"Samantha Fraser!"
Hearing that, and coming from that voice made Sam freeze in her place. She moves off of Deena, wiping her lips. She looks into the distance and spots her mother, standing there, anger fuming. "Mom, I-" she begins, but is cut off by her mom running over.
She grabs Deena by the collar of her shirt, throwing her onto the rough floor. Deena groans in pain, her stab wound burning.
"Stay away from my daughter!" she yells, kicking Deena in the stomach. "You fucking..! You're just a bad influence on her."
"Mrs. Fraser!" Kate yells, running in between her and Sam, "listen to me you piece of shit! You don't ever lay your hands on my friend, okay?"
"Or what?" she yells back.
The sound of Deena gagging was enough to make everybody turn around and look at her. Blood spat down next to her, coughing out more. Kate runs over to her, picking her up and holding her close, keeping her sat up.
"Come on, Sam."
"No! You know what! No! If it weren't for her, I would've been stabbed! I'm not just gonna leave her after you do this, Mom!"
"You will if I make you," she says, grabbing Sam and pulling her up the street. "No!" she cries, trying to run back. She eventually gives up, knowing if she did get out of her mothers tight grip, then it would just make things worse for her.
"Deena, oh my gosh! Are you okay?"
"I-I'm okay. Is Sam okay?"
"Sam is.." Kate sighs, "I don't think she will be."
Deena turns and looks Kate in the eye. "We, we have to help her, Kate. Please, I can't let her mother do something to her."
Kate sits there, Deena in her lap as the two look at each other. And in Deena's somber eyes, Kate could see true concern. And sadness. "Okay."
"Samantha! What do you think you were doing out there! Kissing another girl? And not just a girl, Deena Johnson?"
"What does that even mean? Deena is nice, she's kind, she cares about me, I lo-"
Sams mom slaps her across the face, and the blonde girl feels tears stream down. "You stay away from her. She's a bad influence on you."
"B-But..."
"Why can't you be normal, Samantha?"
Hearing those words broke Sam into pieces. She didn't cry. She couldn't. As much as she wanted to, not a single tear streamed down her face. She just stormed up the stairs and into her room, looking out her window. The rain falling down onto it.
As the raindrops turned into little leaks of water on her window, she puts her hand up to it, sighing heavily. She hears banging on her door, but she doesn't answer. She doesn't answer to any of her mothers calls. Instead, she opens up her window, getting on top of it, and climbing onto the roof of her house as she watched the rain fall.
She could hear the sound of her door breaking down, and the sound of her mother yelling was now more clear. "Samantha!" she yells as she runs over to the open window. "Those.. fucking Johnsons!" she screams as she leaves Sams room.
The blonde looks up at the sky, the gray clouds, the rain slowly falling down onto her. The sounds of the thunder rumbling. And it was nice.
And it became even nicer when she looked to her side and saw Deena and Kate climbing up a ladder. Concerned, Deena runs over to Sam, moving her hand all over her, making sure she's okay. "I'm," she begins softly, now feeling the tears coming.
She sobs into Deena's wet shirt, the rain falling onto them. She moves her hand under the blondes neck, holding her close. "I'm sorry," she manages to spit out, her voice cracking. "Sorry? Sorry for what? Sam?" she asks, now even more stressed.
"For her."
Deena stares into Sam's ocean blue eyes, frowning. "You can't apologize for your mother. She's a piece of shit. She hates people like.. like us."
"Do you come up here often?" Kate asks, trying to change the subject as she saw tears forming in both of their eyes.
"Sometimes. Usually when I don't wanna deal with my mom. Or when the yelling gets too loud. When the fighting turns too, personal."
Deena lays on her side, wrapping her arm around Sam. They all lay there, in that position, until they spot Simon driving down the street. His hair messy from the rain that had been pouring on him. They all move down the ladder, running their way over back to Deena's.
Simon turns around before walking in the door, hearing the footsteps behind him. "Well, isn't is my loved friends here."
"Hey, Simon," Deena smiles, "you wanna tell him the big news, Sam?"
Confused, Simon looks back and forth between the three girls. "There's a party at midnight tonight. And now it's, ten. So if we get going soon, and soon being in basically about an hour, then we should be there in time for the start."
Simon gets all hyper, jumping around. "Yeahh! I'm ready to get drunk!"
They laugh. Simon runs in, stealing one of Deena's shirts and sweatpants, walking downstairs with them on. Deena didn't mind. Deena, Simon and Kate would always use each other things, taking them from each other sometimes without asking, because they knew each other wouldn't care.
"You guys ready to go?" Simon asks, and everybody nods. Deena goes out to the car, and of course Simon gets in the front. "You think you can drive?" Kate asks, holding the keys up in her hand. "Yeah, I think so."
Kate throws the keys to her, and she sits down in the drivers seat, pulling the car out and getting onto the road. They arrive at the party quite quickly, as it wasn't too far away. Parties usually weren't too far away in Shadyside.
Simon eagerly runs out, jumping up in place as he waits for the others to go out. Deena locks the car, walking in with Sam by her side. Once they reach the party and step inside, the neon lights and crowded place was a lot to take in. Everybody ends up splitting up, but eventually Simon and Deena run into each other, the blonde curled boy drunk already. "Hellooo, my dear friend, Deena," he slurs.
"Hey, Simon."
"Where's your girlllllfriendddddddd?"
"What?"
"Sam! Where's Sam?"
Deena looks around, and she spots Sam, who waves to her. "Right there." Deena waves back, huge smiles on both of their faces.
"Go get your girl, Deena," Kate smiles, taking a gulp of the beer. Deena sighs, walking towards Sam. The blonde girl grabs the brunette by the waist, catching her by surprise. She leans in and kisses Deena on the lips softly, pulling back quickly.
"Sam," Deena stammers, feeling Sam rub her hands around her waist. "Deena."
Sam grabs Deena, pulling her backwards into an empty bedroom. Sam pushes Deena onto the bed, and Deena gulps, watching as Sam stands over her. Deena was a blushing mess, staring at the blonde girl as she plops down on the bed, next to Deena.
"You're drunk?" Deena assumes, sighing.
"Oh, Deena. I'm more sober than you."
Sam lays on top of her, kissing her, and Deena kisses back, only deepening it. Sam trails her hand down Deena's shirt, kissing her neck, smiling.
The door opens, and Deena jumps up, Sam looking at the door and scaring them both. They were more scared than usual, expecting it to be some homophobic dude, a drunk ass partier, or somebody not good. But this was way different.
It was way worse than the others.
To Sam, at least, because to Deena, well he looked like just another homophobic dude.
"Briar."
He stares at the two. Sam moves her hand from Deena's chest to her face. She places both her hands on Deena's cheeks, their noses touching as Sam whispers into Deena's ear, "go, Deena. Please. I can take care of this."
"No, no, I can't."
"You have to," Sam whispers, kissing her softly.
Sam gets up and walks over to him, and he picks her up and walks out of the room with her. Deena jumps up, running after her, but the man slams the door shut in Deena's face, and by the time she opens the door, they've blended into the crowd of people.
Deena runs to find Simon and Kate, and once she finds them, the two immediately know something is up. "Deena?" Kate asks, and she stares at her.
"Sam, fuck! Sam and I were, we were together and then this dude comes in and he snatches her, and now they're blending in with the crowd and I can't find them and Sam told me to leave and stay safe and then she kissed me and then she said she had to deal with it and—"
"Deena, calm down. We will look," Kate stops her, "now let's go."
They all spread out around the party, in search of Sam and the man. They walk in and out of rooms, carefully looking at people in the crowd, but nothing. Until they run outside and spot her, against a door, the man staring at her, running his hand up and down Sam's hair.
"Hey, leave her the fuck alone!" Deena yells, pushing him off of her. He turns around and stares at her, a smile quickly forming on his face as he looks at her. "Deena, this isn't a good ide-" Sam begins. "No, let your little mistake have a talk with me."
"Deena Johnson. What do you think you're doing messing around with my girl? Kissing her? You know Sam doesn't want that, right? You know she doesn't really like you," he says, approaching her slowly, "she just wants to use you."
"Yeah? Is that so? I've been used enough times to know what is and what isn't using somebody."
"So?"
"So," she yells, "Sam is not using me."
"No, you're right," he smirks, "but I am."
Confused, Deena looks up and then he turns to Sam, making out with her. Sam gags, not wanting anything to do with her ex. But she couldn't stop him, he had her arms held up. But she knew something she could do. Kick him.
But before she could do that, Deena gets up and pushes the man to the ground, but he's quick to get up. Sam holds onto Deena, shaking. They both slowly back up, but the man, Briar, grabs Deena by her shirt collar. Second time she had been grabbed by her shirt collar in one day.
He runs up to the wall, aggressively slamming Deena on it as she tries to squiggle her way out. "Do you think hurting me is going to do anything?"
"No, but I know your weak spot, Johnson."
"What does that even mea-" she begins, but then the realization of what he meant comes over her too late. He grabs Sam, throwing her down to the floor. Seeing Sam struggle to move the man off of him made Deena feel like crying. Is that how Sam felt in the school?
Her emotions mixed of sadness and anger, she yells out. "Stop!"
Briar gets off of Sam, walking towards Deena. "W-What do you want from me?" she stutters.
"To get out of Sam and I's relationship. But since I know that's not going to happen, right now, I want you to go and jump into that pool. Don't get out until I tell you to. And if you don't, then you'll just have to watch as your sweet little blondie gets kissed on the lips by somebody who isn't you."
Sam looks at Deena, shaking her head. "No, no, no, no, no, no," she says, her voice breaking with every word. But Deena just closes her eyes and smiles at the girl before jumping into the cold pool water, sinking underground. "No!" Sam yells out.
Simon and Kate finally run outside, standing around, looking for Deena. But they spot Sam, and run up to her, but all she can do is sob.
"Don't, please. Help her, not me. Please," she cries.
Simon and Kate look at each other, confused, until they spot Deena in the water. "Get out," he yells, knowing she's so weak she can't. Simon jumps in and pulls her out of the pool, water spitting out of her mouth. She coughs, looking around. Briar has already ran out, and Deena falls down, water still falling out as she feels her hand graze against Sam's.
"Deena," she says softly.
"I'm okay. I'm okay, Fraser."
"I'm going to kill that son of a bitch," Kate yells, dropping down and checking on them both. "Every time I go out," Deena sighs, "it never stops."
Kate looks into Deena's eyes. And for the first time in a while, she see's the pure look of emptiness on Deena's face. The look she has when she doesn't know what emotion is going to pour out, when she just doesn't share any clear emotion.
"Let's go back," Kate sighs, bringing them all to the car. Simon still wanted the front seat, he was drunk but he wasn't too out of it to not know the difference between the front and backseat. Kate drives, knowing Deena wasn't in the mood, or really in the state to do it anyways.
Once they get back to the house, everybody walks in, and Deena falls onto the couch, sighing. Simon lays down on the air mattress that hadn't been moved, and Kate gets on the chair, everybody sighing. None of them were tired enough to sleep.
But they were all sure tired mentally. Especially Deena and Sam.
And for the first time in the longest time, Deena wanted to talk about her emotions. How she was actually feeling. That wasn't a lie to cover up how she actually was, that wasn't her just saying she wasn't fine and moving on.
"I need to talk about it," Deena spits out, not being able to take it just sitting in the back of her head.
"Go ahead," Kate smiles, "Simon's really drunk and seems tired, but I'm sure he's gonna listen still."
Kate was happy that Deena wanted to talk about it. That usually wasn't something she did. She would keep to herself, bottle up her emotions all the time. One time she wrote down her feelings in a journal, and she said she would eventually show it to Simon and Kate, but they both told her not to worry.
"I just. I'm tired that every time I go to parties, I'm just beat up, sometimes literally, usually mentally, sometimes both, just because I'm a lesbian."
Kate gently moves her head up and looks at Deena, who was staring at the floor, moving her hair away from her face. Sam sighs.
"It's like it never ends, like I can never go out out of this house without getting harassed for it. Sometimes at school, even though I'm not usually as bothered there anymore, I still get harassed for it. Just because I like girls. Because I'm different than whats 'quote on quote' normal."
Deena was just numb, not sad, not angry, just numb. She felt no true emotions at the moment, she just wanted to yell.
"And what's so fucked up is that it's just rumors. I mean, the rumors are true, but I've never ever really came out as lesbian. People just assumed. You guys— Simon, Kate, you guys just knew. Sam- I guess you just assumed or, fed into the rumors."
"You gave off a vibe," Simon says, getting up but falling over. Somehow, even in moments like these, her friends always found a way to make her laugh. Even in the worst of times. Simon basically used humor to cope, he never took things really seriously.
Unless they needed to be.
"Nothing about you is straight," he grunts.
"I'm sorry, Deena," Sam manages to spit out as she fiddles with her fingers. Deena doesn't move from staring at her legs, even as she responds.
"I didn't think he would, attack you. You shouldn't of got into the water with me," she continues.
"I care about you Sam." she spits out, making Sam immediately look up at her, heart racing.
"So I'm going to do my best to protect you."
Sam gets up and wraps her arms around Deena, pulling her into a hug. Deena was too weak, too tired to hug back, but her numbness eventually turned into a feeling she herself didn't really know.
Love.
She hugged Sam back, her hand falling down Sam's ruffled shirt, moving her hand up every time her hand got too low. "I love you."
"What?"
Sam stared down at Deena, licking her lips before repeating her words. "I love you, Deena Johnson."
Deena freezes, moving her hands off of Sam's back, a faint smile forming on her face. "I love you too, Samantha Fraser."
They stared at each other, Sam staring into Deena's dark eyes, and Deena staring into her ocean blue ones of which she just couldn't get enough of. Deena clenches her jaw, putting her hands on Sam's shoulders, pulling the blonde in, their lips almost touching until Simon snored extremely loud.
Deena, Kate and Sam laugh quietly, trying not to wake Simon up. "There's just, practically nothing to do when school's out. There's parties, but this is somehow how they always tend to go. And it's just.. boring being here like this."
Kate and Sam nod, big sighs falling out of their mouths. "What if we went to the forest?" Kate suggests, "like old times."
"But this time with Sam along," Deena adds, "I mean, if we're all up to it. But I don't wanna necessarily stop going to parties as a whole. I just need to, become stronger again. I guess. Physically. I can't keep getting my wound hurt like this."
Sam looks at the clock on top of the wall, sighing, "I should go back before my mom starts a whole problem again."
"Wait!" Deena yells. Sam turns around, her back now facing the door, arms idle at her side.
"I wanted you to um, keep this," she says, handing her a stuffed animal and photo of her, "I know if's not really like a huge gift, but I uh, I bought the stuffed animal for somebody a bit ago and then I got fucking stabbed," she laughs softly, "so I'm giving it to you. Simon, Kate, don't you even complain, I give you gifts all the time. But anyways, it's um, just something to remind yourself of me, to reminds yourself this person cares about you when times get harder. I love you, Sam."
Sam pulls Deena in for a hug, and the brunette kisses her softly on her head. "Thank you."
"Any time."