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Summer is just as sticky sweet as Roz remembers it, ice cream and sweat in equal measures. Sabrina, though, is different. Something wild about her eyes, her smile comes off too strong. It is her agitation that drags them through tumbling on the strangely vacant football field, horror movie marathons and concerts of shitty bands; Sabrina’s hand small and warm and insistent around Roz’s own the whole time. And Roz, always grateful for any opportunity to go out, follows her. Sabrina leans in and presses the warm tip of her nose into Roz’s cheek, all strawberry lip balm and sweat, and Roz’s heart freezes in her chest. This won’t end well, she thinks. Sabrina takes her hand, fingers sliding into the gaps like a key into a lock, and Roz follows.
The first time they kiss, lightning slits the sky open like a knife and it bleeds bright; thunder booms and rattles their bones and the shoddy bus stop they chose for shelter. They ran for it, shrieking and laughing in the downpour, and were still catching their breath when Sabrina leant in and pressed her mouth against Roz's. She tastes of cheap fast food and cheaper alcohol, but Roz's breath still catches in her throat. Roz clutches the backs of Sabrina's arms with hands cold from the rain and kisses her back desperately, hungrily. Sabrina's laugh is drowned out by thunder. But she keeps kissing Roz, hands as greedy as her mouth is. They only pull apart when a bus coughs up to a stop and they hop on wild and reckless, hoping it will take them where they need to go. Roz, curled up in her seat, watches Sabrina’s reflection in the dark window -- she has the smile of someone who has a secret.
They're sprawled on a blanket in the woods, sheltered from view by thickly green bushes, when Roz thinks: Sabrina’s done this before. Well, Roz has too, with the boy at Bible Camp two summers ago, but this is different. Sabrina's done this with a girl before. It makes her falter.
"Are you okay?" Sabrina asks, eyes soft. It's an unusual look for her, ever so intense, but Roz likes her like this. Soft and seventeen, more of a girl than anything else. "We don't have to-" Sabrina rushes on to say, but Roz shakes her head.
"I'd like to." She squeezes Sabrina's thigh in assurance.
Sabrina's eyes remain soft and she smiles a sweet private smile of the times before highschool and cheer. Roz's heart lurches in her chest.
“Kiss me," she says, and Roz does. “Here,” she says, and Roz puts her hands where she is told to and her mouth where she wants to. “More,” Sabrina says, breath stumbling through her throat, and Roz gives into it.
The rest of summer break is dizzying -- more cheer, more ice cream, more shitty bands and shittier drive-in movies, kissing in secret. Roz realises that this new-found dimension of their friendship won’t take. So she doesn’t hold back her eagerness and lets herself take what is offered and a bit more than that too. It feels good.
It’s early October and Roz knows this is the last time. Sabrina hasn’t shut up about Harvey, who suddenly got hot over summer, for the past month. Roz is lying across her bed naked, head propped up by her hand. She listens to the wind, trying to pry the windows open, and Sabrina’s scattered afterglow thoughts -- do you think Harvey will want to go to Winter Formal with me? Sure, Roz says. The familiarity of the space reminds her of childhood and makes her feel nostalgic.
“Girl,” Roz says, reaching down to the floor for her shirt, “what are we doing for your birthday?”
Sabrina’s eyes light up the way she’s used to, and Roz is reminded that some things will never change.