Faking it Fanfiction

The knock comes a few years after Theo expected it would (he thought he was safe), and the face on the other side of the door? Yeah, she’s not the one he planned on - he was expecting the FedEx guy and Steve (that’s his name) (Theo knows him well) (Mrs. Theo orders a lot) (like a lot) doesn’t look a thing like Lauren, but it’s not like he knew it was gonna be her when he got to the door.

If he had… well… he wonders, briefly, if it would make him somewhat less of a man if, instead of answering, he ran and hid, like maybe under the bed - he’s assuming that the very very very last place Lauren would want to go is anywhere near his bed - though, if he’s logical about it, he’d be better off choosing a place just a bit higher up.

Cause, you know, tiny Lauren.

Tiny in height only and it takes all of three seconds and one glare and the sight of both her fists clenched at her side for Theo to remember that height ain’t everything.

With her? It ain't anything.

So, he wonders (briefly) if it would make him less of a man and then, even more briefly (cause easy answer) if he cares that it would.

It takes all of two seconds and the sight of both those fists for him to answer.

Oh. Fuck. No.

Which is, ironically, the very first thought that runs through his mind when he opens the door to see her standing there (lie) (the first thought: damn, she’s aged well) (which is fucking ridiculous cause it’s been like a few years, not a decade or some shit, so he’s being totally sexist, but also, she has aged well, as in almost not at all and Theo is suddenly very self-conscious of the grays dotting his head, sorta like Obama halfway through his first term except, you know, not remotely as distinguished.)

So, first thought: hot (basically). Second thought: the aforementioned Oh. Fuck. No. Third thought: I hope she’s not armed.

Fourth thought: Actually, I hope she is, cause it’ll be a quicker death and maybe there’ll be a bit of evidence and my murder - my totally justified murder - won’t go unsolved.

And then comes the fifth thought which, not surprisingly, circles back around to oh and fuck and no before Lauren finally puts him out of his misery, though not in the way he’d have expected.

“Can I come in?”

Um… well…

Theo’s a bit too dumbstruck (and still stuck on vacillating back and forth between hot and that other thing) to really use his words, so he just steps back, making room for her to pass.

He considers not shutting the door, so at least there might be witnesses, but then there might be witnesses and Theo thinks he’d prefer the whole neighborhood remember him as the strapping and studly dad down the block, not the quivering mass of ’I’m sorry’ that he’s sure he’s about to become.

Lauren takes a look around the foyer, her glance lingering just a bit too long on the one painting by the stairs and yeah, Theo knew buying that and hanging it there (her favorite and in the spot she’d always imagined it going, someday) was probably not his best choice but, in his defense, he didn’t think she’d ever actually see it. Hell, he’s still not sure she actually is.

He was out by the pool. And the deck was wet and slippery. And he totally could’ve slipped and fell, banging his head and, right now, he’s slowly drowning and all of this is a weird death-lusion and soon he’ll wake up somewhere very warm and perfectly deserved.

He’s not sure that wouldn’t be better.

“I’d guess you weren’t really expecting me,” Lauren says and, try as he might, Theo can’t find even a hint of snark in her voice - she sounds almost plaintive - and that’s actually worrisome, and so not her.

Not that he knows what's not her anymore. He hasn’t in a while. Like five years kind of a while and it’s so fucking odd how it feels like just yesterday.

He can only hope it doesn’t feel that way for her cause, you know, fresh pain and all.

Theo shrugs, which seems to be about the best he can manage. He wasn’t expecting her. He wasn’t (as noted) expecting anyone except, maybe, Steve. He thought that knock knock knock might have been a(nother) delivery. Maybe some (more) clothes or, perhaps, that blender she’s been raving about (and yes, ’she’ is how he thinks of his wife right now, like he can’t remember her name.) Or maybe it was some more of those toys she’s been ordering.

And, it should also be noted, that by ‘toys’, he means toys. Like for a kid. Not, you know… toys.

She (Lisa) (her name is Lisa) doesn’t order those and no, that’s totally not one of the things he’s missed over the years. (Lie) (again.) Not that, you know, Lauren ever ordered toys. She would just borrow them from Reagan and yes, that is as extra dirty as it sounds but now, with all of that hindsight that comes with age and time and living with a wife (Lisa) (for fuck’s sake) whose idea of kinky is doing it with the lights on, Theo’s come to think of a little bit of… dirt… as a good thing.

It’s just a thing he tries not to think about too often and, by 'too often’, he means like at all, cause there are some things better off left in the past. Choices and memories and choices and people and did he mention choices cause he should have, especially since he knows that he’s the one who made all of those and he’s OK with that, really he is.

As long as he doesn’t think about it too much.

Which, you know, is usually kinda easy. But then, usually, one of those choices - the only one that fucking matters - isn’t staring at him like she’s trying to see right into his soul and OK, he’s probably exaggerating that a bit.

A tiny bit.

“I didn’t think… I never planned…” Lauren shakes her head and turns away, her eyes finding that painting again. “Is that the original?” she asks and he nods. “Thought so. The colors are brighter than the one… we had.”

We. They. Had, as in together, as in their home, as in the place that was theirs. So, you know, that one.

It hung in their hall. Upstairs. On the way from the half bath to the master bedroom and Lauren always swore that when (never if) she found the original - and not some very good but not quite right copy - she’d hang it right downstairs, right by the door.

“Where everyone can see it,” she said.

Theo tries not to think about what she did with it - that very good but not quite right, all kinds of wrong, in fact, copy - on her way out that last day. It’s best, he’s come to think, not to dwell on the flames (and yes, that's literal) (as in up in them) (as in right out on the front fucking yard.) In fact, he tries not to think of that day much at all.

And yes, tries is the operative word.

“It looks good,” she says, somehow without a hint of bitterness or anger and oh, this is so going to end badly, isn’t it? “So do you,” she lies, but he still feels a swell of pride and yeah, he sucks in his gut (a four pack now instead of his usual six) just a little bit. “I’m sorry,” Lauren says - and isn’t that supposed to be his line? - it all suddenly clicking with her just how ridiculously awkward and weird and insane it is for them to be standing here like this. “This is… I don’t know why… I should go.”

She probably should cause, well, this is weird to the weirdest, but she doesn’t move and Theo doesn’t either, but he does finally find his voice, so that’s a step.

“Want a drink?”

For a second (the second longest second of his life), he thinks she’s gonna say no, but then she nods, quickly, and follows him into the kitchen. He gets to fishing for beer in the fridge - it’s way in the back cause Lisa doesn’t drink - and Lauren just stands there, awkwardly, leaning against the island, her hands resting on top of it and then down at her sides and then back on top again and Theo thinks he should be relieved that she is, apparently, as nervous as he is.

Somehow, it’s less than reassuring.

Even less reassuring is the way she downs the beer he hands her in one fell swoop (all that’s missing is her sister and Reagan - mostly Reagan - chanting 'chug, chug chug’) and lets out a long breath when she’s done.

He thinks about offering her another one. But not very hard. He remembers drunk Lauren - the angry version, not the horny one (not that either would be good right now) - just a bit too well.

“He loves me,” she says and talk about your non sequiturs and your out of nowheres and your 'I seriously thought they’d have had this all settled by nows’. “Glenn,” she adds, as if Theo didn't know. “He loves me and I…” She shakes her head and taps her fingers against the side of the bottle, hunting for the words. “And I blame you,” she finally says and, well…

Talk about your 'what the fucks’.

And your 'not surprising at alls’.

Theo’s pretty sure she’s not saying that she blames him for Glenn loving her, cause, well, if that’s anyone's fault, it’s totally hers. And, you know, Glenn’s. And definitely not his. Not at

all.

How could it be? It’s not like he did anything to push them together. Or to make it so that a 'them’ is even a possibility. Or expect that anything would happen after the divorce.

I think we both know the last thing Lauren’s going to be is alone.

OK, so maybe it’s a little bit on him, but Glenn was already in love with her and it isn’t like Theo told him he should be or that he was OK with it or gave him permission or some shit like that.

Not really. Not in those words. And he certainly didn't hope they’d find their way to each other cause he didn’t want Lauren to be alone for the rest of her life just because he'd… changed.

His mind.

He’d changed his mind and yeah, it sucked and yeah, it hurt her and yeah, the whole catch me cheating cause it will hurt less plan was somewhat… ill-advised (to put it mildly) but he meant well and yes, he knows all about the road to hell and exactly what it’s paved with.

Stones. A whole fucking bunch of them and every single one reads 'he meant well’ but, in the end, it worked out, right? For all of them?

Right?

Stupid fucking question, Theo, cause if it all worked out for all of them, would Lauren be here, in your kitchen, drinking your beer, and staring at you like she’s not sure if she wishes you dead or naked?

(Oh, and cut the wishful thinking cause, really, it’s more like 'dead’ or 'slightly less than dead but, at least, in massive amounts of pain and, if there’s any naked involved, it’s just so she can get a better shot when she kicks you in the balls.’)

(Just so we're clear.)

“He’s waiting for me,” Lauren says, snapping Theo back to now - and out of the dead and just a bit less than dead and absolutely not naked - and then she pauses, her fingers slowing against the glass of the bottle. “No… he’s not waiting,” she says. “He’s been waiting for me. And he’s waited. And waited.”

Theo knows. Oh, how he knows. He wonders if Lauren even realizes just how long Glenn’s waited.

Did she see it, he wonders. When she was still… his (and don’t get started on any of that love isn’t ownership bullshit cause you know what the fuck he means) did she notice Glenn, lingering in the background (copyright K. Ashcroft.) Theo likes to think that their marriage and her love for him was enough to blind her. He likes to think that, back then, both Lauren’s heart and her mind were so otherwise occupied that Glenn was never anything more than Reagan’s bro, a guy she knew - tangentially, sorta, a family member with a dashed line on the tree - and that even when, eventually, he was more than that, when he became her friend and her confidant and they had to work together, spending hour upon hour upon weeks in such close quarters…

Oh, who is he kidding?

He likes to think Lauren didn’t realize Glenn was falling and then had fallen and then was so hopelessly in that it was impossible not to see it, and that she never thought - not once - that maybe she had some of those same feelings. He likes to think that, he fucking loves to.

But, he doesn’t. Cause if there’s one thing Theo’s not?

It’s stupid.

Or blind. Or deaf. Or so oblivious he could give high school Karma a run for her money.

So, you know four things. All of which his not being means he knows all too well that Lauren’s been aware, right from the start.

“I don’t know if I’d call it waiting,” he says, so very casually ignoring the whole blaming him bit, cause he’s sure they’ll get back to it (he’s not wrong.) “It’s not like Glenn always expected we would go belly up if he just waited long enough.”

Sometimes - most times - when he thinks back on it, Theo wishes it had been something like that. It might make him feel a little bit better about all of it, like maybe he was less to blame.

And sometimes? Like all the times?

He knows that’s utter bullshit. He's completely to blame.

“I know that,” Lauren says. There’s just a hint (like the tiniest one) of 'duh’, of 'no shit’, of 'of course he wasn’t cause he’s not an asshole’ running under her words. Or maybe that’s just Theo’s imagination. “Glenn’s not that kind of man.”

Yeah. Not his imagination.

You might think that years of practice in dealing with every conceivable variation of the Lauren Cooper 'just about to be pissed’ formula might have taught Theo something about changing the equation. And you’d be right. Totally. There was a time, in fact, when no one could defuse an L.C. Anger Bomb (patent pending) like Theo could. Not Amy (cause she was, more often than not, the cause) and not Reagan (cause she was, more often than not, too amused by it) and not even Bruce (cause he was, or pretended he was, totally oblivious in that way that only someone who’s so used to it that they’re immune - or Karma - could be.)

But that time was then and this is now and, even if he wanted to, Theo’s not sure he’s still got the skills. Plus, there’s that want to. Or, in his case, a lack of it. Call him masochistic or guilty or just plain fucking dumb, but Theo kinda thinks that maybe he’s got a detonation coming.

Again, he’s not wrong.

So, he does nothing and just lets her talk which, now that the seal’s been broken, is surprisingly easy.

“Right now,” Lauren says, “he’s the kind of man who, even though I’ve been an utter fucking bitch, is still waiting for me.” She stares down at the bottle in her hand and there’s a moment when Theo thinks maybe he should have given more consideration to defusing her.

You know, since she's armed.

“He’s sitting in a hotel, probably at the bar,” she says and no, she’s totally not imagining him bellied up to the bar, his usual Jack and Coke in one hand and his cell in the other, wait wait waiting on her call. “Just waiting for me.” Lauren thinks about what she said and laughs, a short 'I’m so stupid’ snort of a thing. “Not like that,” she adds though, Lord knows, if he was waiting like that, it wouldn’t be the first time. “I’m supposed to meet him, so we can go over

last minute details for the rehearsal dinner,” she says. Last minute details that were worked

out so not last minute, but Glenn humors her and he’ll double and thruple check everything

with her. “Tomorrow is my sister’s wedding.”

Theo hears the words - 'my sister’s wedding’ - and his brain hiccups just a bit. Nope, that doesn’t bring back any memories. Not at all.

Tyson: “This is my sister’s wedding, we’re talking about. If it’s not beyond perfect, I will kill someone. All the someones. Every one of you someones. This is Lauren’s day and she’s

only having the one and so it needs to be perfect.”

Holyfield: “What she said. Except replace sister with best friend and kill with… maim, I guess. But all the rest? What she said.”

For three weeks after the broke up, Theo flinched every time he heard a woman’s voice or steps behind him or saw a swish of blonde hair swirling in the distance; he was so convinced he’d end up just like Liam.

Party Liam. Punched in the face and unconscious on the ground and everyone laughing at his humiliation Liam. Not, you know, dead Liam.

“Amy and Reagan?” Theo asks, going all innocent, pretending like he hadn’t seen the full-page wedding announcement Farrah put in the paper. Or the one she posted on her website. Or on Facebook. Or on Twitter. Or the YouTube vlog she did for the station or the other YouTube vlog she did just for her. “About time,” he says when Lauren nods. He says it with a laugh which he immediately reconsiders. “I mean, it’s -”

“About time,” Lauren cuts in and they both laugh and it’s the closest either of them have come to actually breathing since she knocked on the door. It’s a nice moment, the kind they haven’t had in years and that includes the one before the divorce, the entire three-sixty-five when Lauren felt like he was slipping away from her and Theo knew she felt it.

And knew, even then, that he actually was.

But the harder she fought to hold on, the more he squirmed and fussed and worked his way loose. It was his choice and he made it and every time - every single time - he sees his son, Theo knows it was the right choice. But still…

Oh, it’s that 'still’ that gets him, every time, and it’s that 'still’ that makes him think that maybe, just maybe, this is his chance, his opportunity, his one shining moment that the universe has decided to hand him and so, as he does, he takes it.

“I’ve missed you.”

Theo squeezes his eyes shut (the way he should have done with his lips) even before the words are out and oh, if he was thinking that was the universe’s silver platter, the look on her face says it was more likely a fuse for that KABOOM he was so sure he deserved and now he’s gone and lit the damn thing and it’s burning.

Burning fast.

He’s hit a nerve and that’s what she does. But now, seeing as how there’s no un-lighting that fuse or un-hitting that nerve, Theo doesn’t see much sense in quitting while he’s ahead even

if, probably, he ought to reassess his definition of 'ahead’.

“Most of the time,” he says, not even bothering to acknowledge that they’re so not talking about Glenn anymore or the look on Lauren’s face or the fact that all of this might have been so better said five fucking years ago. “I do a pretty good job of not thinking about it.”

And yes, by 'it’, he 100% (or, you know, 1,000,000,000,000%) means ’her’. He does a pretty good job of not thinking about her. There are times, he’ll admit, when that’s just a little easier than others. Times just like earlier this afternoon, out in the backyard, watching his boy hit a

tiny ball off a tiny tee (or, you know try to, cause he’s only two and not a prodigy. Yet.) Times just like last night, when he and Lisa and Anthony snuggle on the couch, like an actual family, watching some animated movie about talking animals Theo doesn’t even understand, but he does understand the sound of his son’s laughter and, really, that’s all he needs to get.

Those are the times. But then… well… then there’s the other times.

Times like when Lauren’s candidate won the election and there she was, in the background of every fucking picture in the news. Times like when he passes that coffee shop, the one on the corner of Dolls and Holliday, the only place in all of Austin that made those miniature chocolate stuffed croissants she loved so much but refused to eat when anyone was looking.

Anyone except him.

Or, times like those nights when the wife’s not feeling kinky and so the lights stay off and it’s so damn easy for him to get lost in the dark, in the idea (the memory) that she’s considerably tinier and a whole lot blonder and not whispering sweet nothings in his ear about putting another baby in her belly.

“But then,’ Theo says (and no, he's not looking at her cause, well, he doesn’t want to die just yet), "I see something or I hear something or I just find myself with five seconds of peace and there’s no one else around and then…”

And then, she's all he can think about. And that day, whichever day it might be, is pretty much just fucking shot cause once he slips down into that hole, there’s no digging out. He lets those words hang there (the trail off strikes again) and yeah, he knows exactly what he’s doing.

He's waiting.

Maybe, he thinks (dreams) (fantasizes) (wishes but not really) Lauren’ll say something like 'me too.’ Or 'I know what you mean.’ Or 'and then you start up with the thinking about me and, you know what? Somewhere, out there, I'm thinking about you and why, exactly are we doing all this thinking and not doing any… doing?’

Maybe.

Or, you know… maybe not. Maybe not at all. Cause maybe, right now, even though Theo’s waiting? He’s realizing one simple truth he should have already known.

Maybe (not maybe) he waited just a little too long. Like five years too long. Or, really, six years, counting that one when he was trying to figure everything out and while he was figuring, he was also shutting - as in her, as in out - and no, he doesn’t need to see the look on her face to know that, he doesn’t need to see the… something… in her eyes to feel that last final nail just getting hammered home in that coffin that he stuffed their marriage (them) into.

Except… well… come to think of it - and, honestly, it’s about the last thing he ever thought he’d come to think of - maybe he does. Maybe, if he wants to be a family and not just ’like an actual family’, this is what he needs. His counselor - who was, at one point, their counselor, a tiny fact Theo knew Lauren had never shared with Amy or with Reagan or with anyone except, he’s sure, Glenn - would call it closure.

Theo doesn’t really need a word for it. No fancy name or psychobabble term. That’s just a bit too concrete, too much of a thing, too definite. It’s more of a feeling, really, more like a release, like someone tripped a pressure valve in his chest, five years worth of breaths he never took all just slipping away.

It should leave him feeling empty. He thinks it should. He's sure of it.

Except… again… he's wrong cause, in his entire life, Theo can’t ever remember feeling this full.

He gets it now. He gets what he’s needed all this time. And what she needs that brought her to his doorstep after all these years. He walks to the end of the island, mildly surprised that Lauren isn’t squirrelling away from him, and takes her hand. “Come with me?”

It’s a question, not a demand and maybe that’s why Lauren does, letting him lead her out of the kitchen and up the stairs and he feels her tense as they pass his door - it’s not the same door or the same room or the same house, but some shit just never leaves - but then she stills again as they move right on by, down the hall, to the last door on the right.

Theo cracks the door, just a little. Just enough. He steps back and lets Lauren see, watching as her eyes adjust to the darkened room and her hand finds its way to her mouth to stifle the lightest of gasps that slips from her lips.

“His name’s Anthony,” Theo says. “We named him after my dad. He’s two.”

She’s doing the math in her head - Theo can almost see the numbers rolling around - and it doesn’t take her long to connect the dots that, no, he’s not from… you know… then.

“I met his mother about a year after we…” Theo shakes his head, not quite able to say the ’d’ word, not even now, no matter how full he might be. “She’s a cardiac care nurse and both her parents are dead and…” He shakes his head again, wondering what part of him thought telling her about her was even sort of a good idea. “I work from home most days,” he says, “so I can spend as much time with him as I can.”

Lauren leans against the door, blinking her eyes against the dark (yup) (the dark) (that's totes why she’s blinking.) “He looks just like you,” she says and oh, that’s what does it, finally, that’s what slaps her right across the face and shakes her in her shoes, practically fucking screaming at her.

This… he… is why.

The one thing she couldn’t give him. The one thing that Theo swore up and down he didn’t need, the very thing he promised her didn't matter.

Until he changed his mind.

Any wonder she blames him?

“You tell them all it’s about the cheating, don’t you?” he asks and God, she’s never heard his voice so soft, so quiet, a level of a whisper that only a father could manage. “That’s why you haven’t been with anyone else, why you’ve never remarried. Why you make Glenn wait.”

She flinches slightly, her hand on the door - not so much that anyone else might even notice, but he’s not anyone - and he knows she wants to argue, to point out that she doesn't make him wait and if he chooses to wait, well, that’s not on her. She’s not responsible.

And maybe if she just believed that.

“It’s the simple explanation,” Theo says, “I know. That’s why I did it. Because it was easier and cleaner and yes, dumber.” He beats her to it, calls himself out for his own stupidity, regardless of how well-intentioned it was. “And you can use it, remind them all how you found me, in your bed, with another woman and it all makes sense and it gives you the best reason ever not to…”

Not to love.

He can't say it and, really, neither can she but the problem isn’t so much that she can't say it. It’s that she can't feel it. And not 'can’t’ like she’s unable, or 'can’t’ like he killed it in her, so she can never love another man.

Can’t like won’t, like not again, like… like she knows, the logic of it is so right there, so obvious, and her brain is well fucking aware that she loves Glenn - loves him like she’s never loved any other - but there’s always that fucking can’t.

It’s like a wall.

No… not a wall. A wall you can climb, a wall you can go around, a wall can have a door and a wall can have a way through. It’s not a wall, it’s a hole and Lauren’s been falling down it for five fucking years and Goddammit, it’s just bottomless.

But fuck all, she wants to climb.

“I want him,” Lauren whispers. “I don’t want to make him wait and I want…” Her gaze rolls over Anthony, this tiny little man, a perfect little bit of what she just can’t ever have. “I want it all,” she says, “and I want it with Glenn and he says he’s fine with it and he swears it doesn’t matter, and I want to believe him.”

Almost as much as she wants to love him. But the two kind of go together and it’s like the one’s a cork, stuck in the end of the bottle and no matter how hard she pulls, no matter how much she fights, she can’t ever get it loose.

“He promises,” she says. “When he thinks I’m not listening, when I can’t hear, when I’m in his arms in the middle of the night, he promises me that we can have it all.” She turns, and she’s not even pretending not to cry anymore. “But so did you.”

Yeah. He did.

And if there’s anything Theo regrets even close to as much as how it ended? It's that.

It’s how it began.

“I was sixteen,” he says, and even to his ears that sounds like some weak fucking sauce of an excuse. “Sixteen and in love. And then I was eighteen and in love and then twenty and in love and… and you had it all figured out,” he says, leaning against the wall. “Adoption had been the reality for you since you were twelve. You knew from fifteen that a surrogate was out, that you couldn’t handle a baby that was half your husbands and none of yours.”

Fourteen. She knew at fourteen.

But that’s kinda not the point.

“I thought it didn’t matter,” Theo says and it wasn’t just that he thought it. It didn’t matter, not to sixteen or eighteen or twenty year old him. And even the… next… him, the one who made all those well-intentioned stupid choices, even he didn't want it to matter.

But want isn’t the same as does. And in the end, it did matter, it does. All the proof either of them might need is sleeping right behind that door.

“I didn’t want it to matter and I honestly believed that it didn’t” he says. They’re words he’s only ever said in his own head, only to himself. And, you know, to Glenn, on that one day, so many years ago. “Right up until the moment when I realized that it did. And by then…”

It was too late. There was a finger and a ring on it and a house and a home and… fuck all… he loved her. So much. So very very much.

So very very very close to enough.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Theo says and his hand is on her cheek and he’s got no idea how that happened. “I didn’t know how to break your heart without breaking you, without making you feel like you would always be something less. Because you were never… are never… that.”

“So, cheating on me with some whore you barely knew was your way of not making me feel less?”

And there’s that fuse. Again.

“It was stupid,” he says (yeah, it was.) “It was a plan, not a good plan, more like a dumb plan, such a ridiculous plan.” He tries smiling, making light, tweaking the moment just a bit, enough that it’s not a moment. “It was like Karma and Amy faking it level dumb,” he says, “I get that.”

But it made sense at the time. Cheating, she could accept. Hell… cheating she would expect, it would just be her father and every woman between her mother and Farrah all over again. If he’d done that - if he was that - then it was on him, it was about him.

And not about her.

“It was a no win,” he says. “No matter what I did, you’d hurt. And I hope you know that I never wanted that, that it killed me to give you even one moment of pain.”

Lauren says nothing cause, really, what is there for her to say? Yeah, she knows that - she knew that, even then - and that was what made it all so fucking hard to deal with, to accept.

Even after she found out the truth.

“You knew he’d tell me,” she says softly, even though she wants to scream at him, wants to ball up her tiny fists and pound on his chest until his heart shatters the way hers did. “When Glenn confronted you, when he figured it all out, you knew he wouldn’t keep it a secret and you still told him.”

Of course Glenn wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Just imagine if she had finally given in, if she’d stopped making him wait and just been with him, instead of just 'being’ with him, and then she found out that he knew the truth and never told her.

She’d have killed him.

If, you know, the guilt hadn’t done it first.

“Is that why you did it?” she asks him and Theo doesn’t understand the question. “Is that why you told him, so I’d find out, so I’d know what a bunch of noble sacrificing, I love you so much

that I’ll rip your heart out this way instead of that way bullshit you’d been up to?”

Is it?

Theo would like to say no. But he doesn’t want to lie. And saying that wasn’t a part of it would be nothing but a lie.

“Or did you have buyer’s remorse?” Lauren asks. She moves a step back, gently shutting the door to Anthony’s room and oh, that’s probably not a good sign. “You have an epiphany about how good you had it and how bad you fucked it all up?” (Again, truth in part.) “Did you go and figure that, maybe, if I knew the truth, I’d come back? If, maybe, I knew that you weren’t really

a cheating asshole, I’d crawl on back? Maybe I’d even beg you to forgive me, maybe I’d plead with you to take back your something… less than a woman?”

Did modern medicine finally turn you into a real girl? Or are you still the same fucked up science project you’ve always been?

What was that about some shit that never leaves?

“Or, maybe,” Lauren says, “it was your fucking ego. Maybe, you just couldn’t live with the idea of me thinking that way about you. Lumping you in with my dad and Liam, one more dick who thought with his dick.” She presses one hand against the door, steadying herself and doing her best (not nearly good enough) not to think about what (who) is right on the other side cause that is just one bridge too fucking far.

There are, in truth, about a million things Theo could say. He’s had years, after all. Years to think of excuses, of rationales for everything he did, everything he said. But even back then, even when he’d fessed up to Glenn and thought for sure she’d be busting down his door at any moment, he’s never really settled on any one of them, he’s never known - not for sure - what he would say to her, in this moment.

Oh, he’s always known it would come, always expected that he’d bump into her on the street, stumble across her in the grocery store or sitting in some coffee shop, always when he’d least expect it (and, at least, he got that part right) but he knew he’d never be prepared. He would never know what to say. And now, standing right here, staring at her, he knows what he only suspected for all those years.

It doesn’t matter.

“I did it,” he says, and they’re wrong about confession and the soul. “I lied. I cheated. I broke your heart and I was a lousy fucking excuse for a husband for far longer than you should have put up with.” If he’s thinking he’s gonna win points for honesty, he’s mistaken. “And I changed my mind. The one promise I always should’ve kept, is the one I broke the worst.”

It wasn’t the words. It wasn’t telling her that no, he didn’t care about kids, it wasn’t some vow he made in front of God and her sister and all the rest of them. It was never that.

It was ten years ago, a night spent outside her room. She wouldn’t let him in, but he wouldn't leave. And that? That was the moment, that was the promise.

He fucking waited.

It hits her then, like that wall it isn’t, like a fucking tidal wave of everything, crashing down onto her and Lauren gets it. He made the same promise, the same one Glenn has made night after night after 'night together’ and 'day apart’ for the last four fucking years. And she believed him, but she can’t (won’t) believe him, cause, what’s that saying?

Once bitten, twice no fucking chance I’m letting it happen again.

(Or, you know, something like that.)

“He’s not me,” Theo says and oh, how she hates that he can still see right through her. It’s not fucking fair, not even a little. “Glenn,” he says. “isn’t me. He’s not a sixteen year old dumbass who didn’t care what intersex meant because whatever else it meant, it meant you.” It sounds bad, makes him sound so stupid but, back then, it was just that simple. “And he’s certainly not an eighteen year old idiot who can’t stop thinking that the 'long’ part of 'long distance’ is what’s gonna be the death of him and, maybe, the best way around that is a ring and a promise that’s even longer. So much longer than he can even see, let alone think.”

There’s a part of Lauren - a smallish one - that wants to yell at him (more) and swear at him (a lot) and punch him (hard) and tell him that she knows (so fucking well) that Glenn’s not him.

Except, apparently, that wouldn’t be entirely the truth, now would it?

“You know why Glenn and I got to be such good friends?” Theo asks and Lauren shakes her head. She’d always assumed it had something to do with being the only two straight guys in their little crew. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” he says. “From day one, the first moment I met him, the second I saw how he looked at you… I knew. I knew that man loved you the way I wanted to,”

So… not the whole straight guy thing. Gotcha.

“Some people, Lauren, they just come into your life, you know?” Theo drops his head, trying his best (and his isn’t nearly good enough either) to hide the tears he can’t blink away. “They show up and you never see them coming but then… there they are. And once they are, well, you can’t understand how you ever lived without them.”

Yeah. Lauren knows about them. She’s got a few. Amy. Reagan. Farrah.

And Lucy and Shane and (God help her) Karma and even, kinda, Jack and, once upon a time, Martin and Liam (ugh) and…

Them.

Her men. Her boys. The loves of her life. And, yeah, that’s fucking plural.

“But sometimes,” Theo says, “they’re not there for… always, you know? It’s a moment, a thing you need right then. And maybe that then, maybe it lasts a while. Maybe it’s a few months or maybe it’s two years.”

Maybe that then gives you something you need, something that carries you through, maybe it’s even a happiness you’ve never known. But then… maybe it ends. And maybe that end…

No. Not maybe. It does. It hurts.

And maybe that lasts a while too.

Theo reaches out, taking her hand and looking at her, right at her, and it’s like it’s some kind of magic. The gray’s all gone, the four pack’s a sixer again, the ring on his finger is her’s and not her’s and he’s there again, right outside her door instead of his. Like he never left.

But he did.

“And when it ends,” he says - and it's him again, the other him, the one that belongs to that life behind the door - “when it really ends? Maybe it’s because it’s time. Because you don’t need that anymore. Maybe because you’ve found something that’s … not better… something that’s right, something that’s a fit, something that’s just for you. And maybe it takes a while, maybe it takes forever to get there.”

He leans over, pressing one chaste kiss to her cheek.

Where were we?

Wait. Rephrase.

Where were you?

Oh, hey, Sophie. Long time, no see.

Fuck. Right. You were there.

You’d hoped (prayed) (wished) (been willing to offer up a sacrifice) (like your first born - if you ever have one and if you don’t then Lauren’s and then you thought about that for a second and felt even worse) that, somehow, it had all been a dream.

Not a good dream which, you know, is sort of odd coming from you cause, let’s face it, there haven’t been many times when you would have considered a dream of Karma mounting you and professing her love to be bad.

Especially the mounting.

And yes, you do mean that. Cause, as much as you don't want Karma like that (girlfriend) and as much as you really don’t want Karma doing that (the whole professing bit) there’s still a part of you - the so exceptionally masochistic, often drunker than your brain, and just plain fucking dumb part - that’s always wondered what Karma doing that (the mounting) (duh) would be like.

“I kinda feel like I deserve it,” you told Sophie once, on one of those rare nights when you both struck out (which was really you striking out and Sophie choosing to cause she didn’t want you to be alone and drunk - and you were already one of those - and fuck all, that’s just another in the long long list of reasons why you don’t deserve her.) “Like, I went through hell cause of that girl and she broke my heart in like five or six or, you know, nineteen different ways and, if she ever does decide to do the whole ‘I’m in college now and that’s when we try’ route, I kinda feel like I earned being the… the… ”

“The try out,” Sophie offered up - she even finishes your semi drunk, semi problematic and all ridiculous sentences - and you nodded (which your swimming in cheap beer and even cheaper schnapps brain regretted, immediately.)

“Exactly,” you said, reaching out a hand, which she took (and damn, she’s always so warm) and steadied you before you toppled over in the street. “The try out. If Karma’s gonna go out for the team, I at least should get to be like a judge, don’t you think?”

An eight. You’d give her an eight. You’d go higher but the other judges would probably accuse you of favoritism and no, you had no idea what the hell you were thinking-slash-talking about.

Also, in answer to your question ('don’t you think?) (just to refresh) Sophie didn't think though, in fairness, her 'didn’t think’ was a bit different than your 'didn’t think’ as in hers was much more of a 'didn’t think that was a good idea’ and yours was a 'didn’t think’.

Like at all.

Not unusual for you. You know.

Still. You always did wonder (even if you told Sophie over and over that you didn’t) and you always did suspect, as in “I suspect it will happen, someday”, even if you only ever said that

to other girls, drunken girls, girls whose names you didn’t remember in the morning, so you

also didn’t remember all the weird looks they gave you whenever you started babbling about hooking up with your 'fake’ high school girlfriend (like everyone had one of those) and, come to think of it - no pun intended - you were so incredibly lucky that you were so incredibly good with your tongue (in all the ways that weren’t talking) or you probably would have had a lot more of those drunk and alone nights.

You wouldn’t even let Sophie make a rule about it. “I think I can keep myself in control around Karma without adding it to the list.” Of course, it did help that Karma was several states away and only came home on breaks - you hardly even saw her at Thanksgiving - so 'control’ wasn’t much of an issue.

Also of course, that was right up until that last time Karma came home and then there was that hug at the airport and you texted Sophie that there definitely needed to be a rule and that, you remember now, was the day.

This is Amy, my roommate and Amy, this is Reagan, my fate.

Wait.

Date. She said date, not fate and oh, who’s projecting now, which is sorta silly cause no one else was projecting then and yes, you’re totally stalling (again) cause not stalling would mean dealing with what’s going on right now and that takes us back to question #1.

Where were we?

Ah, yes…

Previously, on your fucked up, oh who writes this shit and - seriously - maybe you’d be better off just going straight (and no, you don’t mean that in the that you should stop committing crimes sense, unless you’re talking crimes of the heart) life:

You roll over, damn near causing a midair two head pileup as you come face-to-face and then, seconds later, lip-to-lip, with just about the last person you expected to see, this morning. Or kiss, this morning. Or feel quickly straddling you and sliding a pair of very soft yet surprisingly cold hands up under your shirt, this morning.

Or any morning.

And oh, guess what? Karma’s home.

You barely have time to register that she’s there - and by there, you mean on you and by on you, you mean on you - or to try and pull your lips from hers (which takes a surprising amount of effort, mostly because she’s chasing you as you move and one of those so cold hands is now on the back of your neck and damn, Karma’s been working out) when you hear the sound of your door opening back up.

“Amy, your mom said I could just come on up…”

Your eyes squeeze shut as Karma’s lips disconnect from yours with a loud smack (and you can already sense another one of those, the slightly more painful kind, in your near future) as she turns to the door.

“Oh, hey, Sophie,” Karma says and oh, how you wish you were fucking deaf. “Long time, no see.”

That's right. This is where we came in. Right about the moment when you were thinking, well, you were thinking several things:

1.) Sophie’s going to punch you. Again.

2.) Sophie’s going to punch Karma.

(You hope she waits until Karma's not still straddling you to do either #1 or #2.)

3.) Later, after the punching (assuming you survive) (which seems likely) (unfortunately), you’re going to have to have a very long and very pointed chat with your mother about letting people just 'come on up’.

4.) The fact that the word 'thruple’ has actually crossed your mind in the thirty seconds since Sophie walked in is - most likely - an indication that you need some serious therapy or that you’re still somewhat drunk or both.

(Your money is on both.)

5.) You thought it was like seven in the morning but that just clearly can’t be - Sophie's awake - and so, at least, you got some sleep last night.

Gotta find the silver lining somewhere, right?

Oh… and…

6.) Please don’t say 'this isn’t what it looks like’ cause, really, it's exactly what it looks like, though with perhaps less participation by you than first glance might suggest but, really, that’s like a minisculely minor point.

You finally open your eyes (and the brightness of the room and the way it blinds you and no, that isn’t just some angelic glow behind your roomie (totes is) suggests that it’s probably a bit past noon, so yay, sleeping in!) and glance in Sophie’s direction. She’s leaning up against your door with her arms crossed over her chest and one brow arched - it looks only slightly less sexy when she does it - and you open your mouth and… well…

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

Oh, for fuckity fuck fuck fuck’s sake.

Sophie eyes you from the doorway and you’re not sure - hopeful, but not sure - that you see a familiar twinkle in her eye, the same one she gets every time you’ve done something incredibly stupid (so, like, at least once a week, on average, twice or even three times in weeks when the bars run two for one specials, four or five in weeks when you run into Elsie) and Sophie knows she’s gonna have something to hold over your head, at least until you do something incredibly stupider.

(That’s usually not that long a wait.) (It may be more so, this time.)

“It looks,” Sophie says, stretching the word out - looooks - and judging by the shit eating grin on her face, it 'loooooks’ like she’s having a ball (no pun intended) (but you will have to tell her that one later cause she’ll totes snort) “like Karma showed up just before me, climbed up on the bed, whispered that she loved you too, you rolled over in shock, she kissed you and then she put her apparently freezing hands up your shirt and you were trying to get away.”

Well… um… so…

Apparently, it really is exactly what it looks like.

(And later, when you ask - cause you'll have to know - Sophie will tell you that no, she doesn’t have the ESP and yes, she was standing right outside your door the whole time and yes, that was absolutely cause she wanted to make you suffer just a bit and no, you can’t blame her for that at all.)

“My hands are not cold.”

You and Sophie both turn and look at Karma incredulously (you’ve always wanted to use that word) (even if only in your head) cause, really?

That's her take away?

“Of course they are,” Sophie says and you recognize that tone, her 'I’ve totally got you whupped on this so please, please please try and argue with me’ tone and, to be honest, you really hope Karma does.

“How do you figure that?”

And maybe someone upstairs is listening to you after all.

“Well…” Oh, this is gonna be good. A Sophie 'well’ means someone’s about to get schooled and, for just a moment, you feel a rush of panic, but then you remember.

It’s isn't you.

(For once.)

“First of all, your hands are still on her stomach,” Sophie says, nodding at the twin spots where Karma’s hands are resting on either side of your abs (you knew she always did have a… thing… about those.) “Which means you haven’t gotten to second base - and, just so we’re clear, that does mean the same thing for the gays as it does for the straights, in case you weren’t sure of the lingo and all.”

Oh, how you've missed Sophie.

“So,” she rolls on. “Even though Amy could cut glass… like five inches of it, at least… with her chest right now, I’m gonna go ahead and chalk that up to either an excellent Reagan dream that you interrupted or her body temperature dropping like eight degrees from the… well… 'magic’ of your touch. And since she’s got goosebumps running all up her arm…”

You do. You really do.

They’re only partly from the cold and mostly from watching a master at work.

“Plus,” Sophie says (and oh, there’s more!), “I shook your hand once, when we met, and, I gotta say… cadaver… was kinda the word that popped to mind.” You wanna yell 'burn!’ but that’d be kinda bad - what with Karma still on you - and, also, it would so not fit the whole corpse motif Sophie’s got going. “Like, I seriously thought that maybe I should give you the number for my grandmother’s heart doc, in case of some kinda… issue… with your circulation. But then, I figured, it was just you and, well, you know, cold hands, cold heart.”

Karma glares and her skin flushes and, surprisingly, her hands don’t warm at all. “That’s cold hands, warm heart.”

“Yeah, it is,” Sophie says, “but we were talking about you. So…” She takes a couple quick steps across the room and drops down into your desk chair, spinning around one complete revolution just to let that sink in. “Now, Karma sweets, if you don’t mind, could you unmount my roomie so she and I can have a very overdo chat without me having to stare at… all… this.” She waves a hand in the general direction of your… situation. “I don’t feel like washing my eyes out with holy water today, K?”

Did you mention that you missed her? Cause you did. You totes missed her.

Which is a bit more than you can say for Karma.

“Amy… will you please tell your roommate," (she says it like it’s a dirty word) (like fucker or twat waffle) (or Liam.) "That whatever it is she thinks you two have to discuss, it’s far less important than what we need to talk about?”

She looks at you, expectantly.

Sophie looks at you, expectantly.

And if this is anything like the beginning stages of a thruple (no ice to go breaking here) then, really, you're so gonna stick to twoples for the rest of your life cause this?

So. Much. Pressure.

(and not just the Billy Joel song and why, of all times, does Billy come to mind now, it’s not like you know anyone who still listens to him, like in the tape deck of their truck or something and, wow, that’s a very specific and weird image to have and you feel like you should know, but…)

But… the pressure is lessened, somewhat, by Sophie cause, yes, she is looking at you all expectant like, but also a bit amused, like she’s enjoying this, with this being watching you squirm - and not in the way Karma would like - and no, you can’t really blame her if she’s

finding a little joy in this and, as long as she keeps smiling at you like she is, well,then it’s

all good.

(And oh, that still sounds so…ugh.) (Leave it to Karma to ruin another phrase.) (She takes 'all good’ from you but leaves 'thruple’? That’s just wrong.)

“Amy?” Karma nudges you which is less nudge and more gentle squeeze near your abs and oh, the look on face as she does… well…

What was that about holy water?

“Um… well…” You clear your throat cause, other than 'this isn’t what it looks like’ (and really?), you haven’t spoken since you talked to Lauren yesterday and man, it’s suddenly dry in here and where’s that glass of water you’re sure you brought to bed -

“Amy.”

Right. No water. And, really, no clue and, for once, you don’t think that's your fault.

“Karma, Sophie and I have a lot to talk about,” you say and she gets that look on her face, like the one from that night at Communal when you told her you 'had it’ (and you did, for that one single night) and if she looks like that now…

“And we don’t?” she asks, those fingers tightening ever so gently against your skin and you really didn’t ever think there’d be a day you wouldn’t like that.

You were wrong.

Again.

“I don’t know,” you say. “To be honest, Karma, I don’t even know what the hell you’re doing here.”

She pulls back, her hands slipping out from under your shirt (warmth! there’s warmth!) and fixes you with a look you haven’t seen since Hump Day. (Her video) (Not Wednesday.)

“I’m here because you texted me,” she says and that just clears absolutely nothing up. “You said you loved me.” She reaches into her purse which, apparently, has been sitting on your

bed the entire time, and pulls out her phone, cueing up messages from you. “See? Look! It’s

all right there!”

You see. You look. And it is. It’s all right there.

Every bit of proof that you should never ever be allowed to use a phone again.

You told her. You told Lauren.

I should not be allowed to own a cell phone.

You told her. And she told you.

Yeah. Because the phone is the problem.

(Well, it was the phone that got you and Reagan busted and it was the phone that had all the pictures of you and Reagan that sent you spiraling down 'good times with the ex’ memory lane and it was the phone that you were looking at right before you saw her again, standing outside your door.)

(Common denominator? The phone.)

(And yes, you’re aware that there's another common denominator there, but two denominators is math and we all know how well you do with that.)

But, you reminded Lauren, she hadn’t seen the messages. The texts that you 'wrote’ (and you use that term so very loosely.) The ones that read:

I miss you.

It was all my fault, I know that. I soooooooooooooo know that.

I don’t deserve you.

And you don’t deserve me. And I mean that in the you don’t deserve to suffer the horrible horrible horrible fate of having me in your life, not in the way I don’t deserve you.

You probably knew what I meant.

I’m so sorry. Sorrier than I’ve ever been for anything. Even sorrier than when I slept with Liam, which is probably not a thing to bring up right now, but you know me, open mouth, insert foot and oh, please tell me you’re not thinking of other things I’ve put in my mouth and oh, I’m just making it worse and I am so deleting this before I hit send.

I hope someday you can forgive me and I hope someday my feelings won’t be such a problem for us and I just hope you know that you are the best part of my life and I really do love you and I hope that someday

The texts that you wrote (still loosely) (but one air quotes is enough to make a point, right?) and sent to Sophie. Lauren never saw them.

And, apparently, neither did Sophie.

“I’m here because you texted me,” Karma says, again cause it wasn’t clear the first time.

Well… actually… it wasn’t.

But it is now. Oh, so fucking clear. And, if the smirk on Sophie’s face is any indication, it’s clear to everyone but Karma.

“You texted me and apologized for ignoring me after Christmas,” she says, “when I tried to talk to you about how I was feeling, and then you said you loved me.”

“Uh, Karma?”

She is not to be deterred. “You apologized,” she repeats (and you totally do notice that that’s the part she seems most stuck on.) “And you said I was the best part of your life and that you loved me and I hopped a plane as soon as I got them and flew right here because I couldn’t stand to be apart for one more minute.”

“Did you get that, Amy?” Sophie asks. She's so loving this and if you hadn’t, you know, just recently fucked her girlfriend (or semi-girlfriend) (kinda girlfriend?) (quasi-girlfriend?) you’d

so be planning how to get her back for this. “Not one minute more!”

Karma nods enthusiastically, pointing at Sophie as if to say 'what she said!’

Some people have beer goggles (you) (usually on Thursdays) (dollar pitcher night) and some people have rose colored glasses (Sophie) (when it comes to you) (usually) and Karma?

Obliviators. Get it? Oblivious and Aviators cause she’s always trying to be fashionable and cause it so totally sounds like something out of Harry Potter and you just couldn’t resist.

“Karma -”

You try. You to cut her off, to head her off at the 'oh, honey’ pass. You really do.

Not very hard (that’s what she said) and not very well (also what she said) (if she was you and you were asked about Liam) (or about Elsie) (or, frankly, about Karma, given her cold hands on the abs technique.)

“Amy, it’s OK,” she says and no, it’s not and no, it’s not going to be and yes, you were thinking that you’d lost a best friend and while you haven’t (apparently), you’re pretty sure that’s a matter of yet. “I understand,” Karma says. “It was easier to text, so much simpler than saying it face to face. I know we don’t have the best track record with that…”

You think?

“So, I get it,” she says. “I understand. But it’s just you and me now -”

“And me,” Sophie says, barely holding back the laughter. “Don’t forget blondie over here.”

Karma glares. “Your hair's purple.”

Sophie nods cause, well, yeah. “Right you are, buttface. It is purple. Gotta say, Karma, you don’t miss a thing.” She leans back in the chair, smirking away. “Except for, you know, the obvious.”

She’s talking about now but she’s right about, well… always. There’s a list of the obvious that Karma’s missed over the years, one about as long as your arm. One that starts with you and,

it would seem, ends with you too.

“Buttface?” Karma wheels back to you (which has the effect of grinding her down onto you and you don’t know whether to moan or wince.) “Amy! She called me buttface! You call me that and only you call me that.”

She (this time the other she) is right. You do call her that. You’ve called her that for years. In fact, that’s always been her name.

In every cell phone you’ve ever had.

“It’s funny,” Sophie says - and Karma whips her hips back around and damn, you so should’ve worn thicker shorts to bed - “but Blondie and Buttface. Two B’s. I mean, that kind of puts us close together, doesn’t it?”

She jumps out of the chair and climbs up on the bed, shoulder to shoulder with Karma and, really, all you need right now is for your mother or Lauren (or Reagan) (especially Reagan)

to walk in and this day would be complete.

“Will you look at that!” Sophie says (and quasi-girlfriend fucking or not, you’re gonna get her for this), “we're right next to each other.” She grabs your hand and holds it out, between them, like you don’t know which to touch. “I mean, it’s almost like, if Amy were confused or blindfolded or maybe, you know, drunk out of her mind for like six days running, she might just 'reach out and touch’ the wrong one.”

Karma looks at Sophie. Karma looks at you. Back at Sophie. Back at you.

Your arm hovers there the whole time and you haven’t been to the gym in like… ever… so it’s a bit too heavy for you to keep holding it up there while she figures it out cause, you're sure, that’ll probably take a while.

“You’re next to each other, Karma,” you say - and she looks at you like 'duh’ cause, well, they are - and you need to clarify. “In my phone. Blondie and Buttface. I sent all those texts to the wrong one. They were meant for her, not you.”

Karma cocks her head (you’re not thinking of that beagle video you watched on YouTube, you’re just not) and you can see it sinking in, the wheels turning, it all finally coming clear for her.

“Oh my, God,” she says and your heart breaks (really) (no, really) at the embarrassment she must be feeling. “You meant to say all that to Sophie.” Karma scoots back - and oh, there is

still feeling in your legs - and crouches at the end of the bed, her eyes darting back and forth between the two of you. “Amy…” she says, sounding a bit too much like that night for your comfort. “You’re in love with Sophie?”

Wait.

Just… wait.

Just… “I'm what now?”

“The texts,” Sophie says, cutting you off before you reach the 'holy balls did I say something I didn’t think I said but maybe I secretly meant to say’ whack-shack your brain will obviously go to. “You said you love me and, to her, that means you're in love with me.”

Oh. Right. You forgot that you had to translate drunken Amy into sober (but may as well be drunken) Karma.

“Wait,” Karma says, and oh no. Just… oh no. “So, you're not in love with Sophie?”

So you’re telling me there’s a chance?

You stammer and stutter and you’ve got no idea how to tell Karma the truth cause, well, let’s face it, the best way, the easiest way - the only fucking way that makes any sense - is to tell

her the truth.

You. Tell Karma the truth.

(Go ahead and laugh.) (Come back when you’re done.)

…..

(Ready?) (OK…)

Fortunately, you’ve got an ace up your sleeve (if your shirt had any) that you’ve never had before. A purple haired, all out of every conceivable fuck Ace.

“Of course, she's not in love with me,” Sophie says, which does nothing to squelch the fire of hope in Karma’s eyes. “She’s in love with Reagan. And Reagan’s in love with her. Trust me, I know.”

And that’s the funny thing about hope. Sometimes (Karma) it dies. It dies a horrible, bloody, this is 'my worst nightmare’ and 'didn’t we get rid of her like two seasons ago' death. But then sometimes… well… sometimes (you) it springs eternal. Sometimes, it sneaks up on you and smacks you upside the head and makes you think that maybe… just maybe…

And Reagan’s in love with her.

There are times (like right fucking now, for instance) when Sophie wishes she wasn’t a good person.

OK. So, there are probably (read: definitely) (read: like absofuckinglutely) (read: like, again, right fucking now) an equal number of times - way way more times - when what Sophie really wishes is that she was a good person or, at least, a better person, a person who’s a bit more like the woman her mother always wished she was.

Wait. Just… wait. And… no.

Just no.

She doesn’t wish - and never has or ever will wish - to be like that person, not like that person at fucking all and yes, that fucking is absolutely necessary cause her mother and what her mother wants and you know what?

Fuck her.

(Not literally, cause ewwwww and Sophie’s never been into the MILF thing though, if she was ever gonna be - she’s gotta admit - Farrah’s not half bad, like not half bad at all and yes, she knows this is weird, her even thinking about this, but it’s so much less weird than her thinking about Reagan ‘giving’ her to Amy and all the various and sundry and smutty ways her brain is taking that idea and running with it.)

Where was she? Before she got all sidetracked with MILF-y Farrah (they’d be Farphie) (or maybe Sopharra) (and oh, she needs to stop) and giving Reagan and smutty and whatnot?

Oh. Right. Better person.

So, again, to recap, fuck her mother and her mother’s idea of better (read: straight.) No, if there is a better person Sophie could be - and she so very often, far more often than she’d like, thinks that there is - well, that person is so not the person her mother imagined her little girl becoming as she grew up and she’s 100% absolutely not the woman her mother wished (prayed) for after she grew… well… out. That woman, that daydreamed figment of her mother’s imagination is so not the person Sophie is.

And, even if Sophie frequently thinks that there might be a bit of room for some improvement, she also does think that the person she is, is a good one.

Generally.

Usually.

Most of the time.

If, you know, 'most’ means on a good day. And 'good’ means a day when she hasn’t managed to do anything stupid yet (like punching her roomie) (or meeting Reagan in a diner) (or, most of all, thinking said meeting might, you know, go well.) And so, typically, that means it’s usually a day when she hasn’t made it out of bed (yet) and - another fucking and - there’s nobody in that bed that shouldn’t be and, for those three or four or five (or, on a really good day, ten) seconds before her brain kicks in and her eyes open completely and she finds herself staring up at the starless ceiling of her (their) room, Sophie’s actually happy with the person she’s become.

Those are the good days.

This is not one of those days. And, recently, those days have been somewhat few and far between. Of late, Sophie’s found herself having more and more of those… other… days.

Days like the other night (and yes, a night is still a day so don’t you go giving her that semantics bullshit) when she found herself still so desperately, wholly, almost uncontrollably wanting to kiss Reagan even though they were both drunk and it would’ve been such a horrible mistake (as if a kiss with Reagan could ever be wrong) and even though, by then, she knew everything.

Or, you know, days when part of that 'everything’ was knowing that even though she wasn’t the one Reagan wanted (at least not enough and 'not enough’ is, she’s discovered, all of two billion times worse than 'not at all’) Sophie would still - willingly, without reservations or doubts or even one single moment of second thinking - pretend it was her that Reagan wanted.

(And, you know, not the other her.)

She’s not proud of it - almost as 'not proud’ as she is of the fact that she’s already up and out of the booth and chasing Reagan (again) (and don’t you give her that 'life’s too short to be chasing after…’ bullshit, don’t you dare) - but Sophie’s learned, in her admittedly limited experience, how love (or a serious case of the likes that could, so easily, be more) has a way of turning pride into nothing but a memory. So, yeah, she’ll admit it.

If she’d had the chance to pretend she was… 'the one’? Oh, she’d have pretended the fuck out of that.

She spots Reagan in the parking lot, sitting on a bench, her head in her hands and she tries, so very hard, to focus on that and not on the thought of all the 'pretending’ she might have done, if given the chance. Like, you know, pretending right on into Reagan’s bed.

(And once she thinks of that, you really think there’s a way to stop?)

Sophie stops just outside the diner door, her feet locking like they’re in concrete and she doesn’t know if that’s anger (she was just given, after all) or fear (cause pretending) or that she just likes looking at Reagan that much (yes, even sads and crying and giving Reagan) and that’s easier, if slightly (more than slightly) creepier to do from a distance. Mostly, it’s probably ALL about her not being able to, you know, talk to Reagan, not while she’s still thinking about pretending and, thinking - more than a little - about her bed.

A bed that would, eventually, have become theirs. And then that, the whole theirs idea, well, it would have moved right out of that bed and right on into moving everything she owned from the dorm on over to Reagan’s place (one U-Haul, coming up) so then her apartment would become theirs.

Sophie tries to stop, to not let it spiral out any further, to give herself a chance to not make any of this any worse than it already worse. She knows she should, that the smart thing is to stop thinking. If she was smart, she’d just be done with it all.

You think she’s done?

Have you been paying attention?

She’s not done. And once she starts - again - well… it picks up a bit of steam. You might say it escalates, even. Just a bit.

Eventually, everything they owned would move, again, this time into a just a bit slightly less tiny apartment. And then, eventually (sensing a pattern, yet?), that not as tiny place would’ve turned into a bit bigger - but still tiny - starter house. Just a slip of a thing, more cramped than cozy, but they wouldn’t care because it was theirs and they were a them. And, eventually (again) being a them would have led to a ring and save the date cards and choosing pretty flower arrangements and cake tastings and, believe it or not (and Sophie’s a not) (mostly) (but it is pretend), her mom coming around, sucked in by the wedding of it all.

Sophie would’ve - if given the chance or the choice - pretended all of it right on down the aisle, right on into staring into the eyes of her bride, right through those tears she’d see in those eyes and right through pretending they were tears of joy, not tears that had anything at all to do with the maid of honor because, of course, that was her, that other her, because if Sophie’s gonna pretend, she’s gonna pretend she can have it all.

Sometimes, like right now, lost in her escalation, spinning out in her own mind, one that’s full of pretend and Reagan’s tears - both real and imagined - Sophie’s not at all if sure the description 'good person’ applies to her in the slightest.

She finally manages to crack the concrete, getting her feet to move again - it’s not a walk, more like a shuffle, at best - heading down the narrow sidewalk until she reaches the bench. And, but of course, there’s room (just enough) for her to actually sit, but that will mean they’ll be pressed close, like shoulder to shoulder, and Reagan’s hands are in her lap now and for fuck’s sake, all Sophie can think about is how easily those hands would fit in hers, how simple it would be to sit and reach out and just lace their fingers together.

And how likely it is Reagan would let her.

Giving her to Amy notwithstanding, Sophie knows she’s not the only one who likes pretending better than facing (as in reality). It might be, she thinks, the one thing all three of them have in common.

Well… maybe not the only thing. But the only one Sophie’s thinking about right now cause, for reasons she can’t even begin to understand (reading her own heart’s always been like reading fucking Sanskrit to her) Sophie is bound and fucking determined to be that good person.

And, more importantly, or so she tries her best to convince herself as she squeezes down onto the bench, none of it would be real. It wouldn’t even be pretend. That, Sophie knows, is make believe, that is for kids and while none of them are what you’d call mature, they’re not that, not anymore.

No, it wouldn’t be pretend, it would be a lie. And maybe they could do it, maybe they could fake it and, really, it isn’t like Amy doesn’t have practice with that, but Sophie doesn’t want 'maybe’ or 'might’ or 'could’. She wants real, she wants yes, she wants…

God help her, she wants Reamy. Or, more accurately (a little more accurately) she wants what they have.

Or could.

If, you know, they’d both stop being fucking idiots and saying all the wrong things and doing all the even wronger things.

Rule # It isn’t a rule but it fucking should be: Amy will get her head out of her ass and stop sabotaging her own happiness cause, really, it’s wrecking Sophie’s too and that shit’s just not fair. (Also, 'Amy’ may be replaced with 'Reagan’, but only in the rule and not in real life cause… um… no.)

“You know what it is that pisses me off the most about her?” Sophie asks Reagan and no, she doesn’t think she needs to be any more specific about who 'her’ is (like she’d be talking about Farrah or Karma right now) and yes, she knows it’s a (massively) loaded question that, really, has no good answer and is totally putting Reagan on the spot.

What? She’s supposed to feel bad about that?

“The lying?” Reagan offers. It’s a mumble, really, a half-spoken, half choked out bleh of a thing and Sophie could, if she wanted to be a bitch, point out that there’s probably a reason - a pretty valid one - that Reagan went there first. “No,” she says quickly, changing her answer. “The fact that, no matter how much you want to, you just can’t hate her for it?”

Again: valid reasons.

“Maybe that’s just me,” Reagan says and she tries to laugh but all the gurgled and pained sound of that does is make it worse, which comes as a bit of a surprise to Sophie. She hadn’t thought worse was even possible.

Truth is, either of those answers might work. Lord knows both of them bug, both of them irritate, both of them are like the fucking pea under the mattress of Sophie’s life with Amy but no, neither of them are right. Neither of them are the killing blows, the fatalities.

Neither of them are the reason Sophie knows how this is all going to end or, at least, how it will end if she’s a good person - and a better friend - assuming, of course, that neither Reagan or Amy does anything else ridiculously dumb.

But, really, what could they do?

(She’ll let you know, in just about an hour and eighteen minutes.)

Sophie shakes her head, focusing on the feeling of her own hair brushing against her shoulders cause it’s either that or the way Reagan’s thigh is pressed against hers and… well… nope.

Not. Going. There.

(But oh, how she wants to.)

She forces herself to speak, to push her attention to the problem at hand and not the thigh at, well, thigh. “It’s that she’s just like you,” Sophie says, almost cracking up at how fast Reagan’s head snaps toward her, at the way she can just barely see it out of the corner of her eye, cause no way, no fucking how is she looking directly at Reagan (how about you go staring directly into the sun?) and oh, how the older woman glares. “You both always find ways to make everything so much harder than it has to be. You’re a total pair of drama queens.”

“I…” Reagan gasps (and yes, it’s a gasp, complete with this kind of choking, suffocating, 'oh fuck I can’t breathe cause what you said is just so’ noise that almost gets Sophie to turn and look at her.) “We… her… drama?”

Two old woman crossing the parking lot in front of them pause and turn at the sound of it, one of them clutching to the other’s arm, not unlike Amy’s done to Sophie on more than a few 'just a bit drunk’ nights (and of course Sophie’s never done it the other way round, cause she can hold her liquor) (and if you buy that…). She nods in their direction, at the shocked, the aghast, the totally put out looks on their faces, so out of sorts at all the extra up in this biatch.

I rest my case.

(Also: mental note - never even think biatch again.)

“Fine,” Reagan says, her tone making it oh so very clear that 'fine’ is not the four letter F-word she’d like to be dropping right now. “So maybe we can be… a smidgen dramatic. But it’s not like we Karma up everything.”

Sophie can’t help but smile at Reagan’s use of Amy’s (other) best friend as a verb. But, in just about an hour and fifteen (now fourteen) minutes, she’s gonna get a firsthand view of that verb in action.

And yeah. That other BFF is gonna Karma some shit up.

“And,” Reagan rolls on, quite clear now - apparently all she needed to stop crying was an affront to her dignity or, you know, some such bullshit - “you’re right about Amy, so right, but I don’t see how I make things harder.”

There’s a joke there, something about 'that’s what she said’, but Sophie’s just not feeling it.

(And that, once upon a time, in the back of Jerry King’s Dodge Neon,'I’m not feeling it’ is totally what she said.)

Sophie leans back against the bench, scooting as far as she can away from Reagan, which is a phrase she never thought she’d think. “The night you and Amy… met… at our room, you and I still went on our date,” she says. “Did you tell me Amy was your ex or that you weren’t over her or that you were planning to fuck her the next day?”

Reagan starts to retort, cause of course she does, and Sophie’s sure there’s gonna be some BS in there about not planning it but, apparently, Reagan realizes - correctly - that that is so not the point and so she just shakes her head.

Point, Sophie.

“The next day, when you and Amy met to talk,” she says and she’s so very proud of herself for not using air quotes around 'talk’ (even if she so thinks them.) “Did you meet in public, out in the open where even you two wouldn’t be likely to do anything… more?”

Reagan doesn’t even bother to shake her head or say no.

Another point, Sophie. If this was a tennis match she’d be up thirty - love and though she loves tennis (those skirts and balls in pockets and did she mention those skirts?) Sophie’s feeling a bit more Tina Turner about the whole thing right now.

As in, what’s love got to do with it?

(Well… you know… everything. But when has Sophie ever let a little thing like logic get in the way of a good line?)

“After I found out,” Sophie says - barely containing her amusement as Reagan hangs her head at yet another sure to be winning point - “did you call Amy and tell her I knew, or arrange for the three of us to talk or did you just -”

“Let her walk right into it,” Reagan says with a sigh. And by 'it’ she means getting busted and not getting punched, though she guesses 'it’ could mean Sophie’s fist too. If she’s, you know, being literal and all. “OK, I get it,” she says. “Maybe I don’t always make things harder, but I don’t do much to make them any easier, either.”

Sophie shifts on the bench, pulling her knee up to her chest, like a firewall. “You do really try though,” she says, not at all sure why she’s trying to defend Reagan here. “I mean, I’m just guessing that’s what you thought you were doing when you decided to give me to Amy like a fucking dowry.”

A brow arches - you know whose - and it’s Sophie’s turn to sigh.

“I paid attention in history class sometimes,” she says by way of explaining her correct use of 'dowry’. “And for the record? I’m not a herd of cattle or a collection of quilts or some ancient family heirloom that you can just pass on like… like… gonorrhea.”

Those old ladies (they’ve made it about five feet cause they’re slower than Sophie after Jager Bomb night at The Rink) stop dead and, for a moment, Sophie’s afraid that they are, you know, dead.

Two old women killed by gonorrhea. Film at eleven.

“I know,” Reagan says, and she does. She really didn’t mean it like that, even though she also knows that’s pretty much how it came out, how it sounded, how it seemed. She could say 'this isn’t what it looks like’ but, really, all of this has been exactly what it looks like.

“And,” Sophie says, not stopping with the, you know, venereal disease, cause hey, in for a penny, in for the whole fucking pound (even though she’s never gotten that phrase cause a penny is American and a pound is British, ooooh, like that cutie from Wynonna Earp and oh, now she’s distracted) (again.)

“And?”

“Right,” she says, turning her attention away from British cuties (who play lesbians but aren’t lesbians, but hey, can’t have everything) (and it’s acting, not faking) and back to Reagan and, for the first time, actually turning to her, like literally. “For the record? I don’t want Amy in that way and I think we’re both well aware that it ain’t me she wants.”

Of course it isn’t. That would be silly. It’s not like Amy falls in love with every one of her female friends. After all, there's… well… um…there's…

Shit.

Note to self: Make Amy some new and unattractive and totally non-crush worthy girl friends.

Girl. Friends. Separate.

Reagan shakes her head cause, again, she didn’t mean it like that and oh, this is getting to be a pattern with her. “I wasn’t giving you like that,” she says and no, that doesn’t make it sound any better, like not at all. “I just meant…” she sighs. This is so going to sound wrong, like epically wrong. “You’re Karma,” she says. “Or you could be.”

There’s a look on Sophie’s face - one that’s about half a shade greener, a quarter of a shade more revolted and a whole fuckload of a shade more 'oh, no you didn’t’ than look she wore in the back seat of Jerry King’s Neon - and yeah, Reagan was right.

It sounds wrong.

So so so epically like foot not just in the mouth, but gonna be eating shoe leather for a month (or more) (definitely more) wrong. Especially - and yes, there’s actually an 'especially’, a supa extra level of wrongness - since Reagan is, apparently, trying to make a point about how Sophie and Amy can be friends without some sort of romantic issues.

So, maybe, you know, Karma might not be the best example for that.

“I’ve thought about this,” Reagan says and oh, Sophie’s so very not sure that she’s thought, like at fucking all. “I told you, I’ve looked at this from every angle.”

Sophie really wants someone - anyone - to explain to her what angle (acute? obtuse? 37.56 degrees off fucking center?) one could look at this from and see her as Karma.

Sorry. As a could be Karma.

Cause, you know, so much better.

Reagan leans back against the bench and yes, that pushes her even closer to Sophie and no, this time Sophie really doesn’t notice cause she’s, you know, got Karma on the brain and, oh, that one hour and now eight minutes from now is so not gonna help with that.

If anything, it’ll burn Karma onto her brain forever.

“No matter how I look at it,” Reagan says, “I can’t see it. There’s no throne here. There’s no way, at all, that this works out well.” She shakes her head, scuffing her shoe against the hard pavement. “Not for me and Amy, anyway.”

If those words - me and Amy - bother Sophie, she doesn’t show it.

Except for the slight flinch of her leg as she tries to scoot a little further away and the slight curl of the corner of her lips - down, obviously - and the soft slow exhale of breath from between her pursed lips.

So yeah, either it does still bother her or she just tasted something really gross.

(Or someone compared her to Karma.)

Reagan takes no notice or, more likely, figures Sophie’s the one who chased her, so she’s just gonna have to deal with it. “Say, for example, Amy and I decide to try. We say to hell with our pasts and all our fuck ups and decide to give this couple thing a go.

Oh, yes, please. Let’s say that. Out loud and repeatedly and right in Sophie’s ear.

"It will never work,” Reagan says and, at least, she sounds just as certain of that as she does the whole Karma connection and yes, Sophie’s aware that she’s obsessing so just S the F up about it already. “I think we’ve proved that.”

What they’ve proved, Sophie thinks, is they’re both idiots. Anyone disagree?

Didn’t think so.

“She’ll never be able to do it, she’ll never be able to get past what I did,” Reagan says, with a swipe of a hand across her face, subtly brushing away some dirt or dust or, you know, air from her skin. Dirt or dust or air that’s shaped like water, slowly running down over one perfectly formed cheekbone. “I made her think she wasn’t enough for me, I more or less told her she wasn’t gay enough for me.”

Reagan pauses, letting the words sink in and yeah, judging from the way her face crumples, that was probably a mistake.

“I’ve never said it out loud before,” she says (it’s almost a moan and not the good kind.) “She was sixteen and just out… oh fuck… what did I do?”

Let her down easy? Tried to soften the blow?

Came up with some absolute bullshit about different places in your lives just to mask your own rampant fears of being a phase again and, maybe, to make you seem at least a bit slightly less potentially biphobic?

Yes, yes, and oh… yeah.

Sophie remembers - vividly - the night Amy told her all about it, over their first shared plate of noodles (and first shared stares at Becky’s ass), in all its excruciating details, from the pain of knowing it was over to the way it slowly dawned on her that college had fuck all to do with it to the faint twinge of anger she felt (judged… she felt judged,she said) (and that was the moment, for Sophie, the moment Amy became Amy for her) right up to the way she swore to herself she would never forget how their last kiss felt.

And no, Sophie didn’t think then (or now) that Amy realized the way her fingers were brushing against her lips as she spoke.

Later, when she ended it with Sabrina? How did Amy tell her about that?

I don’t feel like noodles tonight. Maybe pizza? Oh, I broke up with the GF. No, wait… no pizza. Not in a sauce mood. Burgers. I know this great little joint. Serves them on doughnuts!

Yeah. Little different.

But Reagan does have a point. And another one when she brings up Amy’s sometimes tenuous relationship with the truth. “How do I get past the lies?”

Well… she could start by considering that, at least recently, most of them weren’t told to her.

And, of course, Reagan says, there’s the running and yes, she already brought that up, what with the running from and running to and giving bit. But… “How do I trust her? How do I deal with the thought that every fight, every argument, every wrong word might be the starting gun for her next fucking sprint?”

And then, she says, there’s always that one other thing.

“There’s you.”

Right.

Wait.

“Me?”

Reagan nods and there’s this part of Sophie - a very tiny and very stupid and very very glutton for punishment part - that feels a swell of hope, of just maybe, of 'so you’re telling me there’s a chance.’

Oh, Sophie. Silly silly silly Sophie.

“Of course you,” Reagan says (swelling intensified.) “If Amy and I are together, if we somehow did find a way to actually make it work? We’d lose you.” She blushes a little, the way Sophie’s already learned she always does as she’s about to say something that might be tooting her own horn, at least a little. “I mean, how could you stand to be around us, watching us be happy and into each other, when you’d always…”

Reagan trails off and maybe, just maybe, it might have been better if she’d just gone ahead and finished the thought cause, really, whatever she was gonna say?

Probably not half as insulting as what Sophie’s thinking she was gonna say.

When you’d always…

Want me.

Be jealous.

Wish it had been Amy’s heart that broke and not yours.

Spend your time dreaming of thruples.

Be watching us move into a tiny apartment together. And then a starter home. Then helping us pick save the date cards and taste cakes and watching me cry at the altar, hoping the tears are because it’s her standing across from me and not you.

Be chasing after someone who had chased after someone else. And caught her.

“I didn’t meant it like that,” Reagan says.

Where has Sophie heard that before?

Reagan’s words are just a whisper, not nearly loud enough to drown out the ones rattling round in Sophie’s head, not even close to loud enough to keep her from wondering just which of those 'thats’ burning away in her noggin is the one Reagan meant. Sophie knows if she doesn’t stop now, she’s never going to be able to quit imagining exactly how little Reagan really thinks of her, how big a loser, how utterly desperate she thinks she is, how totally incapable she is of getting over it…

No. Not 'it.’ Her.

Getting over her.

“I spent years doing it, you know,” Reagan says. She clears her throat and fidgets in her spot and Sophie swears that this time she’s the one trying to scoot away and yeah, that really helps, oh so fucking much. “Most of the first year Heather and I were together, I spent so much of it in my own head… just kept wondering.”

Wondering what Amy was doing. Wondering who Amy was doing, and almost always thinking it was Karma and that meant alternating between being happy for Amy that, at least, she was with her true love (and had won her, took her right away from Liam and call her petty, but that always made Reagan smile) and being fucking miserable because if Amy was with Karma?

Amy was with Karma. As in not with her and not missing her and not needing her and so what, right? She had Heather (not really) and she wasn’t missing Amy (bullshit) and she didn’t need Amy (more bullshit) and she was doing just fine.

(almost too much bullshit to measure)

“I’d lay awake at night and wonder how… why…” She shakes her head, letting out a rushing breath. “I broke up with her and I kept wondering why I wasn’t enough. Why she always put someone or something ahead of me… her mother or Karma or the lies about Liam or maybe being bi… there was always something.”

There always is.

Reagan stops fidgeting and clutches her hands in her lap. “The pain of losing Amy was bad enough,” she says. “The pain of thinking I lost her cause… because I didn’t measure up to someone else, someone that was never right for her, that had hurt her so much, done so much fucking damage and was just never going to deserve her…”

She risks a glance at Sophie, a sort of quick check and she can see it, right there, dancing in the other woman’s eyes. The recognition, the realization. It’s a familiar look for Reagan, one she saw a hundred times in Heather’s eyes - not that she ever recognized it or, you know, let herself recognize it, not then - but it’s not those looks Reagan remembers, it’s never Heather’s eyes she sees at night.

Does this have to be the end?

Reagan squeezes her own eyes shut - as if that helps, as if it changes anything - and swears to herself that she’s not gonna cry.

You know, more.

“I don’t know how you feel about me,” she says (and she just can’t stop with the bullshit.) “And I don’t have such a big ego that I think I’m irreplaceable or something.”

Sophie wonders if she’s ever seen a picture of Sabrina. She might reconsider that notion if she had.

“But, I know what you’d go through,” she says. “I know how it would feel, seeing us together, and maybe it would just be at first and maybe just for a bit but… that shit… it lingers. It stays and it soaks in and sometimes you don’t even know it, can’t even feel it, but it’s always there.”

Reagan’s right and she knows she’s right cause she remembers the moment when she put two and two together, when she connected the girl Sophie told her about - the girl her roomie’d just dumped - with Amy and she remembers thinking, for just a split second, well, at least it wasn’t Karma.

And then…

It wasn’t Karma.

If you’d ever asked her if that would make it worse, Reagan would have laughed in your face.

She can’t really remember the last time she laughed, right now.

“I even thought…God, this is gonna sound wrong… again.” Reagan runs her hand through her hair and wonders, not for the first time, how this all would have gone if she’d never come to the dorm that night, if she’d met Sophie out somewhere, if she’d never been there to look down the hall. Oh, for a do-over, for a chance to fix it. Her kingdom for a time machine.

Yeah. Time traveling lesbian to the rescue. Like anybody would ever buy that shit.

“I even thought,” she tries again, “about you and me. What if we gave it a shot, if we both just put all this other… stuff to the side and tried.”

Other stuff. Stuff.

Sophie starts to say it would never work - cause that’s what she’s supposed to say and even, a little, cause she knows it’s true - but Reagan cuts her off. “It would never work,” she says (it’s like she’s got the ESP) with a shake of her head. “You’d never stop wondering, always looking at me and questioning if I was thinking of you or her, if I was kissing you or her, if I…”

Loved you. Or her.

Reagan says Sophie would always wonder. Sophie knows better.

She wouldn’t have to wonder.

“The only thing that can be saved here is you and her,” Reagan says, all matter of fact and I’ve spoken and so it is so. She stands up from the bench, shoving her hand into her pocket to find her keys. “I meant it when I said you could be Karma,” she says, holding up a hand to stifle any protests - and there were gonna be protests - before continuing. “You and Amy… maybe it’s all new still and maybe you don’t have a decade of friendship behind you like they do.” She smiles at Sophie and it almost reaches her eyes. “But you could. Someday. I see it. In the ways she looks at you. I know that look.”

In about fifty-eight minutes, Sophie’s gonna get a first-hand… look… at that… look.

And how it ends.

“You were right about me,” Reagan says. “I do make things harder. Worse. Every time I open my mouth, I find just a little bit room, another couple inches to squeeze another toe or two right on in there.” She shakes her keys in her hand, the hard cold of the metal brushing against her skin. “I wrecked me and Heather and, in a lot of ways, I did the same to Amy and Sabrina. I’m not gonna do it again. Not to you, not to you and her.”

She’ll never know quite why she does it, but Reagan bends down, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of Sophie’s head and pretending she doesn’t hear the other woman’s breath catch.

Can I have one last kiss?

God, she sucks.

“She needs you, Sophie,” Reagan says and Sophie hears Farrah whispering in her ear - 'I don’t think Amy will be quite the same without you’ - and sure, no fucking pressure or anything. “And if there’s one thing I know I have to do,” Reagan says, stepping back and turning to go. “It’s that I have to give her what she needs this time. And the one thing Amy’s always needed, way more than anything else, is a friend.”

A Robin to her Batman. A pepper to her salt. A bacon to her burger (or, you know, any kind of food cause bacon), some sprinkles to her doughnut, some calm to her storm.

Some 'Kar’ to her 'my’, but without the baggage and the unresolved tension and the institutional memory of the girl Amy was getting in the way of the woman she is. Or could be.

Reagan starts to say something else… a goodbye or a take care of her or a tell her I love her, probably. But she thinks better of it and turns, quickly, crossing the lot, climbing into her truck without so much a single look back and, just like that, she’s gone.

Sophie sits there for a long few minutes, staring at the empty space and not doing much of anything at all. It’s peaceful and it’s quiet and she doesn’t remember the last time she had much of either of those and yes, she knows it was like a week ago, but still.

Yeah. But still…

She’s more than halfway through dialing before she even realizes she’s pulled out her phone, a whole three-quarters of the way through 'Hi, Mrs. Raudenfeld? It’s Sophie’ before there’s even a single second thought running through her mind and she knows that calling Amy’s mom instead of, you know, Amy, is probably a sign of something, probably a big giant neon blinking fucker of a sign screaming STOP! THIS WON’T END WELL!

Well duh.

But that’s kinda the point, isn’t it? To make sure it doesn’t end?

That’s what a good person does, right? What a friend would do?

A best friend.

There are times, Sophie thinks as she listens to Farrah’s excited greeting on the other end of the line, (she’s practically cheering) when she really wishes she wasn’t a good person cause if there’s one thing you should know about being a good person?

It’s fucking hard.

She just hopes it’s worth it.

“Yeah, I was thinking I could… um… come by and see Amy? If she’s there?” Sophie walks as Farrah talks, going on and on about how of course Amy’s there, you know she just hasn’t been much of anywhere else in days and yes, she’d love to see Sophie, Farrah’s just sure of it.

She heads for the bus stop on the corner, she’s pretty sure that ought to get her to Amy’s in like, less than an hour?

Fifty-four minutes to be precise.

She climbs on board as Farrah rambles on, something about work, about having to head there early and Sophie doesn’t buy a word of it (she can fucking hear the 'I have to leave them alone’ gears whirring around in Farrah’s head) and yes, she’ll leave the door unlocked and of course, Sophie can just come right on in and go right on up to Amy’s room and no, she won’t breathe a word to Amy.

Don’t want to spoil the surprise, right?

Right.

Maybe it’ll be good, Sophie thinks, maybe it’ll go better than she expects. She does miss Amy, after all. It’s been seven days and that’s like a fucking eternity. “Long time, no see,” she laughs to herself as the bus pulls out from the stop.

Seven years from now

What if?

Well, that’s just a loaded fucker of a question isn’t it? The kind most people know better than to ask, but knowing better and doing better… well… those are two very different things. Especially for Amy.

As we’ve established. More than once.

But that was all younger Amy and this is older Amy (though not that much older, and still looking good for her age, or any age, or so Reagan says), but, honestly, it’ll probably still take years or maybe decades for that particular lesson to really sink in and, clearly, it hasn’t just yet.

If it had… well…

Her sister would be speaking to her right now, now wouldn’t she?

There are more than a few things she’s done in her life that Amy’s second guessed. Or triple guessed (thruple guessed?) or quadruple or… ‘whatever the fuck five is’ guessed. It’s part of who she is, in her nature - right down to her DNA, and thank you very fucking much Jack and Farrah - and her nurture. Her mother (and Karma) and her disappearing father (and Karma) and, basically, the entirety of her high school existence (and Karma), at least the parts before Reagan, had her questioning everything, even her gayness and, even now, she still spends far too much time doubting her choices.

Not about her gayness, though. But, you know, about things like using (or even thinking) the word 'gayness’. And not about Reagan - who, sometimes (read: all the times) Amy’s so very exceptionally glad is fluent in speaking Amy - or her choice to forgive Jack or being OK with Karma and Lucy (or OK-ish, it’s a work in progress) or her choice to let Reagan name Katie cause, let’s face facts.

Katharine is a far better name than 'little ball of snot and poop that never lets me sleep’ even if that one might still be more accurate.

But, of all those things, this one, this very specific and very definitive and very 'how can you be so fucking stupid, don’t you remember what he did, and oh… I just called you 'stupid’ and that’s why you’re giving me that look right now, isn’t it, well… tough titty, cause I'm right’ one is so not among those things she’s second or third or fourth or infinity and fucking beyond guessed cause this one is her sister and this one is Theo and this one is so clear cut and so obvious that there’s no way even she can have gotten it wrong.

Except… you know… what if?

He cheated on her, she says. Except 'says’ was kinda only in her head and so… “He cheated on her,” she says, again and out loud this time and, apparently, much to the surprise of her wife and her brother-in-law who’s, now, her brother-in-law twice (bro in law squared?) and yeah, she knows that he knows that Theo cheated, maybe better than all of them, so “Why do you look so fucking surprised?”

Glenn shrugs and Amy steams cause that’s his default answer to everything. You want another beer? Shrug. You think the Stars will make the playoffs this year? Shrug. Is Lauren 100% the best thing to ever happen to you? Shrug.

He slept on the couch for a week after that one and, if baby Martin hadn’t developed a wicked case of 'oh, if I can’t sleep, then no one can colic’, Amy suspects - quite rightly - that Glenn’s banishment might have been longer.

Like, you know, until forever.

But, really, a shrug? For this?

“She’s going to invite him,” Amy says - and she makes sure to say it out loud the first time, this time - and then she corrects herself. “She’s going to invite them.”

Reagan eyes her across the counter, pausing in mid-sip of her way too fucking hot coffee (Amy doesn’t know how to make it any other way and her wife wishes, like with all her heart, that that might be one of those things she’d second guess), one brow lifting off just slightly at the way she said 'them’, hushed, in a whisper, like it’s a state secret she’s gotta hide away or some tiny bit of profanity she doesn’t want the baby to hear, or as if, by saying out loud, she might just magically conjure 'them’ up and make 'them’ appear.

No matter what she says or does, Reagan can never quite convince Amy that Harry Potter isn’t secretly real. It’s like a fucking religion with her, which she supposes - all religions considered - could be worse.

“Them,” Amy says, again, a bit louder this time as Glenn, apparently, didn’t reply fast enough and, Reagan knows, in the language of 'Amy’, speed often equals volume, which is annoying in conversation, but can be kinda… fun… in certain other ways. But this is not one of those ways and when Glenn shrugs - again - Amy wishes (almost out loud) that she could put him on the fucking couch.

(Not the fucking couch, as in the place of the fucking, but the other kind of fucking couch and no, she doesn’t really know how to explain the difference but see, this is what happens when that damn man gets her all worked up like this.)

(And not worked up like that and oh, that all sounded less dirty before she said it so, fortunately, she only said it to herself.)

(This time.)

What kind of couch doesn’t matter (much) cause what does matter is that “She’s going to invite her ex-husband and his wife and their kid to your son’s baptism.” Amy’s damn near yelling now and Reagan hopes Lolo stays upstairs with the baby cause, really, the silent fucking War of the Roses thing she and Amy have going on now is bad enough without Amy finding a way to make it worse.

You know, like Amy does.

“He’s her son, too, you know,” Glenn says, without so much as even a hint of a shrug and Amy immediately misses it, though she doesn’t miss the smirk on her wife’s face - Reagan loves the way her brother can get under her wife’s skin - and oh, someone’s definitely gonna be couching it tonight. “And,” Glenn adds, much to Amy’s even further annoyance, “she can invite whoever she’d like. What do you want me to do? Forbid her?” He shakes his head. “I’m not Lauren’s boss, Amy.”

That, it should be noted, was in their wedding vows.

I, Glenn Ramon Solis, promise to love, honor, and cherish you, Lauren Elizabeth Cooper, and to always remember that I am your partner and that you are not the boss of me, usually, just as I am not the boss of you.

Ever.

Amy remembers the words (almost as clearly as she remembers trying not to snort out loud at the ceremony) and she knows Glenn takes his vows seriously, like they were, you know, vows and that that isn't just because he’s (rightfully) terrified of his wife.

It’s also (read: mostly) (read: like sickeningly, worshipfully, damn near painfully) cause he loves his wife, in a way Amy didn’t know anyone could love anyone else - at least anyone that wasn’t her and Reagan - and in a way that makes her almost grateful Theo was (is) such a dirty, rotten cheating fuckwit.

If she could have chosen a man for her sister, Amy knows that man would have been a lot like Glenn.

Just, you know, a little less shrug-y and a lot more listening to her-y.

Amy hangs her head - sensing defeat, already - and curses under her breath, dropping a nearly inaudible 'mierda’ (with an almost passable accent), and Reagan smiles at the way her wife’s still stuck in the habit of swearing in Spanish, the little trick they picked up when Katie was still a tiny tiny and they were trying not to expose her to 'all the Goddamned profanity you two use’, as Farrah put it (without a single drop of irony.) Spanish - and a bit of French and a couple of really useful all purpose Portuguese cusses Karma taught them - was their compromise when going cold turkey just didn’t work.

After all, asking them to cut the four letter words out of their vocabulary was like asking Amy to cut bacon out of her diet or asking Karma to cut plans out of her… plans… or asking Lauren to stop hating Theo and… oh…

Yeah. Maybe, apparently, not the best example.

Amy knows she’s not going to convince Glenn to put his foot down and knows even better that it would only result in a foot up his ass if he did, so she tries another angle. “So, you’re telling me that you're OK with this?” she asks and Glenn doesn’t shrug (so Amy doesn't punch) but he also doesn’t say 'yes’ or 'no’ or 'not exactly’ or, even, 'Lauren’s OK with it and since I’d like to sleep in my bed sometime before my son gets to high school, yes, I’m just fucking fine with it and thank you for asking’ so, clearly, he’s somewhat less than OK and while that probably doesn’t matter, it’s still something.

Something, Reagan knows, Amy’s going to seize on and not let go and while there are certain times (read: in bed) (read: or the shower or the beach or that one time in the Planter’s parking lot) when she’s so very grateful for her wife's… determination… this doesn’t strike her as one of those times. “Shrimps, baby, maybe this is something you should leave for Lolo and -”

Remember that question? What if?

What if, in that moment, Amy doesn’t hold up a hand to shush her wife? Or, what if, she doesn’t shush her and walk right past her - like she’s not even there - crossing the kitchen to stand just a bit closer to Glenn? Or, what if, she doesn't ignore Reagan’s warning and doesn't keep right on pushing the issue and doesn’t, as only Amy can, make it even worse by not noticing Lauren standing in the kitchen door?

Well, if Amy hadn’t done any of that, then maybe she wouldn’t have had to spend an hour that night trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in on the recliner in her office cause she sure as fuck wasn’t sleeping in the bed and oh, funny thing, Reagan just happened to… suggest to Katie (the kid) and Lucky (the lab) and Ruby (the beagle) that they have a 'camping out night’ on the couch.

And oh, if only that had been her only problem. But it wasn’t - it so wasn’t - cause, see, as little as Amy’s learned about not second guessing herself, she’s learned even less about recognizing signs, like when someone knows something but, really, that something is none of your business or when, maybe, there’s a secret that someone - or a couple someones, or maybe a thruple of someones - is keeping and you ought to just fucking trust them that keeping it from you is for your own good.

Or, you know, theirs.

“He fucking cheated on her, Glenn,” Amy says, still ignoring Reagan’s frantic and almost pained and pleading 'Shrimps’. “Theo cheated on her in her bed and he broke her heart and he ruined her damn life.”

The words leave her mouth and she hears them but she doesn’t quite believe them or, at least, believe that they came from her - or that the gasp she hears behind her comes from her wife or that the 'what the fuck, Amy’ from the door comes from her sister - and Amy wants to say she’s sorry, she wants to say she didn’t mean it (she didn’t, at least not like that) and she wants Glenn to shrug, to just blow it all of cause, you know, that’s what he does, except that he doesn’t.

He doesn’t even look at her and if there was a couch nearby right then and there, Amy would exile herself to it immediately but then Glenn does look up - at his wife - and she nods, slowly and he turns back to Amy and, funnily enough, we’re back to where we started.

Back to that question.

“But what if,” Glenn says. “What if he didn’t?”

Five Years Ago

The knock comes a few days after Theo expected it would and the face on the other side of the door… well… it’s not the one (or the pair) he planned on, but he knows that he shouldn’t be at all surprised.

But he is.

(Also: he’s grateful, for more than one reason, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)

“I thought for sure she’d send Tyson and Holyfield,” he says, stepping to one side so Glenn can come in. In truth, he’s a more than a little bit relieved Lauren didn’t send her sister and her best friend. That might have gotten ugly and painful.

For, you know, him. And, you know, more ugly and painful than this already is cause it’s plenty ugly - getting caught with your pants down is usually like that - and it's more than plenty painful cause, you know, getting caught with your pants down by your wife with someone who is so not your wife gives said wife one hell of an easy target for her very very so fucking very pointy toed shoes.

Theo walked with a limp for a week and even he knows that was the least of what he deserved.

Glenn steps into the house and it feels fucking weird, kinda like he hasn’t done it a million times before, but, of course, back then it was Theo and Lauren’s and now… it's not. Maybe it’s still the same house, with all the same rooms and all the same furniture and the same everything, but it’s not the same, not at all, and he can’t help wondering if Theo feels it too. “You do still remember I was a soldier, right?”

He doesn’t even look at Theo - he’s not entirely sure he’s going to be able to, not without getting a bit… upset or, truthfully, more upset - but he does hold up one hand, wiggling his pinky finger in the other man’s direction and he feels it, the shift in the air, as Theo leans up against the door, fidgeting just slightly further away, out of 'I can kill you with a finger’ (and would) (he absolutely fucking would, if Lauren would just let him) range and yeah…

Message received.

Reagan and Amy might have punched him (not might) and it might have hurt (oh, it so fucking would), but Theo knows he would’ve gotten back up from that - Liam and Jack did and, face it, he’s bigger and stronger than either of them though, apparently he’s also more of a fucking shit, which no one would have thought possible - but if Glenn decided to get physical?

All he’d need was someone to tell him where to hide the body. And Theo's got a pretty good inkling that Lauren would have all kinds of good ideas about that.

“Everything you’re here for is over there,” Theo says with a nod, careful to keep himself just out of reach - like that would really help - indicating the three stacks, a trio of cardboard mountains, box upon box, packing tape begetting packing tape and even though all the stacks are so very clearly - like in big bold permanent black marker letters clearly - marked 'Lauren’, Glenn can’t resist playing the asshole, just a little.

“Which ones?” he asks with a smirk that shifts to a grin - and not the 'yo, man, s'up?’ grin the two men usually shared - as he hears Theo sigh behind him. It’s settling in, Glenn knows, the slow realization that nope, he’s not going to make this any easier - though a bit potentially less physically painful - than his sister and her wife would have.

Theo points, risking his putting his arm in striking distance. “To the left,” he says.

He shouldn’t. Glenn knows he shouldn’t. He knows there’s nothing funny about this - and if he thought there ever was, the memory of Lauren sobbing herself to sleep on his couch every night for the last three weeks has easily disabused him of that - and he knows all too very fucking well that this Theo is not the same Theo he shared beers with and watched basketball with and hung out with while they both did everything they could (which wasn’t always enough or even close to it) to ignore that they were both in love with the same woman.

This, he knows, is no time for jokes. But, come on. 'To the left?’

It comes out without warning and - he’ll claim till the day he dies - without him even choosing to say it. It’s a blurt, an impulse that skips the brain and goes straight to the tongue and, before he can stop himself, Glenn’s singing (or what passes for singing with him.) “To the left, to the left,” he croons. “Everything you own in a box to the left…”

Theo snorts behind him and, for just a second, they're… them… again and, for just that same second, they both forget that they’re never going to be 'them’ again. They’ve always made an odd pair, shoved together by being the only 'boys’ in their little family and no, Liam didn’t count cause he was always on the outside looking in and Lauren may have forgiven but Theo never ever did, or would and Shane was a guy, but… well…

Shane’s a guy and a good one at that and they both love him but he's Shane.

They were brothers, of a sort, not like legally or anything - the brother in law of a sister in law doesn’t have an exact term, like an in law twice removed or some such shit - but, if you asked anyone, they’d be hard pressed to think of a Raudenfeld or Solis family gathering that hadn’t seen Theo and Glenn holed up somewhere, usually with Bruce, talking basketball and football and whatever other balls came up.

And ignoring the fuck out of the tiny blonde elephant in the room.

Theo hums a few bars and then he catches himself, realizing a few notes too late that he’s not meant to be enjoying this moment, like not at all. It feels, to him, kinda like he’s cheating all over again.

Sort of.

(Getting ahead again. Just wait.)

“Didn’t know you knew Beyonce,” he says which is, clearly, among the most ridiculous things he’s ever said cause who doesn’t know Bey?

Glenn shrugs. “Not like I’m a card carrying Beyhive member,” he says, eyeing the stacks of boxes. “But she was clearly the best of Destiny’s children, you know?”

He glances back at Theo and, not for the first time, there’s a rush of anger, of crippling sadness, of blood burning anger that comes over him and he has to look away, lest he find himself doing something about it. He wonders if Theo really gets what he’s done, if he understands just how far and how wide and how deep the damage he’s done reaches. The Theo he knew would’ve, he’d have totally gotten it.

But then, Glenn figures, the Theo he knew wouldn’t have done it in the first place. That Theo never would have brought home some skanky little… skank and he sure as hell wouldn’t have touched her or kissed her or…

Glenn focuses on the boxes, on the neatly stacked,secured, and packed away remnants of Lauren’s former life - and it is her life, that Glenn’s thinking about (mostly) - and tries not to wonder how he could have ever misjudged someone so badly.

And ignore that nagging little tug at the back of his head that just says no fucking way cause, obviously, fucking way. Lauren saw.

She saw.

Theo speaks up and brings Glenn back to reality. “I’m…” He shakes his head at the crack, the tiniest little hiccup of a thing, in his voice and God, how he’s wishing it really had been Amy and Reagan on the other side of the door cause at least maybe he’d be unconscious for this. “I’m, um, gonna grab a beer and hang out on the porch,” he says. “Better to be out of the way like that.”

Glenn nods like it’s the most logical thing he’s ever heard - and it does make sense - and keeps right on staring at those boxes as Theo slips past him and on down the hall and then, and only then, does he steal a glance at the stairs, a move he immediately (is there something sooner?) regrets..

Lauren, maybe you should wait…

What if, he wonders - for about the one zillionth time - she’d listened to him. What if she hadn’t charged up those stairs and down the short hall and through her bedroom door (for what would be the last time) and found… well…

The end. That’s what she found. The fucking end. Kinda literally.

Glenn’s tried so very hard to not blame himself, mostly cause he knows that’s just stupid - he wasn’t the one who hadn’t managed to keep it in his pants, after all - but it’s hard (absolutely

no pun intended) not to feel at least a little responsible. He’d seen the car in the drive, the car that wasn’t Theo’s, same as Lauren had. He’d heard the noises, the laughter and the moans and the voices that weren’t supposed to be there, same as Lauren had. He’d felt that sinking feeling in his gut, that sudden drop, like the world stopped turning and the gravity just fucking quit and he was left adrift, nothing to anchor him, all those things that had moored his life to normal just ripped away, even before he’d seen a thing.

Same as Lauren.

Or, you know, maybe not exactly the same, but close enough, it had all been close enough, they’d been two peas in a pod (they were 'twinning’, as his niece might say) right until that moment, right up until they weren’t. When he froze.

And Lauren didn’t.

Glenn’s tortured himself about it ever since. He’s laid awake so many nights, asking himself that same fucking question.

No. Not 'what if’.

Oh, he’s asked that too. What if he hadn’t froze, what if he’d done something - anything - other than calling out to her, so weakly, so meekly, so… so like he didn’t mean it, like he didn’t really want her to stop. And there it is, there’s the question Glenn’s been beating himself to a mental and emotional pulp with.

Why?

Why didn’t he stop her? Why didn’t he try harder? Why didn’t he do something to try and, at least, shield her from some of it? He loves her, or so he claims (in his head, only to himself, never once out loud except that one time to Katie, but who is she gonna tell?) and yet…

And yet he let her charge up those stairs - alone - and walk in on her husband with his pants gone and his mistress very much not gone and his hands on her hips and his lips on hers and

Glenn heard the muffled moan of a kiss interrupted by a scream (he’s never known if it was her or Lauren and he thinks, maybe, that’s better) and then…

It’s Lauren. You can imagine the 'and then’. Though, maybe, you might not want to.

He could have stopped her. OK… he could have tried and then, maybe, his conscience would be a bit clearer, maybe there’d be a bit less guilt and a bit less doubt and a lot more room in his head and heart for doing what he’s supposed to be doing, which is being Lauren’s friend, being supportive, and being the one (or, really, one of the ones) hating the fuck out of Theo for hurting her.

Except…

Except instead of doing what he’s supposed to be doing - literally, in this case, since he’s not walking those boxes out to his sister’s truck in the driveway - Glenn’s doing the exact opposite, instead of leaving, like he knows he should, he’s turning and walking into the house, through the kitchen, down the four stairs to the back, and out onto the porch and if Theo’s at all surprised to see him there, he doesn’t show it.

He probably expected it. A Solis staying when they should be going?

Must be in the DNA.

Glenn settles in the chair closest to the door, the one he always sits in, the only one that doesn’t have it’s back to the door and no, nobody ever asks why or what happened… over there… that left him with the unshakable need to limit the exposure cause, well, nobody ever asks anything about over there and he never talks about it.

Except to Katie on those nights when she was a tiny tiny and he babysat to give his sister and Amy a little break and he said a whole bunch of things he never should have said but, again, who is she going to tell?

(Besides, you know, her shrink when she’s older.)

“It doesn’t make sense,” he says and Theo doesn’t look at him or ask what 'it is’, though there’s a list of possible 'it’s’ a mile long. “I’ve gone over it and over it,” Glenn says, trying not to get a bit… bothered when Theo still just slowly sips his beer. “And all I ever come up with is that either you’re the stupidest fuck alive or…”

He trails off (yeah, cause the trail off ever ends well) and lets it dangle there, hanging between them, and if he’s waiting for a reaction?

He’s gonna be there a while.

'You remember the day she caught you?“ Glenn asks and yes, it is mostly a rhetorical question cause, duh, Theo’s probably got a vague recollection. "You remember where she was?”

The words 'with you’ trip off Theo’s tongue with the kind of ease reserved for basic facts of the universe: water’s wet, the sky’s blue, Liam Booker was a manwhore of epic proportions, you know, the obvious stuff.

Glenn’s surprised - just a bit - by the way it stings, by the sudden sharp pang of guilt he feels in his gut, like he’s the one in the wrong here, like he did something bad. He didn’t, not really, but he remembers enough Sunday school to remember there’s some sort of rule about not coveting another man’s wife, but coveting ain't cheating.

And rules? Don’t get Glenn started on rules.

Rule #1: Do the right thing, always, and you don’t need any more fucking rules.

Though, technically, coveting is probably not the right thing, but he’s just going to ignore that, OK?

“We had that conference,” he says, ignoring the insinuation he isn’t totally sure Theo meant to make cause, well, it’s easier that way. “The one for the mayor, to kick start his campaign for governor,” he says. “And it was supposed to run all day, remember? Till like five or six, at least.”

Theo takes another sip of his beer. A bit slower this time.

“We weren't supposed to be back,” Glenn says. His fingers are digging into the armrest of the chair, his nails chipping the wood, not that he notices. “We were supposed to be gone all day and then go to dinner after and we weren't supposed to be here then.”

'But you were’. That’s what Theo’s supposed to say. If there was a script for this -like the whole thing was some crazy ass plot twist cooked up by some whackadoo writer typing away at a tiny little computer at a tiny little desk and oh, then it would make so much more sense - then Theo’s next line would be 'but you were’ and he’d say it all bitter and angry like, as if it was Glenn’s fault that he and Lauren showed up when they did, like he was blaming everyone but himself like all the cheating asshats, like him, do.

Theo says nothing. Not a thing. Not a single fucking word and so, no, he’s not following the script, like not at all.

“She’s always figured that was it,” Glenn says, like 'always’ is 'forever’ or 'for so very long’ and not just for three tear filled weeks. “That was what made you think you could get away with it, why you thought… why you dared to bring her here.”

A schedule. A plan. A Lauren Cooper devised and laid out event (that went off without a hitch, that went off perfectly) that had a set start and end time and Theo had to know, he had to be so sure off all the timing cause, come on, it was 'Campaign by Lauren’.

Who could blame him for thinking it was safe?

Glenn stands, tugging his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through his messages. It takes him a minute - his phone’s been bombarded by texts recently, the 'I’m crying and alone at two in the fucking morning’ kind in particular - but he finds the one he’s looking for and reads it and then he reads it again.

Just to be sure.

T-Money: How’s it going? Everything on track?

He tosses the phone down on the table in front of Theo, and he’s not surprised - much - when he doesn’t even look at it, doesn’t even check the reply.

Or, you know, the evidence.

“I texted you back,” Glenn says, settling back down into 'his’ chair, hands on his knees. “I told you it was all going great, so great, better than even Lauren could have planned and we both know that’s gotta be pretty fucking awesome.”

Theo sips his beer and stares straight ahead. He says nothing, still.

But yeah, he knows.

Glenn runs one hand through his hair, which is kinda pointless since he still keeps it buzzed to his damn scalp and there’s nothing to run through, but it’s a nervous habit, a tic, the sort of thing he did when he was younger and he was asking Amanda King to the prom. He’s worried… no, not worried.

He's scared.

He’s fucking terrified, worried that he’s right and maybe a little more worried that he's not and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do with either, but he’s still gotta try, he’s gotta push on cause, you know, he froze.

He owes her this much.

“I told you,” Glenn says. “I told you things were going to finish up early and we were going to stop home before the dinner.” He watches Theo’s fingers close tighter around the beer. “I told you we’d be here. You knew. You knew and you brought… her… here anyway.”

'What can I say’ and 'thrill of danger, the risk of getting caught’ and 'she got off on it’ all come spilling out of Theo in a jumble, a mess of words that run together and if that didn’t make them sound rehearsed - like he’s been waiting for this - the fact that he can’t even look at Glenn, that he pushes the beer and the phone away and lets his head fall into his hands…

Yeah, Glenn can read that tell. Hell… Karma could.

“You wanted to get caught.” Glenn says - fuck 'says’, he snarls - his hands balling into fists in his lap. “You wanted Lauren to see you with her, you wanted to hurt her -”

“It was the lesser pain,” Theo blurts and then cusses himself under his breath. He didn’t mean to say it, he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t. “This is why,” he mutters, “this is why I wished she’d send them.”

Amy and Reagan wouldn’t have pushed because they wouldn’t have known and, more to the point, neither of them would have cared. They’d have punched first, not asked questions at all, loaded all the boxes second and, probably, punched again.

And he’d have deserved them. That would probably be the only thing Theo might think that they’d agree with.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Glenn snaps. He’s forcing himself to stay in the chair - not that he’d actually, you know, use his pinky (probably) - trying to give Theo a chance to explain, even if he can’t, for the fucking life of him, think of anything that could explain any of this. “You think finding you and her was somehow 'lesser’?” His fingers curl the air quotes around the word as it burns its way off his tongue.

“There’s degrees, Glenn,” Theo says. “Degrees of everything. Love and hate and… pain. And yeah, as much as it killed her, Lauren finding us that way was the lesser pain, like a thousand degree burn compared to falling into the sun. I know it sucks and it’s ripping her up, but she’ll get through it.”

He says it like there’s another option and not just some other, fucking mythical pain that Lauren couldn’t get through. There’s no such thing, no such pain or challenge or obstacle she just can’t overcome. Glenn knows that. He’s sure of very little in this world, but he's positive of that.

“She’ll get through it by hating you,” he says. “By despising you and cursing you and regretting the day she ever met you.” All of which, he doesn’t mention, Lauren’s already doing in fucking spades. “And that, all of that anger and hate, it will burn like the sun, but it’ll never last. It just can’t. Sooner or later, it’s going to burn itself out and then? Lauren will be empty. You’ll have your little whore, but she’ll be alone and that’s what’s going to fill in those hollow, empty, burned out places you left in her.”

Theo snorts - a bitter and angry grunt of a thing and, really, where the fuck does he get off with that - and shakes his head, ignoring the bits about the damage he did (he doesn’t need Glenn to remind him, the ring still on his finger does that just fine) and focusing, instead, on the one thing that he can even kinda get upset about.

“I think we both know the last thing Lauren’s going to be is alone.”

And there it is. The heart of the matter. The elephant in the room who isn’t even there but can’t be ignored any more.

“Fuck you,” Glenn says - and so much for 'brothers’ - pushing his way up and out of his chair and now he’s the one with the burning suns scorching just beneath his skin. “If you think I would ever use this to -”

“I don’t,” Theo says and the edge has slipped from his voice, the knife edged words sheathed again. He slumps back over the table and Glenn doesn’t know what to make of it, or how to process the way this guy he thought he knew so well is shifting gears right in front of him. “I’d never think that. Not of you and not of her.” He laughs again and this time it’s almost genuine and not at all bitter of angry. “Hell, if you even tried, I’m pretty sure your sister would fuck your shit up, family or not.”

He’s not wrong.

“But you’ll be there,” he says. “Like you’re always there. Like you’ve stayed all along, when you knew her heart was somewhere else and you didn’t care.” Theo looks at him, finally, and it’s all right there in his eyes. “You love her. You love her the way that I did… the way I do… and that means you’ll stay.” He looks away, biting at his lip, the pain keeping the tears at bay. “Always.”

There’s an obvious retort, a clear comeback just teed up for him and Glenn sees it, right there, just waiting. But that’s just it, isn’t it? It's obvious, it's clear, it's easy and all of this, from them walking in on Theo and her to Lauren having his shoulder to cry on to Theo not even fighting the divorce at all - he offered her the house, for fuck’s sake (she said no) (for, again, all the obvious reasons) has been like that.

Obvious. Easy. Clear.

He’s the bad guy, the cheating dick, the loser who threw away years - his entire life since high school - for a cheap side piece.

Yeah. Obvious. Easy.

And, suddenly, it’s all a lot more clear.

“What’s her name?” Glenn asks and Theo’s head snaps up. “Your mistress. What’s her name?”

“What?”

Glenn bites back the 'did I stutter?’, trying to keep his temper in check. “What’s her name?” he asks, again. “Where did you meet? How long was it going on? You gonna marry her, now? Is she even interested in that, or was this just about fucking a married man?” He takes a step to the table, leans over it, looming - as much as someone a good foot fucking shorter can - over Theo. “What’s. Her. Name?”

Theo scoots back, just a little. “What’s. Your. Point?”

Well… fuck. Just… total and absolute fuck. Like all the fucks all in one place and that place?

Right smack between Glenn and Lauren. Because now, he knows. Maybe not all of it, maybe not exactly why - but just wait, he’ll get there - but he knows enough.

“You threw it away on purpose,” he says and Theo doesn’t argue the point so, yeah, fuck. “You made sure you did the one thing she’d never forgive and no, that’s not the cheating. It’s being made to look a fool. And you made sure… with my help… that she caught you.”

Glenn staggers back and falls down into his chair. His brain… it doesn’t work this way, it doesn’t think like his sister’s or Amy’s or even Karma’s (especially not Karma’s.) He sees everything in all it’s simplest of terms, in kill or be killed, be happy or not, love or don’t. The messes Reagan told him about from back when she and Amy first got together? They’re as foreign and as weird to Glenn as carrying an M-16 through a fucking desert would be to his sister or to her wife or to Karma (yes, especially Karma, again.)

So, this?

Yeah… this is some Star Wars live long and prosper world of wizarding he who shall not be named shit.

(And yes, he knows those are all different. He’s spent far too fucking long around Amy not to.)

“You had it all,” Glenn says and he’s incredibly proud that he keeps the judgement out of his voice. “Everything. You’ve been in love with her since high school, you survived four years apart in college, you had the most sickeningly fairy tale wedding that I’ve ever seen, and you threw it all away, on purpose, when you had everything you ever wanted.”

Sophie sees it coming. Right from the moment she sees Reagan’s number on her phone, to the minute she calls her back, eight hours later. Eight hours and thirteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds and yes, she counted them all and no, that doesn't make her weird and if you think that it does, she’s got two fucking words for you.

You’re probably right.

Alright… so three words. She never claimed to be good at math so just go ahead and fuck right off, OK, cause the math? So not the point.

The point is that she sees it coming like a mile away, like she’s staring it down even as she finds herself tied to the tracks, and that train is barreling on, coming closer and closer and no matter how much she struggles, no matter how hard she fights, those knots in the ropes are just too fucking tight.

Yeah, she knows it’s an odd metaphor, she gets that. But come on, maybe we ought to cut the girl a bit of slack. Just a few days ago she thought - so so so fucking wrongly - that she’d found someone she could love (OK, that part might have been right) and someone who could, maybe, love her back, if she just gave her enough time and enough… incentive.

Except now she knows that part was never going to be right cause there’s not enough time in all of eternity and as much incentive as she can give - and it's a lot - it’s never going to measure up to what she’d like to call the ‘memory’ or, really, the 'memories’, cause she’s absolutely sure that there’s a lot of them, but the problem with either of those is they’re both past tense and if there’s anything Sophie’s sure of now, it’s that that train that’s about to grind her up beneath its wheels?

Yeah, it’s anything but past.

Anything but past or over or done or… just pick your fucking term cause Sophie’s fresh out of vocabulary words for the day and if it weren’t for the Redbull portion of those five Redbulls and vodkas she put away last night, she’d be pretty much fresh out of damn near everything at this point, because, it should be noted, the whole 'thought I’d found the one' ridiculousness isn't all she’s had to deal with.

What else, you ask? Oh, you need a refresher?

Well, there was also the whole discovering her 'maybe’ one was Amy’s ’always’ one and then there was the whole having to confront her friend - best friend and, unless you count Lauren (and you really can’t because she's definitely Amy’s) or Reagan (do we need to spell that one out?) then best might also be synonymous with only and that’s a whole other heartbreak in and of itself - and, of course, there’s the whole punching said best (only) friend bit and then there’s the drunken night with Reagan that didn’t go the way Sophie’d imagined a drunken night with Reagan would go, like at all.

And that was before the talk with Farrah and the phone call with Reagan that took eight hours to get to but lasted less than eight minutes - cause, really, how long does it take to say 'we should talk’ and 'can you meet me’ and not say 'it’s you, it's always been you’ - and, truthfully, Sophie ought to be fucking commended for it being only five R+V’s.

So, yeah, she can be forgiven a mixed metaphor or two, but no matter how she phrases it, the point is always the same. That train’s coming and it’s coming for her (something Reagan never did and no, she’s not thinking about that right now, but it might have crossed her mind a time or two in between R+V #’s 1 and 5) and, if she’s being honest, the thing that really, truly, absolutely pisses her right the fuck off?

(Besides all of it)

It’s that, no matter how hard she tries - and she’s fucking tried - she can’t manage to see either Reagan or Amy as the evil mustache twirling villain what tied her to those tracks. Oh, make no mistake about it, she is the one on the tracks and they are safe on the train (maybe in different cars, at the moment, but come on, we all know that won't last) but Sophie can’t quite see them as wrong. Not for what they feel, at least.

What they did… well… it’s gonna take a few more R+V’s - like all the Redbull and most of the vodka in the fucking world - for her to not see that as wrong.

(And no, she’s not thinking about how right some parts of her - some stupidly thruple leaning parts - might see what they did.) (She hasn’t thought about that since R+V #3.)

(Not much, anyway.)

But Sophie can’t hate them for how they feel or for never getting over each other, and she can’t even hate them (much) for chugga chugga chugging their powerful locomotive of inevitable love right over her. When you find that, when you stumble your way into discovering the person that you can’t ever let go of - even when you’re holding on to someone else - that's exactly the kind of thing that you should fight for and you should refuse to let go and you shouldn't give even two tiny damns about anyone who gets between you and it.

Even when that 'anyone’ between you and it is your best (but not only cause Lauren and maybe not even best cause Karma, sort of, kinda, maybe) friend and roommate and you won’t be quite the same without her.

Sophie’s spent a lot of time lately - mostly sober time, but quite a bit of drunk too - wondering if she would have done something different in Amy’s place.

The fact that she’s never come up with an answer one way or the other just pisses her off more but it does explain why, really, all she can do is watch that train come (shut up) and hope that when it gets there, when the blow finally comes?

It comes quick.

(Oh, for fuck’s sake…)

And that and that other stupid fucking hope, that unspoken but not un-thought desperate prayer that maybe - just maybe - there will be something salvageable out of all this when it’s done - and 'it’s' totally means the breaking of the kinda already broken bits of her heart - is the only feasible explanation anyone would need for why she’s here, sitting in a diner, watching as Reagan slides down into the chair across from her and, more importantly, why she’s not angrily tossing a glass of water in her face and storming out the door in a huff.

Well… that last part might have something to do with R+V #1 and #2 and, yeah, #3 through #5 cause, really, Sophie doesn’t think she’s got a single 'huff’ in her.

The vodka is taking up all the room.

Still - and maybe it’s the Redbull - Sophie can’t quite bring herself to focus, to really listen, and so, when Reagan starts with 'Thanks for coming, I wasn’t sure you would’ she just wonders, for a second, just how many times she’s said that recently. There was a mention, in those less than eight minutes, of talking to Heather, so there’s one, for sure. And now there’s her, which makes two. And, yes, Sophie totally knows she shouldn’t, but she can’t help her wandering mind, and it can’t stop wondering if Reagan said those same words to Amy.

Which, you know, totally defeats her whole 'not gonna think about them together’ plan - did she forget to mention that? - but, honestly, that was shot long ago, cause she’s been thinking pretty much of nothing but for damn near all of the last twenty-four hours, to the point of being sick of hearing herself, sick of thinking about it, of thinking about what Farrah said about it and, most of all, sick of trying (and failing) to consider all of the options she’s got about what to do about it.

And when she says 'all’ of the options she really means the few cause, let’s face it, there’s not that many choices for her here and none of them (not a single fucking one) are good and all of them (every single fucking one) involve someone getting hurt and yes, that someone is almost always her and yes, that is why none of them are good and why none of this is even kinda fair and yes, she ought to be paying attention to what Reagan’s saying to her but, truthfully?

Sophie’s just about used up her 'yes, I’m listening’ fucks and her 'I know you’re sorry’ fucks and her 'it’s OK, I get that you didn’t mean to hurt me’ (that came right after “I wasn’t sure you would” and just before "I’m sorry" and she’s not entirely sure that’s the order that they should have been in) and her 'of course I understand how it could just… happen’ (and parts of her really do, all the decidedly non heart parts) and her 'no, I don’t mean one single fucking word of what I’m saying and you can’t seriously think that I do’ fucks.

So, you know, basically all the fucks. Sophie’s just fresh out of fucks to give and fucks to feel and fucks to care. She’s utterly absolutely completely fuckless.

And yet…

Here she is.

She came when Reagan called and - Reagan’s 'not sure you would’ notwithstanding - there was never any doubt, and Sophie knew that, which is maybe why she held out for eight hours, trying to save what little dignity she had left. Like that ship hadn’t sailed long ago and yes, she knows it was a train before and now there’s a ship and she’s pretty sure, eventually, there’s gonna be a car too - cause, it’s planes, trains, and automobiles, motherfucker - but the transportation of her metaphors is, again, so not the point.

Though, at this point, Sophie’s not even sure what the point is other than wishing Reagan would hurry the fuck up and get to it and put her out of her Old fucking Yeller misery.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about this,” Reagan says, right on time for Sophie to tune back out of her own head and into the conversation - one sided as it may be - and it's perfect timing cause that might be the first thing that Reagan’s said that she actually agrees with, seeing as how she knows all too well what that’s like.

Sophie’s been thinking about it a lot too. And by 'a lot’ she means pretty much all the thoughts all the time. Most of those thoughts, even the ones before the Redbull and the vodka, were of that one moment, of Reagan in the doorway with the phone clutched in her hand, and how it all suddenly made sense. Sophie keeps replaying that slow realization that washed over her, the dawning idea that of just who belonged to who.

Reagan was Amy's her - the nameless ex (and oh, who’s regretting Rule #6 now?) that she’s never quite put behind her (and oh, there’s an image) - and Amy was Reagan’s her, the one she said she was ready to forget though, in her defense, that’s easier to do when said 'her’ isn’t standing right in front of you.

Or, you know, laying next to you. Or on top of you. Or between your legs staring up at you as she slowly…

Fuck.

This is why she had that plan, that not think of them together plan and, honestly, this is why that plan never stood a snowball in Liam Booker’s Thunder Box’s chance of succeeding.

But, again, not the point.

This point Sophie does know though, cause it’s so fucking obvious. That realization, that slow and stumbling trip to Amy and Reagan and true love… it hurt. It hurt like hell, it hurt even more than that other, considerably faster realization, the dawning - sprinting - idea that they…

They… well… yeah. They… you know.

That one hit her like a fucking Mack truck (sort of a car, right?), crushing her on the spot. But it’s funny to her - like the way a shiv in your kidney or a bullet to the spleen or stepping on a Lego in the middle of the night is funny - that the 'you know’ wasn’t really the problem, that it wasn’t the pain.

Sophie knew she could compete with sex, even great sex and yes, she’s sure that any Reamy sex, even if it was just a hook up (and it so wasn’t), even if was just 'the feels’ without the feels would be great… no… AWESOME sex (and yes, all those caps are absolutely necessary) and maybe some of those thoughts about Reagan in the door and the phone and all the realizations might have drifted a bit sometimes (to Reagan and Amy, like that) or maybe just a bit more than a bit (thruple) (thruple that begins with her just watching cause… well, that’s just polite but then Amy - and it’s Amy every time - reaches out for her and then, well, it's game fucking on) but, eventually, all those thoughts come back to one simple equation that even her math challenged brain can compute.

It’s Amy for Reagan and Reagan for Amy and that 1+1 doesn’t = thruple. Not where it counts.

Maybe it would count in their bed, but not in their hearts and yup, there it is, there’s that shiv and that bullet and that fucking lego in the night (one of the big bricks, none of that tiny little two-hole shit) and so, yeah, she’s been thinking about it and yes, that’s yet another reason she shouldn’t be here, not that she really need any more of those.

That moment in the door was really the only one she’d ever need.

Or… you know… not. Cause here she fucking is and oh, wait… Reagan's still talking?

“It’s been about the only thing I’ve thought of,” Reagan says, and, what do you know, that gives them two whole things in common, and that’s two more than Sophie expected. “I’ve come at it from every angle,” Reagan says, “but I just can’t figure it, you know?”

Yeah. Sophie knows.

“It’s been keeping me up at night,” Reagan says and what was that Sophie thought about all her fucks to give? “I toss and turn,” she says, shaking her head, fingers drumming a steady beat on the tabletop. She’s nervous and she’s beating around the bush and she’s doing everything she can to do anything but get to the fucking point. “And I just end up laying there, staring up at the ceiling in the dark. I don’t know what to do or how I… did what I did.” Reagan stares down at her drumming fingers, and Sophie’s sure that’s mostly because that means no eye contact, as that’s apparently the one thing she can’t do. “Last night I was so mad and so… wrecked… so lost that I… cracked. I spent like hour just screaming and pounding my fists into the mattress.”

Sophie takes a sip of her water and wonders, briefly, if Reagan even realizes how close those descriptions of her torment come to matching Sophie’s imaginings of them together, what with the screaming and the fists and the mattress and all.

Though, in fairness, Sophie usually pictures Amy doing most of the screaming which is probably only because she’s, you know, actually heard that.

(Elsie)

(Rule 21: If it happens again, Amy will buy Sophie a pair of Beats headphones and don’t even play like you don’t know what 'it’ is, Raudenfeld.)

(They’re purple. Sophie’s Beats. Ironic, no?)

Sophie takes another sip of her water - drinks: the socially awkward’s perfect shield - trying to remember her plan. She’s not here to think about Amy and Reagan together or any ridiculous thrupleized version of Amy and Reagan and her. She’s here, she reminds herself, cause she’s hurt and mad and hurt and wronged and hurt and betrayed and did she mention hurt?

It bears fucking repeating.

And she’s here because she sees it coming - that damn train - and the quicker it gets here, the quicker it’s done and that’s one step closer to her figuring out just how much she’s really lost.

She’s afraid it’s going to be everything.

She's more afraid that it won’t be.

Sophie tries - stick to the fucking plan - but, in the end, she forgets that Reagan doesn’t know the plan and she’s sure as hell not sticking to it, not when she quits drumming, reaching across the table instead, one hand finding Sophie’s. And oh, will you look at that? Now she make eye contact, now she suddenly can’t look away, even if Sophie tries - and fails fucking miserably and what a shock that is, right? - to look at the table or the floor or the waitress with the really not all that great ass or, you know, anywhere that isn’t Reagan.

“Sophie? Look at me?”

She'd love to cause, well, Reagan. But when she looks at her, she sees them and she doesn’t feel like crying just yet.

Yet being the key word, she’s sure.

“Sophie, please.”

And oh, how this isn’t the context she imagined hearing that in.

“I know you don’t owe me a fucking thing,” Reagan says - and there’s thing number three they agree on - as she gently squeezes Sophie’s hand in hers. “But, please, just look at me?”

If there was ever any way she could have resisted (spoiler: there wasn’t), Sophie knows it flies right out the nearest window when she hears the pain and the pleading and the fucking anguish in Reagan’s voice. She may not have any fucks to give, but she’s still got a heart.

Battered as it is.

Sophie looks over at Reagan and she feels it. Everywhere. In her hand, still clutched atop the table. In her chest, as her heart thuds against her insides, feeling so much less broken which, really, only serves to break it more. And there, right fucking there, in those eyes, the ones that can’t and won’t look away, staring so deeply into her own.

Like they did that night.

I’m ready to forget.

And yeah, that’s a notion Sophie can fucking get behind.

But there’s no time for that cause Reagan… she’s already rolling again, and talking faster than Sophie has ever heard her, like she needs to get it out, like even though she's on the train, she can still see it coming too, and her knots…

They’re digging into her flesh and, if the tears suddenly welling in her eyes are any indication, they may well be drawing blood.

“There’s just no good way out,” Reagan says, and before Sophie can even process that, she’s already moving again, headed right into 'it’s a mess’ and 'it’s just so fucked up’ and, finally, into 'no matter what, someone’s going to get hurt’ and at that, Sophie finally does the smart and right thing and pulls back, retreating as best she can, pulling her hand free and dropping it down into her lap and looking away cause, well…

Duh.

She doesn’t say that, doesn’t even say that, you know, maybe there was a way around that, all the way back before Reagan’s thighs found their way around Amy’s head, again. And this time, thinking of that is only a pain in her heart and not a… feeling… down between her legs, and yes, Sophie realizes that’s probably a good sign.

Probably. Maybe. Most likely.

Of course it is. It’s a good sign, like a good indication that - fuck her dignity - she’s gonna crack and she’s gonna cry and soon she’s gonna run right out of the damn door, tears streaming down her face and then she’ll hit the wall, the cold and hard and wrecking realization that she’s got no one and nowhere to run to, even though she totally should.

Rule #27: When in doubt or need or pain, we go to each other. Always.

Fucking rules.

“Someone said something to me recently,” Reagan says, her hand still just sitting there, limp on the table and she says it like there’s a world in which Sophie can’t figure out that her 'someone’ is obviously Heather, but the bigger thing is: oh my God, she's still talking.

Sophie wants nothing more - has wanted nothing more for the entire fucking conversation - than for Reagan to get to the fucking point, to drop the damn hammer, to hit her with the 'I need Amy and I love Amy and I’m so sorry that it had to be you that paid for our perfect love cause it totally should have been Karma’ and be done with it. But, Reagan seems intent on dragging this shit out like a Walking Dead cliffhanger and Sophie can barely hold back a screaming 'just fucking say it already’.

“Amy runs,” Reagan says - and again, duh - “and that’s on her, but…” She finally pulls her hand back, folding them together in her lap. “All I’ve ever done is give her reasons to. Over and over, I’ve given her nothing but things to run from and that someone… Heather said that maybe it was time I gave her something to run to.”

As much as she feels that shiv twisting and that bullet breaking her skin and that fucking Lego shooting pain up her leg, Sophie feels something else even more.

Relief.

Finally, she thinks. It’s about time, she says to herself. Now she can get on with it, now she can deal with this new reality of Reagan and Amy and how she might fit into that, if she even does or even wants to.

The train’s finally come.

“And so that’s what I’m going to do,” Reagan says. “I"m going to give Amy something to run to.”

It’s the oddest thing, the way part of Sophie wants to just curl up and disappear at the very thought and part of her - a surprisingly big part - can only think that it’s about damn time.

And then Reagan is suddenly standing and it's her cheeks stained with tears and her hands trembling at her sides and it's her saying “I’m bowing out.”

Wait. What?

“I love her and I always will and I don’t know how to fucking stop but I know…” Reagan shakes her head - vehemently - as Sophie starts to rise and that freezes her in place, halfway between a stand and a sit. “But I know this is right. I’m gonna give her something to run to, the one thing I know she won’t run from.”

Oh. Oh no. Oh no.

“I’m giving her you.”

And then she’s gone - exit stage fucking what - and so, yeah, it does end with someone in tears and running and with no one and nowhere to go to except that it’s not the right someone, not the right someone at all. And Sophie’s left there and all she can think?

Chapter 3

  The first punch

  It’s been three weeks. Karma and I have been trying our best not to waste our time together, which has been limited to six hole punches. After all this nonsense, of course, we’ll go back to being friends without all this shit between us. But for now, it’s hard to be around each other knowing if we have sex, it’s one hole-punch closer to no more. And as much as we lie to ourselves, we don’t want this to end. And it wasn’t long before someone found out about the punch cards. That someone was, of fucking course, the gossiper of our little group. Shane Harvey.

3rd period

Shane and I are labeling the different parts of the human sex organs. How convenient is it that in high school, everything you do in class is relevant to what is happening in your life at that moment? In English, we’re reading Romeo and Juliet, so I’m hoping none of that applies to me and Karma. 

In the corner of my eye, I can see Shane peeking at my paper. Smirking, I roughly nudge him, making him yelp. “Quit copying.” “Sorry!” He says, raising his hands up defensively, “It’s just…. You’re so good at female anatomy.” Again, I nudge him and roll my eyes. “Tough. You should’ve paid attention.” “Says you.” He scoffs, “Look at your male anatomy worksheet! You got more than half wrong. I don’t think this is a ‘paying attention’ thing.” Laughing, I push my paper toward him. “Fine. You do my penis and I’ll do your vagina.” Shane raises an eyebrow and smirks. “That sounds vaguely dirty. I’m down.” He gets to work, finally leaving me alone. Sighing, I get back to my work. Before I could label the cervix, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. Quickly, I glance up to make sure Ms. Garcia isn’t looking before opening my texts. Karma. Hey. So, we need rules for the punch cards.

I raise an eyebrow and text her back. What did you have in mind?

Not even a minute passes before my phone vibrates again. Rule #1. 1 orgasm = 1 punch

I accidentally let out a groan, causing everyone including Ms. Garcia to look at me quizzically. Sheepishly, I smile at them. Thankfully, everyone just rolls their eyes and gets back to their work. Ms. Garcia’s gaze lingers, but then goes back to typing on her computer. 

Shane nudges me. “What was that? Sext from Karma?” He winks at me and I glare at him. “Shut up and go back to your penis.” I mutter. Surprisingly, he complies. I go back to my texts and quickly type back. Are you kidding me?! Karms, how would we possibly keep track of that? There could be cheating. We could just… not tell each other when… you know….

After I send it, I sigh. She’s the only person I act this way with and it’s dumb. Insecure? Shy? I’m none of those things. Usually.

My phone vibrates. Aims, we’ve slept with each other and you’re scared to say orgasm? Ur cute.

I feel my cheeks heating up. My phone buzzes once again. Rule #2. Don’t cheat. It’d be kinda hard for u anyway, because I KNOW when you orgasm ;) I’d be able to tell. So don’t try. It’s suddenly really hot in this classroom. For a minute, I put my phone down and continue my work to think about how to respond. When I decide, I pick up my phone and type it out. Rule #3. No sexting. That would definitely make things more complicated.

Someone nudging me catches my attention. Shane slides the worksheet he finished toward me. “Done. Where’s my vag?” 

“Working on it.” I answer, gratefully taking the paper. Shane nods. “Maybe you’d be faster if you stopped texting whoever you’re texting. Who are you texting anyway?” “Nunya.” “Who the fuck is Nunya?” “Nunya business.” Shane stares at me for a good minute and I stare back. Then he just takes a deep sigh and nods. “Well played.” My phone buzzes and Shane takes out a book to read, defeated.

Fair enough. If we end up sexting, it’d count as a punch. Refer to rule #1. Rule #4. No other people.

  My eyebrows furrow at that one. A part of me wants to ask her seriously why she feels the need to make that a rule. But the better part of me jokingly types. Why? Jealous much? ;)

  My phone buzzes almost instantly after I send it. It’s just that I’ve been having trouble finding people better at sex than you. So it’d be unfair if you found someone to release with and are more controlled than I am.

  That explanation actually made sense… kind of.

  I text back. Rule #4 isn’t going to be a problem.

  Ms. Garcia tells us to turn in our papers. As I stand up to turn in my papers, Shane kicks the back of my ankle. “Turn mine in for me.”

I take his papers and go to the other side of the classroom to place them in the bin. When I get back to my seat, my phone is gone. “Shane, have you seen my-” He turns to me with my phone in his hands. “I knew you were texting Karms! What the fuck are these rules for?” “Shane… Give me my phone back.” I reach over to get it from him, but he leans back. “Shane…” “Tell me what the rules are for.” He demands.

  Sighing, I sit back in my seat defeated. I tell him about the punch cards and what the rules are. He listens and when I’m done explaining, he gives my phone back.

  “Damn Aims.” He shakes his head and stands up, putting his backpack on. “What?” I ask defensively, standing up with him.

  “You two… have it bad.” He says, shaking his head in disbelief, “When will you two realize that? These punch cards are more proof that you’re in denial.” “Shane, we’re going to stop.” I argue, “All this is going to stop. It’s not denial. It’s realizing that this doesn’t mean anything.” “It’s you guys trying to show us that ‘it doesn’t mean anything.’” Shane says, using air quotes, “That’s overcompensation, aims. You shouldn’t have to stop with punch cards if you didn’t feel anything for each other.” With that, he leaves the classroom. Sighing, I gather my things to leave too. Then I remember I didn’t check my phone. When I do, there’s a text from Karma. Good. Right now, I’m going a little crazy from not being with you.

My heart jumps when I read the words. I read it three more times before sending me too.

-

It’s the night of the last game of the season. It’s a big one against Hester High’s rivals. If I followed football, I would remember the name of the school, but I don’t. All I know is Karma is in her cheerleading uniform and it’s driving me crazy. 

Karma has always hated the cheerleaders. Everyone did. This is Hester, the cheerleaders are at the bottom of the social ladder. It was the last thing she wanted to be. And yet, here she is, on the track in front of the football field. Her and Lauren had some sort of argument of who could be the best cheerleader or something and now they’re both on the team. After what started off as a competition between the two, they ended up really liking it in the end. They even started working together instead of against each other. It’s really weird. Shane and I are sitting in the front row. Shane comments on the football player every now and then. “Number 43 is a tree I’d like to climb.” “Number 10 is a 10 I’d like to get to know.” I, on the other hand, didn’t comment. But he knew I was watching the cheerleaders. One cheerleader in particular.

Liam said he’d meet us after his game. He’s on junior varsity and he had no plans of moving up. He hates football,but he recently found his real Dad and it turns out he’s conservative. He made a deal with his Dad that he’d play football in return of him overlooking his views on Shane being his best friend. It caused a rift between Liam and Shane too, because he shouldn’t have to do something else to make his dad accept Shane as he is. 

The sound of the announcer introducing the junior varsity team brings me out of my thoughts. They run onto the field. Shane points to the field. “There he is.” Squinting my eyes to see better, I spot the number 15 with Booker in bold letters above it. I gulp. 15 is Karma’s favorite number. Despite everything that’s happened, Liam still has feelings for her. But then again, I sort of do too. I guess in that aspect, nothing’s really changed.

  -

  After the game, Liam, Lauren, and Karma find Shane and me waiting for them outside the locker rooms. “Good job out there, guys.” Shane says, patting Liam on the back and giving the two girls a hug. If I went back in time and told myself two years ago Shane, Lauren, and Karma would get along in the future, I would’ve never believed it. But we’ve all been there for each other through the shittiest of things, so now we’re all… friends. Smiling, I go over and hug Lauren. “I saw you trip a couple times in the middle of your routine, so-” She hits me and rolls her eyes, but she knows I’m kidding. Next thing I know, someone’s giving me the greatest hug of my life. It’s not too tight, but it’s affectionate. I know who it is based off their scent. So I reciprocate it. “Great job.” I tell Karma. She mumbles a thanks in response before pulling away.

“Anyone down for pizza?” Liam asks. Shane and Lauren cheer in agreement, but Karma yawns.

“I’m actually kind of tired.” The redhead says, smiling sadly. The others groan, but I stay quiet. I know what that’s code for.

“Boo!” Shane complains, “Nope. I’m not driving you home, karms. I’m starving.” “I can drive her.” I say, stepping up with a raised hand. Karma smiles at me. On a normal day, the others would’ve given us shit for it. But tonight, they were starving and tired. So Shane shrugged. “Sure. See you guys next week.” “Yeah. Be safe.” Liam says, giving me a look. I nod. Lauren comes over and gives me another hug before going to Karma and hugging her too. After that, we went our separate ways. While walking to my car, I notice Karma shivering. She changed out of her uniform, but she was only wearing a light jacket and jeans. I take off my own jacket and place it over her shoulders without saying anything. She doesn’t say anything either. She just pulls it more  securely over herself. When we get to my car, we hop into our respective seats and I blast the heater for her. She throws my jacket in the back and looks over at me. “Thanks for the jacket.” “No problem.” I respond. She leans across the console to kiss my cheek. It catches me so off guard, I don’t know how to respond. Then she puts her hand on my cheek and turns my head to kiss me on the lips. She bites my lip and I yelp. The redhead pulls away and smiles sheepishly. “Sorry.” “Honestly, don’t know whether to be scared or turned on.” I state. Karma laughs and runs a hand through her hair. “I’ve been going so crazy.”

“Me too.” I murmur. 

Karma turns to look at me. “I’m not tired.” I can’t help but smirk. “Yeah, I kinda figured that out.” “I always need a release after cheerleading, but with you in the stands tonight… it’s too much.” The redhead confesses, “I need you.” I release the breath I was holding and smile. “I need you too.” Karma reaches over the console again and places her hand on my leg. “Then you better drive. Fast.” -

We’re in her bed making out. 

Somehow, she’s only got me in my Calvin Kleins and black wife beater and she still has everything on she did before. God, what’s wrong with me. Finally, my brain is working and I’m able to stop to remove her shirt. Progress. I feel her smiling against my lips, which tells me she knows. She fucking knows she’s dominating me right now. “Shut up.” I mutter against her lips. She pulls away, panting. Her lips are swollen and her hair is every which way. God, she’s perfect. She cocks her head to the side like a confused dog with an evil smile. “I didn’t say anything.” Shaking my head, I lean down to kiss her neck. She moans in contentment. When I pull away I smile. “Last one with clothes on is a rotten egg.” Karma immediately rolls us over, pins me down beneath her, and takes off my wife beater with a victorious smile on her face. To rub it in, she twirls it on her finger. “You little vixen.” She laughs as I grab my wifebeater from her and throw it to the ground. “Wanna play? We’ll play.” The redhead yelps in surprised as I roll us so she’s now under me. “No! I surrender!” She shouts. Pinning her hands above her head, I lean down to kiss her. While she’s distracted, I work her jeans down with my free hand. She helps me by kicking them off the rest of the way. Karma pulls away from me. “We’re tied.” She pants. “Not for long.” I say, reaching behind her and unclasping her bra. Just when I think I’ve won, I feel my bra slide down my arms. My jaw drops as I meet Karma’s eyes. She’s giving me a sly smile. “Smooth.” I say, sitting up to take it off and discard it with the rest, Karma shrugs. “It’s a gift.” Rolling my eyes, I lean down and graze my teeth against her nipple. I smile when I hear Karma inhale sharply. I look up at her and give the best Karma impression I could manage. “It’s a gift.” She laughs and shakes her head. Then she places two hands on my head, a signal for me to continue. Things get heated as I move down to her stomach and kiss my way down to her belly button. She shudders when I nip the birthmark on the right side, a signature move of mine only with her. “Aims, please.” I hear her say breathlessly. Who am I to deny? I hook her underwear with my fingers and slide them down. After I discard of it, I look Karma in the eyes. Even though it’s pretty obvious, I have to ask. Consent is the most important thing to me, even if all her clothes are off. “You sure?” She could roll her eyes. She could say “Well duh.” But instead, she understands. Karma nods with a smile. I position her legs over my shoulders and get to work. It’s like second nature by now. First I start slow. Circle her clit, move down. Circles, move down. Then I cut a straight line up back to her clit and repeat. She’s getting wet now. Her breathing has quickened. From the sound of her moaning, I can tell she’s getting worked up. Time to speed things up.

The first time the phone rings, Sophie ignores it.

OK, so she doesn’t actually ignore it. That would suggest she doesn’t pay any attention to it at all and that would be something of a… well…

A lie. It would be something of an outright, bald faced, not even Amy would try spinning that bit of bullshit, honest to God lie.

The phone is on the desk and the desk is across the room from her, from her bed, the same bed she’s been sprawled out on for hours, through her first two classes - skipped ‘em both - through a lunch meeting with her advisor (a woman in the Art department who she’s met once and who tried to advise her into, of all things, film) (she’s a fucking dance major), and now, through the ring ring ringing (cause still going) of her phone.

It’s the first time she’s heard it in days and she’d almost - almost - forgot the fucking thing could actually ring.

So, here she is, on her bed, alone, just staring at her ceiling and - ironically enough given who she is sure is on the other end of the line - remembering the time she innocently suggested to Amy that they put glow in the dark stars up there. An entire pack of them, or maybe even two, like an entire universe that would come to life just at night.

“It’d be like camping,” she said, and no, the whole lesbians and camping thing never crossed her mind, not even once. “Kinda. Except, you know, with beds instead of sleeping bags and indoor plumbing instead of bushes that make you itch in your… you know… bush… and, no s'mores and oooooh, can we have s'mores?”

Amy had laughed (and Sophie had smiled cause, not that she would have admitted it then and she sure as fuck wouldn’t cop to it now, she loves the sound of Amy’s laugh) (and yes, that is the correct tense) and thrown a pillow at her and told her, in no uncertain terms, that there would be no stars.

“No stars,” she said. Those were her exact words. “No stars, ever.” Those were her more exact words and when Sophie asked - innocently, again - if they needed to make that a rule, Amy had answered with a groan and another pillow bomb and boy, it was a good thing she always slept with like five of those, what with the number of them she was lobbing in Sophie’s direction.

“OK, OK,” Sophie said. No stars was fine, not a big deal at all. It had been just a thought, a spur of the moment kinda thing that sort of just popcorn-popped into her head (she really had junk food on the brain that night) and those were the sorts of things that tended to pop out just as fast, which is how Sophie’s always been able to tell when something really matters to her. It doesn’t pop off and away. It lingers.

Like Amy. Like Reagan. Like whether or not Jon Snow was really dead cause it wasn’t like she obsessed on that for months or anything and Amy still owed her five bucks since, in the end,Jon was, you know, dead, until the old woman who she totally shouldn’t think was hot (but come on) saved him and yes, she’s digressing here, but it’s her memory so, you know…

Fuck you.

So Amy never popped out (and yes, never does mean still, unfortunately) and neither did, or has, Reagan - even after she bailed on her and never came back - but the stars… yeah, they didn’t last all that long.

“No stars,” Sophie said, perfect agreeable. “But about the s'mores…”

Another pillow - the My Little Pony one (Rainbow Dash, natch) that she won for Amy at the 1st Weekend College Fair - landed on her with thud and an over dramatic 'oh, I’ve been slain!’ that set off a round of giggles from Amy’s bed that warmed areas of Sophie’s heart she hadn’t quite known were cold.

And the next evening, when Sophie got home from her two hour lab session for a class she was sure she didn't need and was even more sure she wasn’t going to pass?

There was a plate of melted just right, still warm, and ooooh… the marshmallow oozed out in perfect little globs when she took a bite… s'mores waiting on her desk.

That was the day when Sophie decided she loved Amy Raudenfeld. Totally, 100% platonic love, of course. Sophie’s not the type to fall in love with just anyone and she’s got more than enough smarts - lab grades, notwithstanding - to ever let that 'anyone’ be the person she lived with.

You don’t shit where you eat, that’s what her Nana always said.

Especially not where you eat s'mores.

At least, you know, not till she was older and actually living with someone and not just sharing a fairly small room - with no stars and far too many pillows - and no options for escape for like the next four years because, no way, no fucking how, was she gonna try and find a new roomie, not after all the work she’d done breaking Amy in and getting her just right.

So, no. No stars on the ceiling and no new roomies in the… room. And no, absolutely no falling in love.

But… s'mores.

So, yeah, there was no way she was falling in love with Amy, but she loves her. Sophie loves the fuck out of that girl and, even now, even as the phone rungs (for the first time) across the room and she knows damn well who it is (cause she’s right on time), Sophie can’t quite bring herself to change the ’s’ to an 'ed’ on the end of that, but she knows - oh, she knows - if she answers that phone?

The past tense is gonna crash headlong into the present and then there’s gonna be stars - and probably Amy seeing them, again - and there will be new roomies cause there’s just gotta be a college rule against living with someone you’ve punched out and there will be no more s'mores and that is just one more 'and’ than Sophie can take right about now.

So she ignores it.

She ignores it, after. As in after she tries - far too quickly - to leap from her bed to answer it and gets her feet tangled in the duvet and ends up doing a Captain America dive halfway across the room, her fingers just catching the edge of the desk as she lands, the phone teasing her with its little vibrating self (and she usually enjoys a little vibrating tease) as it scoots further on the desk and by the time she actually does reach it, she may as well have ignored it, so that is exactly what she does.

Cause it’s gone silent. Again. And all Sophie can do is flop back onto the floor and wonder.

Where are all the pillows now?

The second time the phone rings, Sophie tries for patience.

Cause, well, you saw how well hurrying worked for her.

Though, this time, she’s not on the bed and there’s no duvet to tangle her feet all up in and she could make it across the room safely (probably) (she is still her, after all) and scoop it up off the desk and answer it.

And she will. In, you know, a minute. Or, really, just less than.

Because that is how long it takes her phone to go to voicemail. Just under one minute. Exactly. She timed it once, one time when some girl whose name she didn’t quite remember (Sam) kept calling and calling and calling and oh, did she mention calling?

That girl, whose name she didn’t remember (Sam) (It was Sam, short for Samantha, and she had long brown hair, braided like halfway down her back and no, Sophie didn’t know anything, not anything at all about what it was like to use that braid like a steering wheel) had been, well, something of a… um…

“Rule twelve,” Amy said, not even looking over as the phone rang and rang and, really, she had to have mentioned rang. “So twelve.”

Rule #12: We will never call any girl a mistake, for they are all learning experiences in one way or another and we would not be the women we are without them. So, never a mistake. But, maybe, you know… a really really really poor fucking choice.

Sam short for Samantha should have been short for same as in same call, same time, every fucking day, always hanging up in exactly the same (see?) fifty-two seconds and that was just weird enough to drive Sophie batshit.

Or, you know, more batshit.

“Why? Why fifty-two seconds? Why fifty-two seconds every fucking time?”

They were on the floor, sprawled out on a pair of body pillows Amy had gleefully snagged from the college bookstore (on clearance) (such a good shopper) (Lauren would be proud), watching a movie Amy had been assigned to write a paper about for her CRW 111: Intro to Screenwriting course. It was something about time travel and Bruce Willis and that kid from Third Rock from the Sun who was so not a kid anymore - and if Sophie had ever entertained ideas about guys, Bruce and Mr. Not a Kid would’ve been #’s 1 and 2 on her list - so, either of those alone might have been enough to convince Sophie to watch.

But the female lead was Emily Blunt and that was enough to convince her to watch it twice and to take notes and to vow that if John Krasinski ever turned out to be a complete secret asshole (come on, you know he is) she would find a way to be the one to soothe and mend Emily’s poor broken heart.

(And any other hopefully not as broken and still fully functional and oh, dat ass doe, parts.)

“I’m not sure which scares me more,” Amy said, popping another bite of popcorn (extra butter) into her mouth. They’d had to pop a second bowl after Sophie had gotten a bit overwrought at the end of the movie the first time and cried a whole bunch of tears in it. “That every time she calls for fifty-three -”

“Fifty-two.”

“Right,” Amy said with a nod and her most perfect 'no, you not cray cray at all’ smile (you try being friends with Karma for like your whole life and see if you don’t have one of those). “For fifty-two seconds. Or that you know she does.”

Sophie ignored the smile (you try being her and not learn to do that) and sat up, pausing the movie and no, that had nothing to do with the camera lingering on Emily's… um… face, nope, nothing at all. “Call me,” she said, inspiration suddenly striking (thanks, Em.) “Right now, call me.”

For whatever reason (like, you know, maybe, it being way more entertaining than watching the movie again) Amy obliged and called and, wouldn’t you know, at fifty-three seconds exactly…

S'up. This is Sophie. You know what to do. Of course, if you really knew what to do, I probably would have answered, so maybe that ought to be a hint to work on your skills, um… unless this is Amy, in which case why the hell aren’t you just texting me, you know the rules -

Rule #18: Always text, never call.

Rule #19: If you have to ask why for Rule #18, then obviously, you’ve never had your phone ring at a most… inopportune time… and since we both know that isn’t true, Amy (see: Elsie) (see: Elsie while you were making out with her sorority sister) (see: Woot!).

And that was why fifty-two seconds, every time. Just long enough to be annoying (so, kinda like Sam-short-for-Samantha had been in real life), but not long enough to leave a real message, an actual recording, any verifiable proof that she’d been there.

So, again, kinda like her in real life.

But now, Sophie knows how long it takes - at least for her voicemail to pick up - cause when it comes to other things, complicated things, forgiving and wanting to talk to or, really, wanting to talk to and admitting it kinda things, she’s not so sure just yet.

Which is why she’s waiting.

That, and she doesn’t feel like getting any more bruises on account of Amy even though she’s pretty sure the small bump on her knee and the light grazes on her palms ain’t much of a thing compared to the shiner her roomie’s gotta still be sporting. But that, she thinks, is only fair.

Amy did her damage too. You just can't see hers.

Unless you count looking in the mirror and seeing the red circles under the eyes and the look like she hasn’t slept in like days and the way she visibly flinches every time she even thinks of Reagan or Amy or the phone rings and so, yeah, that’s why Sophie’s avoided the mirror since the moment she’s gotten back and why, again, she’s counting down the seconds in her head.

Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three.

At forty-five, she takes a step toward the desk. At forty-six, her hand comes out, reaching for the phone. At forty-seven, she sees it - her arm, her hand, her fingers starting to close over the tiny little thing in the tiny gold and blue (school colors) case - and at forty-eight, she starts to pull back.

She’s not ready.

What, exactly, she isn’t ready for, she’s not quite sure. She imagines there’s likely gonna be an apology cause, well, have you met Amy? And she imagines there will be tears, probably Amy’s, almost definitely hers. And those (the tears) she can deal with and that (the apology) she’ll kind of have to decide on and she’s OK with that too cause, really, what choice does she have? But then, after the apology and the tears and the other apology (cause Amy, again) and then more tears (cause them) and a whole lot of 'I don’t know’s and more than a few 'so… what do we do now’s and a whole mess of 'I never meant to’s and 'you know I would never want to hurt you’s, it’s still gonna be there, out there, the other thing.

And at forty-nine, she thinks of that other thing - it… she… has a name, but there’s that whole flinching thing, remember - and her hand tenses and Sophie legit doesn’t even know what to do cause if she answers, they’re gonna have to deal with that (her) and if she doesn’t answer, well, it isn’t like it (she) is just gonna fade away and disappear and neither of them will ever even so much as think of her again, right?

Again: have you met Amy?

Or Sophie?

So she’s damned if she does and she’s damned if she doesn’t and there’s no rule, not a single fucking one about what to do in this situation and now, like right now, like at fifty seconds on the damn nose, Sophie’s really wishing there was, she’s really regretting that they never came up with a rule for how to handle a situation like this and how to make the choice and like what you should base your decision on, cause something like that would totes come in handy right about now.

Something that might give her a clue, something like a lightbulb blinking its blinding way to life over her head to tell her what to do, something like… oh, she doesn’t know…

Something like s'mores.

Someday, she’s going to have to figure out why she thinks of that right then (and why she so often thinks of Amy and food, together) but for right now, all she’s really got is this.

Well… fuck.

Cause… yeah.

And at fifty-one seconds exactly, Sophie answers the phone, only to find that fifty-two seconds exactly?

Well, that's not at all what she expected.

The first time Sophie met Farrah was the second week of school when Amy insisted she come with her for a Saturday night dinner at the used to be Raudenfeld-Cooper residence which was now just back to being chez Raudenfeld and Sophie wondered, out loud, why Farrah had never gone back to her maiden name.

“I’m not entirely sure she remembers it,” Amy said on the car ride over and Sophie wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not - it had only been a couple weeks and yeah,,they had some of their rules already and kiss #1 was out of the way (Sophie didn’t think about that) (much) but she still didn't know Amy, like know know her - so she just laughed, politely, and then again, with just a bit less polite, after Amy rolled her eyes and joined in on it and then they were there and Sophie put her game face on.

She was going to be prim and proper. And so, you know, as much like the step-sister Amy had told her all about (though, usually leaving out the step) and as much not like the best friend Amy had also told her all about (though, it was what Amy didn’t say about Karma that told Sophie so much more) because she’d gotten the definite impression that, of the two, the not so step was far more popular with Farrah than best friend ever was.

She wasn’t wrong.

But what she was - also - was underestimating Farrah who, after two full years of watching Amy and Sabrina be together yet somehow apart at the same time, and then having to watch as her daughter slowly faded into the background of her own life (again) as first Shane and then after him, Lauren, and then, finally, even after it seemed like she never would, Karma left, which left Amy, well… alone… was already incredibly grateful for this girl who had brought a bounce back to her baby’s step and a smile back to her face and enough confidence that she - Amy - had actually been the one to suggest bringing Sophie for dinner.

And as… well… as Farrah as Farrah could be, she was, at heart, a good mother devoted to her daughter and only wanting the best for her and, if the last few years had taught her anything at all about Amy, it was that she had no earthly idea where or what or who that best was going to be, so whenever and wherever and whoever it popped up as?

Farrah wasn’t going to do anything to mess it up.

And so dinner went well, so well, in fact, that that first time Sophie met Farrah, she established a new rule, on the way back to the dorm with Amy.

Rule #13: Dinners at the Raudenfeld house will be held a minimum of twice a month on the condition that Farrah be allowed to cook said dinners a maximum of nonce a month.

Amy told Farrah about it the next day and - not surprisingly - she was totes agreeable.

And so the second and third and on and on through the ninth or tenth times Sophie met Farrah, all went swimmingly and all had fun and all had good eats - especially the night they convinced Farrah and a home on-break Lauren to go with them to noodle night and even they couldn’t help but notice Becky of the good, no great, no, fucking spectacular in those pants, ass - and Sophie found that she genuinely liked Amy’s mom.

(And no, she never spoke of that dream she had that one night and she never would.)

And, she found, that Amy’s mom seemed to genuinely like her and that was something of a first, cause Sophie’s friends moms - the ones she met - had never seemed too fond of her.

“It’s like they thought I was going to corrupt their daughters,” she said and nope, she didn’t miss the way Amy rolled her eyes at that. “Like I was going to take them all behind the bleachers and teach them all the finer points of pleasing a woman.” Sophie sighed, a sigh of the totes unjustly accused. “I only did that with the cute ones. Or the desperate ones. Or, you know, Rachel Ann Southworth cause, well, let’s face it. With a name like that and a family like that, she needed to come down… or, you know, go down, a peg or two.”

So, given that Farrah seemed less than even a little concerned about how Sophie might corrupt Amy - the opposite was true, if anything - really, if Sophie had thought about it - maybe once or twice in those fifty-one seconds, she might have been just a bit less surprised that it wasn't her roomie’s voice on the other end of the line, but that of her mother.

“Sophie? Is that you? It’s Farrah. Amy’s mom?”

Sophie wasn’t sure if the clarification was for her - cause maybe Farrah thought she knew (or knew) some other Farrah - or what, but she nodded anyway, before remembering that the older woman couldn’t actually see.

“I was hoping we could talk,” Farrah said, either assuming Sophie was nodding or, more likely, not really caring cause, you know, not the point. “About Amy. And you.”

There was a pause in there, just a small one, just enough of one, that Sophie couldn’t miss it. Amy. And you. Not 'Amy and you’, not like it would have been, you know, like three days ago. She didn’t know what Amy had told Farrah or what Farrah was just guessing about, but, again, not really the point. The point?

“Could you come by the house? Later this afternoon?”

Oh, there was the point.

“I promise,” Farrah said. “You won’t have to see her if you don’t want to.”

And there was the other point. The bigger point, the key point, the point of all points. The point Sophie didn’t know how to address cause she didn’t know if she didn’t want to or did want to or wanted to but just couldn’t and, in the end, it didn’t matter anyway.

Cause she went. Knowing or not knowing, Sophie went and that’s how she’s managed to find herself here, in the just-Raudenfeld driveway, leaning against the hood of Farrah’s car, staring up at the windows lining the second floor of the house. She can’t see Amy’s from the front and, maybe, she thinks, that’s better.

She’ll let you know. Once she actually decides.

So, you know, a week or two. A month. Tops.

Farrah’s sitting on the front steps, her legs crossed in a very lady like manner and that is how Sophie knows she means business. Farrah hasn’t gone lady like since that first night, not really, and she’s gone even less lady like since noodle night.

It’s hard to maintain professional parental distance once you’ve led a serious discussion on how chopsticks have good depth but not girth, after all.

So, now, faced not with friend Farrah but with mom Mrs. Raudenfeld, Sophie’s having a moment or two of reconsideration, a second or two of doubt as to whether coming here was such a good idea cause, really, the last thing she needs or wants is a motherly lecture.

Farrah interrupts her moment of doubt. “I’m just guessing,” she says, “but Amy fucked up, right?”

OK. So maybe less lecture. And less lady like. And 100% more she can see where Amy gets her sometimes unfortunate, sometimes needed, always on fucking point habit of being blunt.

“And, just another guess, but it probably had something to do with a girl,” Farrah continues, not giving Sophie a chance to interrupt or disagree - not that she would - and it’s almost enough to make her wonder what, exactly, Amy did say. “I hate to admit it,” Farrah says with a sigh, a sad tired, resigned bit of a thing. “But that was the one plus of her friendship with Karma. No jealous drama.”

There’s a moment, right then, a tiny one… and oh, fuck that, it’s like a distance from the Earth to the Sun of a moment… when Sophie wonders if Amy’s Princess Sarcasm routine came from her mother too. But the look on Farrah’s face tells her that, no, she is 100% serious.

And there’s just nothing to be done with that.

Farrah pats the step next to her and it takes Sophie a beat to figure out she’s asking her to sit. She scoots over, slowly (cause come on, this is a bit weird) but then settles onto the step and, you know, it’s actually… well… kinda nice. It’s odd, a bit, sitting here with Amy's mom, but it’s got a certain charm. It’s not really that weird -

“There was no… thruple going on though, right?”

And cue the weird. The out of nowhere, where in God’s name did Farrah learn that word and why in the blue fucking hell did she have to say it out loud weird.

Even if she isn't entirely off base cause there was something of a… thruple. Maybe it wasn’t a physical one and oh, now Sophie’s thinking about that and thanking God that they’re both sitting in the shade cause she’s pretty sure her cheeks can be seen from space now. But it was sort of a thruple kinda… mess, when you think about it.

And now she can't stop thinking about it.

“That was what I meant before,” Farrah says. She’s staring straight ahead and if Sophie didn’t know better - and she really doesn’t - she might think Farrah was blushing too. “About Karma and the jealousy. I mean, I know there was that one time with the two of them and that Booker boy…”

She trails off and that moment Sophie was having? The Earth to the Sun one?

Yeah. Earth to the next galaxy. Earth to non-Booker-boy-fucking Andromeda.

“I know Karma got jealous,” Farrah says and oh, how big is that shovel she’s digging this hole with? “Any fool with eyes could see that. Even when she pushed Amy and Sabrina together, and any fool with eyes could see that was… well… don’t get me started…”

Don’t get her started? Sophie’s far more concerned with making her stop.

Which, apparently, she hasn’t.

“Even when she arranged that whole big romantic scene and reunited them and then started up with Felix…” Farrah shakes her head and there’s this look on her face, like the look Sophie and Amy get when they’re watching their favorite shows and the writers do something just so damn stupid and yet, they keep watching cause, really, as stupid as it is, at least it’s still on the air. “I knew Karma hated it,” Farrah says. “She hated every second of every day Amy and Sabrina were together. It might have been the only thing she and I ever agreed on.”

There’s awkward and then there's this, but, hey, at least she isn’t saying 'thruple’ anymore, right?

“You never met Sabrina, did you?” Farrah asks and Sophie shakes her head. She’s met Lauren and Karma and she's heard Shane, on the phone - though she’s not sure she really need the phone to hear him - and she’s heard about Liam and she’s seen Felix’s Facebook friend requests.

The ones he sends weekly. Sometimes with a note. Sometimes not. Sometimes with a profile pic of him and Amy and no, that’s not weird at all.

“You didn’t miss much,” Farrah says and Sophie has to bite back a laugh. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, she was nice enough, once you got past the lying about being gay and all.” She shakes her head. “Not that Amy had any room to talk there. But Sabrina was just…”

Bland? Blah? Amy with a bit less existential angst? Not Karma?

“A knock off Reagan,” Farrah says. “That’s what she was. A knock off, not as stylish and not as cool and not as hot version of Reagan.”

Andromeda? Did Sophie say Andromeda? She meant Triangulum. So fucking Triangulum.

And no, don’t ask how she knows what the absolute fuck Triangulum is.

“Do you know about Reagan?” Farrah asks and if there was ever a question that was just too loaded… “I mean, I know you and Amy have your rules and all and, besides, I don’t think she ever talks about her. I don’t think she really ever did. Not even with Karma.”

This is that point where Sophie knows she should say nothing. This is that point where Sophie knows she should - really - get up and shake Farrah’s hand (cause it’s 1950) and thank her for the talk and then walk, not run (at least not until she’s out of sight) to the nearest bus stop and never, ever look back.

“Maybe that means Reagan didn’t mean that much to her.”

So, knowing and actually doing… yeah, different things.

Farrah nods, but it slows and then turns to a shake and yeah, no, Sophie didn’t really think so either. “As much as she talked about it and stressed about it and made everyone around her miserable about it,” she says, “Amy was never really worried she was going to actually lose Karma, not for good anyway. It would have taken more than the Jaws of Life to pry those two apart forever and Amy knew it. And I don’t think she much minded the idea of someday not really having Shane around. And, as for Felix…”

Request Denied.

“But Reagan…”

Sophie wonders how funny it would be if Farrah knew how many times she’d said those words to herself the last few days.

It could be so simple. Just forgive Amy and move on.

But Reagan…

Amy saw her first and no, there’s no rule about that, but there should be and you know it.

But Reagan…

Even if you never spoke to Amy again and dazzled Reagan every single night with your skillz, she’s never just gonna forget Amy and you’ll end up with a broken heart, a sore tongue, and no best friend.

But Reagan…

“But Reagan was different,” Farrah says and Sophie tries to catch up, hoping she didn’t miss too much while she was… um… thinking. “When they broke up…” She sighs, staring downward at the sidewalk, this look on her face that Sophie can’t quite place. It reminds her of the look that her mother got, right after she came out.

Loss.

“Amy shut down,” Farrah says. “For weeks. She curled into this cocoon and even Karma… I mean, she was there, right there with her, the whole time.” It’s the first time Sophie can recall hearing anything approaching warmth in Farrah’s voice when she talks about Karma. “But not even she could reach her. I always thought it was just first love, you know? That’s the hardest of all the heartbreaks to come back from.”

Sophie thinks, for a moment - an Earth to the Moon, at best, moment - about the pain in her own chest the last few days. And then she glances up at the window she can’t see and no, she isn’t overwhelmed by the urge to charge up the stairs and hug Amy until they both stop crying and they need to make a rule about the duration of hugs, a rule they will forever ignore.

She isn't overwhelmed and she doesn’t move.

But it’s close.

“So you don’t think that’s it now?” Sophie asks. “You don’t think it was just the whole first love thing? Wouldn’t that explain it though? Why Amy doesn’t talk about her, or share things about her or…”

Or keep pictures buried on her phone of her. Or sneak off to meet her. Or do things to and with and on her that Sophie doesn't want to imagine but does anyway.

Farrah shrugs. “It might, I suppose. But… I didn’t bring you here to talk about Reagan. I’m sorry, i just got… well…” She turns, pivoting on the step so she can look at Sophie and, for a second, Sophie’s worried there’s gonna be a punch involved and this time she’s gonna be on the wrong end. “I didn’t think of it until now,” Farrah says, “but this? It reminds me so much of Amy and Reagan.”

Sophie knows the feeling.

“I don’t know what happened with you two,” Farrah says and yes, her hand does move, but not to punch, but to hold. As in hold Sophie’s hand, which Farrah plucks from the younger girl’s lap and tugs into her own. “And I don’t know, really, who’s to blame. But I do know this.” She gives Sophie’s hand a squeeze and oh, that… it’s new. Someone doing that somewhere other than in bed. Someone doing that to reassure or to care or to show that she matters.

Someone doing that who isn’t Amy.

“I know I haven’t seen my daughter this lost in forever,” Farrah says. “And from the look on your face, she’s not alone in that.”

Sophie’s quite sure Amy’s not alone in it at all. But she’s quite sure they’re not alone in it, even together. And that’s kinda (more than kinda) the whole problem.

Farrah stands, smoothing out her skirt. “I’m going to be late for work if I don’t go, but I just hope whatever’s the problem, it’s something you two can work out.” She brushes a few stray strands of hair out of Sophie’s face, her eyes shifting slightly, as if she’s noticed the purple just now, for the first time and… maybe… something’s dawning on her about just how hard working it out might be. “I don’t think Amy will be quite the same without you.”

Farrah offers Sophie a ride back to campus and smiles when the used to be a blonde shakes her head and says 'no, thanks.’ She probably thinks Sophie’s going to go inside, gonna head up the stairs and down the hall and knock once - to be polite - and then it’ll be nothing but hugs and kisses (cheek only and purely of the non thruple variety) and apologies and then in the end, all will be right with the world.

And, maybe, if Sophie had more time, like maybe more than, say, the fifty-two seconds between the moment Farrah pulls out of the drive and the moment her phone stops buzzing, deep in her pocket, to think about it, maybe that's exactly how it would have gone.

Or maybe if she hadn’t glanced at the screen and seen Reagan’s smiling face staring up at her after fifty-two seconds.

So, yeah, Amy’s up there, alone and crying (probably) or asleep (more likely) and surrounded by empty doughnut boxes and she probably can’t bring herself to look in a mirror, for the pain and shame of that shiner. And Sophie’s not much better off and she knows it and she could, so very easily, walk up those stairs and make it all so much better.

But Reagan…

She catches the bus just in time and the ride back to campus takes all of twenty-two minutes, or, really, twenty-two minutes and thirty-eight seconds, to be exact. Sophie spends twenty of those minutes staring at her screen, at those three little words.

One Missed Call

And if she doesn’t call back, not right away at least? Well… that might have a little something to do with that nagging feeling growing inside her. The one that keeps poking at her and jabbing at her and reminding her.

Chapter 2

  As usual, I wake up before Karma. My first sight is her, on her side not facing me. For a while, I watch her, trying to remember how we got here. I roll onto my back and stare up at my ceiling. My mind wanders back to that night.

That night, September 5th

Why Karma wanted to drag me to this stupid party is beyond me. Liam, Lauren, and Shane were going too, but that hardly makes a difference. Whenever the five of us go to parties together, we all usually end up doing our own things and splitting off with different goals in mind. Liam and Shane’s goals are usually to hook up. Lauren usually looks for more ways to make herself more popular by socializing. Karma and I usually just stick together. If we start to get bored, we leave. But once in awhile, we’ll find different people to hook up with. On a good night, we both find someone to hook up with. 

The last time we went to a party like this, Karma found a good looking guy named Aiden. He never called her back. Somehow, I was able to find a nice girl as well, but didn’t follow through. The girl was so drunk, she could barely walk so I called her a cab instead. Her name was… Julie or Jules or something? My thoughts are interrupted by Karma lightly touching my shoulder. “I’ll be right back.” And she leaves my side. Usually, that’s code for ‘I’ve got my eye on someone, I’m going in for the kill.’ Most likely, she will not ‘be right back.’ A half an hour goes by and I start to assume my theory is right. I make my way to the kitchen where Liam is inhabiting. He’s surrounded by three girls who are giggling uncontrollably at something he said. When I enter, he points at me. “Hey, let me make you a drink.” Shrugging, I take a seat on the stool across from where he’s standing. “You like old fashioned?” He asks as he gets a glass out of the cabinet. “Definitely.” I say, watching him as he takes out a bottle of whiskey. When he’s done, he pushes the glass toward me, to which I gladly lift to my lips. At the taste, I grimace. “Damn, that’s strong.” “That is a Manhattan.” Liam smiles as he leans forward on the kitchen island. “I know you have a high tolerance, but I doubt it can keep up with that beauty.” He nods toward the glass in my hand.

“Great.” I chuckle, already feeling a little dizzy. “I’ll catch up with you later.” “Ok. If you need anything, I’ll be here.” Liam says, “Let me know if you need a ride. I saw Karma with a dude.” “Course you did.” I mutter as I take another sip while walking away. It was only a matter of time before I had to use the bathroom, so I went upstairs in search of one. I went to the first door to the right and stumbled into a bedroom. Two people were making out on the bed. They jumped apart at the sound of my entrance. “Oh my god, sorry I-” Then I realize it’s Karma and the random guy she probably was planning on hooking up with. They’re both roughed up and messy from the make out session. The guy is staring at me as if annoyed by my disruption. Karma, on the other hand, refused to meet my eyes. “-was looking for a bathroom.” I finish, clearing my throat awkwardly.

“There’s a bathroom right over there you can use.” Karma says, still not able to look at me. And sure enough, there’s a bathroom connected to this room, which must be the master bedroom. “Thanks.” I say. Awkwardly, I move past the guy to go to the bathroom.

When I come out, Karma’s alone on the bed. The guy is nowhere to be seen and she’s laying on her back, staring at the ceiling. 

She turns her head to me and smiles slightly. “Where’d your hookup go?” I ask, placing myself on the edge of the bed next to her. “Probably still sulking that you killed his boner.” The redhead replies casually. On the other hand, my eyes widen. “Sorry, Karms. I didn’t mean to-” “Don’t bother.” Karma says, turning onto her side to face me, “I told him if his penis is that easy to turn off, I don’t want it.” I can’t help but laugh at that. “Wow. So not ‘the one’, huh?” Karma scoffs and sits up. “I hope I never find ‘the one’ at a party.” “Me neither.” I chuckle. Then I turn my head to look at Karma and I realize how close we are in proximity.

What happens next is inevitable. Her lips meet mine and it’s like second nature. It’s magnetic and automatic. It’s as if right when we kissed, the entire world exhaled and said the word ‘finally,’ which was also the word running through my head over and over again.

I push her away gently when the sober part of me asks ‘what the fuck are you doing, Amy?’

“We’re drunk.” I state. Though, on my part, I’m not that drunk. Karma shakes her head as she catches her breath. “It’s ok,” She pants, “It doesn’t have to mean anything.” She snakes her arms around my neck and kisses me once more. And once more, I’m drawn in. That night was definitely not our first time, but somehow, it felt like it was.

But the next morning, we didn’t hold hands. We didn’t cuddle and revel in our newfound love. When we woke up, we rushed to get changed. We said bye to each other and went separate ways. Since then, we’ve had regular hook ups and remained best friends. The problem was our group of friends knew. They know. Lately, they’ve been giving us a really hard time about it. They don’t get how we’re able to pass this off as no strings attached. Karma and I have been hooking up with other people with no strings attached for months. Since we’ve been hooking up with each other, we haven’t been with other people. With each other, it’s easier. We get the memo without saying it. Get in, get out. That’s it. No attachments. Nothing. The sound of Karma stirring brings me back to the present. Turning to face her, I watch as she stretches and turns to face me. She gives me a small smile that gives me butterflies. “Hey.” She says.

  “Hey.” I reply. We don’t usually stay in the morning. One of us usually gets up. But it feels good to have this moment, even if it has to be broken soon. Karma surprises me once more and closes the space between us to place her lips against my bare shoulder. It’s barely a touch, but it stirs so many feelings. Feelings I’m not supposed to have. Then as quickly as it happened, Karma pulls away and sits up. “I should get going.” “Yeah.” I say, getting up as well to go to the bathroom. When I come out, I’m surprised Karma is still in my room. Fully dressed, but still present. I raise an eyebrow. “Hey, stranger.” Karma smiles at the greeting. “Can I use your bathroom? Sorry, I just really need to brush my teeth. Do you still keep my spare underneath the sink?” “Yup.” I tell her as I plop on my bed and grab my phone. I hear the faucet running when I open the first text I missed from Liam.

  Hey, where the fuck are you and Karm? We thought you two were going to come to winter formal last night??? Call me.

Can’t blame him for being worried. He’s being a good friend. But a part of me is pretty sure he knows very well where we were and is fully aware what we were doing. He’s just asking for confirmation. I text him back, hey im not going to call, karms is in my bathroom. Just gonna say we found better things to do.

  Right when I hit send, my bathroom door opens and Karma exits. “Thanks, aims. See you at school later?” “See you.” I reply, shooting her a smile as she leaves my room. Not even a second after she leaves, my phone vibrates. Liam replied, i see… see u in a few hours?

  I type yea and hit send before getting up to get ready for school.

-

Chapter 1

“This is so dumb.” I complain as Karma sits on my bed, typing away at my laptop. She’s wearing nothing but my button up shirt I was wearing a few hours ago and her underwear. Part of me is telling me to stride across the room and kiss her, but my self control wins out.  Karma just smiles as she focuses on what she’s doing without even sparing me a glance. Typical.  Finally, she looks up at me. “Can you grab it downstairs? I just printed it on your wireless printer.”  When I don’t move, the beautiful redhead rolls her eyes, reaches behind her, and throws a pillow right at my head. The dork then throws her arms up in celebration, “YES! HEADSHOT!” It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Fine.” I groan as I go downstairs, praying I won’t run into Lauren. I’m wearing just as less as Karma and I don’t want to give my devil of a step sister any more reason to tease us about our…. situation. 

Quickly, I grab the paper from the printer and make a dash for the stairs and make the sharp turn to my room. Without a greeting, I toss the paper to Karma when I get in.  She clumsily catches it and cocks her head at me. “Where’s the fire, flash?”  I ignore her and swiftly close my door, which makes Karma chuckle, “I don’t want Lauren to see me. She’s the reason you’re doing this in the first place, remember?”  “And Liam.” Karma adds, “And Shane.”  “Right.” I agree, plopping down beside her on the bed. “So… what’s your idea?”  Karma tears the paper in half and gives one to me. When I get it in my hands, I read the square box that’s similar to the half Karma has. 

Karma & Amy’s Punch Card  Around the bold title are six little circles, three on top and three underneath the title.  “What the fuck is this?” I question, turning it sideways and upside down as if looking for a secret message.  Karma laughs and touches my arm to stop my movements. “This is to prove them wrong.”

“How is a punch card going to prove them wrong? Aren’t punch cards used to get more things at stores?”

“Yeah… But in this case, when all our holes are punched we have to stop.”  At first, I’m about to ask ‘stop what?’ but then it comes to me and the world stops. Stop having sex with Karma?  “Um….”  Karma looks at me with furrowed eyebrows. “It’s the only way, aims. The others think it’s more than it is. Just the other day, Shane asked me how my girlfriend was doing.” The redhaired girl sits up and runs her hands through her hair frustratingly.

Reagan thinks it, but she doesn't say it and yes, she does realize that pretty much covers most of the reasons for most of the trouble for most of the last few years of her life.

(So many mosts.) (Too many.)

But, really, she just can’t bring herself to say it, even though the words are right there, dancing on the tip of her tongue, and yes, before you even ask, she does know that things dancing on her tongue or, maybe, her tongue dancing on things, is pretty much all the reasons for all the troubles for all the last few years of her life.

(Maybe most was better.)

So Reagan thinks it - thanks for coming, I wasn’t sure you would - but she doesn’t say it, cause, when it comes right down to it, meeting your ex in a diner, in the middle of the night, just to talk about your other ex (the one this ex hates) (and you can’t blame her?) is lousy enough already, without adding in crappy, cliched rom-com dialogue, especially when said diner is the very same diner where you and that ex (the one you are meeting, not the one you wish you were) had your first date.

And thinking that makes Reagan think this: She’s living in a fucking country song.

And also this: Amy would love this place. Killer doughnuts.

And also also this:

She fucking sucks.

(Which ‘she’? Take your fucking pick.)

All of that is weighing on her, physically pressing down on her, it’s a clammy hand of the undead (the nasty zombie kind and not the supa hot, she can put her hand wherever she wants Carmilla kind) on the back of her neck, holding her head down so she can’t even look up as Heather slips into the booth across from her. But then, Reagan doesn’t have to actually see her to make it all so much worse.

Just knowing she’s there, that she drove out in the middle of the night, leaving what’s her name (like Reagan doesn't remember) alone at home, probably in bed, their bed - as in Reagan’s and Heather’s cause she got the bed in the split and that’s always sorta pissed Rea off cause it was a nice fucking bed - but, she supposes, it’s probably some kind of poetic justice or karma (ugh) or some shit like that cause Heather might have gotten the bed (and their friends) (and the fluffy towels) (and Reagan’s copy of Paul’s Boutique on vinyl), but Reagan got here, she got the diner with those killer doughnuts and the awesome milkshakes and that one really hot waitress with the extremely nice ass.

So, it's fine. It's all good. It’s totally fair and that’s her story and she’s totes sticking to it, right up until…

“I didn’t know you still came here.”

Reagan sighs the sigh of the truly defeated cause that’s what she is, that’s what she's been ever since the word 'college’ came out of Amy’s mouth years ago and she’s just so tired of fighting it and losing. Cause that’s what this is, a loss. That’s what getting caught in a lie (even if said lie was only in her head) by her ex, the one she called because there was no one else she could, is and, to make matters worse (cause that’s what she does), Reagan’s realizing now, she’s doing the mental math and - if you include the ten or so words over the phone and those seven - this is the longest conversation she and Heather have had in years.

And yes, that might actually include when they were together, at least the last six months or so.

She’s supposed to follow up the sigh with an actual, you know, answer. She remembers the polite polka well enough, the two step around the awkward, the tentative toe stuck in the pool before they dive in. Reagan knows she’s supposed to say something, she’s supposed to show Heather that it’s safe and it’s sound and it’s all… well… not good, but a step or two (two and a half, maybe) up from bad. She knows she should, but she doesn’t remember how.

Maybe, she thinks, that’s why she and Amy skipped the talking and went straight to the fucking.

Yup. That’s why.

Somehow, she doesn’t think 'straight to the fucking’ will work with Heather, but then, neither will the truth. A polite 'sometimes’ might swing, but honesty? The 'I don’t come here and I haven’t come here once since you and the cheating whore… the other cheating whore… up and left and took my everything with you’ truth?

Yeah, that doesn’t exactly scream 'the water’s fine, come on in’.

So, the truth is out and the polite lie is just one lie too many so that only leaves… “Why did you answer? When I called. I didn’t think you would.”

(Changing the subject.) (Good plan.) (Changing it to something else might have been better.)

Heather nods and fidgets with her menu, her fingers scratching over the cheap laminated pages like Reagan working a needle on vinyl. It’s a small, simple gesture, a habit she had long before they were even a couple and - clearly - long after. But small or not, what it is is familiar, so much so that it almost physically hurts. It’s a sharp thing, that pain, a razored knife tip slicing between her shoulder blades and Reagan recognizes it instantly, knows it well, she can call it by name.

It’s the quick and burning rush of almost.

That’s almost as in this was almost her life. Her and Heather and their diner and sitting across from each other, barely speaking, their few actual words nothing more than shallow lies cause neither of them wants to be the one to drop the hammer of truth and shatter the glass. That’s almost as in they almost made it and even if Reagan knows that actually making it might not have been best (see: barely speaking and truth hammers) that somehow doesn’t make it hurt any less.

She can’t help wondering if Heather feels it too, if every time she looks at her, she thinks 'I was almost enough.’ For her sake, Reagan hopes not. And, maybe, a little for her own sake, too.

You know, guilt and all.

She’s had quite enough of that, lately.

So why did she answer? Why did Heather pick up when she had every reason - almost all of them being the woman sleeping right next to her - not to?

“I almost didn’t,” she says, her eyes darting quickly from the menu to Reagan and then back again. Her fingers are still shuffling across it and it’s all Reagan can do not to reach out and take Heather’s hand in her own, if only to stop the movement. “You remember how I could never keep my phone on my side of the bed?”

Reagan nods. They’d learned that lesson early on when Heather had snoozed her alarm six times and ended up two hours late for work.

(And if only one of those hours was because of the snoozing and the other was more… awake related?) (Yeah, Reagan’s not thinking about that.)

“She saw it first,” Heather says and Reagan doesn’t ask who she is cause, well, duh. “Your name on the caller ID. She almost wouldn’t give me the phone, said it was probably a drunk dial.” She stares down at the menu, her hands stilling on the table. “I knew better.”

Heather says 'better’ but Reagan hears 'you’ and yeah, either one would be true.

“There’s only two reasons you would have called me,” Heather says, her tone oh so matter of fact, so totally certain. “Only two things that could have upset you so much that I was the best port in the storm.” She slides the menu out from under her hands, folding them together on the table. “One’s your mom. But the anniversary was three months ago and you always do mostly OK, except for right before and right after, so I figured that wasn’t it.”

Reagan is so very very proud of herself that she doesn’t react, not in the slightest, to the sudden realization that yeah, Heather does still know her. But when she doesn’t correct her, when she doesn’t say 'oh, it was about my mom’, Reagan hears Heather react, she hears her sigh, feels her pull back, sinking down into the booth and she knows the next words, before they’re even spoken.

“It’s Amy, isn’t it?”

Isn’t it? Isn’t it always?

“It’s funny,” Heather says, though she’s not laughing. “Those are almost the words you said. To her, remember? That day she came knocking on our door?”

It’s Karma, isn’t it?

Heather shuffles back, squaring herself against the seat, tugging one leg up against her chest, almost like a shield. “I think I knew, even then. When I saw you two… anyone could see how much she wanted you.”

“She wanted someone who wasn’t Karma,” Reagan says, the speed and force of the words rushing out of her surprising even her. “I was just the best option.”

Best. Only. One most likely to say yes who wasn’t headed off to rehab. Take your pick. Again.

Heather doesn’t buy it and Reagan knows it, but who or what Amy wanted then, is so far far far removed from the point now, that’s it not worth an argument. “I knew it had to be her,” Heather says. “Didn’t know the details or the specifics… who did what with whom or to whom or, you know, whatever… but I didn't have to. It was Amy. And you. And that was enough.”

If only. If only Amy and her had ever been… enough.

“You want to tell me what happened?”

In a word? No.

In another word? Nope. Or perhaps 'nuh uh’ (technically two, but who’s counting.) No matter what word - or words - you choose, it all boils down to the same thing. Reagan doesn't want to tell her. In fact, Heather might be the last person Reagan would ever want to tell, but she is still the person she called and whether that was a moment of weakness, a moment of drunkenness, or just the biggest brain fart in the history of brains passing gas, it’s still a fact.

And the other facts? Well… they probably won’t surprise Heather too much.

“I hurt her,” Reagan says. She’s proud of herself (again) for not speaking softly, for not trying to mumble her way through the litany of her sins. She fucked up, but she’s not gonna go and compound the fuck up - any more than she already has - by being quiet about it. She’s gonna own it. For once. “And I slept with her. And that hurt someone else. Maybe even worse.”

She pauses for a moment. Shakes her head.

Fucking own it.

“Not maybe,” she says. “Worse.” She pauses again, letting herself really think about it, maybe for the first time. Considering the damage done and not just to her or to Amy or to her and Amy, or whatever chances that ever had. But to Sophie.

To Sophie and Amy. You know, the actual relationship here.

Fuck. Just… fuck.

It all comes in a rush, a flood, a wave that swamps her and damn near drowns her and Reagan swears she can feel the water rising, up over her boots and to her knees, her legs gone heavy, like lead, weighing her down, trapping her in place. It’s not guilt or at least it’s not just guilt, not by itself cause, well, that would be simple, right? And this?

This is anything but simple. Or so she keeps telling herself. But, really, isn’t it? Isn’t it as simple as… a bouncing fucking ball?

Cause there it is, bounding along in her mind and Reagan can’t help following it, watching in her mind’s eye as it goes bouncing down the road, a poorly lit and pot-holed all to hell thing, but that ball, it just keeps right on going, skipping past that one day with Amy - far far too fast, if you ask Reagan, but then, nobody does - and then past that night with Sophie and now, she thinks, a bit more of that speed would be kinda nice.

Careful what you wish for. Cause now it’s practically leaping along, almost flying its way through all those nights with Heather, which at least keeps Reagan from having time enough to debate the 'with’ of it all - cause let’s face it, she was never really there - and then it slows, it lingers, it rolls on through those couple months, that teeny (in the grand scheme of things) speck of time that was her trying over and over and over again, in all the wrong places and with all the even wronger faces, to convince herself that ending it, breaking it off - dumping Amy - was the right thing to do.

And there it is again. That almost. Cause, even now, Reagan only almost believes it. ’

“It’s all my fault,” she says, her voice still strong and loud and maybe someday she’ll be proud of herself for that, but someday is so not today. “Everything. You. Me. Amy and Sophie and… it’s all on me.” She can see it now, so fucking clearly. Every step of the way, every easy choice she had and every wrong choice she made.

Including this one.

Reagan shakes her head and scrambles from the booth, cracking her knee against the tabletop and her shin on the edge of the booth, neither slowing her, not in the slightest. “I shouldn’t have called you,” she says and the fact that she can’t manage to look Heather in the eye is more than evidence for her to know she's right. “I shouldn’t have… well… a lot. But I can’t change that, I can’t undo what I already did or didn’t do. All I can do now…”

Is what she does.

Run.

It might not seem it, but Reagan knows she learned a lot from Amy.

For example, she learned that she is, sometimes, a bit… judgemental. And, just maybe, her expectations are a little out of whack. And, perhaps, she doesn’t trust as much or as easily as she should.

She didn’t say she learned anything good. Or anything that she actually, you know, might have done anything about.

But, as is quite fucking clear now, one thing she didn’t learn from Amy, like at all?

How to run.

Heather catches up to her by her truck and, in this case, 'catches up’ totally means gets there at just about the same time, maybe like three steps behind, which is only enough time for Reagan to slam her fist into the truck’s door the one time before Heather is right there, catching her wrist in her hand.

“I don’t think getting in a fistfight with Lightning is going to solve anything,” she says - almost whispers, almost right in Reagan’s ear - holding fast to the other woman’s arm. “And haven’t you punished her enough with that name?”

Reagan can feel the wait in the air, the expectation of the snarky comeback or the reminder that Lightning is a boy (she’s a lesbian, not a charter member of the 'All Men Suck Brigade’), the hope that floats along on Heather’s words that - maybe - there’s still just a shred of normal left between them.

There’s not.

Reagan pulls her hand free and turns away, pressing her back up hard against the truck, arms crossed over her chest and, if Heather didn’t know better, she might actually think Reagan was trying to get away. But she does. Know better, that is.

Rea not getting in the truck and speeding off into the night is kind of a good clue.

Heather leans her back against Lightning’s door, shoving her hands in her pockets just to avoid copying Reagan’s stance entirely. She’s not sure what to say - though not for lack of things she wants to say - and so they stand there in silence for a few moments, until those moments, they stretch to minutes and then those minutes stretch to minutes and she figures she ought to say something before they end up standing there watching the fucking sun rise.

“I always wished it was me,” she says. “I wished it was me that you loved like you love her.”

She hears the long slow shudder of breath that slips from Reagan and OK, maybe she ought to have said something else.

But, in for a penny, in for a may as well get all the shit off your chest, right?

“I remember so many nights,” Heather says, her eyes glued to the few stars twinkling above the diner’s roof. “It would be the dead of the night and you’d be sleeping so soundly, wrapped in my arms and I’d think to myself that maybe, just maybe… I really was the one. That maybe we had what you'd thought you had with her.”

Reagan would like to tell her that she thought the same.

There’s been enough lies lately though, don’t you think?

Heather lets her eyes fall, unable to stand the glow of life, so very far away, anymore. “And then you’d shift and you’d breathe and you'd…” She stares at the ground, scuffing her shoe against the gravel of the lot. “And you’d murmur her name.”

When she was little, Reagan’s mother read her stories every night before bed. Tales full of true happiness and true love and lives fulfilled. Princesses blessed with true love’s kisses - and she should have known when every one of them had to have a fucking prince - but in this moment, right here and right now? Reagan does know.

Fucking fairy tales, that’s all those were. Fucking fiction. And real life? It isn’t even close.

Not even almost.

“I used to hate you for that,” Heather says and Reagan can’t blame her, not even a little. “And I used to hate Amy even more. I couldn’t understand how I couldn’t be enough for you, why you couldn’t just be happy with me.”

“I should have been,” Reagan says, and this time it is a whisper and yeah, that’s probably got a lot to do with it also being a lie.

Heather turns, leaning her shoulder against the truck, her eyes flaming bright in the dark. “You couldn’t have been, Rea. You could have tried… you did try… but it was never, ever going to work. It couldn’t. Because I’m not her.”

“She’s not -”

“She is.” Heather cuts her off and even now, Reagan recognizes that tone. “She is and she always has been. She always will be.” She turns again, facing Lightning, her head resting against the cool glass of his window. “Do you remember how Jessie was such a morning person?”

Reagan nods. Morning person didn’t really cut it. Ass crack of dawn person was more like it. She used to wake them all up, every fucking day, clanking and clanging around in the kitchen and yeah, they got quite a few awesome breakfasts out of it but more sleep always outweighs pancakes.

OK. Maybe not always. But usually.

“The first time we slept together,” Heather says, “that’s when I knew.” She knows it’s probably bad form to talk to the woman you cheated on about the woman you cheated with, but she also knows that Reagan called her about Amy, so fuck form. “Not slept together slept together, but really slept. I already knew I was falling, I knew what I felt for her was… I knew it would be the end of you and me. But that night… that morning… that was when I knew.”

Reagan doesn’t ask 'knew what?’ but she doesn’t get into the truck and leave either and so that’s as good as asking.

“I woke up in the morning and there’s that moment, you know? Those four seconds between waking and your brain actually kicking in?” She doesn’t wait for Reagan to nod, cause, really, everyone knows those four seconds. “When I woke, she was gone and four seconds later, I knew she was just in the kitchen and she’d probably come back with something yummy, but for those four seconds…”

Seconds. Reagan knows from experience - from far too many mornings waking up alone even when someone was right next to her - that those seconds? They’re a fucking eternity.

“I thought she’d left me,” Heather says and Reagan just can’t miss - no matter how much she tries - the pain in her voice at just the thought. “I thought she’d realized that you were right and I wasn’t worth it or she’d suddenly remembered her religion or… I don’t know… maybe I snored.”

It doesn’t take four seconds - only about one and a half - for Reagan to come to the conclusion that mentioning that yes, Heather does, in fact, snore (like a motherfucking Abrams tank) is not the best choice right now.

Heather runs a hand along the glass of the window, tracing the foggy pattern of her breath. “I got it then,” she says. “I got you. When my heart started beating again and I could breathe, it hit me.” She turns, letting that hand drop onto Reagan’s arm, and old familiar touch. “Those four seconds were the most painful thing I had ever felt. I know that sounds… I don’t know, a bit stupid, maybe. But that fear… that panic… it lingered and even when I knew it was ridiculous, it still sat there, like a weight on my chest.”

Reagan glances at her hand, but doesn’t move it or move away. “And that explained me, how?”

A horn blares in the distance and Heather jumps - almost like she’s afraid of getting caught or something - and Reagan wonders just for a moment, how Jessie felt about her coming here, in the middle of the night, for her.

She hopes it hurt. At least a little.

“I jumped her as soon as she came back in the room,” Heather says. “I had to. I needed her that much, needed that fear and that pain to just… stop. And it did. Because she was there.”

Anvil. Meet head.

“It never could have been me, Reagan. Not for you,” Heather says. “And never you for me, either, as it turns out. But I understood you then, I got it, I got why you couldn’t just let it… let her go. I felt all that for four seconds.” Her hand squeezes Reagan’s arm and it’s meant to be comforting. Really it is. “You felt it… you feel it… every minute of every day.”

Every day without Amy.

Reagan pulls her arm away and this time, she knows how to run. She tugs open the passenger side door (driver’s side tends to stick) and climbs into Lightning, pausing only when she feels Heather’s hand capture her wrist once more.

“I know what you think, Rea. I know you think you did this. All of it.” Her hand slides down, her fingers slipping between Reagan’s. “And you’re not… entirely wrong. But just because it’s gone this way, that doesn’t mean it has to end this way.” She might be right, maybe, except Reagan’s pretty sure it already ended and maybe not this way but with a ringing phone and a flying punch and with - yet again - Amy running.

And even if she didn’t do that, she didn't stop it - she couldn’t stop it - either.

Heather doesn’t seem quite so sure. “You don’t have to end up alone in a diner or running off to find some cheap meaningless whatever in a bar. Or even trying too hard with some wonderful girl who maybe, might have, possibly could have been the one.” She pauses, ever the drama queen. “If you didn’t already have a one.”

Reagan’s hand pulls free and she slides over behind the wheel. “I don't have a one, remember? Amy ran. Again.” She leaves off the 'because of me, again’ cause she really doesn’t feel like crying again tonight. “That’s what she does. Every time.”

She swings the door shut - almost - but then Heather is there, half in and half out, leaning in across Lightning’s seat. “You’re right. She does. And every time? You let her.”

Her foot’s on the brake, her hand on the key, and Reagan freezes in place. “I what?”

Heather slips back, sliding from the truck. Reagan can hear her feet hit the ground, a solid thud against the pavement. “You let her. Maybe you think you should or maybe you think it’s what you deserve. Maybe you think it’s what you get for being so quick to push her away the first time. I don’t know.”

She doesn’t. But she suspects Reagan might.

Her hand grips the door and for just a moment, Heather looks at it, at her fingers clutching tight to the metal. She’s going to close it. She’s going to slam it shut and she’s going to walk away and Reagan’s going to peel on out of there and she knows - when that happens - well… then this won’t be happening again. And that's… well…

It’s almost too much for her.

But not quite.

“Maybe it was someone suggesting she wasn’t gay enough,” Heather says, closing the door just a bit. “Or maybe it was her own confusion or her feelings for that Karma girl.” She leans on the door, feeling it slipping past her. “Or maybe it was just… fear. The fear that someone else she loved wouldn’t see her as enough. Again.”

She’s talking about Amy. She swears she is.