#secret-monkey

It takes you all of thirty seconds to decide, another twenty to make the call and so that’s less than a minute and then…

Well, then there’s nothing to do but wait and let’s face it, you’re fuck all at that. But, even though it’s the longest ten minutes of your life, you do manage to spend all 600 seconds of it not doing anything to actively making this any worse, so at least you’ve got that going for you.

A win’s a win, right? No matter how small.

You’re about to crack, about ten more seconds from losing your nerve and turning right around, walking right back into the diner and right up to Reagan and putting your lips right on hers and yes, that is an awful lot of rights and yes, you know they’re all mostly wrongs, but it’s been ten minutes with no Reagan and no Sophie, neither of them looking for you, and that's left you alone with just your thoughts and those are about the worst fucking company you can imagine.

You used to think no one could have more insane plans per minute than Karma.

Oh God, were you wrong.

Your hand is on the back door, the one leading from the break room to the alley and you know you’re on the wrong side of it, but that hand… it’s pressed against the door, holding it shut cause apparently some part of you still has some fucking sense but that sense is just about worn thin, like barely frozen ice you’re about to fall right the fuck through and that’s when you hear it, the sound of your savior, the familiar rumble of your mother’s engine.

Her car’s engine. You haven’t heard her engine rumble since the last time Bruce came back to Austin to visit Lauren and, as Farrah put it, “these things just… happen” and yes, you do realize now that these things do indeed just happen.

And you realize even more than you’d like, right now, in this so very rumbling (the car) and stumbling (you) (that’s all that you’ve been doing for what seems like forever now) and barely holding it together - and, in the case of that door, shut - moment, that you are far far far more like your mother than either of you ever imagined.

Once upon a time, that might have been a good thing.

There’s no reason - except sentiment and guilt a heart not quite as broken as it should be and yup, you are just so her - for Farrah to still be driving that big old fucking boat (a Goddamned yacht) of a car that Bruce bought her in those last few months of their marriage. It was all circling the drain by then. Her affair with your father (and yes, that’s as odd to think as it is to say) coupled with Bruce’s wild all or nothing homerun swings at proving… something… about his manhood or his prowess or some such macho bullshit (hence the yacht) was nothing short of a walking, talking, nonstop disaster (Epic Fail would have been kind) and it was all you and Lauren could do to, somehow, sometimes, look away.

“It’s like a car wreck,” you said. “Like a ten car pile up and you’re so worried someone might be dead, but you can’t stop looking and wondering and then… you’re almost disappointed when they’re not.”

Lauren nodded and watched - with horror and fear and rapt attention - as Farrah tried, and mostly failed, to appear something close to grateful or happy or anything other than the oh my God, why? she was feeling, but not saying, as Bruce gave her the grand tour of her new wheels.

The tour lasted like twenty minutes and you swear that was just the time it took to walk from one end of the fucking thing to the other and did someone say overcompensation?

“Sometimes,” Lauren muttered, turning to go back in the house (the one she was increasingly concerned wouldn’t be hers much longer), “it’s time to quit the CPR and just give up the ghost.”

Sometimes, she said, it’s time for the head to tell the heart what it already knows.

Dead is dead. And there ain’t no coming back.

Lauren, you’ve decided, wasn’t wrong. (Like that’s something new.) And, you know that your call to make… well… the call (to your mother) and your hand pressing shut on the door (to the diner) (to Reagan) is your head talking to your heart.

You’re just not sure it’s listening yet.

(Actually, you're absolutely fukcing positive it isn’t but you’re equally as not sure you want it to and yes, that’s as confusing as it sounds and you know it must mean something when all of this shit with Reagan and Sophie and Reagan and Sophie is all so royally fucked up that it’s actually enough to make you miss Karma and her mixed like a Long Island Ice Tea signals.)

(It means something.) (God help you if you have the first fucking clue what.)

You watch as Farrah squeezes the yacht down the alley and alongside you and you’re diving into the passenger seat almost before she’s even had time to slow down, not that the she’s actually going, you know, fast. For all it’s size and power, the yacht goes zero to sixty in about a fucking week but even as slow as it is, it still takes a good four or five more feet before your mother is able to actually bring the beast to a complete stop.

Farrah clutches the wheel and lets out a long shuddering breath as the brakes squeal so loudly you’re sure they heard them in Dallas (or, you know, behind that door that’s still not opening even though you’re not holding shut anymore.) Since the damn thing’s not moving anymore and she needs a moment to collect herself again - now your mother is also turning, which means, unfortunately, taking a good long look at you.

And if the long slow sigh isn’t a tip off how that she doesn’t like what she sees… well… it really is. You’ve been hearing that sigh from Farrah for years and yes, you’re used to it, but let’s face facts here. There’s a metric fuckload of things you’re used to.

Sophie’s crappy coffee. Karma’s two am drunk texts. Sophie’s snoring. Lauren’s looks (you even have an alphabetical list of what every one of them means.) Sophie’s habit of brushing her teeth with your toothbrush, Sophie’s incessant need to play that fucking Lola Montez song every time some new girl turns out not to be the girl, Sophie’s borderline obsession with finding a way to use the dancing lady emoji in every text conversation.

You’re sensing a pattern here.

(Besides the pattern of your roomie being somewhat nuts.) (Takes one to fucking know one.)

And yes, that pattern - the real one - is that you are used to a ton of things and now damn near every one of them feels like a thousand tiny knives in your heart and yes that fucking sigh from your mother is one of those.

Farrah is your OG. She was the first one you let down, the first one you failed. Clearly, not the last, but that’s not the point right this second.

She reaches out - the mother in her still seeing you as a tiny, as her little girl, even if you’re, you know, a grown up now (supposedly) - her hand hovering in the air just above your eye and it’s like you can feel the gentle brush of her fingers coursing through the air and you’ve got no earthly idea how you manage to not flinch, to not pull away.

“It looks worse than it is,” you mumble, your eyes unable to meet hers and that little lie is really just for you, cause this is Farrah we’re talking about.

She can always see your truth for the bullshit it is. At least when she wants to.

Her hand drops back to the seat between you and you let out your own slow, staggered breath, one that you hadn’t realized you were holding in. “You’ll want to ice that,” she says, “when you get back to the dorm. Before the swelling really sets in.” And then her hand is back on the wheel and the beastly yacht is slowly working its way to the other end of the alley.

The dorm. The dorm.

Well fuck.

Every inch the yacht chews up and spits out is one inch and then two and then six and then a whole fucking foot and 5,280 of those makes a mile and like ten of those makes a spot in the parking lot outside your dorm.

Which is, you know, not just yours.

How that particular thought didn’t occur to you till just now, well, who the fuck knows? Sure, you have some other… things… on your mind, but let’s not bullshit here, OK? Those other things? Like 99.9999995 percent Reagan - and 99.9999994 percent of those thoughts involve her with far less than 100 percent of her clothes - and like… the rest, which is more maths than you can handle right now are all Sophie, so maybe that explains how the whole dorm thing slipped through the cracks.

And oh, how you wish there was a crack or two you could slip through right now.

Farrah doesn’t say anything else - and neither do you, not until you hit the highway and there’s enough distance between you and… them… that you feel you can breathe again - and you can tell, surprisingly, that neither of you even wants to say anything.

You’d expected a lecture or, at the very least, a stern talking to. But Farrah, you realize, has come to the exact same conclusion you did in the ten, fifteen, twenty seconds before you made the call. The damage has been done. And there’s nothing you can do, no words you can say, no Harry Potter spell or crazy monkeys with typewriters that will even begin to come close to undoing it.

You’ve made your bed - and it’s in the fucking dorm - and now you’ve gotta lie in it. (And yes, lie is the right fucking word.)

Unless… maybe you don’t.

The idea comes fast and hard (yes, like Reagan did when you did that… thing… with your tongue and your hands and oh, why can’t you stop thinking about that?)

(Dumbest. Fucking. Question. Ever.)

You shove those thoughts away (for now) and focus on the idea, the one that seems so simple and easy and perfect that you can’t believe you didn’t think of it before now. It’s the oh so you solution.

It’s running. Except, sort of, running to instead of away, or at least you can claim it is and you’re the only one who can call you on that bullshit and you figure you’ve got at least… a week, seven days… before you’ll do that.

You don’t look at Farrah as you speak, focusing instead at the white lines counting down every one of those 52,800 feet. “So,” you say, as the car shudders its way onto the highway and the air returns to your lungs for the first time since you saw your phone in Sophie’s hand. “I was thinking… I kind of miss you. And home. And so maybe…”

Farrah doesn’t give you an answer. But when she exits the highway some 15, 840 feet sooner than she should, well, that tells you all you need to know.

It doesn’t help. It doesn’t help at all.

That ‘it’ is an ice pack and no, it doesn’t do much of anything, not for the pain or the swelling you can already feel starting in your cheek and around your eye, or for the regret and all the burning self-recriminations that started long before Sophie drilled you in the face. The bitter and painful cold of that ice, pressed tightly against your eye, doesn’t do much of anything for any of that.

The feel of Reagan’s hand, holding it there? Well… that does a lot. More than it should, more than you’d like.

And now that’s just another of your fucking lies and you know it even before you think it. You’d like - love - that touch to do even more, to make you feel more. You could quite happily spend hours or days or, you know, the rest of your life, letting that touch make you feel everything.

You’re pretty sure (past pretty) (more like totally, completely, infinitely sure) that, no matter what happens here today, no matter how many more punches you take, or what comes after, that no matter how many other touches there may be from other people in all the time still to come, hers is the touch you will always remember, the one you will always compare every other one to.

And they will all come up lacking. Sorely.

Which is, you know, the problem in a nutshell. Or, you know, in something else, what with your allergy and all and, yes, you’re totally debating what the problem is in, just so you don’t actually have to face it - her - cause she's right there, with one hand holding the ice to your cheek and the other… oh, the other.

That other is slowly and carefully and delicately brushing the hair out of your face, gently tucking it back and away from the ice. That other is treating you more like the victim that you know you most certainly aren’t and not the criminal, the perp - and let’s keep it real and call it (you) what it (you) is (are) - the bitch, that you most certainly are.

The other is just Reagan being Reagan and, until this very moment, that was something you’d never even considered as anything but a good thing.

Chalk that up as one more thing you’ve ruined.

You push yourself up from the chair, the one she sat you in, tucked away in the employee break room in the back of the diner, her hand - the other - dropping uselessly to her side as you clutch the ice pack yourself, wincing as you accidentally press it too hard against your skin, the rough corner of the plastic coating catching your cheek and if Sophie hadn’t managed to draw blood, you’re pretty sure you just did.

Reagan takes a step back, leaning against the wall and even now, even after years apart, you can still read her. The way her arms fold, crossing against her chest, one leg bent at the knee, foot pressed against the wall as if she’s ready to push off, just waiting for the starter’s gun, the signal to run. Again.

OK, that last bit might be a little projection. (Might be?) (Might be?) It was you who was always the runner. Though, in all fairness and yes, now seems like a perfect time to start being fair to you, it’s not like Reagan was just blameless in that.

You ran. But, it wasn’t like she didn't push.

(And no, you’re not the least bit concerned that you might be blaming the victim, here, or, at least, one of them.)

Still, you can read her - read her eyes as they find the floor - read the way her perfect brows knit together and there’s that crinkle between them, the mark of her 'deep thoughts’ and you know you shouldn’t, but you can’t help remembering a time when those deep thoughts were almost always either worries - about Karma and about you and about you and Karma, mostly - or they were musings on what might happen five, ten, or fifteen minutes later, when everyone else was finally gone and it was just you and her and a lot of clothes that would be just as gone, just as fast.

Somehow, you doubt either of those things are going through her mind right now.

And somehow, even after all this, even after Sophie and Sophie’s broken heart and Sophie’s fucking hell of a right hook, you’re still disappointed by that. And that, is the real problem and you may not know much about nuts (take that any way you like it) but you know enough to know there’s no shell in the world big enough for that.

“I probably had that coming,” you say, mostly to break the silence before it chokes you both. “I just never knew she could punch like that.”

Reagan mercifully leaves the 'probably’ part of that alone, choosing to ignore the fact that reality was somewhere north of 'probably’ and closer to 'absolutely’ or 'definitely’ or 'she could have jumped on you and pounded you for an hour and it still might not have been enough’. “Three years of Krav Maga in high school,” she says, without looking up, the criss-cross of her arms tightening against her chest. “She never told you?”

You shake your head, slowly, and even that little bit of movement sends more fresh ripples of pain cascading through your cheek and your jaw and now you’re suddenly overjoyed that you’re in a restaurant that serves nothing but eggs, cause you’re not quite sure if you’re going to enjoy chewing again any time soon.

Reagan nods. “She had a crush on the woman who taught the class,” she says. There’s just a hint of a smile there, you can see it, and even that tiniest of hints, very nearly does to your heart what Sophie’s fist did to your face. That was your smile, once upon a lifetime ago. “And then she ended up hooking up with this whole other girl, one she accidentally punched in the face during a class,” she says, and that’s when those eyes come up, finding yours across the tiny room, and you think you’d give anything to hold them there forever, but you’re almost definitely sure, you’ve lost the right to hope for that. “I don’t think this is gonna work out quite like that.”

You and Sophie making out? Yeah, no. You doubt there’s even going to be any making up, much less hooking up.

The ice pack shifts under your hand and a chill trails down your cheek. “Sophie never said anything to me about…” You trail off, stifling the moment of indignation or jealousy or whatever the fuck it is you’re feeling about Sophie sharing something with Reagan and not with you. After all, it’s pretty damn clear who the real Khaleesi of Never Mention is in this equation. “You two must have talked a lot,” you mumble, shifting the ice slightly, wincing again as the cold finds yet another spot to burn.

Reagan’s voice is as soft as you’ve ever heard as she damn near whispers “All last night” and the silence that follows hangs heavy and loaded, the 'after she found out’ left unspoken but sure as fuck not unthought.

All last night. All last night… well… all last night, you were wallowing in your misery again and Reagan was doing the work, all the heavy lifting, picking up the pieces of not just one, but two relationships you’d taken a damn flamethrower to.

Yeah, you so had that punch coming. And then some.

Reagan watches as you fidget with the ice for another moment and then, suddenly, she’s right there,her hand covering yours, and she guides you in steering the cold, her other hand catching you by the shoulder even as you start to pull away. “Hold still,” she says, or, really, commands (and no, you're not thinking of other times she’s used that tone, not at all, because, even you know that right now your face is the only thing that should be getting wet.) “If you don’t ice this properly now, you’re going to look like you’re smuggling golf balls in your cheeks tomorrow.”

She pauses, waiting, because - much to your surprise - she can still read you and this is an Amy moment, if there ever was one. Come on, golf balls in your cheeks?

That shit writes itself.

But maybe you’re older or wiser (or maybe just massively distracted by the way the fingers of her hand on your shoulder are brushing against the bare skin of your neck) but whatever the reason, you keep your mouth shut.

First time for everything, right? Except, you know, for you not screwing over your best friend with your apparently insatiable appetite for fucking the exact wrong person at the exact wrong time.

Reagan, satisfied that the ice is properly positioned, takes a small step back, but that hand, oh, it doesn’t move.

Or, really, it does, just not back (and away) like the rest of her, but rather down. As in slowly down the length of your arm. It takes all of three, maybe four seconds, but that’s a thousand times longer than it probably should, something far closer to a forever, and you are utterly and completely aware of every single moment. Reagan’s eyes are locked on yours the entire time, your heart a stuttering tick-tock clock in your chest and you swear someone has cast a spell on it, slowing the time down, stretching every moment into lasting an eternity that’s still over far too soon.

God, you are so absolutely screwed.

Reagan’s fingers dance across the border between short sleeve and bare skin, tickling their way past your elbow, down to your forearm and then your hand. She doesn't hold it, and she doesn't take it - and you don't give it, even if every part of you is screaming that you should - but her fingers curl against you, digging into your knuckles, before she finally (far far far too late) pulls her hand away, taking another - bigger - step back.

“Sorry,” she mutters, staring down at her hand as if it somehow betrayed her, as if she doesn’t understand what the hell it was doing.

That one word, that one fucking syllable… it kills you… and all you want to do, all you need to do, is scream at her, that she shouldn’t be sorry, not for that, and not to you.

No.

That’s another one of your lies - this one to just yourself, except your self ain’t buying it any more than anyone else with half a clue would - cause that is so not all you need to do. What you need, what every part of you aches to do, is to reach out and catch that hand and take it, and hold it, and tell her that you know (now) you never should have let go of it, not then, not now, not ever.

Anything else would be a lie.

And maybe, you think, now is the time. Maybe this is the moment when all the lies end and the chips fall where they may, even if every one of them is a little bit of Sophie, a tiny or not so tiny sliver of her heart and, no, you’re not thinking about what kind of friend that makes you, no, not at all, cause if you do…

You can’t.

You just… can’t. Not this time. Not with Reagan and not with this second (or is it third) chance, not with an opportunity to, for once, be utterly and completely honest in every way. That, you know, is what’s always been your downfall, your Achilles’ heel, the thing that did you in and not just with Reagan. With Lauren, at first. With Karma, obviously. With Sabrina, even if in that case, doing you in meant doing her for far longer than you probably should have, given that she wasn’t the one in your heart - another lie you told yourself - and even with Sophie.

You never tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. With you, it’s always been fragments and fractions and asides to the audience (read: Shane or Lauren or whoever was the ear on loan at that particular moment.) Maybe, you think, it’s time to go all in, to place your bet on honesty and coming clean.

Maybe, you think Reagan getting dropped on your doorstep was the universe’s way of giving you a chance and maybe, you think (again) there’s only one way to find out.

“Reagan, I -”

And, maybe, the words die in the air as she turns. Her hand - that same hand - finding the handle for the break room door, tugging it open (and it’s so much more than a tug, too violent, too much force and power and, almost, desperation), her feet crossing the threshold even before it’s swung open and even you can see that, can recognize it for what it is.

Of course you can. Takes one to know one. It’s what you do.

“We should probably get back out there,” she says and yeah, she’s pretending - and doing it well - to have never heard you. “Sophie’s still waiting and waiting…” She hesitates, one foot in and one foot out, but you know that’s just a function of movement, it’s not a metaphor in the slightest.

That foot might still be there, but Reagan’s already gone.

“Waiting just leads to wondering,” you say, incredibly proud of yourself for not choking on the words. “And wondering… well… that just never ends well, does it?”

Reagan’s hand tightens on the door and for a moment - a fucking tick and a fucking tock before the clock breaks - you think maybe she’s changed her mind.

“Nothing ever ends well, Amy,” she says. “Sometimes, all you can do is manage the pain.”

The question comes without thinking. “Is that what we’re doing?”

She shakes her head slowly, that foot finally finding it’s way out the door. “Not very well,” she says. “Not very well, at all.”

And then there’s nothing but her back and the sound of her steps echoing (far too quickly) in the hall and then…

She’s gone.

And the only thing you can think is that this must be what it’s like, to be the one that’s left, rather than the one that's leaving. So, yeah, maybe, you think, you had the right idea in the first place, all those other times, cause it seems so much better to run, than to be run from.

So… where were you?

“Yeah. I know.”

Oh. Right. There.

There’s silence. No. Not silence. Silence. Like, it’s so quiet you could hear yourself breathing, you know, if you were. But you’re not. Your breath has stopped and oh, if only your heart had stopped with it, instead of doing a fucking drumline in your chest, the beats ratcheting up harder and louder (those you can hear, thrumming in your fucking ears) and thicker than any Reagan has ever laid down.

Fuck. Reagan.

(Yes, you’d like to.) (Again.) (And that's so not the point.)

(Except it kinda is.)

She’s right there. Right there and yes, you’re emphasizing things a bit, but she's right fucking there and Sophie is right… there… like the other there, the across from you, staring into your eyes and daring you to try and spin some bullshit to get out of this there.

And you’re tempted. Sorely tempted. Tempted to the point of desperate cause, right now, the only way you seeing this end is you, alone, sitting here eating eggs you never fucking wanted, while the two people who just might matter the most to you are… well…

Just say it. You know you’re thinking it.

They’re gone. Again, in one case. And for good, in both.

So, yeah, you’re tempted to try and weasel your way out of this, to try and sell Sophie on some utter bullshit and hope (fucking pray) that Reagan goes along with it, that maybe together you can convince her not to ditch you both, even though there’s a pretty good chance (like 75%) (at least) that one of you is going to end up with a very Sophie-less life.

The thought of it being you absolutely breaks your heart. Yesterday notwithstanding - and all the pictures on your phone and all the feelings you never really felt for anyone else, not even the girl you dated for two fucking years also notwithstanding - you’re used to a life without Reagan. You can't imagine one without Sophie. So, you’re crossing your fingers and maybe your toes and offering up a few silent prayers.

You’re praying for Reagan to get dumped. Again.

God, you suck.

But… how about that bullshit? Hmmm… let’s see. Maybe the classics?

(They’re classic for a reason, after all.)

It’s not what you think.

That one is always an option. Lord knows, you used it on Karma a time or two or, you know, six hundred. Except, well, that was easy because you always knew what Karma was thinking.

Sabrina’s a bitch. Sabrina’s going to cheat on you. Sabrina’s going to break your heart.

It’s funny… in the end, Karma wasn't entirely wrong. But that’s pretty much par for the Karma-course. She’s never entirely anything.

But the trouble is, Sophie isn’t Karma. (And, any other time, that so wouldn’t be ‘trouble’.) You don’t know what she thinks. Maybe sometimes, like maybe when she’s watching Becky’s ass as it saunters away or like when she’s had one too many and she’s staring at the pictures of you and Farrah and Lauren that sit on your desk, looking lost and more than a little jealous, the wish for a family like that practically written across her face. But right now?

You haven’t a clue.

You know that she knows - she fucking told you that like five seconds ago - but you don’t know exactly what she knows or how she knows.

And then you spot your phone, resting on the table under her hand, the phone you haven’t been able to find since you left (fled) (the word you’re not looking for is fled) Reagan’s apartment and, yeah, now you’ve got a pretty good idea about the 'how’, at least.

“I always told you,” Sophie says. Her voice is soft and there’s no anger lacing her words and oh… fuck… that just terrifies you. “Someday you were gonna leave this in the wrong place.”

She slides the phone across the table, unlocked (she knows the code and yes, you realize now that might have been a dumb idea but, hey, it’s not like you haven’t had more than a few of those lately,right?) and the screen open to your gallery.

Which, to your eternal fucking horror, means open up to Reagan’s almost nude body, sprawled out on your high school bed, with your high school self curled next to her, equally as 'almost’ and what was that about dumb fucking ideas?

Apparently, there not just a recent thing.

You hear Reagan gasp - short and surprised, like those times when you snuck up on her in the shower and slipped your hand between her legs (that one time) (and she slipped and fell and almost cracked her head open on the tub and you both resolved that all… shenanigans would take place on dry land) and, yes, just as pained as that time - and it occurs to you that she showed you the picture she kept (if dropping it on the floor counts as showing and oh, it fucking does and you fucking know it) but you never showed her yours.

There’s a metaphor in there about hearts, but you’re not about hearing that, right now.

“I can explain,” you say, the words bumbling and stumbling their way out of you before you can stop them and you wish you could, cause even though - maybe - they’re true? Not bullshitting doesn’t solve the far bigger problem.

You don’t know who you’re saying them to.

Sophie’s hand lingers by the phone and all three of you stare at the screen, in all it’s nekkid glory - and no, that’s not weird at all - until the tiny bell over the front door chimes and Reagan has to actually, you know, do her job, and go seat someone. A little old couple, shuffling in for their morning eggs (they can so have yours) and if you looked, you’d see them - all of like a hundred and twenty combined - still holding hands like a pair of teenagers.

And if you could tear your eyes from the screen, you’d probably note that you’ve never seen Reagan move quite as fast as she does bolting from the table, not even the night she almost broke up with you at Communal.

And you’d probably wonder if that’s an almost she wishes she could have back.

But you can’t look away and it’s not just because it’s Reagan and she’s almost naked or just because your brain - traitor that it fucking is - is remembering exactly how she felt that day, that whole afternoon when Farrah and Bruce were at some dance recital thing for Lauren and the two of you had the house to yourself.

What does it say about you that you can remember every sight and sound and touch and feel and taste (oh… the taste) from just those few months with Reagan and yet, you can barely even remember how Sabrina sounds when she laughs?

Two fucking years.

You know what it says? It says you suck. Like a black hole.

But, you really can’t look away because there’s nowhere safe for you to look at. If you look at Sophie, you know what you’re going to see. That look of sadness, of betrayal, her eyes filled with the sad realization that you are just like them.

And Sophie has a long list of 'them’s’ to choose from. You just never imagined you’d be on it.

“You can’t even look at her, can you?”

How the fuck does she do that?

“It makes sense,” Sophie says, her hand slowly drifting back to her side of the table, out of your sight. It’s almost like she’s not there and oh, how that stings. “You don’t really handle guilt well.”

The response is automatic. Defensive. Blame shifting at it’s finest. “I don’t feel guilty about her,” you say. “Reagan… she… it was a mutual thing. Not like I forced her or something.”

Would you? Would you have made a move, would have you pushed it, would you have instigated - more than you did - if she’d tried to resist, to hold out?

You squeeze your eyes shut and yank the phone across the table, locking it and clearing the screen. Some questions, you know, are better left unanswered.

“I feel bad for what we did to you,” you say, realizing halfway through that you don't know that Sophie knows what you two did, but, really, it doesn’t matter. Because that isn’t even on the same scale, like not even the same planet, the same universe as the lie, as not telling her the moment you and Reagan met in the hall.

And isn’t that always the way? In the end, it’s all about the didn’t versus the did. And, in your case, the lie… those words you didn't say, you know, are so much worse than the deeds you did. You would have thought you’d have learned that lesson from Karma, from Liam, from Reagan the first fucking time.

Apparently, you would have thought wrong.

“Not gonna lie,” Sophie says, and that fucking calm and collected and not even hinting at anger or sadness or much of anything - she could be a fucking android right now - tone is driving you crazy. “You hurt me. You both did.” She drums her fingers on the table in front of her, you can feel the vibrations. “But how mad can I really get? Whatever you did to me, it’s not half as bad as what you did to each other.”

That's enough to make you look, to pull your eyes from the phone, to stare across the table at her in shock and confusion. “What we did to each -”

You never do get the 'other’ out. She moves faster than you can think, and all you can think is that it’s been building inside her, ticking down like a bomb. Maybe it was the way you looked at her, maybe it was the confusion in your voice, maybe it was the sight of Reagan behind you, helping that little old woman into her chair, seeing you and her even sort of together.

Or maybe it was etching your name on that list of 'them’s’, of realizing how badly you’d hurt her, of how broken every single rule was. The sense of betrayal and rejection washing over her and soaking into her skin and needing somewhere to go, some way to get out.

Then again, maybe she was just really pissed.

Whatever it was, it spurred Sophie into action, sent her shooting out of her chair, leaning across the barely there table and - with somewhat surprising force - landing a right hook to your face that would have made Ronda Rousey (before she sucked) proud.

It sends you sprawling backwards in your chair, clattering to the floor, your head coming to rest within spitting distance of that old woman’s shoes, staring up at the ceiling and willing yourself to ignore the shocked - and concerned - look on Reagan’s face as she looks down on you.

Amy doesn’t understand.

Not that that’s anything new, it’s not like it’s the first time (or second time or third time or fourth time or the you get the fucking idea time) someone could say that about her cause, let’s face it, there’s a lot Amy doesn’t understand.

The list - and it’s not a Karma list, but it damn near could be - is long and varied. There’s the appeal of kale, why anyone would willingly listen to reggae, and how on Earth anyone could think blondes have more fun (like, seriously, has anyone checked her life circa all of fucking high school?) And then there’s math. As in all of it. As in everything beyond addition and subtraction and even, sometimes, those and it’s not like she hasn’t tried to learn it or even had help with it.

Lauren spent the better part of two years in high school going over the quadratic equation and the Pythagorean theorem (as in over and over and fucking over) and the only thing Amy ever really understood - and still understands - is that a-squared plus b-squared equals her needing a fucking drink-squared.

“I have a calculator,” Amy said - also over and over and fucking over - ignoring Lauren’s rolling eyes and protestations about broadening horizons and well rounded education and critical fucking thinking. “A calculator and a cell phone. A fucking smart phone, and both of them can do math a thousand and one times faster than old Pythagoras ever even dreamed of,” Amy said, and that was the point at which Lauren almost always gave up.

Not that Amy was done.

“And, more importantly,” she said, always punctuating this part with a wagging finger, “if I had a dime for every time I have ever needed or will ever need to find the length of the third side of a triangle, do you know what I’d have?”

Lauren never answered. She’d learned the math on that one, the law of diminishing returns.

“I’d have zero fucking dimes,” Amy said. “That’s what I’d have.”

Clearly, Amy did understand the basics of currency.

So there’s math, obviously, and kale and reggae. But there’s more personal stuff too. Like, for instance, Amy doesn’t understand - like at all - how the whole Karma and Lucy thing happened.

“Karma was faking,” she says to Lauren or Shane or sometimes Reagan, but only when she’s drunk or exhausted or looking for a fight and no, that has nothing to do with how fantastic (like even more than usual) makeup sex with Reagan is. “She was faking and now she's kissing and just how the hell does that happen and no, I’m not jealous, I’m just confused, cause Karma's kissing and it’s my sister and stop giving me that look, I’m just trying to understand.”

And you can so add in why everyone (read: especially Reagan) thinks Amy ought to let that particular sleeping dog just fucking lie to the top of the list of things that Ms. Raudenfeld just doesn’t understand.

(Even if she really does. Like really really.) (But it's Karma. And Lucy. And seriously, W the absolute F?)

More? You need more?

Oh, there's more.

Amy doesn’t get - like at all - why Lauren is so pissed at Theo for choosing to go to a good school (at least he's going and not just staying and no, she’s never said that out loud and if you think she might, well, where the fuck have you been for the last two years?) She doesn’t have the first damn clue how Bruce puts up with her mother’s continued fixation on everything Jack does.

Or why Jack does anything.

She is utterly - like 100% times infinity (and beyond) - bewildered by the sheer physics of her girlfriend’s eyebrows. There hasn’t been one moment since the first moment when she’s understood even a little of why Reagan is with her. And, more than all the rest, Amy doesn’t understand how anyone could have ever cheated on Reagan.

“I get the literal how,” she told Lauren once - one of the many many many times Lauren wondered if being real sisters was worth it (she always decided yes, but still…) - “like I understand the mechanics of it, but seriously? The desire, the want to. I just don’t get it.”

What she does get?

She’s incredibly grateful that someone (hi Shelby) (you bitch) was that stupid.

So, yeah, there’s a lot of things Amy doesn’t understand and now, right fucking now, you can add a tiny velvet box, held out in front of her - daring her, calling to her, a fucking Siren song of temptation she’s barely resisting - to that list.

Also: how Reagan could think that now (right fucking now, as noted) is a good time to propose given, you know, that they just got back from visiting Amy’s soon to be new home. The one that’s 511.9 miles away (she can use Google Maps, too) and, really, that’s more like a world and, last time Amy checked, that world wasn’t going to be including Reagan.

Stupid world. Stupid fucking waste of a world.

“No.” Reagan says and Amy nods, even though it’s not a question. “No,” Reagan says, again, and it's still not a question but Amy nods again anyway which, to her, seems at least slightly counterintuitive (at best) and fucking rude (at worst), like she’s not just saying no.

She's hammering it. She’s driving that no nail right between those perfect brows with every fucking nod, but she can’t stop.

She’s a motherfucking bobblehead.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Amy says, finally finding a word that isn’t ‘no’. And it really is the truth, she does want to. If there’s anything Amy does understand, it’s the very simple - and yet massively complicated - idea that she wants, more than anything, to spend the rest of her life with Reagan.

Just, you know, not right now.

Reagan arches a brow (fucking physics) and Amy does her best not to get distracted. “I do,” she says and no, the irony of that phrase is not lost on her. “I just… I mean… I didn't…”

She sighs and drops her eyes, but not far enough that she misses Reagan taking a step back, just one, crossing her arms over her chest, the tiny box (Goddamn Pandora, that’s what that shit is) disappearing from view.

“No,” Reagan says, mulling the word over, rolling it round and round, letting it sink and soak in.

“Reagan, baby -”

And if there’s one other thing Amy understands, it’s that that - fucking baby? - was just about the worst thing she could have said, and if she didn’t understand it?

Allow Reagan to explain.

“Baby?” Amy tips her head back and curses the fucking stars for letting her speak. “So now this is a 'baby’ moment?”

Baby moments (aka a lesson in the Amy Raudenfeld Handbook for Dumbasses):

Reagan, baby, it doesn’t bother me that Karma’s kissing my sister.

Reagan, baby, of course your ass is still bangin in those sweatpants.

Reagan, baby, I know you wanted to go away this weekend but Karma…

Reagan, baby…

Amy watches as that one brow goes from cocked and loaded to full on ready for space launch and she backpedals furiously, even if she doesn’t actually, you know, move. “Let me explain,” she says (pleads.) “Please?”

Reagan says nothing and Amy knows that’s as close to permission as she’s gonna get.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” she says again and Amy knows that every word out of her mouth is a tiny little shovel that just keeps digging and digging and digging. “I do. I so do. But, I just didn't… see it coming.”

Ain’t that the fucking truth.

(and for once, with Amy, it might actually be the whole truth)

“There was no warning,” she says and there wasn’t. There wasn’t a warning, there wasn’t a hint or a moment when even the thought of it - marriage - crossing Reagan’s mind crossed Amy’s at all. There were no funny looks from Lauren, there wasn’t a single attempt at subtle probing from Karma (or, you know, not so subtle, cause, well, Karma) and there was just no way Reagan had been planning this and at least one of them didn’t know. “And you’ve just been so distant,” Amy adds and yup, she still sucks at math, and oh, look, the first ever pair of fully orbital eyebrows.

“I’ve been…” Reagan takes another step back and turns, facing off to the side, looking out over the view they’ve shared so many nights. “Distant,” she mutters but Amy notes that, as annoyed as she sounds?

She’s not disagreeing.

“You have,” Amy says, pushing her luck, yes. But really, what does she have to lose at this point? “And it’s not like I’ve been doing much to fix it,” she says quietly. “We’ve both been ignoring the gorilla in the room so long, we never even noticed the wall it was putting up between us.”

“Elephant,” Reagan says, not even needing to look to see the confused look crossing Amy’s face. “It’s the elephant in the room. It’s bigger than a gorilla and less mobile, so it just kinda sits there taking up space and… and it’s a figure of fucking speech so… just never mind.”

Elephants. Gorillas. Fucking monkeys, that’s all they are. Monkeys playing around and keeping secrets and not talking about the things that actually matter.

“Honestly?” Amy says. “I would’ve been less surprised by a break up.”

And oh, why does she ever fucking speak.

But, again, it should be noted that Reagan doesn’t say a word in argument. And Amy does note. Oh, how she fucking notes.

“It’s crossed your mind,” she says, “hasn’t it? Ending this before I lea… before I go to school.”

Reagan stares at the ground, the box squeezed tight in her hand. “Leave,” she whispers. “The word you were looking for, the one you couldn't say? It’s 'leave’. Before you leave.”

Apparently they’re not ignoring the elephant anymore. They’re fucking riding it.

“Reagan, you know that’s not what I’m doing,” Amy says. She takes one hesitant step towards her girlfriend, who doesn’t even so much as move. “I’m not leaving. I’m going to college. Yes, it’s another state and it’s far away and it won’t be easy but…”

Amy trails off, no fucking idea where she’s going with this, but she can’t help remembering that, historically, the trail off has never been their friend.

“But it’s what you have to do,” Reagan says. “It’s your dream and I want it for you.” She chuckles and shakes her head. “Sometimes, I think I want it for you more than you do.”

“Rea… ” Amy closes the distance, her arms snaking around Reagan and she lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding as she feels the older girl sink into her embrace. “I love you,” she whispers. “You… you’re my everything. And I know you think this is the way to keep that, to make sure college and distance doesn’t ruin it… ruin us. But marriage? I mean someday, maybe -”

Reagan’s head snaps up and she swivels in Amy’s grasp. “Wait… what?

"I said you’re my everything and I know what you’re trying to do and why, but -”

Amy’s arms fall to her side as Reagan takes a step back, holding up a hand to shush her. “No,” she says (irony) (again). “Not that part. The other part.” She watches as Amy goes over it in her head, slowly retracing her words. But, as usual, impatience wins out. “Marriage,” Reagan says. “You said marriage.”

“Well, yeah,” Amy says with a small nod toward the box. “That’s what I was trying to say. We can’t get married or even engaged. Not now. Not for this.” She shakes her head. “That’s why I was so surprised. I didn’t even know you were thinking about it.”

“Well,” Reagan says, reaching out and taking Amy’s hand, dropping the box into it. “That’s probably because I wasn’t.”

Seven Years and One Month Ago

The room is small. Like teeny small. Teeny tiny, smaller than her apartment small. Like small enough that Amy’s room back home might laugh at it (and swallow it), like small enough to make the 'size doesn’t matter’ joke die on Reagan’s tongue.

It would just be unnecessarily cruel.

Reagan’s not sure - cause she’s never actually seen it - but she suspects that even the Spawn’s nursery might be bigger than this.

(The Spawn = the baby = a name most definitely not on the list = exactly what Reagan’s going to call it - in her head - until they come up with a name.)

(And by 'they’ she 100% means Karma and by 'until’ she 110% means always. Like forever.)

She’s gotta think, even if she can’t be sure - not Spawn sure - that the nursery is bigger than this, again, not that she’s seen it. And yes, that’s been mentioned (once or twice) (usually by Karma) (and by 'usually’ she means… you fucking know what she means, we’ve been doing this shit long enough, no?) but it does bear repeating. You see, Reagan’s the only one who hasn’t seen it.

And it should be noted that that isn’t hyperbole or exaggeration, not in the slightest. This isn’t one of those 'only one’s’ like 'oh, you’re the only one who’s never seen that movie’ - like Amy and Princess Bride, once upon a time - when there’s literally thousands of other people who have never actually seen it.

Reagan really is the only one.

Karma’s seen it, which is to be expected since it’s in her house. Not that that’s weird at all, nope not one single tiny bit. Shane’s seen it too, but - again - kinda expected since lately he basically lives with the Ashcrofts and no, that’s not weird either.

(It is.) (It's weird.) (So fucking weird.) (So weird that even Liam has commented on it, going as far as to outright ask Shane if he’d gone straight - Karmasexual, that was his term and Amy almost fucking died on the spot - and yeah, Shane might have brushed it off and laughed at the very thought, but…)

(He might have laughed just a bit too hard.)

So, Karma and Shane have seen it but they live with it. And Liam’s seen it cause, well, duh, and Lauren’s seen it (which means Theo has seen it) because, well, Lauren.

Cause Lauren and cause her weird bond with Karma and yeah, Lolo was still Reagan’s BFF but this thing with her and Karma… it's…

Weird.

What’s weirder?

Farrah’s seen it.

Farrah.

And Amy’s seen it because Farrah’s seen it.

“Molly asked me to come see the nursery,” Farrah said out of the blue, one Wednesday and Reagan remembers it was a Wednesday because Wednesday’s are spaghetti night and the kitchen already smelled of Bruce’s special sauce - a phrase Reagan never thought she would ever utter or like - and Amy was already trying to sneak a taste out of the pot.

“What?” Amy said, spoon dripping red sauce onto the stovetop and God, could she ever eat anything without dripping something?

(Obviously, the answer is 'not if she’s doing it right and you so need to get your mind out of the gutter.)

(Not that Reagan wasn’t thinking the same exact thing.)

Farrah took the spoon from her daughter before Amy splattered the floor - again - and dropped it in the sink. “She asked me to come check out the nursery. She said she wants another mother’s opinion and, apparently, the other PFLAG moms don’t have my… taste.” Amy rolled her eyes and Reagan chuckled, both of them knowing exactly how Molly had hooked Farrah.

With her? Flattery really will get you everywhere.

“It would be impolite for me not to go,” Farrah said, lightly slapping Amy’s hand as she tried to filch a piece of garlic bread from the loaf by the sink. “And I am not going alone.”

It was simple, Farrah said, trying to convince her daughter to accompany her. A five minute visit, she promised. In and out, no harm, no foul, quick like bunny rabbits, done in a flash…

“Fuck it,” she muttered under her breath, running clean out of cliches. “Either you go with me, or there’s no camping trip for you and Reagan next weekend.”

Reagan could see the wheels spinning in her girlfriend’s head as she remembered camping, which, really, was remembering the table and the bed and, oh, that spot on the rocks down by the lake where those two teenage boys stumbled upon them and finished off puberty in about ten seconds flat.

Which was three seconds longer than it took Reagan to finish off Amy once they realized they had an audience, but that was neither here nor there, because what was here was Amy’s intense desire to not go there - she hadn’t been in Karma’s house in months and that had been weird, at first, but now it was more… comfortable - but Farrah was holding all the cards.

So, yeah, Amy went. And then Bruce went because… well… Reagan’s never been sure why but she’s got ideas (mind, gutter, you get that idea, right?) and then Jack - fucking Jack - went too (and oh, to have been a fly on the window for that five minute car ride) because of the whole mentor-slash-father figure-slash-sure, he can be a dad to fucking Liam thing and where Jack went (and where Karma was) then so went Lucy and so, yeah.

Only one.

Sometimes - usually when she’s trying not to think about it, which is like all the times - Reagan thinks that’s pretty much the sum total of what’s going to happen to her. The only one. The only one not moving on, the only one not moving up. The only one not growing and not changing, the only one not trying.

The only one left.

(And not just left behind, though, yeah, that’s the biggest bit of it all.)

So, she’s never seen the nursery and she doesn’t think she ever will, but she’s gotta think it’s bigger than this… room. If that’s what you want to call it. Reagan can think of other words.

Hole. Closet. Dent in the fabric of space and time. Tiny little hidey hole. Cupboard under the fucking stairs and nobody’s sending a 'Surprise! You’re a wizard!’ note here.

Oh. And one more.

Hell.

(That last one, obviously, has less to do with size and more to do with location, as in it's not Austin, and kinda everything to do with the way Karma and Molly are already softly whispering about where she and Amy can put their stuff and how cozy it will be and oh, yeah, cozy with the girl she was once in love with, cozy like no room to move or think or breathe, gonna be on top of each other… yup…)

(Hell.)

Farrah leans against the door - like there’s anywhere else she could stand - and surveys the room with a quick (very quick) (like Barry fucking Allen wouldn’t be able to keep up quick) sweep of her eyes.

“It's… homey,” she says, her lips pressed in a tight smile and yes, Reagan can add 'homey’ to her ever expanding list of synonyms for 'ridiculously fucking tiny’. And yes - again - she’s totally noticing the way Farrah can’t quite look at her, like her sorta-mom knows exactly what’s going on inside her head. She probably does.

Farrah is a lot of things. Dumb ain’t fucking one of them. But knowing what Reagan’s thinking and being able to convince her that she’s wrong are two very different things and, realistically, there’s not much chance Farrah could pull it off.

Still… it might be nice if someone tried.

“It has character,” Molly says - another synonym for the list - running a hand over the not too rusted metal bed frame of the bottom bunk. “Or it will, once the girls get through with it.”

Reagan tunes out as Molly starts in with a list of things the girls can do - at least she knows now where Karma gets that particular habit - especially when that list starts with taking the bunks apart and putting the beds side by side like a fucking sleepover.

Karma’s standing at the other end of the beds and she, at least, has the courtesy to blanche at that idea and she shoots Reagan a quick look, one the older girl thinks is supposed to say 'I’m sorry’ and 'that's not gonna happen’ and, yeah, it’s not like Reagan’s really worried about that.

Much.

“It’s a room,” Karma says, steering her mother off the discussion of the beds and where to put them and how they’ll be sleeping in them - cause, yeah, sleeping is the concern - and back to more practical matters. “Dorm rooms aren’t meant to be palaces,” she says, forgetting (or trying to) the fucking suite Lauren’s got at Yale. “Besides, we’ll be busy in the city and on campus and doing… you know… college things. We’ll probably only stagger back in here for sleep and a shower.”

Her eyebrow arches of its own accord, Reagan fucking swears.

“Showers,” Karma corrects, almost (but not quite) immediately. “Plural. One for me. One for her. Totally separate and not at all at the same time and yeah… so… ”

Reagan shuts her eyes as a hush falls over the world - or at least this tiny (so fucking tiny) little corner of New Orleans. She tries to ignore it, to not let it steer her into thinking about how silent her actual world is about to go.

And she remembers a time when she was so much better at trying.

It’s Karma who breaks the silence - and oh, that’s a shock - the desperation to salvage this trip before it… well… before it becomes everything they’ve all been expecting it to since pretty much the moment they left Austin, echoing in the pitch of her voice, cracking out almost an octave too high. “So,” she creaks, pausing to cough and reset. “Maybe… we should go check out the rest of campus? I’m sure Amy’s ready to sample the cafeteria, right Aimes?”

Eight eyes turns as one to look at Amy, who hasn’t said a word or even moved - like, not even an inch - from her spot by the window since the moment they all dogpiled into the room. And none of them, except maybe Molly (who’s still murmuring about the fucking beds) are surprised by what they see.

Reagan gets it first, of course, the moment she catches Amy’s eyes. She's so not surprised, not by the look - she expected it - but maybe a little by how much it still manages to break her heart, all her expectations be damned.

She sees it first and then it’s Farrah, only a half a heartbeat in front of Karma and it's her - of all fucking people - who reaches out, one hand brushing gently against the back of Reagan’s arm and it’s supposed to be comforting, it’s supposed to be a signal, a 'hey I’m still here’ and a 'it’s gonna be fine’. 'It’s just a look’ and 'there’s nothing to worry about’.

But, really? All it is a sign. A fucking neon blinking billboard in the night, screaming that that is utter bullshit, because there's everything to worry about. Because that look? That one Amy’s casting out the window - the one actually sort of big part of the room, overlooking campus with the flickering and blinking lights of the city in the distance - that look isn't just anything.

It's everything. That look speaks volumes, even if it only says two words.

I’m home.

(Technically, that's three, but who the fuck is really counting?)

For the first time she can ever remember, Reagan looks away from Amy. She has to, she has to drop her eyes as if she’s been staring too long into the sun and oh fuck no, she is not going to cry, not here, not now, not in front of… well… any of them. She’s not. She won’t.

She already is.

It’s Karma, again - and fuck all, when did she get a clue? - who bails her out. “Come on,” she says, crossing the room and tugging Amy by the arm towards the open door. “Greasy college food awaits,” she says, ushering her best friend and Molly and Farrah out into the hall, glancing back one last time at Reagan, staying behind to collect herself.

Alone.

Oh, like that’s going to help.

But then, like not even a minute later, it’s Karma - again - coming back through the door, a half crumpled paper in her hand, as she strides across the room (it’s like two baby steps, that’s all it takes) and shoving it into Reagan’s chest.

“You’re an idiot.”

Reagan blinks back the tears, her hand coming up to take the paper, crumpled as it is, noting, barely, a bunch of those little tear off tabs at the bottom. “What?”

“An idiot,” Karma repeats and they both remember a time when she wouldn’t have dared to say something like that to Reagan - it was right after the time when that sort of thing was all Karma could say to her - and there’s a look in her eyes that Reagan doesn’t quite recognize.

Right up until she does and it clicks where she’s seen it before. The night of the party. Right before Karma kissed Amy and it’s been so long since she even thought of that, but now it comes rushing back, water crashing over the levee, and oh… this… whatever it is, it really isn’t going to go well.

Color her fucking surprised.

“You think this is her new world,” Karma says. Her hands are on her hips and she’s trying to seem all determined and tough, but that look in her eyes dispels that right fucking quick. It’s a look of sad resignation, of knowing what she has to do, but really not expecting it to amount to fuck all in the long run. “You think she’s coming here and it’s all going to be new and different and exciting and it is. But you think… you think she’s going to find something here.”

Something. Someone. All the somethings, all the someones.

Reagan sags down onto the bottom bunk, the paper still clutched in her hand. “You saw her, Karma,” she says. “She’s not going to find something here. She already has.”

There isn’t much Karma can say in argument. They both saw it. There’s no arguing with the truth. But when the hell has even the cold hand of the truth slapping her right across the cheek ever stopped Karma?

“You’re right,” she says and yeah, that’s making Reagan feel just a metric shit-ton better, like seriously, go for a career in counseling, Karms. “Amy has found something here. A chance to be something other than her.”

Reagan wants to ask - she wants to fucking scream - just what the hell is wrong with just being her? Amy. Shrimps.

Hers.

“Can you imagine, Reagan?” Karma asks. “A chance to be something other than the girl Jack left and the girl Farrah basically tried to replace. Something beyond the once fake lesbian and the 'my’ in Karmy.”

Or the 'my’ in Reamy. Same difference, right?

“And don’t you even go there,” Karma snaps - she’s legit pissed and Reagan didn’t see that coming - staring down at the older girl still slumped on the bed. “Don’t go substituting Reamy for Karmy in your head, because we both fucking know it’s not the same. It never was.”

Damn. When Karma goes for insight, she goes hard.

“This is everything Amy’s dreamed of since she was seven,” Karma says and Reagan doesn’t have to ask why that age, she can still see that fucking photo on the living room wall as clear as day in her head. “But see, here’s the thing, Reagan,” she says, squatting down to force herself into Reagan’s vision. “Those dreams we have when we’re little?” Karma drops her head with a slow, sad shake. “Sometimes, we get stuck in them and we can’t see past them and we can’t understand that… when we grow up, those dreams should too.”

Yeah… not so sure they’re talking about Amy anymore. At least not only Amy.

“She gets that, you know,” Karma says, smiling, but barely. “Amy’s dreams… they grew. Bigger than getting out of Austin, bigger than college, bigger…” She shakes her head again, the 'than me’ left unsaid. “She understands that.” Karma stands and walks to the window, looking out at the city. It’s everything they talked about since they were little, everything two tiny girls once thought meant… everything.

But everything tiny must grow. And everything that grows…

“It changes,” Karma says softly, focused on a light in the far distance, a blinking speck just under the horizon. “Time changes and people change and priorities…” She leans against the glass, close enough to blur her own reflection and yeah, that seems just about right. “What was it you called this?” she asks. “Amy’s whole new world?”

Reagan nods. “It is,” she says. “A whole world of possibilities.” She doesn’t know how else to put it, to make it obvious that it isn’t the people she’s worried about, it isn’t the thought of Amy falling in love with someone else that scares her.

It’s the thought of Amy falling into life. Without her.

“It’s a world of chances, Karma,” Reagan says. “So many chances for her, just like you said.”

It's almost funny and Karma almost laughs. This, of all the times, is finally the time Reagan chooses to listen to her. “Yeah,” she says without turning around. “A world. But that’s just it. It's a world… not her world.” Karma turns from the window, staring at Reagan, and the older girl can see her heart - and it’s not quite breaking, but it’s not quite all in one piece, either - right there in her eyes.

Sometimes… usually when she least expects it and always when it seems most capable of absolutely wrecking her - Reagan understands perfectly why Amy’s never let Karma go.

“This is all wonderful and great and so many chances and it’s going to be an incredible time for her,” Karma says. “But you’re her world, Reagan. You have been since the moment she met you.”

“Karma -”

“No,” Karma says, cutting her off. “You’re not going to tell me different because… well… you’re just not. It’s the truth and we both know it.” And they do, even if one of them never wanted to believe it and the other one… can’t. “She would drop this,” Karma says. “She would walk away from school, give up on here, move back to Austin… Amy would throw it all away for you. All you’d have to do is say the word.”

Reagan doesn’t offer up an 'I never would’. Why bother? No one goes around telling everyone that the Earth is round or water is wet.

What is understood? Doesn’t really need to be discussed.

Karma steps back softly toward the bed, reaching down to tap the crumpled paper in Reagan’s hand. “Amy would give up everything for you,” she says. “She already did.”

I choose you. I choose us.

Reagan glances down at the paper, at the tabs at the bottom, the phone number printed on them in neat twelve point font. At the words, just beneath Karma’s finger, still brushing the paper.

“Maybe, Reagan,” Karma says. “It’s time you returned the favor.”

Amy doesn’t understand.

Yes, we’ve been here before. Recently, even. Some things… well… they just don’t really ever change.

But, apparently, some things - and some people - well… they do.

The box - now open and resting in the palm of Amy’s hand - doesn’t hold the ring that Amy was both expecting and fearing. She’s relieved, really she is, but there’s just the slightest rustling of something else starting to shiver inside her. It’s not disappointment, it can’t be that, cause let’s face it, even for Amy, that would just make no sense.

She said 'no’, after all. Why would she be disappointed?

(Why, indeed?) (But that’s a question - and an answer - for another time.)

(Like a few years later, right on this spot.) (But we’re getting ahead of ourselves and we wouldn’t want that.)

So, it’s not a ring, though, really, could anyone blame Amy for thinking it was? A tiny velvet box, held out to her by the love of her life (something she has never doubted) and there was such anticipation and hope dancing in said love of her life’s eyes - and oh, how long has it been since Amy’s seeing either of those in Reagan’s eyes - and it’s all happening in a spot so definitively and uniquely theirs.

Come on, that’s like something out of Proposals 101. How could Amy think it was anything else?

Well, for starters, she could have remembered this was Reagan and Reagan doesn’t do anything 101.

Or, you know, she could have just opened the box.

And found the key.

“A key?”

Never let it be said that Amy doesn’t, at least, have a firm grasp of the obvious.

“I don’t understand.”

Oh for fuck’s sake… here we go again.

“I mean, I understand,” she corrects (and she sorta does) (kinda) (maybe) (not really at fucking all). “I know what a key does and what it’s for, but… I already have a key to your place.”

Penny in the air.

“Yeah, I know that,” Reagan says, remembering quite clearly the moment she gave Amy that key. (It was a Tuesday and you know what that means.) (That it was a Tuesday.) (Not every day is a special food day, you know.) “I’m going to need that one back,” she adds, gently nudging Amy’s hand - and the box still in it - a little bit closer, urging her on, leading the horse to water, trying to teach the man to fish…

Oh, fuck the metaphors. She wants Amy to look at the tag - the tiny tag tied to the end of the key with tiny pink string that Karma gave her - like she desperately, achingly wants her to look at the tag and put two and two together and come up with four. Math even Amy can do.

“Back?”

There’s a ripple of pain trembling in Amy’s voice that Reagan didn’t expect, which isn’t much of a surprise. Truth be told, she didn’t expect any of this. It never once crossed her mind - or Karma’s or Lauren’s - that Amy might see the box and think ring and then make the jump from ring to proposal and even if she (or they) had?

Not a one of them would have thought 'no’ would be the answer.

So, yeah, this is going about as bass-ackwards as it could possibly go and see? This is what you get when you listen to an Ashcroft.

“You want your key back?” Amy asks, again and oh, shit, she’s going to cry, Reagan knows the signs and, even if she didn’t, the tears already leaking are a pretty good tip off. “But, I mean… why… ”

The trail off. Fuck all, it’s the trail off.

Amy blinks her eyes, flushing the tears and - Reagan knows - trying to gather her strength, fixing on her 'I’m not hurting and it’s all good, no worries’ face. Which looks oddly like her 'I want a doughnut’ face, but then most of Amy’s faces do.

“I mean, it’s fine, I’ve got it right here,” she says, shuffling the box into her other hand and reaching for her pocket. The key’s there, right where it always is. Amy’s lost the key to her house three times, the key to her car four times, and the key to Lauren’s journal (don’t ask, just don’t) once, but she has never not known where that key is.

She loves that key. It’s her… thing. She finds it. When she’s stressed or terrified or worried about Jack or the future or pissed (at Jack or the future) or just missing Reagan because she’s working her fourth straight late night catering shift. Amy finds it and she holds it and she runs her fingers across the teeth of it, tracing the grooves, the jagged points of the metal soothing her until whatever it is? It passes.

Reagan’s hand on her arm stills her movement, but that just sets those tears bubbling right back up. This is it, Amy thinks, this is that breakup that she wouldn’t have been surprised by. A thousand thoughts wash through her mind, tidal waves crashing against the rocks, but one cries out louder than the rest.

I can’t.

And she can’t. She thought she could. She thought - on those dark nights when even the key didn’t soothe - that if this is what Reagan was going to do, if this is what Reagan thought was best, well…

Then fuck her.

“I had a speech,” she mutters. “It was a good one. A tough one. All about how if you couldn’t just be happy for me and if you were going to let miles….” Amy shakes her head. Words. It was all just words and she's known that all along. She can’t lose Reagan. Not like this. Not like at all. She twists her arm in Reagan’s grasp, slipping their hands together, fingers lacing like they were made to do nothing else.

Fuck the speech.

“I won’t,” Amy says. “I won’t go. I’ll stay. I’ll stay here and go to UTA and I’ll live on campus, I’m sure I can find some nice girl to share a room with, one that’s not Karma, one that would never look at either of us like that.”

“Amy - ”

She hears Reagan - sort of - but talks right over her. “They’ve got a… decent… film program and sure, Karma will be a little pissed, but we’ll be fine. We’ve survived worse.”

“Amy -”

“And it doesn’t matter, anyway,” Amy says, rolling right along. “College is just… college. A lot of very well off and quite happy people never went to college, you know.” She squeezes Reagan’s hand in hers. “You didn’t go, and you’re doing just fine.”

“Amy -”

“No,” Amy says, another shake of her head, standing up firm and tall. “I’m not giving you the key, Reagan. If I give you the key then that’s it and that can’t be… that won’t be it. I just won’t let it.”

She takes a step back, trying to tug her hand free to show her resolve and all, but Reagan won’t let go. And if Amy had thought, even for a second, that there was any real chance Reagan ever would?

Well, then she just didn’t understand Reagan at all.

“Shrimps,” Reagan says, finally getting her girlfriend to pause, to slow down, to put the resist at all costs train back into neutral. “The key,” she says. “That one,” she adds, nodding towards the box. “Look at it, at the tag.”

Amy glances that way, almost afraid to let Reagan out of her sight, as if she might vanish into the ether if she looks away. Reagan lets go of her hand and Amy reaches over, plucking the key from the box, reading the tiny lettering on the tiny tag.

215 Treme Street. Unit 1C.

“Treme Street,” she says softly, the pieces settling into place “That’s like three blocks from…”

Her eyes light up and she looks from the key to Reagan and back to the key and back to Reagan.

And for once?

Amy understands.

“You’re coming? You’re coming to New Orleans with me?”

Reagan nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Recently, someone… surprisingly wise… pointed out that maybe it was my turn.”

The tears are back and it’s all Amy can do not to throw herself into Reagan’s arms right then and there. “Your turn for what?”

Reagan thinks about it for a moment, searching for the right way to put it. “My turn,” she says, smiling, “to try orbiting my world, for a change.”

Amy shakes her head, the confusion back in her eyes, but that's… well… it’s OK. Reagan understands enough for the both of them.

(Like she’d ever give Karma credit. Out loud.)

She catches Amy’s hand and pulls her close, slipping her arms around the blonde’s waist as she sinks back onto the swing. “Did you really think I’d break up with you?”

Amy shrugs and then nods and then, finally, slowly shakes her head. “Maybe for a second or two,” she says. “But I knew better.”

Reagan breathes - for what feels like the first time in forever - as Amy leans into her, her girlfriend’s lips brushing lightly across her own. “You knew, huh?” she asks and Amy nods.

So.

This was new.

There had been a time (or two) (or maybe more and she just didn’t want to think about that right now) (especially now) when Reagan had been on the other side of this equation. When she’d been firmly on Sophie’s side. A time or two (or, oh fuck it, four) when Reagan had been the one slowly turning circles - literally and in her mind - feeling that sickening feeling, that pain mixed with jealousy mixed with the urge to duck and cover as all the pieces seemed to click into place by falling square onto her.

A time or four when she’d been the one cheated on. When she was the cheated, instead of the cheater.

Maybe (not really maybe at all) that was why she didn’t say anything, not a single word in her own defense. Maybe it was empathy or sympathy - one kind of ‘thy’ or another - that stilled her tongue as she simply stepped aside and let Sophie pass, let the other woman (oh, wait, that was Amy) slip inside the apartment without a word.

Or, maybe that was just because, really, what the fuck could she say?

She could have tried. The words came to her, easily and quickly. The words she’d heard before, the explanations that seemed so… easy, so obvious, so perfectly typical.

Maybe a little 'It’s not what it looks like’? Well, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Sophie was reading this entirely differently, thinking it was a one time thing - and oh, how sick Reagan felt at that notion, that maybe it was - and maybe she hadn’t pieced any of the rest together.

Not yet, at least. But she would or, in the end, Reagan would tell her because if she didn’t, then Amy would, for sure, because if there was one thing that Reagan still knew about her ex?

With her, the truth would always out. Maybe not willingly or pleasantly or in a way that actually did any good for anyone, but it would.

Reagan considered - for about ten seconds - trying a bit of 'I can explain’? She knew that was always good, a classic, a can’t miss, probably line number one on page number one of the So You Got Busted Fucking Around handbook, the definitive guide to what to say when you get caught with your hand between some other girl’s legs.

Except… she can't explain. Reagan doesn’t know how it happened (lie) and she doesn’t know why (bigger lie) and she has absolutely no idea how she feels about it.

OK, Pinocchio. Whatever you say.

(Your nose is showing)

And even if she could explain - and she so fucking can, but she so fucking won’t because, recent choices notwithstanding, Reagan isn't stupid - there’s a bigger problem. Those legs she got metaphorically caught between?

They don’t belong to just some other girl. Not for her.

And not for Sophie either.

That means the lie is out and the explanation is way out and, really, that leaves Reagan with only one thing to say. The one thing she knows is absolutely true and absolutely won’t make even the tiniest bit of difference, but she says it anyway.

“I’m sorry.”

The words slip free in a sigh as she shuts the door, leaning back against it and she wishes them back between her lips almost before they’re out. Reagan knows those words - those words in this situation - as well meaning as they are, she knows there’s only one person in this equation that they do anything for.

And it’s not the one they should.

Those words are for her - the wrong her - and all they do is slap a band-aid (a tiny one, one of those miniscule round numbers meant for a paper cut and this is a fucking chest wound) on her guilt. If she was Sophie, Reagan knows, those words would probably be met with scorn or derision.

Or a right to the fucking face.

But she isn’t Sophie and Reagan knows Sophie won’t do that. There will be no punching.

(And, later, Reagan will wonder exactly how many times in one day can she be wrong?)

So when Sophie doesn’t say anything back, the silence is almost a relief - and Reagan's almost ashamed to even think that - and she doesn’t even look in Reagan’s direction. That would only distract her, would take her focus from the slow and steady appraisal of every single thing in the apartment.

Fuck. Reagan knows that look. She hates that look.

It isn’t so much the look as what’s in it. The question. The questions, plural. None of them good, and the answers… oh, the answers are so much worse.

Did they do it over there? (Yes.) (At least some of it.) Were they one the couch when they kissed? (Does up against count as on?) (As if that would help.) Did they kiss? (Yes.) Or was a kiss too… intimate? (No.) Or is that who they were, who they are? (Were, yes. Are… who the fuck knows?) Were they intimate, more than just a quick fuck, more than just some instant attraction they couldn’t ignore - no matter the consequences - more than just a desperate need and lust? Was there actually something there?

Reagan knows - knew - the answer to that. And she knew the other answers would hurt, would wound, would cut.

And that one would kill.

Her mouth was dry and her lips couldn’t part and the words… well, this time they seemed bound and fucking determined not to come out no matter how hard she tried.

Which wasn’t all that hard. Not really. Not at all.

But, in the end, it didn’t matter. Cause Sophie had the question.

“You’re her.”

And, apparently, she had the answer too.

“You’re her.”

The first time she ever kissed a girl - really kissed a girl, not some stupid peck on the cheek playing some stupid game with some stupid boys - Sophie knew. She knew she was gay, she knew that, for her, it would always be girls and only girls, she knew that her life had irrevocably shifted with the touch of just two soft lips.

What she didn’t know was how the hell she hadn’t known.

Sort of how she was feeling just then. If, by 'sort of’, you meant exactly. Exactly how she was feeling right then. How? How had she not known?

It was all right there, if she’d only looked. Literally all right there, in the far corner of the room, the spot Reagan had breezed over in the grand tour, the one Sophie herself had ignored - she had had far better things to look at - tucked away in the shadows next to the bookcase, by the window.

DJ gear.

Two turntables and a microphone ran through her head and Sophie almost smiled but then, instead, she remembered. (As if she could have forgotten.) It was all right there, in that corner, two decks, a pile of tangled headphones and cords. A stack of vinyl as high as her waist. It was all right there.

It was always right there.

“It was there,” Sophie said, softly. “The night I was here. When you were…”

When Reagan was ready. Ready to forget. Something Sophie wished, right then (and five seconds later, and an hour later, and an hour and five minutes and one punch later) she could do. Forget.

“It’s funny,” she said. “The stuff we don’t see. When we don’t want to.”

Reagan took one short step toward her, one hand reaching out, but not quite getting there, not landing on soft skin or wrinkled shirt, catching nothing but air. That was Reagan’s choice - an idea that seemed to cover a brand new multitude of sins - because Sophie didn’t flinch. She didn’t pull away, didn’t make a mad dash toward the door.

Reagan didn’t touch her - Sophie had an inkling that would never happen again - but Sophie stood her ground.

“You’re the ex,” Sophie said, surprising even herself with how little bitterness there was to it, how even that word - 'ex’ - didn’t snap off her tongue like a curse. “You’re the one that dumped Amy in high school,” she said, her eyes never leaving that darkened corner. “Because she wasn’t gay enough for you.”

There’s a moment - it’s brief and passes quickly, though maybe not quickly enough - when Sophie can feel Reagan fighting it down. That urge to protest, to argue, to say 'no, that’s not the way of it’ (read: that’s some bullshit.) Sophie can almost hear the words battling it out inside the other woman, the other words, the other reasons, the ones she’s sure Reagan has spent the better part of two years trying to convince herself were the real reasons.

Karma. Amy’s lies. Liam. Karma. Amy just wasn’t ready for a relationship. Karma. Their lives were going in different directions and it just wasn’t there time and it wasn’t really anyone’s fault.

Did she mention Karma?

But - and this time it’s to her credit - all her (inner) protestations aside, Reagan doesn’t argue with the simple truth.

“I was stupid,” she said, taking a step back, her hand slowly dropping back to her side, as she confirmed Sophie’s suspicions without, you know, actually confirming. “Stupid and young and I’d had my heart and my trust broken.”

There was a split second of pause, a humming moment of silence when they both waited to see if Sophie would point out the obvious: she knew the feeling.

“What your ex did to you… the 'phase’ one?” Sophie nodded slowly. “What she did to you, it just sucked.”

She heard Reagan take a short quick breath behind her, the knowledge sinking in. Sophie knew. She knew all of it. She knew about Charlotte and she knew about her and she knew about her and Amy and about her and Amy and the breakup. She’d known all of it, all along.

Everything except the one part that mattered.

“It’s my own fault,” Sophie said. She’d drifted somehow - Reagan didn’t understand how she hadn’t seen her move, she was looking at her the whole damn time - and was now by the gear, one hand lightly brushing against a pair of headphones. “I was the one who made the rule, I was the one who said no names.”

She laughed then. A soft, hollow, it’s not funny, it’s ironic - like actually ironic, Alanis - little cough of a laugh. One word. One name. It all could have been prevented with one damn word.

“It was that night, wasn’t it?” she asked. “The night I… introduced… you two. That was why you bailed on our date.”

Reagan slumped back hard against the counter, as the memory of Amy’s face - of Amy's everything - rounding that corner in the hall outside their room, flooded her. “Yeah,” she muttered. “That was the first time we’d seen each other since… well… since she tried to get back together with me.”

It’s Karma, isn’t it?

And then it was Reagan’s turn to laugh - though hers was just a touch more bitter, a shade more 'should have seen this coming’ - because, well, yes.

It really was karma.

Sophie took another few steps, her fingers drumming atop the stack of records. In a bad movie or a TV show - the kind of shit they’d show on MTV, probably - she’d pick one up. Smash it on the floor while Reagan watched. And then another. And then another. One for every one of those multitude of sins.

The records stayed neatly stacked. Sophie wasn’t a rager, she wasn’t the kind for tantrums, she wasn’t a violent angry woman.

Not yet, anyway.

“Why didn’t you?” she asked, surprising herself and Reagan. “When Amy came to you and asked you to take her back, why didn’t you?”

She left the rest of that mercifully unsaid. You weren’t in love with Heather, not even then. It was still Amy, even then. You hadn’t let go, even then. You never let go.

I know. Because you told me.

“It wasn’t that simple,” Reagan said. She pushed off the counter and crossed the room to the couch, her defeated and guilty posture slipping aside, replaced by… something Sophie couldn’t quite read. “I had Heather and Amy…”

The rest of that sentence screamed it’s way across the room.

Amy had Karma. Or, more accurately, Amy had her want for Karma. Her need for Karma.

“She wasn’t running to me,” Reagan said. “She was running from Karma. Why would I have taken her back?”

The word - love - rolled its way up from inside of Sophie and she had to bite it back, gnash it crush it beneath her teeth. Ten minutes ago, she would have said it.

Ten minutes ago, she might have believed it would have mattered.

“She came to you,” Sophie said instead, marvelling to herself at her grasp of the blatantly obvious. “Didn’t that count for anything? Amy could have gone anywhere but she -”

Reagan cut her off so softly, Sophie almost didn’t hear her. “She did.”

She turned to the older woman - the one she’d thought… well… what she’d thought or imagined or projected or fucking dreamed didn’t seem all that relevant now - and watched as Reagan slowly, but inexorably, crumpled, sliding down along the arm of the couch, her knees coming to her chest.

There were tears in her eyes - fucking tiny puddles that Sophie could still imagine falling into and God, when was that going to stop? - but Reagan was refusing to let them fall. Maybe she thought she didn’t have the right (she really didn’t) or maybe she thought crying would just piss Sophie off (it probably would) or maybe, really, when it came right down to it?

Reagan had cried enough damn tears over Amy Raudenfeld.

(She had.) (She most definitely had.)

“She did go anywhere,” Reagan said. “One minute Amy was standing in my doorway, wanting me back. The next she was on a bus.” She wrapped her arms around her knees. “She told you about the bus, right?”

Sophie nodded, a glimmer of understanding - and fuck all, that wasn't fair - slipping in. Amy’s bus stories, the tales of her summer on the road, were the one set of stories where they didn’t need the rules about names.

Amy didn’t remember most of them anyway.

“I heard all about it from one of my friends in the band,” Reagan said. Sophie stood rigidly in place, refusing to even acknowledge the faint hint of sympathy or empathy - fuck all the 'thy’s, fuck 'em all to hell - she felt tingling its way up from her toes. “Every little detail cause, let’s face it, wild child Amy is an awesome story. And let’s also face it, I was over her, right? I was with Heather, after all.”

Reagan shook her head and swiped at one eye with her sleeve. Sophie leaned up against the bookcase and slowly sank to the floor across from her. She watched as Reagan fumbled with Amy’s phone, the one she’d never actually put down.

“That summer, Amy could’ve gone anywhere,” Reagan said. Her thumb ghosted across the screen, her touch light and tender as it slipped across Amy’s smiling face. It was the touch of a lover, and Sophie had to look away. “And she did. She went anywhere… anywhere else.”

Reagan didn’t say 'leaving me heartbroken, leaving me in a loveless relationship, leaving me wondering what might have been’.

She didn’t say 'leaving me with the wrong girl’.

She didn’t say it. But Sophie still heard it.

The phone slipped from Reagan’s hand, clattering on the floor, landing squarely between them and neither of them made any move to pick it up. “Amy just walked right out my door and she disappeared.”

She glanced around the apartment, as Sophie tracked her eyes, knowing exactly what she would find. No one but the two of them, anywhere in sight.

It wasn’t Lauren.

It wasn’t her car, actually, the one Amy heard in the drive. And that meant she didn’t hear a key in the lock or footsteps in the hall and all that meant that it wasn’t Lauren coming in, excited and happy and relieved to see Amy there, in her room and her bed instead of across the hall with that other her.

Which left Amy sitting there, alone in the dark, for what seemed like forever.

It wasn't really forever (in the end it wasn’t even like twenty minutes) but it seemed so much longer. It seemed like forever, at least to Amy, what with Reagan’s voice still echoing in her ears and that look on Karma’s face still playing over and over again before her eyes and what with the feel of Lauren’s bed - so familiar and yet so different and new and yet so right (and just a little dirty) - underneath her. It felt like days or weeks, like she was waiting on the end of time and it just refused to fucking get there, and Amy tensed at every sound, flinched at every noise, damn near jumped out of her skin at every creak and moan of the house.

Not a one of which was actually Lauren.

It didn’t happen all at once, it didn’t even happen right away, but slowly (and so surely) that all got to be a bit too much. The anticipation turned to fear (what if she’d been in an accident?) and the nerves turned to panic (what if Amy was too late?) and the worry turned to hands clutching at Lauren’s duvet as Amy tried to get control of her breathing, tried to steady it before it went and took on a life of its own, before it got to be too much for the rest of her and Lauren - when she finally came home - ended up finding Amy passed out in her bed, hyperventilated right into unconsciousness.

That would not be good.

And it wasn’t like that was the only way for this to all go ‘not good’ (or not well or whatever) and seeing as how there were so many not goods, Amy didn’t really see a need to add another one to the list, so she took slow, deep breaths and counted to five and shut her eyes against the dark (and wondered why she hadn’t thought to turn on the damn light) and tried to focus, tried to steer her mind to what she was going to do when Lauren walked in, what she was going to say.

Amy tried - for once in her life - to not let herself get caught up in the moment, to not just react and to think and plan and actually be ready.

Yeah. Like that ever had a chance.

It might have, maybe, possibly (no, it fucking wouldn’t have) if that hadn’t been the moment, if that hadn’t been the instant when those creaks and groans of the house were - very clearly - not just creaks or groans but steps. Footsteps, in the hall, outside the door, tearing through the silence of the house and kickstarting the thwump-thwump-thwump of Amy’s racing heart in her ears. It was shock, she thought, that did it. It was just so sudden, the slamming realization that now was now and that now was here and oh… fuck… she had no plan and she had no clue what she was going to do and definitely no idea what she was going to say cause every word she knew had just fled her brain on a supersonic flight to fucking nowhere. It was all happening so fast.

And that was all just so much bullshit.

None of this was happening fast. None of it was quick and none of it was a shock, not if she really thought about it. If Amy did that, if she let herself replay it all in her head, she knew the truth. Nothing - not one single moment of… them… not since that first maybe accidental but not even close to a mistake first kiss - had been sudden. All of it, everything since that moment, had been building and building and building, scaffolding up and up on itself, sneaking up on her and slowly burrowing its way into her life and her bed and her heart and now…

Now it was here. And all Amy could think was that she wished she’d had more time.

Amy found herself wishing Lauren had stayed out later (really, that Lauren had never gone in the first place, but…) and that maybe she’d had the night to sleep on it (like she would have slept a fucking wink) just so she could make sure she knew exactly what she wanted to say because she didn’t want to say even one thing wrong (though it seemed like she probably already had) (and that most of those wrongs involved the word - the name - of the girl still sitting across the hall.)

Or, maybe, Amy thought, more likely, it wasn’t the things she'd said that were wrong.

It was the ones she hadn’t.

Amy heard those steps in the hall and she tensed - her fingers crushing the duvet - and she felt her heart go a-racing from the shock.

Or maybe, she thought, more likely (and yes, she was sensing a pattern) it wasn’t the shock that was doing it. Maybe, more likely, her heart was reacting to the girl and not to the sound. Maybe her heart hadn’t skipped a beat in fear, maybe it had just sped up in anticipation, the way it always did when she saw Lauren, when she saw her coming down the hall or brushing her teeth in the morning or whenever the tiny blonde snuck into her room in the morning for a quick kiss that never ended up being quick (or just one.)

Or maybe, Amy thought, her heart was actually slowing, it was calming and finding some peace and relief in knowing that Lauren was finally home and whatever reasons she’d had for taking so long to get there didn’t really matter anymore cause Lauren was home and Lauren was safe and now Amy could get her heart back under control and back to normal or - really - whatever the hell passed for normal now because Amy had finally realized that when it came to Lauren and her heart, there wasn’t a normal anymore and she had no control over that - or it - at all.

And now, thanks to Reagan, Amy had realized something else.

She probably should have told Lauren that.

She was about to get her chance.

It wasn’t Lauren.

The door creaked open and Amy had to blink against the sudden light - the flashes and flickers from her own room - that split the dark and haloed their way around the figure in the door like she was some sort of… angel.

A Karma shaped angel.

Well… fuck.

Someone, Amy decided - God or fate or the universe or all of the fucking above - had a truly sick sick sick sense of humor. Or just hated her.

Or, you know, both.

It wasn’t Lauren coming in, it was… the other one… and it killed Amy, at least a little, to think of Karma like that, but it killed her - like a lot - to even think of Karma at all right then and right there and if she hadn’t been panicked before, Amy was sure she was now, sure that yes, the night was indeed full of terrors, the kind it seemed there was no help for, the kind nothing could stand against.

Her hottie DJ couldn’t and a summer apart couldn’t and even the might of Liam Booker’s magic peen couldn’t.

Amy suddenly understood exactly what Lauren was so scared of. And she didn’t blame her in the slightest.

“Amy?” Karma asked, blinking her eyes to adjust, trying to spot the blonde somewhere out there in the dark. “Are you there?”

Of course she was there. She was always there.

Amy knew she shouldn’t have been surprised that it wasn’t Lauren (she hadn’t heard a car or a key) or that it was Karma because… well… of course it was. It had always been Karma. It had been Karma for Reagan and it had been Karma for every girl Amy had met or kissed or even talked to over the summer. But those weren’t the problem.

The problem was - always was - that it was always Karma for Amy.

“Yeah,” Amy said, wishing she hadn’t. “I’m here.”

She was sitting in the dark, but everything was suddenly so… light… for Amy. So clear. She saw it all just as Lauren did. It had always been Karma, it was Karma, it was always going to be her. Karma was why they kissed - that first time - and Karma was why Amy had outed them to everyone and Karma was why Amy said 'mine’ and Karma was why Amy had promised 'you run, I chase’ because Amy just couldn’t do or think or feel on her own. It was all just…

Karma.

It wasn’t, of course, it wasn’t her at all. Not for Amy.

Another thing she probably should have told Lauren.

“It is true?” Karma asked - whispered, like she was afraid to say it out loud - and even that soft, her voice carried in the silence of the house and Amy almost told her not to shout.

Amy didn’t answer her. She didn’t move and she didn’t speak but she did wonder if, maybe, if she didn’t do much of anything, if she didn’t even so much as breathe, if (like magic) (like some real Harry Potter level shit and not that David Blaine crap) she could just vanish, if she could just fade away into the dark, leaving Karma there just talking to herself.

She had to admit, it wasn’t the worst thought, vanishing before Lauren got back and saw Karma there - the truck in the drive and her shoes by the door and Karma herself, half in and half out of Amy’s room and, really, was there ever a more obvious metaphor - and she had to watch the equally inevitable shut down, watch the way Lauren’s eyes would slowly die right there in front of her, watch her girlfriend fold in on herself and…

“She’d be rude,” Amy whispered. “She’d be rude and she’d be mean and sarcastic and sassy and snippy and cut us both off at the knees.”

“What?” Karma asked, the whisper gone.

“Lauren,” Amy said, trying to get her fingers to relax, to release the duvet and the tension, but it wasn’t working. “If she saw you here and she thought… she’d go mean.”

Karma took a step into the room, the door shutting softly behind her and if it hadn’t been so dark she might have noticed the small scootch Amy made further away on the bed. “It’s Lauren we’re talking about,” she said. “She's always mean.”

“Not to me,” Amy said. Not anymore, she thought.

She was never quite sure when that happened, when it changed, but at some point Lauren had stopped being… Lauren. At least around her, at least when it was them. Amy had seen it, a little, had watched it happen long before the kiss.

At first it was just Lauren not tuning her out, Lauren actually listening. And that was one thing when it was because Amy was trying, because Amy trying was most often trying to talk about her, about how she was dealing with the Theo breakup (just fine, thanks) or her moment in the sun as the Savior of Hester (not nearly as much fun as the movies make it out to be.)

And when Amy’s texts and calls and Skypes over the summer were all for her (and none for Karma cause that would have kinda defeated the point) and it slowly became both of them trying and Lauren wasn’t just listening but she was talking and she was nice, it was impossible for Amy not to see it.

Or, if she was being honest, to fall for it. Hard.

“Yeah, well,” Karma said, “she's still like that. You saw how she made Brandi cry in gym class last week.”

And Brandi had spent most of the morning making snide comments about Narcs and people not being able to see people for who they really are and how some people were so desperate for love they’d do anything. Or be anything.

If Lauren hadn’t cut her with words, Amy might have just cut her.

“Maybe she’s nice to you,” Karma said, stressing the 'maybe’ just a little more than Amy was comfortable with. “But she’s still a bitch to other people.”

And that was just it, wasn’t it? Somewhere, somehow, sometime, Amy had stopped being other people. Even before the kiss and certainly after it (and, without a doubt by the time Lauren had run crying from Reagan’s apartment) Amy was anything but other.

“Unless… maybe… except as in… 'other' half.” Amy mumbled, her thoughts jumbling and stumbling and bumbling their way out of her mouth and she’d half forgotten Karma was even there.

But she was.

“What?” Karma asked. “Other half? As in… Lauren? As in yours?”

It wasn’t the words that got Amy’s attention, it was the tone, it was the sound, it was the way Karma’s voice knifed its way through the dark, the anger and the pain and the anger and the denial (and did she mention the anger?) that dripped off her voice like rain off a roof.

“Lauren is not your other half, Amy,” Karma snapped. She took three more steps into the room, putting herself front and fucking center, right where Amy would have been looking if she’d been looking anywhere but down at her hands. “I don’t know what the two of you are, but it’s not that.”

Because that was them and that had always been them and that would always be them.

“You’re right,” Amy said and she could hear the exhale of relief from her best friend. “Lauren isn’t my other half. That makes her sound… incomplete. Like she’s something less without me and there’s nothing… less… about her.”

Karma glared (not that Amy could see) (or was looking) into the dark. That wasn’t what she'd meant Not at all. Lauren wasn’t Amy’s other half cause Lauren couldn’t be Amy’s other half cause that job was already taken.

“You’re doing it again,” Karma said, not that Amy had the first fucking clue what it was. “This is Reagan all over again.”

That got Amy’s attention which, usually, was a good thing for Karma.

If she could have seen Amy’s face in the dark, she might have known. This?

Not usually.

“Reagan?” Amy asked, half intrigued, half confused, and already all annoyed (and about three-quarters pissed.)

“Yes,” Karma said. She took a half step toward the bed, but something (sixth sense, intuition, the tone of Amy’s voice forcing a slow but long overdue realization to start sinking in) made her think better of it. “You were just like this with Reagan,” she said. “Jumping in with both feet and gung fucking ho and not thinking about how much you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know?” Amy’s hands twitched around the duvet. Later - much much much later - she’d actually be grateful to Karma for, at least, easing her nerves.

Karma nodded, the gesture just barely visible. “You two were so different and so wrong for each other in the end, but you didn’t know…” She took another halting step. “Did you even know her last name?”

The duvet dropped from Amy’s hands as they balled into fists in her lap. “And you’re telling me I don’t know Lauren? Is that it?”

“What I’m saying,” Karma said, “is that you’re going in blind. You’re not thinking clearly, you’re just so… so…”

“So what, Karma?” Amy asked, those fists pressing hard against her thighs. “I’m so what?”

“Desperate.”

The word fell from Karma’s lips before she had a chance to stop it, before she could realize that even if she was right (which she wasn’t) and even if she had a point (which she didn’t) that was probably not the best way to put it.

It wasn’t.

It so wasn’t.

“Desperate?” Amy asked, stressing the ’t’ at the end, practically spitting it out.

“Not like… well…” Karma realized the hole she’d dug herself and that the only way out that might work was straight on through. “Yes,” she said. “Desperate. You’re so desperate to get over me, again, and so desperate to prove it and so desperate to find someone that you’re latching onto the first thing that comes along.” She took those last couple steps and - intuition be damned - sat on the bed next to Amy. “That’s what Lauren is, Amy,” Karma said. “Not your other half or the love of your life or your soulmate. She’s just the first available option. That’s what she is for you and you are for her and I’m sorry to say it like that but you’re in too deep and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Amy sat there. Still and silent.

“It took you a long time to get over Reagan,” Karma said. “And we both know how long it’s taken you to… well… we know.” She laid a gentle hand atop Amy’s, trying not to be concerned at the tight tight tight fist her best friend was clenching. “I don’t want you to end up spending months trying to get over someone who’s never really even been under you.”

There was a moment - an evil, mean, nasty, Lauren at her worst moment - when Amy considered telling Karma (in great detail) exactly how under her Lauren had been. But instead…

“It did take me a long time to get over Reagan,” Amy said. “She was my first.” She felt Karma’s hand tense against hers. “And you’re right, it would take me months to get over Lauren. Maybe longer. Maybe never.”

Amy reached over and gently lifted Karma’s hand from hers, dropping it back in the other girl’s lap.

“But,” Amy said. “I can tell you this. I am, without a doubt, without any question or reservation or exception, one thousand percent over you.”

She stood, the sudden shift in the mattress toppling Karma over onto her back.

“Amy,” she said, “wait -”

“Waiting,” Amy said, “at least for you, is the last fucking thing I’m going to be doing.” She moved across the room, knowing it perfectly even in the dark, and swung open Lauren’s door. “It’s late, Karma,” she said. “And Lauren is going to be here soon and she and I have a lot to talk about.”

“Amy,” Karma tried again.

“I said it's late,” Amy snapped. “It’s late and I’m tired… tired of this. I wasn’t ready with Reagan and I wasn’t ready last summer but…” She gripped the doorknob tightly, surprised she wasn’t leaving finger grooves in the metal. “I’m tired of letting this be what everything in my life is about and it shouldn’t be because it isn’t what my life is about.”

Karma stood, a rising shadow. “And she is?”

Amy shook her head, wondering how she had never noticed it before, how she had never really seen how all or nothing Karma always was.

“She,” Amy said. “Is a part of it. A big part, a huge part, as big a part as anyone.”

She couldn’t see it, in the dark, but Amy could imagine the way Karma paled at that, the way that thought killed her.

“You think you’re in love with her, don’t you?”

“I don't think about how I feel, Karma,” Amy replied, trying to soften her tone, trying to keep things from going even further off the rails than they already had. “I know. But I’m not going to talk about that with you.”

“Why not?” Karma asked, her voice small and hurt and the words tasted just a touch bitter on her tongue. “We used to talk about everything.”

“And maybe we still can,” Amy said. “But if I’m going to say that, it’s not for you. It’s for her and it’s for me and maybe once upon a time everything that was for me was for us too but…” Amy sighed. She just wanted Karma to go and Lauren to come and for this all to be done. “But it’s not once upon a time anymore, Karma. And you?”

Karma crossed the room, coming to a stop right in front of Amy, just inside - still - the door. “Me what?” she whispered, her voice dropping as Amy slowly started to close the door, ushering her out into the dark hall. She heard Amy’s last words through the door. Through Lauren’s door.

The moment Amy sees Lauren, she knows it’s all over.

Lauren looks like she feels, like the world has somehow spent the entire day conspiring to pour kerosene on all her bridges and every word out of her mouth is another match. Amy knows that's… well… not necessarily a good thing, but it is a necessary one, maybe the only thing that will make more good things possible.

Some bridges need to be burned so they can be rebuilt stronger and better and actually going somewhere. It needs to be.

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

Lauren’s sad and broken and not doing anything and Amy doesn’t know what the hell to make of that, much less what to do about it. This isn’t the Lauren she’s used to. Even after her breakup with Theo and accidental outing, Lauren held it together. She was angry, she was fierce. And yeah, Amy knew there was sadness under there - how could there not be - but that Lauren never let it show.

That Lauren focused on winning the election - kicking Shane’s ass in the process - and, as Amy and Shane eventually discovered, getting revenge on Theo. Not exactly the healthiest of choice, Amy knew, but she was far from being in a position to judge.

That was that Lauren, but this Lauren

(and Amy can’t help wondering when she started thinking of everyone as this and that versions of themselves and how the hell they’ve all changed so much in such a short time)

well, this Lauren is different. Amy’s not quite sure of it’s good different or bad different but it’s fucking weird different and she just doesn’t know what to do with that.

Lauren’s huddled at the head of her bed, both her blankets pulled tight under her chin. The only bits of her Amy can actually see are her eyes and a few blonde hairs sticking out from under her hoodie.

The wardrobe - and the fact that Lauren wore it outside the house - is enough of a clue but, really, it’s her eyes that do it, that tell Amy that her talk with Bruce went about as badly as they both figured it would. It’s the way her eyes dart around the room, looking anywhere and everywhere but at her

(it's her fault, after all) (her and her cheating mother and her ‘let me wander into town and fuck everything up’ father)

and it’s the way they’re rimmed red, like Lauren’s been crying, which isn’t a surprise, not really, but it does make Amy think that she can’t remember if she’s ever actually seen her step-sister cry. Amy knows Lauren’s cried, she doesn’t think Lauren’s some kind of emotionless evil robot

(not anymore)

but she’s never seen it. Lauren crying is like Bigfoot or Nessie or Liam not being a massively hypocritical tool. You’ve just gotta take it on faith.

She settles on the edge of Lauren’s bed, the side closest to the door - even now, Amy knows, with Lauren, it’s always best to be ready for a quick getaway - and keeps one foot planted firmly on the floor.

“So…” she says, totally clueless as to how to even broach the subject

(how exactly do you ask if your step-sister - who’s liked you for like five minutes - managed to convince her father not to dump your adulterous mother?)

(is there a Hallmark card for that?)

and even though it was Lauren who texted her

(need you)

that really doesn’t make any of this easier because now, on top of it all, Amy has to deal with 'need you’ Lauren, which is like an entirely new species Amy didn’t even know existed.

“So…” she says again. And then she just blurts, because, let’s face it, that’s what this or that or any Amy does. “I broke up with Karma.”

It is, Amy knows immediately, even before the oh so Lauren glare that comes her way, the absolute wrong thing to say. Lauren’s worried and crying and trying to save their family and she’s talking about Karma. Again.

“I didn’t mean… ” Amy sighs and shakes her head. “I mean, technically we didn’t break up cause, I know, you have to be with someone to break up with them and, pool kisses notwithstanding, Karma and I weren’t ever really…”

She grips Lauren’s comforter in one hand and runs the other through her hair, leaning her her forehead against her palm.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It just happened like five minutes ago and… you ever have one of those days when you just keep saying the wrong thing… well… the right thing, but in the wrong way, like you know you could put it so much better but it just comes out and -”

She’s silenced by the feel of Lauren’s hand on hers atop the comforter.

Lauren’s hand. On hers.

And if Amy can’t remember ever seeing Lauren cry, she knows she can’t think of a single time they’ve touched, not in a comforting sense, not in a… friend kind of way, not in a sisterly way.

She glances from her hand to her sister’s face

(and yes, she knows she dropped the 'step’ and she doesn’t know why, but it feels… not wrong?)

and Lauren’s glare has softened - somewhat - and there’s something behind the still red and still flickering around the room eyes that Amy can’t quite place.

“Breathe,” Lauren says, giving Amy’s hand the gentlest of squeezes and Amy does, one long slow in and out and she feels her heart rate slowing and the room seems less cramped and closed in.

But it’s still so fucking weird.

“Better?” Lauren asks and Amy nods. “You OK? You know, with the Karma break up and all.” She catches sight of their hands on the blanket and pulls back. “Not that I care…” But then she frowns and shakes her head, deciding something as the hoodie slips back, and she reaches out to take Amy’s hand again. “Fuck it,” she mutters under her breath. “You OK?”

Amy nods then shakes her head and finally just shrugs. “Work in progress,” she says.

Lauren nods. She gets that. Sometimes she thinks that’s all she is. A work in progress though she wishes the progress would hurry the fuck up.

“I broke up with Theo,” she says and her eyes slow down, staring down at the bed but Amy can see her watching her out of the corner and can see the way the muscles in her arms tense, ready to pull back.

It reminds Amy of the Lauren she first met, of the tiny - in every way - nervous, insecure, and shy

(yes, Lauren)

girl she met at the most awkwardly staged Red Lobster dinner in the history of 'guess what girls, you’re getting a new sister’ dinners. That Lauren hadn’t actively disliked her or gone out of her way to be a condescending and judgmental bitch, or even looked down on Amy like she was the unfortunate tag along.

Buy a Farrah, get an Amy free. Whether you want her or not.

That Lauren had looked at Amy with sympathy, or something close to it, with a look that said 'you poor girl’ and eyes that spoke with experience, the look of someone who’d been down this road before and knew what was coming.

It had taken a little longer than either of them expected, but what had been coming had finally shown up.

“When? How? What?” Amy stammers and Lauren cocks her head slightly and Amy takes another breath. “What I mean is, I thought you went to talk to your dad about, you know, my mother and I didn’t even know you and Theo were…”

She scoots fully up onto the bed, crossing her legs underneath her

(screw getaways)

never once letting her hand leave Lauren’s.

“What happened?” she asks and Lauren eyes her for a moment, like she’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Amy’s door slams shut in the hallway, the sound of Karma’s feet hurrying down the stairs echoing in the quiet.

Shoe dropped.

“You can go,” Lauren says, nodding in the direction of the hall. “I’ll be -”

Amy shuffles a little on the bed - moving closer, which is the wrong fucking direction - and flips her hand over underneath Lauren’s, lacing their fingers together.

“What happened?” she repeats.

It’s the first time that day - maybe the first time in a while - Amy thinks she gets it right. The right thing, the right time, the right way.

And as Lauren dissolves into sobs and crawls from under the blanket falling into Amy’s arms. the front door slams in the distance.

Amy just holds Lauren tighter.

She’s not coming back.

It’s all Karma can think and though she means now - Amy’s not coming back to the room, she’s not coming back to finish their talk

(Amy’s talk is done)

she knows, really, she means then. Later. Forever.

She’s not coming back.

Amy’s going to leave, she’s going to go on this tour with the Exploding Pussies or whatever the fuck their name is

(and Reagan) (can’t forget Reagan)

(God, she'd love to)

and she’s not coming back. And that’s it, in a nutshell, isn’t it? Karma knows Amy will come back, she’ll be back in Austin by the end of the summer, by the time school starts up again.

But she won’t be back.

Her Amy.

And after everything, after faking it and Liam and Amy and Liam and the pot bust and living in a juice truck and prom and the party and just fucking everything, the thought that she isn’t coming back is just a little too much for Karma to take.

So she runs.

She almost doesn’t though. She walks through Amy’s door, letting it slam shut behind her and waits. The noise should do it. The sound of her upset and her anger and her leaving should bring Amy running. She’s only talking to Lauren and yeah, they’ve gotten closer and yeah (again) this whole thing with their parents is a big deal.

(Though, really, how big a deal can it be? It’s not like Amy hasn’t been through this before)

(Karma would know. She’s been here for every marriage, every divorce, every Farrah fuck up.)

But Amy doesn’t come. Amy doesn’t step out of Lauren’s room to finish this. Amy doesn’t text her to say she’ll be right back

(Karma checks)

(Twice)

and she doesn’t holler from behind the door to just wait a minute and she doesn’t even stick her head out to promise they’ll talk later and that somehow, someway, they’ll work all this out because they’re them and that’s what they do.

Karma stands in the hall. Alone.

And what was that about being more than she can take?

She bolts down the stairs and out the front door, the words 'it’ll be fine’ running on an endless loop in her head.

It’ll be fine. Amy will call.

It’ll be fine. Amy will text.

It’ll be fine. Amy will calm down. Amy will realize the kiss was just a drunken mistake.

(Because that’s all it could be)

Amy will realize the three months is too fucking long and their friendship, teetering on the edge of a fucking cliff since she slept with Liam

(yeah, because that’s the only issue)

is too important and they need this time, just the two of them. No Shane. No Lauren. No Liam. No…

Reagan.

She’s sitting there reclining on the front step with a Coke in one hand and her cell in the other

(no doubt texting her girlfriend, the one she seems to conveniently forget, like Amy’s so much more important than the person she’s really dating and who does that?)

(oh)

and really, Karma wonders, doesn’t Reagan know a damn thing about being an ex? Exes aren’t around, exes aren’t in your room helping you pack so they can steal you away for an entire summer.

And exes sure as hell aren’t kissing you - not even on the cheek - with that thirsty look in their eyes, like they’d be perfectly happy to fuck you right then and there on the floor of your room even if your lifelong best friend is still standing right fucking there.

She’s just sitting there, on the step, like she fucking belongs and she’s - basically - right in Karma’s way.

Something about turnabout being fair play runs through Karma’s mind but she ignores the fuck out of that and thinks about saying something, about cursing Reagan for not minding her own damn business. About calling her on exactly what she’s done.

Finally got what you wanted, didn’t you?

Three months on a bus. Three months in hotels and late night diner and sweaty clubs and you’ll have Amy singing 'I’m a lesbian’ from every street corner.

Who gives a fuck if that’s what Amy actually wants or what Amy actually is. Amy will do anything for someone she loves.

Anything, apparently, except stay.

The anger bubbles up in Karma but common sense and maybe, just maybe, a slight sense of fear

(this is the woman who roofied Liam’s father)

wins out. Besides, Amy’s still upstairs and Karma still has hope - faint though it is - that Amy is going to come to her senses. That, given a little time and space

(things Reagan apparently has never heard of)

Amy will calm down and decide, if not to go to Clement, than at least to stay.

Blowing up at Reagan within earshot of Amy isn’t going to help her cause and Karma knows it and, for once, she lets reason win out and takes a couple quick steps around the older girl and heads for the sidewalk, her mind racing with every single grand gesture she can make - in case time and space don’t work - everything she can do to make Amy stay.

(And if every one of them is, at least, vaguely romantic, well Karma will just deal with that later.)

She almost makes it, almost gets away unscathed, but really, who is she kidding? They’re all well past 'scathed’, all just hoping it doesn’t leave scars now.

But Reagan… well… Reagan just can’t let it be.

“You need to let her go,” she says, stopping Karma in her tracks.

Reagan takes a long sip from her Coke and a deep breath. She shouldn’t have said it, she knows that and really, if she’s being honest, this ain’t her fight anymore.

But since when has that ever stopped her.

“If you love her, Karma. However that might be… you need to let her go.”

For Reagan, that’s that.

Karma turns on the spot, eyes blazing and Reagan knows that isn’t going to be just that.

Which, honestly, is fine with her.

It might not be her fight anymore, but all that means is she’s got nothing left to lose and a whole lot to say.

“This is insane.”

Amy stops rifling through the row of perfectly tailored blouses in Lauren’s closet - making a mental note that they’re going to need a shopping trip tonight because Lauren’s wardrobe is even more of a tour fail than her own - just long enough to fix her sister with a quizzical and somewhat amused look.

“This?” Amy asks. “This is what you consider insane?”

Lauren nods resolutely. Her tears have dried and she’s done talking about Theo

(“I didn’t want to be a secret anymore.”)

(“He didn’t agree”)

and her failed attempts to convince Bruce to not move ahead with the divorce, the attempts she and Amy both knew were DOA even before she tried. And she’s done worrying about having to move back to Dallas and how she might actually - surprisingly - miss Amy and Leila and Lisbeth and even Shane.

She stands next to her bed, clutching a pair of sleep shorts that she normally wouldn’t be caught dead in, but Amy insists are far more practical, and considers - for about the hundredth time - the idea

(the insane yet oddly brilliant idea)

that she go with Amy on tour.

“Yes,” Lauren says. “Insane.”

Amy smiles at her - and it’s more of a smirk, really - the challenge dancing behind her eyes and Lauren knows she’s going to lose. “Going on tour is insane?” Amy asks. “You dated an undercover cop.”

“You punched an undercover cop,” Lauren fires back.

“Karma’s parents got busted for pot.”

“And you went to jail to try and save your overly co-dependent friendship with an alleged drug dealer.” Point, Cooper.

“You faked being a cheerleader to out your ex the narc.”

“You almost had a threesome with Liam Booker!” Amy can’t possibly beat that.

“You almost slept with Tommy!”

OK, maybe she can.

They both stop and stare at each other for a moment, the realization settling in is something of a crushing blow.

“Our lives,” Lauren says, “are fucked up.”

Amy nods. “It’s like everything that happens to us is being written by a bunch of monkeys just throwing shit at a wall.”

Lauren nods and points at Amy. “Exactly! None of it is normal. It’s like we never go to class, and we’re sixteen and everyone’s having threesomes and everything’s gotta be… EPIC!”

She sits down on the edge of her bed, balling the sleep shorts up in her hand.

“I think we need new writers,” Amy says.

Lauren nods. “I’m tired of epic,” she says. “I need… a break. Something that isn’t torturous and painful and one damned angst fest life changing moment after another.” She looks down at the sleep shorts in her hand. “I’m going on tour with Exploding Pussies, aren’t I?”

Amy brings a hand to her mouth to try and cover her giggles, but fails miserably. “First of all,” she says, trying to squash the laughter enough to be clear. “It was Pussy Explosion, not Exploding Pussies.”

Lauren glares at her, but Amy’s not buying it. The twitching corners of her mouth don’t lie.

“And second of all,” Amy continues, her laugh finally subsiding. “They changed their name. They’re the Dillholes, now.”

Lauren arches an eyebrow

(and seriously, can everyone other than Amy do that?)

and asks the obvious question. “Who the fuck thought Dillholes was better than Pussy Explosion?”

They stare at each other for a moment, the phrases 'Dillholes’ and 'Pussy Explosion’ echoing in the air.

And then they both double over, losing it completely. Lauren slumps off the bed and slides to the floor while Amy leans against the closet door. They’re sure the entire neighborhood can hear them out Lauren’s open window but neither of them care.

Lauren finally gets herself under control and folds the sleep shorts into a small square of fabric, perfect for packing. “My father’s going to lose his shit.”

Amy nods. “Yeah, he is. But you know what? Fuck 'em.”

Lauren looks up at her and Amy expects The Lauren, that look she always gets when she dares speak ill of Bruce or Dallas or Republicans or - on rare occasions - croqeumbouche. Instead, there’s little anger in Lauren’s eyes. “Fuck him?”

“Yup,” Amy says. She leans down and pulls a pair of sweats and another hoodie

(Lauren owns two?)

from the laundry basket and tosses them on top of her sister’s suitcase. “He’s divorcing my mother, despite your very eloquent pleas not to.” She leans back against the door. “Fuck. Him.”

“Your mother cheated,” Lauren says but there’s no anger or malice behind it. Just simple fact.

“Yeah,” Amy says, “with my dad, so it isn’t like it was really cheat…” She shakes her head and slides down the door to the floor. “Yeah,” she says. “She cheated.”

No matter what, it always comes back to that. Her mother was the cheater, her father was the other man. Somehow, that should make her happy, the thought that maybe something, some kind of love and care could survive all those years and all the anger and the pain and the betrayals and…

Fuck it.

Amy’s had just about enough of making everything in her life some sort of double speak metaphor for her and Karma.

Been there, done that and fuck it all. She's done. She has to be.

“Fuck 'em both.”

Amy’s head snaps up and she looks at Lauren like the other girl just admitted to wearing a mismatched bra and panties set and since she’s seen Lauren’s underwear drawer, that’s just not possible. “What?”

“Fuck 'em both,” Lauren says. “I told you, my father’s done the same thing. Farrah just beat him to the punch.” She snatches up the sweats dangling off the edge of the suitcase and starts the folding process again. “Besides, they were the ones who couldn’t wait to get married. They were the ones who put us together and made us a…”

“Family?” Amy offers.

“Yeah,” Lauren says. “A family. And now they think they can just scrap the whole thing and move us around like… like… luggage?” She gestures at the suitcase as she finishes folding the sweats and stands up. “Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em both.”

Amy grins at her from the floor. “You’re going on tour with the Dillholes, aren’t you?”

Lauren drops the sweats into the suitcase and rolls her eyes. “God help me,” she says. “I am.”

And even Lauren can’t hide the smile.

There are certain things Reagan could say to Karma that really - honest and true - wouldn’t upset her.

She could call Karma on the way she acted at Communal that night, point out that Karma acted like a jealous ex more than a friend and let her own insecurities almost fuck up Amy’s relationship before it had even started.

Karma might not like it, but she knows it’s true. She knew it was true then, even as she was doing it.

She’s considerably more self aware than most people give her credit for. But knowing you’re doing it and being able to stop doing it aren’t the same thing.

Reagan could point out that Amy’s insistence on always putting Karma first - and vice versa - is never going to sit well with anyone either of them date.

Again, she might not like it, but… The evidence is kinda there.

She could even - maybe - critique Karma’s handling of Amy’s coming out. Because, yeah, Karma knows - and has always known - she fucked that up. She fucked that up like a boss.

She didn’t mean to. It was never her intention to hurt Amy (or even Liam) but somehow, intention didn’t equate to results.

Any of that, really, Karma would have to concede Reagan might have a point.

But this?

You need to let her go.

Oh. Fuck. No.

“I need to let her go?” Karma took one step back toward the house and held her ground. “I need to let her go? That’s fucking rich.”

Reagan shrugged, not sure what Karma was getting at. “Maybe,” she said. “But it’s also the truth.”

Karma moved a little closer. With Reagan sitting on the step, they were at eye level. “Says the girl planning on spending the whole summer with her,” she spat. “But that’s what you wanted all along wasn’t it? Get her alone. Away from me.” Karma glared. “What’d you think, Reagan? Three months and she’ll be your perfect little lesbian?”

Reagan got it then and, not for the first time, she cursed Amy’s seeming inability to tell anyone the entire truth. “She didn’t tell you,” Reagan muttered. “For fuck’s sake…”

She understood then why Karma was so mad, why it seemed to her that Reagan was, in essence, trying to muscle her way back into Amy’s life. And heart. And bed.

“I’m not going,” she says, calmly. “I’m staying here with Nicole. Amy’s going on her own.”

The look that passes over Karma’s face goes through phases and Reagan can watch each one settle and move on, like clouds. Confusion. Doubt. Realization. Anger.

And then… well… Reagan’s never seen anyone absolutely broken before, but she’s got a pretty good idea that this is what it looks like because it hits her at the same time it dawns on Karma, what exactly it means that Amy’s not only going, but going without her.

Going with Reagan was one thing. It was easier then. Then, it was about that love Amy still has for her, about the chance - slim as it might be - that those different places they’re in might be a little (or a lot) closer than they thought. Then, it was as much about being with Reagan as it was being without Karma.

This… oh fuck… this is something different, this is something worse. This is Amy willingly going God only knows where with people she doesn’t know and spending three months doing something she’s never done.

Just to avoid Karma and a summer together, just the two of them.

Karma sinks down to the grass and Reagan has the urge to get up and go inside. Remember that part about not her fight? Yeah… not her fix either.

“I don't…” Karma’s just staring at the ground. “What did I do?” she asks. “How did I…” she shakes her head and puts her face in her hands.

Reagan slips off the steps and drops down onto the grass next to her. She reaches out, tries to put an arm around the younger girl but it’s just too… weird. She lets her hands drop back down to her lap and picks at the grass.

“How can I have fucked up so badly?” Karma asks and Reagan doesn’t know - but hopes - she’s not looking for an actual answer. “She’ll run away. She’ll go to another state, other states, just to get away.”

Karma shakes with silent sobs and Reagan really - really - regrets sitting down.

“She hates me that much.” The words come out in a shudder and Reagan almost doesn’t get it at all. “She hates me.”

Reagan sighs and wonders, as she often has, how someone with a fucking encyclopedic knowledge of all things romantic comedy can be so clueless about real life love.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” she asks, waiting till Karma’s head pops up to continue. “Getting over what they did. Amy and Liam.”

Karma stares at her, completely lost, but nods.

“Yeah,” Reagan says. “I get that. It took me like a year to get over Charlotte. She still worked for the catering company and I had to see her all the time. It was hell.”

Karma glances back up at the house, at Amy’s window, and Reagan knows they’ve found a little common ground.

“She finally quit,” Reagan says. “I don’t know if she got a better job or got sick of the hours or…” She tugs a few blades of grass free from the ground, rubbing them between her fingers as she speaks. “Sometimes, I like to think she did it because seeing me hurt her as much as seeing her hurt me.”

Karma smiles, for just a second, the romantic notion of it too much for her little shipper heart to resist. “Do you really think -”

“No,” Reagan says with less than no hesitation. “I know Charlotte. She swept me off her list of fucks to give ten seconds after she dumped me.” She drops the grass. “But it’s easier to think that way, you know?”

Karma does know. If anyone would know about lying to yourself…

“You’ve never really forgiven them, have you?”

Karma turns to look at Reagan, caught off guard by the sudden change in topic. “What?”

“I mean, I know you say you have,” Reagan says. “And we all know way too much about your reconciliation efforts with Liam…”

Karma bristles at the insinuation - even if she knows it’s well earned - and glares at Reagan. “I don’t really see how any of that is your business.”

“Because she’s my business,” Reagan snaps. She’s grateful Karma’s got a little attitude back. She knows how to deal with pissy Kama. The other one…not so much.

It’s easier to fight a little than console a lot.

“You think you’ve got a monopoly on loving Amy, Karma?” Reagan asks. “You think you’re the only one who’s gonna be crying themselves to sleep at the thought that three months gone is going to turn to four or five or the rest of your life?”

“But,” Karma stutters. “But, you have Nicole.”

Times like these, Reagan wonders how the hell Amy has stayed so patient with this girl for so long. “And you have - had? have? - Liam. And yet, you’re here. From what Amy said, he’s thinking of taking off the for the summer too. And yet…”

“I’m here,” Karma finishes and Reagan nods. There’s a moment of clarity for the younger girl and she speaks before she thinks. “You love her, don’t you? Like, in love with her, love her. Still.”

It’s Reagan’s turn to glance up at the window, the one she crawled in so many nights. “When I told Nicole about my history with Amy, she gave me such… shit. She didn’t get it. The age difference. Amy’s confusion. You.” Reagan reaches over and plucks her Coke from the steps, running the cold bottle between her hands. “There were so many obvious reasons… so many bright blinking neon fucking signs.”

She turns her head so Karma can’t see the tears.

“I was the first girlfriend and there’s a reason they’re called first and not only,” Reagan says and she hopes she doesn’t sound bitter. “And Nicole couldn’t understand how I could’ve been so stupid. How I couldn’t have seen that for myself, right from the start.”

Karma reaches out a hand, haltingly, and rests it on Reagan’s leg. “You did though, didn’t you?”

Reagan nods. “From the moment I met her.”

There are. No. Boyfriends. Around me. Right now.

“I saw it coming right at me, like a freight train, and I couldn’t help but lay down on the tracks,” she says. “And now I have Nicole and we fit and there’s no confusion, no age difference.” She looks at Karma with a small, sad smile. “No you.”

“And yet,” Karma says, “you’re here.”

Reagan takes another long drink, letting the silence settle back in.

And yet, she’s here. They both are.

“I imagine,” she finally says, “that it’s been hard. Seeing them every day, even seeing them together sometimes. Even when you knew Liam was into you. Even when Amy was with me.”

Karma nods. It sucked. A lot. Seeing them, even so much as passing in the hall, it had killed her. And she didn’t want it to, she wanted to forgive them and she knew - she fucking knew - she had a certain amount of blame

(but they fucked)

(she lied and she hurt them both)

(but they fucked)

but she didn’t know how. She didn’t know how to forgive without feeling, in every single bit of her, that she’d let them get away with it.

Karma didn’t want to punish them.

She just didn’t want to suffer alone.

“He was your first love,” Reagan says. “And she’s your best friend. When one hurts you, you’re supposed to turn to the other.”

Karma nods again, vigorously. It’s the first time anyone’s actually said it out loud, like that, and it’s so simple and yet so fucking true.

“So…” Reagan says. “Imagine you’re Amy. First love. Best friend.” She’s incredibly proud that her voice holds when she says 'love’. “One in the same. Nowhere else to go to, no escape.”

Karma stares up at the house and Reagan thinks this time it might have sunk in.

“If seeing them hurt you like that, Karma,” Reagan says, “imagine what being with you does to her. Imagine what fighting to save something that’s never going to be what you really want but you can’t live without it, is like.”

Karma closes her eyes and tries to just breathe. Which, it turns out, is somewhat harder than she imagined.

“I have to let her go,” she says. “But I… don't…”

Reagan stands up and turns to go back inside. “What you do is up to you, Karma. If you…” she shakes her head. “Amy has always thought the best of you. She’s always believed in what you two have, more than anything else in her life.”

Karma watches Reagan head up the steps and pause.

Amy quickly discovers the major difference between the girl she was - and, really, still is - and this Amy.

This Amy can be a bitch. This Amy can throw the Clement University folder in the trash right in front of Karma.

That’s not the difference.

Amy knows herself well enough to know that being a bitch is not something entirely new for her, it’s not like she's never lashed out at people when she’s mad.

Croquembouche, anyone?

(Liam Booker, anyone?)

Being a bitch is not an exclusive trait of this Amy, of work-in-progress Amy. Old Amy had her bitch moments. And this Amy is still that Amy and that means this Amy - just like that Amy - feels bad about it. There’s that immediate regret, that instantaneous sense of ‘oh, shit’ and that desperate need to fix it, to find a way to take it all back.

Old Amy would snatch that folder out of the trash, play it off as a joke, and spend the next four hours letting Karma plan - in excruciating detail - every moment of their summer.

This Amy doesn’t move. She doesn’t speak, she barely even looks as Karma dashes across the room, asking “What are you doing?” as she makes a beeline for the trash, for the folder, for their summer together that isn’t going to happen.

This Amy feels bad. Just not bad enough.

Amy hears it all in Karma’s voice. It isn’t the actual question she hears - Amy learned long ago that reading Karma is more about the sound than the words - and it’s all right there. The way the words spill out of her mouth in a rush, the way her voice skips up an octave and tightropes its way along the line between shock and confusion

(and not just a little bit of anger)

and the wave of fear that ripples through each word. Amy hears it all and she knows what it is, what it means. It’s their friendship teetering on the edge - not that it hasn’t been there before, not that it hasn’t seemingly been there forever lately - and she knows what Karma’s doing, why she’s reaching for that folder.

It’s not the folder.

It’s Amy’s hand.

Old Amy would reach out and take it, would let Karma pull her back from the edge because that’s what Karma does - what she’s always done - for her. Karma’s the one who reigns her in, the one who pulls her back from going too far, the one who keeps her from blowing up a pageant or roofie-ing a drink. She’s the yin to Amy’s yang

(the salt to her pepper, the Lucy to her Ethel)

and that’s why this Amy really? Has no choice.

“Leave it,” she says and Karma freezes, her hand just above the trash can and if Amy heard it all in Karma’s voice then, yeah, Karma hears it all now. It’s in the tone, the bark, the fucking order Amy’s dropping and that’s something new and if, maybe, it stirs something in Karma

(besides confusion and fear)

well, she’s going to ignore the hell out of that for right now, because right now all she can manage is “What?”

“I said leave it,” Amy repeats and her voice is softer and she’s not commanding now but still, there’s that tone, that undercurrent of something that just isn’t Amy - or hasn’t been - and it’s enough. Enough to make Karma do as she’s told, to make her straighten up and lean against Amy’s wall, leaving the folder where it is.

“Amy?”

It’s only a word - it’s only her name - but Amy hears the thousand more words behind it, the thousand and one questions Karma has

(and maybe, the one answer Amy needs)

and she hears the one question Karma wants to ask, but won’t, because she’s too afraid that she already knows the answer and hearing it, actually hearing Amy say the words, will make it real and Karma’s not sure

(no, she's sure, absolutely fucking positive)

that she can handle that. So she doesn’t ask. She just says “Amy?” and hopes her best friend, the girl she’s always known, won’t say it.

“I’m not going,” Amy says and Karma takes a small step forward, reaching out a hand but when Amy’s eyes flick to it, something in her gaze makes Karma pull back, yanking her hand away like she’s been burned.

“You’re not going,” Karma repeats. “You’re not going with me this summer?”

Amy shakes her head, her fingers gripping the edge of her desk, the sensation of the wood against her skin rooting her in place.

“I’m not going with you to Clement,” she says. “Not now. And maybe not ever.”

There are things Amy remembers.

There are moments she remembers, little bits and pieces of everything that happened since the moment she said 'let’s be lesbians’. There are things she hasn’t - or can’t - bury away somewhere, some place deep down where she doesn’t have to relive them.

They’re not the kisses. They’re not the feel of Karma in her arms at the dance, or crawling toward her in the quad, or the sight of her in her threesome lingerie. They’re not the way Karma threw herself on the mercy of the school to get Amy to forgive her for the 'sex addict’ bullshit and they’re not the way Karma serenaded her the night after the wedding, trying so hard to win her back when she’d never lost her to begin with.

They’re the pain.

There are things Amy remembers, things that are burned into her mind with such heat she knows they’ll never come out, not in a month or a year or even when she’s old and frail and long past giving a fuck who Liam Booker was or is.

(which, truthfully, could describe now fairly well, too)

They’re the night of the wedding. They’re the morning after. They’re the ’she knows’ morning and the afternoon in the Hester basement.

They’re the night she 'gave’ Karma to Liam.

It isn’t the giving she remembers, not really. She’s done her absolute best to forget that, to block her whole self-sacrificing speech from her mind, to forget talking about how crazy the two of them were for each other.

And, for fuck’s sake, to never remember 'if you love something…’

None of that is what she remembers.

Amy remembers the rest of it. The rest of that night, after Karma had come and gone and they’d shared the final moments of her birthday together. She remembers, all too well, how she spent the rest of that night.

She remembers crying into her pillow and wondering, out loud, what the hell she’d done. She remembers wanting to take it all back, every fucking bit, not just letting him have her, but the whole day. Every stupid scavenger hunt moment, every blatantly obvious to anyone but Karma attempt she made to show her, to get Karma to see what Amy just couldn’t say anymore.

I love you.

Amy remembers curling up in her bed with her phone clutched between her hands, her fingers dancing over the keys. She tapped out unsent text after unsent text that night, every one of them saying the same thing in every different way she could think of.

I’m a fool.

I was lying. I just said it for you. I didn’t mean it.

I can’t stand you with him.

Please, Karma.

Please…

It was, Amy remembers, the 'please’ that did it, every fucking time. Just when she thought she couldn’t cry anymore, when she thought it was finally done and she could just fucking sleep…

She’d see that word blinking back at her.

Please.

Please, Karma. Please. Do the impossible, Karma. Feel something you don’t Karma. Forget him. See me. Really fucking see me and know. Know what we could have, what we could be.

See me, Karma. Take a chance with me, Karma.

Love me, Karma.

Please.

There’s an irrationality that Amy knows, that she understands can come over you. It’s the four in the morning meltdown, the 'I’m still awake and desperately waiting’ moment. Waiting for the phone to ring, for a text to come, for a knock on the door, for someone’s arms around you, someone’s words whispered in your ear.

You’re not alone.

It’s that irrationality, Amy remembers, that comes from losing something you know could never really be. Something that never stood a chance, that you never really had but you still feel the loss of it so fucking deep, in places and parts of you that you swear must be your soul.

It shouldn’t hurt. Amy knows that. Amy knew that. It shouldn’t tear at your heart, it shouldn’t make your stomach burn until you can’t breathe.

It shouldn’t.

It shouldn’t because you - she - didn’t really lose anything because you can’t lose something that, really, is nothing but a lie. Something that was never there, was never real, that only existed in your mind and your dreams and that part of your heart you never let anyone see.

It shouldn’t hurt. It shouldn’t.

But it did. God it so did.

It so does.

Amy remembers that. She remembers it from the night she 'gave’ Karma to Liam. She remembers it from the night after the night she slept with him.

She remembers it from last night. From the moment the lights came on and Karma pulled away and gave Liam - and everyone else - that 'oops, I did it again’ smile and laugh and left Amy there in the pool.

There are things Amy remembers. Moments.

“Ever?” Karma asks and Amy can hear - can literally fucking hear - her best friend’s heart breaking. “Maybe not ever?”

There are things Amy remembers. Moments.

Like this one.

Amy doesn’t look at Karma. She can’t.

This Amy can be a bitch, but even she has her limits.

She stares at her wall, at a tiny little dot in the paint. It’s a spot, far off on the horizon. A ship, a plane

(a bus)

fading into the distance, falling from view and - no matter the assurances, no matter the promises, no matter the plans - Amy knows.

When it fades? When it’s gone and it isn’t even that spot anymore?

No one’s ever quite sure it’s really coming back.

Karma’s not saying anything and it’s the silence, that’s what’s slowly killing Amy. It’s the death of it, the quiet, the empty spaces between each breath and the fucking pain that seeps into them, slowly weighing them both down until Amy’s afraid they just might drown.

It’s enough - almost - to make her take it all back. She could do it. She could yank the folder from the trash and spread it all over the bed. They could go through it together, piece by piece.

Amy can see it…

“This is where we’re going to stay,” Karma says, pointing at a cluster of brown blobs that stand for buildings on the campus map. “These are the dorms they use for the summer program and this is the best one because it’s co-ed.” She bumps her hip against Amy’s. “Some for me, some for you!” she says, cracking up at how ridiculous and dirty she’s managed to make the whole thing seem.

Amy smiles and rolls her eyes.

“Classes are here,” Karma says, pointing at some blobs on the far end of campus before quickly moving on to the map of the city as a whole because, let’s face it, summers ain’t for learning, right?

Amy watches as Karma takes her on a blob-by-blob tour of New Orleans, her finger tracing a slow path across the city. She skips over the places they can’t get into, lingers on spots that she’s already decided will be theirs - the ones where everyone will know their names - and, of course…

“Bourbon Street,” Karma says. “And the Mardi Gras parades. They’re not during the summer, obviously, but there’s so many routes and we need to scope them out, find the best spots.”

Amy laughs. “You just want to find the best place for beads.”

Karma slugs her in the arm and laughs. “I do not,” she insists, but she pauses, finger stalled on the map. “I could totally get the most though.”

Amy laughs again and nods, knowing that Karma could - she’d have a plan, naturally - and even if she didn’t, Amy would find a way.

She’d find a way to get Karma what she wants.

That’s what she does.

Amy can see it all, all of it spiraling out from that dot in the paint. She’s gone over and over and over the Clement website through the years, she knows it all by heart and she can picture them - her and Karma - all across that campus, all over that city.

Karma, Amy knows, would revel in it. Not just the beads and the parties and Bourbon Street, but all of it. The new place. The new city. New school, new friends, new world where no one knows her and there’s no pot selling parents, no living in a juice truck, no Liam Booker, no faking it.

There’s just… her.

And Amy.

And there’s always that, isn’t there. 'And Amy.’

Sometimes, even if she never admits it, even if she’s never said it out loud - not even to Reagan - and even if she barely lets herself think it, Amy wonders.

When did that become her name?

'And Amy.’

When did that become her?

Karma could be anyone. Clement and New Orleans would be a reinvention for her and maybe she’d finally be able to see the person she is - the one Amy’s seen all along - and not the imperfect, unlovable, could always be better version she sees in the mirror. Karma could be anyone, she could be happy, she could be perfect.

And Amy

(and there it is again)

could give that to her. All she has to do is pick up the folder, wave Karma over to the bed, yell downstairs for Reagan to leave, and dive onto the bed next to her best friend, giggling and laughing and planning the first step in their future together.

Karma and Amy.

Karma. And Amy.

Together. Except… not.

All she has to do is pick up the folder.

You can’t lose yourself to keep her

Amy turns and shuffles across the room, sliding down against the edge of the bed, pulling her knees up to her chest, Karma’s question echoing in her mind.

Maybe not ever?

“Maybe not,” she says. “Maybe not.”

“Amy?” Karma’s panicking now, which is really only one Defcon step up from where she started. “What’s going on, why are you doing this, what the hell has gotten - ”

“You remembered it, didn’t you?”

Karma full-stops in mid rant, her protestations catching in her throat. She pulls back and chews on her lip.

You remembered it, didn’t you?

She should have seen this coming, she had to be stupid - or distracted - not to. She should have, but she didn’t, and now she’s here and she has no fucking idea what to say because every answer seems wrong, every answer is like a loaded gun ready to go off in her face.

“Amy…”

Karma can see it in the way Amt’s hands clench into fists on her knees.

Wrong fucking answer.

“Liam texted me,” Amy says and she’s not surprised - she’s not much of anything, really - at the way Karma’s face clenches at the name, at the idea of Liam Booker and Amy Raudenfeld having anything to do with each other, even now, even after apology on top of apology on top of apology and all their work and all their tears.

Amy figures she probably deserves that look. It’s probably less than she deserves, really.

“He texted me,” she continues, “because he ran into you on campus.”

“I was looking for you,” Karma says. “I didn’t know you were home… packing.”

Classic Karma. A little redirection.

Too bad Amy’s not in the mood to be steered.

“He thought I should know,” Amy says. “He thought it was important that I know that you told him you had no memory of kissing me last night.”

She can see the anger flaring behind Karma’s eyes - Liam fucking Booker - and she doesn’t blame her, not really. Amy’s still not sure if Liam did it because he thought he was being a friend

(yeah, right)

or to make himself feel a little better, or just to fuck with both of them.

She is sure that she doesn’t really care. Not even a little.

“Amy…”

Amy talks right over her. “But that isn’t true, is it?” she asks. “You remembered it, didn’t you? Even before he said anything. You remembered.”

Karma starts to speak, but she’s got… nothing.

Amy’s phone buzzes in her lap, the screen lighting up with the message she’s been waiting for.

Croquembouche Queen: On my way home. Need you.

She taps out a quick reply without looking up, without even acknowledging Karma’s still in the room.

“You lied to Liam,” Amy says. “And really, that shouldn’t shock anyone, should it?”

Karma doesn’t reply, doesn’t try to fire back because, really, what’s she going to say?

“I get it,” Amy says. “You lied to him for the same reason you always do. To make him feel better, to stroke his ego cause, let’s face it, Liam is all fucking ego, especially when it comes to me.”

Karma nods, relieved that here - at last - is something she can say. “He’s always felt secondary,” she says. “Even when we were faking it.”

“You,” Amy says.

“Me?”

Amy nods. “You,” she says again. “When you were faking it.”

It’s the first moment, right then, when Karma really believes this isn’t going to end well.

“You lied to Liam, but you haven’t lied to me,” Amy says. “Not yet. So I’m going to ask you something, Karma. And I need the truth.”

“OK,” Karma says even though she’s quite sure it’s anything but OK.

“Was it revenge?

Karma blinks. Wait… She blinks again. "What?”

“Revenge,” Amy says. “Was kissing me revenge for sleeping with Liam? Did you do it to get back at me?”

“No.” There’s a hint of anger - more than a hint, really - behind Karma’s voice. “How could you even think that?”

Amy shrugs. “Seemed more logical than the alternatives,” she says. “And really, I don’t know what to think anymore, Karma. I don’t have the first fucking clue.”

Karma slumps against the wall, the anger drained out of her as fast as it came. “I don't… I don’t know what to think, either.”

Amy’s eyes snap up and Karma knows that somehow, she’s managed to say the wrong thing again.

“You don’t know? You?” Amy’s hands, which had only just released, curl into fists again in her lap. “I’ve had it drummed into my head from you, your mother, my mother, even fucking Reagan, that you are not even the teeniest, tiniest bit not straight. And then you - you - fucking kissed me. And not just a little kiss, Karma. A full on 'let’s make out in the pool, here do you like the taste of my tongue’ kiss.”

Karma remembers.

“And you don’t know what to think?” Amy glares at her. “You don’t get to be confused here, Karma. That's me.”

“So, what?” Karma snaps. She’s never been good at getting called on the carpet and now is no different. “So, in your confusion you just ran back to Reagan? Because you don’t know so you just decided to become this other person, this other Amy that I don’t even know and just throw away our summer together? Our dream?”

“Your dream.”

Karma has the urge to find her fucking Squirkle tablet and show Amy that video again. “You wanted it as much as -”

“I wanted you!”

They both freeze and Amy’s pretty sure Reagan - and the neighbors and everyone within a five block radius - heard that.

“I wanted you,” she says and it’s almost a whisper. “And last night, for about ten seconds, I got to have you. No faking it. Not audience. No pretense, no bullshit, no Liam fucking Booker.”

Karma stares at the floor. Would it be too much, she wonders, for it to open up and swallow her whole?

“And then,” Amy says, “the lights came back on.” Her phone buzzes again but she ignores it, knowing it’s just Reagan checking on her. “And in the light… it was so fucking obvious. I was something you were ashamed of, again. Something you had to smile and pass of as a joke and lie to Liam about.”

Karma starts forward but Amy pushes back against the bed, scrambling to her feet and Karma stops. Watching Amy like that, scared, hurt, terrified of even her slightest touch…

It fucking kills her.

“I can’t, Karma. I just… can’t,” Amy says. “I don’t know how you feel, fuck, I don’t even know if you know. But, honestly? I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

Amy shrugs. “Can’t wait. Can’t hold on. Can't… do this anymore.” She waves her hand between them and Karma’s heart breaks a little more.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry I kissed you and I don’t mean it like that, it’s just… everything has been so fucked up. And don’t you see? Don’t you get it, Amy?” Karma takes on halting step toward her and stops. “This is our chance. Our chance to fix it. To forget the rest and just get back to Karma and Amy.”

And there it is. Again.

“Clement and the summer together is our chance to get back on track,” Karma says.

“Can't you see?” Amy snaps. “I don't want to get back on track. The track is just a fucking loop that keeps running the damn train straight through my heart over and over again. And I can’t do it anymore, Karma. Not even for you.”

There’s voices downstairs - Lauren’s home - and Karma’s last bit of self control is gone.

“But you can do it for her, can’t you?” She storms over to the desk, grabbing up the papers and waving them at Amy. “That’s what this is, right? You’re not going with me but you are going with Reagan?”

It would be easy, Amy knows, to point out the simple truth. Reagan’s staying home with Nicole.

She doesn’t say a word.

“This is your solution, Amy?” Karma throws the papers back on the desk. “We hit a little bump and you’re going to do what? Spend a summer with the girl who couldn’t accept you, pretending to be something you’re not?”

“I don’t pretend to be gay, Karma,” Amy says. “That would be you.”

“You’re not gay!" Karma yells, slamming her fist into the desk.

"So you keep telling me,” Amy says. “But how can you be so sure when I'm not? When I don’t know what the fuck I am or who the fuck I want or much of anything else?”

Karma holds her fist in her other hand, trying her damnedest to ignore the pain. “Fine,” she says. “Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. Maybe at the end of your journey you’ll be as lesbian as lesbian gets. But now? Right now? That’s not you. And I told you. You can’t change who you are for someone else.”

Amy leans against the bed. “That’s not what I’ll be doing,” Amy says. “That’s what I would be doing. If I went with you.”

“What?”

“You just can’t see it, can you?” Amy asks. “I love Reagan. I love her. But for fuck’s sake, Karma… it’s you. It's always been you. And every single time I think I’m finally over it, finally free of it -”

“I pull you back in?” Karma asks. “Is that it? It’s all me?”

“No,” Amy says, shaking her head emphatically. “It's me. It’s me every fucking time. I can’t say no. I can’t walk away. I can’t give you up even if it fucking kills me.”

“Amy-”

Amy hold up a hand. “Stop. Please,” she says. “You told me I couldn’t lose myself to keep Reagan. But you don’t see it. I’m losing myself every day, bit by fucking bit and it isn’t even to keep you.” Amy runs a hand through her hair and tries to will herself not to cry. “You can’t keep what you’ve never had.”

“You have me, Amy.” Karma tries to go to her, arms open, wanting nothing more than to hold her and tell her it will be all right and then make it all right.

But the way Amy backpedals, the way she practically races to the door?

Karma knows there’s nothing she can do.

“I don’t,” Amy says. “Not the way I want to. And I never will and that is not your fault.”

Karma’s not so sure. The pit in her stomach and the ache in her heart say different.

“I love you Karma, I do,” Amy says. “And I want it all, everything we talked about, everything we planned.”

“But?”

There's always a but.

“But I can’t,” Amy says. “Not like this. I can’t go with you, I can’t spend every day with you and not hold you and kiss you and… I can’t be Karma. And Amy. anymore. ”

Karma nods but they both know she doesn’t mean it, she doesn’t understand it, she doesn't… she just doesn’t.

“I can’t go with you, Karma.”

Karma nods, again, but says “What if this is it? What if this is the beginning of the end?” She takes a couple steps forward, her heart leaping when Amy doesn’t move further away. “Amy, what if this is thing we can’t come back from?”

Amy stands by the door, spotting Lauren coming up the stairs. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she says. “If I don’t go? It will be.”

Karma tries to argue, tries to fight.