The Silent Rebellion of Avoidance

Chapter One

Kissing Emma Walsh was perhaps the stupidest thing that Penelope Elmwood could have ever done in her entire young life, and she was pretty sure that she was going to wake up regretting it until the day she died, and what was worse?

She could never fix it.

Now, she didn't mean the first time that they had kissed each other, that had been fine.  Who could possibly hate two awkward kids fumbling around and kissing each other just to get it over with?  That had been a sweet, innocent moment with no expectation of something more... Not even when Emma had kissed her on the cheek at the end of that camp.

Not even when she'd realized that Emma was the first person to ever make her heart speed up at the mere thought of them.  Plus, that kiss had been very easy to work through... Or, more accurately to push down.  All it had taken was extensive prayer sessions, multiple confessions to her priest, and a few extra masses that her mother had assumed she was going to to 'deepen her faith.'

It was the only time that she'd ever been sure that her mother was proud of her, save from when she won her first Junior Olympic medal at thirteen, but that was a given.  What former Olympian wouldn't be proud to see their daughter following in her footsteps even if it was starting to feel like it was killing her sometimes, right?

First time in the last year at least... Two years.

God, it'd been two years since she was really sure that her mother was proud of her... And if this shit with Emma ever resurfaced, she was pretty sure she could kiss goodbye any chance of her mother's pride coming back out.

The kiss though - the kiss that had changed everything... That had happened over the summer.  The very fucking beginning of summer when Emma had been nice enough to bring her and Tegan along on a Walsh trip to California.  It'd started out fucking lovely, beautiful room, wonderful thrifting options, some cool record stores, and then...

Then Emma had to fuck it up like she always did.

She'd kissed her.  In public.  On a beach just feet away from her parents - Emma's, thankfully not her own.  She would've had to kill herself.  Emma had kissed her so naturally, like it was as simple and automatic an act as breathing for her, but it had picked apart every single wall that Penny had carefully crafted in a way that had her still reeling from it over three months later.

Three months.

God, it had been three months since she'd been able to sit down and actually have a normal conversation with Emma Walsh without thinking about the incident.  That was why it was the biggest mistake of her life.

Because they had been friends.  Good friends.  Best friends... And now?  Now she couldn't even fathom the thought of having a private conversation with her because her fucking heart always tried to beat out of her chest like a goddamn hummingbird on meth.

It's not a problem she'd experienced with anyone else, and it's not like Emma was the only person she'd ever kissed in her friend group.

She had kissed Esme Panchek on multiple occasions, one of which was more recent than her kiss with Emma, and she could handle being around her just fine, but that was because of how Esme treated it.

She was normal with it, she made it easy, she never joked about it in a way that made Penny wanna crawl out of her skin or looked at her in a way that made her genuinely worried that she might try it again, right then and there.  No, Esme was just content being her friend.