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amber freeman was tara carpenter’s best friend.
she had been for a while, ever since she was babysat by tara’s older sister, sam—the two of them were very quickly inseparable. they’d hang out at school, then immediately get to hang out again at the carpenter’s house.
they’d do everything together. group projects, math assignments, making sand castles in the sandbox at recess…
the two of them would swing together, meet up by the gate every morning to talk about anything they could think of, and dunk on wes for fun. the two of them could make just about anything into a pastime because they were such close friends. it didn’t matter how much time passed; they’d still choose one another over anything .
so naturally, as they aged, amber was a little protective. after all, tara had been her best friend since the 2011 ghostface killings—when they were 7 and 8, respectively.
amber only wanted what was best for tara. the best friends, grades, and most of all… boyfriend .
wesley hicks had been crushing on tara forever at this point. he’d been friends with tara for the same amount that amber had.
it was 2011. his mom’s a deputy. when the ghostface attacks happened, she couldn’t take care of him as regularly, so she had sam babysit him for the time being. it was ideal because sam had nothing to do with the police force, or anybody on it; she was completely disconnected from the murders. the killer wouldn’t target her or wes.
so now sam had a trio of kids that she babysat, and all of them became friends. chad and mindy meeks-martin were also thrown into the mix at some point because their parents noticed that sam was available for babysitting.
of course, since wes had known tara for so long, most would think he’d have had his fair share of crushes. no way his little infatuation with the youngest carpenter could possibly leak from his childhood into his teenage years. that was simply impossible, right?
apparently not.
at 16, when wes was finally allowed to date, he asked tara out. tara didn’t respond immediately. i need time to think about this , she said.
amber didn’t like this. not one bit .
she never really liked wes. he’d always been weird toward tara. he had a crush on her, so of course he was weird—but she hated it. she hated him for it. she simply wouldn’t stand the idea of him liking tara.
so she always made it her mission to take jabs at him. everyone viewed it as just their friendship dynamic, a little bit of playful rudeness and the like. but amber’s relationship with him outside of those jokes was null.
and she meant every word she said to him.
amber tried to get tara to say no. she tried to be subtle about it. do you even like him? wouldn’t it be a disservice to him to date him if you don’t? amber would argue. she’d think her points were right in most circumstances. but this time, it wasn’t about having a point and helping someone realize they’re making a bad relationship decision.
no, not even close—her reasoning behind her discouraging words was to keep tara for herself. amber didn’t want her best friend to be swept away by some boring, mediocre mama’s boy. she wouldn’t allow it.
but none of amber’s thinly-veiled pleas were enough to stop tara from saying yes in the end.
about a week later after the initial proposal, tara texted wes. without informing, or perhaps consulting, amber. and amber knew that tara was her own person. she was allowed to do as she pleased. but come on. she said yes and didn’t even mention it to her at first.
amber felt intense rage the moment she found out. not directed at tara—it was never directed at tara.
she was jealous of wes, instead.
she was upset that wes got to be with tara rather than amber herself. amber had been tara’s best friend ever since tara was 8 years old. they’d told each other everything. they were always together.
a boyfriend would ruin that. wes, with his sickening puppydog eyes and tendency to cling to tara like lint in a lint catcher, would ruin it. he would ruin their entire friendship.
wes didn’t like amber just as much as amber didn’t like wes. she knew that if he could, he’d completely sever tara and amber’s friendship. amber had no doubt in her mind about that. so now that he had finally gotten tara, amber knew that her times with tara would disappear at a great succession.
☆
“hey, are you free after school?” amber asked, setting her textbooks down on the picnic table on the edge of campus. the area was green and full of life; it had a calming aura to it, and it was the chosen spot for the friend group’s after school antics most of the time.
tara set down her textbooks suit, still keeping her pen in hand as if it were a sword and she a knight. she mentally checked through her calendar. “uh, i think i’ll be with wes at the library today, actually,
“we’re studying together. we have that big math test coming up, and you know i suck at math…” tara trailed off, reminiscing on 2nd grade. she’d gotten held back that year; her lowest grade had been in math. ever since then, tara extended extra effort in math. amber cheered her on throughout, sometimes getting her little trinkets for a good grade or something like that.
so these little plans of theirs infuriated amber. studying together was always sort of tara and amber’s thing. amber was a bit of a mathematician. she grasped the subject well and it was home to her highest-performing grade, so she could always provide teacher-like help and support to tara whenever she was struggling with it.
wes wasn’t nearly as spectacular at it. he typically came home with an 80%. perhaps his mom was proud of him, but it wasn’t going to cut it for amber.
amber plastered on a tight-lipped smile. “that sounds fun.” she said, slipping her books into her backpack. she stood up and slung her bag over her shoulders. “i’ve actually got to go, too. plans and all that,” amber said, far too quick for tara to discern whether or not she was lying.
she walked down the sidewalk toward her car. tara said a goodbye, but it was lost in the air; amber had been nearly out of earshot, so the comment on her departure felt more like the whisper of the wind.
amber unlocked the driver’s side of the car roughly. her body was operating as if it were being controlled by keyboards and charging stations—she essentially felt inhuman. jealousy often made her feel that way.
her rage would become too much sometimes. her mind would meld into that of a robot’s, and all she’d be able to think about is how much she hates somebody, or how she can win someone (tara) back. amber was better than the others. she was better than wes .
tara doesn’t even like him, amber thought to herself, turning the ignition. the engine of the car hummed as amber began to drive home. she carried her thoughts with her throughout the entire car ride.
☆
amber stomped up the stairs. she didn’t have to worry about being polite or considerate toward her parents because they weren’t home. they were never home. she didn’t even know what they did all day, out of town. she didn’t particularly care—not during this moment in time.
she flung her bag onto her bed and immediately slumped down in her chair. she steeped in her anger toward wes for a moment, crossing her arms and practically staring lasers into the carpet.
part of amber almost wanted to storm into the library and confront wes all on her own. but she knew that tara wouldn’t appreciate her doing that, so she shut down the thought. she needed to do something else to change tara’s mind about wes.
her point about tara not liking him in the first place and their relationship being a disservice wasn’t wrong . she didn’t like him, and it honestly wasn’t very fair that she was with him in the first place. fuck amber’s reasoning. if she cared about wes more, she’d disapprove of tara’s choice infinitely more than she already did.
amber could feel in her bones that, with all things considered, their relationship wouldn’t last. but, deep down, she was also scared. scared that she would be wrong.
what if tara ends up liking wes anyway?
amber’s crossed arms turned into some form of torture. her grip on herself got tighter, her nails digging into her skin. she snapped herself out of her approaching-downward spiral and loosened her grasp. her nails had left little indents in her skin, but she didn’t really care.
amber went to retrieve her phone from her bag. she plugged it in and set it to do not disturb . amber knew that her jealousy wasn’t exactly the healthiest, so she needed some time to cool off instead of fighting the urge to text tara all about how she hates her boyfriend.
she was supposed to be happy for tara. she just couldn’t bring herself to be. not when it’s completely getting in the way of their friendship.
amber turned on the shower and flicked the setting to warm. she ran her hands under the water to make sure it was heating up and then went to assemble an outfit for her to change into. she set the clothes on her bed and drew the curtain over the window in the bathroom.
☆
the library with wes was so boring. tara tried her very best to remain engaged, and to enjoy it at least a sliver. but she simply couldn’t.
her and wes had been dating for around 3 weeks at this point. they’d studied together maybe one other time. it was the worst . wes just wasn’t the same as amber when it came to this sort of thing.
or anything, really .
tara didn’t exactly feel excited whenever they hung out. she knew people in relationships were supposed to do that sort of thing, and she also knew that they were meant to be happy about it. but tara hadn’t been. not once. in fact, she hated that she had to blow amber off. usually, her and amber would always hang out after school. but now it was different and tara didn’t much enjoy it.
and tara could definitely tell that amber didn’t like their relationship either. before tara had texted wes the confirmation of their relationship, amber already disapproved of the whole situation. she’d told tara to reject him, and that it was a bad idea to humor his crush because that could end disastrously. tara wished that she had listened to her now.
she absolutely hated seeing amber dodge wes and tara like that. she hated seeing her stop talking or talk drier whenever the two of them were together—giggling, doing couple stuff, it didn’t matter. just about any of the things that only came to be because of the fact that they wes and tara were dating now.
amber was still tara’s best friend. she knew that wes didn’t much like amber, and she suspected that wes’s after school hangouts were partially him getting back at amber for all of those jests about wes’s inability to get a girlfriend.
so while wes went on and on about formulas and equations and whatever mathematic bullshit they were supposed to be learning about, tara’s mind drifted toward amber. she wondered what amber was doing at the moment. probably out having fun, if she really did have plans like she said. even if she didn’t, it was probably much more fun than going on a date with some lame boy you don’t even like.
tara began to wonder if she should stay in the relationship at all. it may have only been 3 weeks so far, but it was certainly miserable the whole way through.
and she was beginning to question things she hadn’t thought about before. the significant decrease of amber in her everyday life was almost deadly. and tara began to wonder if, perhaps…
she liked amber, in the way she should like wes.
it wasn’t as if it was something tara had been completely in the dark about. but she didn’t exactly want to face it before. she didn’t want to ruin what she had with amber, but this whole dating-wes fiasco made tara wonder about whether or not it would actually ruin their friendship.
it felt more like their friendship could blossom into something else.
tara had been thinking about it ever since the day she said yes to wes. yeah, amber disliked wes. but the way she behaved about the relationship was… off.
mindy didn’t approve of tara and wes, either. but she wasn’t nearly as closed-off as amber became once they started going out. mindy would simply make fun of them, or blurt out the occasional ew whenever wes would say something related to tara. amber on the other hand, would almost completely shut down. she’d just pull out of the conversation and sneak glares at wes.
she obviously, again, knew that amber didn’t like wes in the first place. or was at least weird about them throughout their entire “friendship”. but this was strange. it felt more like jealousy rather than anything else.
the kind of jealousy you’d only get if you… liked one of the people.
and that person had to be tara. it would explain so many past behaviors from amber. but tara couldn’t tell if that was simply her getting her hopes up because she secretly wanted amber for herself, rather than wes.
she really wanted to talk about it with amber, but she didn’t know how.
the one thing she did know, though—especially based upon the ongoing library study date—was that she needed to break up with wes, and soon . she wasn’t sure how much longer she could tolerate the bland, uneventful dates with him.
they weren’t even dates, really. they didn’t mean anything to tara. not at all.
☆
wes pulled up to tara’s driveway. “alright, babe.” he said, shooting her a small, lovestricken smile. “this is your stop,”
tara mirrored his expression and said thank you, swiftly unbuckling her seatbelt and exiting the car. he waited for her to step onto her doorsteps before he drove off. she let out a sigh of relief once he did.
she rustled through her backpack for her house keys. she quickly located them; they were simple, drag grey keys with almost no shine to them. they were old and nearly rustic. tara’s mom couldn’t bother getting new ones. it wasn’t a problem yet, but tara had a sinking feeling that there would be a problem regarding the brittleness and rust as some point.
nonetheless, they worked, and that was what mattered.
tara twisted the keys in the lock and listened to the door click. she opened it and slipped inside of her house, closing the door just as fast as she had unlocked it.
she slid off her shoes and dropped her bag by the door. judging by the radio silence and lack of a response to her arrival, she assumed that her mother was either out drinking or sitting at an alcoholic support group. it was impossible to tell which it’d be, but often times they’d go hand-in-hand.
tara calmly went up to her room, phone in hand. she unlocked it, hoping to find a text from amber. to her displeasure, her phone was empty, aside from a text from wes that she couldn’t be bothered to open.
she seriously regretted saying yes now.
she just wanted to tell amber how she felt. tara knew she liked amber at this point. the library visit made it very clear to her; any past excuse that she had for her emotions were wrong. it is exactly what she had originally thought.
she had a crush on her best friend, amber freeman.
and she was dating wesley-fucking-hicks.
out of sheer impulse, tara opened her messages with wes. she still didn’t read the message he had sent earlier—instead, she immediately began to type.
i think we should break up , she wrote.
she hesitated for a moment. she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but tara knew that amber had been right before. it was wrong to string him out like this. so, with one final breath, tara clicked the send button and closed her phone.
she tossed it onto the opposite side of her bed and walked back downstairs.
☆
while amber was in the shower, she thought back to moments she had been jealous of wes before. it wasn’t a new feeling; it had simply been exacerbated by the fact that they were actually dating now.
every time she did something toward wes, she didn’t realize just how absurdly jealous she was. she hadn’t done anything out of a fit of jealous rage recently, which was a miracle considering their newfound relationship status, but she knew that she probably would very soon.
she thought back to one specific time where wes bought 2 movie:
1 YEAR AGO
“hey,” he said to the whole group, waving his hands to get everyone’s absolute attention. “i bought these 2 movie tickets, does anybody else wanna go? the other person… cancelled on me.” he added haphazardly. at this point, amber was very hyper vigilant toward his behavior around tara. his crush on her seemed to have gotten worse. she quickly noticed how close he was to tara, and his so-called sneaky glances at her as he was talking.
tara began to volunteer to go with him, but amber shot up like a bullet and thunderously spoke over her. “i’ll go!” she hastily forced out, crossing her arms. wes squinted his eyes and glared at her. they both knew what amber was doing.
amber could see that wes was fuming underneath. he stared at her for a moment more before his mouth began to quirk upward in the form of a mischievous smirk. “ah, what were you saying, tara?” he asked, pretending to be attentive and caring.
he didn’t care, he just wanted to get in her pants. amber could just feel it radiating off of him, and it made her sick.
tara suddenly sunk into herself. “uh, well i was going to say that i could go with you…” she scratched her neck. “…but if amber wants to, i won’t stop her,” she said.
wes didn’t even notice the way he was making tara feel—amber made a quick note of that. while amber wasn’t going to intervene in the situation, no possible interjecting as to avoid any unwanted detours in the conversation, she stared wes down. and hard. she made sure that he could feel something akin to lasers burning the back of his neck.
“no, no,” wes waved his hands around, as if a hand gesture could dispel any of tara’s internal doubts. “you said it first. it’s only fair that you go, right? i mean, first come first serve basis and all…”
amber immediately disregarded her original mission to not step in. “well, she clearly doesn’t wanna go, dillweed.” she flicked one of wes’s stupid frosted hair strands, almost wanting to make him boil over. “and you never said anything about first come, first serve!”
wes fumed silently, but everyone in the nearby area could see his face getting hot with anger. amber could practically feel the heat waves coming from his face.
“alright, fine. i’ll take you with me.”
it wasn’t too crazy, but it wasn’t exactly the kindest thing she’d ever done. she’d done it to get a ride out of wes, which surprisingly wasn’t something she did very often.
amber recalled the time when the group was hanging out at wes’s house and she swapped out his shampoo:
6 MONTHS AGO
“well, this is the place,” wes told the group, waving his hands wildly at the room. he plopped his backpack down by the door and walked toward his desk. he set down his airpod case and plugged it in to let it recharge.
chad had set his bag down by the front door already, so he immediately bolted toward the beanbag chair to the left of the tv. he sunk into it with glee and relaxed, letting the stress of the school day melt away. mindy chuckled at him, but deep down she really wanted to do the same thing.
liv was still new to the group at this point, so she stood around in the corner awkwardly and scrolled through tumblr on her phone. chad tried his best to get her engaged but it was hard when mindy was relentlessly teasing her.
tara and amber walked in together; amber had set her messenger bag down by wes’s doorframe, but tara still had hers on. she went to go put it down, but amber swooped in and grabbed it for herself. “i’ll put it down,” she said simply, setting it off to the side opposing wes’s own backpack. better safe than sorry.
chad and mindy were having some playful twin banter in the background while wes flipped through netflix for some obligatory hangout-sesh white noise.
he asked tara for some recommendations, which is what kickstarted amber’s whole jealous rage thing at the seemingly innocent get-together.
amber knew it was stupid, but she could see what wes was trying to do. tara was sweet and she cared about wes. as a friend, which was the most important part that wes just couldn’t seem to understand.
she tried to center herself throughout the evening, but she couldn’t. she felt just as out of place as liv. wes was stealing amber’s place as tara’s best friend (even if it was just for the evening).
luckily, amber was a rather artsy person. she kept acrylic paint in her backpack because she, if the correct opportunity arose, would absolutely use them to vandalize school property. she knew that she couldn’t just slip into wes’s bathroom with the paint bottle, so she’d have to wait for a very specific chance.
eventually, it all began to come together, thanks to liv asking to use the restroom. nobody exactly knew her, they just knew that she was creative or at least some form of artistic. amber could use this to her advantage.
then, proving amber extremely lucky—judy hicks came in to tell the group of friends that dinner was ready. their faces (primarily chad’s) lit up as they all trailed behind wes and went downstairs to get ready. amber excused herself, saying she had to grab something from her bag but she’d be down in a moment.
when liv finished up, amber took the red paint bottle from her backpack and she locked herself in the bathroom. quickly, she emptied out the contents of the quarter-filled shampoo bottle into the sink. she then squirted the red paint into the soap container, wiped off the edges and screwed the cap back on. she stuck it right back in wes’s shower and went downstairs with the rest of them.
(wes came to school the next day furious, remnants of red stuck to his frosted tips. amber held back her laugh all day).
that wasn’t particularly her best moment either, but it was funny.
except… this time was different. amber felt passionately about it. after all, they had become amber’s worst nightmare: an actual full-blown couple. which is the next level version of being someone’s best friend (in amber’s mind at least).
fighting the urge to march over to the library herself, amber laid her head down on her pillow and burrowed herself in her blankets. she’d deal with this tomorrow. not like she can really do anything to stop herself, anywho .
☆
amber’s bus ride was much, much less than interesting. she queued up a spotify playlist (one she’d often loop when she was upset, titled i’m this 🤏 close ) and looked out the window. it was a cloudy day; dreary and downcast, which reflected amber’s own mood.
she tried to keep her mind off of wes and tara’s relationship. but amber couldn’t occupy her mind by herself very easily, so she found herself opening up stab discourse on her phone. she scoffed at how absolutely absurd some of the opinions were. half of the people were so dumb, it was downright crazy.
woodsboro was quite a small town, though, so she arrived at school in no time at all. amber slipped her phone in her back pocket, stuck an airpod in her ear and gathered her things.
she got off the bus, turning up the volume of her music and keeping her head down. she didn’t want to talk to anybody.
of course, tara was a very loyal friend.
friend… that didn’t sit right .
nevertheless, tara was a great friend. she cared about amber and everyone else. so naturally, when she noticed amber’s long brown hair and her pin-clad messenger bag, she was bound to greet her. they were best friends. tara looked for her every morning. this morning wasn’t different.
it wasn’t different, so amber couldn’t be mad at tara. she never was. she was just mad at wes. and everybody else.
never tara, though.
“hey!” tara waved her hand in front of amber’s face. amber quickly paused her music and took out her airpod. so much for that , amber thought to herself. she dressed herself in a smile. tara shot a similar smile back, instinctively side-hugging amber.
amber didn’t want to pull away, but she did anyway. “where’s wes?” she asked through gritted teeth. tara’s demeanor immediately shifted; she frowned, stuffing her hands in her pocket.
“um… i’m not sure,” tara replied.
amber nodded bitterly. luckily (for amber, at least) the bell rang. tara and amber exchanged their goodbyes and headed toward their first class of the day.
amber had a lot of classes in common with tara. in fact, they had every class in common except for first period. and since they talked so much in all of their classes with each other, they’d been moved to opposite sides of the room. so she didn’t have to worry much about that.
she tried her best not to think about tara once she got to 2nd period. and then the rest of her class periods, too—but it was hard. they often would communicate with each other through glances, mouthing words, and eventually passing notes because amber couldn’t read lips for shit.
but amber wasn’t doing any of that today. she didn’t like seeing tara keep trying to talk to her. it made her feel so shitty, but amber was just too jealous. she needed to sort things out before she said anything back.
that was the responsible thing to do, wasn’t it?
☆
after school, amber made it her mission to find wes. as she sat in class, she thought through everything she’d been doing. she didn’t want to ignore tara, and she didn’t want to keep doing petty shit to get back at wes. she didn’t even really know what she was going to say to him.
she went to the benches that the group would stop by once class was over to meet up for a little bit. she set her bag down on the seat and stood next to it, surveying the area for any sight of him.
of course, she didn’t just see wes—she saw tara with him, too.
she didn’t account for this. suddenly, she couldn’t think about anything, either. she closed her hands into fists and walked toward wes.
“hey wes,” amber greeted him with a faux smile. “what are you doing?” her (pretend) cheerful aura quickly shifted to something more hostile. wes stared at her, confused by her sudden switch. amber never greeted him, and never changed this quickly over anything. what the fuck?
wes dodged eye contact awkwardly. “uh, nothing? i mean, i guess i’m talking to tara?” he swallowed.
amber raised her eyebrows and smirked, but the expression faded just as fast as it appeared. she put a hand on his shoulder. “wow, awesome. so interesting. have you too kissed yet?” she asked.
wes was taken aback. he didn’t know what to say. he opened his mouth uselessly, but ultimately closed it back up and furrowed his brow. tara stared at amber intently, trying to figure out what she was doing. amber simply stood there waiting for an answer.
instead she nodded, saying: “yeah, sounds about right. anybody have something they want to confess ?” she turned to tara, smiling widely this time. except it didn’t make tara happy this time—it instilled fear in her.
“uh, not really—”
“really? fascinating. then what did you tell me last month? not really anything, yeah?” amber interjected, gesturing toward wes.
tara gasped, suddenly realizing what amber was getting at. she grabbed amber’s arm and dragged her away from wes so that they could talk more privately. she roughly released amber, who let out a soft ow at tara’s grip.
“are you jealous?” tara asked. her face was stern and no-nonsense. tara wasn’t a pushover or a constant goofball, but amber didn’t often see this look on tara’s face. she nervously gulped.
amber snapped out of her haze and shook her head profusely. “what? no way! why would i be jealous ?” she stuck her hands up in defense.
tara didn’t look like she believed her, not one bit. she sighed, “are you sure? because it really seems like you’re jealous about something, amber.” she intertwined her fingers with amber’s own, in an effort to break down amber’s very obvious walls.
amber frowned. she was embarrassed about her jealousy, but when tara got like this… it was difficult not to tell her everything. “okay, fine. i’m a little jealous, yeah…”
“listen, i didn’t mean what i was trying to say. i shouldn’t have tried to—”
tara cut amber off, but not with words.
no, not with words… with a kiss . it was as if amber had fallen asleep mid-sentence; the entire scenario felt like something straight out of a dream. amber never expected this kind of thing to happen.
when tara pulled away, she continued to hold amber’s hand. amber didn’t say anything, but her mouth was agape and her eyes were practically falling out of their sockets.
“i’m not dating wes anymore, amber,” tara began. “i broke up with him last night. i thought a lot about what you said before. and, in general, i thought a lot about you …
“it wasn’t fair for me to date him, you were right about that. because i… well, i didn’t know it at first, but i liked you. the whole time. i just thought you should know, even if you don’t like me back the way i think you do. i don’t know… you just—you were right! i was being shitty! so i forgive you for the jealousy thing. i mean, i did something bad, too.”
amber giggled. she didn’t mean to, but it came out anyway. she let go of tara’s hand and placed it on her hip instead.
amber’s eyes flitted to tara’s lips. she took a deep breath. “it’s okay,”
just as tara had done a moment ago, amber closed the gap between them. this time, it lasted longer; it didn’t feel anything like the fireworks most would describe it as, though. it simply felt soft and comforting. it was more like a cloud, or a nice cup of coffee, or a good book that makes you love reading again.
“tara…” amber whispered into her lips. “i like you, too.” she smiled into another kiss… and the jealousy had gone away.
now she had tara. and it felt good .