#ambrina

Amy gave you five minutes and you’ve used up about thirty seconds so far without saying a word and you know silence is golden and all that, but the clock is ticking.

The clock, Amy’s clock, is ticking - it’s like a fucking bomb in your head - and you’re pretty sure (more than pretty) that she could have given you five hours or five days or five fucking lifetimes and it wouldn’t really matter.

You’d still have no idea what to say.

“What do I say?” you asked Karma after she chased you down outside the coffee shop. “What words can possibly… after what I did…”

You shook your head and turned, walking away and accepting your fate and you swear to God, none of it was an act, none of it was a way to make her feel bad or guilty or want to help.

“I don’t feel bad, you know,” Karma called after you. “There’s no guilt here,” she hollered. “You were the one who lied,” she shouted at your back.

She wasn’t wrong.

What she was was gasping, when she ran you down at the corner and grabbed your arm and held you in place cause she clearly hadn’t been working out of late and said she couldn’t chase you anymore and if you wanted her help you had to “stand fucking still for a minute and what the fuck do you do, run track?”

State champ in the 400, two years in a row.

If there’s one thing you know, it's running.

But you’re not running now and neither is Amy, at least not for another… four minutes. She’s just standing there, just off the dance floor, in a dark corner away from the crowd, away from all the watchful eyes, all those eyes that are pretending not to be watching. All those eyes that were there that night or that have heard about that night or are hoping for a repeat of that night.

You don’t give a fuck about those eyes. The only ones you care about are down, on the floor or on her feet or staring at the air between you, anywhere that isn't you and you can’t really say that you blame her.

You can’t really say much at all.

“There's nothing,” you told Karma while she searched through your closet, trying to find the perfect thing… the exact right dress… and you weren’t sure if you were talking about the outfits or what you could possibly say to fix this and - in the end - you kinda figured it didn’t matter which.

They were both true.

“I broke her heart and I know I said it didn't have to break and it didn’t, but…” You shook your head as she held up a tiny green number you’d bought for a St. Patrick’s date with Roy and no, that was not happening. “But it did. Whether it had to or not, it did break and I was the one who broke it and there’s nothing I can do, nothing I can say -”

She threw a dress at you and told you to try it on and to stop with the “already lost bullshit or I’m going to go home and forget I even know you and… Felix will kiss Amy at midnight and… neither of us wants that, so stop thinking and stop talking and let me work.”

You did, you let her work and you let her hustle you through three more dresses (“how the fuck many of these do you have?”) and a half dozen hairstyles (she was about to call Lauren for advice when she finally found the one she liked) (the one Amy would) and you let her ramble on and on and on about how to handle it and how to talk to Amy and what you should say and then she…

“She gave me a speech.”

Well… fuck. Three minutes left on the clock and that’s what your brain and your mouth and the apparently very little connection between them, manage to come up with.

She gave me a speech.

Karma gave me a speech.

Well… fuck. (Again.) Fucking head and fucking brain and fucking mouth not being smart enough to stay shut (ticking clock or not) and fucking Karma for… well… for a lot but mostly for being Karma and if you don’t curse her then really all you’ve got left is cursing yourself and you’ve done about all of that you can handle the last few days.

And if anyone should be cursing you, it’s Amy and she's not, so…

Then again, she’s not doing or saying much of anything except, probably, counting down your last few minutes.

“That was probably a dumb thing to say,” you say and for fuck’s sake why does the universe continue to allow you to speak? But, hey, Amy’s staring at you now instead of the floor or the air so, there's that at least. And she’s still not saying anything but her eyes say pretty much everything and yeah…

Dumb.

“Karma gave me a speech to say," you say - in case there was any confusion as to who ‘she’ was… and cause what the fuck, let’s face it, you're already doomed. "She thought a grand gesture would do the trick.”

You need a grand gesture, she said. You need something big, something memorable, something that will wipe the memory of… him… and you and all… that… right out of her mind forever.

You nodded and agreed and went along with it cause… well… it wasn’t like you had any better ideas… even if you were pretty sure there was nothing on Earth or the seven kingdoms that was going to bleach all that from Amy’s mind any time soon.

If ever.

“She worked up this whole speech for me to give,” you say. “From the stage, in front of everyone.”

Amy still doesn't speak but her eyes roll just enough, in that 'yeah, that sounds like her’ kinda way that you can almost feel the ice starting to crack - just a bit, just a tiny little sliver of a thing, just the start (but a start isn’t an end) - and maybe, you think (hope), maybe you’re not quite doomed.

Doomed adjacent, maybe.

You keep talking because she’s not and the clock’s still ticking and you don’t really know what else to do (you do though) (but you’re pretty sure kissing her is not the best plan) (long term, at least) (short term it’s fucking awesome.) “She had an entire plan, really,” you say and maybe it’s been years since you all really hung out but you remember enough of the stories Amy used to tell to know that Karma plus a plan equals not a fucking shock. “She thought maybe if I got up there and… basically… outed myself… if I made a big public spectacle of the whole thing…”

Amy’s eyes grow dark and you know she’s thinking the same thing you did, that the same objection is running through her mind as the one you actually voiced to Karma.

“Don’t you think maybe this has all been a little too public, already?”

Karma looked at you like you’d grown a second head (one that didn’t lie), as if you’d just suggested the Earth was flat and Shane was straight and maybe Liam and Lauren's… thing… wasn’t quite as fake as she thought.

“Yeah,” you say quietly, your eyes drifting to the floor in front of Amy, like you can’t look at her anymore, like it’s staring too long into the sun. “I didn’t think it was such a great plan, either.”

“But,” Amy says and you look back up, shocked to hear her, that she’s decided to stop going all Ariel and find her voice. “You were going to do it anyway. Lousy plan or not.”

You start to shake your head, like no, no, no, I wasn’t, and then you start to nod, sheepishly, like yeah, I was gonna, but then you just shrug because the truth (and that’s kinda a big deal here) is you don't know what you were going to do.

“I don’t really know,” you say and that is the truth, not just some 'let me walk the line between yes and no so my ass is covered’ bit of bullshit. “I don’t even… I remember being in my room and then in hers and then we were coming here and she was… coaching me up and… I heard it all, you know? But it wasn't…”

It wasn't you. And, in the end, you’d like to think that would have won out, that that would’ve been enough to keep you off that stage and for you to end up right here, in a corner away from it all with just you and just her and even if you only had five minutes or five seconds, they’d have been yours.

And not Karma’s.

“It was a good speech,” you say and you know you’re out of time but Amy doesn’t seem to be leaving and sooner or later (hopefully sooner) you know (hope) you’re going to stumble into what you want to say “All about how yeah, I lied at the beginning… which I did and honesty being the best policy and all that….”

She’s just standing there, arms crossed and expression neutral and you don’t know if she’s listening or just stalling, just giving you enough time to get it all out before she leaves, before she walks away and leaves you there alone and you’re not sure you’d blame her if she did.

No, you're sure. You wouldn’t. You couldn’t.

“But the lies…” you say, remembering that part of the speech, the part Karma went over and over and over as she stared out your bedroom window while you finished your hair. “She said I should say that the lies were because I was scared. Because I couldn’t face the truth.”

Amy says nothing - still - but neutral starts to slip into… something else and you know enough about… them… and everything that went down between them that you’ve kinda got an idea what that else might be.

And you’re starting to understand just how much Karma gave you that speech.

“She wanted me to say that I lied because it was easier. It was easier to pretend to myself that I was faking it, to hide my own truth behind the lie that wasn't…,” you trail off, running over the words in your head. They were good words, heartfelt words, and… sorta… true words.

Sorta true for you.

And, you’re starting to realize, probably a bit more than sorta for her.

You watch Amy carefully, looking for any sign, any… anything… but her face is a mask and her words are still just hers and the only thing you’ve got going for you is that clock in your head.

Five minutes is long since gone. But Amy’s not.

“She said to say It was the kiss,” you say, remembering how very specific Karma was about that part. “The kiss was a… realization.”

It was. It so was.

That hits home with Amy and you can see it on her face and in her eyes. She knows all about revelatory kisses, all about what it’s like to feel that, to get lost in someone’s arms and someone’s lips only to find yourself there.

Even if the you that you find isn’t the you that you know.

But that wasn’t what Karma wanted you to say, how she wanted you to describe it. She didn’t say 'realization’ or 'discovery’ or 'moment of truth’ or 'epiphany’.

It was your moment, Karma said. Your… 'woah’… moment. When you kissed her, your whole world changed and your every lie became truth and…

And?

And you're watching Amy and you’re seeing her playing it all over in her head, watching every moment go by in super slo-mo except… except that you’re not really sure they're your moments.

They're hers.

Karma called it the 'woah’ moment and that’s kinda accurate for you, but it’s starting to sink in, for you at least, as you watch Amy that she (Karma) wasn’t just talking about Amy and what Amy had told her and how Amy had described what that moment (their moment) did for her.

“It changed everything,” Karma said to you on your way here. “Like the walls just came crumbling down,” she said. “And suddenly every direction was open to you and everything just made… sense.”

You nodded and tried, so very hard, to remember it all, like there was going to be a quiz or a test, and - you supposed - there kinda was.

“You were… happy… no… not happy,” she said and there was confusion all over your face but you don’t think she ever saw it. “Happy is too simple, too easy. You were… free. Free of everything you’d ever thought you had to be or do or…” She drummed her fingers along the armrest and let out a slow breath. “She freed you. She gave you a way to a whole different life.”

One you were too scared to take, she said. At first, she stressed. But now…

She was quiet for a moment, staring out the window while you parked the car. “But now you’re ready,” she said as she slipped from the car and you might have been the track star but you had to hurry - had to race - to catch up to her.

And it occurs to you that maybe you still haven’t.

You wanted to push Karma out, you wanted to make her move. Maybe you didn’t want her gone (but you wouldn’t have minded) but you wanted her to make… room. You wanted space, you wanted a spot that you could fill in Amy’s life, one that Karma didn’t think was hers.

You thought such a spot existed.

Maybe you thought wrong.

The speech. The grand gesture. Choosing a dress and fixing your hair and driving you here and chasing you down no matter how many times you tried to run.

Fuck all.

You didn’t push Karma out.

She jumped.

“Is that it?” Amy asks and suddenly you're back, back in the room, back in that dark corner, back in the moment and skirting right along the edge of letting it pass you by. “If that’s all you’ve got to say, I -”

“I didn’t want to kiss you,” you say, cutting Amy off and this time, there's a reaction, there’s something new flitting across her face cause of all the things you could have said…

Even you didn’t see that one coming.

“I didn’t,” you repeat, just for emphasis (partly for you.) “I didn’t plan on it, not even after your speech, which really was awesome by the way, I didn't… intend to kiss you. Because I didn’t want to hurt you, I never…:”

You see it then, the tiny little eye roll, the 'here we go again’ twitch to her expression and yeah, here you do go again cause, really, can you get any more fucking trope than 'I never meant to hurt you…’?

No, you can’t. But you’re flying a little blind here cause you can’t use Karma’s speech cause… well… it's hers. And that’s how she’d do it, if she could, but she can’t but you can but if you’re going to do it?

You’re going to do it.

“I didn’t want to kiss you and I didn’t mean to kiss you because I didn’t know what I was feeling, and that would… was… wrong and unfair of me,” you say. “And I’ll always be sorry that I was so selfish in that moment but… I just… I couldn't not kiss you.”

There’s another reaction, another… something… crossing her face but it fades (or she pushes it away) as fast as it appears, but you saw.

“It was like something took me over, like I had no control, no matter how crazy and insane it was, I had to." That you think she understands, that sense of not having a choice of having to do it, right or wrong, ecstasy or never ending pain.

"You had to,” she says, “because you saw Karma. Because you had to do what she never would.”

It’s there, you can hear it, the slight (so fucking slight) (but there) hope in her voice. The near desperate… need… for you to tell her she’s wrong and to make her believe it.

And you know you could. You could tell her the truth you know she deserves to hear, the one that would push her away for good. That it wasn’t a matter of 'never would’. It was all 'never could.’

But that’s not your truth to tell and maybe it’s selfish and maybe you’ll regret it, someday, but this isn’t someday and Karma…

She made her choice.

“I did,” you say. “I did see her and… I… I wanted it to be about Karma.” There's another reaction then. Amy flinches. She visibly fucking flinches and you feel it all the way through you, like a knife. “I spent the rest of that night praying that it was about her, about her and Felix and pushing them out and pissing her off.”

In a lot of ways, you realize now, it would have been so much easier. It would have been so much easier to be the devil she thought you were.

“I was even going to tell you,” you say and you can see the 'yeah, right’ and the 'yeah, of course you were’ and 'how dumb do you think I am’ written all over Amy’s face. “I came to your house and I did tell you, at least that there was something…”

You watch as it rolls over her, as fuck no shifts to maybe shifts to memory.

I do want to kiss you right now. More than… well… more than I… but there’s something I have to tell you first. Something you need to know.

She remembers. And maybe - just maybe - she believes.

“I wish I'd… that I’d had the courage to tell you then and to not kiss you again, not like that,” you say. “Because I know, now, that no matter how fondly I will always remember every one of those kisses, they’ll always be… tainted… for you. And that kills me.”

There’s a moment, a split second, when you think… feel… like she’s going to move, like she’s going to take your hand in hers and whisper that they’re not all tainted and maybe, just maybe, you could do something about replacing them, about pushing those kisses out of her mind forever.

But then that moment… evaporates… and you’re left where you were and she’s where she was and there’s still an ocean of air and space and fuck ups between you. Because you know memory has shifted again, changed to pain and changed to I wish that too but you didn’t and they are and now, in the end?

In the end, you still hurt her, you still broke her heart. But, in the end?

She’s still here.

“If I gave you that speech,” you say, “I’d tell you it was the kiss that made me see it, the kiss that made me understand what I’d been feeling since I was twelve years old, since the day we met.”

There’s something in Amy’s eyes and you know that part of Karma’s speech would’ve hit home and someday, in the distant future, when Amy tells you all about her jailhouse speech, you’ll know why.

“But,” you say, cause it's you (not Karma) (not some weird combination of you both) that has to say whatever it will be that fixes Amy’s heart, “I’m trying not to lie.”

You wait, hesitate, just for a beat. Expecting her to run. Grateful when she doesn’t.

“I don't know if I was in love with you then,” you say. “I was twelve. And as much as… she… might have wanted our story to be that story, to be that perfect ending, that romantic finale to end all finales…” You shake your head and wish, not for the first time, that you could still just fucking lie. “That’s not us.”

“It isn’t?” Amy asks and you try - so very hard - to not do a victory fucking jig that she didn’t drop a 'there is no us’ on you.

“No,” you tell her. “In her head, in her… world… that’s what matters. The grand gesture, the moving confession, the Hollywood scripted moment.” You reach out, suddenly unafraid (cause what have you got to lose?) and take Amy’s hand. “And that’s a great world and a wonderful one and God, I wish we all could live there.”

“Not so sure I’d like someone else writing my life,” Amy says but you only half hear her cause you’re a little busy focusing on how she's not pulling her hand away. “I’d probably end up realizing I was only into dudes or pining endlessly or fucking… shot.”

“Good for you that you’re the writer then,” you say and she smiles (smiles) at you. “You're your writer and I'm mine and my script… it isn’t so clear, you know? I don’t know what I felt back then and even if I did, it wouldn’t make what I did better and it wouldn’t change that I will never stop being sorry for hurting you, and that I'll never be able to be sorry for… for those kisses or for those four days or for…”

You don’t fight the tears, you don’t even try to blink them back and they come, like the fucking rapids, but that’s OK.

They can’t stop until they start.

You lace your fingers with hers and Amy still doesn’t pull away and the words… they come like the tears. “I love you,” you say and it’s like a weight being cut loose, like air rushing into your lungs after almost drowning, and you have to repeat them, you have to say it again. “I love you, Amy Raudenfeld, and not because of Karma and not because I need a friend and not because someone else has something I want.”

You’re starting to understand what Karma meant by free.

You stare at your hands, at where you join her because if this is the end, you want to remember that, you want it burned into your mind, sunk into your memory like an anchor.

“I know you might not believe me,” you say, “but I hope someday you can. Even if we’re not… I just hope you can know that everything I felt, every bit of love and every bit of hope and every bit of fear… everything that gave me… life… for those four days… it was always about you.”

Amy’s hand twitches in yours and you hear the shudder as she breathes and it’s just more… more for you to remember, more for you to hold to when she’s gone, more of her.

Like more would ever be enough.

“Is that it?” she asks and it’s all you can do to stay standing. “Is that all you have to say?”

You nod and it hurts - it physically fucking hurts you - to let go of her hand, to open your fingers and slip them from hers.

Or, really, it would.

If she’d let you.

“I wish,” Amy says.

Her voice is so soft, but then she doesn’t have to be loud because she's right there, she’s crossed that ocean of… stuff… and she’s there, with your hand in hers and her other hand on your cheek and you don’t dare breathe cause then you might wake up.

“I wish I’d let you say all that that night,” she says. “Cause let me tell you, the last week has sucked.” She smiles at you - again - and almost laughs at the look on your face, at the confusion and the uncertainty and the 'is this fucking real’ of it all.

She leans in and presses one soft kiss to your lips, one that wipes the memory of so many others that might have been hotter and longer and more desperate and passionate.

But so much less… perfect.

And somewhere in the background you can hear them all counting it down, so many voices ringing out one year and ringing in another and you pull Amy close and your arms slip around her waist and hers around your neck and when all those other voices hit Happy New Year hers mumbles 'I love you, too’ against your lips.

You and Sabrina break up when you’re eighteen and it almost kills you.

It isn’t any one thing (college) and it isn’t any one person’s fault (yours) and there’s not really anything you could have done differently (bullshit.) She’s going to the University of Texas, Austin and you're… well…

Clement was always the dream. And maybe, for a while there, it seemed like a dream deferred but in the end it’s where you know you (read: you and Karma) (and even now there’s still a you and someone other than your girlfriend and she knows it) are supposed to go and you swear up and down (and down and up and occasionally sideways) that you can make it work, that long distance isn’t the end (miles are just numbers, you say) (bullshit, you think) (cause it isn't just about the distance) and swear over and over again that you don’t want to lose her but, by the week before you (and Karma) leave, you and Sabrina both know that’s pretty much inevitable.

Mostly because you’ve said it is and while you’ve never said why (besides the distance, once you stopped saying it was just a number) you both know.

College is a new start, a new chance and you’re not sure what it’s a chance for, exactly, but you know for sure it’s one you have to take. And you know (even more for sure) it’s one she can’t take with you.

Sabrina asks you, that last night, as she curls against you and arches her back one last time in your bed, moaning your name softly, not to rush. You slow your touch but she shakes her head, that isn’t what she means.

“Don’t replace me too soon,” she says and there are tears in her eyes and there’s a moment (a brief one) (but longer than you might have expected) where you mind drifts to the letter - still sealed - from UTA in your desk drawer and you wonder if this… chance… is really worth it. “I know there will be college girls and…”

(She trails off and doesn’t finish the ‘and’, but she doesn’t have to.)

(You both know what comes next.)

You slide up the bed, wrapping yourself around her and cradle her to you. You can feel her tears on your chest and you know your own are right there but you hold them back because this was your decision, this was your choice and more than anything else, that means that you don't get to cry.

“There won’t be anyone else,” you say and you’re pretty sure that you mean it. “You think you’re that easy to get over?”

Sabrina sniffles against you and her lips find your skin and for the next few hours she does everything she can to remind you just how how not easy that will be and, in the morning, when she leaves and you whisper it to her again (but somehow 'forget’ to say those other three words) (because it hurts too fucking much) (and yeah, the look in her eyes right then? That’s gonna linger) you really do mean it.

So when - about a month into your first semester, when the pain of missing her has almost equaled out to the pain of that… chance… seeming to be all for nothing - you find yourself flat on your back in your first ever dorm room bed with some blonde you don’t really know (like as in not even her name) between your legs and enough tequila in your blood to flood Mexico, you’re a little surprised.

Or, really, you would be, if you weren’t so drunk and sad and coming so damn hard from misshwhateverthefuckhernameis’s tongue that you can’t see straight.

The orgasms (enough that you lose count) come during the night and the surprise comes in the morning. A whole heaping plate of it with a side of massive regret and a dash of inconsolable guilt and a freshly squeezed glass of 'for shame’ looks from Karma that last close to a week.

“What?” you ask by Thursday. “It’s not like I was cheating,” you snap. “And you don’t even like Sabrina.”

Karma doesn’t argue, in fact she doesn’t say a word and by Friday the looks are gone and things are back to normal and she doesn’t even give you any shit when you don’t return Sabrina’s weekly Saturday morning phone call till the middle of the next week. But that’s the thing with you and Karma. She doesn’t have to say it.

She never liked Sabrina, but she kinda likes the drunken hooking up and feeling like shit about it the next morning you even less and she lets you know that every single time.

But she isn’t giving you any reason not to, so fuck her.

Sabrina starts seeing someone new when you’re nineteen and - surprisingly - it hurts so much that you think you’ll never recover. You spend two straight days in your bed, skipping class and meals and two parties but maybe that’s a good thing cause you don’t invite any strangers into your bed and so maybe never is a bit of an exaggeration.

Maybe.

Her name (and it is a her) (cause you had always wondered) (now you know) (and you’re not sure if knowing - and if it being a her - makes it better or worse) is Sydney. She’s a first year at UTA, in two of Sabrina’s classes, majoring in Human Services, and she’s only recently out as gay. You learn all of this from Lauren, less than five minutes after you learn that she and Sabrina have kept in touch (moreso than you and Sabrina, obviously) and you’re not sure if that should make you feel grateful, confused, or pissed.

(You settle for all three.) (But don’t let on about any of them to Lauren cause… well… Lauren.)

“I think it’s going to be good for her,” Lauren says during your weekly Skype call. “Sabrina seems really happy for the first time in like forever and she says she thinks Sydney might be…”

Lauren’s end of the call trails off (there’s someone in the background talking to her) (distracting her) (if it’s Booker, you swear to God…) and the silence leaves you to wonder (like that’s ever good.)

Sydney might be.

Might be faking it? Probably not (you weren’t trendsetters.) Might be just experimenting? Also not likely (Sabrina, despite it not working on herself, has excellent gaydar.) Might be a dude? Might be moving away soon, never to return? Might be a fan of Percy Jackson over Harry Potter (the bitch), might think The L Word should have kept going, might think orange is not the new black?

“Sorry,” Lauren says (and you see Booker - that fucker - over her shoulder) as she returns to the call. “Where was I? Oh, yeah… she thinks Sydney might be the one to get her over you.”

Lauren says it so simply, so plainly, so obviously looking for a reaction from you and you manage to give her one if by 'one’ you mean a nod and a mumble (you think you say 'good for her’ or something along those lines, but you’re not sure) and you try to remember that Lauren is under the impression that you’re over Sabrina (or, at least, that’s the impression you gave her, though you’re not sure she believed it) (she didn’t) and that you don't think about Sabrina and that your time here is taken up by any number of girls who aren’t Sabrina (or Karma) and so, of course, it doesn’t bother you even a tiny bit that you might be gotten over.

Not that Lauren believes that. Not that you do either. And not that you’ve got the first fucking clue what to make of that.

Though you do understand Karma just a little better.

Karma kisses you when you’re twenty and you try not to freak out.

You fail - fucking miserably - but you try.

You try not to feel guilty either, not like you should - after all Karma isn’t the first girl you’ve kissed since you’ve been here and Sabrina’s moved on (or so Lauren says) (often) - but, really, you fail pretty fucking miserably at that, too.

Karma’s not the first kiss you’ve had (obviously) and it isn’t even the first time she's kissed you since you both left Austin (it’s not even the second or third and it isn’t even the farthest things have gone since then.)

(That would be that one night.) (Sabrina and Sydney night.) (Vodka and cranberry night.) (The night you got rip roaring drunk and Karma got just as ripped - and almost as roared - in moral support.) (Which was followed by the morning.) (The one when you woke up with your hand between her legs and your head resting on her very naked chest and the only part you remember is sneaking out of her bed before she woke up.)

(That and the funny looks you caught her giving you for the next week.)

(And the taste of her on your… )

So it isn’t the first time (or the second) but what it is is the first time she’s done it sober or not on a dare or to shut some dude down at a club or because you looked sad or she felt like it and it’s the first time it isn't… dirty.

It’s anything but.

It’s slow and it’s sweet and it’s tender and it’s her hands cupping your cheeks and you slowly sliding into her lap (like it’s where you were meant to be) and it’s everything fifteen (and sixteen) (and every once in a while since then - teen) ever dreamed it would be.

So many dreams.

Maybe (not maybe) that’s why you pull back, breaking the kiss (and it’s the second hardest kiss you’ve ever had to end) and pinch yourself. And then, just for good measure (and cause she - finally - told you one drunken night about the 'camping’ dream) you pinch her too.

Karma stares at you from the edge of the bed. “You know, after a kiss like that, I’ve had my boobs grabbed, my ass squeezed, my lip nibbled on and my… um… yeah…” She blushes a shade darker than her hair and it’s all you can do not to tackle her then and there. “But I’ve never had my arm pinched.”

You eyes do a quick circuit of the room and everything is still in place and Karma hasn’t morphed into Sabrina (or Lauren) (that only happened once) and you don’t seem to be waking up and that means…

“You kissed me.” Karma nods with this bemused little smile on her face and all that does is convince you even more that this is just (another) dream (probably one of the ones that ends with you ripping her a new one for all she’s put you through.)

(And then with her apologizing.) (Repeatedly.) (In various… configurations.) (And if you keep thinking about that, you're going to tackle her.)

“You kissed me,” you repeat and Karma nods again, but you don’t think she quite gets it. “You kissed -”

She silences you with hands on your hips and lips on your lips and then there’s some of that boob grabbing and a little of that ass squeezing and quite a bit of that lip nibbling and then…

Oooh… so that’s what 'my… um… yeah' meant.

The kisses come first and then the hands and then there’s skin on skin and fuck all, she’s as perfect as fifteen year old (or any age old) you ever imagined.

(Except she’s real.) (She's Karma and she's real and your mind - and most especially your heart - may not have even the tiniest clue what to do with that, but the rest of you does.)

All those dreams - so many - were all the same (more or less) and it was almost always Karma doing unto you (your mind was a bit… vindictive) (and really, that was only fair) and so you being able to… do unto her… is something new and different and it’s pretty much something you could imagine yourself doing for the rest of your life.

(And you know you’ll be doing it a lot in the very near future cause there’s so many spots to try out and so many bits to taste and so many moans to hear and reactions to learn and God if she cums like this now, just wait till you show her how it's really done.)

All of that comes first and then later, much later, the words come. And yes, you know they probably should have come first (but the other way round was so much more fun) (and considerably less terrifying) and you’re lying in one sweaty heap, lazily trailing your fingers along her skin and memorizing exactly how every touch makes her tremble when she finally says it.

“I love you.”

Once upon a time, you might have died from hearing those words and once upon another time you might have killed her for saying them. That was always how you pictured it finally happening. At some party (probably one of Shane’s) you hand in hand and dancing close with your girlfriend (Reagan, at first, and then - for so much longer - Sabrina) and Karma would finally crack, she would finally slip past the point of enduring and she’d finally admit it - first to herself - and then, cause it’s Karma and she just couldn't help it, to you and to the world.

For so long, you pictured the light dying in your girlfriend’s eyes, the way hearing those words from her would tell them all they’d need to know. You could see the nodded 'I knew it’ and 'had to happen eventually’ from Lauren and Shane and Liam (that fucker) and you saw the way you would shake your head and fight and say 'no, no, no’ and 'I’m with you’ and 'it’s too late’.

But in the end, once upon a time, you would have walked away (run) (be honest) (you’d have set a land speed record) from whoever you were with, just for the chance to hear those words from her even just one more time.

This, though, isn’t once upon that time and you’re not that her anymore and yes, the kisses were good and the sex was… well… you won’t have trouble remembering it this time… but this is still Karma and you can never be sure and yes, you've started to forget Sabrina…

(Mostly because she’s forgotten you.) (Or so Lauren says.)

(You’re not sure you believe her.) (But you think you have to.)

Karma cups your cheek and turns you to face her. “I love you,” she says again and it’s so clear and simple and… honest… and what you wouldn’t have given to hear that that night in your bedroom. “I always have and I’m sorry it took so long and I’m extra sorry this is the best speech you’re going to get out of me cause the grand gesture thing has been done to death and I’d much rather show -”

You silence her with your lips on her lips and then you spend far more time than you’d ever imagined (and you’d imagined a lot) making her anything but silent and yeah, this really isn’t once upon that time.

Maybe that’s why it’ll work.

It does work, at least at first, and that's all Karma.

You’re not sure how it was for Liam or that Hawaiian fuck widget whose name you can’t remember (or for Felix) (whose name you can remember) (unfortunately) (though not as well as you can remember the sad crumpled I’m gonna go drown my sorrows in a really big wine cooler face he made at Senior Prom when Karma dumped him) but if this was the Karma Ashcroft Girlfriend Experience?

How stupid were they that they did anything to lose it?

The first month is a tour de force, a trip through the highlights of every rom-com Karma ever made you watch (and a few you think she must have watched alone) (like when you were out) (with Sabrina) (and she was by herself and in need of some romance therapy cause, as she’s said about a thousand times in the last four weeks, she loved you even then.)

(And if there’s a moment, every time she says it, when you feel just the tiniest bit of… something… bubbling up and you have to shove it back down cause things are good and that’s all the past and sleeping dogs and all that… well, you’ll learn to live with it.)

There’s breakfast in bed (and sometimes it’s even food) and there’s doughnuts delivered to your classes and there’s trails of post it notes leading from the door to the bed (it’s a dorm, it’s a short walk, but it’s the thought that counts) (that and the very naked Karma at the end of the trail) and there’s the playlists you find in your Spotify with titles like Thinking of You and Still Thinking of You and Thinking of You Thinking of Me and I’m Going to Fuck You When You Get Home so Skip Class.

Sometimes it’s so much you think she’s doing research for a class. Loving Amy Raudenfeld 101.

She’d get an A.

The first month is fantastic and exciting and - miraculously - new. Sure, there were always going to be parts (Karma's parts) (the ones you’d only gotten peeks at in gym locker rooms) that would be new and different. There would be simple things, too. Things like holding hands on the way to class or ending texts with love you (the words weren’t new, just the sentiment and not even that, really, cause Karma always reminds you how she really meant it all those times) and things like falling asleep snuggled in bed and not having to worry where your hands might wander.

(Karma encourages wandering.) (Lots and lots of wandering.)

But underneath all the new is still the old (and that’s not the right word) (not old) (familiar) (that’s better.) She’s still Karma and you’re still Amy and at heart nothing’s changed.

Except everything’s changed.

There’s a moment, halfway through the second month, when it hits you. It’s your first fight (and that alone should tell you how hard Karma worked that first month) and, of course, it’s about the only thing it could be.

“I just don’t understand why you still talk to her,” Karma says. “You don’t see me chatting up Liam or making plans to see him over Thanksgiving.”

Of course you didn’t. Partly since Liam is with Lauren and partly since that (Karma and Liam) (fucking Kiam) has been over for a long while (since before Hawaiian dude) (since before Felix) and partly since Liam won’t be in Austin for Thanksgiving.

Dallas. With Lauren. And Bruce. And Bruce’s new wife.

(The one three years older than Lauren.)

(For once, you almost feel sorry for Booker.) (That fucker.)

“I haven’t made any plans,” you say and that’s - more or less - the truth. “I said maybe. Maybe we could see each other. Maybe we could do lunch. Maybe she could bring Sydney and I could… meet them somewhere.”

Old Karma - familiar non-girlfriend, non-wandering encouraged, non-sleeping with Karma - would have caught the slip. She would have heard you try oh so gracefully (not really) (cause… well… you) to catch yourself and fix it. She would have caught it and she would have held it and she would have internalized it and buried it and not said a fucking word about it until much, much later.

(And even then, there would have been words, but none of them would have been about that except all of them would have been about that.)

New Karma - the one you waited oh, so long for - catches it. And holds it. And internalizes it.

And then rips you up one side and then down the other with it. Cause now? She can.

“She could bring Sydney and you could bring you,” she mutters (which suggests not wanting you to hear but, oh, she wants you to hear.) “You haven’t told her, have you? We’ve been together almost two months and you haven’t said a word to Sabrina about it, have you?”

In the entirety of your twenty years on this planet, you’ve never ever wanted to say 'well, duh’ more than in this moment.

“We don’t even talk,” you say, well aware that 'talk’ is semantics since no, you and Sabrina don’t actually speak (much) and most of your communication is through texts (yours) and emails (hers) and the occasional Snapchat (her) (always her) (surprisingly none of them including Sydney) (who you still have never seen) and if, maybe, those other forms of… talking… might border on bust-your-data-plan-if-you-had-one levels…

She’s your friend. She has been since you were twelve. If you don’t count the two years of 'I love yous’ and near constant kissing and quite a lot of… well… other stuff, then you’ve always been friends.

Karma counts those two years. She so counts them.

She snatches your phone off your desk and scrolls through your messages (and you try not to think about her and phones and Sabrina) and even though you know you’ve got nothing to hide?

That gnawing pit in your stomach says different.

And maybe, even though Karma storms off in a huff and then comes back an hour later and apologizes (in all those different configurations) and promises to not make a fuss when you go to dinner with Sabrina and Sydney and says she understands why you haven’t told her, you still have to wonder.

Cause that gnawing pit is still there.

And maybe, you can’t help thinking, that’s why it won’t work.

You (and Karma) see Sabrina for the first time since the break up when you’re twenty and home for Thanksgiving and it almost kills you.

And if that tells you something, it tells Karma a lot more.

You (and Karma) see her but she doesn’t see you (or Karma) (or your hands, interlocked on the table top) (it’s your two-monthiversary) (and yes, that’s a thing) (a Karma thing) and you’ve never been more grateful for anything in your life as you are that Sabrina doesn’t turn around, that she doesn’t look into the dark corner of the restaurant, that she just seems to be there to get takeout and leave and that thought (her leaving) (her leaving alone) is the only thing keeping your heart from erupting right out of your chest.

It’s two days before Thanksgiving which gives you three days before you’re supposed to meet her and Sydney for dinner and that’s three days you were counting on, three days you need cause you know you’re not ready, not in the least.

Which is, of course, why Sydney is there. Right there. Right then. Walking right up to Sabrina and slipping an arm around her waist as they wait at the bar for their order and then laughing lightly (and you mean lightly) (you can hear her and the sound of it, it’s like… it’s like air floating through a cloud of sun and light and love and fucking unicorns and God, you hate her already) and kissing Sabrina on the cheek and the bite of shrimp in your mouth just loses all flavor and you have to pry your hand free from Karma’s so you can spit the carcass into your napkin.

And if the sound of Karma’s now un-entiwined fingers drumming on the table is the first thing that actually reminds you she’s there?

Yeah. That can’t be good.

“You going to say something?” she asks and you’re not entirely sure if she means to Sabrina and Sydney (even their names work together) or to her (about Sabrina and Sydney) so you just shake your head and try to focus back on your plate. “You sure?” Karma asks again. “I can go to the ladies room or outside for some air or, you know, back to New Orleans, if that would help.”

You poke your fork listlessly into a shrimp and refuse to take the bait. “Can we do this later?”

“This?” Karma asks. “What this?” She glances back up toward the bar where Sydney has snuggled even closer, both her arms around Sabrina and her head resting on the older girl’s shoulder. “Oh, you mean the you obviously being bothered… maybe even jealous… at the sight of your ex and someone else? That this?”

The fork slips from your fingers and clatters against your plate. “I’m not jealous,” you say and you’re not lying. Whatever you’re feeling it isn’t jealousy… not exactly. “It’s just… a shock, that’s all.”

Karma folds her napkin - very precisely - and tucks it under the edge of her plate. “You’ve known,” she says. “You’ve known for months that they’re together.”

Knowing and seeing - and not just in your mind’s eye or in your sleep or in the daydreams that sometimes slip in, filling in the cracks in between all of Karma’s romance - are two entirely different things.

“Yeah,” you say, spearing a shrimp, driving the fork through it. “I know that I’ve known, Karma, OK? It’s just…” You twist the fork, digging the tines through the shrimp. “It’s just a little blow to my ego, alright? You’re not the only one who loves being loved, you know?”

It’s maybe a bit of a low blow.

OK. Not maybe. And more than a bit. But in your defense…

Yeah. There's no defense.

Karma doesn’t say anything as she slips from the table and you don’t make any effort to stop her either. You don’t stand up (that would draw attention) and you don’t reach out to catch her hand (one of yours is still gutting the shrimp and the other is curled into a fist in your lap) and you don’t call out after her (attention, again.) Her coat is still on the back of her chair and her purse is still on the other chair between you and so you know she’s not leaving.

Not yet, anyway.

You and Karma sleep apart for the first time in months that night and then the night after that and the night after that and even when she does find her way back into your bed - the night when you come home later than planned from dinner with Sabrina and Sydney - it’s not quite the same.

You’ve gotten used to sleeping with girlfriend Karma. Spooning turning into sprawling turning into Karma using you as a full body pillow and the warm weight of her - so soft and heavy in all the right ways - pressing against you has given you some of the best night’s sleeps of your life.

That night she crawls into bed beside you and curls herself around you, little spooning you the way she did when John McGuire made fun of your haircut in fifth grade or Billie Reed clipped you in the face with a field hockey stick in seventh or when Reagan broke up with you or when you cried yourself to sleep after the third no name blonde during freshman year. Her hands find yours and your fingers lace together and she presses soft and chaste kisses to the back of your head while you silently sob into your pillow.

When she slips from bed in the middle of the night and finds her way back to the guest room, she doesn’t say a word.

But you’re awake and you hear her go.

And you let her.

Sabrina and Sydney break up the Monday after Thanksgiving and that night you make Karma scream.

In the good way.

At least at first.

Lauren’s the one who breaks the news, texting you in the middle of your Abnormal Psych class and you spend the next forty-five minutes trying - unsuccessfully - to figure out how you feel about it. By the time class is over (or, really, five minutes after cause you’re so lost in your own thoughts you don’t even hear everyone else filing out) you’ve decided how you feel.

You've decided.

Yes, you know - you know all too fucking well, thank you very much - that feeling doesn’t work like that but it’s going to, it's so going to, for you, this time. You’ve decided, you’ve made a choice (another one) (and let’s be real here, it’s the first choice you made that means you have to make this one) and that’s all there is to it.

You’ve decided that you’re going to be (not going to be) (are) fine with it. Sad for Sabrina - cause she’s alone again - and sad for Sydney too cause it was obvious (so obvious) how deeply she’d already fallen. You could see it in every look, in the way her face lit up when Sabrina took her hand, in the way even the smallest of smiles from Sabrina made her blush, in the way she hung on her girlfriend’s every word (sometimes even ignoring you) and the way she stared, the way she watched everything Sabrina did (reading the menu) (thanking the waitress) (staring a little too long at you) like it was the first time she’d ever seen it.

You wondered - more than once, actually - if Sabrina had seen you do that, if she’d seen that with you and Karma and you don’t wonder how much that must have hurt.

You don't have to wonder.

It was so clear, just how in love Sydney was, no better evidence of it than the way she kept herself between you and Sabrina the entire evening.

Except when she went to the 'powder room’ (her words) and left the two of you alone by the coat check on your 'best behavior’ (her words) (again) and you could see it again - how far gone, how far over the fucking moon she was - when she came back and her eyes flicked back and forth between you and Sabrina, like she was trying to decide if the amount of space between you was normal or if you’d put a little extra, if you were overcompensating and trying to hide something.

(You were.) (But no amount of space could erase the taste of Sabrina’s kiss from your lips and, later that night, you were never so glad Karma didn’t try to kiss you in your life.)

So, yeah, you’ve decided to feel bad for both of them and you’ve decided that you’ll send Sabrina a 'sorry to hear’ text later and offer, politely (in that obviously doing it to be polite and not expecting you to take me up on it kinda way) to be a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen.

Later.

You’ll do it later.

Cause before that, you’ve decided that while you’re feeling bad for them, you're not going to feel good for you - not because of them - but you are going to feel good cause you’re tired of feeling bad and you’re tired of making Karma feel bad (cause it isn’t her fault) (it never was) (you made your own choices and you’d make them all again.)

(You think.)

It’s easy for you to beat her home and it’s simple (cause, again, short trip) for you to leave the rose petals in a trail from door to bed and it’s even easy to wrap the oversized bow around you and it's ridiculously easy for you to be ready and wet and waiting for her and it's so easy for Karma to light up from head to toe, so easy for her to smile like you’ve changed her life, insanely easy for her to strip down and dive into bed and it’s the easiest thing ever for the both of you to get lost in each other.

It always was.

And if you don’t blush at her words like you once did? If the smile her touch brings to your face isn’t quite as real as it once was? If you close your eyes instead of watching as she slides down between your legs and if your moans become just sounds instead of her name and if you decide to enjoy and revel and let her love you?

That’s all pretty easy too. To ignore, to pretend, to deny deny deny. It’s all too easy, in the moment.

If you could only live in the moment.

You’re twenty-one and on the verge of graduating and Karma’s already talking about houses and jobs and futures when you decide (again) that you can’t anymore.

You can’t live in the moment.

She takes it well. Sort of. Kinda. Maybe she could take it a little better…

Fuck it.

She takes it like shit and you’re not surprised and you know (even if she doesn’t) that you deserve every single curse she sends your way, that you deserve every four letter word and every scream and every set of keys that get flung in your general direction and every picture frame that gets thrown onto the floor and every bit of glass that shatters and splinters and pricks your bare feet.

“I’m sorry,” you say and yes, you know that’s about as inadequate as it could possibly be, but it’s all you have.

(It's not.) (It’s not really.) (You have more, you have a lot more, you have the truth.)

“I’m sorry,” you say again and it may not be all you have but it’s all she’s going to get cause the truth might set you free but - more than likely - it would set Karma off.

“Tell me,” she says and there’s tears in her eyes but anger in her voice, in the way she spits the words at you (not literally) (but you’re not sure she’s that far removed from the possibility.) “Tell me it's her.”

You don’t need her to be more specific and she knows it. There’s only one 'her’ and there's always only been one 'her’ and maybe - hindsight and all that fucking shit - if you’d realized that before, this might not…

Fuck that.

This would have always happened because you always would have been here and you always would have been with her (Karma) (not the one 'her’) because that’s what you do.

Did.

“It’s not,” you say (lie) and you think about arguing more but thou dost not wish to protest too much. “This is about us, Karma. No one else.”

Karma gives you a look - one you haven’t seen since the Hester basement and yeah, this moment right here? It might (not might) be worse than that and that’s saying something - from across the room. She’s put an increasingly large amount of distance between the two of you since you said it

(I can’t be with you anymore.)

and you’re pretty sure if she could actually go all X-Men and phase into the wall she would.

“No,” she says, flatly. Plain and simple and clear. “This is about you, not us. If this was about us, then maybe we would have talked about it. Maybe we would have discussed whatever problems there are between us and maybe we could have fix-”

“There’s no fix,” you say, cutting her off and if you could bring yourself to look at her, you’d be terrified at the way she… deflates. She sags against the wall and it’s like the bones have fallen from beneath her skin and the only thing holding her up is sheer force of will. “We don’t work and you know that. This… this isn't us.”

“If it isn’t us,” she says, “then who is it?”

You shake your head and scoot back onto the bed, pressing yourself against the pillows and the headboard and you can almost feel yourself shrinking. “This is us wanting this to be us, this is us trying to make this us, but it isn’t working, Karma. It hasn’t worked in…” You hang your head and brace yourself. “It hasn't ever worked. Not really.”

You want her to agree with you. More than anything in the fucking world you want her to nod and accept and shuffle over to the bed and settle herself down on the end so you can both eulogize this failed… experiment… and start the long road back to being the real 'us’. The best of friends, the family, the two of you against the world.

That's all you want. Well, maybe not all, but the rest…

The rest will mean so much less without it.

“I took too long,” she says and now the tears are in her eyes and her voice and you think that might just kill you. “I was too scared and too caught up in fantasies of what it was all supposed to be and I took too long to tell you and I’m sorry, Amy.”

She’s not wrong, not about any of it, but that’s got so… nothing… to do with any of it, that you don’t know what to say.

“I tried, you know,” Karma says. She slips down the wall, that force of will just… gone. “I tried so hard at first. I wanted you to see. I wanted you to know and to understand and to… believe me cause I knew how hard…”

“I believed, Karm,” you say quietly but she just shakes her head and you know her (you know her) and you know you’ll never convince her otherwise.

“She took it,” she says. “She took my story and she took my moment and she took my speech and all I had…” Karma puts her head in her hands and there’s never been a more awkward moment between you, not ever. “I waited too long and while I was waiting… she took you and you left her and you picked me but… but she took you and she’s never given you back, has she?”

You draw your knees to your chest and wrap your arms around your legs. “I told you, this isn’t about -”

“Amy.”

You look up, pulling your eyes from the wrinkled fabric of the duvet and stare across the room at the girl you’ve loved for half your life (and all you can think about is the 'ed’ on the end of that fucking word) and you don’t know if she’s ever going to forgive you for this.

But you know you won’t.

“I tried,” Karma says. “You can’t say I never did but…” She reaches up to the counter next to her and plucks the keys (the set she didn’t throw) and tosses them to you. “It’s almost an eight hour drive,” she says. “Probably closer to six the way you drive.”

You stare at the keys, resting there on the bed and shake your head. It isn’t that simple, it isn’t just end things here and tear off into the night to go get the girl. It isn’t that… easy.

“It can be,” Karma says and you realize you spoke, that you said it out loud. “With you two, except for that one little lying about the boyfriend thing, it always was.”

You shake your head again. Even as your hand creeps out, closer to the keys.

“I fixed this once, Amy,” Karma says. “I did my best friend duty and I set you free and all of… that.” She pushes herself to her feet and walks to the door. “This time, it’s on you.”

Her coat is still on the hook by the door and her purse is still on the dresser and her keys are somewhere on the other side of the room so she can’t be leaving. But when the door shuts behind her?

You know she’s not.

But you are.

Karma was wrong.

It was a five hour trip the way you drive.

By the time you get to Austin, by the time you pull up outside Sabrina’s house, by the time you find yourself sitting on the hood of your car (and by 'your’, you mean yours and Karma’s and yeah, this is all gonna take some sorting out) you’re wishing you’d driven a bit slower.

Cause you’ve got no fucking idea what to say.

You don’t know, not for sure, anything about her life now. Lauren moved back to Dallas with Liam (that fucker) taking your one tiny little peephole into Sabrina’s life with her. Last you heard, she was single, but that was what, four or five months ago? Things change. People change.

Or, you know, sometimes they don’t, no matter how hard they try.

If Karma were here she’d tell you to march up to that door and ring that bell and when Sabrina opened it, she’d take one look in your eyes and she’d just know and you’d kiss and mumble 'I love you’s’ against each other’s lips and all would be right with the world.

(Actually, if Karma were here, you’re pretty sure not a single word of that would leave her lips.)

If Shane were here… if Lauren… if Liam… (that fucker)…

It doesn’t matter. They're not and you are and you didn’t drive five hours just to sit on the hood of your car staring at her front door like some kind of -

“You stalking me now?”

Your head whips around and you almost fall from the hood (fucking graceful, Raudenfeld) and there she is, carrying a stack of books and her hair’s up in a messy ponytail and she looks like she hasn’t slept in days and fuck all that shouldn’t make your heart race. That’s just…nuts.

Karma might have a different word for it.

“I… um… I…" God you suck at this.

Sabrina walks around to the hood, taking a glance inside the car. "You’re alone?” she asks and you know she doesn’t mean just right now and you nod cause, apparently, speaking is not your forte right now. “Yeah,” she says, setting her books down next to you and leaning against the passenger door. “Me too.”

You nod (again) and a wave of relief washes over you. Not that you think just because she’s single that means you’re in, but it does give you a chance, at least and she did kiss you that Thanksgiving weekend and she did break up with Sydney right after it and…

And you stayed with Karma for almost another year.

“Did I wait too long?” you ask (and yes, you see the fucking irony, it’s fucking blinding, you couldn’t miss it if you tried.) “I didn't… I mean… I…” You hang your head and wish - for the first time ever - that you’d paid more attention during all those rom-coms.

Sabrina pushes off the car and stands in front of you, sliding between your knees and putting her hands on the hood, on either side of your hips. “It’s been almost a year since we kissed,” she says. “A year since I told you I still loved you.”

You nod cause, well, what the fuck else are you supposed to do?

“And it’s been just about three years since you broke up with me,” she says and that doesn't sound good for you but she’s not backing away. If anything, she’s getting closer. “So that’s what? Four years total?”

You nod again even though you don’t know if it is cause being this close, well, it kinda makes it hard for you to do the maths.

“So,” she says, leaning closer (and if she’s setting you up for the kill, it might do just that.) “Way I figure it, I fell in love with you when I was twelve but didn’t tell you till I was sixteen.”

She presses her lips to yours and your hands find her hips as you slip from the hood and into her arms, and if this is how you’re gonna go, it’s the best way you could have picked.

So this wasn’t the plan.

Or, more accurately, he wasn’t the plan. And, specifically he is Felix but, really, it could be any he cause yeah… not so much. You might not have labelled yourself and you might not know for sure but you’ve got a pretty good idea that… how did she put it?

Your slugger swings one way.

Or, at the very least, your slugger likes swinging one way better and, maybe, if you found your slugger a really nice (like Felix) and really sweet (also like Felix) and really not boring as fuck (so not Felix) example of the other side of the plate…

Oh… fuck the analogy or metaphor or whatever. Just deal with the facts on the ground.

You may still like guys but you don’t like him, not like that and you know it and he knows it and anyone who spends more than thirty seconds with the two of you knows it and you almost feel bad for him, because it isn’t his fault.

It’s not his fault he isn’t her.

And to be fair, Felix is a nice guy, he really is. He’s dependable (you know, unless he drinks) (or unless you leave him alone with your best friend for five minutes.) He’s friendly (as long as you count that held in, simmering just under the surface probably gonna snap one day and end up in a bell tower with a fucking rifle way of dealing with shit as friendly.) He’s dorky and he’s kind and he’s less insane than most of your friends.

Most of your friends are Karma, Shane, and Lauren.

If he wasn’t less insane, he’d have to be committed.

So, maybe he’s got the personality of a slightly damp cloth and if you actually dated he’d probably be a full on never let you go anywhere or see anyone or do anything without him clinger but he’s your date and he's here and he’s dealing with your obvious disappointment and he’s been nothing but honest with you, which is more than you can say for some people.

Some people who aren’t here and you kinda understand that whole conspicuous by their absence thing now.

Felix mumbles something, some supposed to be funny attempt at breaking the ice (the Titanic couldn’t break this ice), something about him being a drunk and you hating dancing and so, maybe, this is actually the worst possible date.

(It is.) (It so is.) (And it’s got nothing to do with drinking or dancing or the kissing to come.)

(Well.) (Maybe a little to do with the kissing.)

“I don't hate dancing,” you say and Felix perks up a little, taking that as a suggestion that maybe he should lead you out onto the floor, that maybe he should take your hand and put his arm around your waist and maybe (just maybe) by the end of some appropriately slow (and hetero-lyrically laden) song you’ll have started to forget her and remember him.

You move a step away (just a small one) and sip your punch and mumble something about the band and how shiny Shane’s jacket is and where could Karma be and by the time you’re finished, you’re pretty sure you couldn't pay him to dance with you.

“This was a bad idea,” he says and you want to agree with him, you want to nod and say yes and ask him to just take you home and hope that when he drops you off there’s only a minimally awkward moment when he wonders if he’ll get a kiss or get invited in. You want to.

But you don’t.

Instead you shake your head and protest - “No, no, it's fine” - because you know it’s what you're supposed to do. He’s what you’re supposed to do and the universe (fucking dick) has made that clear, has made it so perfectly obvious that doing anything different (like following your heart) (or any of your other… parts) is a huge mistake and will get you nowhere.

Nowhere but crying in your room listening to the silence of Karma not being able to find the words to make it better.

(And where is she?)

You’ve gotten the message (loud and clear and painful) and all that’s left for you to is to embrace it, to roll with it, to take his hand - “Come on” - and gently pull him toward the dance floor. You can hear the band (minus Karma) (and you wonder if you should worry) tuning up for a slow one and at least that means you can let him hold you close and you can put your head on his shoulder and - for three minutes and change (longer if Shane decides to embellish) - you can pretend that you’re with the one you want.

Or that the one you’re with actually wants you.

You’re pretty good at the former, but the latter…

It’s hard to imagine something you’ve never had.

That’s the hard part, that’s the part that kills because that’s the part you thought you’d found, finally. Karma didn’t like you like that and Reagan did but only a part of you and Felix might have but then you left him with Karma and he realized the parts of you he liked were her and Sabrina…

Yeah. Sabrina.

You thought she liked you. Just you. But the you she liked was the one she could keep from Karma, the one that paid attention to her (and not Karma) and wanted her (and not Karma) and was her friend (and not Karma’s.)

For Sabrina it was all about Karma (or not Karma, as the case may be) because of course it was. Story of your life, right? Your sexuality - at least your discovery of it - was all about Karma. Your first kiss was about Karma and your second kiss was about (escaping) Karma and your first time was about (hurting) Karma and your first (second) love was about (forgetting) Karma.

You turn your head and sneak a peek at Felix and he’s sneaking a peek at the door (and he’s not really all that sneaky) and you don’t even need to ask who he’s looking for.

Why should he be any different?

“We don’t have to,” he says and you know he means the dance but it’s hard not to think of how much else he probably means. “I know you don’t really want to -”

You shut him up the same way you did at prom - with your lips - and you feel him tense beneath your touch which, really, is impressive because you’re surprised you can feel anything other than your heart breaking and the feeling of…. something… inside you dying and oh God this was the wrong wrong wrong thing to do but, really, what else was left?

You’ve gotten the hint. You’ve gotten the message. So… fine. You’ll listen. You’ll do what the universe or fate or whatever wants. You'll dance with Felix and you'll kiss Felix and you'll date Felix and - somewhere down the line - you’ll get drunk and he’ll stay sober and you'll fuck Felix and then you'll go to college with Felix (like he wouldn’t follow you) and then you'll marry Felix and have little baby Felixes (Felixi ?) and you’ll both live next door to Karma and Liam (like it could be anyone else) and sip iced tea on the porch and smile your way through the dream life and never once wonder or wish or… remember.

And it’ll all be just fine.

You give. You’re crying ‘uncle’, you’re surrendering, you’re tapping out with your lips on his and that’s it, that’s the end, that’s all she fucking wrote.

And then Karma walks in.

And then Karma walks in with her and they both spot you across the room and there’s anger in Karma’s eyes and pain in Sabrina’s and you look at Felix and there's nothing in his and you just fucking know.

This is gonna be anything but just fine.

There have been times (a few) (more lately) (like since the pool) (but still just a… few) when you’ve found yourself just fucking hating Karma.

The night of your mother’s wedding springs to mind. Oh, you still loved her that night, as much (or maybe more) that you ever had. How could you not? She was there, she was right there with you, amongst all the romance and love and there was the dancing and the song and the laughter and the way she looked at you.

There was hope.

And then there was Liam Booker crawling out from under a table and there was a toast and there was you begging her to jump and her begging you to understand (though not really) (there was just mostly tears and denial and that describes most do the last year or so for you two) and then there was you.

Alone.

Until you weren’t.

Yeah… you hated her that night.

And… maybe… there was the night at Communal (which was probably more mad and less hate) and the night when she practically fucking ordered you to tell Reagan about you and boys (and it totally counts if you just hated that she was right) and there was right before you got on the bus (which is why you got on the bus) and there was, definitely, the other night.

When she, you know, saved you.

Which was utter bullshit and totally insane and completely 100% all about Karma and just about the most ridiculous thing she’d ever done. Never to be topped, never to be outdone, the pinnacle, the fucking zenith of Karma being Karma.

Until, you know, right fucking now.

He wasn’t the plan and that was mostly because he was him, but also because you really didn't have a plan. You never have a plan because you always have Karma and that's her job, that’s her role, that’s her end of the fucking ship.

She plans, you follow. That’s how it’s always been and that’s how you’ve always let it be because, let’s face it, sometimes you do need a little guidance, a little steering. Sometimes, left to your own devices, you do… things.

(Liam Booker or croquembouche or hump day kinds of things.)

Though, you’ve gotta admit, lately you’ve needed a little less steering and a little less guiding and you’ve kinda grown fond of your own devices (and not just the one you won at lesbingo) but you’ve still let Karma keep at least one hand on the wheel at all times.

And this is what that gets you.

This is you. You in a pretty - if somewhat short - dress (boys like dresses) (short dresses especially.) You in a dress, on a date, with a boy (a boy you plan on kissing at midnight) (kissing again) (cause you’re giving up) (and maybe a little cause you think it will piss Karma off.)

You in a dress on a date with a boy at a party you don’t like for a holiday you think is ridiculous (new year) (same you) with a tradition that ranks among the dumbest of all time (unless there’s someone you want to kiss.)

(Your eyes totally don't drift to Sabrina.)

(someone you want to kiss who wants to kiss you back.)

(Your eyes totally do drift away.)

This is you seeing Karma come around the corner in a green dress that’s cut down to… well… somewhere you haven’t thought about going in quite some time and if she were alone you might be thinking about visiting (and setting up camp) (and maybe moving in) (at least building a summer home) but that's the thing.

She's not alone.

Fuck.

This is what you get for letting her plan.

“What is she doing here?” you ask (whisper) (hiss) (say loud enough that everyone hears but you only care that she hears and that all she hears is the disdain and anger and disgust.)

(And not, you know, the 'I’ve really missed you’ or the ’God, you look beautiful’ or - especially - the 'say something, say anything, just make it better’.)

Whether she hears that or not, Sabrina doesn’t say anything and from the look she shoots Karma, you’ve got a pretty good idea why. She’s been coached up, she’s been instructed, she’s been 'let me handle this’-ed.

Even when it's not about Karma, it's about Karma.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you mutter, and you can see it in Karma’s eyes that same look she gets when she knows that you know how ridiculous whatever it is she’s planning is but she’s gonna go through with it anyway.

Never let anyone say Karma isn’t committed.

“Karma?” Three heads and six eyes snap over to Felix (and you wonder if they forgot he was there too.) “What’s going on?”

What’s going on, you think, is Karma’s ruining the boy’s date. She’s bringing the ex (the fake ex) girlfriend to the party to… well… to…

To fucked if you know.

“I don’t know what you’re planning,” you say to Karma (and very specifically ignoring Sabrina) (and… him.) “But… this?" you wave a hand between you and Sabrina, "is not happening. This happened and this is done.”

Point made. Anger shown. Law laid down and line drawn and you can totally stalk off in an angry huff now.

You can. And you will. Any second now. Any moment. Any…

Fuck.

“I don’t care what she has to say, Karma,” you say, which would have totally been proven by some angry huff stalking but your point is sort of ruined by you still standing there. “Whatever bullshit she’s spun to get you to bring her here? Won’t work on me. I see who she is now.”

Fuck yeah, you do. You see right through her. You see right through those deep brown eyes (full of lies) and that silky dark hair (she probably colors it) and those soft soft lips (that speak falsehoods) and that (probably forked) tongue…

(Yeah. This is definitely one of those hating Karma moments.)

“She lied, Karma. She fucking lied." Yeah she did and the way she flinches at the word just reinforces your point and yeah, score one for you. "A leopard never changes its spots, remember?”

“Technically, a leopard can't change its spots,” Felix says.

Such a hating Karma moment.

“I remember,” Karma says with a nod. “But maybe I'm not the one who has to.”

She steps toward you and takes one of your hands in hers and you’re really proud that you don’t pull away.

“Maybe you need to remember,” Karma says. “What it was like to kiss a girl for all the wrong reasons only…” she pauses and her eyes flick back - just for a second - to Sabrina and you see it, so fucking clear, that Karma still doesn't like her. “Only to find your whole world tipped upside down and even though it was for all the wrong reasons -”

“It was right," Sabrina says softly and you feel Karma’s grip on you tighten, like she’s holding on for dear life and there’s tears in her eyes, like the night of the wedding or the night at Communal or the day you got on that bus.

And then Karma does what she always does, just when you think you might actually hate her and it might really last and you can’t believe how fucking stubborn and selfish she can be.

She lets go.

"Maybe you should remember,” she says to you and if there aren’t tears in her eyes, they’re definitely in her voice. “Remember how familiar that sounds.”

She reaches beside you and takes Felix by the hand, leading him out onto the dance floor, leaving you and Sabrina there, alone, or as alone as two people with about a metric ton of crap between them can be. And yeah, it’s mostly her crap (lies and secrets and confusions) but maybe there’s a little of yours in there too.

Or, you know, more than a little.

She doesn’t say anything and you don’t say anything and the band plays on in the background and somewhere out there Karma is in Felix’s arms (and you’re not as sure as you were five minutes ago that that’s where she wants to be) and somewhere else out there Lauren and Liam are pretending to be a couple (like that ever ends well.) The universe isn’t just a bunch of dicks, it’s absolutely insane.

And you’ve got no idea what it wants anymore cause here you are. Standing with a girl you want to hate but kinda love (it was only four days) (but sometimes it doesn’t take more than one) being shoved together by the girl your world had revolved around for so long, and there’s the tiniest flicker of hope in your heart (even if you don’t want there to be) and isn’t that just like the fucking universe?

It giveth and it taketh away. And then it giveth again.

Sabrina holds out a hand to you and you stare at it for a long moment and there’s nothing you want more than to take it.

Nothing.

But that would be following your heart. And where does that get you?

Oh. Right. Nowhere.

You walk past her without so much as brushing your fingers against hers and you hear the air rush out of her lungs and that, that gut punch world ending fall to the floor and never get back up feeling?

That you remember.

“Maybe,” you say, stopping but not looking back at her. “Maybe I remember and maybe I understand and maybe…” You look back at her, at her hand, still outstretched, waiting for you.

Maybe.

You look back out at the dance floor and you can’t see Felix or Karma and maybe that's a sign. And Sabrina is still standing there, heart on her sleeve (if, you know, her dress had any) and hand held out. And maybe that's a sign.

Maybe there all signs, maybe there all the universe’s way of trying to show you it’s way over complicated and like it was written by a bunch of monkeys at typewriters (or idiot showrunners) not very simple at all plan.

Or maybe the universe is just content to leave you to your own devices.

“You’ve got five minutes,” you tell her before you start walking again (not in a huff, angry or otherwise) and you hear her hustling to keep up and you're sure that you’re absolutely not sure what you’re doing. Not even a little.

You just know that you’re following your heart. And yeah, that’s always led you nowhere.

But nowhere is better than here.

You’re tugging your tiny suitcase and your guitar and trying not to think about how little you have left, how many of your possessions and mementos and keepsakes are no more, just burned away. You try not to think about the pictures (the ones you so carefully and lovingly rehung on your mirror after the Liam… indiscretion) and the home movies burned and sizzled away inside your laptop hard drive and all the trinkets and toys and treats Amy bought you over the years, now just so much charcoal.

You’ve got your heart - it’s dangling round your neck - and now, more than ever, you know you’ve still got hers. And so fire be damned cause those are just things (and you’ve still got more than Zen, anyway) and you’ve got all of those you need and you’ve got her and what more do you really need?

(And maybe if you’d thought like that a year ago…)

But now isn’t the time for regret and now isn’t the time for thinking about woulda coulda shoulda and now, apparently, isn’t the time for just being happy (never the time for that, now is it?) cause there she is.

Not the she you want to see (oh, that rhymed) (God, you need some sleep) (a house burning tends to wreck the rem-rest) but that she - even though you know you’ve got her - is still only barely speaking to you (and you’re only barely holding back the oppressive wave of guilt over that) and yeah, she’s letting you stay with her but that’s only cause it was with her or with Diane.

And no matter how pissed at you she is, Amy’s not that mean.

So, no, it’s not the she you want… want to see… (like the ‘to see’ makes it so much better) but, you figure, it’s the she you were destined to run into eventually.

Destiny, like the universe, is a fucking dick.

She - Sabrina - is right where you would have thought she’d be, if you’d given her anything more than a passing thought in the last week (like you haven’t) (like the deafening silence from Amy and the weird weirdness with Felix and the burning of your house and the thought - over and over and over again - of Amy’s face that night hasn’t kept her front and fucking center in your mind.)

(Someone’s gotta be to blame for it all, right?)

So there she is, right where you’d imagined she’d be staring up at Amy’s window, leaning against the tree you hid behind for your… Felix’s … grand gesture (though, since you doubt the sincerity of her feelings, you’re not sure why you kept imagining her here.)

(And that’s a lie.) (You know why you thought she’d be there, of all places.)

(It’s where you would have been.)

(And Sabrina is all about you.) (Right?) (Right.)

But you know… fuck where you would have been, it’s where you should have been that night, after the shit hit the fan and you’d sent Felix trundling off after Amy. You should have been right there, leaning against that tree, staring up at that window and hoping Amy was OK. Hoping that Felix was being her shoulder to cry on (her pale and not all that strong but honest and there shoulder.) You should have been there and not up there, outside the room, listening and waiting for your moment.

The one where you could jump in and save the day and be that shoulder and yes, you can admit that that is exactly why you were there cause, let’s face it, everyone already knows that.

It’s not why you were there that matters. It’s why that mattered to you, why being that for Amy mattered so much, why you couldn’t let Felix do it, why it had to be you. You’ve thought a lot about that in the last seven days (pretty much every time you’ve tried to talk to Amy) (and she hasn’t talked back) and you know the answer (you've always known it) but knowing why and knowing what (as in what the fuck to do about it) are two different things.

And really, what can you do about it? Tell her? Tell her that she’s your best friend and you love her more than anything and maybe (maybe) it’s not quite the love you thought it was and that maybe (maybe) seeing her with someone else… made you see it?

(slapped you in the fucking face?)

(kicked you in the ass?)

(broke your already fragile heart and pushed you into being absolutely insane and doing the most ridiculous of things like pretending to be someone else and pretending to be from another country and pretending that every time Felix makes those fucking puppy eyes at you it’s actually sweet and adorable and you might actually consider it?)

Yeah. That would be good. You should tell her all that. Tell her all that just a week after the girl she liked (really really liked) (can’t forget the really) (or the second one) broke her heart (with a little bit of help) when you know, when you can see it every time you look in Amy’s eyes and hear it in every word she doesn’t say.

She still likes her. She still really really likes her.

The heart, you’ve realized, is like the universe and like destiny. A fucking dick.

So, no, there’s not much you can do except think about it and fuck all, you're sick of thinking about it and you know what, that’s just one more thing you can drop on Sabrina the teenage bitch’s blame pile.

(You’ve been waiting to use that one ever since she showed up.)

(It’s somewhat less satisfying than you’d thought.)

There’s a moment, as you draw closer (and it isn’t fleeting and it isn’t short and you know you should feel bad for it cause you know you’re supposed to be better than that - than her - but you don’t) when you think about saying something. When you think about chastising her and berating her and reminding her that no one hurts Amy on your watch, not even an amiga.

(Unless that amiga is you.)

(Shut the fuck up.)

(Yes, you’re talking to yourself now.)

(Fuck.)

And it’s in that moment - that not very fleeting one - when an image of Amy’s face

(and words) (those words)

(do I look saved to you?)

and her tears and her bloody hand and the pain in her eyes, the same pain you’d once sworn (after the wedding) you’d never again be the cause of (and you aren’t) (that was her) (that was all her)

(keep telling yourself that)

flashes through your mind and you keep your mouth shut and walk right on by because taunting her or arguing with her or speaking to her is only going to make everything worse and - seeing as how worse might just kill you - that’s one thing you won’t do.

“Happy now?”

You won’t. She, apparently, will.

(Another thing you can blame her for.)

(You need to start keeping a list.)

Her words come out choked and she has to clear her throat halfway through and you think… yes… she is… she’s crying. And she looks like she's been crying (like for a week straight) and you want to feel bad about that, really you do.

(Keep telling yourself that, too.)

You should walk away. You should keep right on going, pulling your suitcase and your guitar and head right into the house, the one where you’re still welcome (no matter what you do), the one you’ll get to call home, the one where she - the she you want (to see) - is probably waiting for you.

(Cause of course she is. Amy would wait for you for…)

(Fuck)

Yup. You’re just so happy.

“Yeah,” you mutter. “I’m thrilled. Doing a little happy dance, can’t you tell?” You drop the handle of your suitcase and you fist clenches at your side. “My house burned down, my parents are staying with their… girlfriend… and my best friend is inside right now, probably crying and broken and feeling like she’s incapable of being loved all because you broke her heart.” You want to grab the handle again and turn on your heel and walk off in a huff - mike fucking dropped - but your fingers won’t unclench and your feet won’t move and fuck all why does she look so fucking destroyed?

She doesn’t have the right. She just… doesn’t.

“Her heart didn’t have to break,” Sabrina says softly and that’s enough to get you moving again, except it’s in the wrong direction and that fist is still clenched and you know this is a bad idea

(like catastrophically monumentally unbelievably sex in a thunderbox bad)

but when has that ever stopped you?

“It didn't have… didn’t ha… you’re telling me that Amy’s…” You stop and take a deep breath, trying to collect yourself enough to maybe actually complete a thought. “You’re right. It didn't have to break. And you didn’t have to kiss her and you didn’t have to tell her your boyfriend didn’t exist and you didn’t have to do all of that and you didn't have to be such a lying bitch just to try and push me out.”

Point, Ashcroft.

“Like you’d have let me stay if I didn’t,” she says.

Well, that’s just clearly not… well, certainly you would… oh, come on, you would have…

Yeah…

Point, Sabrina.

“Look,” you say. “Maybe that’s true. Maybe I would have been… a little possessive… and maybe I would have made things… a touch difficult for you.” You ignore the way her eyebrow arches (and where does Amy find them?) and roll right on. “But if you think that excuses pretending to be gay -”

“Why do you keep insisting I was pretending?” she asks and you can feel the gears grinding in your head, the utter confusion filling your mind, the total inability to believe the sheer audacity of this bitch.

Why do you think she was pretending? Why?

The boyfriend. The lies. The boyfriend. The straight when she fucking got here. The boyfriend. The kissing Amy only when she knew you were watching.

The boyfriend.

“Why do I think you were pretending?” you ask (and you didn’t know your voice could get that high.) “I don’t know,” you say. “Maybe because you were?”

Sabrina starts to say something but then she stops and shakes her head. She doesn’t argue or contradict or try to convince you (or herself) (and could she, maybe, teach you how to do that) and she doesn’t put up a single bit of fight. She just turns away, but not before casting one last look up at Amy’s window. And oh, she's good, like give the girl an Oscar good, so perfectly dramatic with the tears and the longing and you it makes you just want to tweet #sadSabrina to the fucking world. God, if you’d been this good at faking it…

(except you’re not sure, like at all, what she’s still pretending for)

(the jig is fucking up)

(game fucking over)

(no need to fake it anymore)

(no reason)

(not a one)

(not…)

(fuck)

“You were straight,” you say, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. “You were straight.” You’re not sure why you keep needing to remind her of that (even if it has become something of a habit for you the last year or so.) “You and Amy were together four days and five days before you… before she and you… before Felix and I saw… before… you were straight.”

She stops, most likely dazzled by your clearly flawless logic.

Point, you. Again.

“Amy was straight,” she says. “She was straight five minutes before she kissed you.”

Fuck. Just… fuck.

Point… oh, who the fuck cares. Even you know nobody's winning this.

“But…but…” You’re stammering. You’re fucking stammering like you're the guilty party here and OK, maybe you didn’t handle things perfectly but… “You had a boyfriend.”

She nods.

She fucking nods.

Does she not understand how this is supposed to work? Does she not get that she’s supposed to fight and argue and kick and scream and cuss you out and and and

(and prove you fucking right?)

“I did,” she says (fucking agreeable bitch.) “For eight months. And I had a girlfriend. For four days.” She glances back up at the window (and now she’s just fucking milking it) and then back to you. “Any guesses which one I miss more?”

This was so not the plan.

The plan was simple. Walk to Amy’s house. Drop off your stuff, see if she was home (and maybe speaking to you.) Maybe some House Hunters or some Dance Moms or maybe even the 'break in case of emergency’ offer of watching Game of Thrones.

That was the plan. Watch Jon Snow come back from the dead, hope there was a minimal amount of naked breasts (watching boobs with Amy had become like watching them with your mom though now that there was Diane that was even worse) and remind her - with just your unwavering presence - that everything would be alright.

That was the plan. This - sitting in the Brew 'n Chew across a table from… her - was not the fucking plan.

Universe. Dicks.

At least Sabrina seems as confused and unnerved and completely fucking lost as to how you got here (there were tears and a moment of compassion and a decided need to not face Amy right then and there) (not with… doubts) (or, you know, more doubts than usual) as you are. She’s taken like two sips of her Moccachino and if there’s one thing you do know about her (and you’re starting to realize there’s a surprising amount you don’t) it’s that the girl loves her caffeine, so clearly, this is fucking weird.

(It isn’t Felix and you weird but then again, what is?)

You stir your coffee (hot, two sugars, extra extra cream) for about the thousandth time and stare at her across the table. In the crappy fluorescent lighting, she looks even worse than she did outside (and no, you’re not saying that just to make yourself feel better.) Her phone’s on the table in front of her (right across from yours) and just seeing it gives you the icks and you almost ask her to put it away.

If she’d only done that a week ago.

(And yes, you get that for that part - and only that part - you’re totes blaming the victim but she hurt Amy so fuck her.)

(And no, you’re not thinking, not even a little, about how that probably sounds a lot - or exactly - like what Lauren probably said to Amy right before they turned your humping loose on the entire campus.)

There’s this silence and it's not comfortable, it’s the exact opposite (so, you know, uncomfortable, but that doesn’t nearly do it justice) and it’s just sitting there, between you, so you guess that kinda makes it the 'Amy’ here and you just can’t fucking take it and you need to say something, say anything.

“Tell me about him,” you say (anything but that.) “Tell me about the boyfriend you don’t miss.”

Sabrina runs a finger along the rim of her mug, her eyes darting to the phone and you know she’s remembering the same thing you are and probably wishing just as hard that she’d just picked the fucking thing up. “His name is Roy,” she says. “We dated for about eight months. He was a great guy and I really… I liked him. I didn’t love him and I never told him I did even though he said it to me all the time.”

One sided love affair. You know how that goes. Though you suppose you were always the Roy…

“So if you didn’t love him then why not break up with him?” you ask. “When you moved here, why did you keep trying the long distance thing?”

Sabrina shrugs and shakes her head and drops her eyes and it - all of it - screams 'I wish I had’ and yeah, that would have made things just a little… different. “Because he was a great guy. And those don’t grow on trees. And…” She takes a long sip of her drink before setting the mug back down precisely in the same spot. “I didn’t know Amy would be here. Or you. Or anyone. And… he loves me and that felt good, and I know… totally selfish… but I thought I’d be alone here and I just…”

Yeah. She just.

You know how that goes too.

“I had four days, Karma. It was a fucking whirlwind, one moment after another and I never saw any of it coming,” she says. “Amy gave that speech and then I kissed her and my world… it was like… woah.”

When Amy kisses someone, it's always like woah.

You know how that…

(fuck)

“I know why you did what you did and why you thought you had to,” Sabrina says, “As much as I hate it and as much as I wanted that night to punch your right in your smug little face…” She wraps both hands around her mug, like she’s freezing even though it’s in the seventies. “It was my fault. I lied. I didn’t tell him and I didn’t tell her, but I had four days, that was it. Four days to figure out how to tell… we only told Farrah like an hour before Roy showed up and I never even told my parents.” She raises the mug to take another sip but it never reaches her mouth. “I barely even told myself. I didn’t know what to tell.”

There’s a moment when you see Amy in a cheap store bought crown and Farrah with a microphone and you in her arms - staring at him - and… yeah. You get it.

Telling isn’t so easy when telling’s the truth.

And it’s never easy with pressure or with someone (or an entire TV viewing area) watching your every move. Sometimes it takes something more, like a boyfriend showing up (or crawling out from under a table) or someone leaving or a jailhouse speech.

Or a toast.

Fuck.

“But he was here, Sabrina,” you say. Your fingers tighten around your mug and you know you’re grasping at straws cause you know (you know) and you know more than that (more than what she was and wasn’t pretending), you know that you fucked up and it’s so much easier to focus on her and her fuck ups (which were many and massive.) “He was in Austin. That hardly seems like someone you weren’t trying to be with.”

Her eyes snap up from the table and there it is. There’s that fire you were hoping for, that anger, that 'proverbial pickle, boo' bullshit. Now she’s getting with the program.

Now she can be the bitch and you can be off the hook.

Again.

“When you were pretending to be me,” she says, “you know… lying… did you ask him why he was here?” You don’t remember for sure (it was all such a panicked blur and then there were accents and Felix being Australian Felix, which was even more ridiculous than regular Felix) so you don't know, but if she’s asking…

“No,” you say.

The fire dies a little in her eyes and no, no, no, that’s the wrong thing. “Yeah,” she says. “Didn’t think so. Cause if you had… he might have mentioned that we hadn’t talked.” She shakes her head and stares into her mug. “Not a word. Not a call, not a text, not a fucking smoke signal. Not once in four days.”

She leaves it hanging there - four days - and yes, you get it. She hadn’t talked to the boyfriend once since she kissed the girlfriend.

And that doesn’t make it all better, it barely makes it any better - not for you - but that’s the fucking point isn’t it?

It isn’t about you. It’s about what it might have done for her.

And you never gave her (either of them) the chance.

“I didn’t know how to tell him,” Sabrina says. “I didn’t know how to say… I kissed a girl. I kissed her and I have feelings for her and no, I never once even thought I liked girls and no, I never imagined I would kiss one and I know you love me but…”

But.

But. But it was Amy.

(at the risk of being repetitive?) (fuck)

Your phone buzzes on the table and Amy’s face lights up your screen and Sabrina makes this… you think it’s a sound but you’ve never heard anything quite like it but it hurts and you snatch the phone off the table and reject Amy

(the call) (you reject the call)

but you’re not fast enough because the tears start again and Sabrina’s gripping the table edge and her breath is coming in short little hisses like she’s in fucking labor and you don’t know what to do because you already did it and you can’t take it back (and neither can she) and neither of you has even the tiniest clue how to fix it, how to fix what you broke.

How to fix Amy.

(And that's another lie cause your phone’s still in your hand and you do have an idea and you know it’s the right idea, it really is, it’s the one you should have followed in the first place. All you have to do is dial.)

(It’s what a friend would do.)

You slip your phone back into your pocket and wait, letting her get it all out.

(Someday, you’ll learn and someday you’ll get it right.) (Apparently that’s not today.)

“Is she OK?” Sabrina asks, through the sniffles. “I mean, I know she’s not cause… I know… but is… I never…” she shakes her head. “She told me. About what happened between you two and how she confessed and you…”

Thanks for the reminder, Sabs.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up. I’m not trying to… it’s not the same,” she says and fuck all, will she stop? Stop surprising you and stop making you feel bad and stop being fucking human and not some evil caricature or a goblin queen of the bitches sent here to ruin your life and be some force standing between you and your…

Amy. Between you and your Amy. Because she is yours. And she always will be.

But how?

“I just meant that I know how badly she was hurt before,” Sabrina says. “With you and then with Reagan -”

“She told you about that?”

Sabrina nods. “We didn’t just spend four days mak…” She glances up and sees the look on your face (and thank God there’s no mirrors nearby) and course corrects. “We talked a lot. She understood how confused I was. Like you said, I was with a guy five days before. She understood that and I think… I think she wanted to be better to me than Reagan was to her.”

You rejected Amy cause you weren’t into girls. Reagan rejected Amy because she wasn’t into them enough.

Girl couldn’t catch a break. And when she did…

“I never wanted to do that,” Sabrina says. “I never wanted to hurt her. I wanted to be close to her and when I realized what was happening…I tried to back off and I tried to just be her friend, even if it meant always playing second string to you. But then there was that speech…”

I started to have hope. Hope that you were realizing that your Prince Charming was Princess Sarcasm.

Yeah, Amy always did have a way with words.

“And then there was the kiss.”

Woah…

You know.

Sabrina stands, suddenly, nearly toppling her drink. She’s shaking and she can barely bring herself to touch her phone (fucking traitor.) “I’ve tried to talk to her and she won’t take my calls and her mom won’t let me in and I know she’s just deleting my texts and I…” She blinks back the tears. “You don’t know what it’s like, to just be… cut off.”

Oh, you might have an idea.

“She gave you a second chance and you gave her one,” Sabrina says. “And I know… I’m not you. And I don't… I don’t deserve a second chance. What I did… ”

“You lied,” you say and you’re not quite sure why you say it or why you say the rest. “You lied about who you were to get closer to someone, to make them feel something for you because you knew it mattered to them. Because you knew it would…”

Because you needed them. Because there was something in you that thought what they thought of you, how they looked at you, the way they cared about you was better than anything you could think or do on your own. Because without them…

Fuck

“I’m sorry,” she says (it’s more of a blurt, a sob, a fucking retching) and then she’s bolting and you raise a hand to stop her but you can't make the words come out and you can't move and you can't you can’t

You fucking can’t.

You can't because you know if you do, she’ll listen. You can't because you know if you do, Amy will give her what she wants (because it’s what Amy wants) and if she does that..

Your phone buzzes in your pocket and you know who it is even before you pull it out.

Buttface: Thought you were coming over.

You look back up, your eyes following the path Sabrina too, her words still ringing in your head. She gave you a second chance. You gave her one.

She gave you more than one.

You know what the right thing to do is and you know that even if you do it, there’s no guarantee it works out for them, no sure fire fix that makes Amy forgive and forget. She doesn’t do that, not very easily.

Not for anyone she doesn't…

(fuck)

She will. You know she will. And it isn’t about crush boots and it isn’t about who called night duty and who was there first and it isn’t about who’s between who.

It’s about what - who - it should have been about all along.

Your fingers tap out the reply as you head out the door (you’re not running, not yet, but that’s OK) (Sabrina was crying too hard to move that fast.)

On my way. We should talk.

Someday, you’ll learn and someday you’ll get it right.

You’re not really all that surprised that it’s Felix that chases after you.

Karma has a history of watching you walk away, after all. (Walk, run, ride a fucking tour bus, whatever.)

Plus, it’s what the good guy would do and that is his role in this whole thing, right? He gets to play the good guy, the voice of reason, the trustworthy and sane and dependable and sane and reasonable and sane one. Felix is the guy who releases you because it's wrong to hold you there, it's wrong to make you wait for him, it's wrong to expect you to be as selfless as him.

He’s the good guy.

(You know, as long as the good guy is allowed to supposedly be pining after you while making puppy eyes at your best friend.)

(And that’s not fair and you know it cause releasing you meant releasing him and it’s not like you haven’t been making puppy eyes at anyone, lately.)

(So you totally shouldn’t judge him cause totally not fair but you know what?)

(You totally don’t fucking care.)

It isn’t like you want him or like you even wanted him when you supposedly had a… thing… cause, really, you didn’t. You didn't want him when you went to prom and you didn't want him when you kissed him and you didn't want him when you had your second so-called date. You’ve never wanted him (but he was always there) and you’ve never needed him (but still he stays) and he was always your second choice (or third) (maybe fourth) (maybe just the default cause there was no other option and it made Farrah so happy) and you made that pretty fucking clear by sucking on Karma’s tongue in the pool and that finally did make him leave.

But he came back.

He always comes back. No matter what you do (or who), no matter how obvious you make it that what you feel for him registers at a level that’s (maybe) just above your resting pulse rate, no matter how many girls he sees you with (and let’s be real, you had more chemistry with a girl in a fucking costume you’d known for five minutes than with him), it doesn’t matter.

He comes back. He's there. He waits and he cares and he helps and he’d lay down on train tracks to spare you pain.

Fuck all… no wonder Karma’s making puppy eyes of her own.

He's you. Just with a dick and let’s face it, that matters to her.

Yeah, you’re not surprised he’s the one who chases after you. It’s what you’d do. And yeah, you’re not surprised it’s him and not Karma. She’s probably thinking that this is some perfect moment, something right out of one of her movies. This is the chance for Felix to come and console you and for you to cry on his (kinda girly) (like fourth grade girly) shoulder and then, in one spectacular moment that she couldn’t have scripted better herself (though you bet she’s fucking tried) you’ll look into his eyes.

“How could I have been so blind?” you’ll ask. “How could I not see you were right here all along?”

It’s a nice moment, the kind of moment a lot of girls would kill for (Karma would, without a doubt, offer up a Zen sacrifice for it, at least) but here’s the problem.

You’re not a lot of girls.

And Felix isn't any.

And he’s certainly not the girl you actually want (even if - right now - you fucking hate that you want her) (and you really do.)

Knowing Felix (and that doesn’t require much studying) you’re sure Karma didn’t even have to work for it, she didn’t even have to try to get him to come after you. It was probably his idea, he probably gave her some bullshit about you maybe killing the messenger (though the messenger was… him) (Roy) (and the message was already delivered and read and deleted and yeah, it’s still sitting in your trash folder and no, you’re not quite ready to empty that and no, you don’t know when you will be, and yes, it’s called fucking hope and you still have it fuck you very much.) Felix probably suggested he be the one to take that particular bullet.

You can hear him saying it. “You and Amy have already been through so much,” he said. “I’ll go. I’ll take the heat.”

And, of course, she let him. And, of course, she did that for you, to put you two together, to help you see that your other crush (and Felix = Sabrina only in Karma’s mind) was the right crush and when you see him come through your door, when you realize that he’s never let you down and he’s never lied to you and he’s never pretended to be something he isn’t

(all of which eliminates Sabrina, you know) (and, come to think of it, Karma too)

then it’s just a hop, a skip, and a hump (not the day) from you and him to hand holding and date nights and joint college applications and his spot on the porch of the houses you and Karma and her husband will have right next door to each other.

It is, you have to admit, a sorta romantic and even a little bit logical way to look at it.

Totally fucking wrong, but sorta romantic (in a Notebook heteronormative kinda way) and a little bit logical (if you get your logic from the Katherine Heigl movie oeuvre.)

So, you know, it’s basically Karma in a nutshell.

He’s sitting on the edge of your bed and you’re leaning against your desk chair with your back to him and you haven’t said a word since he got here, but that’s OK, cause he’s done all the talking.

“It’s for the best,” he said. And you thought, briefly, of asking him whose best cause, clearly, not yours (or Sabrina’s) (and you’d guess not Roy’s either) (not that you care.)

Maybe it's his best and you’re pretty sure it's Karma’s best and well… yay… cause that’s what matters, right?

“It’s better you found out now, right?” he asked. “Before things went too far.”

He says it like a fact, like it ends with a period and it ends without doubt and with definitely no 'too far’ between you and Sabrina. That’s how he says it, but how he means it is less statement and less fact and a whole lot more hope and prayer and fishing for you to say something - anything - that will tell him he’s right.

Sure. Things hadn’t gone too far.

You hadn’t fucked her yet.

And there was only a little kissing and some simple hands-over-clothes action (and by over clothes, you mean hands pulling clothes over as in over her head or down over her thighs) and you hadn’t once - not even - thought that maybe, just maybe, for the first time in so very long, you’d found someone you could love.

You didn’t. Love her, that is. Not yet.

But you could’ve.

You guessed - correctly - that he didn’t want to hear that, so you kept your mouth shut and let him keep right on keeping on. And that was easy for him cause he had them all lined up, all the you got rid of her just in time greatest hits.

It hurts now, but it will get better.

It just takes a little time.

One day at a time, that’s what you’ve gotta do.

(wonder where he got that one)

She wasn’t worth it. She wasn’t worth your heart.

You deserve better.

They slip from his tongue with ease and roll off of you like water, pooling around your feet and all you can feel is the way you’re starting to sink into them and all you want to do is drown, so at least you won’t have to fucking listen anymore. He’s not helping, he’s not saying anything you couldn’t get from a fucking country song (and not even one of the good ones) and you know that’s not really fair.

What could he say?

Sorry your girlfriend was a liar? Sorry your girlfriend had a boyfriend? Sorry your girlfriend had a boyfriend she told you was made up who somehow ended up, very not made up, in the middle of your living room?

Somehow.

Somehow.

“How?” you ask, cutting him off in the middle of another one of his trope-tastic cliches. “How did… he… end up here?”

Felix is quiet for a minute (and never has silence been so beautiful) before he gives the most ridiculous and obvious answer ever. “She told you. Karma. She told you what happened.”

Yeah, she told you. Somewhere in between 'I can explain’ and 'Get the fuck out’, Karma told you the whole thing.

“Tell me again,” you say. “Tell me.”

He shifts on the bed and you can hear him shuffling his feet and running his hands through his hair and you can feel the discomfort and - fuck all - it makes you feel just a little better.

And that makes you want to puke.

“Sabrina left her phone,” he says.

“Karma stole it,” you say and yeah, that’s probably semantics and technicalities but that’s the world she lives in.

“Sabrina left the phone,” he says again. “And Karma brought it to me cause she didn’t know… what to do.”

“She didn’t know how to unlock it and she thought phone hacking was in the nerd handbook, so…” He doesn’t even try to correct you. “Go on.”

“While we were talking about it, Roy called and Karma… answered.”

“Who?” you ask. You’re still leaning against your desk chair and you’re pretty sure there’s gonna be finger grooves in the wood backrest. “Who answered?”

“Amy…”

You shove the chair hard against the desk, relishing the sound - so violent and loud and simple - of the wood crashing against the wood. That's what you so very desperately want to be right now. Violent and loud and simple. You want to run downstairs and ignore her (Karma) and chase her (Sabrina) outside and slap the fucking taste…

You slam the chair again. Harder. You catch two of your fingers between the backrest and the edge of the desk and it hurts like a motherfucker and the skin and your nails break and there’s blood, but you don’t make a sound.

Because, really, you don’t want to do any of that. You don’t want to slap her and you don’t want to chase her and you don’t want to do anything except curl up in your bed and feel Karma’s arms around you and cry until you’re nothing but a shrunken dehydrated wrinkled mess.

And that doesn't make you want to puke. It makes you want to die. Because you can’t want that. Not again. Not ever again. You can’t you can’t you fucking can’t and it’s all her (take your fucking pick) fault.

Your hands work on their own, yanking the chair from under the desk and whipping it across the room, slamming it into your bedroom door and then you hear it. You hear her. Out in the hall, the soft little yelp as the chair bounces off the door and of course she’s out there and of course she’s listening and of course she’s waiting.

Waiting for you to break. For you to crack. For you to be her Amy again. The one she needs to protect and the one she needs to guide and the one…

The one that needs her.

“Who?” you ask him again, loud enough that you know she can hear it. “Who answered?”

Felix stands from the bed and, for a second, you think he’s going to come to you, he’s going to try and put his arms around you and hold you while you slap and punch and pummel him (like in one of Karma’s fucking movies) until you break down in his arms and then there’ll be that moment…

“Sabrina,” he says softly. “Karma pretending to be Sabrina, but that’s not the point.”

“No?”

He shakes his head and it’s the most convinced of anything you’ve ever seen him. “Karma fucked up, OK? Is that what you want me to say?” He takes one halting step toward you and thinks better of it. “She did the right thing in all the wrong ways but the point is that she did the right thing. Sabrina was a liar. She was a fake.”

It’s not like you don't know all that, but hearing it… hearing it from him (and knowing he’s not just being jealous or manipulative or paranoid), it’s enough to finally bring the tears you’ve been holding back. They stream down your cheeks but you don’t fucking sob, you don't crack, you don't crumble and curl and fall.

You’re not giving her (either one) that.

“You think I don't know that?” you ask. “I know exactly what she did.”

You do. It’s all too… familiar.

“I know you do,” he says. “And you have no idea how much I wish Karma had been wrong.”

Oh, you’ve got an idea.

“And I know what you’re doing,” he says. “I know why you’re snapping at me and why you’re making me rehash it all. Karma warned me this might happen.”

There’s a pain, right in your neck, right at the base of your skull and you cock your head to the side but it doesn’t do shit. “Warned you? Karma warned you?”

You don’t actually hear anything from the hall, but you know. You know that she knows that this is exactly the reason she shouldn’t have sent Felix.

“Yeah,” he says. “She said when you’re hurt, especially this hurt, you lash out.” He sits back down on the edge of the bed. “Like when you and Liam… you know.”

Yeah. You know.

“I get it,” he says and you’re surprised cause there’s something in his voice, a tiny subtle little change that reminds you of the boy you met (for the first time, really) after his accident, on his way back to rehab. “I know what it’s like to want to blame someone, to make someone the bad guy. It makes it… not easier… just… bearable.”

He’s not wrong. At least, not about the not easier part.

“And I know what she did was crazy,” he says. “And I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, what it being kinda fresh and all -”

“Nothing fresh about it,” you say, cutting him off. “Fresh suggests new. Fresh suggests not a pattern. Fresh… fresh means it’s the first time.”

You’ve had a lot of firsts with Karma. This ain’t one of them.

He ignores everything you say (cause why should he be any different) and goes on. “I know you want someone to blame, Amy,” he says. “But you have someone. Sabrina lied, Sabrina cheated, Sabrina hurt you.”

“And Karma?”

He hops up off the bed and closes the distance between you, till he’s just a breath away.

“Karma saved you.”

There’s seventy-five people downstairs and every one of them watched as Karma (and Felix) (and Sabrina) (and Roy) (can’t forget Roy) revealed your stupidity, the utter… fakeness of your relationship to the world.

They showed everyone… they showed Ron the Con and your mother and Shane and Noah and Theo (fucking Theo) how gullible you were. How stupid. How trusting and naive and ridiculous.

How could you have ever thought she felt the same way you did? How could you have ever thought she could actually have wanted and needed and desired you?

Karma never did. Karma never thought it, not even for a second.

The tears roll down your cheeks and it’s everything you can do to stay standing. His words keep running through your head over and over on a fucking loop

(it’s an endless loop right through my heart)

She saved you.

She saved you. Karma rode to your rescue and banished the evil bitch. She outed Sabrina to everyone, she showed them all how it was just a plot, just a ploy to get rid of her, that it was never about caring for you or wanting to be with you or that she …

maybe… could've… maybe…

(fuck)

No, it wasn’t about that, it was about Karma and it was Karma who had to save you because, let’s face it, you clearly couldn’t do that on your own. You’re lucky, that’s what he’s saying, you’re so lucky to have someone like her who would (and could) do what you couldn’t. He’s here right now because of her, because he's what you need and he’s what’s best and how could you have been so fucking blind that you didn’t see that?

How?

Just… how?

You know how. Cause evolution and change and growth and selfish and sabotage and… fuck her (both of them.) Felix was right. You do have a bad guy.

Two of them, as a matter of fact.

You turn to him, those words still ringing in your head, with the tears streaking your face and the blood slowly dripping from your hand and he takes a step back and you know, he can see it in your eyes.

NOW

Four days. That’s all you got.

It’s less than you thought, certainly less than you hoped, but in some ways… well, it’s just about right. It came in a rush, it’s only fitting that it end in one too.

With Reagan, you got a couple of weeks. Time enough for bowling dates and sneaking into a DJ gig or two and an Orphan Black marathon at her apartment (that only half turned into a making out marathon.) Two weeks was long enough to meet her friends and to find out (much to your surprise) that you could have a life outside of Karma and outside of Hester and outside of the bubble you’d hid yourself away in.

It didn’t last and you know all the reasons why. It fractured and it cracked, but it was a slow break and you used to think that made it worse (you know better now) and that - for the most part - was your fault. You were never honest, not entirely (and half a truth is still all a lie), not with either of them. You kept Reagan away from Karma and kept Karma a secret from Reagan and yeah, you owned up (eventually) (when you didn’t have any other choice) and yeah, you took Reagan’s side, at first, and made Karma butt the hell out.

But you knew then and you know now. It was too little, too late. The damage had already been done.

You do have to give Reagan credit though, she tried, she never said it, not in those words at least. Yes, she complained about Karma (and yes, you know anyone you ever date is likely to complain about Karma) (or her about them) (or both) (probably both) but it was never about the lie and always about something else. Karma took up too much of your time, she was always there (even when she wasn’t), she was a walking talking breathing one hour TV drama and, really, what nineteen year old out on her own and making her way in the world wants that kind of headache hanging around?

Reagan did say that (most of it, anyway) but she never said the other, she never said what you knew was really on her mind. She never mentioned the crack that formed that night at Communal, the one that ate away at the foundation of whatever you two might have been.

She never once said she couldn’t trust you (at least not until the end and by then it wasn’t about that.)

But she never said she did, either.

It ended badly (like there’s any other way) but at least with her, you got those weeks. You got some time when she was yours and you were hers and there was something, some little tiny part of your life that was just that. Your life. Something you could nurture and grow and make as much (or as little) of as you wanted. It wasn’t about your mother’s failed marriages or you new insta-stepsister and it wasn’t about popularity and being Queen of anything and it wasn’t about her.

It wasn’t about anything except you. That’s what those weeks were. Just for you.

It’s been months since you broke up and yeah, you know it was for the best and you know that Karma or no Karma, you and Reagan were never going to last. But you still think fondly of her and you still miss her sometimes (late at night) (when it’s quiet and there’s nothing to distract you and you can’t help but remember) but out of it all? That’s what you miss the most.

Those weeks. The weeks before the entirety of the rest of the world (and yes, you mean - mostly - her) came crashing down on you and you weren’t strong enough or honest enough or ready enough.

You were so sure the next time would be better, you were so sure you wouldn’t make those same mistakes. There would be no secrets (OK, maybe not no secrets) (fewer) (definitely fewer) and there would be no lies (or half a truths) and - most importantly - there would be no hiding. None. Not on the other side of town or behind apartment walls or in your bedroom late at night when you knew Karma was already asleep and there was no chance she’d come barging through your door.

You’d never really been in the closet and you had no desire to start now.

So, yeah… you were sure this time would be better. You even had a plan, simple as it was. It was really only one step.

Tell Karma.

Tell Karma early and tell Karma often and tell Karma that it was your life and your decision and that just because you might want to spend some (a lot) of time with this new person (girl) (it was always a girl in your head) that didn’t mean you didn’t want to spend time with her too or that she was being squeezed out of your life or that someone was trying to take her place.

(You’ve never understood how Karma could think anyone would want her place.)

Yes, telling Karma would mean no few weeks. It would mean that special and wonderful time that was just yours would be less that and more yours and hers and this new person (girl) (stop pussy footing around it) (no pun… yeah, pun intended.) But that would be OK. Maybe you wouldn’t have the time before you told Karma but you’d have all the time after, the time you and Reagan lost because that crack was always there and you never knew how to patch it.

That was your plan. And you were so ready for it. Right up until you weren’t.

Right up until you found yourself in between kisses and Sabrina was right there and the words were right somewhere else and the best you could manage was “These last four days have been…”

You wanted to day something cheesy (the word magical lept to mind) (you’re such a Ted fucking Mosby) but you didn’t want to scare her or pressure her. You didn’t want to be the stereotype and drive an emotional U-Haul right up onto the bed between you.

So…

“They’ve been…”

(God, you sucked.)

“Perfect,” she said and you felt a weight slip away (she was as bad as you.)

You tipped your head back so you could look at her. There was this smile on her face and for a moment (like three seconds) (that felt like three years) your heart just fucking stopped. You knew that smile. You'd seen that smile.

For two fucking weeks. On your face. Every time you looked at Reagan. It was bashful and unsure and hopeful and terrified and smitten and ‘oh God, please say you agree so I don’t break right here in front of you’. Looking at Sabrina was like looking in a mirror.

(Except you’d never once had the urge to kiss a mirror.)

(And you had the urge to kiss her.) (All. The. Fucking. Time.)

“I was gonna go with magical,” you said. “But perfect works too. A little less David Blaine but…”

She laughed as leaned in to kiss you and when her lips found yours it was… different. Different than Karma (thank God) or Reagan or… anyone, really. Kissing catwoman (and fuck, did that seem like years ago) was hot and sexy and a little dirty (what with the boob touching and all) but it had never felt like it would matter once you stopped.

And it hadn’t.

It had been the same with every girl you’d kissed over the summer - those one the bus and those not - the kisses were good (more than good) (necessary) but they’d all been temporary, fleeting, moments you’d look back on fondly, but that was all they were.

They were the start and the end, all in one. Even kissing Reagan was like that, sometimes, cause you knew - right from the start - that there was an expiration date. You pushed it back, you stalled, you delayed the inevitable as long as it could be delayed.

But you knew.

There’s a reason they’re called first loves. (And yes, you know Reagan wasn't your first love, but she was the first to love you back - like that - and that fucking counts.)

Sabrina wasn't that. She was a start but (you thought) not an end. She wasn’t a hookup or a reboot or summer escape or the way to fill a (Karma shaped) hole in your heart. You didn’t know what she was, not exactly, but you knew it wasn’t any of that, and for the first time in a long time you were aching to find out exactly what she was.

Which is why you knew you had to tell Karma, because that was the only way those four days might have had a chance, a shot at being something more. Four weeks or four months or four years or four china patterns to pick from or four venues to choose between or four cakes to taste (all nut free, of course) and yeah, you knew (and know) that your heart tends to get a little ahead of itself sometimes.

Karma’s not the only hopeless romantic.

You had to tell her,you know that. And you (and by 'you’, you meant you and Sabrina) had to weather the storm, you had to stand your ground in the face of Hurricane Karma and you thought (you silly silly girl) that this time you were prepared, that this time you could take it.

Karma’s standing just outside your bedroom door and Felix is sitting on your bed and you think he might be crying (he is) (and you don’t really care) (like not at all) and you’ve got no idea where Sabrina is (and you don't want to care) (but you do) (you so do) and you think back on how stupid you were.

You thought you could take anything.

Silly, silly girl.

YESTERDAY

The first time you try to tell her, Farrah fucks it up.

“I was gonna go with magical,” she says and then the rest of it is just words and David Blaine and you don’t know or care because then you’re kissing her again. You kiss her because you don’t know how not to. You don’t know how to see that smile on her face or how to watch her fingers toying with your buttons

(and you’re surprised by how much you want her to stop toying and start doing)

or how to hear her say 'magical’ and not need to be closer to her, to not need her.

That scares you a little.

(Fuck that.) (It scares you a lot.) (Like all the scared.)

You dated Roy (are) (are dating Roy) (you haven’t had a chance to end it) (cause that requires talking and talking requires your lips and those have been a little… busy) for almost a year and you never once felt this kind of need. Or this much want. He - and his kisses and touches and his fingers that don’t know shit about toying or doing - has always just kinda been… there.

Amy's not just there. She’s fucking everywhere and she’s everywhere all the time and it’s most exhilarating (and terrifying) and awesome (and terrifying) and arousing (and, in case you didn’t hear - terrifying) thing you’ve ever felt.

That’s not actually true. Not… entirely.

The need and the want are great and frightening and wonderful and terrifying (told you) and exciting and just… everything. But they’re not… the most.

The most is the secret (your secret) and the secret is the worst and the worst is the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach and it comes a lot, but especially when you kiss her and you need to tell her your secret (Roy) (it has a name) (even if you can’t think of it whenever she’s around, it - he - still has a name) because it’s the right thing to do.

(And because her kisses are perfect and you need them to never - never ever - be tied to making you feel that feeling in the pit of your stomach or to you thinking about… him.)

(Roy.) (For fuck’s sake… Roy.)

You can’t imagine kissing someone over and over and over again (and you can’t imagine not kissing her over and over and over again) with that much guilt inside. You can’t even begin to process what it must do to a person to kiss and hold and lo… care… for someone that much while still carrying around a secret like that.

You don’t just want to tell her. You have to.

Even if wrecks it all (you pray it won’t) and even if it gives Karma all the ammo she needs to run you out of Amy’s life (and it probably will) and even if you lose her.

(You can’t.) (You just can’t.)

No matter the risk, you have to tell her because she deserves that, she deserves the entire truth and you have to tell her. And you're going to. Right now. Right this moment, as you pull away and your eyes squeeze shut (cause you can't see her when you tell her cause it will hurt her and you can’t watch that) and the words come bubbling up

(I lied)

and just as they come tumbling free they’re lost in the sounds of Farrah barging in and you both barely have time to sit up and be presentable and make like you weren’t just attached at the lips and you don’t think Amy heard and you nod along and shake your head when Farrah asks if you’re bringing dates to the Ho-Ho-Holiday party and even with her mother there, it’s all you can do to not take Amy’s hand (and then her lips) and claim her as yours, especially when Farrah starts going on and on about Felix (such a nice boy) (such a friendly boy) (such a sweet boy and he and Amy had such fun at Prom and did she mention he’s such a nice boy?)

(Maybe she should date him.) (Can’t be any worse than her usual choices.)

And then, as fast as she came, Farrah’s gone and Amy’s holding your hands and staring into your eyes and talking about secrets and how they blow up on you and you know you’re talking back but you don’t actually know what you're saying or what you're agreeing to (something about Karma) (as always) and all you can hear and all you can think is secrets and secrets and secrets and you… you… you…

You just fucking can’t.

Especially since she’s kissing you again and yeah, there’s that feeling in your stomach but it’s nothing compared to the feelings elsewhere

(your heart)

(get your mind out of the gutter)

(except she’s toying with those buttons again and the gutter’s seeming awfully good)

and you just can’t do it, you just can’t say it. Not now. Not like this.

It’s OK, though. You’ve got time.

There will be another chance.

NOW

Karma’s lurking in the hall outside your room and you know she heard everything you just said to Felix and, really, that’s fine.

You were saying it as much to her as to him.

(Maybe more.)

She’s lurking but she doesn’t barge in and you don’t know if that’s her attempt (another one) at pushing you and Felix together or if she’s actually just finally realized.

She fucked up.

You wonder if she knew, like you did. If she knew from the moment he walked in

(Roy.) (He has a name.) (You heard her use it.)

just how monumentally fucked you (and she) were.

You’d never seen him before and he really wasn’t all that much to look at (but let’s face it, your taste in men has always left a little something to be desired) but there was something… there was something there.

Maybe it was the way he walked right on in, like he belonged there with the other people you knew and cared about (or at least tolerated) (yeah, Liam was there.) There was a purpose to his entrance, a means to an end behind the way he stopped just inside the door, his eyes doing a slow circle of the room.

It might have been the glower (is that the word?) (you’d never actually ever seen anyone glower before, so you had no frame of reference) (but there was a definite…well… glower to his look, like he’d come looking for someone or something and not to bring them flowers or chocolates or best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season.)

But then (and this is kinda likely) it might have been the shirt. The one (at least a size too small and who says girls are the only ones trying too hard?) with his high school name and mascot on the front and they were kinda… familiar and they kinda… tickled something at the back of your mind, like you kinda… knew them? From somewhere?

(Like the shirt that had ended up on your bedroom floor just last night.)

Maybe it was this or maybe it was that or maybe (not really maybe) it was the way their faces went white, the both of them. Maybe (probably not maybe) it was the way both of them, at opposite ends of the room (like they’d been all night) looked like they’d seen a fucking ghost or zombie or Santa come to fucking life or (really) and old acquaintance not forgotten. Maybe (so not fucking maybe) it was the way Sabrina looked at you (like she’d already lost you) (another look that was all too familiar) or the way Karma looked at her ('you want a villain?’) and refused to look at you.

(And yeah, you can tell when Karma’s actively not looking at you cause it happens so fucking rarely, it kinda stands out.)

It was all that and it was the way that Felix (next to Karma) (like he had been all night) (and when had that happened and how hadn’t you notice and - most importantly - why didn’t you care?) dropped his cookie (sugar cookie) (fucking plain cookie) and muttered 'oh shit’ under his breath and made a beeline for the door like he could stop him (the cookie could have taken Felix) (with little effort) and it was the way Sabrina sank down into the closest chair with her head in her hands and it was the way Karma…

It was the way Karma found herself right where she always was, eventually. Right by your side, her hand on your arm and something - was that pity? - in her eyes.

“It’ll be OK,” she whispered.

And even before you heard Sabrina say his name (Roy) (his name was - is - Roy) and even before he asked her just when, exactly, she’d decided she was gay

(an excellent question, you thought)

(score one for Roy)

and when, exactly, she’d planned on telling him (the boy was on a roll) and even before she walked away from him and came looking for you and even before you heard those three little words

('I can explain’)

you knew the truth. Even as Karma kept whispering in your ear.

“It’ll be OK.”

God, she was such a fucking liar.