⌠soâŚâ
âSo what, Karma?â Amy asked, those fists pressing hard against her thighs. âIâm so what?â
âDesperate.â
The word fell from Karmaâs lips before she had a chance to stop it, before she could realize that even if she was right (which she wasnât) and even if she had a point (which she didnât) that was probably not the best way to put it.
It wasnât.
It so wasnât.
âDesperate?â Amy asked, stressing the âtâ at the end, practically spitting it out.
âNot like⌠wellâŚâ Karma realized the hole sheâd dug herself and that the only way out that might work was straight on through. âYes,â she said. âDesperate. Youâre so desperate to get over me, again, and so desperate to prove it and so desperate to find someone that youâre latching onto the first thing that comes along.â She took those last couple steps and - intuition be damned - sat on the bed next to Amy. âThatâs what Lauren is, Amy,â Karma said. âNot your other half or the love of your life or your soulmate. Sheâs just the first available option. Thatâs what she is for you and you are for her and Iâm sorry to say it like that but youâre in too deep and I donât want to see you get hurt.â
Amy sat there. Still and silent.
âIt took you a long time to get over Reagan,â Karma said. âAnd we both know how long itâs taken you to⌠well⌠we know.â She laid a gentle hand atop Amyâs, trying not to be concerned at the tight tight tight fist her best friend was clenching. âI donât want you to end up spending months trying to get over someone whoâs never really even been under you.â
There was a moment - an evil, mean, nasty, Lauren at her worst moment - when Amy considered telling Karma (in great detail) exactly how under her Lauren had been. But insteadâŚ
âIt did take me a long time to get over Reagan,â Amy said. âShe was my first.â She felt Karmaâs hand tense against hers. âAnd youâre right, it would take me months to get over Lauren. Maybe longer. Maybe never.â
Amy reached over and gently lifted Karmaâs hand from hers, dropping it back in the other girlâs lap.
âBut,â Amy said. âI can tell you this. I am, without a doubt, without any question or reservation or exception, one thousand percent over you.â
She stood, the sudden shift in the mattress toppling Karma over onto her back.
âAmy,â she said, âwait -â
âWaiting,â Amy said, âat least for you, is the last fucking thing Iâm going to be doing.â She moved across the room, knowing it perfectly even in the dark, and swung open Laurenâs door. âItâs late, Karma,â she said. âAnd Lauren is going to be here soon and she and I have a lot to talk about.â
âAmy,â Karma tried again.
âI said it's late,â Amy snapped. âItâs late and Iâm tired⌠tired of this. I wasnât ready with Reagan and I wasnât ready last summer butâŚâ She gripped the doorknob tightly, surprised she wasnât leaving finger grooves in the metal. âIâm tired of letting this be what everything in my life is about and it shouldnât be because it isnât what my life is about.â
Karma stood, a rising shadow. âAnd she is?â
Amy shook her head, wondering how she had never noticed it before, how she had never really seen how all or nothing Karma always was.
âShe,â Amy said. âIs a part of it. A big part, a huge part, as big a part as anyone.â
She couldnât see it, in the dark, but Amy could imagine the way Karma paled at that, the way that thought killed her.
âYou think youâre in love with her, donât you?â
âI don't think about how I feel, Karma,â Amy replied, trying to soften her tone, trying to keep things from going even further off the rails than they already had. âI know. But Iâm not going to talk about that with you.â
âWhy not?â Karma asked, her voice small and hurt and the words tasted just a touch bitter on her tongue. âWe used to talk about everything.â
âAnd maybe we still can,â Amy said. âBut if Iâm going to say that, itâs not for you. Itâs for her and itâs for me and maybe once upon a time everything that was for me was for us too butâŚâ Amy sighed. She just wanted Karma to go and Lauren to come and for this all to be done. âBut itâs not once upon a time anymore, Karma. And you?â
Karma crossed the room, coming to a stop right in front of Amy, just inside - still - the door. âMe what?â she whispered, her voice dropping as Amy slowly started to close the door, ushering her out into the dark hall. She heard Amyâs last words through the door. Through Laurenâs door.
âYouâre not my happily ever after anymore.â
A/N: Â One step closer to Amy leaving. Â And Karma and Reaganâs next to last scene in the story, at least for a while. Â Enjoy them while you can!
Previous Chapters
The moment Amy sees Lauren, she knows itâs all over.
Lauren looks like she feels, like the world has somehow spent the entire day conspiring to pour kerosene on all her bridges and every word out of her mouth is another match. Amy knows that's⌠well⌠not necessarily a good thing, but it is a necessary one, maybe the only thing that will make more good things possible.
Some bridges need to be burned so they can be rebuilt stronger and better and actually going somewhere. It needs to be.
Doesnât mean it doesnât hurt.
Laurenâs sad and broken and not doing anything and Amy doesnât know what the hell to make of that, much less what to do about it. This isnât the Lauren sheâs used to. Even after her breakup with Theo and accidental outing, Lauren held it together. She was angry, she was fierce. And yeah, Amy knew there was sadness under there - how could there not be - but that Lauren never let it show.
That Lauren focused on winning the election - kicking Shaneâs ass in the process - and, as Amy and Shane eventually discovered, getting revenge on Theo. Not exactly the healthiest of choice, Amy knew, but she was far from being in a position to judge.
That was that Lauren, but this Lauren
(and Amy canât help wondering when she started thinking of everyone as this and that versions of themselves and how the hell theyâve all changed so much in such a short time)
well, this Lauren is different. Amyâs not quite sure of itâs good different or bad different but itâs fucking weird different and she just doesnât know what to do with that.
Laurenâs huddled at the head of her bed, both her blankets pulled tight under her chin. The only bits of her Amy can actually see are her eyes and a few blonde hairs sticking out from under her hoodie.
The wardrobe - and the fact that Lauren wore it outside the house - is enough of a clue but, really, itâs her eyes that do it, that tell Amy that her talk with Bruce went about as badly as they both figured it would. Itâs the way her eyes dart around the room, looking anywhere and everywhere but at her
(it's her fault, after all) (her and her cheating mother and her âlet me wander into town and fuck everything upâ father)
and itâs the way theyâre rimmed red, like Laurenâs been crying, which isnât a surprise, not really, but it does make Amy think that she canât remember if sheâs ever actually seen her step-sister cry. Amy knows Laurenâs cried, she doesnât think Laurenâs some kind of emotionless evil robot
(not anymore)
but sheâs never seen it. Lauren crying is like Bigfoot or Nessie or Liam not being a massively hypocritical tool. Youâve just gotta take it on faith.
She settles on the edge of Laurenâs bed, the side closest to the door - even now, Amy knows, with Lauren, itâs always best to be ready for a quick getaway - and keeps one foot planted firmly on the floor.
âSoâŚâ she says, totally clueless as to how to even broach the subject
(how exactly do you ask if your step-sister - whoâs liked you for like five minutes - managed to convince her father not to dump your adulterous mother?)
(is there a Hallmark card for that?)
and even though it was Lauren who texted her
(need you)
that really doesnât make any of this easier because now, on top of it all, Amy has to deal with 'need youâ Lauren, which is like an entirely new species Amy didnât even know existed.
âSoâŚâ she says again. And then she just blurts, because, letâs face it, thatâs what this or that or any Amy does. âI broke up with Karma.â
It is, Amy knows immediately, even before the oh so Lauren glare that comes her way, the absolute wrong thing to say. Laurenâs worried and crying and trying to save their family and sheâs talking about Karma. Again.
âI didnât mean⌠â Amy sighs and shakes her head. âI mean, technically we didnât break up cause, I know, you have to be with someone to break up with them and, pool kisses notwithstanding, Karma and I werenât ever reallyâŚâ
She grips Laurenâs comforter in one hand and runs the other through her hair, leaning her her forehead against her palm.
âIâm sorry,â she says. âIt just happened like five minutes ago and⌠you ever have one of those days when you just keep saying the wrong thing⌠well⌠the right thing, but in the wrong way, like you know you could put it so much better but it just comes out and -â
Sheâs silenced by the feel of Laurenâs hand on hers atop the comforter.
Laurenâs hand. On hers.
And if Amy canât remember ever seeing Lauren cry, she knows she canât think of a single time theyâve touched, not in a comforting sense, not in a⌠friend kind of way, not in a sisterly way.
She glances from her hand to her sisterâs face
(and yes, she knows she dropped the 'stepâ and she doesnât know why, but it feels⌠not wrong?)
and Laurenâs glare has softened - somewhat - and thereâs something behind the still red and still flickering around the room eyes that Amy canât quite place.
âBreathe,â Lauren says, giving Amyâs hand the gentlest of squeezes and Amy does, one long slow in and out and she feels her heart rate slowing and the room seems less cramped and closed in.
But itâs still so fucking weird.
âBetter?â Lauren asks and Amy nods. âYou OK? You know, with the Karma break up and all.â She catches sight of their hands on the blanket and pulls back. âNot that I careâŚâ But then she frowns and shakes her head, deciding something as the hoodie slips back, and she reaches out to take Amyâs hand again. âFuck it,â she mutters under her breath. âYou OK?â
Amy nods then shakes her head and finally just shrugs. âWork in progress,â she says.
Lauren nods. She gets that. Sometimes she thinks thatâs all she is. A work in progress though she wishes the progress would hurry the fuck up.
âI broke up with Theo,â she says and her eyes slow down, staring down at the bed but Amy can see her watching her out of the corner and can see the way the muscles in her arms tense, ready to pull back.
It reminds Amy of the Lauren she first met, of the tiny - in every way - nervous, insecure, and shy
(yes, Lauren)
girl she met at the most awkwardly staged Red Lobster dinner in the history of 'guess what girls, youâre getting a new sisterâ dinners. That Lauren hadnât actively disliked her or gone out of her way to be a condescending and judgmental bitch, or even looked down on Amy like she was the unfortunate tag along.
Buy a Farrah, get an Amy free. Whether you want her or not.
That Lauren had looked at Amy with sympathy, or something close to it, with a look that said 'you poor girlâ and eyes that spoke with experience, the look of someone whoâd been down this road before and knew what was coming.
It had taken a little longer than either of them expected, but what had been coming had finally shown up.
âWhen? How? What?â Amy stammers and Lauren cocks her head slightly and Amy takes another breath. âWhat I mean is, I thought you went to talk to your dad about, you know, my mother and I didnât even know you and Theo wereâŚâ
She scoots fully up onto the bed, crossing her legs underneath her
(screw getaways)
never once letting her hand leave Laurenâs.
âWhat happened?â she asks and Lauren eyes her for a moment, like sheâs still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Amyâs door slams shut in the hallway, the sound of Karmaâs feet hurrying down the stairs echoing in the quiet.
Shoe dropped.
âYou can go,â Lauren says, nodding in the direction of the hall. âIâll be -â
Amy shuffles a little on the bed - moving closer, which is the wrong fucking direction - and flips her hand over underneath Laurenâs, lacing their fingers together.
âWhat happened?â she repeats.
Itâs the first time that day - maybe the first time in a while - Amy thinks she gets it right. The right thing, the right time, the right way.
And as Lauren dissolves into sobs and crawls from under the blanket falling into Amyâs arms. the front door slams in the distance.
Amy just holds Lauren tighter.
Sheâs not coming back.
Itâs all Karma can think and though she means now - Amyâs not coming back to the room, sheâs not coming back to finish their talk
(Amyâs talk is done)
she knows, really, she means then. Later. Forever.
Sheâs not coming back.
Amyâs going to leave, sheâs going to go on this tour with the Exploding Pussies or whatever the fuck their name is
(and Reagan) (canât forget Reagan)
(God, she'd love to)
and sheâs not coming back. And thatâs it, in a nutshell, isnât it? Karma knows Amy will come back, sheâll be back in Austin by the end of the summer, by the time school starts up again.
But she wonât be back.
Her Amy.
And after everything, after faking it and Liam and Amy and Liam and the pot bust and living in a juice truck and prom and the party and just fucking everything, the thought that she isnât coming back is just a little too much for Karma to take.
So she runs.
She almost doesnât though. She walks through Amyâs door, letting it slam shut behind her and waits. The noise should do it. The sound of her upset and her anger and her leaving should bring Amy running. Sheâs only talking to Lauren and yeah, theyâve gotten closer and yeah (again) this whole thing with their parents is a big deal.
(Though, really, how big a deal can it be? Itâs not like Amy hasnât been through this before)
(Karma would know. Sheâs been here for every marriage, every divorce, every Farrah fuck up.)
But Amy doesnât come. Amy doesnât step out of Laurenâs room to finish this. Amy doesnât text her to say sheâll be right back
(Karma checks)
(Twice)
and she doesnât holler from behind the door to just wait a minute and she doesnât even stick her head out to promise theyâll talk later and that somehow, someway, theyâll work all this out because theyâre them and thatâs what they do.
Karma stands in the hall. Alone.
And what was that about being more than she can take?
She bolts down the stairs and out the front door, the words 'itâll be fineâ running on an endless loop in her head.
Itâll be fine. Amy will call.
Itâll be fine. Amy will text.
Itâll be fine. Amy will calm down. Amy will realize the kiss was just a drunken mistake.
(Because thatâs all it could be)
Amy will realize the three months is too fucking long and their friendship, teetering on the edge of a fucking cliff since she slept with Liam
(yeah, because thatâs the only issue)
is too important and they need this time, just the two of them. No Shane. No Lauren. No Liam. NoâŚ
Reagan.
Sheâs sitting there reclining on the front step with a Coke in one hand and her cell in the other
(no doubt texting her girlfriend, the one she seems to conveniently forget, like Amyâs so much more important than the person sheâs really dating and who does that?)
(oh)
and really, Karma wonders, doesnât Reagan know a damn thing about being an ex? Exes arenât around, exes arenât in your room helping you pack so they can steal you away for an entire summer.
And exes sure as hell arenât kissing you - not even on the cheek - with that thirsty look in their eyes, like theyâd be perfectly happy to fuck you right then and there on the floor of your room even if your lifelong best friend is still standing right fucking there.
Sheâs just sitting there, on the step, like she fucking belongs and sheâs - basically - right in Karmaâs way.
Something about turnabout being fair play runs through Karmaâs mind but she ignores the fuck out of that and thinks about saying something, about cursing Reagan for not minding her own damn business. About calling her on exactly what sheâs done.
Finally got what you wanted, didnât you?
Three months on a bus. Three months in hotels and late night diner and sweaty clubs and youâll have Amy singing 'Iâm a lesbianâ from every street corner.
Who gives a fuck if thatâs what Amy actually wants or what Amy actually is. Amy will do anything for someone she loves.
Anything, apparently, except stay.
The anger bubbles up in Karma but common sense and maybe, just maybe, a slight sense of fear
(this is the woman who roofied Liamâs father)
wins out. Besides, Amyâs still upstairs and Karma still has hope - faint though it is - that Amy is going to come to her senses. That, given a little time and space
(things Reagan apparently has never heard of)
Amy will calm down and decide, if not to go to Clement, than at least to stay.
Blowing up at Reagan within earshot of Amy isnât going to help her cause and Karma knows it and, for once, she lets reason win out and takes a couple quick steps around the older girl and heads for the sidewalk, her mind racing with every single grand gesture she can make - in case time and space donât work - everything she can do to make Amy stay.
(And if every one of them is, at least, vaguely romantic, well Karma will just deal with that later.)
She almost makes it, almost gets away unscathed, but really, who is she kidding? Theyâre all well past 'scathedâ, all just hoping it doesnât leave scars now.
But Reagan⌠well⌠Reagan just canât let it be.
âYou need to let her go,â she says, stopping Karma in her tracks.
Reagan takes a long sip from her Coke and a deep breath. She shouldnât have said it, she knows that and really, if sheâs being honest, this ainât her fight anymore.
But since when has that ever stopped her.
âIf you love her, Karma. However that might be⌠you need to let her go.â
For Reagan, thatâs that.
Karma turns on the spot, eyes blazing and Reagan knows that isnât going to be just that.
Which, honestly, is fine with her.
It might not be her fight anymore, but all that means is sheâs got nothing left to lose and a whole lot to say.
âThis is insane.â
Amy stops rifling through the row of perfectly tailored blouses in Laurenâs closet - making a mental note that theyâre going to need a shopping trip tonight because Laurenâs wardrobe is even more of a tour fail than her own - just long enough to fix her sister with a quizzical and somewhat amused look.
âThis?â Amy asks. âThis is what you consider insane?â
Lauren nods resolutely. Her tears have dried and sheâs done talking about Theo
(âI didnât want to be a secret anymore.â)
(âHe didnât agreeâ)
and her failed attempts to convince Bruce to not move ahead with the divorce, the attempts she and Amy both knew were DOA even before she tried. And sheâs done worrying about having to move back to Dallas and how she might actually - surprisingly - miss Amy and Leila and Lisbeth and even Shane.
She stands next to her bed, clutching a pair of sleep shorts that she normally wouldnât be caught dead in, but Amy insists are far more practical, and considers - for about the hundredth time - the idea
(the insane yet oddly brilliant idea)
that she go with Amy on tour.
âYes,â Lauren says. âInsane.â
Amy smiles at her - and itâs more of a smirk, really - the challenge dancing behind her eyes and Lauren knows sheâs going to lose. âGoing on tour is insane?â Amy asks. âYou dated an undercover cop.â
âYou punched an undercover cop,â Lauren fires back.
âKarmaâs parents got busted for pot.â
âAnd you went to jail to try and save your overly co-dependent friendship with an alleged drug dealer.â Point, Cooper.
âYou faked being a cheerleader to out your ex the narc.â
âYou almost had a threesome with Liam Booker!â Amy canât possibly beat that.
âYou almost slept with Tommy!â
OK, maybe she can.
They both stop and stare at each other for a moment, the realization settling in is something of a crushing blow.
Amy nods. âItâs like everything that happens to us is being written by a bunch of monkeys just throwing shit at a wall.â
Lauren nods and points at Amy. âExactly! None of it is normal. Itâs like we never go to class, and weâre sixteen and everyoneâs having threesomes and everythingâs gotta be⌠EPIC!â
She sits down on the edge of her bed, balling the sleep shorts up in her hand.
âI think we need new writers,â Amy says.
Lauren nods. âIâm tired of epic,â she says. âI need⌠a break. Something that isnât torturous and painful and one damned angst fest life changing moment after another.â She looks down at the sleep shorts in her hand. âIâm going on tour with Exploding Pussies, arenât I?â
Amy brings a hand to her mouth to try and cover her giggles, but fails miserably. âFirst of all,â she says, trying to squash the laughter enough to be clear. âIt was Pussy Explosion, not Exploding Pussies.â
Lauren glares at her, but Amyâs not buying it. The twitching corners of her mouth donât lie.
âAnd second of all,â Amy continues, her laugh finally subsiding. âThey changed their name. Theyâre the Dillholes, now.â
Lauren arches an eyebrow
(and seriously, can everyone other than Amy do that?)
and asks the obvious question. âWho the fuck thought Dillholes was better than Pussy Explosion?â
They stare at each other for a moment, the phrases 'Dillholesâ and 'Pussy Explosionâ echoing in the air.
And then they both double over, losing it completely. Lauren slumps off the bed and slides to the floor while Amy leans against the closet door. Theyâre sure the entire neighborhood can hear them out Laurenâs open window but neither of them care.
Lauren finally gets herself under control and folds the sleep shorts into a small square of fabric, perfect for packing. âMy fatherâs going to lose his shit.â
Amy nods. âYeah, he is. But you know what? Fuck 'em.â
Lauren looks up at her and Amy expects The Lauren, that look she always gets when she dares speak ill of Bruce or Dallas or Republicans or - on rare occasions - croqeumbouche. Instead, thereâs little anger in Laurenâs eyes. âFuck him?â
âYup,â Amy says. She leans down and pulls a pair of sweats and another hoodie
(Lauren owns two?)
from the laundry basket and tosses them on top of her sisterâs suitcase. âHeâs divorcing my mother, despite your very eloquent pleas not to.â She leans back against the door. âFuck. Him.â
âYour mother cheated,â Lauren says but thereâs no anger or malice behind it. Just simple fact.
âYeah,â Amy says, âwith my dad, so it isnât like it was really cheatâŚâ She shakes her head and slides down the door to the floor. âYeah,â she says. âShe cheated.â
No matter what, it always comes back to that. Her mother was the cheater, her father was the other man. Somehow, that should make her happy, the thought that maybe something, some kind of love and care could survive all those years and all the anger and the pain and the betrayals andâŚ
Fuck it.
Amyâs had just about enough of making everything in her life some sort of double speak metaphor for her and Karma.
Been there, done that and fuck it all. She's done. She has to be.
âFuck 'em both.â
Amyâs head snaps up and she looks at Lauren like the other girl just admitted to wearing a mismatched bra and panties set and since sheâs seen Laurenâs underwear drawer, thatâs just not possible. âWhat?â
âFuck 'em both,â Lauren says. âI told you, my fatherâs done the same thing. Farrah just beat him to the punch.â She snatches up the sweats dangling off the edge of the suitcase and starts the folding process again. âBesides, they were the ones who couldnât wait to get married. They were the ones who put us together and made us aâŚâ
âFamily?â Amy offers.
âYeah,â Lauren says. âA family. And now they think they can just scrap the whole thing and move us around like⌠like⌠luggage?â She gestures at the suitcase as she finishes folding the sweats and stands up. âFuck 'em. Fuck 'em both.â
Amy grins at her from the floor. âYouâre going on tour with the Dillholes, arenât you?â
Lauren drops the sweats into the suitcase and rolls her eyes. âGod help me,â she says. âI am.â
And even Lauren canât hide the smile.
There are certain things Reagan could say to Karma that really - honest and true - wouldnât upset her.
She could call Karma on the way she acted at Communal that night, point out that Karma acted like a jealous ex more than a friend and let her own insecurities almost fuck up Amyâs relationship before it had even started.
Karma might not like it, but she knows itâs true. She knew it was true then, even as she was doing it.
Sheâs considerably more self aware than most people give her credit for. But knowing youâre doing it and being able to stop doing it arenât the same thing.
Reagan could point out that Amyâs insistence on always putting Karma first - and vice versa - is never going to sit well with anyone either of them date.
Again, she might not like it, but⌠The evidence is kinda there.
She could even - maybe - critique Karmaâs handling of Amyâs coming out. Because, yeah, Karma knows - and has always known - she fucked that up. She fucked that up like a boss.
She didnât mean to. It was never her intention to hurt Amy (or even Liam) but somehow, intention didnât equate to results.
Any of that, really, Karma would have to concede Reagan might have a point.
But this?
You need to let her go.
Oh. Fuck. No.
âI need to let her go?â Karma took one step back toward the house and held her ground. âIÂ need to let her go? Thatâs fucking rich.â
Reagan shrugged, not sure what Karma was getting at. âMaybe,â she said. âBut itâs also the truth.â
Karma moved a little closer. With Reagan sitting on the step, they were at eye level. âSays the girl planning on spending the whole summer with her,â she spat. âBut thatâs what you wanted all along wasnât it? Get her alone. Away from me.â Karma glared. âWhatâd you think, Reagan? Three months and sheâll be your perfect little lesbian?â
Reagan got it then and, not for the first time, she cursed Amyâs seeming inability to tell anyone the entire truth. âShe didnât tell you,â Reagan muttered. âFor fuckâs sakeâŚâ
She understood then why Karma was so mad, why it seemed to her that Reagan was, in essence, trying to muscle her way back into Amyâs life. And heart. And bed.
âIâm not going,â she says, calmly. âIâm staying here with Nicole. Amyâs going on her own.â
The look that passes over Karmaâs face goes through phases and Reagan can watch each one settle and move on, like clouds. Confusion. Doubt. Realization. Anger.
And then⌠well⌠Reaganâs never seen anyone absolutely broken before, but sheâs got a pretty good idea that this is what it looks like because it hits her at the same time it dawns on Karma, what exactly it means that Amyâs not only going, but going without her.
Going with Reagan was one thing. It was easier then. Then, it was about that love Amy still has for her, about the chance - slim as it might be - that those different places theyâre in might be a little (or a lot) closer than they thought. Then, it was as much about being with Reagan as it was being without Karma.
This⌠oh fuck⌠this is something different, this is something worse. This is Amy willingly going God only knows where with people she doesnât know and spending three months doing something sheâs never done.
Just to avoid Karma and a summer together, just the two of them.
Karma sinks down to the grass and Reagan has the urge to get up and go inside. Remember that part about not her fight? Yeah⌠not her fix either.
âI don'tâŚâ Karmaâs just staring at the ground. âWhat did I do?â she asks. âHow did IâŚâ she shakes her head and puts her face in her hands.
Reagan slips off the steps and drops down onto the grass next to her. She reaches out, tries to put an arm around the younger girl but itâs just too⌠weird. She lets her hands drop back down to her lap and picks at the grass.
âHow can I have fucked up so badly?â Karma asks and Reagan doesnât know - but hopes - sheâs not looking for an actual answer. âSheâll run away. Sheâll go to another state, other states, just to get away.â
Karma shakes with silent sobs and Reagan really - really - regrets sitting down.
âShe hates me that much.â The words come out in a shudder and Reagan almost doesnât get it at all. âShe hates me.â
Reagan sighs and wonders, as she often has, how someone with a fucking encyclopedic knowledge of all things romantic comedy can be so clueless about real life love.
âItâs hard, isnât it?â she asks, waiting till Karmaâs head pops up to continue. âGetting over what they did. Amy and Liam.â
Karma stares at her, completely lost, but nods.
âYeah,â Reagan says. âI get that. It took me like a year to get over Charlotte. She still worked for the catering company and I had to see her all the time. It was hell.â
Karma glances back up at the house, at Amyâs window, and Reagan knows theyâve found a little common ground.
âShe finally quit,â Reagan says. âI donât know if she got a better job or got sick of the hours orâŚâ She tugs a few blades of grass free from the ground, rubbing them between her fingers as she speaks. âSometimes, I like to think she did it because seeing me hurt her as much as seeing her hurt me.â
Karma smiles, for just a second, the romantic notion of it too much for her little shipper heart to resist. âDo you really think -â
âNo,â Reagan says with less than no hesitation. âI know Charlotte. She swept me off her list of fucks to give ten seconds after she dumped me.â She drops the grass. âBut itâs easier to think that way, you know?â
Karma does know. If anyone would know about lying to yourselfâŚ
âYouâve never really forgiven them, have you?â
Karma turns to look at Reagan, caught off guard by the sudden change in topic. âWhat?â
âI mean, I know you say you have,â Reagan says. âAnd we all know way too much about your reconciliation efforts with LiamâŚâ
Karma bristles at the insinuation - even if she knows itâs well earned - and glares at Reagan. âI donât really see how any of that is your business.â
âBecause sheâs my business,â Reagan snaps. Sheâs grateful Karmaâs got a little attitude back. She knows how to deal with pissy Kama. The other oneâŚnot so much.
Itâs easier to fight a little than console a lot.
âYou think youâve got a monopoly on loving Amy, Karma?â Reagan asks. âYou think youâre the only one whoâs gonna be crying themselves to sleep at the thought that three months gone is going to turn to four or five or the rest of your life?â
âBut,â Karma stutters. âBut, you have Nicole.â
Times like these, Reagan wonders how the hell Amy has stayed so patient with this girl for so long. âAnd you have - had? have? - Liam. And yet, youâre here. From what Amy said, heâs thinking of taking off the for the summer too. And yetâŚâ
âIâm here,â Karma finishes and Reagan nods. Thereâs a moment of clarity for the younger girl and she speaks before she thinks. âYou love her, donât you? Like, in love with her, love her. Still.â
Itâs Reaganâs turn to glance up at the window, the one she crawled in so many nights. âWhen I told Nicole about my history with Amy, she gave me such⌠shit. She didnât get it. The age difference. Amyâs confusion. You.â Reagan reaches over and plucks her Coke from the steps, running the cold bottle between her hands. âThere were so many obvious reasons⌠so many bright blinking neon fucking signs.â
She turns her head so Karma canât see the tears.
âI was the first girlfriend and thereâs a reason theyâre called first and not only,â Reagan says and she hopes she doesnât sound bitter. âAnd Nicole couldnât understand how I couldâve been so stupid. How I couldnât have seen that for myself, right from the start.â
Karma reaches out a hand, haltingly, and rests it on Reaganâs leg. âYou did though, didnât you?â
Reagan nods. âFrom the moment I met her.â
There are. No. Boyfriends. Around me. Right now.
âI saw it coming right at me, like a freight train, and I couldnât help but lay down on the tracks,â she says. âAnd now I have Nicole and we fit and thereâs no confusion, no age difference.â She looks at Karma with a small, sad smile. âNo you.â
âAnd yet,â Karma says, âyouâre here.â
Reagan takes another long drink, letting the silence settle back in.
And yet, sheâs here. They both are.
âI imagine,â she finally says, âthat itâs been hard. Seeing them every day, even seeing them together sometimes. Even when you knew Liam was into you. Even when Amy was with me.â
Karma nods. It sucked. A lot. Seeing them, even so much as passing in the hall, it had killed her. And she didnât want it to, she wanted to forgive them and she knew - she fucking knew - she had a certain amount of blame
(but they fucked)
(she lied and she hurt them both)
(but they fucked)
but she didnât know how. She didnât know how to forgive without feeling, in every single bit of her, that sheâd let them get away with it.
Karma didnât want to punish them.
She just didnât want to suffer alone.
âHe was your first love,â Reagan says. âAnd sheâs your best friend. When one hurts you, youâre supposed to turn to the other.â
Karma nods again, vigorously. Itâs the first time anyoneâs actually said it out loud, like that, and itâs so simple and yet so fucking true.
âSoâŚâ Reagan says. âImagine youâre Amy. First love. Best friend.â Sheâs incredibly proud that her voice holds when she says 'loveâ. âOne in the same. Nowhere else to go to, no escape.â
Karma stares up at the house and Reagan thinks this time it might have sunk in.
âIf seeing them hurt you like that, Karma,â Reagan says, âimagine what being with you does to her. Imagine what fighting to save something thatâs never going to be what you really want but you canât live without it, is like.â
Karma closes her eyes and tries to just breathe. Which, it turns out, is somewhat harder than she imagined.
âI have to let her go,â she says. âBut I⌠don'tâŚâ
Reagan stands up and turns to go back inside. âWhat you do is up to you, Karma. If youâŚâ she shakes her head. âAmy has always thought the best of you. Sheâs always believed in what you two have, more than anything else in her life.â
Karma watches Reagan head up the steps and pause.
âYou can do what you want Karma, and you probably will,â Reagan says. â But for once⌠prove her right. Be the friend she thinks you are. Even if it kills you.â
Amy quickly discovers the major difference between the girl she was - and, really, still is - and this Amy.
This Amy can be a bitch. This Amy can throw the Clement University folder in the trash right in front of Karma.
Thatâs not the difference.
Amy knows herself well enough to know that being a bitch is not something entirely new for her, itâs not like she's never lashed out at people when sheâs mad.
Croquembouche, anyone?
(Liam Booker, anyone?)
Being a bitch is not an exclusive trait of this Amy, of work-in-progress Amy. Old Amy had her bitch moments. And this Amy is still that Amy and that means this Amy - just like that Amy - feels bad about it. Thereâs that immediate regret, that instantaneous sense of âoh, shitâ and that desperate need to fix it, to find a way to take it all back.
Old Amy would snatch that folder out of the trash, play it off as a joke, and spend the next four hours letting Karma plan - in excruciating detail - every moment of their summer.
This Amy doesnât move. She doesnât speak, she barely even looks as Karma dashes across the room, asking âWhat are you doing?â as she makes a beeline for the trash, for the folder, for their summer together that isnât going to happen.
This Amy feels bad. Just not bad enough.
Amy hears it all in Karmaâs voice. It isnât the actual question she hears - Amy learned long ago that reading Karma is more about the sound than the words - and itâs all right there. The way the words spill out of her mouth in a rush, the way her voice skips up an octave and tightropes its way along the line between shock and confusion
(and not just a little bit of anger)
and the wave of fear that ripples through each word. Amy hears it all and she knows what it is, what it means. Itâs their friendship teetering on the edge - not that it hasnât been there before, not that it hasnât seemingly been there forever lately - and she knows what Karmaâs doing, why sheâs reaching for that folder.
Itâs not the folder.
Itâs Amyâs hand.
Old Amy would reach out and take it, would let Karma pull her back from the edge because thatâs what Karma does - what sheâs always done - for her. Karmaâs the one who reigns her in, the one who pulls her back from going too far, the one who keeps her from blowing up a pageant or roofie-ing a drink. Sheâs the yin to Amyâs yang
(the salt to her pepper, the Lucy to her Ethel)
and thatâs why this Amy really? Has no choice.
âLeave it,â she says and Karma freezes, her hand just above the trash can and if Amy heard it all in Karmaâs voice then, yeah, Karma hears it all now. Itâs in the tone, the bark, the fucking order Amyâs dropping and thatâs something new and if, maybe, it stirs something in Karma
(besides confusion and fear)
well, sheâs going to ignore the hell out of that for right now, because right now all she can manage is âWhat?â
âI said leave it,â Amy repeats and her voice is softer and sheâs not commanding now but still, thereâs that tone, that undercurrent of something that just isnât Amy - or hasnât been - and itâs enough. Enough to make Karma do as sheâs told, to make her straighten up and lean against Amyâs wall, leaving the folder where it is.
âAmy?â
Itâs only a word - itâs only her name - but Amy hears the thousand more words behind it, the thousand and one questions Karma has
(and maybe, the one answer Amy needs)
and she hears the one question Karma wants to ask, but wonât, because sheâs too afraid that she already knows the answer and hearing it, actually hearing Amy say the words, will make it real and Karmaâs not sure
(no, she's sure, absolutely fucking positive)
that she can handle that. So she doesnât ask. She just says âAmy?â and hopes her best friend, the girl sheâs always known, wonât say it.
âIâm not going,â Amy says and Karma takes a small step forward, reaching out a hand but when Amyâs eyes flick to it, something in her gaze makes Karma pull back, yanking her hand away like sheâs been burned.
âYouâre not going,â Karma repeats. âYouâre not going with me this summer?â
Amy shakes her head, her fingers gripping the edge of her desk, the sensation of the wood against her skin rooting her in place.
âIâm not going with you to Clement,â she says. âNot now. And maybe not ever.â
There are things Amy remembers.
There are moments she remembers, little bits and pieces of everything that happened since the moment she said 'letâs be lesbiansâ. There are things she hasnât - or canât - bury away somewhere, some place deep down where she doesnât have to relive them.
Theyâre not the kisses. Theyâre not the feel of Karma in her arms at the dance, or crawling toward her in the quad, or the sight of her in her threesome lingerie. Theyâre not the way Karma threw herself on the mercy of the school to get Amy to forgive her for the 'sex addictâ bullshit and theyâre not the way Karma serenaded her the night after the wedding, trying so hard to win her back when sheâd never lost her to begin with.
Theyâre the pain.
There are things Amy remembers, things that are burned into her mind with such heat she knows theyâll never come out, not in a month or a year or even when sheâs old and frail and long past giving a fuck who Liam Booker was or is.
(which, truthfully, could describe now fairly well, too)
Theyâre the night of the wedding. Theyâre the morning after. Theyâre the âshe knowsâ morning and the afternoon in the Hester basement.
Theyâre the night she 'gaveâ Karma to Liam.
It isnât the giving she remembers, not really. Sheâs done her absolute best to forget that, to block her whole self-sacrificing speech from her mind, to forget talking about how crazy the two of them were for each other.
And, for fuckâs sake, to never remember 'if you love somethingâŚâ
None of that is what she remembers.
Amy remembers the rest of it. The rest of that night, after Karma had come and gone and theyâd shared the final moments of her birthday together. She remembers, all too well, how she spent the rest of that night.
She remembers crying into her pillow and wondering, out loud, what the hell sheâd done. She remembers wanting to take it all back, every fucking bit, not just letting him have her, but the whole day. Every stupid scavenger hunt moment, every blatantly obvious to anyone but Karma attempt she made to show her, to get Karma to see what Amy just couldnât say anymore.
I love you.
Amy remembers curling up in her bed with her phone clutched between her hands, her fingers dancing over the keys. She tapped out unsent text after unsent text that night, every one of them saying the same thing in every different way she could think of.
Iâm a fool.
I was lying. I just said it for you. I didnât mean it.
I canât stand you with him.
Please, Karma.
PleaseâŚ
It was, Amy remembers, the 'pleaseâ that did it, every fucking time. Just when she thought she couldnât cry anymore, when she thought it was finally done and she could just fucking sleepâŚ
Sheâd see that word blinking back at her.
Please.
Please, Karma. Please. Do the impossible, Karma. Feel something you donât Karma. Forget him. See me. Really fucking see me and know. Know what we could have, what we could be.
See me, Karma. Take a chance with me, Karma.
Love me, Karma.
Please.
Thereâs an irrationality that Amy knows, that she understands can come over you. Itâs the four in the morning meltdown, the 'Iâm still awake and desperately waitingâ moment. Waiting for the phone to ring, for a text to come, for a knock on the door, for someoneâs arms around you, someoneâs words whispered in your ear.
Youâre not alone.
Itâs that irrationality, Amy remembers, that comes from losing something you know could never really be. Something that never stood a chance, that you never really had but you still feel the loss of it so fucking deep, in places and parts of you that you swear must be your soul.
It shouldnât hurt. Amy knows that. Amy knew that. It shouldnât tear at your heart, it shouldnât make your stomach burn until you canât breathe.
It shouldnât.
It shouldnât because you - she - didnât really lose anything because you canât lose something that, really, is nothing but a lie. Something that was never there, was never real, that only existed in your mind and your dreams and that part of your heart you never let anyone see.
It shouldnât hurt. It shouldnât.
But it did. God it so did.
It so does.
Amy remembers that. She remembers it from the night she 'gaveâ Karma to Liam. She remembers it from the night after the night she slept with him.
She remembers it from last night. From the moment the lights came on and Karma pulled away and gave Liam - and everyone else - that 'oops, I did it againâ smile and laugh and left Amy there in the pool.
There are things Amy remembers. Moments.
âEver?â Karma asks and Amy can hear - can literally fucking hear - her best friendâs heart breaking. âMaybe not ever?â
There are things Amy remembers. Moments.
Like this one.
Amy doesnât look at Karma. She canât.
This Amy can be a bitch, but even she has her limits.
She stares at her wall, at a tiny little dot in the paint. Itâs a spot, far off on the horizon. A ship, a plane
(a bus)
fading into the distance, falling from view and - no matter the assurances, no matter the promises, no matter the plans - Amy knows.
When it fades? When itâs gone and it isnât even that spot anymore?
No oneâs ever quite sure itâs really coming back.
Karmaâs not saying anything and itâs the silence, thatâs whatâs slowly killing Amy. Itâs the death of it, the quiet, the empty spaces between each breath and the fucking pain that seeps into them, slowly weighing them both down until Amyâs afraid they just might drown.
Itâs enough - almost - to make her take it all back. She could do it. She could yank the folder from the trash and spread it all over the bed. They could go through it together, piece by piece.
Amy can see itâŚ
âThis is where weâre going to stay,â Karma says, pointing at a cluster of brown blobs that stand for buildings on the campus map. âThese are the dorms they use for the summer program and this is the best one because itâs co-ed.â She bumps her hip against Amyâs. âSome for me, some for you!â she says, cracking up at how ridiculous and dirty sheâs managed to make the whole thing seem.
Amy smiles and rolls her eyes.
âClasses are here,â Karma says, pointing at some blobs on the far end of campus before quickly moving on to the map of the city as a whole because, letâs face it, summers ainât for learning, right?
Amy watches as Karma takes her on a blob-by-blob tour of New Orleans, her finger tracing a slow path across the city. She skips over the places they canât get into, lingers on spots that sheâs already decided will be theirs - the ones where everyone will know their names - and, of courseâŚ
âBourbon Street,â Karma says. âAnd the Mardi Gras parades. Theyâre not during the summer, obviously, but thereâs so many routes and we need to scope them out, find the best spots.â
Amy laughs. âYou just want to find the best place for beads.â
Karma slugs her in the arm and laughs. âIÂ do not,â she insists, but she pauses, finger stalled on the map. âI could totally get the most though.â
Amy laughs again and nods, knowing that Karma could - sheâd have a plan, naturally - and even if she didnât, Amy would find a way.
Sheâd find a way to get Karma what she wants.
Thatâs what she does.
Amy can see it all, all of it spiraling out from that dot in the paint. Sheâs gone over and over and over the Clement website through the years, she knows it all by heart and she can picture them - her and Karma - all across that campus, all over that city.
Karma, Amy knows, would revel in it. Not just the beads and the parties and Bourbon Street, but all of it. The new place. The new city. New school, new friends, new world where no one knows her and thereâs no pot selling parents, no living in a juice truck, no Liam Booker, no faking it.
Thereâs just⌠her.
And Amy.
And thereâs always that, isnât there. 'And Amy.â
Sometimes, even if she never admits it, even if sheâs never said it out loud - not even to Reagan - and even if she barely lets herself think it, Amy wonders.
When did that become her name?
'And Amy.â
When did that become her?
Karma could be anyone. Clement and New Orleans would be a reinvention for her and maybe sheâd finally be able to see the person she is - the one Amyâs seen all along - and not the imperfect, unlovable, could always be better version she sees in the mirror. Karma could be anyone, she could be happy, she could be perfect.
And Amy
(and there it is again)
could give that to her. All she has to do is pick up the folder, wave Karma over to the bed, yell downstairs for Reagan to leave, and dive onto the bed next to her best friend, giggling and laughing and planning the first step in their future together.
Karma and Amy.
Karma. And Amy.
Together. Except⌠not.
All she has to do is pick up the folder.
You canât lose yourself to keep her
Amy turns and shuffles across the room, sliding down against the edge of the bed, pulling her knees up to her chest, Karmaâs question echoing in her mind.
Maybe not ever?
âMaybe not,â she says. âMaybe not.â
âAmy?â Karmaâs panicking now, which is really only one Defcon step up from where she started. âWhatâs going on, why are you doing this, what the hell has gotten - â
âYou remembered it, didnât you?â
Karma full-stops in mid rant, her protestations catching in her throat. She pulls back and chews on her lip.
You remembered it, didnât you?
She should have seen this coming, she had to be stupid - or distracted - not to. She should have, but she didnât, and now sheâs here and she has no fucking idea what to say because every answer seems wrong, every answer is like a loaded gun ready to go off in her face.
âAmyâŚâ
Karma can see it in the way Amtâs hands clench into fists on her knees.
Wrong fucking answer.
âLiam texted me,â Amy says and sheâs not surprised - sheâs not much of anything, really - at the way Karmaâs face clenches at the name, at the idea of Liam Booker and Amy Raudenfeld having anything to do with each other, even now, even after apology on top of apology on top of apology and all their work and all their tears.
Amy figures she probably deserves that look. Itâs probably less than she deserves, really.
âHe texted me,â she continues, âbecause he ran into you on campus.â
âI was looking for you,â Karma says. âI didnât know you were home⌠packing.â
Classic Karma. A little redirection.
Too bad Amyâs not in the mood to be steered.
âHe thought I should know,â Amy says. âHe thought it was important that I know that you told him you had no memory of kissing me last night.â
She can see the anger flaring behind Karmaâs eyes - Liam fucking Booker - and she doesnât blame her, not really. Amyâs still not sure if Liam did it because he thought he was being a friend
(yeah, right)
or to make himself feel a little better, or just to fuck with both of them.
She is sure that she doesnât really care. Not even a little.
âAmyâŚâ
Amy talks right over her. âBut that isnât true, is it?â she asks. âYou remembered it, didnât you? Even before he said anything. You remembered.â
Karma starts to speak, but sheâs got⌠nothing.
Amyâs phone buzzes in her lap, the screen lighting up with the message sheâs been waiting for.
Croquembouche Queen: On my way home. Need you.
She taps out a quick reply without looking up, without even acknowledging Karmaâs still in the room.
âYou lied to Liam,â Amy says. âAnd really, that shouldnât shock anyone, should it?â
Karma doesnât reply, doesnât try to fire back because, really, whatâs she going to say?
âI get it,â Amy says. âYou lied to him for the same reason you always do. To make him feel better, to stroke his ego cause, letâs face it, Liam is all fucking ego, especially when it comes to me.â
Karma nods, relieved that here - at last - is something she can say. âHeâs always felt secondary,â she says. âEven when we were faking it.â
âYou,â Amy says.
âMe?â
Amy nods. âYou,â she says again. âWhen you were faking it.â
Itâs the first moment, right then, when Karma really believes this isnât going to end well.
âYou lied to Liam, but you havenât lied to me,â Amy says. âNot yet. So Iâm going to ask you something, Karma. And I need the truth.â
âOK,â Karma says even though sheâs quite sure itâs anything but OK.
âWas it revenge?
Karma blinks. Wait⌠She blinks again. "What?â
âRevenge,â Amy says. âWas kissing me revenge for sleeping with Liam? Did you do it to get back at me?â
âNo.â Thereâs a hint of anger - more than a hint, really - behind Karmaâs voice. âHow could you even think that?â
Amy shrugs. âSeemed more logical than the alternatives,â she says. âAnd really, I donât know what to think anymore, Karma. I donât have the first fucking clue.â
Karma slumps against the wall, the anger drained out of her as fast as it came. âI don't⌠I donât know what to think, either.â
Amyâs eyes snap up and Karma knows that somehow, sheâs managed to say the wrong thing again.
âYou donât know? You?â Amyâs hands, which had only just released, curl into fists again in her lap. âIâve had it drummed into my head from you, your mother, my mother, even fucking Reagan, that you are not even the teeniest, tiniest bit not straight. And then you - you - fucking kissed me. And not just a little kiss, Karma. A full on 'letâs make out in the pool, here do you like the taste of my tongueâ kiss.â
Karma remembers.
âAnd you donât know what to think?â Amy glares at her. âYou donât get to be confused here, Karma. That's me.â
âSo, what?â Karma snaps. Sheâs never been good at getting called on the carpet and now is no different. âSo, in your confusion you just ran back to Reagan? Because you donât know so you just decided to become this other person, this other Amy that I donât even know and just throw away our summer together? Our dream?â
âYour dream.â
Karma has the urge to find her fucking Squirkle tablet and show Amy that video again. âYou wanted it as much as -â
âI wanted you!â
They both freeze and Amyâs pretty sure Reagan - and the neighbors and everyone within a five block radius - heard that.
âI wanted you,â she says and itâs almost a whisper. âAnd last night, for about ten seconds, I got to have you. No faking it. Not audience. No pretense, no bullshit, no Liam fucking Booker.â
Karma stares at the floor. Would it be too much, she wonders, for it to open up and swallow her whole?
âAnd then,â Amy says, âthe lights came back on.â Her phone buzzes again but she ignores it, knowing itâs just Reagan checking on her. âAnd in the light⌠it was so fucking obvious. I was something you were ashamed of, again. Something you had to smile and pass of as a joke and lie to Liam about.â
Karma starts forward but Amy pushes back against the bed, scrambling to her feet and Karma stops. Watching Amy like that, scared, hurt, terrified of even her slightest touchâŚ
It fucking kills her.
âI canât, Karma. I just⌠canât,â Amy says. âI donât know how you feel, fuck, I donât even know if you know. But, honestly? I canât.â
âCanât what?â
Amy shrugs. âCanât wait. Canât hold on. Can't⌠do this anymore.â She waves her hand between them and Karmaâs heart breaks a little more.
âIâm sorry,â she says. âIâm sorry I kissed you and I donât mean it like that, itâs just⌠everything has been so fucked up. And donât you see? Donât you get it, Amy?â Karma takes on halting step toward her and stops. âThis is our chance. Our chance to fix it. To forget the rest and just get back to Karma and Amy.â
And there it is. Again.
âClement and the summer together is our chance to get back on track,â Karma says.
âCan't you see?â Amy snaps. âI don't want to get back on track. The track is just a fucking loop that keeps running the damn train straight through my heart over and over again. And I canât do it anymore, Karma. Not even for you.â
Thereâs voices downstairs - Laurenâs home - and Karmaâs last bit of self control is gone.
âBut you can do it for her, canât you?â She storms over to the desk, grabbing up the papers and waving them at Amy. âThatâs what this is, right? Youâre not going with me but you are going with Reagan?â
It would be easy, Amy knows, to point out the simple truth. Reaganâs staying home with Nicole.
She doesnât say a word.
âThis is your solution, Amy?â Karma throws the papers back on the desk. âWe hit a little bump and youâre going to do what? Spend a summer with the girl who couldnât accept you, pretending to be something youâre not?â
âI donât pretend to be gay, Karma,â Amy says. âThat would be you.â
âYouâre not gay!" Karma yells, slamming her fist into the desk.
"So you keep telling me,â Amy says. âBut how can you be so sure when I'm not? When I donât know what the fuck I am or who the fuck I want or much of anything else?â
Karma holds her fist in her other hand, trying her damnedest to ignore the pain. âFine,â she says. âMaybe you are. Maybe you arenât. Maybe at the end of your journey youâll be as lesbian as lesbian gets. But now? Right now? Thatâs not you. And I told you. You canât change who you are for someone else.â
Amy leans against the bed. âThatâs not what Iâll be doing,â Amy says. âThatâs what I would be doing. If I went with you.â
âWhat?â
âYou just canât see it, can you?â Amy asks. âI love Reagan. I love her. But for fuckâs sake, KarmaâŚÂ itâs you. It's always been you. And every single time I think Iâm finally over it, finally free of it -â
âI pull you back in?â Karma asks. âIs that it? Itâs all me?â
âNo,â Amy says, shaking her head emphatically. âIt's me. Itâs me every fucking time. I canât say no. I canât walk away. I canât give you up even if it fucking kills me.â
âAmy-â
Amy hold up a hand. âStop. Please,â she says. âYou told me I couldnât lose myself to keep Reagan. But you donât see it. Iâm losing myself every day, bit by fucking bit and it isnât even to keep you.â Amy runs a hand through her hair and tries to will herself not to cry. âYou canât keep what youâve never had.â
âYou have me, Amy.â Karma tries to go to her, arms open, wanting nothing more than to hold her and tell her it will be all right and then make it all right.
But the way Amy backpedals, the way she practically races to the door?
Karma knows thereâs nothing she can do.
âI donât,â Amy says. âNot the way I want to. And I never will and that is not your fault.â
Karmaâs not so sure. The pit in her stomach and the ache in her heart say different.
âI love you Karma, I do,â Amy says. âAnd I want it all, everything we talked about, everything we planned.â
âBut?â
There's always a but.
âBut I canât,â Amy says. âNot like this. I canât go with you, I canât spend every day with you and not hold you and kiss you and⌠I canât be Karma. And Amy. anymore. â
Karma nods but they both know she doesnât mean it, she doesnât understand it, she doesn't⌠she just doesnât.
âI canât go with you, Karma.â
Karma nods, again, but says âWhat if this is it? What if this is the beginning of the end?â She takes a couple steps forward, her heart leaping when Amy doesnât move further away. âAmy, what if this is thing we canât come back from?â
Amy stands by the door, spotting Lauren coming up the stairs. âThatâs what Iâm trying to tell you,â she says. âIf I donât go? It will be.â
