Toni lost herself in Shelby's embrace for... she didn't know how long, instead just sinking into the feeling of having Shelby in her arms again. There was no sound except their breathing, no light except the floodlights on the court and no feeling except the comfort of being in each others arms again.
"I really fucking missed you." Toni's voice broke, her head still resting on Shelby's shoulder.
"Me too," Shelby replied softly. Toni's heart swelled every time Shelby did or said something to remind her that she was still Shelby.
Their lips met and Toni sunk into the familiarity that was Shelby. The comfort, the warmth, the flutter of her eyelashes against her cheek. It was all just so right.
Toni pulled back to look into Shelby's eyes "Do you still love me?" The weight of the words sat heavily in her chest as she waited for a reply.
"Was that not... obvious?" she replied, cocking her eyebrow.
Toni laughed and looked down at her shoes.
Sensing Toni's insecurity, Shelby clarified, "Yes, Toni, I still love you. Apparently there is not a lot anyone can do to change that."
Toni looked up shyly. "I love-"
"Oh my God!" Shelby interrupted, cutting Toni's declaration of love short.
She looked around frantically, "What? What!?" Nothing was out of the ordinary.
"What happened to your face" Shelby asked quietly, as though she almost didn't want Toni to hear her so she wouldn't have to hear the answer.
"Jesus Shelby! You couldn't have waited until after I confessed my undying love to you? I was nearly done. There was only two words left of it." Toni ranted. Shelby still looked concerned. "I actually ran into a wall, if you can believe it."
"You know you don't have to lie to me just because I've been away. I can handle the things you tell me."
"No! I am telling the truth." Toni scratched the bad of her neck, not really sure how to approach the last two months with Shelby. "I don't live with Carol anymore. I haven't since the night you went away. Martha's family have taken me in. It's a whole thing. God I hate that this is about me right now. I wanted to know how you were doing."
Shelby's face broke out in a smile. "Seriously!?" Shelby tackled her in another hug, she had to take a few steadying steps because of the force of it. "I am so damn happy that you are out of there. I was so worried." She murmured into Toni's shoulder, the shoulder of her coat muffling her voice. Toni instantly felt guilty that Shelby had been thinking she was at Carol's the whole time.
"Yeah me too," she replied, her words taking on double meaning. "There's kind of a lot that we need to talk about, huh?"
Shelby hummed in agreement, but her shoulders tensed up under Toni's grip.
Shelby stepped away and grabbed the basket ball that Toni had taken with her; giving it a few experimental bounces. "It feels so good to actually do something like this."
"Like what?" Toni asked. A bit confused as to what Shelby was trying to say.
"Something that- I guess... I wasn't allowed to do in camp. Male dominated activities. They said opposite sex activities would encourage my SSA."
Everything Shelby just said made her feel like she had been transported to the 1950's. Although, something stuck out to her. "What is SSA?" she asked, thinking that Shelby had some kind of condition that Toni wasn't aware of.
"Same sex attraction," Shelby clarified with a wince. "I guess some of the language stuck. Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Please. You just got back. Things will take as long as they take to go back to normal." She knew the feeling from experience. "It does sound like a medical condition though."
"I know," Shelby sighed. "Like you said, some things are gonna take some time."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"I don't think I'll ever want to talk about it." Shelby looked apologetic and Toni's heart broke for her. "It was just so much harder than I thought it would be to stay present, to stay myself. And, to be honest, I'm just I'm really fucking tired."
Toni wished she had the perfect thing to say when Shelby's voice cracked and her eyes filled with tears. But she didn't. Instead, she gentry pried the basketball our of the crying girl's hands and pressed their foreheads together, "I'm sorry. Shelby. I really am." She was sorry for so many things and the words just couldn't carry the gravity of what she was trying to convey. She kissed her forehead softly and swiped her thumb under Shelby's eyes to wipe away the tears.
"I'm just really tired." Shelby choked out before breaking down in Toni's arms.
"I know, I know, I'm so sorry. I know," Toni murmured as they sunk to the ground, Shelby curled up so small in her lap.
This was what they had reduced Shelby to. She had left so strong and bright but here she was, almost in the foetal position, her body racking with sobs, being held as tightly as possible by the only person that had actually given a shit about her in 2 months.
It was fucking devastating.
————
Toni decided not to tell Shelby about her last confrontation with Carol and what she had found out about her past. Shelby didn't pry either. Toni was not going to add to Shelby's exhaustion unprompted. There was time to go over everything. They had so much time.
They were sitting across from each other, bouncing the ball back and forth.
"Do you know..." Toni started as Shelby ran off to get the ball that she had gone bouncing away from where Shelby was supposed to catch it. "Actually, never mind," She shook her head, changing her mind.
"That is so annoying." Shelby scolded as she ran back with the ball. "Why wouldn't you even verbalise it if you weren't going to tell me? Now I'm just left with blue balls."
If Toni had been drinking something she would have choked. "Sorry, what?" She croaked out through a snort.
"Oh for Christ's sake! What have I said now?" Shelby crossed her arms over her chest and pouted like a disgruntled child.
Toni snickered. "Where the hell did you learn that phrase?"
"Well, Andrew used to say it when-"
"Don't even finish that sentence. Got it. Loud and clear." A little bit of jealously slipped into her tone. Totally needlessly, she remembered. Shelby was with her now. "Yeah, love, you are not using that phrase right at all. You can probably just... shelve that one. Don't think that will be something you'll need."
"You're not going to tell me what it means?"
"I think you might be embarrassed if you knew what you actually just said." Toni replied, revelling in the hilarity of the misinterpretation but trying to protect Shelby's pride a little bit.
"At least tell me why I'll never need to use it?"
Toni thought about it and decided not to torture her girlfriend any longer. "Because you aren't dating someone with balls and you don't own a pair yourself."
"But- Oh!" Shelby turned bright red. "Don't be vulgar Toni!" She hid her head in her hands.
"It's just the truth! Also, I do believe that it was you that brought it up first."
"No! I didn't know!" Shelby shook her head furiously as if trying to shake the image from her mind. "I didn't know it was that literal, I thought it was a metaphor for something," she continued a bit feebly, digging the hole even deeper.
"What else could that possibly be a metaphor for?" Toni's words were barely coherent over her laughter. She took a few steadying breaths. "Well, not that literal, they certainly don't actually-"
"No, oh my God please, no, stop." Shelby put her hands over her ears, revealing her face which was so red at this point it looked sunburned under the floodlights. "What were you actually going to ask me?"
Toni felt a bit bad because, even though poor Shelby was mortified, at least she was laughing. Toni didn't want to wipe the sheepish smile off of Shelby's face.
"It's nothing."
"Alright, just know you've really annoyed me and I will be playing all of your least favourite songs in the car when I drop you off at Martha's."
Toni didn't really have the heart to say they were pretty much all her least favourite songs, Shelby's music taste really was not compatible with her own. She did like that one oddly sensual Taylor Swift song though. Maybe just because it reminded her of Shelby.
"So, I was going to ask," Shelby hesitated, "How are we gonna do this. You know, this next year. Because I'll go to college if everything goes well and I don't know what your plans are but we can find a way to be together after. But this year; I don't know what we're going to do."
It was exactly what Toni was going to ask her. She was grateful not to be the one that brought it up.
Unfortunately, Toni didn't really have a proper answer. "I was going to say we just, I don't know, sneak around? But it's too risky. Way too risky. If you got caught again-" Toni's mind short circuited, suddenly realising that Shelby didn't know that Carol was the one that told Dave.
"Earth to Toni?"
"Yeah." She cleared her throat. "Sorry, yeah what was I saying?" She had totally lost her train of thought. She hoped Shelby didn't think it was unusual.
"Yeah, you've kind of been doing that a lot lately, is something on your mind?"
Shit.
Shelby would be furious if she lied here. And it wasn't really something she could hide for much longer.
"Yeah it's just PCS," Toni replied so fast that if you recorded it and halved the speed it would be too fast. She hoped her her use of a foreign acronym would throw Shelby off.
"Did you just say PMS?" Shelby dug around in her coat pocket for a minute, pulled out a tampon and tossed it towards Toni. She was so caught off guard that it just bounced off of her forehead.
Toni felt her cheeks grow hot. "No! Sorry no. Just don't worry about it. It's a long story."
Shelby must have felt Toni's tension. "Okay. Just tell me the acronym and I'll leave it at that."
"But you'll just google it."
"Yeah, but we can talk about it when you're ready to. You aren't pushing me so I won't push you."
Toni pursed her lips and conceded. It seemed like a fair compromise. "Post-concussion syndrome."
Worry immediately flooded Shelby's features. But Toni watched as she straightened her forehead creases out little by little until she looked calm. "Okay. Um, we will talk about that. At some point."
Toni could tell that she wanted to talk about it now. She cleared her throat, "We can't sneak around. Basically."
Way to give the girl literally anything but a plan. Super helpful Toni.
She tried to come up with something at least vaguely helpful. "How about we meet here? A few times a week, just until the end of school and then we can go an live our lives. No one will know where this is and no one will suspect anything. No one would recognise your car out here. You could say you have a club or something? How much is your dad monitoring you?"
"It's an option..." Shelby drifted off, her face told Toni everything she needed to know. She hated the idea.
"I'll keep thinking sorry it was a stupid idea-"
"I didn't say it was stupid!"
"Your face said it for you."
Shelby sighed, "no it's just, a year and a half long relationship restricted to a public basketball court."
"Right..." Toni nudged, seeing a slight problem but nothing they couldn't overcome.
"I really have to spell this out to you?"
"Guess so."
If we do that... You do realise that we will probably end up having" Shelby dropped the volume so that Toni could barely hear her "sex for the first time in my car?"
God Toni loved this girl. A grin spread across her face and she raised an eyebrow, "Well, I for one think that-"
"Don't you dare."
"Okay then," Toni shrugged cheekily, "No car sex ever. Got it."
"That's not what I said!"
Toni playfully stuck her hands out in defence, "It's cool. I respect your boundaries. Consider it banned from our relationship."
Shelby groaned in frustration, "You are a real pain in my ass Toni."
Toni just cocked an eyebrow again. Causing Shelby to get even more flustered.
She was glad that they could make light of the situation. Because it was a really shitty one. For two people that had gone through unthinkable trauma, they really brought out the best in each other.
Toni decided to stop teasing Shelby, "Okay, we will cross that bridge when we get to it. Neither of us are going to be ready for that any time soon anyway. Do you think your dad will be keeping an eye on you for long? You could always walk to Martha's, that way your car won't be spotted."
"I think he is going to be watching out for me for a long time Toni. I wouldn't even be surprised if he tracked my phone."
"What, today?" Toni panicked.
"No no, I 'forgot' it. I can get away with pretending to forget it for a while because I can say I was so used to going without it at camp. After that I'm not sure."
The more the situation became clear the more impossible it seemed. It was like every time they thought of something there was a obstacle.
This was not something that Toni could find a solution for. But she knew someone that could. Or something.
She whipped out her phone and started typing.
"What you doing?"
Toni pointed the phone at Shelby, her google search of 'how to make someone tracking your phone think you are somewhere else."
Shelby laughed. "Toni, that is not going to wor-"
"Okay! There is an app."
"Wait, really?" Shelby peeked over her shoulder, looking at the phone screen.
"Yep, the wonders of modern technology Shelby."
Shelby delivered a soft slap to her shoulder. "Don't be an ass." Then, "You think it could work?"
Toni couldn't see why not. It seemed legit.
"With this you could even drive over to Martha's house... well, you'd have to walk because of your car. But yeah, just drop a pin at church or something and Violá! You're dad will think you are having a one on one with God-"
"Don't say it," Shelby warned.
Toni couldn't resist, "-instead of me."
Shelby fake gagged dramatically as Toni laughed. "I am 1 percent less attracted to you now."
"Ah, that's okay. I can live with 99 percent" Toni smirked.
"See, that arrogance just brought you down another percent, what are you? A frat boy?"
"98 percent? Okay, now I'm a little bit hurt."
Shelby nudged her with her leg, "Aw sorry. You can have that 2 percent back."
Toni smiled and rested her head on Shelby's shoulder.
But Shelby wasn't finished. "That brings you back up to 80."
"Hey! Come on, that's hurtful!"