I feel tremors at my fingertips

“Especially in Rosendale.” Sofia muttered softly before adding a short nod. “That’s fair though. If you want to get down to the nitty-grittiness of it all. We’ve all done things that we probably regret too. Maybe some more than others, but still, we can move on or we can linger. Who gives a shit that you tripped. Seems like we have a bit more in common than I initially thought.”

“Especially in Rosendale?” she repeated in a questioning tone. “I guess I don’t quite know what lurks in the alleyway of this town quite yet.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “I think some things that people regret they will never move on from because it’s life changing.” She was talking about herself, but she didn’t want to let Sofia know that. “Seems like we do. Perhaps we’ll be friends someday.”

“Really? That’s pretty awful. Next time you should ask them the same, even if it’s something simple.” She thought for a moment, “About the same actually. Maybe a little longer. Honestly, I’ve lost track of time. A lot of stuff has happened already.”

“Time is a concept created by humans to be used by humans to measure the things we do. No matter if the day is ten hours or thirty hours long, the way we spend it will still be the same. I, too, have lost track of time though. I also don’t find it worth keeping.”

“Yeah. Actually. If you had asked me 6 or 7 months ago, I might have had a different answer. Now, I don’t want anything to do with this dark side. But, it seems like you might dabble in it yourself?”

“I wouldn’t quite say dabble. Everyone has done things they’re not proud of. I’ll just leave it at that for now.”

“It’s not that much of a mouthful! Beautiful and unique are better ways to describe it.” She smiled, shaking the girl’s hand. “Are you from here or are you new to town?”

“Well, thank you. A lot of people ask me if there’s something shorter to call me, which is kind of rude.” She shrugged. “I’ve been here about eight months now. What about yourself?”

“Yeah, well get used to that.” Sofia looked to the other, a cockiness beaming across her expression. “Well, for starters, I could knock anyone out of my way if I really wanted to. But no, I’m not gonna get rid of you. That’s a little too dark. Even for my taste.”

Emmaryn smirked. “Is that so?” she asked rhetorically. “It’s okay to go a little dark side every now and then. Not that I’m saying you should knock me out, but sometimes you have to.”

“Ouch, that’s the worst word to hear from…anyone. It cuts to the core.” Avery shuddered, luckily never straying too far into disappointment territory to hear that word often, if ever. “I’m Avery, by the way.”

“Oh, it definitely is. I heard that word a lot growing up so I’ve gained some sort of immunity to it, I guess.” She smiled but tugged nervously on her sleeve. “Emmaryn, but that’s a bit of a mouthful. You can call me Em or Ryn. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s nice to meet you though, Avery.”

Sofia smirked when she heard the other woman call her a bitch. Shrugging in response, she added, “So what if I am? You don’t get very far without having to knock a few people out of the way, right? I’m just telling you what I think. As you’re telling me what you think.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she told her. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re going to ‘knock me out of your way?’ Or is that some metaphor about getting rid of people in general?”

“Stayed awake all night for a mistake? Nah. I think you overestimate just how similar people are to each other. This sounds like you might just have a serious problem with taking criticism.”

“You sure have a serious problem critiquing people and telling them they have issues apparently.” She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “That or you’re just a bitch.”

“I can’t stop you from doing that, but is that helpful? There’s really no way of going back and fixing it, so why stress yourself out about it?” Avery had plenty of moments she wished she could have done differently, but she took those moments and learned from them instead of dwelling negatively. “I don’t blame you for doing that. Those things were the literal worst and serve no purpose except restrict all freedom.”

“Oh, it’s definitely not helpful but I have a hard time controlling my thoughts. Especially when you’ve made some dire mistakes and can’t get over it.” Emmaryn shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “I wasn’t upset, but my mom sure was when it happened. She used the word ‘disappointment.’ It was really sad.”

Heather did in fact see this girl fall flat on her face. And if she was back home, she would have laughed rather harshly at her. But this was Rosendale and she was a new person. “I saw nothing…I promise?”

Emmaryn had a constant feeling of uneasiness in her stomach. Embarrassment was only added to that now. “I have a hard time believing that,” she said, wiping dirt off of her jeans. “I’ll pretend to believe you though.”

“No?” Avery said slowly, terrible at lying in this situation since she had been staring right at the girl. “Oh, don’t do that. It really wasn’t that bad, and I think I was the only one to see you. Scout’s honor that I won’t say anything.”

“To be honest, I’ll probably end up doing that anyway....about multiple different things.” Emmaryn pursed her lips for a moment then bit down on her bottom one. “Yeah, I got kicked out of Scouts for stealing the other girl’s training bras and throwing them in the campfire. I don’t have a lot of Scout’s honor.”

“Right…” Sofia let her word linger as she stared skeptically over at the young woman, eyes narrowed onto her before they rolled. “I guess you should probably just leave then. Maybe consider every mistake you’ve ever made at this point. That sounds like a solid plan.”

“Oh, I never said it was a solid plan. More like a last resort. I’m pretty sure at some point everyone has stayed awake all night thinking about every tiny mistake they’ve made.”