Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

…

middle school, 2nd year

…

The welcome to Los Angeles wasn’t as glamorous as Hope was wanting it to be—it’s mostly her mom and her unloading boxes from the u-haul and taking the arduous journey up the apartment steps and then down the apartment steps. Bennett, their tiny, but excitable Jack Russell, clambers circles around them, an inexhaustible, endless ball of energy, until they’ve got the entire truck empty except for the couch and two mattresses, which both her and her mom eye with no small amount of wariness.

There’s a seven-eleven about a block away, so her mom locks the u-haul and says they deserve to reward themselves, which Hope would probably never say no to. It’s not until Hope’s got an ice popsicle fisted in one hand—strawberry flavoured, obviously—and walking back into view of the complex, does she cast a glimpse of one of her neighbours for the first time.

Two girls, probably Hope’s age, sit outside, on stairs leading up to the apartment facing the road, legs crossed. One has a book and pen in her hands, gawky looking, with a Patrician nose and auburn hair, while the other has a tablet in her hands, darker haired and chubbier, thick eyebrows and a cautious, erudite downturn to her lips. Hope doesn’t realize she’s staring until her popsicle, which has thus far been neglected, begins to wilt under the June heat, dripping on her hand.

Her mom wordlessly produces a handkerchief from her pocket and wipes the melted ice off her hand. Her popsicle—mango flavoured—is almost finished, Hope notices, wide-eyed, and so Hope begins to work furiously on eating her own.

“I don’t think we can move this one on our own, kid,” her mom’s saying, hitting the side of the u-haul so it makes this hollow metal thud. “I could call up your Uncle Matthew, but I think he’s at the shop right now. Maybe Clarissa could help out, but then again…”

Hope’s half listening, still staring at the girls up on the stairs. One of them seems to have noticed her and her mom lingering out by the u-haul, the auburn haired one, but then the darker haired girl seems to say something and point at the tablet and the girl snaps to attention, writing down something onto her notepad.

She’s startled, again, out of her thoughts by her mother laying a hand on her shoulder, tapping her popsicle stick onto her lips. “Those girls look about your age, don’t they?”

Hope eyes her mom nervously. She knows that she’s going to ask Hope to interact with them. Hope doesn’t know if she’s up for that.

“You know what, I’m going to call your Uncle Matthew. You should talk to those girls in the meantime, yeah? Make some friends?” Hope’s always had a difficult time saying no to her mother, only because she always manages to ask so nicely and because she never asks Hope to anything some wildly unreasonable thing, but Hope, wavering, stands cautiously by her mother’s side, wary.

A pause from her mother. “You could bring Bennett with you, if you want.”

Bennett, who is sniffing around the wheels of the u-haul, snaps his head up at his name, before obediently trotting over.

Hope leans down and pats him, smiling at how quickly he responded to his name. He’s a smart dog.

“Okay,” Hope acquiesces, feeling like she can do anything with Bennett by her side.

She meanders over to where the two girls are sitting, internally plotting out of the logistics of how to introduce herself. They’re sitting a little too high on the steps for Hope to comfortably talk to them without having her head at an odd incline, and Hope thinks that stepping a few stairs upwards might make her seem weird or intrusive, like she’s trying to box the girls in on the steps.

In the end, Bennett seems to make the decision for her, obviously anticipating where Hope was heading and leaping upwards to greet the girls first himself, as much as a people dog has he’s always been. Hope figures because it’s her dog it’s probably fine to walk up the stairs, and hopes the two girls don’t find her weird for coming in out of nowhere.

Bennett chooses to leap on the auburn haired girl first, who had been eyeing Bennett coming up the stairs, grinning and eagerly matching his enthusiasm, dropping the pen in her hands and scratching Bennett on his neck.

The darker haired one looks just as delighted at the sudden appearance of a dog, reaching over to pat Bennett on his back, which Bennett luxuriates in, soaking up the attention like the show off that he is.

“Sorry,” is the first thing that Hope says, climbing up the stairs at a too slow pace, cautiously eyeing the girls to see where the wind will blow on her sudden appearance. “Bennett likes people.”

The auburn haired girl, in which Bennett has basically half climbed on her lap, looks up, her mouth spreading into a kind, welcoming smile.

The darker haired girl speaks up first, though. “It’s fine,” she says authoritatively, perhaps too commandingly for a—what looks like—twelve year old girl, startling Hope at the intensity of her presence. “We love dogs.” Her gaze travels down to Hope’s hands. “Your popsicle is melting.”

Hope, who had been so caught up in the genesis of her master plan for greeting the girls, finds the popsicle stick dripping drearily onto her hand again, sweating droplets of clear red. She frowns, dismayed.

“Don’t worry, I have a tissue,” the auburn haired girl says, reaching into a sling bag at her hip, which Hope had not previously seen before. From there, while still expertly wrangling Bennett with one hand, she produces a napkin, passing it to Hope.

Hope watches her do it with a real sense of amazement, like she’s one of the Banks kids and she’s watching Mary Poppins take out a coat rack from her suitcase. “Thank you,” Hope murmurs, wiping her hand for the second time in a span of ten minutes. “I’m Hope.”

“I’m Molly,” the darker haired girl says, holding out her hand, all professional like. Hope’s got her popsicle in her right hand, which is the hand that Molly’s holding out to, so she just flicks her chin upwards and smiles, trying not to grimace. Molly frowns, then shakes her head and darts her eyes to the auburn haired girl. “This is Amy.”

“Hi,” Amy says. Hope looks at her, but she doesn’t say anything more, and Hope’s struck with a weird irritation at Molly for not letting Amy introduce herself.

Molly clears her throat. “Are you moving into the complex?”

Nodding, Hope looks at the words plastered on the wall next to the staircase—Le Capris. “I just got here from Sacramento.”

“Are you going to miss it?”

Hope can’t say she’ll miss Sacramento too much, considering she’s a good six hours away from her dad, but it’s tough leaving her friends behind.

She doesn’t say any of this to Molly and Amy, though, instead saying, “Maybe. It depends.”

“Are you going to Crockett Middle School? That’s where Amy and I go to.”

Hope lingers her gaze on Amy, where she’s managed to wrangle Bennett onto her lap, notebook pushed onto the step beside her. Bennett, eyes closed in pleasure, seems steady on Amy’s lap, basking in the lines that Amy rakes down from his skull to his hind.

“Yes,” Hope finds herself saying, though it feels oddly distant to her ears. “I think so.”

“That’s good. Maybe we could show you around. Most of the people there don’t really care about school, but Amy and I know what we’re doing. We’re the only two members of the Mandarin club. Do you speak Mandarin?”

Hope doesn’t speak Mandarin, and she doesn’t think she ever will. She shakes her head.

“Oh, that’s okay. Which apartment do you live in?”

“2B.”

“That’s the one just around the corner!”

Hope already knew that, not quite understanding why Molly had to point it out for her. She learns later that pointing out the obvious is just Molly’s thing.

She also notices that Amy’s pretty quiet. It’s safe to assume that Molly is usually the one that does all the talking in their relationship. Still, it makes Hope a little disappointed. Now all she wants to do is listen to Amy talk, even though telling Molly to shut up would be rude.

They exchange small talk for a few more minutes, Hope learning a few key tidbits of information—all from Molly, obviously. Molly and Amy are best friends, have been since second grade, they sleep over at each other houses, which one depending on a chart which Molly has printed in both their rooms, Crockett is a good school, all the other kids are stupid, etcetera.

Hope’s a little wary on how she feels about Molly, whose obstinacy and frankly terrifying mature academic personality does the absolute opposite at putting her at ease. Amy, on the other hand, seems to be far calmer, talking with less of a clipped edge, which Hope just gravitates too. They’re still similar, though—book smart, on the same wavelengths. It’s easy to tell that their whole worlds revolve around each other considering the ease of their banter.

The spluttering of a Toyota Corolla—with a build that looks like it was made in the early 2000s—brings the attention of all three girls and Bennett, breathless engine trudging forward to park parallel to the curb. Hope recognizes it as Uncle Matthew’s car, though Molly and Amy don’t know that. She tells them so.

“I think I have to go help my mom,” Hope says, snapping her fingers at Bennett, who lifts himself out of Amy’s lap with an aggrieved huff. “It was nice meeting you guys,” she adds, even though she’s mostly talking to Amy.

“Hope to see you around,” Molly says, as diplomatic as ever.

Amy just smiles and waves. “Nice to meet you too, Hope.”

Hope smiles back at Amy—just because she can—and turns back down the steps to help her mother.

…

middle school, 3rd year

…

Because Molly and Amy carpool to school, Amy’s parents figure it’s only natural to let the other kid who's in their general proximity and also goes to Crockett Middle to ride with them. It’s kind of them, considering it lets her mother sleep in from late nights at her second job at Uncle Matthew’s thrift store, where she moonlights every weekday.

Hope ends up sitting shotgun next to Amy’s dad when it becomes blatantly aware that she won’t even attempt to become as close to Molly and Amy as Molly and Amy are to each other. Molly and Amy had tried to invite her into their little bubble, and they had tried to be as accommodating as possible, but encroaching into their carefully curated ecosystem made Hope feel like an illegal interloper, so she backed out of that treaty quickly.

But still—it’s nice having that stability every day. Amy ropes her into their conversations sometimes, especially when it’s about literature—she noticed Hope reading in the complex’s courtyard one day. It snowballed into a big thing where Amy thinks that all Hope likes to talk about is books—which is kind of true—but it’s fascinating to see someone work so hard to cater to someone’s interests.

Hope’s a little amazed at how much Amy cares. Like, really cares. She’s twelve turning thirteen like Hope, but she cares more about world politics than any adult Hope’s ever seen. On the rides to and from school, it’s ecosystem this, inhumane treatment that—it literally never ends, and Hope adores it. When Amy concentrates that passion into one little thing—like Hope’s love for books—it’s clear and precise; the kind of passion that Amy understands on a molecular level, and brings to wholly and fully into realization.

Other than Amy, everything feels as it did in Sacramento. Hope figures that every town is the same, even though people don’t want to think that’s how it is. Furthermore, the people at Crockett Middle don’t end up being as bad as Molly had framed them to be—sure, they’re a little loud and bratty and incredibly attention deficit, but also they’re kids, and it’s pretty easy to see how intelligent all the kids are beneath the sugar hyped veneer.

But Molly and Amy exist on a different planet than these kids. Hope gets it, she does—they’re not exactly nice to Molly, either, and Molly, being as strongheaded as she is, responds to the canyon-sized separation between herself and the other kids with just as much spite. Maybe if Molly stopped thinking she was better than everyone else, she’d get somewhere—but alas.

Nobody seems to mess with Amy, though. Hope figures it’s a little bit of a crime to be mean to someone who isn’t mean to anybody.

But in summary—Hope doesn’t have very many friends.

It’s fine not having that many friends—she didn’t have much in Sacramento, either. But her thirteenth birthday’s coming up and she knows it’s going to feel a little lonely. Molly and Amy are the closest friends she has. It’s sad, because they’re not even close. They have the car rides—but in the end, nothing else.

Serendipitously, Molly manages to catch wind of Hope’s birthday, somehow. It’s kind of freaky, because Hope’s almost certain she’s never told Molly when her birthday is, but she figures it might be her mom, or, who knows, divine intervention.

Regardless, the day before her birthday, when Doug picks the three of them up from school—after Molly and Amy’s various extracurricular of the day, whilst Hope stays in the library and gets her homework done—instead of dropping Hope off at the complex and taking both Molly and Amy to Amy’s house like he usually does, Doug passes the complex completely and continues driving.

“Um—Doug?” Hope says, whipping her head to look out of the back window, where the complex recedes until Doug turns a corner, then disappearing from view completely.

Doug just winks at her.

“Hope,” Molly says, leaning forward from the backseat to catch Hope’s attention, seatbelt straining against her chest. “It has come to our attention that it is your birthday tomorrow.”

Hope moves her eyes upwards, before trying to catch Amy’s gaze, hoping find some support. But Amy just looks really into it, like she’s a part of this whole orchestration too. Hope just furrows her brows, teetering between startled and confused.

“We asked your mom what you were going to do for your birthday,” Amy elaborates, “and she just said you were going to get pizza and split a cake.”

Amy’s tone makes it sound like getting pizza and splitting a cake is something to be concerned about—and well, maybe she’s right. Sure, sharing one whole pizza and one whole cake between two people sounds a little sad, but Uncle Matthew was probably going to be there if he could afford to leave the shop for the evening, but like—it doesn’t sound as sad as it does.

“And that is just, it’s just not okay,” Molly says, sounding much more distressed than Hope would ever expect her to be. Who knew Molly Davidson had such strong feelings about Hope’s birthday.

Amy absentmindedly pats Molly on the shoulder. “So we figured we would throw you a party! You can sleep over with us and everything. It’ll be fun.”

There’s a brief moment where Hope considers saying no thank you, because the whole thing feels like pity and if there’s one thing that Hope absolutely does not tolerate—it’s pity. But then Hope stops, and thinks, and realizes that Molly and Amy don’t seem like the partying type at all—like at all. Taking a moment off their studies or from doing their weird nerd shit like watching Ken Burns documentaries (who even is Ken Burns?) to extend time to an outside third party is probably a really big thing.

Also, Amy’s looking at her like she’ll be doing her the greatest service in the world by saying yes, and Hope—well, Hope figures if Amy doesn’t know that she could never say no to an expression like that, it’s safe to say yes.

So she says, “sounds like fun.”

…

The party isn’t exactly a rager, but it’s not like Hope was expecting it to be, anyway. She finds out that Amy’s parents are literally the kindest people on Earth—which makes sense considering their daughter. They make little finger food platters at the quantity big enough to feed several armies, though they’re so delicious Hope makes through a whole platter herself.

She also learns—perhaps learns more deeply—that Molly enjoys planning out ahead. There’s a whole itinerary, activities to be done throughout the night, time constraints to adhere to and follow, and a nice and easy midnight bedtime.

It’s still fun, despite the rigidness of the routine. Doug hooks up a karaoke machine to the television in the living room and Hope finds out that Amy has a talent for singing—her voice is a little light, but she sings like she means it. They make it through the classic karaoke titles—Sweet Caroline, Wonderwall and all of ABBA—before Molly goes wild on Livin’ a Vida Loca and they have to shut it down because Molly knocks over a picture frame on a coffee table and shatters it.

They play trivial pursuit (Hope comes dead last, obviously, considering her competition), dramatically read plays (Hope sees that they have Pygmalion, so she forces Molly to evoke a cockney accent, which she fails miserably at), and sit around and talk.

The sitting around and talking thing—it’s. Well, it’s.

“You could make loads of friends if you tried,” Amy says, on her bedroom floor, lying stomach down, with a pillow underneath her chin to make herself more comfortable. “You’re pretty, and smart.”

Hope knows there’s this awfully cheesy smile on the corner of her lips at the concept that Amy views her as pretty, though she’s doing her best to school it—better not to give anything away.

And besides, Hope’s thought about it enough before. She could make friends, she’s just terrible at it. She doesn’t talk enough, people trip over silences. She’s shy, she’s quiet. She doesn’t know how to keep a conversation going. A boy once told her she had an “unapproachable face”—she thought he was just calling her ugly, but she knows what he means, now.

She has that gruff, downturn to her mouth that makes her look like she’s scowling all the time. Her eyebrows are thick, and pinched together, giving her the expression of someone in deep concentration. She doesn’t look like a nice person, not on the outside. Her mom’s always told her it’s not her fault—and she knows that.

People just avoid her. It’s probably easier for them. It’s kind of easier for her, too, so she doesn’t have to stumble through conversation all the time. But it’s also just—lonelier.

“I swear,” Molly says, and both Amy and Hope exchange a look, like: here we go. “If all the kids at Crockett didn’t have turds for brains, I swear, we would be way more appreciated.”

Hope likes this about Molly. Not the oversight of her peers—god knows that’s something she needs to work on—but the all or nothing mentality she takes on when it comes to confrontations. She knows who’s on her side, and that’s empowering, almost. Hope imagines herself with Molly and Amy in a testudo formation: the thought is weirdly comforting.

“I agree,” Hope just murmurs, rolling over from her stomach to lie on her back, staring up at Amy’s ceiling. The action brings her closer to Amy, heads almost touching, bodies lying perpendicular. Amy props herself up on her elbows, so that her head hangs over Hope’s and Hope just prays that Amy didn’t feel her breath hitching.

Hope can see Amy’s freckles—all of them, splattered across her face, hundreds upon hundreds. She traces her eyes over the little bump on Amy’s nose, the curtain of hair tickling her face, the colour of her irises.

This isn’t exactly the moment, but it’s one of them. Hope’s had this feeling that she’s liked girls ever since she watched Sailor Moon, and that feeling hasn’t gone away. So, with Amy hanging over her, it’s not exactly an a-ha moment, but it’s—it’s so much all at once, so much that Hope curls her hands into fists and turns away, rolling back on her stomach.

Amy doesn’t deserve to be the one shouldering the weight of Hope’s confusion and general weirdness, even though Amy doesn’t know she’s Hope’s personal Atlas. It’s unfair to her, even if she doesn’t know.

Molly doesn’t seem to notice that there’s been a moment—not for Hope, anyway, but she does spare a lingering glance towards Amy—and steamrolls through it, tapping Amy on the shoulder and murmuring something about presents.

Doug and Charmaine have since retired to their own bedroom, so Molly presents their present for them. She’s expecting it to be books, but it’s actually this hideously wonderful hand knitted pullover that they worked on together. It says Hope in loving cursive on the right breast, and Hope loves it immediately. She can’t wear it, because it’s late August and still hot, but she promises to start wearing it once it gets colder.

The present Molly and Amy get her is a shared one. At first Hope thinks about joking about a cop out, but it becomes abundantly clear that Molly and Amy put a lot of thought into the present once they bring out a relatively large box—with something definitely heavy in it.

Hope had once mentioned in passing the fact that she had a few records but no record player, further lamenting under inquisition that her dad kept the record player once she and her mom moved out of the house.

Despite this, Hope never expected Molly and Amy to truly internalise her words—she just threw them out there as something to commiserate over. When she opens the box to find a brand new record player; she just has to sit there, kind of stunned.

“Jesus,” she stumbles out, maybe a little too harshly than originally intended. When she sees the trepidation on Molly and Amy’s faces—Amy’s face, especially—she backtracks, waving her hands. “No, I mean—Jesus, thank you so much. How much did this cost?”

Molly and Amy exchange a look. “Around thirty dollars,” Molly says, though her eyes are darting to the side in a way that tells Hope they may have spent much more.

Hope just grins. She feels like it’s especially shitty to turn down a present because it’s too expensive or whatever—she knows that Molly and Amy wouldn’t have bought it for her if they couldn’t afford it—and she’s genuinely touched, from the bottom of her heart.

So she doesn’t say—no, I couldn’t—or any bullshit like that, because she could—she really, really could.

“Thank you,” Hope says, earnestly, and brings them both in for a hug—the first hug she’s ever given them. She’s brings herself towards them in such a way that if she tilts her head to the right, she can get a face full of Amy’s hair. And it’s—it’s not weird, or anything, to do that, not if you’re friends and your friend smells nice, so Hope just does it, because she can, because she’s happy.

Later, towards midnight, where Molly is fully knocked out because even on bad days she doesn’t sleep past ten, Hope and Amy sit side by side on the floor, on top of where Hope has her own sleeping bag set out. They’re watching the seconds on the clock in Amy’s room tick upwards, until it coasts past midnight. Hope tenses, waiting for something in her to feel like something’s changed, but nothing does.

“Technically,” Hope says, playing with the zipper on the side of the sleeping bag, “I won’t be thirteen until around eight in the morning.”

“You’re a teenager now,” Amy insists, grinning.

Hope can’t help but grin back. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“Do you feel any different?”

Hope lifts her arms up, looking around, twisting her body, and pantomiming looking for changes, because she knows there is none. She slumps, looking faux defeated. “Nothing. Being a teenager sucks.”

Amy laughs, light but sincere, quiet so it doesn’t wake Molly up. “Says the person who’s been a teenager for like,” looking at the clock, “two minutes.”

“Honestly, I should be asking you what being a teenager is like. I am, like, a year younger.”

“God, no, I’m a terrible authority on what being a teenager is like.”

Hope chuckles, shaking her head. They sit in silence together for a while, before Amy sighs, loudly, and drifts to the side to lay her head on Hope’s shoulder. And they sit, together, watching the clock tick by.

…

high school, freshman year

…

Something goes terribly wrong in the summer between the last year of middle school and her freshman year of high school. She spends the summer away from Los Angeles in Texas, on her grandparent’s farm, chucking hay bales and riding horses or whatever it is her mom expected her to do while she was there.

The work is backbreaking—she does more exercise than she’s ever done in her life and she doesn’t resent it, per se, but she would really prefer to just be sitting in her room, reading. It’s not the real issue, anyway.

The real issue is that she grows around four and a half inches in those two months and a half months. She gets stretch marks on her hips and on the back of her knees, getting clumsy around the farm and feeling like her elbows poke out too far for comfort. Her grandfather calls her a walking hazard—which, fair—but she still feels incredibly frustrated at the lack of control she has over her own body.

She also gets her period the same summer—which sucks. Her grandma fusses over what a woman she is, now, and makes her feel pissed off. Annoyed.

The worst part about her body growth—besides the growing to five foot seven and the period cramps thing—is the way that her face seems to change. She doesn’t have any of her childhood chub any longer, face and cheeks angling into more definition than she had ever seen, making her lips look more pouty and her chin stronger. As much as she hates to admit it, she looks like less of a kid than she ever has previously, and she knows that she’s going to keep on growing into this new body, whether she likes it or not.

Her face changing makes her look even more unapproachable than before. Less in a bitchy way, more in a I’m above all this way, though a lot of people do interpret that as bitchy. Her eyelids droop like she’s bored at whatever conversation she’s listening to, and mouth stays as downturned as ever. When she furrows her brow, even just a miniscule amount, it seems like she’s judging, even though she’s not.

Once, Hope and her grandfather had been in town collecting supplies at the local general store—her grandparents live in one of those good old American small towns, with bible thumpers and overall wearing hicks and the like—when she’d been approached by a teenage boy, seventeen, maybe eighteen.

He’d said, hey, I haven’t seen you here before, what’s your name?

And she’d said, Hope. My grandparents own a farm here.

And he’d said, you know, you’re really beautiful. You should let me take you on a date.

She was startled—it was the first time she’d been asked out, ever. He also looked way older than her—she wondered if he could tell she was still thirteen, or if her growth had masked her youth enough that he thought she was his equal in age. Regardless, she observed him for a second: he was cute, and his southern twang was endearing.

But she didn’t want him.

There was an unspoken agreement with herself that she wasn’t interested in boys, period.

So she’d said, no, I’m not interested.

Maybe it became out harsher than necessary, or maybe it was just her face, but the boy’s face twisted, turned, into anger, this antagonistic hostility that chilled Hope almost instantly.

And he’d said, fucking bitch.

It probably wasn’t the first time someone had called her a bitch, but it was the first time someone had said it outright to her face, not just as a hallway whisper or an exchanged note between classmates. It felt like a slap in the face. Hope grimaced.

Then she frowned, hard, and walked away. It was later that Hope realized she was lucky that he even let her walk away.

Hope is smart enough to get it—she rejected him, guys don’t deal well with rejection. Sure, it was a product of patriarchy—she heard Amy’s voice in her head—but rejection stings. His reaction wasn’t warranted, but that was life. She moves forward.

But the change in her looks mean more and more comments—more and more situations like the first guy. Guys on streets. Guys in cars. Guys in the fucking waiting line while she’s grocery shopping with her grandma, for crying out loud.

When she finally returns to Los Angeles, she’s exhausted. She sleeps in the backseat, spooning Bennett and avoiding another conversation with her mother about it. Her mom knows—they’ve had a conversation about it, already, after this time her mom almost maced a guy that catcalled her—and because her mom knows, that means she’s all weird about it, touchy and flighty like she was after she told Hope her and dad were divorcing.

Her saving grace is returning to the apartment complex. Bennett looks happy to be let out of the car at a full half day on the road, and her mom looks like she’s close to passing out. She heads over to Molly’s apartment; only hesitating when she brings her fist up to knock the door.

They haven’t really seen each other, not in two whole months. Hope’s not really big on the whole social media thing; she only has an Instagram, and even then, she never posts pictures of her face. Hope wonders, worriedly, what Amy might think of her new body, of her relatively new face. She knows she doesn’t look like an entirely new person, but it’s changed enough that there’s some cognitive separation there—some dissonance.

She wonders if Amy would even care. Hope’s not sure if she wants Amy to care or not. Maybe care in a good way—caring in a good way is a start.

Hope knocks on the door.

Molly opens it—there’s a brief second of confusion where Molly just stares, before recognition colours her face and her mouth gapes, wide.

“Holy shit, Hope?” she exclaims, knocking on the wooden door frame like saying that would bring her bad luck. “You’re—fucking tall.”

Hope just laughs at her reaction, nervously tucking an errant piece of hair behind her ear. “Just wanted to let you know that I’m back.” She swallows. “Where’s Amy?”

Molly just looks at her for a second, like she’s still trying to take it all in. Which is fine and good—but Hope wants to know what Amy thinks.

“She’s just in my room,” Molly says, though it sounds absent from her lips. “I’ll—” whipping around, turning into the empty hallway behind her, “AMY! HOPE’S HERE.”

There’s a few seconds of distant fumbling noises and what Hope can only assume is Amy getting out of bed, before there’s the soft thumping of footsteps and Amy’s right there, in front of her, for the first time in two months—

“Hi,” Amy says, tucking hair behind her ears. She’s mussed and ruffled, like she just dropped everything to greet Hope at the door, and that makes Hope’s heart swell more than anything has in the past few months. “You look different.”

Hope laughs nervously, tucking her hands into her pockets. “Good different?”

“Good different,” nods Amy, resolutely, before patting Molly on the shoulder and sticking a thumb towards the hallway behind her. “Do you want to come in?”

Hope’s mom is somewhere underneath them, unloading suitcases from the car, and Hope feels guilty for leaving her to do it as long as she has, but just wanted to see Amy incredibly bad.

“Maybe later?” Hope asks, not looking at Molly or Amy but instead over her shoulder, trying to find where her mom is—where Bennett is, actually. When she can’t find them, she turns back to look at Amy—who’s kind of looking at her in the same distant way that Molly was, but differently. Her lips are parted, and she looks less in the business of figuring out who Hope is, but instead figuring out something deeper—something intrinsically inside of Hope.

It’s a weirdly intense experience. Hope doesn’t know if she’s just projecting, or whatever, because there’s no doubt in her head that she’d love it if Amy tried to find something deeper in her, if you catch her drift. But just because Hope wants that to happen, for Amy to suddenly open her up and find this beating heart of hers, it doesn’t mean Amy even cares to let her, to feel the same way.

“Oh,” Amy says, suddenly, quickly catching herself out of her reverie. “It’s your birthday soon, right?”

Thirteen to fourteen—horrifying. Also during their first week of freshman year—very much horrifying. But Hope just nods.

“Cool,” Amy says, then Molly and Amy share a look, like they always do when they’re trying to communicate telepathically like a pair of weirdos.

“I have to go help my mom,” says Hope, taking it as a cue.

Molly nods, and then Amy does something surprising—she hugs her. Like, just seems to go for it—leaping past Molly from her place in the doorway and throwing her arms around Hope’s waist. She’s too short to reach her shoulders like she would’ve done before, so Amy just flings her arms around Hope’s midsection and buries her head into Hope’s chest and leaves it there.

“Missed you,” she murmurs, which is Earth shattering in itself. God, Hope’s done for, legitimately done for.

She still feels like a kid in an adults body, but at least she has Amy wrapped around her, bringing her back to the ground, even just for a second.

…

Freshman year is—

Well, it’s just terrible.

She turns fourteen, but—

Hope still doesn’t have very many friends. She’s managed to pick up a few in those weirdos who hang out—not in libraries, but near them, a little ways away from everybody else, tucked into their own little worlds. Of course, they’re still tweens, so they don’t smoke weed or anything (yet), but all they do during lunch and recess is try to nail skate tricks. Hope supports them from afar, book in hand, barely paying attention.

There’s also the problem of her changed looks. Now she looks less like a bratty kid, and instead like a person that’s really just floating above all the banalities of high school, and people seem to hate that. After the first few times Hope rejects invitations to hang out, to party, to cut class and joyride in some junior’s polluting convertible, comments turn into she thinks she’s too good for us and just because she’s pretty doesn’t mean she can blow us off like that and—forever the crowning jewel—fucking bitch.

And it’s not like Hope doesn’t want to be friends with these people—she tries, actually, a little. But all they talk about is stuff that she gives absolutely zero shits about, which is only exacerbated by the fact that she’s still a little terrible at talking, a trait carried over from her middle school days, unable to carry along conversations and stretching silences into uncomfortable chasms. Instead of interpreting this silence as awkwardness, people expound upon it as her particular brand of uncaring, the pinnacle of blasé bitchiness—the concept that she’s not continuing a conversation not because she can’t, but simply because she doesn’t want to.

So people in the hallways begin to divert around her, parting like the red sea, ducking and weaving out of her way. It’s frustrating, to say the least—it’s not that she’s ever cared too much about how many friends she has or about making friends at all, period, but now it’s middle school but amplified, no longer faceless in a crowd but a face to be avoided.

Frankly, it makes her mad—angry as hell. She’s frustrated at all these kids for slapping a label on her and calling it a day—bitch, prude, stuck-up. Even that tentative alliance she formed with those skater kids near the library teeters and collapses—even soon-to-be stoner kids worry about their reputation, and her friendship with them remains in the weirdest limbo Hope’s ever had the displeasure of being in.

During lunchtimes she realizes she’s sitting further and further away from them, watching them skate and hop around from such a wide berth that it feels like she’s not even hanging out with them at all, so she breaks that friendship completely. It’s not like it was anything substantial, anyway.

She’s back at square one—relatively friendless.

Molly and Amy seem completely in their element, though. They don’t interact with Hope at school at all, except for cursory hellos and the odd waves across hallways, but it’s not like Hope tries to interact with them. Hope’s stopped taking rides from Doug, instead taking the bus, where she just plugs her headphones in and doesn’t have to worry about shit. Hope still watches them from afar, though, because she thinks she couldn’t try to ignore Amy.

They’re not exactly above all the social politics—Molly’s especially notorious for chewing out kids who break the rules, though Hope thinks it’s more funny than annoying—so the kids at Crockett give them shit for that, but it’s less in the bitchy, Mean Girls-esque underhanded branding like Hope’s dealing with and more of the nerdy, type-A variety that Molly and Amy have to deal with.

Hope likes the way they handle the bullying, though. They push back; Molly especially, but Amy, in her own little way. These are smart kids, but Molly and Amy edge them out with pure determination, topping the classes again and again without a glance back. They have that academic clout hanging over everybody; and you can’t disrespect facts, so everyone shuts them in those nerdy boxes and leaves them alone at that.

Hope wants to push back, too. But she has no idea how to. She figures if Molly and Amy can play into everybody’s expectations of them, and come out victorious in the end, Hope probably could too.

So Hope does that. She’s a little meaner, she bites back harder than she’s ever done before. She’s angry at all these kids, so it’s pretty easy to fall into the role that she does. She snaps at people to move out of her way and makes biting wisecracks during class, and people—god help them—actually buy into it, leaving her alone for real this time.

It’s an isolating role to take on, but Hope reads more books during freshman year than she has her entire life, which is weirdly comforting. She’s the untouchable pretty freshman that nobody talks to. That’s fine with her, as long as they stop calling her a fucking bitch to her face.

…

December is colder in Sacramento than it is in Los Angeles, so during Christmas Eve, Hope steps out of her apartment for a second to feel the cold air hit her face, reveling in the way her breath curls and twists in to misty clouds as soon as she breathes out. Bennett’s at her feet, though he doesn’t like the cold too much, and trots back inside as soon as he gets too uncomfortable.

“Hey,” she hears from behind her, turning to see Amy climb up the stairs towards her apartment. Hope blinks, darting her eyes around to see where the fuck she came from. She didn’t even hear Amy climbing up the stairs; it’s like she just materialized out of nowhere, a ghost.

“Hey,” Hope says back, still vaguely unsettled, but quickly getting over it. “I thought you and Molly usually spend Christmas at yours?”

Amy quirks her lips, slightly amused. “Molly’s parents are home for once. So, I’m spending Christmas Eve at hers, and then we’re going to spend Christmas Day together at mine.”

Hope raises her eyebrows, surprised. Molly’s parents work on the road, are a little neglectful, and are hardly home. Hope’s sure she’s never had a full conversation with either of them despite having lived in the same apartment complex as Molly for the past two years.

“You guys really do everything together, huh,” Hope murmurs, watching Amy’s gloved hands grasp around the metal bars of the mezzanine’s fencing. “She’s like your wife.”

Amy darts her eyes towards Hope, looking a little offended. “She’s not my wife. She’s my best friend. We just like being together.”

Hope shrugs her shoulders like she doesn’t believe Amy, which makes Amy roll her eyes in faux annoyance. This is the side of Amy that Hope likes in particular—not that she doesn’t like all of Amy, but there’s this certain part of Amy that pushes back, even if nobody else in the room recognizes it, even if Amy doesn’t recognize it herself. People like to consider Amy the weaker spirit to Molly’s tumultuous righteous fire, though that isn’t the truth. They’re just not looking hard enough.

They stand in silence for a few seconds, before Amy says: “So, school’s pretty rough?”

Hope closes her eyes. She had half hoped Amy wouldn’t notice her quick change in strategy for dealing with people at school, though that’s definitely underestimating Amy’s observational abilities. “Yeah,” Hope breathes out. It’s dumb, it’s stupid, but she doesn’t want Amy to think any differently of her. She wants her to see that the bitchiness—the meanness—is just a defense mechanism, that she’s sorry.

And Amy sees her. Of course she does. “You don’t have to—I know what people say about you. It’s bullshit.”

Hope just shuts her eyes harder, hard enough that she can see tiny bright spots blip and dissipate on the backs of her eyelids. It is bullshit, but nobody else but they know that. “I’m just giving them what they want.”

Amy reaches out and grabs her arm, and even though there are like three layers between their skin—Hope’s long sleeved thermal, her down jacket, Amy’s glove—Hope almost feels like she can feel the heat of Amy’s hand, and her breath catches.

“You don’t have to,” Amy says, “you don’t have to be somebody else.”

Hope shakes her head. She doesn’t—she doesn’t know what to say, because she wants to agree with Amy, say that she’s right. But in a way, she does have to be somebody else. It’s easier that way—to be the person that everyone expects you to be. It’s hard to be a real person in high school.

“Hope,” Amy whispers—too tender, too soft. “You don’t have to be the person that they expect you to be.”

Hope laughs, suddenly, and wrenches her arm out of Amy’s grip. She opens her eyes and Amy looks—well, she looks hurt, which evokes the worst feeling in Hope’s gut, like a slithering ouroboros churning around her stomach, choking on its own tail.

“Hope,” Amy says, again, a little helplessly.

“Just stop talking, okay? I don’t—” Hope grunts. She spares one more glance at Amy, before turning to enter her apartment, wrenching the door open and hastily snapping it shut behind her.

…

Things don’t become worse right after that, but they do in parts. Hope stops coming over to Molly’s apartment for dinner. Stops inviting them to walk Bennett with her. She stops opening her front door to play loud music from the record player so Molly and Amy can hear from across the complex. Eventually, at school, they don’t even bother with the perfunctory greetings, and Amy stops waving to her from across the hallway, or in homeroom. Hope just lets it happen, retreating further and further back.

…

high school, sophomore year

…

Amy comes out as a lesbian sophomore year. A lot of things happen that year, actually, but that’s like—the one of the most important. She comes out via Instagram, so there are no lunchtime soapboxes or anything dramatic of the like, and she only has like, seventy-two followers, but it’s the most important thing to happen to Hope all year. Hope is amongst those seventy-two followers—she sees the post, and subsequently throws her phone across the room.

Most people find out about Amy’s coming out not through her Instagram post, but buzz in the hallways. Gossip is seedy and wrathful, but nobody in Crockett is enough of a douche to give Amy shit for being gay—or even if they are, they keep it to themselves.

So—Amy is gay. Like, a full on lesbian.

Hope wonders, briefly, how long Amy must have known—if she knows that Hope is pretty much the same way. Gay people are good at spotting other gay people, right? Hope doesn’t know if that makes her nervous or excited—there’s that terrifying possibility that Amy knows that Hope has had kind of a minor obsession with her ever since she moved into Los Angeles, or there’s the other terrifying possibility that Amy straight up just doesn’t know any of that.

Hope basically agonizes over that for all of sophomore year.

Other very important things happen too, of course: Uncle Matthew gets her a job at his thrift store, part timing at the register and helping him take stock, mundane stuff. She gets paid like eight dollars an hour, and she doesn’t spend any of it. She’s stockpiling her money for after high school—for her post-graduation trip around the world.

Even after that botched conversation she had with Amy at Christmas Eve, Amy still managed to give Hope her Christmas present, though not quite looking her in the eye while doing so. Amy had gotten her this old timey looking world map to hang up in her room—the kind with drawings of sea creatures in oceans and weird Nordic looking font text. It’s a modern map, so there’s no weird conjoined countries or anything like that—and Hope becomes a little obsessed with it.

She has pins stuck into it and sticky notes everywhere and colour-coded strings that lead place to place. The role of the mean girl has begun to weigh heavy on her, as necessary as it is. Now, she just wants the get the hell out of Crockett—out of Los Angeles. Be in a different place, be somewhere where she can really be herself.

Her mom thinks it’s a great idea, though she’s a little teary at the thought of her baby girl going off into the world on her own.

The third important thing that happens could practically be described to be the most important, though finding out Amy is gay is pretty life changing for Hope.

The thing is about her uncle’s thrift store is that it sells practically everything—used kitchen appliances, retro electronic equipment, clothing, books—you name it, it’s probably there somewhere, underneath everything. It’s her uncle’s pride and joy, and honestly, Hope understands it—stepping into the store is like a breath of fresh air, despite how cluttered it is. It’s like walking into another dimension. Different kinds of people enter and leave the store every day, usually looking for clothes—but also, sometimes, one person comes in for an errant obscure thing.

A few things contribute to the most important thing, and Hope ranks them as such:

3. The jacket

2. Bennett

1. Her lesbianism

The jacket is this vintage suede fringed jacket that looks absolutely hideous at a first glance, but also, somehow the greatest thing in the world. She falls in love with it practically immediately, sitting there, on the racks of the clothing section of the thrift store, disregarded and alone. She’s grown a few more inches between freshman year and sophomore year, so the jacket, even though it looks kind of big, fits her like a glove. She begins to wear it almost every day, except when her mother forces her to wash it.

The second thing is Bennett, though Bennett doesn’t really do anything except be himself. Uncle Matthew thinks it’s a fantastic idea to have Bennett in the store while she’s working—Hope’s already guilty about leaving Bennett alone at home during school, let alone while she’s working too—and he’s usually well behaved enough that he doesn’t pounce customers as soon as they come in.

The fact that she likes girls is probably the underlying motivator for most of the things that she does nowadays—watching television, film, reading books; they’re all based around what it means for her as a girl who likes girls. Regardless, it leads her to do some pretty stupid things.

Lisa enters the thrift store on a mission. That’s how Hope first meets her, anyway, behind the register, reading a donated copy of Catcher in the Rye, plucked from the books section of the thrift store. She’s just moved from London, Japanese with hair that reaches the middle of her shoulder blades, dyed a shock pink, black roots poking through where her hair parts down the middle. She has a tongue piercing. Lisa has this cool girl impression that Hope’s been trying to evoke her entire fucking life, except Lisa just does it without thinking.

Also, she’s wearing a jean jacket—with a lesbian flag sewn on it.

Hope adores her almost immediately.

Lisa explains she needs help—she’s an art student, you see, and she’s making a sculpture out of melted license plates, and she’s wondering if this particular thrift store happens to have any license plates, so that she can melt them in the future.

Hope doesn’t really know if they have any license plates, but god—she’s willing to pry one off her uncle’s corolla outside just to see Lisa’s smile again.

Hope clears her throat. “Sure, let me check. Come with me,” she says, American accent feeling weirdly clunky in her mouth. She wonders if Lisa can hear the California in her, the fact that she’s never been out of country before—Lisa seems traveled, like she knows things.

“I like your jacket,” Lisa says, reaching out to playfully tug on one of the tassels. Hope, who has her bitchy persona on the backburner whenever she’s working, just gives her a small smile, shaking her head.

“There’s probably another here,” deflects Hope, internally wincing—she can hear the bitchiness in her voice, uninvited, and maybe Lisa was just complimenting you, you idiot, not that she wanted your jacket, just take the compliment, fucking shit.

Lisa just laughs. “I might look for one, after this. I’m Lisa, by the way.”

Hope turns around to smile at her. “Hope.”

The store itself isn’t impossible to navigate, but there is a lot to take in. The shelves are pretty close together to leave room for even more shelves to put more things on, so it’s practically impossible for two people to stand side by side in an aisle, and people have to pack in pretty tight.

Because of this, Lisa almost trips over Bennett, who was trailing Hope’s heels—and stumbles forward, catching the tassels of Hope’s jacket and almost bringing Hope down with her. At first Hope’s too shocked to do anything but stumble slightly forward, though this seems to do the trick and Lisa manages to regain her balance swiftly by pulling herself up by Hope’s shoulders.

They don’t fall to the floor in a heap or anything—as much as Hope wishes some romcom-esque thing like that could happen to her—but when Hope turns around to ask how Lisa is doing, their faces are so damn close it’s like all the air in Hope’s lungs leaves her all at once.

They stare at each other.

“Jesus, you’re beautiful,” Lisa says, sounding utterly sincere, hands still on Hope’s shoulders, and then her eyes dart down to Hope’s lips, and then Hope—

Hope kisses her.

They’ve known each other a grand total of ten minutes, exchanging greetings and three lines of vaguely flirty banter, and Hope just—kisses her. What the fuck.

“Oh my god,” Hope says, ripping away from the kiss almost immediately after she initiates it. “Oh my god, I’m so fucking sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay—”

Hope’s throat is so dry, so tight with all these feelings bubbling up in her at once that she can barely comprehend Lisa’s words. Lisa, seemingly sensing that Hope’s about to do something utterly dramatic, like run away, like she’s Cinderella and it’s almost midnight, brings hands up to cup Hope’s face and kisses her herself.

That’s the most important thing of sophomore year, probably. Her first and second kiss.

They don’t end up passionately making out amongst the stacks of kitchen utensils, as cool of a story that would’ve been, and Lisa pulls away eventually to remind Hope that she still needs those license plates, and they don’t kiss again for the rest of the evening.

They talk, though, which is cool.

Hope tells her about Amy, because she just can’t help it.

“And she’s queer?”

Hope nods, watching Lisa scoop Bennett up in her arms and carry him like a cat. He’s a little startled, mostly because nobody has ever held him like that before, but he just yawns and closes his eyes. Hope purses her lips, trying not to laugh—he looks completely in his element, settling into Lisa’s arms like the touch desperate son of a bitch he is.

“A lesbian, yeah,” Hope clarifies.

“Why haven’t you said anything?”

“We had this fight about something, and,” Hope sighs. “I think I’m too mean.”

“I got that impression from you when I first saw you.”

Trying not to groan in frustration, Hope runs her hands through her hair. “I think everybody gets that impression of me when they first see me.”

“She’s stupid if she doesn’t see that that’s not the real you.”

Hope narrows her eyes in warning. “I know you’re trying to be nice, but please don’t call her stupid.”

Lisa softens. “Okay. I’m sorry, that was unwarranted.”

“And she knows that’s not the real me, but it’s like,” Hope splays her hands out, palms towards the ceiling, like she’s waiting for the right words to drop into her hands. “I don’t think I’m good enough for her.”

Lisa stays with her until she shift ends at eight, when her uncle swaps out with her to take the nightshift until midnight. By the end of the night, they exchange numbers, with no promises for anything. Lisa forces Hope to follow her on Instagram, even though Hope swears up and down she hardly ever uses it, and Lisa kisses her on the cheek, two license plates in hand.

It’s not until Hope’s scrolling through Lisa’s Instagram, taking the bus home, does Hope stumble across Amy’s coming out post again—a photo of a lesbian flag, with a long ass caption about being gay and systematic struggles and the like. Hope reads through it, again, slowly and carefully, just like she had weeks prior when Amy first posted it. When she finishes reading it, she lets it linger in the air for a second, thinking, before switching off her phone and bringing her phone to her lips, closing her eyes.

…

high school, junior year

…

Hope finally gets some friends, junior year.

She stumbles across Lisa again, somehow, completely by chance at a park near the apartment complex, late enough in the afternoon that the sun is setting behind trees in the horizon. She had been there to throw a ball in random directions for Bennett to catch and bring back to her. Needless to say, they’re both surprised when they see each other, though neither party has any complaints. Amidst reintroductions, Lisa turns to motion behind her, and introduces these two guys she’s hanging out with—neither which Hope, ashamedly, saw at first—Ali and Marcus.

Ali is an Iranian fuckboy with a haircut that’s basically just a tuft of curly hair on top of shaved sides, pretty much matches Hope’s bitchy personality beat for beat, and keeps up with Hope in ways that not a lot of people can. Marcus is an aspiring filmmaker who is pretty much the lankiest guy Hope’s ever seen, tall, long limbs with an easy smile. He’s the American dream boy.

They’re trying to film this short film about skate culture, which explains why both Lisa and Ali have skateboards with them. Hope had sworn off skaters after freshman year, but Lisa and Ali are different—livelier—so she just watches, and wonders if the kids at Crockett are anything like this. As Ali and Lisa skate, Marcus films them, shouting out directorial orders like stop moving so fucking fast and try to angle your body to the left—yeah, right there—

Marcus even offers to let Hope be in the movie, but Hope doesn’t know how to skate—at all, really—and is, truthfully, a little camera shy.

Neither Marcus nor Ali go to Crockett, thankfully, but Hope doesn’t relax, wearing her disaffected persona like a second skin. It is essentially like a second skin, by now, so used to wearing it sometimes she struggles to turn it off. They all don’t seem to mind, though—in fact, they seem a little into it, matching her snark with equal enthusiasm and laughing hysterically when Hope says something blasé, like whatever bitchy thing she says is the funniest thing in the world.

Hope likes them. It’s been ages since she’s had any really good friends, except for the errant interaction between Molly and Amy, except she hasn’t talked to Amy in eons and it’s killing her a little on the inside. It’s funny, because Amy is usually at Molly apartment just as much as she is at her own house, so she’s right around the corner most nights, but Hope can’t get up the courage to head over there, to say sorry, to say something.

Lisa, much to Hope’s surprise, also lives in the same area that Hope does, which Lisa jokes is basically like the stars aligning, which Hope doesn’t refute. Conversation with her is flows just as nicely as it did when they first met, and Hope doesn’t think she’ll ever stop being thankful for the way that Lisa doesn’t even seem to care when Hope can’t find anything more to say, letting the conversation lull where it needs to until she thinks of another thing to bring up.

“This is me,” Hope says as they reach the apartment complex. Lisa brings her in for a hug before she leaves, parting to scratch Bennett behind his ear, and waving goodbye. She half expects Lisa to kiss her, though Hope’s kind of thankful that she didn’t. They seem to have come to this unspoken agreement that nothing’s probably going to happen to between them.

Hope approaches the complex with a faint smile on her face.

“I see you’ve finally gotten some friends,” she hears Molly say, suddenly, standing out on the front of the complex, like she was waiting for Hope to come home or some ridiculous shit.

“What the fuck?” Hope says, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets, confused. “What are you doing out here? It’s like, almost eleven.”

Molly looks to the side, like the answer should just be plainly obvious. It’s not. “I was waiting for you, obviously.”

“Seriously?”

“No, I’m waiting for Doug to come pick me up.”

Hope rocks back on her heels, nodding.

“My mom was supposed to come home today, but she—she never did.”

Hope nods again, slower this time. Hope doesn’t really know how she feels about Molly’s parents—she doesn’t know enough to construct an informed opinion on it—though it does irk her that they’re never there for her. It’s probably one of the contributing reasons to why Molly seems to work so hard—maybe she’s just waiting for them to finally pay attention to her.

Sighing, Hope walks closer to her, sitting on the front curb by Molly, watching Bennett sniff her curiously before he makes his way over to Molly completely, sitting in a heap on Molly’s feet.

“What are you doing?” Molly asks, brow furrowed.

“Just waiting with you until Doug gets here,” Hope elaborates, stretching out her legs and yawning. It’s late and Molly’s just sitting out here by herself, it’s a disservice to women everywhere if Hope just leaves her alone.

Molly, stubbornly, stays standing, refusing to sit next to Hope. After while she bends over, scratching Bennett behind his ears and cooing softly, making soft compliments, praising him even though he isn’t really doing anything except being lazy. And cute, Hope supposes.

“You haven’t come over in a while,” Molly points out, not looking at Hope. “Not since freshman year, really.”

Hope sniffs. She knows the reason why—Amy knows, too, and if Amy knows, Molly definitely knows. Those two keep no secrets between each other.

“Been busy.”

“Right,” Molly says, definitely sounding like she doesn’t believe her. “Busy.”

“I am,” Hope ripostes, defensive. “I’m busy all the time.”

“You know,” ignoring her, “Amy misses you.”

Low blow, Molly Davidson. Low fucking blow. Hope looks to the side, trying not to say anything she’ll regret. “I know. Tell her I’m sorry.”

“You should really tell her yourself.”

“I can’t.”

“Why the fuck not?”

That’s really the million dollar question, isn’t it—why the fuck not. But Hope feels weird about Amy, nowadays. Sometimes Hope sits back and thinks about how these feelings she has towards Amy have been consuming her for ages—how they’ve kept on coming, unwarranted, and never leaving. Even after kissing Lisa, when the haze of it all passed, all she could think about was Amy—what her lips might feel like—like she told Lisa about Amy, for crying out loud. That’s not dating material, that’s not what normal people do.

And also—she’s never really gotten over the genuine look of hurt on Amy’s face, from that night. Hope did that—without even saying anything. With an easily placed laugh and the right amount of brashness. It’s horrifying that Hope has the power to do that.

And Hope knows that Amy’s not torn up about it, exactly—Amy’s not really the type to hold grudges, she just understands, empathy in spades—but Hope’s been pretending too long, so much so that she’s not entirely sure she can be that person she was when she was twelve for Amy anymore. Because that’s who Amy wants—not this new, edgier Hope. Amy wants the Hope from before. But Amy’s probably never going to get her.

Hope lets the question sit in silence, breathing in and out. Molly also lets it hangs there, seemingly having made her point.

“Who’s a good boy,” Molly coos, squatting down completely scratch vigorously underneath Bennett’s chin, behind his ears, scratching his belly with delight when he rolls over onto his back. The overhead streetlight above them illuminates this scene with singular focus; like a stage light on broadway, and Hope has to blink a few times, tearing herself out of the idea that the world is trying to signal to her something important.

It’s only until a few beats later does Hope see Doug begin to materialize into view, still driving the same silver sedan he did when he dropped Hope off to Crockett Middle. Only—it’s Amy in the front seat, with Doug riding shotgun.

“Oh,” Hope says, a little dumbly. “I didn’t know Amy was driving already.”

“She got her permit a few weeks ago,” Molly explains, patting Bennett one last time before pulling on a backpack that was by her feet. “Great talk, Hope.”

Hope smiles wanly in response, though she’s not looking at Molly at all when she does it. She’s looking at Amy; who looks at her. Amy doesn’t look too bothered by the staring whatsoever, though her face doesn’t really reveal much. She looks kind of unhappy, actually, now that Hope’s thinking about it—Hope definitely knows it’s because of her.

Amy just lifts her hand up in a small wave, before turning to greet Molly who clambers into the backseat, and driving away.

Hope breathes in through her nose, reaching over to scratch Bennett behind his right ear, who huffs softly.

“You’ll always be with me, right, Ben?”

Bennett just huffs again.

…

Hope’s essentially sworn off parties since freshman year—she hasn’t set foot in a single one—though when Lisa essentially begs her to come to one she finds herself caving, just a little. And, well, here’s thing—Hope actually ends up enjoying herself.

Sure, the house is really crowded and the music plays so loud it makes the teeth in her gums shake, but when Lisa sits her in a circle with a bunch of other teens there’s this faint sense of camaraderie with these kids that Hope’s never experienced before. Just for this one night, they’re all united by these experiences that seem so unique to all of them; laughing and joking and fucking around, not constrained by anything.

“This is actually pretty fun,” Hope tells Lisa. Both of them have migrated from the inside to a swingset in the backyard, getting away from the crowds long enough for Lisa to roll up her joint.

Lisa, who seems to visibly struggling to grind weed in her palm, looks up briefly to smile at Hope, bright and just a little bit shit eating. “I told you so, right? I told you so.”

Hope laughs, though it fades out into a sigh. “I just thought they were, like, a waste of time.”

“They’re not, I swear,” Lisa says. She pauses from folding a little slip of cardboard into a crutch to fully look at Hope, staring at her with intent. “Do you know why I wanted you to come today?”

Hope shakes her head.

“Because I think you’re fun—but nobody else knows that. Like, even Marcus and Ali—god bless their stupid fucking hearts—thought you just never wanted to come because you were, like, above it all.”

Hope frowns. It’s always that—being above it all. What is she above? She’s just a kid.

“Yeah,” Lisa affirms, seeing Hope’s expression. “But, there was like, no way. I didn’t get it. But now I do—and they’re wrong.”

The swingset is low enough to the ground that Hope has to stretch her legs out completely in front of her in order to sit comfortably. She digs the heels of her shoes into the dirt and gently sways her toes, which are facing the sky, back and forth, trying to find what words to say next.

And then—because it always seems to happen—she thinks of Amy. Hope’s never put too much thought into it before, but she’s almost certain Amy’s never been to a party either, period. She knows the kind of crowd that attend parties—Molly and Amy tend to avoid like them plague.

“Amy—do you remember Amy?”

Lisa rolls her eyes. “How could I? You wouldn’t shut up about her. First crush girl, right?”

“Right,” Hope says, though her voice wavers slightly with embarrassment. “She has this friend called Molly, and they’re both kind of like that. They don’t go to parties—or anything. I think all they care about is studying and each other.”

Lisa chuckles. “I think someone should invite them out to a party.”

“Amy’s not, like, a shut in. She goes to protests and things—I have no idea what they’re about, but she’s passionate. They just—don’t care about parties, at all. I don’t think that makes them worse than us.”

“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say in one go,” Lisa jokes, though her expression quickly turns serious as she mulls over Hope’s words. “And, yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t make them better or worse. It’s up to them what they want to do. But there’s a certain benefit to being with other people you know out of a school setting, you know? They could learn stuff. And I mean—look at us. Would you have let me talk to you if I went to Crockett?”

Hope lowers her eyes. “Probably not.”

“Right,” Lisa says, voice soft. “They have to learn these things for themselves.”

“Amy’s the smartest person I know.”

Lisa shrugs. “Sometimes book smarts aren’t the only thing you need to be smart.”

They sit in silence for a few more seconds so Lisa can finish rolling up her joint, packing it using the aglet of her hoodie drawstring.

She’s holding out the joint for Hope to take a hit when Hope says, “You’re, like, weirdly fucking wise.”

Lisa just grins.

…

high school, senior year

...

Hope finds herself taking Lisa’s advice to heart and trying to learn things, which she takes as a pointer to just fucking relax a little. Hope’s expecting it to be difficult to unravel six years’ worth of expectations, though she finds it to be surprisingly easy: she thaws, and the rest of the seniors are weirdly responsive to that. They invite her to parties and actually talk to her during class out of their own free will, not out of academic obligation. Turns out Crockett kids are receptive to change.

Most importantly, though, she resolves to talk to Amy again—maybe Molly, if she’s up for that. Hope’s mostly relegated herself to watching Amy at the back of classrooms, pining like she’s in fucking Brokeback Mountain or some shit.

And it’s not like Amy is actively ignoring her, or anything vindictive like that—it seems that Amy has resigned herself to the fact that they’re not really friends anymore, and doesn’t really make any attempts to rectify that. Hope knows it’s up to her to apologize, to make the first move. Hope just doesn’t really know how.

She’s not being a coward—she just really doesn’t know how to say, “hey, I know I’ve been avoiding you since the end of freshman year, but I really miss you, and—”

Stupid stuff, really.

A little saving grace comes in the middle of the year—partner projects, as ironic as it sounds. Though it was previously extremely easy for Hope to consider them really fucking inconvenient, considering her previous circumstances, they’re a little more palatable now. Plus—Amy is in her class.

Hope doesn’t know if Ms. Fine reads her mind across the room or what, but when she’s reading out partners for a minor project in AP Lit she seems to catch Hope’s really intense gaze—pauses for a second—then reads out Hope and Amy, which is simultaneously the freakiest thing Hope’s ever experienced and the coolest thing she’s ever had the pleasure of being a part of.

Molly and Amy seem to exchange a glance—old habits never die, Hope supposes—before Amy grabs her books off her desk and moves to Hope’s place, taking the newly vacated seat beside her.

“Hi,” she says, warming Hope from the inside out. “So—Shakespeare, huh?”

They don’t really talk, not about anything that Hope really wants to talk about, but they’re applying literary perspectives to sonnets and Amy seems to want to only focus on the work—which is fine with Hope. Having a serious discussion about the dynamics of their relationship would probably be wildly inappropriate for a classroom setting, anyway.

It doesn’t really stop her from eagerly leaning forward, slightly, when Amy says something, just to hear her voice better. They twist their desks so that they face one another and they sit relatively close—if Amy’s legs were longer, their knees would probably but touching, but they’re unfortunately not.

“This was good,” Amy murmurs at the end of the lesson, giving Hope a genuine, if not slightly tentative smile. “I almost forgot how good you are at English.”

Hope doesn’t blush—instead feeling Amy’s words like electricity in her fingertips, embarrassingly so. “Well, we can’t all be super geniuses at every subject they take like you and Molly.”

Amy rolls her eyes. “We’re not super geniuses.”

“Really? Your academic record begs to differ.”

And that’s it, that’s just it, it takes a lesson together working on applying feminist theory to Shakespearean poetry for them to fall back into old dynamics, like the three year separation between them didn’t happen at all.

They’re both brutally efficient, so they don’t have anything really to work on after school, which makes Hope a little regretful. She wants the full study partner fantasy—she wants to go over to Amy’s house and work on homework side by side on her bed, until they both eventually get tired and put down the work to watch a movie or something. She wants Amy to invite Hope to set next to her, leaning on the headboard of her bed, watching a movie with their shoulders almost touching. Hope wants Amy to turn to her during a funny part of the movie—they’re probably watching a romcom—and she wants their noses to be so close, tension so thick, that Amy just begins to slowly move in and—

Hope wants a lot of things, Jesus Christ.

…

The day before graduation is by far the most chaotic day of senior year. Most the kids can feel the energy thrumming through the hallways; that anticipation that things are about to end; and they’re restless with it, talking over each other and being louder than usual. Hope gets it, she does, though for her it does somehow feel like every other homeroom she’s been forced to sit through, nothing really all that different, so she just does what she usually does: leans back at her desk with a book in her hands, reading.

She watches with quiet intent, however, when Ms. Fine offers up her phone number to Molly and Amy—she has to restrain herself from saying of course out loud, smile swelling with barely contained amusement. When Molly and Amy return to their desks—giggling, joyous, like they’ve just acquired the number of a crush—Hope can’t help herself, leaning over and whispering, “Hey, Amy.”

She watches Amy’s eyebrows furrow at the call of her name, before she realizes it’s just Hope, and her face smooths out, mouth still quirked into a delighted smile. “Yeah?”

“Did you just score your teacher’s phone number?”

“Yeah,” she says, a little dreamily.

“Nice,” Hope teases, biting, and Amy’s eyes dart to the side like she can’t tell if Hope’s joking or not. Hope, not wanting to, like, ruin anything, just grins at her, tongue-in-cheek, leaning back into her chair, trying telegraph remember when we used to joke like this without seeming too desperate.

Amy chuckles slightly, rolling her eyes once it becomes clear Hope’s just teasing. “Okay, you ass,” she says, and Hope basically clings onto that for the rest of the day.

…

Hope still doesn’t have any really good friends at Crockett, though she’s peripherally integrated herself into the Tanner-Theo-Triple A-Nick dynamic just they remind her of Lisa, Marcus and Ali the most, Tanner especially evocative of Ali on his skateboard, getting in the way of other people just for the one perfect trick. They’re a good bunch, all with good heads on their shoulders, even though it didn’t really seem like it at first glance.

“You can’t skate, stop trying.” Hope hears Triple A tease, looking up in time just to see her throwing a carrot stick at Tanner’s head. Hope’s not sitting with them, exactly, though she’s close enough that she could justifiably argue that’s she’s part of the group. On a regular day, she would be in the library, though it’s the last day—Hope figures why the fuck not, may as well socialize.

“Shut up,” Tanner laughs, pressing a foot on the tail of his skateboard catch it with his right hand. He holds up his index finger in a wait gesture, before throwing his skateboard to the ground and hopping on it. “Just watch—”

Tanner doesn’t notice Amy walking towards him—or at least, walking in his path—until the very last second, so late that he can only barely bring a foot to the ground to slow himself down until he rams into Amy, knocking them both down.

“Fuck, sorry,” Tanner apologizes, recovering from the hit first. He offers a hand to help Amy up, though Amy looks too horrified for a second to actually take it. “I didn’t see you coming through—I would’ve stopped if I did, honest.”

Amy recovers long enough to take his hand, where Tanner pulls her up in one strong pull. “Uh, it’s okay,” she squeaks out, which makes Hope’s brows furrow.

The thought suddenly strikes Hope that it’s supremely weird to see this side of Amy that everyone usually gets to see—the meek one. She’s never had to see that side before—circumstance, she supposes, moving into Molly’s apartment complex, having met Amy when they were kids, arguing about To Kill a Mockingbird during car rides, helping her paint protest signs, dancing to Hope’s Sgt Pepper’s vinyl in the complex courtyard. Meek Amy is so unlike Amy—she wonders why nobody else in the group can see it.

Hope’s only shaken out of her thoughts when Amy’s eyes move from the ground on Hope’s face, their eyes locking, and Amy’s face morphs from horror into… more horror? Regardless, Amy snaps her mouth shut, throwing up the most uncomfortable peace sign Hope’s ever seen, before doing an about face and scurrying away.

“That was kinda weird,” Triple A says, she turns around to look at Hope. “Why’d she stare at you like that?”

Hope, still startled by the interaction, just barely manages to shake her head. “No idea.”

Triple A purses her mouth, then opens it like she’s about to say something that Hope probably doesn’t want to hear, until she thinks the better of it and closes it again. She turns back to Tanner. “Okay, do the trick, or I’m not buying you a pizza at Nick’s tonight.”

Tanner laughs, and the entire moment seems to move on, everything snapping back into place.

Only—Hope looks at Amy’s retreating form, making a beeline towards Molly. She moves her gaze to Molly, who’s just wincing, face contorted in the highest degree of second hand embarrassment and sympathy.

Hope wonders, vaguely, why Amy was heading over in this direction, anyway, if she and Molly already seem to have an established table. She dwells on it for a moment, before just deciding to let it go and turn back to her book, letting Tanner and Triple A’s quick banter serve as background noise.

Later, Hope catches Amy outside the bathroom outside the entrance to the gender neutral bathrooms. Well, it’s more Amy catches Hope, while Hope makes her way towards her locker.

“Hey,” Amy says, catching her attention. Hope stops immediately, backpedalling a step to turn her body towards Amy. Hope looks at her expectantly—making Amy pause, like she wasn’t expecting to get this far. “So—isn’t it crazy that it’s the last day?”

Hope crosses her arms over her chest, smiling. “Yeah. Guess you can’t contain yourself—bumping into Tanner earlier, and all.”

Amy flushes, making Hope’s heart lurch forward. “That was completely by accident. I was actually going over to tell you—” Amy stops herself suddenly.

“Going over to tell me…?”

“That… I’m… going to Columbia.”

Hope actually laughs. “Amy, I already knew that. You’re really looking forward to kicking ass next year, huh?”

Amy frowns for a second. “Um, yeah,” she says, a little muted. Hope frowns—she doesn’t know if she’s asked the wrong thing, but Amy’s reaction unsettles her slightly, so she opens her mouth to apologize, or something, but Amy just seems to shake off whatever brief episode she just went through. She continues, “Molly and I are just planning to split a cake and open a box of memories this afternoon. You should come over.”

Hope absolutely does not want to third wheel between Molly and Amy, though she doesn’t tell Amy that. There is this fantastical part of Hope’s brain that screams she wants you to participate in this nerdfest she has planned—she’s been thinking of you!, though that probably isn’t the case. Aside from the core issues like thirdwheeling and aberrant fantasies, the reality is that Triple A’s managed to convince Hope to come over to Nick’s graduation party, anyway.

“I can’t—sorry.”

Amy deflates, slouching against a brick wall next to them. “Oh—that’s okay. Can I ask why? Not that you owe me anything, obviously, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Hope laughs. “Relax, Amy. Breathe. I’m just going to Nick’s graduation party.” They move to the side a little as Triple A, Tanner and Theo exit the bathroom. “His aunt’s on this cruise ship that broke down, or something, so he’s throwing a party at her house.”

“That’s—that’s awesome.”

Hope shrugs. “Usually I don’t go to parties, but I figure—just this once.” It’s then does Hope suddenly remember Lisa, and their night on the swingset, saying I think someone should invite them out to a party, and—they could learn stuff. Hope breathes in. Not to regurgitate someone else’s advice like some mum on a suburbia self-help blog, but Lisa did make some points. Plus—she would give anything to see Amy in a party setting. “You know, not to interrupt your whole cake, memories—thing, but you should come.”

“Come?”

“Come to Nick’s graduation party.”

Amy shifts on her feet uncomfortably. “Uh, I don’t know.”

Hope doesn’t want to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do, but she figures there’s nothing wrong with being at least a little bit pushy. “You should. It might be good for you. You’ve never been to a party, right?”

“That’s true, but—”

Their conversation is interrupted by Molly suddenly appearing. Her expression is absolutely disoriented—Hope feels a little chill down her back, unsettled by the absent glaze over Molly’s eyes as she seems to stare off into nothing.

“Are you okay?” Amy asks, worriedly, turning to reach out to Molly.

Molly just makes this weird affirming grunting noise, before zeroing in on Hope and suddenly approaching her with the intensity of a woman on a mission. “Hope—where are you going to school next year?”

Hope darts her eyes to Amy, who looks just as confused as she feels. “Are you, like, good?”

“Just fucking tell me where.”

“Barnard—Christ.”

Molly just grunts in frustration, spinning around, making a beeline towards Nick by his locker.

Hope turns to Amy. “What the fuck was that?”

She just shakes her head. “I have no idea.”

…

Nick’s party is—well, it’s a fucking party. Loud, rowdy, messy. Tanner and Theo embody these three characteristics the whole night, doing loads of stupid shit, but Hope figures they deserve at least one night to do all that without her internal monologue judging the shit out of them—character development, right? She just laughs along, letting herself fucking relax for once.

Triple A keeps surprising company the whole night; she’s driving home, so she doesn’t drink at all. Actually, she very vocally rants to Hope about her distaste for drinking, especially considering how many times guys have tried to make a move on her while she was drunk, thinking she was more pliable to their advances because she was inebriated.

“Jokes on those assholes,” she says, raising her red solo cup full of coca cola towards Hope. “Now they can’t pull any of that shit anymore.”

They talk and talk and talk. Hope feels guilty, at one point, for writing Triple A off at Crockett during her freshman year—she thinks she legitimately could’ve been good friends with her, if she just decided to let her walls down a little. But the guilt doesn’t eat at her for too long. She won’t leave high school regretting any of her experiences—she refuses to let that happen.

She also keeps on glancing at the door. It’s not like she expects Amy to show up, it’s just that she hopes—no pun intended. She doubts Amy’s going to come—the party’s been going for hours now and she’s never known Molly—who would definitely come if Amy was coming—to be anything but punctual. Anyway, Hope refused Amy’s offering to eat cake and open the memory box—what obligation does Amy have to accept her offer to attend Nick’s party? Still—Hope broods over it, just because she can.

Besides—her crush on Amy is a little nebulous. It’s been on the backburner of her mind pretty much her entire time at Los Angeles—which is a long fucking time to have a crush on someone and never fucking do anything about it. She hasn’t defined it as romantic feelings for very long, maybe since Amy came out in sophomore year, but it’s definitely been kicking around in her subconscious for a very long time.

Hope sits and thinks about it. Would she have told Amy she has feelings for her, if Amy came to the party? Hope has no clue. She sighs, making Triple A glance at her, concerned.

“You good?”

Hope just nods. “Yeah. Might get a refill though.”

“M’kay. Don’t throw up.”

Hope flips her off.

The kitchen isn’t that crowded that she needs to squeeze through any tightly packed bodies, but it is busy enough that she accidentally hip checks Ryan, who just laughs and waves her off. She’s in the middle of refilling her drink when there’s a sudden tap on her shoulder. Hope turns around, expecting to see Triple A, but instead it’s—

“Hi,” Amy says, waving a little.

She’s in this wicked blue sequined dress, hair tucked behind her ears, looking—just looking, quite literally, the best Hope’s ever seen her. Hope just has to blink, startled at the sudden materialization of Amy, just there, standing in front of her, beautiful, like a fucking mirage.

Amy waves again, but this time in front of her face. “Um, Hope?”

Hope pulls herself out of it. Get it together—god damn. “I wasn’t actually expecting you to come,” realizing that sounds a little mean, Hope glances down at her hands, clearing her throat, “do you want a drink?”

Amy looks down at the drinks table like a deer in headlights. “Um—sure! Sure.”

She thinks, briefly, about pouring Amy, like, a shot of tequila, before she realizes that probably starting out way to fast way too quickly and instead goes over to the keg on the kitchen island. She pours Amy a cup full of beer instead, passing it to her.

Hope watches as Amy takes an experimental sip of the beer, grimacing. Hope gets it, honestly. Alcohol is fucking disgusting.

“You know, I’ve always wanted you to come out,” Hope says, leaning against the edge of the kitchen island. The cut of the marble digs into her back a little, but at least she knows she looks cool.

Amy raises her eyebrows. “I am—I am out. I came out in the tenth grade.”

Hope looks to the side, trying to stifle her laughter. “No, you dumbass, I meant out to a party.”

Amy chuckles, a little self-consciously. Hope doesn’t really get why she seems so nervous—though, she supposes this is the first time Amy’s been to a house party before. Maybe she should tone down on the teasing a little. Make conversation? Hope internally swears. She’s always been shit at making conversation.

“So—you’re going to Africa during the summer? Is this your last hurrah?”

“You remembered I’m going to Africa?”

Hope shrugs, like it’s obvious. Of course she remembers—Christ, she remembers everything about Amy. She wishes she could say the same about her US history final. “Yeah, Botswana, right?”

Amy’s face softens, mouth pulling into a small smile. “Yeah, Botswana. I’m helping women make their own tampons.”

Hope resists rolling her eyes, because of course she is. “Always fighting the good fight, huh?”

“It’s important to be socially conscious,” Amy defends, voice lilting with soft indignation. “If you can help, you should.”

Hope shoves her hands in her jacket pockets, trying not to be overwhelmed by how warm this makes her, flushed. “Well maybe—”

She’s interrupted, a little abruptly, by Gigi, shouting karaoke in the guest room!—making Amy jump.

“God, I missed you, fuck,” Gigi whispers to Amy as she passes by, like ships passing in the night, making Hope furrow her brows a little. Amy looks just as concerned as Hope feels, though, so she doesn’t dwell on it for two long.

Both of them watch Gigi walk away before Hope feels her mouth spreading into a grin, remembering something. “Do you remember my thirteenth birthday?”

“Of course,” Amy says, slightly bewildered, until her face morphs into realization. “You want to do karaoke?”

Hope shrugs, reaching over to take Amy’s wrist—a good excuse as any to touch Amy finally, she supposes, and begins to lead her towards the guest room. “Why the fuck not? I’d kill to see you shred some bars.”

Amy actually laughs. “I’m not going to be shredding anything, thank you.”

Hope looks back at her. “You have a great voice, though.”

And Amy just pauses in response, cheeks flushing with red. Hope has to tamper down on a cheesy grin; she just made Amy blush. Point Hope.

By the time Amy and Hope find a seat in the guest room, George has already bagged first song, ferociously flipping through the song book, in pursuit of the perfect song to sing. The room is fairly dimly lit, the greatest source of light a projector running the background, which shows a picture of a sunset back dropped beach, with the words input song superimposed on the front.

“He better choose something good,” Hope whispers, taking a seat in front of Amy, just slightly to the right. If she leans backwards, her shoulder touches Amy’s knee—actually, if she reaches her arm out, she can pretend to rest her arm on Amy’s legs, you know, for support—

George clears his throat. Loudly. “Excuse me, everyone,” he says, clutching the microphone in front of him with both his hands. “This is for that certain someone out there who’s fucked with your feelings. Everyone close their eyes and think of that person.” Hope doesn’t, and she sees that Amy doesn’t, either—thankfully. “Fuck him!—them. Fuck them!”

Then, he just—goes for it. He really goes for it. Actually, it’s fantastic.

“I have this album on vinyl,” Hope whispers to Amy, who has to duck down closer to her to hear her. It’s great. “Remember the record player you got me—”

“—yeah! Yeah, I remember,” Amy exclaims, happy. “I love this song. You actually have it on vinyl?”

“You should come over—I could play it for you,” Hope says. When Amy stills, she thinks maybe it’s a little too forward, but Amy just breaks out into this great grin, and Hope warms all over.

They turn their attention back to George’s singing, which is slowly growing more and more aggressive as the song goes on, resulting in the dramatic denouement of him sing-shouting—“you oughta know—ALAN!” making Hope wince. That’s some unresolved drama.

It’s not until the final chorus does George actually start to have what appears to be a breakdown—dramatically clinging to Gigi as he grunts and moans, definitely trying to work out some sort of repressed emotion. He’s still clinging to the mic, though, and the song is still going, so Hope just decides to go fuck it and stands up to snatch it out of his hands.

She turns around and pushes the mic towards Amy.

“You gotta do it,” Hope says, leaning closer. “You have to do it.”

Amy widens her eyes. “No—”

“I wanna see thirteen year old Amy again, shredding it at Dancing Queen,” Hope says, reaching out a hand to pull Amy up, which Amy instinctively takes. “Come on, do it for me.”

“For you? I—” Amy pauses slightly, taking the mic as Hope thrusts it into her hands. She stands there, swaying back and forth for a second, looking a little disoriented. Hope shoves her hands into her jacket pockets and bobs her head up and down, trying to look as encouraging as possible.

There’s this particular moment that Hope will never forget—the look on Amy’s face when she seems to gather the courage to sing—face morphing into a quiet kind of determination, clutching the microphone like a lifeline, but singing like she means it. And she sings—wholeheartedly, unreserved, like it’s been waiting to come out of her this whole time.

Hope barely registers hands coming up in the guest room, dancing along, of Gigi and George talking behind her, of the backing music, really—she just sees Amy, bathed in the projector light, singing. Amy just seems to lose herself in it, eyes closing, getting into the performance, then turning to the other people in the room and performing for them—it takes all the willpower in Hope’s body not to just kiss her, right then and there.

When the song ends, and everyone’s cheering, Amy just grins at her, this proud thing, hair a little mussed and cheeks flushed with adrenaline. She points at herself, like—look at what I just did!—and Hope just laughs, the most genuine laugh that’s ever come out of her. It’s then does Hope realize how truly, utterly fucked she is.

…

The pool isn’t some grand scheme to get Amy to strip down—Hope’s actually been wanting to go in it for a while, she’s just never really found a good reason to navigate through all the half-naked bodies. Navigating through Amy’s half-naked body, though—that’s a pretty good motivator.

Hope takes off her jacket first—folds it carefully—and her shirt, before she has to look behind her, curiosity getting the better of her, and finds Amy unzipping the dress from behind her, arms at an awkward position.

“Do you need help or,” Hope starts, watching Amy struggling with the zipper for a second, before rolling her eyes navigating her way behind Amy to slap her hands away from the zipper and pull it down herself. It’s not until the dress slips past Amy’s shoulders and she sees the straps of Amy’s pale cream bra does Hope realize what she’s done, stepping away quickly.

She unties her sneakers first, toeing them off and pulling her socks off, unbuckling her belt, then unzipping her pants and pulling them down. And if anybody asks—no, she does not get a brief mental image of Amy taking them off for her, thank you.

Hope has to just take a second, not to like, gape or anything, but to just gather her bearings as she sneaks a quick glance at Amy—who’s actually just in her underwear. If sophomore Hope was looking at her now. Regardless, she has to move on—quickly—before her mind does any fucking crazy things, so she just steps forward and jumps into the pool, hoping Amy will follow.

She doesn’t hear and see Amy come into the pool behind her—because she’s underwater—but Hope quickly swims over to the other side of the pool to cling onto the edge, bringing herself up to look out at the pool, looking for Amy. It’s difficult to see because of the dark and because there’s so many damn bodies, but Hope watches Amy pop up once—look around briefly, before jumping back down to swim again.

Hope doesn’t call out. She knows Amy will find her—plus, it’s interesting to watch her body writhe and move underneath the pale water, now that Hope knows where she is. Eventually Amy pops up just a few feet away from her, relief colouring her features once she sees Hope by the pools edge, and quickly swims over to her, a little breathless.

“Lost you for a second,” Amy laughs, swimming over towards her. Hope’s tall enough that she can actually stand, but Amy has to wade there a little. Hope smiles, and hooks an arm around Amy’s waist, just so she doesn’t have to struggle so much in the water.

Amy’s playful expression immediately morphs into one of adorable confusion, looking at Hope’s arm that’s bringing them closer together, then back at Hope, looking palpably shocked.

“You couldn’t lose me,” Hope says, and then immediately wants to take it back, shocked at the absolute gall of her brain to come up with something so cheesy, then at her mouth’s filter for not killing it.

Amy just looks charmed, though, mouth pulling into a smile.

They just float there, for a second, looking at each other. Hope feels the breath in her throat hitch as Amy’s eyes dart down to her lips, face falling soft as she begins to lean in—

Hope’s wanted this—for years. She finds herself instinctively leaning in too, responsive, but there’s this part of her brain that’s going, no, not here, not in front of all these people—the people in the pool, the people at the sides of the pool. It’s too impersonal—she wants this moment with Amy to be hers and hers alone.

Right as Amy moves in, Hope moves her face to the side, so that Amy’s lips crash into her cheek instead of her mouth.

Amy looks horrified as she pulls back, eyes snapping open and mouth opening in an apology already forming onto her lips. “Shit, I’m so—”

Hope shushes her, shaking her head. God, she wants to kiss her so bad—but it can’t be here, it can’t. She pulls herself out of the water, before turning to grab Amy’s hand—which Amy just lets her, kind of dumbly, and dragging her away from the pool.

She stops quickly to pick up Amy’s dress—which she tosses to her, and her own clothes, neatly folded. She almost begins to drag Amy into the house, before she realizes they’re both still in their underwear, so she turns around quickly and grabs her jacket out of the clothes pile.

“Wear this,” Hope says, giving Amy her jacket. Amy slips it on, movements autonomous, like a robot, face still one of complete horror. The jacket’s a little big on her—Hope does, after all, have a good eight inches on her in height—but it covers her body enough, and so Hope slips her hand back into Amy’s and continues to drag her forward, into the house.

Nobody seems to blink twice or make a comment at the fact that Hope is just straight up walking through the house in her underwear, which is pretty cool, actually—maybe it’s just the fact that Hope’s never looked more determined before, and that’s like, scary to them? Either way, Hope manages to get to the bathroom without interruption, pulling the door open, and snapping it shut immediately after Amy makes her way in.

Hope thinks about just stepping forward and kissing Amy, but it’s important that Amy’s the one that made the first move in the pool—she wants to do it right, now that they’re alone, together.

“I’m so sorry,” blurts out Amy, instead of walking up to her and fucking kissing her.

“Are you not going to kiss me?”

Amy just gapes at her. “I thought—”

“No. I want you to kiss me. I just didn’t want it to be in front of all those people.”

Hope clenches and unclenches her fists as Amy just stares at her.

“I wanted to do it right,” Hope elaborates, looking Amy directly in the eye. “Just us. Together.”

Amy closes her eyes. “Fuck,” she breathes, shaking her head. “The bathroom.”

“I was in here earlier. It’s pretty out of the way. Nick’s aunt house has like, three. We’re fine here.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Amy says, taking a step towards her. Her mouth crooks into a teasing grin—she seems to be going for levity, though Hope can see her hands shaking. “You just chose the bathroom as our hook up spot? Not even a bedroom?”

Hope fucking laughs—of course, of course. Book smart Amy, plotting best course of action—she would be thinking about the best place in the house to have sex. “Who says we’re going to hook up?”

She expects for Amy to look embarrassed at her apparent faux pas—but she doesn’t. In fact, Amy just grins wider, before hooking her arms around Hope’s neck and bringing her in for a kiss.

Their lips don’t clash together or anything as cheesy as that, but for first kisses—honestly, it’s pretty great. Hope doesn’t even know if Amy has been kissed before, but she’s pretty good at it, clutching at Hope’s shoulders like a lifeline—or maybe just for leverage, she’s so short—fisting her hands in Hope’s hair and bringing her lips in insistently, over and over and over.

Hope slips her jacket off Amy’s shoulders, and then there’s really only just one degree of separation between Amy and her actually fucking being naked, which is a thrilling thought and visual all at once. They kiss as they sink down onto the floor, Amy onto her knees and Hope cross legged, just to give Amy an easier time—height difference.

They don’t separate, either, when Hope begins to lean down onto her back, Amy climbing over her—Hope’s got her hand at the side of Amy’s face, and the kisses feel soft and tender and hot and just so much, all at once, and Amy just keeps on bringing it in, over and over again. It’s almost thrilling how enthusiastic Amy is about each kiss—she wants it, just as much as Hope wants it, climbing over Hope’s body and running her hands through Hope’s hair, touching her—kissing her. Jesus.

Is it cheesy to say that Hope’s intoxicated by it? She knows that’s an overused literary term for feelings around sexual situations—but god, she’s reveling in it.

Amy breathlessly breaks away from their kiss, pulling back slightly as her head tilts to the side, looking obviously disoriented.

“Are you okay?” Hope asks, concerned.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Amy says, closing her eyes. “Just a little disoriented. I think—think I have water in my ears, or something.”

Hope moves her hands back up to Amy’s scalp, carding her fingers through her still damp hair, smoothing out the tangles, watching Amy shiver. “Do you want to stop? We can stop if you want to,” Hope whispers, just to make sure.

Amy opens her eyes and leans back onto Hope’s hips. “No, we are not stopping.”

Hope nods, laughing with Amy as she begins to pull down Hope’s underwear, Hope lifting her hips up to give Amy an easier time. Hope shivers at the grazing of Amy’s knuckles against her thighs, eyes drifting shut to loose herself in the sensation, feeling Amy pull off her underwear completely, climbing back up her body, trailing a hand down Hope’s abdomen.

And, god, it’s almost perfect—Hope spreads her legs, hoping to give Amy better access, and Amy brings her hands down, lower, and god, it’s so close to being perfect, then—

Hope’s breathing hitches, and she snaps her eyes open.

God, Amy.

“Um, how is that for you?”

Hope grunts a little. “It’s—it’s okay.”

Amy’s voice comes out in an anxious rush. It would be cute, if she didn’t have her finger in—“Is there, like, another way you would prefer, or like—”

“Amy,” Hope breathes, hips shifting a little, turning to look Amy directly in the eyes. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I don’t—I don’t think that’s the hole you think it is.”

Amy’s face drops, and immediately removes her finger. “Oh my god—”

“—no, it’s okay—”

“—I’m so sorry—”

“—no, it’s okay—”

“Oh my god, I’m just,” Amy leans back completely, pulling away from Hope, leaving her with this empty absence of warmth that makes Hope shiver. Her hands are waving—she’s in freak out mode. “I’m just not used to approaching it from that angle, and my geometry was off—”

Hope props herself up onto her elbows, smiling slightly, trying to calm Amy down. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

The rest seems to go in slow motion—Hope watches as Amy takes a cup from the side of the bathtub, obviously trying to calm her nerves. There’s a split second of recognition as Hope realizes that’s the cup she dumped her joint in from earlier in the night, a byproduct of teaching Triple A how to roll weed. By the time Amy has it to her lips, Hope knows it’s too late to say anything, watching in thinly veiled panic as Amy begins to retch, opening her mouth, the cigarette falling out, retching some more, then—

Well, Amy throws up on her. There’s no real other way to put it.

It’s—disgusting.

Hope scrambles back almost immediately, vomit coating her right shoulder, splatters of it on her nose and right cheek, her eyelid. She stands up, blindly trying to make it to the shower behind her.

“Oh my god,” she chokes out, fanning her face, trying desperately not to throw up herself. “Oh my god—what the fuck, what the fuck—”

“I’m—I’m sorry,” she hears Amy reply, woozy sounding, disoriented, as she flicks on the shower water. “Are—are you okay?”

“Amy—” she chokes on her own disgust at the feeling of the vomit sliding off her body with the water, and all she can really do is work on autopilot, her mouth moving, saying—“Amy, just go. Just please go.”

And Amy leaves.

…

Hope doesn’t find this out until after the party, but a distraught, disoriented Amy leaves the bathroom to find Ryan and Nick making out by the fridge in the kitchen. She tries to get Molly to leave with her, still humiliated by her encounter with Hope and not wanting Molly to see Nick, but Molly, still believing that Nick is into her, refuses to leave, sparking a fight that most of the people in the party hear, and that a few assholes record. Cops arrive. Amy retreats back into the house with some other guests. Molly makes her way over to the pool, escaping.

Amy stages a diversion for the other party attendees to escape.

Amy gets fucking arrested.

…

Hope bikes home. Her grandparents got her a Pedelec for her seventeenth because she doesn’t like driving, at all, and it was slightly cooler than just riding a pedal bike everywhere. She’s a little drunk, also, which she thinks is fine—Hope doesn’t really know what the laws are for cycling while slightly inebriated—but it’s fine, she didn’t drink that much.

By the time Hope reaches the apartment complex, a familiar white Jeep is pulling into the curb—it stops for a second, the driver and the shotgun passenger talking, probably, before Molly gets out of the seat. Hope squints. She’s almost certain that that’s Triple A’s car.

“Hey!” she shouts, pedaling a little faster to reach Molly. “What are you doing riding in Triple A’s car?”

“The police busted Nick’s party,” she says, sounding incredibly tired. Hope turns her head to see Triple A rolling down the window closest to Hope, flipping her off with a grin, before rolling the window back up and driving away.

“Oh, shit.” Hope leans back on her seat. She thinks about Amy, wonders if she’s okay—someone always gets arrested the night before grad, though she doubts that person would be Amy. Maybe, though—Amy’s surprised her enough tonight, in both good and bad ways. Hope thinks of their last conversation, thinking that maybe she was a little too harsh, though it is a justifiable reaction to getting thrown up on. Eventually Hope settles on, “Is Amy okay?”

Molly’s expression seems to devolve into even more fatigue. “I don’t know. We had this big fight before the cops came—she wanted to leave the party, even though she knew things were going well with Nick.”

Hope furrows her brow. “Nick Howland?”

Molly looks at her sharply. “What other Nick?”

“Nick Howland’s into Ryan,” Hope says, crossing her arms. She really only knows this because she started hanging out with Triple A. She’s ignorant of the year level’s social politics otherwise. “You didn’t know? They were all over each other before you came into the party.”

It’s then does the gravity of Amy’s actions seem to dawn on Molly, and Molly seems to close her eyes with the weight of this knowledge, hands curling into fists. “Fuck,” she says, emphatically.

Hope tilts her head in sympathy. It isn’t easy finding out that your crush likes someone else.

“Sorry.”

Molly shakes her head. “It’s—it’s fine. I just—fuck, Amy. I denied Malala.”

Hope blinks in shock. “You denied Malala?”

The heavy shame that drives the nodding of Molly’s head is almost pitiful. “God, I need to go to sleep.”

“Shouldn’t you talk to Amy?”

“I will, in the morning.” Molly looks up at Hope. “Thank you.”

Hope raises an eyebrow. “What for?”

Molly shrugs, making her way towards her apartment. “Nothing. Just—thanks.”

…

Hope only realizes she’s been to Amy’s house once, while she’s walking into the driveway of Amy’s house. Just once—for her thirteenth birthday party. The thought is a little baffling to her, considering how long she’s known Amy for, and it runs through her head as Doug greets her at the door, surprised by her sudden appearance after so long, and the thought continues to run through her head until Amy opens the front door, awkwardly waddling out to greet her.

She looks like a fucking nerd—jumper over a striped collared long sleeve, high waisted cargo pants, socks and sandals. Hope wants to reach out and touch her.

“Hey,” she greets, voice a little awkward.

Hope, perched on the brick windowsill in front of Amy’s house, slouches a little more, trying to make Amy more relaxed. “Hey. Figured I’d bring back your clothes.”

Hope extends the plastic bag with Amy’s underwear in it towards Amy, watching her grab it with surprise. Truthfully, she hadn’t even realized Amy had taken her underwear off—she was too caught up in the kissing to really make note of it. Regardless, pocketing Amy’s panties had felt a little dirty—but it was for a good cause.

“Oh—thank you so much. I don’t—I don’t usually leave my underwear in places that aren’t my room.”

Hope breathes out a little laugh. “Yeah, I figured.”

“Um—are you—okay?”

Hope actually considers the question for a second. Sure, being thrown up on sucks, but she did get kissed by the girl she’s had a crush on for a good six years, so like—pros and cons. So she nods. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you okay?”

Amy decidedly avoids eye contact, though her raises her eyebrows and her voice becomes a little playful. “You know, prison kinda changes you,” Hope, grinning, nods along. “But, uh, I’m fine.”

Hope doesn’t want it to be this weird between them. Well—she doesn’t want Amy to think she harbors some secret grudge against her for sticking her fingers up the wrong hole and throwing up on her, even despite the fact that those two things side by side sound like an actual dating horror story.

She stands up, reaching out her hand. Amy looks at it, for a second, before taking it.

“You got fucking arrested,” Hope grins, laughing.

Amy chuckles nervously. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

Hope’s face softens. “I—I feel like I should’ve said this before we almost had sex, but I’ve liked you for,” Hope looks at the sky, just so she doesn’t lose her resolve. She doesn’t think she can take watching Amy’s facial expression, “a while. So I just want you to know—no hard feelings about the throwing up thing.”

She feels Amy squeeze her hand. “That’s—that’s good.” Amy breathes out. “I’ve liked you for a while too.”

“Like, freshman year while?”

“Like, your thirteenth birthday party while.”

Hope smiles. “It was when I rolled over and our faces were really close, right?”

“No, it was when you tried to sing The Winner Takes It All and started getting really emotional. I was like—wow, women.”

Hope gasps, mock affronted, before dissolving into laughter. “I was thirteen—give me a break.”

Amy squeezes her hand tighter. “So—what are you doing for the summer?”

“I think I’m gonna backpack around a bit. Remember that map you gave me, Christmas, sophomore year?”

“The dorky one with all the dragons on it?”

It’s not dorky—though saying that out loud would probably get her nailed as a dork. “That’s the one. I got kind of… obsessed with it.”

Amy grins, delighted. “I can’t believe you still have that. I gave that to you ages ago.”

“And I based my whole travel plan off of it. You’re really doing god’s work.” Hope sighs, wistfully. She notices Amy’s started to absently swing their hands back and forth. Hope stifles this ridiculously pleased grin. “I just want to go to anywhere I can find a couch to crash on, honestly. I just want to see some stuff before college.”

“Me too. That’s why I’m taking a gap year in Botswana.”

Hope tilts her head to the side. “You’re taking the whole year? I thought you were just taking the summer.”

Amy breathes in, breathes out. “Yeah, that’s what I just told Molly. I just didn’t know how to say it to her, considering how big of a wrench in her plans it is.”

“You’re brave,” Hope says, tugging Amy a little closer. She’s a little dubious about making out with Amy, like, right here right now, where her parents could literally open the door at any time, so she just settles for bringing her in for a hug, resting her chin on top of Amy’s head.

“Where are we going to go from here?” Amy says, murmuring against Hope’s chest. “I really, really like you. But—”

“—but you’re going away for a whole year.” Hope sighs. She doesn’t know if she has the constitution for long distance—it’s not that she would ever do anything to harm Amy, it’s just that she doesn’t think she’ll be happy with it. She wants Amy where she can touch her, see her in the flesh. Plus, she wouldn’t want to constrain Amy like that. This—even though she’s had feelings for a while—is so new, and new things need adjustment periods, and with Amy going to Botswana—they just don’t have the luxury.

Hope buries her nose into the Amy’s hair, breathing in.

“We don’t have to promise anything to one another. We just—are.”

“I like that,” Amy says, hooking her fingers in Hope’s belt loops. “But you still better call me.”

“Of course.”

“And you need to get a Snapchat. Even I have a Snapchat. Me.”

Hope rolls her eyes, fondly, tightening her hold around Amy’s shoulders. “I will. I’ll send you photos of the places I go.”

“I’ll send you photos of lions.”

“And after your gap year, if we still feel the same way we do now—”

Amy moves her head to the side, pressing the ghost of a kiss to the side of Hope’s neck. “We’ll try it. But with promises.”

They pull apart from one another, nodding to each other as if to confirm the validity of this transaction.

Hope cups Amy’s cheeks and pulls her in for a soft kiss.

As they pull apart, Amy says, “you know, if you ever end up on Botswana, you’d have a couch to crash on.”

Hope grins. “Are you propositioning me?”

“Well, technically, it won’t be my couch, ‘cause I’ll be staying with a family.”

Hope drops her voice to a scandalized whisper, “Propositioning me to do it on someone else’s couch? Amy.”

Amy kisses her in response—pressing her smile against Hope’s playful grin, until she presses harder and it moves into this deeper kiss, fisting the hairs at the nape of Hope’s neck, mouth moving in a slow rhythm, coaxing Hope’s mouth open, bringing their bodies closer together—

Hope hears a knock on the window. Pulling away with annoyance, Amy looks to the side, where she shrugs her shoulders as if to say—not sorry. Hope sits up from the windowsill, turning around, to find Molly sitting by the window, having seemingly watched their entire encounter.

“Oh my god, was she here the whole time?”

Amy nods, a little apologetically. “Yeah.”

Hope just laughs, shaking her head. “Tell her she’s a voyeuristic creep.” Hope leans forward to plant one last kiss on Amy’s lips. “I think that’s my cue to leave. Have fun, nerd.”

She squeezes Amy’s hand again, just because she can, before parting, walking away, almost dizzy with happiness.

“Get Snapchat!” Amy yells at her retreating form.

Hope's heart as really never felt more full. “I will!” she yells back, grinning.