dedicated to xreiireiix because she puts up with my shit and nagging and half-drunk snapchats. ily.
YEAR: 2016
"YOU LOOK LIKE you've seen a ghost," Greyson laughs, smiling at the group of five that she used to be a proud member of. She looks at them and she decides that really, nothing has changed. Kadence still looks like the alpha bitch, and crazy Xienna is still, well, crazy. Maverick and Braxton are still best friends, and Orianna is still their baby sister.
But there are two people missing - Blaire, and herself. If this were last year, Blaire would be placed beside Maverick, their fingers intertwined. She would be facing Greyson, laughing at something she said. Braxton would complain about the lack of boys in their little clique, and his sister would remind him that she's practically a man, anyway. Kadence would be reading her AP Chemistry textbook, and Xienna would be arguing about something stupid with Maverick. She remembers everything clearly. She remembers what it was like when Blaire was still alive, and when she was one of the girls to be. She remembers when everything was at it should be - with the bottom feeders and the high-fliers.
Nothing has changed.
But she intends to change just that.
- - -
"What the fuck is Greyson Alyssa Chandler doing here?" Kadence hisses. "And, more importantly, why did no one know?"
Xienna looks at her best friend and she raises an eyebrow. Kadence is known for her usual calmness - something sharply contrasting Xienna's temper, but when Kadence Gaardner gets mad, she gets mad. Luckily, she's not the object of her best friend's wrath.
Instead, her wrath is directed to her little Kadence wannabes. She glares at them, and they lower their heads in shame.
"Take a chill pill, Kade," Xienna drawls, looking up lazily from her magazine.
"A chill pill?" she hisses. Kadence closes her eyes, regaining her poise. "How did I not know that Greyson would show up today, girls?"
None of her minions reply. Xienna wonders what it's like to be them - scared of the big bad Queen who can make or break their social life.
She decides she doesn't really care.
Kadence holds up a hand. "You know what? Get out of my sight."
The girls stand up simultaneously and scamper off, none of them daring to look at Kadence. Xienna casts a look at her best friend and grabs her pack of Lucky Strikes. Xienna doesn't smoke, but Kadence does - heavily, in fact. Wordlessly, Kadence takes one and puts it between her lips, and lights it with simple expertise.
Kadence glares at the sky wordlessly, taking puff after puff of her cigarette. The two girls sit in comfortable silence, and soon, Kadence has finished her third cigarette.
"Shit," she mutters, "Fuck."
Xienna glances at her, and decides it's safe to ask. "What's up?"
Kadence throws her pack of cigarettes on the floor, joining the leftover dirt on the bleacher floor. "I ran out of cigarettes," she hisses, running a hand through her hair.
"Why're you so pissed by Greyson's arrival, anyway?"
"Because it's fucking Greyson Chandler. Greyson Chandler. Do you remember nothing from last year? When Greyson was Blaire's bitch?"
"So Grey was a bitch. Maybe things have changed," Xienna suggests, shrugging halfheartedly. She's never been a big fan of Greyson. In fact, she most probably hated her the most back when Blaire was breathing, or was the most vocal about it. She's not happy about her return, but she doesn't know why Kadence is extra pissed. In their friendship, Xienna has always been hot-headed and easily angered, while Kadence has been calm and less vocal about her constant annoyance. It's why the click so well, really. They balance each other out, an acid and an alkali neutralizing.
Fire and water.
Kadence slumps down, sitting beside Xienna, head bowed. "You know all the drama that went down because of Grey. And you know what happened with Blaire," she says in a hushed whisper.
Xienna's body turns rigid and her lips press flat together. She knows, of course. The drama between their little clique is no secret to anyone. No one knows, though, what really happened.
All they know is that a girl died, and that was enough to shut everyone up.
Soon, Xienna hears panicked breaths from Kadence and she realizes her best friend is crying. Tears - hot and salty - trickle down her face. Xienna hugs her, whispering words of solace, though she's tempted to break down. Because she remembers. She remembers vividly and clearly - the gun, the fire, the water, the aftermath. She remembers.
"I'm scared, Xien. I'm so, so scared."
And that's enough to make her break. Two crying girls - flames and waves, fire and water - hug each other. But they don't neutralize.
Instead, they explode.
- - -
Maverick waits by her locker, impatiently checking his watch. Greyson is back. Greyson is back. Greyson is back. He remembers life as it was before. Stolen kisses, whispered declarations of love - smelling of vodka and lemons. Gentle touches, fierce hugs. 2 a.m. phone calls and 8 p.m. breakdowns. Whispers of solace, screams telling him not to leave, please don't leave, stay, I love you.
But he left.
Maverick feels it - the bile rises up his throat, threatening to spill and pour from his lips. The acid is hot and it burns holes in his throat, in his tongue, in his entire being. He can't take it - not anymore. He can't take the guilt of leaving. He can't take the memories of her, of before. He can't take the mistakes he made.
She told him not to leave.
But he left.
Just as Maverick thinks that he can't, she finally comes, spinning the dial of her locker. "Mavi," she says gently. Her words crawl up his arms, but they are not prickles of frost - they are warmth, comfort. This is another mistake he made. He broke ties with Kadence Gaardner.
"Mavi, you're at the wrong locker," she whispers. Over the course of the year, their relationship has changed, and she knows it. Before, they played in cheerful, innocent banter. But after Blaire died, it became more than just banter. He said things he shouldn't. He cast her out.
Days when Blaire was alive feels like centuries ago, but it also feels like minutes.
"Kade, I'm sorry," he whispers, for if he speaks any louder, he would break.
Kadence remains still, and he wonders if she forgives him. She shouldn't, he thinks. He doesn't deserve it.
Instead, Kadence wraps her arms around him. "It's okay," she whispers into his hair. And vaguely, he feels like he just came home.
Her arms slip from his sides and she looks at him, dark eyes intense. "What's wrong?" she asks. He remembers when Kadence still had her Thai accent, but it transformed over the years as she had.
He leans against the locker, and he's grateful that Kadence's locker is all the way in the Biology Blocks, which is usually deserted. "I feel like everything's falling apart. It's breaking. Tearing at the seams, falling into nothingness," he says softly.
Kadence and Maverick are polar opposites, maybe more so than Kadence and Xienna. Kadence is all hard angles - dark, straight hair, dark eyes against tan skin. Maverick is soft - with curly blond hair and clear blue eyes against a fair face.
But even beneath the surface, they are still stark differences. Kadence is science-bound, and Maverick is solely interested in the arts. Kadence is a cry-er, and Maverick is a screamer.
Kadence's reply is soft, and it takes him by surprise. She's not supposed to be gentle or sweet. She is brutally honest, tactless even. But perhaps, Blaire's death changed her more than Maverick cared to acknowledge. "I know what you mean," she murmurs, gazing sadly at the stocky boy.
She leans against the locker, wringing her hands, eye brows furrowed. "What're we going to do, Kade? We can't pretend as if Blaire didn't exist just to rid ourselves of pain. But we can't dwell on the past either, or we'll drown in it. What do we do when we're stuck at crossroads where the two paths lead you to darkness?"
On a normal day, Maverick knows that Kadence would poke fun at the way he speaks. But today is anything except normal. She closes her eyes, and she says, "We build a bridge. And get over it. We cry, or we scream. We yell. We fight. We hug. We love. But at the end of whatever we do, at the end of anything, we get over it. We always do."
Maverick feels warmth again, and he vaguely remembers what Kadence told him before. He was stressed because their school had introduced a mandatory project for every class, every semester. And Kadence had told him the exact same thing. "Mavs, you gotta do what I do. You separate state from home. You say the things that'll get shit done. You do the things that'll get shit done. So what if you offend people? It's their grade too, right? And then at the end of the day, you go home and you don't let the stuff that goes on in school affect your friendships. You build a bridge. And you get over it."
Building bridges to cross has always been Kadence's favorite advice to give - and for Maverick, it's always worked.
The two settle into comfortable silence, both deep in thought. Kadence nibbles on her nails, and Maverick hears her reciting a string of scientific formulas under her breath - something she's been doing whenever she's nervous ever since she first topped her Science class.
"Kade."
"Mmmm?"
"Greyson wants to meet us all tonight. What d'you say? This could be the moment of clarity. Maybe, we can build a bridge and get over it."
Kadence's body goes rigid, and her big eyes grow even wider. "Greyson," she swallows, "Chandler?
Maverick nods. "Yeah. She asked Brax and I to ask you guys before I came looking for you."
"You guys?" she frowns, looking at Maverick. "Who's she inviting?"
Maverick counts with his fingers. "You, me, Ori, Brax and Xien," he says, shooting her a wry smile. "The whole damn gang."
Kadence remains silent, and Maverick can't imagine what's going on in that warped head of hers. He's torn between Science and scheming, wondering what's going on in her twisted little mind. She looks down at her hands and scowls.
"So, no?" he asks.
She looks up at him, eyebrows knitted together, lips pressed against each other. "I'm in."
- - -
"Ori," Braxton drawls lazily, glancing at his sister. "I don't want you to go tonight. It's too...strange - dangerous even," he tells her.
She gazes at him darkly. "Brax, if it's as dangerous as you proclaim it do be, why are you going?"
He scowls in response, shifting so he can face her. Her head is propped up on her fist, eyes staring intently at Braxton's. The two of them look nothing alike, but personality-wise, it's hard to find a single difference. "You know why."
She bats her eyelashes, a cruel smile spreading on her ruby lips. "I don't know what you mean, brother dear."
"You just want me to say it," he accuses, pointing a finger at her.
She tilts her head - and she's the very picture of an angel. She gives Braxton doe eyes, feigning innocence. "Whatever do you mean?"
"You know exactly why I'm going tonight."
"No, not really," she sings, sipping from her pack of chocolate milk, smiling sweetly at her brother.
Braxton glares at her and she lets out a laugh in response - a light, airy sound that makes Braxton crack a grin. "Evil bitch," he mutters in a half-hearted attempt to hide his blush.
Orianna giggles at his remark and shoots him a lopsided grin. "You're going for your lover. Can't I go for mine?"
Braxton's eyes widen. "No way! You're still in love with Xien?"
"God, how is it that you didn't know? You either don't listen to me, or live under a rock," she laughs, "and we live in the same home."
"I've got other problems too, okay?"
Orianna snorts and looks at the time on her watch. "God, I can't believe I'm skipping class for this. You owe me."
"What do you mean I owe you? Are you forgetting about that time you made me miss practice because you needed help spying on Xienna's rumored girlfriend?"
Orianna narrows her eyes. "Oh, you wanna play that card? Okay, how about the time you heard that Kade was going out with that French transfer - "
"Romain."
"- and you made me crash their date."
"And the time I lied that you were studying when you were really out with Xien?"
"Oh, when I hacked Kade's phone for you."
"I hid in the girl's toilet so I could get some intel for you!"
Orianna bursts out into laughter, eyes tearing up. She grins and leans against her brother's back. "I remember that," she muses, and Braxton is half-sure she's thinking the same thing he is - how trivial and silly their problems used to be.
"Things have changed, huh?" he voices out, and the playful mood quickly turns sombre.
"They have," Orianna whispers and Braxton grasps his sister's hand tightly. He feels her begin to shake, and he turns around to hold her. Suddenly, he is four years old and a Jamaican girl comes home with his parents. She is introduced as his sister. She cries the first few nights, and he holds her. She speaks of her mother and the songs she used to sing, and a four year old Braxton holds her.
He's always holding her.
"I remember," she whispers brokenly, and he thinks that this is how she sounded when she was four. He remembers this vividly. "I remember when Blaire was alive and we'd go shopping together all the time. And she'd help me pick the right outfits and shoes and -" she hiccups. "God, I miss her so much. When she died and Greyson left and her whole family left, it was easier to just forget. Pretend Blaire DuMonte never even existed, y'know. It was easier to cope and now-now, Grey's back and it feels as if Blaire just died and everything's going downhill and - "
"And something bad's going to happen."