desire be, desire go

How Jamie started developing a pack was unbeknownst to anyone who didn’t pay attention. The dumpster table that no one wanted at the beginning of the school year started to grow and mutate into something of a place marker for all the unwanted and unknown things at school. Weirdos, freaks, losers, girls who were having trouble thriving in the shadows of their narcissistic BFFs, Jamie appeared to have shunned no one but those who contributed to the school’s poisonous ecosystem that pushed them to the bottom of the food chain in the first place.

Eden was their newest little friend. She didn’t love murder and was proving herself to be the straightman of the flock but what she lacked in enthusiasm for autopsies, she made up in spite. Particularly towards one person that Jamie didn’t mind helping her punch the point home if it meant it’d encourage Penny to give up the relentless pursuit of his GPA. 

That afternoon, Jamie arrived at the table a little later than usual after getting caught up in a debate that ran over the bell. He hadn’t anticipated the table to be empty, much less the disappointment that came with having to listen to himself eat without Edwina sobbing next to him or Emma loudly ignoring him. Jamie focused on shoveling meatloaf in his mouth, hoping to get the ritual over with faster so he could retreat and find one of them to act like they didn’t notice him coming into the room.

He should’ve anticipated that being alone would’ve left him at the mercy of vultures but Jamie’s mind was more or less occupied with trying to clog his arteries before graduation than the shadow hovering over the table like a rain cloud that wanted him to give it thunder.

Jamie’s eyes flicked upwards when blonde hair bobbed too close to his pile of meatloaf. “My thoughts cost a lot more than a penny. What do you want?”

@pennyoneill​

The past week had been filled with more rewatches of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants duology than Penny would ever be comfortable admitting to. It was stupid, she decided. It was stupid that something so menial and common as getting into a fight with a friend would render her into some sentimental idiot who—what? Moped? Penny didn’t mope. Moping was a waste of time and energy; it didn’t accomplish anything and it wasn’t cute.

Being petty, on the other hand, seemed to take the exact right amount of energy she was willing to give out to extraneous emotions. She archived every photo that featured Eden on her Instagram, at least giving the appearance she had deleted them but with the possibility of undoing the action given that Eden came to her senses and apologized for her outburst. She very pointedly avoided eye contact in the hallways. She abandoned her usual seat by Eden’s side during Speech and Debate. Penny always made a big show of her disappointments, never knowing how else to make them noticeable enough to garner attention, and it seemed the blow up with Eden was no exception.

What she honestly hadn’t expected was Eden finding her footing so fast. Penny had at least hoped for some kind of mourning period from her, but it only took a few days for Penny to walk into the dining hall and witness her sitting at a new table with a new group of people. She was hesitant to call them friends because Penny was appalled to note that Jamie was one in the company, which was double-insulting, morally questionable, and more than a little nauseating. In what she thought was a great show of self restraint, it took her forty-eight whole hours before she addressed the matter, but it was less a carefully crafted plan and more of an impulsive move once she saw Jamie deep throating his lunch on his own. Boxed salad in hand, Penny’s lip curled.

“Okay, um—one, try again. You sound like you’re regurgitating one of those lame ‘101 jokes’ books,” Penny started, as though she hadn’t spent a good chunk of her time in middle school with an Instagram handle that played on that very saying. “And two, I want you to tell me what exactly it is that you’re trying to accomplish by tricking Eden into joining your little island of misfit toys.”

The comment punctured her like a bullet and Penny should have known better. At the declaration of not being her mother, Eden’s chin jutted downwards a bit, her jaw going slack in disappointment because, in an instant, her heart felt heavy. Well, it was too late for anybody to be her mother now anyway. She’d survived eleven years without maternal guidance, she didn’t need Penny overexerting herself on the matter, or God forbid, going out of her way that was for sure and everything about Eden’s dejected expression said as much. “I am not obsessed with you.” She scoffed incredulously, thinking that sounded even more ridiculous coming defensively from her own mouth as it was coming from Penny’s. Of course, she’d think that. Of course, she’d look at every stolen glance and devoted Instagram like as some kind of idolizing declaration. Eden did those things out of support! Because that’s what friends did! Not because she was obsessed or in love with her or anything.

Again, Penny’s words hit her like a freight train. Good, she didn’t want to be her mother and she resented being her only friend, great that felt… That felt really great to hear, Eden was glad they were at least being honest. After all, Penny knew how much Eden hated playing games. Feeling salt in the back of her throat, Eden felt her composure come undone. If the inability to control your emotions was a side effect of being buzzed, well, she didn’t want it. Looking down, she also grabbed her bag, the two making very public gestures that whatever was going on between them was very close to being over.

“Okay. Well,” She said quietly, in barely over a whisper as she put the strap over her shoulder. She felt stupid for starting to cry but it wasn’t often someone close to her that wasn’t her dad hurt her feelings. That, she was used to. This, she didn’t know how to keep it together, there was no textbook equation to follow. “If this is how best friends treat each other, then count me out,” She announced, sniffing and wiping at her face to try and keep it the hell together for two more minutes until either one of them was out of here. “Because I’m done being your wild-child experiment.”

It didn’t often take much for Penny to articulate her feelings on a matter, whether they were positive or negative—in fact, it took more conscious decision-making for her to rein herself in. And there was so much she wanted to say to Eden. She wanted to say that Eden was her first best friend. She wanted to say that Eden was the only person Penny felt genuinely comfortable with, like she didn’t have to try so hard. Eden was the only person who Penny didn’t feel she had to fight and wrestle into liking her. But her pettiness won out, a sour spitefulness borne from hurt, rejected feelings clawing up the back of her throat, so instead she pulled the strap of her own bag over her shoulder and lifted her chin. Fake it ‘til you make it had been Penny’s motto ever since she stepped inside of Broadripple; there was no reason for that to stop now. She brushed her hair out of her face then shrugged with forced casualty, the ache behind her eyes blurring the corners of her vision.

“Fine,” she responded decisively, her voice rasping faintly—either from the alcohol or something else entirely, something foreign and forgotten that she thought she had buried when she was twelve years old. Penny quickly cleared her throat. “Fine. Like I even care. You’re clearly just looking for the first excuse to not have to deal with me and my ‘wild-child experiments’ anyway,” she continued, finger-quotes in action, hating that it felt like she was the one being broken up with. “Which is honestly pathetic. You could’ve at least had the balls to say something sooner.” Movie marathons and silly makeovers and late night cramming and whispered conversations in the corner of the library suddenly amounted to nothing. Figures she couldn’t have a single normal relationship with anyone without it totally imploding. She wasn’t wired for it. It was a thought that left her annoyed, a short rueful laugh bubbling out between her lips, because Penny didn’t do self-pity. She made a move to step around Eden, hoping to at least be the one to walk away. “But hey, go on and save yourself while you can. Everybody’s rooting for poor little helpless Eden to finally escape my grasp.”

Truthfully, Eden didn’t really know what she was more upset about in that moment. The fact that Penny was just so blindly doing Penny as she always did, having no consideration for what other people might have wanted or not wanted to do, or the fact that Eden was explicit about her apathy towards sexual favors and yet, here Penny was exploiting her anyway. Actually, they were pretty much the same point just rolled into a colossal ball of broken trust.

If Eden had felt piqued before, now, she just felt flat out deceived. Meaningless? That was a nice way to call something intimate between friends. Not that Eden thought it was intimate… well, not personally. As an act in general, it was intimate. The very dictionary definition, if you will. She might not have been some free bird that kissed a lot of people, but Eden still knew that kissing people should always mean something. To everyone. Nobody should have their space invaded like that and not respected. Talk about being the living, breathing problem to the whole cause they were busy trying to create.

“Oh my God…” Eden laughed in disbelief, lowering her head to press her fingers to her temple for a moment. A headache was starting, she could feel it. That fucking vodka. “Did you even just hear yourself?” She looked back up at Penny then, before taking a brave straight frame to face her. Often, she sat back to Penny’s antics but this… it stirred something passionate in Eden that clearly, was dying to get out. “It’s just a joke? We’re messing around? What are you, a drunk frat boy?” She scolded, feeling her eyes begin to sting for no good reason. “Why do you always have to do this? You push me into everything! It’s like you don’t even care that I don’t want to do these things… or that I’m nervous, or scared, or whatever, you just don’t care because what Penny wants, Penny always gets and it’s… exhausting being your friend sometimes!”

Penny could count the times she had been left speechless on one hand and each time had been in the aftermath of some asinine, stubborn insistence from her parents that they were on the right path. But Eden’s words bowled her over, leaving her grasping for ways to combat them. She wondered—briefly, distantly—if this was how they felt in the short moments between her loud laundry list of accusations that she threw at him and their veiled, repeated assertions that those complaints didn’t really matter. They had chosen who they were and who they were going to be. They weren’t going to change. She hated that she felt like them; she hated that she saw herself in Eden’s anger. Penny had spent the first twelve years of her life never getting anything she wanted, but her dedication to never living that way again came with ramifications. She wasn’t a stranger to losing friends at Broadripple as part of those ramifications. It had happened freshman year, too. Maybe it was a biennial thing. An errant, spontaneous thought illogically told her that maybe she didn’t even need friends. She certainly felt she didn’t need ones who yelled at her in the middle of a freaking ski lodge in freaking Vermont.

After a second, Penny made a broken, affronted noise and put more space between the two of them. “Okay, clearly you’re having some kind of unhinged moment here but, uh, newsflash, Eden: you’re your own freaking person,” she started, throwing her hands up. “I’m not your babysitter. I’m not your guardian. I’m not your mom. You literally don’t have to do anything I tell you to do.” She inhaled sharply, her breath quickening. “You could’ve said no at any time. It’s not remotely my fault that you’re, like—what? Obsessed with me? Desperate to please me until you straight up snap like a crazy person?” She hastily grabbed her bag and held it close. There was an ache at the back of her eyes, a feeling she vaguely recognized and pushed down. Maybe... Maybe Eden might have had a point. Maybe Penny crossed a line, but she was convinced Eden could’ve figured out a calmer, less disparaging way of articulating that fact. It was a litany she clung to.

“You know, if it’s so exhausting, then why do you even bother?” She demanded, teenage dramatics out in full force. Eden’s last words sent a nauseating twist to wreak havoc in her gut, her stomach rolling and her heat beating the shit out of her rib cage. All she wanted was to be liked, to be seen, to be heard. She hated it, she thought again. She hated it. She hated it. She hated it. “And like, it was just a joke. We were just messing around. That’s what best friends do,” she insisted, a montage of little, dumb moments from movies like Sleepover and Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging running through her head as she stood from her seat. “Sorry that I’m your first and only one so you never got the memo until now.”

Eden didn’t like the pet name, she never did, even when Penny used it as a joke. It sounded patronizing in every front it could be written in, every tone it took on someone’s lips and if Eden didn’t hold the girl in her arms as such an idol of friendship between strong women, she very well may have just pushed her onto the floor in rejection.

But she didn’t. Instead, she gritted her teeth and bore it, flashing a look at the boys in annoyance because their mere existence was making her life miserable to live. Her best friend was peacocking profusely, her throat tasted like gasoline and she didn’t want to fake-canoodle anymore. She wanted to go back to the lodge and read Anita Blake or something in angry silence where nobody had any influence over her. If that teensy bottle of vodka was supposed to do anything other than make her head a bit woozy, well… it didn’t work.

“What point are you even really try-” ing to make, is what she would have said, had her words not been stifled by the sudden invasion of Penny’s face in her own personal view. Eden liked to think that she knew Penny well, that she could predict her moves before she played them but it was a total joke, thinking she knew anything about how her best friend worked. Eden wasn’t good with people, she didn’t know how to read or judge them, and her preceptions were limited. All she knew was that when Penny put her lips on hers, Eden shut down, as if her own fuse box blew and all electricity went out. She didn’t know what to do, she’d never even been kissed before and when she’d thought about the reality of it, it was nothing like this. It definitely wasn’t with Penny, it wasn’t with a girl. Reaching her hands up to put them on Penny’s shoulders, they hovered there in hesitation before finally, her mind came racing back to the present and she pushed Penny back a little. “What the hell was that?” She gasped indignantly, staring at Penny and feeling scorned. Betrayed even. Who did that to their best friend without even asking?!

Pulling back, Penny blinked in the face of Eden’s indignation. What was the big deal? They were having fun; they were fucking around. If the teen movies she binged as soon as she was in a home with a working TV taught her anything, it was that teenage girls totally kissed their best friends at least once in their lifetimes. It was, like, a rite of passage basically. Penny was just checking off another task on her to-do list. Kiss a Girl: done and done. Actually, she technically killed two birds with one stone since Exploit a Man’s Lesbian Fetish was a new, unofficial addendum. She knew she was a go-getter but a full five minutes between setting an undertaking and getting it done was definitely a new record. But overall, the split second experience was fine. She didn’t think it was her exact cup of tea but she could see herself revisiting the act sometime during her college years. Eden’s smooth skin was definitely preferable to the patchy swaths of stubble that teenage boys so often had unevenly littered across their faces, she could at least attest to that.

She rolled her eyes as she peeled away from Eden and rubbed her thumb across the skin below her bottom lip, knowing full well her lip gloss had horrifically smudged judging by the shiny streak that now adorned Eden’s own lips. “It was a kiss—like, barely even a kiss. They’re basically all meaningless.” Her eyes narrowed briefly as she looked over Eden’s face, clocking her expression and refraining from outwardly groaning when it clicked: Eden was actually legit pissed. “Okay, wait a second. You’re not seriously mad, are you?” Her tone hovered precariously between disbelief and a not yet fully formed concern, as she wasn’t entirely accustomed to feeling and recognizing contrition in the wake of her actions. In the moments leading up to the kiss, she had never considered it would actually anger Eden. She didn’t actually think too deeply about how Eden would react period, too focused on getting from point A to point B. Eden had just momentarily been a pair of lips to get her there. “It’s just a joke. We’re messing around, remember?”

Squinting and making a face like she was trying not to vomit, Eden’s hand was hovering in a similar fashion to how Penny’s had in front of her mouth, but not so eloquently after taking the nip as a shot. It tasted like rubbing alcohol. Silently, she remembered the episode of My Strange Addictions where a woman had spent most of her life sipping gasoline from hidden compartments under her sink and Eden found herself comparing their situations. Why would anyone drink this stuff willingly? What was the appeal? Looking at Penny as her friend gaged her for a reaction, Eden side glanced awkwardly. Was she supposed to feel different? She didn’t, her throat just hurt.

“Fine?” She answered the question with a question, frowning between Penny and the pack of animals off to the right. Whatever was going on here, Eden was well cemented in her confusion. She didn’t trust a lot of people but she did trust Penny. Not blindly, but enough to wonder if this plan actually had a means to an end or if she was just trying to get her drunk in a hotel lobby for the hell of it. Hearing that Penny’s brain was making ideas now though, Eden felt her stomach twist. Her instincts said to pull the plug, but her heart was loyal. “I don’t like that. Don’t have ideas.” She was kind of joking but not really, laughing at Penny as her friend seemed giddy with excitement.

Two seconds? That wasn’t much time. Eden looked over at them in panic but was shaken back to Penny not a moment later. Oh, now she wasn’t supposed to be looking at them? God, she couldn’t keep up. “No, obviously, I said that—” It was clear after Eden had said it that Penny hadn’t asked for her actual opinion, it was a statement. 

It felt like an out-of-body experience. For a moment, Eden was stood behind herself, watching herself be manipulated by her friend and worse, allowing it to happen. With her mind boggled, her tongue feeling like leather after the vodka, and the boys making too much noise in the lobby for her to concentrate, it all was very overwhelming. She’d hugged Penny close plenty of times in the past, sometimes feeling out of character doing so but likeing it all the same, but this was different. Her hands held her slim sides, fingertips brushing the cotton of her sweater and thinking it was the softest thing she’d ever felt. Looking at Penny in close proximity, she floundered. “I don’t think-” She wanted to say she didn’t think canoodling was really necessary, they could easily just tell them they were gay the second they walked over and the job would be done. But Penny seemed hellbent on this and Eden didn’t get why. “I think I feel stupid and your eyeliner is way too perfect to have been done in by an actual real human being,” Eden had started off strong, but with her best friends face right up in her own, she couldn’t help but giggle at the ridiculousness of all this and how close they were situated. She knew a lot about Penny, physically speaking, and although Eden tried to be respectful of the women around her, she couldn’t help it if Penny threw her tops all around the room in her bra looking for the perfect fit. Skin different to her own intrigued her, or that’s what Eden’s excuse was for looking. Still, now that she was so close to Penny, she felt herself unable to ignore the details. “How long are we going to sit like this exactly?” A laugh bubbled out of her, no clue where it had come from but not daring to look at the group of boys either.

To say that Penny enjoyed compliments might have been something of an understatement. A steady stream of praise and affirmations were what sustained her most days, from boys on her instagram posts to the little flattering notes left in the margins of an essay from a teacher. Without some sort of positive feedback, Penny’d be adrift. To many that might have been readily recognized as a fatal flaw—perhaps even something that would haunt her until her dying day—but as someone who couldn’t foresee a future where honeyed words came sparingly, she wasn’t about to start losing sleep over it. Though there was something extra special about receiving a compliment from Eden, even if it was about something as mundane as Penny’s eyeliner—though she did take great pride in it; it took the entire summer between eighth and ninth grade to perfect her technique—because not only did Penny respect Eden, but Eden just didn’t dole out compliments willy-nilly. It helped make Penny feel significant in a way that she craved to be. Riding the wave of contented delight that followed Eden’s giggling words, she was able to dive right into her plan.

“Aw babe,” she cooed, scooting closer and straightening her posture as she threw her own arm around Eden’s shoulder. “You’re too cute.” She essentially shifted halfway into her friend’s lap, legs overlapping, and didn’t think much of it. Penny wouldn’t call herself a super-super tactile person, but she felt she had wormed her way through Eden’s hardened exterior enough to warrant some comfortable snuggling at least. “Just a little bit longer, I promise,” she answered with a grin. Wetting her lips, she quickly glanced back over toward the group of boys, smile widening further as she caught gazes with them. Penny leaned further into Eden, letting her hand graze against the bit of exposed skin above the neck of her shirt before settling on the back of her neck. Noticeable. That’s what she wanted to be. She felt the boys’ eyes on her and noted movement out the corner of her eye, like one was maybe moving to stand. “Ugh,” she started, rolling her eyes. “Boys seriously can’t take a hint. I think we need to kick it up a notch to really drive the point home.” She paused, then smiled again. She allowed herself a split second to consider that this was perhaps far past what could be conceivably called comfortable for most people, but—what was a little peck between friends? They did stuff like this in Europe all the time, she was 100% sure, just a little more cheek-oriented. So without much more warning than a quick, sly once-over of Eden’s features, Penny placed her free hand against the side of Eden’s face to guide it toward her own, firmly pressing her lips to Eden’s.

Eden looked over at the group of boys again when Penny called them ‘Wisco Kids’ as if it was a fun enough nickname and they were so lucky to be included, but was still completely derogatory. Classic Penny, she thought. As it were, Eden wasn’t even sure what would ever be good enough for that girl. She didn’t strike her as the type to want a penthouse and the tannest bodybuilder around, but if there was any marrow in life’s vibrant energy, Eden knew that Penny had to get her teeth into it. Penny lived in moments. Eden dwelled on the past. They couldn’t have been any more different despite their genuine connection.

“Actually, I met one in the foyer the other day. He seemed okay,” Eden knew she probably should have kept that tidbit to herself, especially after the look that crossed Penny’s face, and suddenly, Eden wished she believed in time travel. “I’m just saying, he had like, maybe three brain cells which you have to admit is valued currency around here. Plus, he had this shirt from some Greenpeace event thing he did so I had to ask about it. We actually talked for more than thirty seconds, it was cool.” She added quickly, twisting at the cap of the little bottle and struggling with it. She didn’t want it to go all over her lap and honestly, putting off drinking it didn’t feel so bad either. Watching Penny take the shot though, Eden felt herself smile. How was it that she was such good friends with someone like her? It made no evidential sense. And yet… “You’re going to kill me one day, I know it.” She told her then before taking a beat to prep herself. Even then, she wasn’t ready, but she copied Penny and threw back the drink regardless, hating every second.

“He sounds like he smelled like patchouli. Did he smell like patchouli?” Penny asked, not entirely caring too much for the answer. She was more preoccupied with watching Eden raptly, waiting for her to knock the nip back in turn. There was a heady sense of anticipation that came along with it, so when Eden finally followed through and took the shot, Penny immediately felt elated, barely refraining from clasping her hands together in oddly childish excitement. “Oh my God, yes,” she said through a short fit of quiet laughter, reaching out to grab onto Eden’s arm as her friend swallowed it down. She carefully tried to rearrange her features into an expression of fax solemnity, then nodded once. “I am so proud,” she continued, purposefully patronizing in her words before breaking immediately. “How do you feel?”

Penny didn’t necessarily feel super buzzed—she reasoned she’d probably need another shot to really feel something—but she felt enough to coyly glance back over her shoulder at the boys they had been previously eyeing. Their attention seemed to dart over toward her and Eden intermittently, especially after the small celebration Penny just had, but not enough to really please her. Logically, she knew she wasn’t actually dying to actually talk to them. She just wanted their attention; she liked feeling their eyes on them. She wanted to be wanted, which she was sure wasn’t an absurd thing. Everyone wanted that to some extent. But she also wanted to take it to the next level, to throw them off guard. “Okay,” she started, her mouth still twitching from residual delight. “Okay, listen, I have a very, very good idea.” She always had good ideas, she thought. 

                                                   The school hid what was left of the art block trauma with dullness painted upon the walls of imprisonment — sickly cover ups led to an gnawing that resided in the lining of his stomach. A vast unthreading had caused him to desperately find normalcy amongst the hallowed halls that had troops lined up, fingertips trigger ready - hues embedding into students secrets. It was easier to hide amongst the gossip, keep ears open to those naive enough to believe that a bear attack did take place or to those whom believed a darker omen was involved. Perhaps it was naive to think both? Yet, only one caused him to itch towards Holy Water.

                               He finds himself sitting outside the Chapel, an irony itself, yet it allows him to hold onto the innocence he had once had before when he was young. Grapple in the memories that his father and him one shared; before he had gone cold. As a shadow looms, he doesn’t dare to look up from his couple of Romeo & Juliet, “Please, mr bear, don’t eat me, I have so much to live for.” He drawls, laughter breaking at his own joke.

It was safe to say that Penny wasn’t gagging to wander around some gross, cold patch of forest on literally any occasion, but that didn’t stop her hackles from rising in response to the sheer gall the school had in telling her she couldn’t. If it really was a bear, couldn’t the rangers be out there trying to find it? Tag it? Subdue it? If the thing was creeping out of its habitat because of deforestation or something, maybe they should even try and relocate it instead of just waiting for it to maybe come back. But the way they lined the perimeter of campus read like an empty act of intimidation, which to her seemed perfectly in-line with the common practices of an organization as useless as the Catholic Church. It was just so classic of them to only appear like they were making an effort, only to eventually fall short. And morbid and dark as it was, she half-expected the falling short to take the form of something worse than mangled rabbit.

In an effort to dispel herself of her growing irritation she decided on a brisk walk, mostly because Eden was busy in a tutoring session, leaving her first go-to option for bitching null and void. Which was fine. Penny was fine. She was very independent, in fact, and hadn’t come to depend on her friend in any way whatsoever—it was a common refrain, at that point. Inadvertently, her meandering walk took her by the Chapel. It wasn’t a place she often visited if she could help it and the reasons why ticked up by exactly one when she spotted the person hanging around outside.

At the sound of the laughter that followed Elijah’s little joke, Penny scoffed. “Mmm, debatable,” Penny replied, annoyed with his initial refusal to look up as she neared. Glancing at the book in his hands, her nose briefly wrinkled at the sight of what he was reading. Unless it was in the form of a spirited adaption featuring Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles, she never really was much for Shakespeare. Though she supposed Mercutio could get it, if she were being honest. “I see you’re still committed to the whole antisocial Holden Caulfield shtick. Is that why you skipped out on the ski trip? A little too much mingling with the phonies.” Immediately, she internally cringed at her own question. Last thing she wanted him to think was that she was, like, looking for him or something.

Damian is never quite capable of putting into words or proper thought the way he sees Penny. He’s unsure what it is about her. Certainly a creature of her own type of brilliance yet… reminiscent of something Damian can’t quite put his finger on. The word ‘pesky’ comes to mind but it doesn’t feel right. She straddles the line between being delightful and offsetting very well, that’s for sure. So casually capable of provoking irritation and fondness alike. It’s an odd thing to experience in general, but when you’re someone like Damian, perhaps it’s more bewildering than anything else. Already he thinks he feels the quickest flash of impatience before a rush of amusement overtakes him, making him shake his head fondly at the sight of the Melleray girl scrunching her nose at something her hand had come in contact with. Considering her… familiarity with the tree, Damian assumes it’s sap. 

“My mistake, my mistake,” he says, along with a small chuckle at her ‘what do you take me for?’. “I suppose you’re right,” the boy concedes. “We’d hate to disrespect the tree,” he agrees, and there’s a partial playfulness to his words. “It’s been so accommodating to your… artistic vision after all.”

He stands at the ready, poising his phone to capture the girl in front of him. The Academy Award for Best Cinematography? Quite the challenge but Damian will do his best. He supposes now more than ever he’s hoping the iPhone X’s camera quality is everything it says it is. There’s only so much he can do, but he keeps in mind to showcase the golden hues, the entirety of the movement, and the angles that Penny is clearly hellbent on serving. What once was a casual offer has now become an almost daunting task, but Penny has somehow managed to make it both a nerve-inducing and entertaining experience to live through. 

“Ready? 3…2…1.” He taps the record button, letting the application complete its function and take a burst of photos. The shortest video to be looped for eternity. When its finished, he brings the phone near his face for a closer look. Not at all bad he believes. Certainly not disappointing. Penny’s unique brand of charm managed to make the rather audacious movement more charming than risqué.

“What do you think?” He flips his phone around for her to see the end result. “It surely captures your cheek and vibrance. I quite like it if I do say so myself.”

Penny quickly bounded over to Damian once the task was complete, eager to see how she came across in boomerang form. She was very pro-looking fun, but not funny. When he turned the phone around, she reached out to adjust the angle of the screen to get rid of a glare then studied the final product. She didn’t fully believe that you could see much of how a person perceived you based on how you looked through their camera lens, but—well, if Damian thought her cheeky and vibrant, she could kind of see that communicated in the short, repeating image in front of her. Though pleased with it, she waited a beat. And then another. After what she deemed an appropriate amount of time spent pursing her lips in quote-unquote contemplation, she exhaled heavily.

“Okay, to be frank here, you might not have snagged the Oscar,” she started, solemn as if she were delivering a particularly sad bit of news, then let go of the phone to lift a finger with a quirked brow. “But — Buzzfeed would totally put out a listicle about how and why you were totally robbed. Signed off with that gif of Viola Davis looking peeved and grabbing her briefcase as she stands up.” She took her drink from Damian and smiled, then nodded toward the phone. “Send that to me? I really wasn’t lying about the Instagram drought. I gotta remind people that I exist, you know? And that I’m doing cool, edgy things like going up to Vermont and grinding all up on the trees.” Bringing the straw up to her lips, Penny huffed a sudden laugh. “I'm definitely getting a call from my aunt about thirty minutes after it goes up though, reprimanding me for being like, deeply inappropriate or something.”

Penny didn’t actually have an aunt, or anyone related to her who followed her Instagram account, but the thought of a family member nagging her about her online presence seemed like a normal, teenage thing to complain about. Her parents didn’t have cell phones and her grandparents had no idea what most of social media even consisted of beyond Facebook, so it wasn’t like they were checking to see which song or Chrissy Teigen tweet Penny posted to her Story that day. But the prospect sounded kind of nice in a sick and twisted sort of way—that soft, sentimental part of brain momentarily betraying her. She pushed aside the feeling in favor of metaphorically poking at Damian instead.

“So, hey... ‘Cheek.’ Do I take that as a compliment?” She teased. “I mean, I totally dig your use of vibrant. There’s something a little cosmopolitan about the word, but cheek? I don’t know, buddy. That can sometimes veer into shady backhanded territory.”

Damian chuckles at Penny’s reaction, always having found her to be quite… the character. “Yes, you, Miss O’Neill,” he answers in all his practiced charm, hopeful it would sway her into taking him up on his offer. The Fenwick captain is seemingly enjoying her dramatics if the smile that plays on his lips is anything to go by. Though, it’s when Penny passes him her drink and walks off with talks of a ‘Boomerang’ opportunity that the effortlessly confident look Damian wears on his face falters a little. Thankfully, he’s aware of what Boomerangs are – those moving picture things – but it’s what Penny plans to do for this said moving picture that has Damian growing a bit anxious. He watches her though, walking over to where she is while at the same time pulling up the Boomerang app on his phone. Damian stops and stands a decent distance away from the tree Penny has deemed fit for this photo she wants, curiously awaiting what she’ll do. And boy is he ill-prepared for what he witnesses.

A soft “Oh” leaves his lips without his control as he takes in her movement.

“Ummm…” Well. That was… most certainly a pose. Damian’s mouth just barely hangs open as the wheels in his mind turn for the right words to say. It seems Penny’s daring has rendered him admittedly slower than he’d like in finding an answer. “…Adequately fashion’d,” is what Damian decides to utter when he finally finds his voice again. “At least I believe so.” Shaking his head in attempt to will himself to focus once more, he props his phone up now, thumb hovering above the record button. “Um, count of 3? Unless you have second thoughts about the location.”

“Oh, well, if you believe so—” Penny repeated back to him, smiling at the look on Damian’s face and thoroughly enjoying his brief foray into speechlessness. After Damian’s rich parents and Boston residence and school connections, that was what Penny found most valuable in trying to stay on his good side. She supposed it was some cousin of a power trip. Plus, when she eventually announced before summer break her plans to run for class president next year, an unofficial endorsement from someone like Damian could totally clinch the God-fearing voting sector she still struggled to pin down. So there was a logic in the madness. Sometimes.

“Why, Damian, please,” she started, teasingly echoing his own formality. “This tree and I have been far too intimate for me to turn my back on it now.” She patted the trunk, then briefly wrinkled her nose when her palm came in contact with something sticky oozing from the bark. Inhaling sharply through her teeth, she did her best to wipe it off on a dryer section. “Seriously, what kind of person do you take me for?” Penny pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, suddenly caught up in how she looked, and tilted her head enough to know the shadow her nose cast wouldn’t cause her to want to launch herself into the sun. It was all very Penny. Act first, think a couple beats later. Even if the boomerang never escaped the confines of Damian’s phone, or if he immediately deleted it, the last thing she needed was the knowledge that she allowed him to catch her at a thoroughly bad angle.

“Okay, on three—and I’m expecting major  ‘the Academy Award for Best Cinematography goes to’ vibes on this one,” she instructed, getting back into position with a sly grin. “The lighting, the setting, and your subject? Pretty dang perfect. All in your hands now to turn this into as close to a masterpiece as a boomerang can get. No pressure, right?”

Staring at the expanse of snow and forest ahead, Damian couldn’t be more pleased with his decision to roam Stowe’s grounds, having stumbled upon a worthy viewpoint by accident in doing so. The sight of the mountain at golden hour is simply too good of a view to pass up, and he’s more than glad that he forewent the first idea he had of simply perusing the shops near the resort and enjoying a hot beverage at one of the cafés. No hot latte or quaint wood carving can match something as gorgeous as this, he thinks. But of course, the sight of a young man taking pictures on his phone of the scene is inviting to anyone without a selfie stick. 

Soon enough, Damian finds himself getting timid request after request of: Do you mind? Can you take a picture of us too? Which he’s more than happy to help them with. He likes being of assistance to people after all and discovers himself getting along with the folks who approach him, even if it’s only for a short conversation after he takes their photo. Kids in particular are kind enough to thank him with a more exciting jumping high-five move after their parents share appreciation for his help. After two couples and three families with their photos taken and sent on their way, Damian looks over his shoulder almost in instinct at this point to ask the next closest person:

“Would you like me to take one for you too? I think we’ve still got a few more minutes of the lighting being this nice.”

Penny sucked at the straw of her iced latte that she brought with her as she watched family after family demand a portrait session with Damian in amusement. Amidst the humdrum of the Stowe Mountain Resort, it didn’t come as much of a surprise that everything distinctly Broadripple bused into it mostly remained the same. Not that she expected someone like Damian Fitzgerald to shed his tedious House Captain exterior once he crossed state lines, truth be told. But she supposed that while a shakeup here and there was totally necessary, there was something kind of... okay with a familiarity following you to unfamiliar places, though it was nothing she’d readily admit. When he turned and addressed her, her brows shot up in faux surprise.

"Me?” Penny asked as if to double-check, hand resting over her heart. She wet her lips as she pretended to think it over, then sighed heavily as if Damian imparted a great burden on her. “I guess you make a good point,” she continued, knowing full well that Damian’s suggestion had been an innocuous one. “My instagram drought’s gone on for way too long.” Eyes darting around for any immediate possible spots to pose, they eventually caught on a tree with an appropriate lack of lower-branches, awash in the golden afternoon light, and then she got an idea. She handed her drink over to Damian and headed over. “Follow me. We have a perfect Boomerang opportunity on our hands, my friend.” Sidling up next to the tree, she placed a hand against its side, then bent her knee to partially hook her leg around its front. “Nature—but make it fashion?”  Meeting his gaze, she waggled her eyebrows and gave a slow, dramatic body roll. “Too much or not enough?”

When Penny stood up, somehow in her gut Eden knew she was in for it. A fastened frame, she knew that look on Penny’s face, it was casting, and it was sure of herself. The girl had a plan and Eden knew that she wasn’t going to share it just yet, she was going to make everybody, the boys included, suffer in confusion until the grand reveal. So all Eden could do was watch hesitantly as Penny coined her purse and kelt in front of her. What was she up to this time? What on Earth did Eden need?

The namecalling… This was going to be a doozy, Eden could feel it. Looking down finally when she got the feeling Penny was trying to show her something, Eden saw the lid, saw the tiny neck of the bottle, and felt her gut churn in the way she knew her own body was trying to tell her something. Something like; don’t be an idiot. Still, she looked back at Penny, her friend, someone she did in fact trust not to allow her to make such bad decisions. It was confusing when the two worlds seemed to mix. 

Listening to Penny, Eden could only sigh and roll her eyes, knowing that she likely wasn’t going to let this go unless Eden put a foot down. The comment about Trump made her smile though, even though she wished it didn’t, simply because Penny did know her. “You don’t have to do a Penny Lecture, I know what you’re doing.” She said finally, eyes trailing over to the group of boys, irritated at herself for considering these kinds of things just for their attention. They weren’t worth it. But Penny was. “If I do this, will it make you happy? Can we go then?” She asked, not really thinking past the idea of opening a little bottle of liquor and having a sip or what that might mean for the rest of her afternoon. If Kat was so adamant about inviting her to parties and Penny wanted her to try this too, maybe it was about time she let herself try some things. Maybe she wasn’t the better judgment here. 

Eden’s reply wasn’t necessarily an agreement but Penny could spy her folding from a mile away. She was a bloodhound with that sort of thing, sensing when she was about to get her way. In celebration, she grinned as she plucked the nip out of her bag entirely and handed it over to Eden with a exaggerated flourish. “Eden, literally nothing on God’s green earth could make me happier than this — right now, at this moment,” she announced with a grave tone, which quickly crumbled under the weight of her excitement. “Seriously, you have to admit we have to spice things up somehow to at least keep our brains from atrophying. Hanging with those Wisco kids is, like, total last resort.” She pulled out another nip from her bag, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one uptight and sensible-looking was around (e.g. chaperones, suspicious hotel employees, Faith — et cetera), then unscrewed the cap and knocked it back like a shot. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, internally cursing the monster who thought bringing Smirnoff Ice was ever a good idea, then smiled through the slight wince that accompanied the burn. Penny held up a finger, then pointed it toward Eden. After a second, and with a click out of the side of her mouth, she mimed a shooting finger gun. “Your turn, buckaroo,” she said, her voice momentarily a bit raspier than before. “It’s time to make your mama proud.”