Dreamers Are Made

"Guess again," she smirked, facing the floor as she handed the package to her, hoping she wouldn’t laugh it off this time. "Real cool," she laughed, grabbing her present off the couch. "Real classy. Where did you get the wrapper? Walmart?" As soon as it left her mouth she felt slightly panicky. Hoping that Taylor wouldn’t misread her words as a snarky insult, she threw herself onto the couch, white roses bouncing in their bouquet, rustling and throwing droplets of water everywhere. She placed it gently on the couch.

"Could I open it?" After Taylor gave her the go-ahead, she gently undid the wrapping, noticing how the tape was aligned with the edges of the paper, and imagining Taylor’s fingers carefully reaching out, fingerprints embedded into the tape, cursing as she held the paper together and firmly pressed the tape onto the surface, yelling ‘done!’ and flinging the package around after she finished. Then she decided she wouldn’t have flung it around because it felt heavy. She opened the package to reveal… a vibrator. she stared at it for a while then it hit her. Her first vibrator!

She watched on as Eva opened the present and all she could do was grin at the reaction it received. Taylor laughed and sat back happily, proud that she could get the girl all embarrassed. "Hey, you do whatever the hell you like with it, kiddo. And do you seriously think I know how to use one of those things? Like I need one. I get a enough from the girls around school to do me just fine." The brunette said with her usual smarmy smirk. Most would have said she was boasting about something that was necessarily true Miss Beiste was no liar. "Just thought you could use something practical and pleasure inducing this year. Good find if I do say so myself." Lord knows the boys around town didn't do much for her. They didn't do much for anyone and even from Taylor's point of view they weren't much to look at. She didn't like seeing Eva with boys from school because none of them were good enough for her. In her mind nobody was good enough for her best friend; though there was one person if Eva was willing to be a little flexible. 

Taylor readied herself before picking apart the wrapping paper on her present. "So you're sure it's not boozed up chocolates?" She asked with a glance over to the red head as the paper came off with ease. Taylor looked back down only to see her face stared back up at her. Her and Eva, Eva and her; a collage of some of their best and worst photos depending on the perspective. The brunette let out a huff of a laugh, not all that sure what to say. She'd never gotten a gift like this. People gave her pills and things that were related to inside jokes. They didn't give her presents to make her feel things and here she was feeling everything at one time. She ran a hand through her messy mop and got up, moving over towards the fireplace. Taylor never used the fire place, mostly because she didn't know how to work it. But she was more forcused on the mantel piece. Normal people put trophies and trinkets up on their mantel, things they were proud, and with that thought in her head she rest the framed picture right in the center. The brunette stood back for a moment, just staring at the two of them. She wasn't smiling in some of the photos because she wasn't one for cheesy grins but she knew was happy. Taylor was always happy when Eva was around, no matter what. 

This Christmas Eve, things were a bit different from what Eva remembered from last year, and the year before that. For starters, it wasn’t snowing yet, when the past two years they already had either heavy or light snow coming down a few days before Christmas. Eva got to wear a lighter outfit, and she declined to wear her ugly kid gloves. They were in the very back of the second drawer of her cupboard, stuffed between old socks and last season’s bikinis. Instead of getting Taylor fake-vintage Playboys off eBay and chocolates with Irish cream in the middle to stuff themselves drunk, she got something she personally felt was a reflection of their maturity. Something useful. Something meaningful. Not cheap gifts to waste their time with, laughing about nothing.

This was the period where young teenagers change their identities, shedding it every year like shedding clothes that were last year’s trend. They grow fast, like sprouts shooting out of their husks. Eva didn’t know it, but she was growing fast. What was funny a year ago was immature to her now. What was foreign to her - concepts of love, relationships, and even death - she had a clearer idea of now. Taylor picked the right time to take Eva to the cemetery this year’s Christmas. Eva was much more cognitively mature, emotionally stable, to handle the issue of death and comfort the bereaved. 

The day before today they had school, of course, and after fooling around in class, as always, they have met as usual and went for their daily activities. There was a palpitate feeling around them in the air, excitement, anticipation. All around, people were chatting happily, a spring in their steps when they walk, greeting strangers, exchanging smiles. It was Christmas. Even the lack of snow couldn’t keep it from coming. 

Eva had took great pains to wrap her present up really nicely. As according to tradition, she did not write a card. If she wanted to say stuff, she’d say it in front of Taylor without the middleman of a overpriced piece of paper, no bullshit, nothing. She did wrap her family’s presents too, but she kept them well-hidden away from Taylor’s eyes, feeling guilty that she, Eva, had a family, and Taylor didn’t. Anyway, it would sour the mood. She didn’t wrap them as nicely, though, because she knew Evan would rip everything apart on the pretext of helping the rest of them open their own presents, anyway. She took a little comfort in that, knowing that she had went the extra mile to make Taylor happy. 

Without much ceremony, she got ready in the late afternoon, put on a regular coat - new, from her grandmother - and her hat, present and flowers tucked under her arm, and walked a street down to Taylor’s house. She kept her chin tucked in her scarf against the cold wind, taking great care to see that the white roses she got didn’t get blown away. They were really pretty, she thought, looking at them fondly, and a little sadly. If only she didn’t actually have to buy a single stalk of white flowers in her life. Taylor would be happier, she wouldn’t have to resort to stealing, and perhaps she would smile more. But perhaps even she wouldn’t have been friends with Eva. Maybe she would have gotten popular and hung around dolling herself up with lipstick in the girls’ room with Melissa and the rest. Eva was suddenly quite selfishly glad that she had met Taylor.

Taylor had never brought Eva to her mother's grave and she did that with good reason. When Eva was around this were made more real, Taylor could be who she really was instead. Maybe this year she wouldn't make the joke about how the top of the tombstone got chipped. Everyone got a different story. One was that she was drunk and feel on it and another one involved her, her skateboard and her inability to grind. But in truth her dad got that tombstone because he was too cheap to get anything else. It was on sale because of the crack. That was the real sickeningly pathetic story. Taylor didn't feel around other people. She just felt like feelings got in the way and she never had anyone around who cared about how she felt anyway. She wouldn't know how to react. You know those moments at three am when you question your own existence and look to your parents for help? Well Taylor would just stare at the ceiling and cry to herself in the darkness of her empty home. Then she'd sleep and get over it. She didn't know how to explain it but she just supposed it was something to with her survival instinct; adapt to survive. 

This Christmas was going to be a little different from the usual. They normally swapped stupid presents. Glow sticks and liquor laden anything. Even though they were silly it was still the best part of Taylor's Christmas. For a moment she could pretend like she had someone; friend or otherwise. She could look around stores like everyone else and talk to overworked staff about the Christmas period like a completely average joe. Upon thinking about it all she felt a little silly but she was all about the little things in life. Eva was a little person but was still one of the biggest and most important parts of Taylor's life. Of course she'd probably never hear that from Taylor's lips in so many words but she'd work on letting the red head know in one way or another. One way in particular was her gift. Her gift this year was one she'd put a lot of thought into. She'd bought something else for old time sake but she had a little stored away for Eva, something that really meant quite a bit to her. 

That didn’t help her stomach one bit. 

Still grinning, Taylor took out her phone and tapped a few buttons. Fuck. Eva knew what was up. She muttered in protest as Taylor shoved the phone at her. Her hands went up against her will her held the phone instinctively. Holding it as far away from her as possible, as though it was a poisonous spider, she watched in resignation as the video loaded. The image of someone’s open legs flashed at her face, and she felt herself blushing. “Good god, Taylor, I don’t need to see this,” she shouted, and recoiled as Taylor loomed into the screen, her head shoved between the legs. The girl whose legs are being ravaged moaned embarrassingly, and the other cheerleader - behind the camera - whooped in glee. Eva swallowed twice, watching Taylor’s bare butt jiggle as the girl grabbed it. 

She shoved the phone back at Taylor. “Fuck, Taylor,” she sighed. “Did you film yourself with the Spanish teacher too?” She was curious. That would get Taylor in a whole lot of trouble if the school found out. But she highly doubted that expulsion meant anything to Taylor. It would sober her up, keep her low-key and quiet for a while, but she would bounce back up. At least, that was what Eva thought of her best friend. Sometimes, she wondered (and by ‘wondered’ she meant a little voice would appear and nag in her head) if she actually knew Taylor at all. She knew what people said - that sometimes the people closest to you didn’t know you at all. 

Taylor watched the video along and smiled smugly along with every groan and moan the girl made. "My ass looks great there. You've got to at least admit that." The brunette said before taking her phone back and scrolling through the pictures, giggling away to herself. "You know, I fucking love modern day technology. Everything is in freaking HD. Nothing like making a girl come, then watching it back in HD." Taylor's crassness didn't really know any bounds and her words usually came straight from the source thought; she wasn't one to have any sort of filter. She just figured she missed out on that training because her childhood had been so fucked up. It was a little excuse she liked to make herself. "Me and Miss Estevez? Why? You wanna see it, huh?" The brunette smirked over at her friend and nudged her in the side. "Nah, I didn't. I mean I didn't think of it but I wouldn't want to go and get her fired for fingering a student, you know?"