Shelby comes home and she doesn't look at Toni at all, not once, not even in either of the two classes they share, and one of them is with Andrew, too, who Shelby practically drapes herself all over with newfound enthusiasm until the starting bell rings, and Toni sinks down in the back row and has to pretend like she's not devastated by this display clearly meant for her, meant to show her exactly where they stand now, because Martha's sitting right beside her.
"I wish she'd apologize to you, at least," Martha says, watching Shelby too. "I know she was away all summer, so she couldn't before, but if she doesn't really believe all of that stuff she should say it eventually."
Toni wants to scream but she fucking covers for Shelby anyway, still pretends they're nothing. "Is she supposed to do the rounds with everyone, Marty? Fatin and everyone in school who's applicable? Rachel's never had a boyfriend and Dot dresses like the biggest lesbian in the world so how about she just apologizes to everyone, just in case." Toni snorts and rolls her eyes. "Just because I was the only one who called her out on her bullshit doesn't mean I'm special."
"You're in a bad mood," Martha notices.
"I'm always in a bad mood," Toni says, and Martha doesn't even argue it.
Shelby's always been great at pretending not to be aware that Toni exists when she really wants to, to the point where Toni's resorted to a little bit of pigtail-pulling in the past just to get a rise out of her, but over the summer Shelby has ascended from Professional to Grandmaster of ignoring Toni, and Toni runs five miles every morning and tries not to cry angry tears over it. On a day she wakes up late and only runs two miles, she comes home a little early, screams into her pillow a bit and then whips it across the room as hard as she can, where it knocks a lamp to the floor and shatters the bulb.
The anger issues are definitely back—probably compounded with the abandonment issues and the feelings of worthlessness. The worst part is that she doesn't feel like she can really tell anyone about it and it all feels so stupid, they were just sleeping together and barely went on one date where things got a little too close to starting to be more. On paper, that's all it was. It makes sense to feel terrible for Shelby after what she's been forced to endure over the summer, but this amount of utter heartbreak feels so unearned and unexpected. Toni hadn't realized it would hurt this much.
She's both devastated and helpless, because she knows she can't approach Shelby first without risking outing her or causing some sort of scene that will hurt Shelby more than Toni already has, and Shelby refuses to make the first move.
But she feels like a needy child, the way she craves Shelby's attention, or even just her acknowledgement, and she gets desperate eventually, lashes out and straight-up keys a tally-mark-sized line into Shelby's car after two weeks of Shelby acting like nothing ever happened between them—the exact kind of shit she did after she got dumped by Regan last year, just in case she needs any more evidence that she's regressing. It's Andrew who catches up with her while she's heading into school the next day; he grabs her arm roughly and holds her tight, telling her through gritted teeth, "Hey. You stay away from my girlfriend."
"I haven't gone anywhere near your girlfriend," Toni shoots back, and Andrew, to her surprise, looks a little uncertain.
"Well... she said to tell you to stay away from her. And that you're lucky she's not pressing charges for—whatever you did."
Toni realizes Shelby's barely told him anything. He looks at her for another moment, both visibly confused and also trying to be intimidating, and then stalks off, and Toni rubs at her arm where he grabbed her and bites the inside of her cheek. Even committing a literal crime has only gotten her a warning from an uninformed messenger, and Shelby's message doesn't indicate to her that things will be changing between them anytime soon.
