-inspired of course by Lesbian Jesus herself-
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ETA 05.13.2020: This is the original version of the story as posted for Wattpad Block Party a few years ago. Follow the external link to read the revised version posted in its own book on this account.
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Phae makes a new fan (and a new enemy) on the volleyball court but she only has eyes for Xia. Lucia finds out about Tré's new drummer girlfriend and it doesn't bother her at all. Definitely not. Sable encounters the girl in the food truck who might finally steal her heart from closeted class president Sobe Hu. This season, nothing goes harder than love, heartache, and volleyball.
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PHAEDRA
A white volleyball sailed over the net in a high and decisive arc toward the center of the court, courtesy of Roshelle Dumas, setter of the Gear City High School girls' volleyball team. Phaedra swore and snapped out a hand signal for Stevie to intercept. Stevie was already there.
The middle setter launched herself in the air to block Roshelle's topspin overhand serve before it land on their side of the net. She slammed both hands against the ball and sent it flying back from whence it came.
The Gear City High middle setters scrambled to block her, setting the ball and passing it between them, once, twice, and only for the backrow player's shaky dig attempt to foul them up. Their point.
"Yes!" Phaedra roared as the bounced outside the lines of play. "That's what' I'm talking 'bout."
They high-fived real quick and fell back into their positions after a round of first bumps from the others on the field. The day was hot as it got this time of year and all the bodies packed into the stadium made it hard to think straight. Phaedra was on fire, sweat in her eyes, endorphins burning through her body. She was living and breathing for the game.
It was 15-12, in Webber's favor for the third set of the match.
Webber had taken the first set, 25-18, and then, to their surprise, the GC Thunderbirds had come pounding back in the second game to claim a victory of 25 points to the Wild Girls' 22. Phae's ears were still ringing from the explosion of shouting from the Thunderbirds' side of the stadium when they blew the Wild Girls out of the water. This wasn't just a game anymore. This wasn't about scouts, though she'd spotted a few here and there; this was a matter of pride.
Her girls had come to kill the game and here they were, on the verge of slaughter. Wild Girls were the queens of the court. Lessers need not apply.
Tré was pacing behind her like an agitated horse, ready to charge. Hunter was still on the backrow with Mickey, playing cool, each muscle tensed and ready, eyes peeled. There wasn't a single move the Gear City Thunderbirds could make on the court that they wouldn't see. They were primed and ready to scrabble tooth and nail back to the top.
Phae straightened up when the ref tossed her the ball from the sidelines. Their point, their serve.
She bounced the ball between her hands, eyeing her teammates. They were raring to go. They were all fight. None of them were giving in and none of them were giving up. She lifted her head and gave them a look. They knew the look.
"Who are we?"
Her girls dropped down low and bared their teeth, ready to fight. Ready to win.
"Wild girls!"
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The Wild Girls played with no mercy. They'd been playing the game too long compared to the Thundbirds who'd only formed their team a couple of season before. The Wild Girls knew each other like twins, in each other's heads and back pockets, anticipating each and every thought before it was complete.
Hunter through herself into a controlled slide, executing an underhand dig that sent the ball careening back toward the middle court where Tré was waiting in her loud libero jersey. The Thunderbirds instinctively bunched together in front of Tré, anticipating and roof spike over the net. Tré smirked, spun and executed a firm, perfectly timed underhand pass back to Phaedra. There was nobody waiting on her end of the court. She took deep, perverse pleasure in tipping the ball right over the net.
It impacted on the parquet floor in a neat slap. The sound was deafening as it bounced once and then rolled off-court.
Point to Webber.
Roshelle Dumas, flushed on the other side of the net and pushed her players back into position for the next play. Her hair was sticking to her face and neck, the same as Phae's was, but Phaedra had a funny feeling it wasn't because Roshelle was loving the game.
Any dream of Gear City blowing Webber High out the water in an upset were over, but it would take them another hour to declare victory.
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Xia threw her sign to the ground and threw her arms the second Phae launched herself into the stands. Phae picked her up and spun her around. Xia was burning hot after sitting high in the stands all game while Phae was even hotter from playing. Neither of them minded the heat. They definitely didn't mind the victory kissing. They were kind of sappy. They didn't mind that either.
"Hey, you."
"Hey." They exchanged goofy grins. Phae brushed Xia's hair out of her face. She never remembered to bring a hair tie.
"Having fun?"
Xia shrugged, shuffled them out of the aisle so other spectators could pass. "Watching my girlfriend smack a ball around is pretty cool." She still sounded surprised when the word girlfriend came out of her mouth. Phae intended to spend a long time helping her get used to it.
"Yeah, it's pretty boring." Phae had dated athletes; watching could be dull if you didn't love the game.
Xia cut her a disbelieving look. "Not that boring. You kept scoring." She realized she'd rhymed two seconds after she said the words. Her glare dared Phae to call attention to it.
"Was that a cheer?"
"Don't."
Phae tickled her sides just to feel her squirm. Xia had the best laugh. "Did my girlfriend write a cheer for me?"
"You're the worst, Phae. Leave it alone." Xia was turning red; cheeks, neck, ears. She always turned red when Phae teased her about how much she liked dating her, but Phae was just as bad—as Tré wouldn't stop telling her—because she liked dating Xia, too. Almost as much as she loved racing, driving, riding. Xia was her new thrill.
"Babe."
Xia rolled her eyes. She hated pet names, or so she claimed, as much as they made her smile. "Nope."
"Honey bunch."
They both made a disgusted face. It sounded like something her grandma would call her. "Gross."
"Babycakes?" It could be worse.
Xia rolled her eyes and propped her head on Phae's shoulder. "...I'll allow it."
Phae squeezed her around the middle. It was still hot as hell and sweltering in this stadium, but she could put up with it for Xia, if Xia could put up with the sweat. "Cutie," she murmured.
"That one, I like."
"Uh huh, I remember." They shared a twinkly smile and were about to share another kiss when a voice shouted up the stands from the court below.
"Phae! We gotta do handshakes. Hands off the girl till you do your job!" Mickey playing the team PA system, same as always.
"Get your head in the game, Barlowe!" Tré giving her shit as usual. I need quieter friends.
"It's like somebody's calling my name, but I don't know who."
"I don't hear anything." Xia went up on tiptoes to look over her shoulder. Her lips quirked in a half-smile. "You'd better go before they dump the cooler on your head."
"Can I get a kiss before I go?"
"You just got one!"
"They're like chips, you can't have just one."
"Way too many bad jokes, babe."
"I thought you hated babe."
"I get to call you babe." She stood up on her toes to give Phaedra another kiss. She looped her arms around Phaedra's sticky neck and pressed their lips together. Phae's heart beat fast. Her lips tingled. Xia tasted like a blueberry smoothie and smelled like black coffee. Phae could kiss her for hours.
Something hard and rounded bounced of the back of Phaedra's skull and broke their kiss. Xia covered her mouth, looking back and forth between Phae and whatever was happening on the court.
"Did they just?" she asked, because she needed to know had badly to maim her best friends in a minute.
Xia squeaked, the apples of her cheeks twitching as she tried not to laugh. "Oh my god."
"Be right back, I have to kill someone."
Xia shouted after her, "Don't get arrested, we have a date!"
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Phaedra didn't kill anyone, tempted though she was. Tré threatened to put her in a headlock and let Hunter tickle her until she peed on herself; that was enough of a threat to deter her. There was captain's business to conduct anyway. They had to post-game it before they broke down the court and headed out into the afternoon to celebrate.
Under the watchful eye of the game officials and the referee, Phae got her girls in line. "All right, Wild Girls. Time to play nice."
The Wild Girls and the Thunderbirds passed each other in glum, overheated lines, slapping hands and bumping fists like they were the good sports the game demanded and not athletes determined to hold a grudge till someone died. Calisto Day, libero for Gear City High, was salty as hell and not afraid to be heard mumbling about how dirty players played dirty.
It wasn't the first time the Wild Girls had been accused of cheating and if they had a few more seasons to go a few rounds, it wouldn't be the last, but this was their last season and Phae wasn't having it. Not with scouts out in the crowd with their ears to the ground.
"Yo, Day, you need to cool it with that cheating talk."
The girl in question stopped short, backing up the team reception line behind her as her wired teammates stumbled not to collide with her back. Her jersey was a burnt range to her team's silver and maroon, standard for a libero. Tré's was a black and white to the team's white and blue. "You talking to me?"
Phae stepped out of line to let her teammates get on with it. "Yup. Cool it."
Calisto tossed her French braids over her shoulder and looked Phae up and down. She didn't seem to like what she saw, if her sneer was anything to go by. "Don't cheat and you won't get called a cheat." Call Phae suspicious, but she didn't think Calisto was just talking about the game. Girl's got it out for me.
"You don't need to be bitter that we know the game better than you. When you know better, you'll play better." Phae was trying to be cool. She wasn't feeling cool, but she was trying act it. Her parents hated when she got into fights, Xia hated it; the scouts would sure as hell hate it. She was trying to change her reputation.
"I don't need lessons in a game I was born to play."
"Everybody needs lessons, and since you lost, you should take them while they're free."
Calisto stepped around the hands trying to hold her back, ignored the tired voices telling her to chill, girl, it ain't even worth it to get in Phaedra's face.
She wasn't even tall, Calisto Day. She reached about as high as Phae's chin. She had the temper of a bigger girl and the anger of one too. "You trying to say something?"
"I'm saying, you need to take this L and move along, like your captain's telling you." Phae inclined her head toward the other girl in the captain's jersey, sipping Gatorade and sighing like this wasn't a new occurrence. Mickey was the same way before she got into JROTC. Stevie hadn't really stopped being angry all the time, she'd just had Sable to focus on instead.
"I don't take orders from anybody, and certainly not from a nobody like you."
Phae raised an eyebrow. She'd be sharing a look with Tré if she wasn't sure this chick wouldn't jump her the minute she looked away. She didn't even know this girl—she couldn't have forgotten her—but she could read her intentions a mile away. She wanted Phae to give her a reason.
"Babe, if you wanna start throwing hands, I'm good for it, but you're gonna get suspended if you do it here. That's on you. Some free advice from a nobody."
"She's right," chimed in GC player #6. Her jersey said Ziegler on the back and she wore rainbow snapbands on each wrist. "Leave it, C."
Other players added their voices to the mix. Nobody but Calisto wanted a fight. Phae definitely didn't want one today. She had plans that didn't involve police stations or icing her hands while her parents shouted. She had a prom-posal to plan and a girlfriend to distract. No room for a brawl.
Phae was distracted from thoughts of Xia's blushing embarrassment at the life-size piñata of Scooby-Doo Phae had bought to surprise her with. It was filled with Valentine's Day cards and cherry lollipops Xia had left in her locker when she was trying to get Phae to look at her twice. Phae never looked at anybody else anymore.
"This is done, okay?" Roshelle had tossed her sports drink aside to stand between Calisto and Phae. She was easily as tall as Phae and of a similar build with deep brown skin and longer hair. She towered over Calisto and it was only under her close scrutiny that Calisto backed out of Phaedra's face. "Somebody needs to pack all the equipment and I think it's about to be you." Calisto started to talk back when Roshelle made a quick 'cut it out' gesture that couldn't be misread by anybody. "Done with. Deal with it. Go." Calisto went.
Phae let out a breath as the tension drained from her shoulders. "Thanks for coming through."
"Sorry about her. I don't know what got into her."
Phae shrugged. It was already ancient history, as far as she was concerned. "Don't worry about it. Nobody likes losing."
"It helps to lose to the best." Roshelle offered Phae a handshake, which she took. She had good strong hands and ready smile. Phaedra found herself smiling back. It wasn't like she didn't have plenty to smile about. She won the game, she didn't get arrested, and she had the cutest girl in Webber High School waiting to be asked to prom. What did she have to lose?
"Nice looking on the bright side. You didn't play that bad, you know. We're just been at it a long time. Got a few more seasons under our belt, is all."
"Better late than never?"
"Exactly. You'll get there. Your team will, too. Don't worry."
Roshelle ducked her head, cleared her throat. She looked nervous all of a sudden. Phae cocked her head.
"What's up?"
"Um." All that captain-like confidence was gone in a blink.
"Phae!"
Phaedra swung around to see that Xia had produced a bullhorn from who knew where to summon her over. From the smirk on Stevie's face she guessed that one of the refs was going to find themselves down a piece of equipment when they did post-game inventory. She wasn't sure there was anything scarier than her best friends liking her girlfriend as much as she did. They're going to be so much trouble this summer. She couldn't wait.
She turned back to Roshelle to apologize.
Roshelle was staring at Xia and Tré squabbling indistinctly over the bullhorn. Phae was pretty sure plausible deniability was the only way to go on this one.
"Who's that?"
Phae fanned herself, as much to obscure the grin on her face as to cool her down "My girl."
Roshelle's expression was hard to describe. "You got a girl?"
"Uh, yeah. What, I don't look like the type?"
"You do." She grinned a little. She had a great smile, the kind you see in magazines and fall in love with without ever learning her name. But Phaedra was already head over heels for somebody else. "Shame you're taken, though."
Phaedra shrugged, smiled over her shoulder a Xia waving her sign and beckoning her to hurry up. "You snooze you lose. See you on the court?" If the brackets fell out right, the Wild Girls and the Thunderbirds might just meet again. Volleyball was a small world.
"See ya."
*
ROSHELLE
Roshelle sighed at the back of Phaedra Barlow's Webber High jersey as it disappeared out the stadium. She had her arms thrown around her girlfriend and the libero from her team. They were thick as thieves, just like the Thunderbirds used to be. Roshelle missed those days.
Calisto and Ursula Ziegler approached her from behind. "You gotta get better taste, sis."
Roshelle ignored Ursula's jibe in favor of getting to the bottom of her best friend's little outburst. "Aight, Callie. What's your problem with cutie over there?"
Calisto bristled. "Cutie? She's not that cute."
Roshelle shot a look at Ursula and got a shrug in return. She didn't know what had crawled up the girl's ass and died either. "Uh huh."
"Come on, you can do better."
"Why do you care?"
"I don't." She crossed her arms and then uncrossed them to throw her braids over her shoulder. They all wore their hair in matching French braids for the game—team spirit and all that—but Calisto took it to extremes. Hers reached down to her belly button and were intertwined with gold ribbons. Though not Roshelle's style, it was definitely a Look.
"That's a lie and you know it. You hate her for real. What's up?"
Calisto started to look uncomfortable the longer the two girls stared at her. She fidgeted with the end of her braids. "Don't worry about it."
"If it gets you worked up like this, Imma worry about it as much as I need to."
Ursula tapped her sneakers on the polished floor impatiently. "We ain't got all day."
"Then don't worry about me. I told you it's my business."
The ref on the sidelines blew his whistle and tapped his watch. The stadium needed to be spiffed up for another game in a couple of hours. Roshelle rubbed her brows. She was going to have to text her mom about this loss; that wasn't going to be fun.
"Whatever the deal is—and I will find out—we've got work to do. Losers clean up." She led the way back to the court where the middle hitters were pretending to take down the net and count the gear they'd need to get back to school for storage on Monday.
Middle hitters did a lot of the work during the game and would do their damnedest to keep from cleaning up. Roshelle wasn't having it. This might be her first season as captain, but she wasn't born yesterday.
She tucked two fingers between her lips and let out a shrill whistle to round up her player. "Y'all know losing team cleans but I don't see any cleaning."
"We're tired," sniped her backrow #2, Maggie Roux, who was only distinguishable from Susie Walsh, backrow #1, by the tattoos that were visible now that she'd taken off her long-sleeve undershirt in favor of wearing just her jersey. Roshelle couldn't wait to get out of her undershirt.
"And I'm tired of losing, but I still do my job. Maybe we wouldn't lose if y'all did yours." She threw up, cutting off their brewing complaints. She didn't want to hear argument, she wanted to see action. This was so much easier when I was the co-captain. "I've got something for you, a proposition."
Maggie, Susie, and even Ursula perked up with interest. Calisto examined her nails. No backup there. She was on Callie's shit list, again, someplace annoyingly easy to end up. Whatever.
"Get it together, girls, and I'll let you drive the Fury." That got their attention. Roshelle loved her car like she loved to play; she never let anybody drive her baby. Candy apple red, tail fins, original cloth top with the original interior. Mint condition. She found her in a junkyard; she'd defend the Fury with her life. It wasn't an idle promise. "Any takers?"
Susie thumbed her chin. "Get it together like what?"
"Clean up after yourself, come to practice on time and ready to play, play like you mean it, and play fair." It was Roshelle's captaincy on the line every time they got dinged for a foul serve or triple-touched the ball on a single volley. The Wild Girls weren't the only team with a growing reputation for cutting corners and Roshelle was sick of it. Her sister never had trouble like this. "Do all that and we can go on a trip to the Coast. We'll take turns driving the Fury. But we can start tonight. MVP drives to Good Eats." Good Eats was their favorite post-game destination for eating, drinking, and bitching about the opposition. "Don't sit here looking simple, y'all in or what?"
Ursula growled at the other girls' gobsmacked looks. "I'll take down the net and count the shin and elbow guards." She pointed at Roshelle as she went. "You'd better be serious or dinner's on you."
Dinner was always on her anyway, perk of being team captain. Besides the exhaustion and the late hours and the snark from underperforming team players and...Why did she want this job again? Leadership positions looked good on her college application, right. That and making her mom happy to see her following her in college V-ball footsteps. It was barely worth it when it wasn't even her dream.
The team fell out of formation on Ursula's direction. Because Ursula should have been captain after Roshelle's sister...passed on, not Roshelle. Everybody thought so, even the newbies to the team.
A tattooed figure skittering toward the exit caught her eyes. "Susie, if you sneak out of here without helping us pick up the trash I'll make you run twenty laps first thing Monday!"
Susie stomped back to the court past an overflowing trashcan. "As if!"
"Karma got its kiss for you," Maggie snickered at the other back rower, a plastic bag already in hand, though suspiciously empty despite all the trash littering the stadium floor.
"Unless that bag's got something in it in the next five minutes, you'll be running with her."
Suddenly not so funny.
Roshelle Dumas low-key hated being captain, but it was the Dumas way. She'd get her delinquent team into shape before graduation or get suspended trying.
And if she saw Phaedra Barlowe again here and there? Icing on the shitty senior year cake.
*
LUCIA
When Tremaine loped out of the stadium into the attached parking lot, Lucia was waiting on the hood of her violet Dodge Challenger. She has flipping through The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters. She was really feeling Sapphic fiction lately. It made her want to be brave.
"You kill it?"
Tré climbed onto the hood next to her. "You know I killed it." Tré was the best libero Webber had seen since it had a team. It wasn't about height, though the girl had legs enough for three different women; it was about reflex and speed. Tré thought fast and moved faster. She was a dream. Lucia's dream, if she were honest. In all the years she'd known her, Lucia had never met anybody better. It was only recently she realized it wasn't because Tré was one of her best friends--Lucia had plenty of best friends—but because Tré was the best person she knew. The funniest, the toughest. Sometimes the softest.
"So, the band's playing," Tré offered with uncommon awkwardness.
The league organizers did all they could to raise attendance to the girls' volleyball games, up to and including hiring food trucks and local bands to make them a family event. That was the only reason Lucia had fallen in with this bunch, besides the Webber legacy connection. She'd come and seen them play and when her mother had seen the names she'd made the connection. The Webber Wild Girls were trouble, on and off the court, but they protected their own. Dropped into a country she'd never visited without a friend in the world, Lucia had needed that. Now she loved it. The Wild Girls were home. Tré, more than anyone except Hunter, made her feel like she belonged. Lucia had finally figured out why.
"I don't know who's playing." Nobody ever knew; they were chosen at random and the band promotion was left to the bands themselves. Nobody had complained loudly enough to make a change in four years of doing it like this. It wasn't like Lucia listened anyway.
Tré bit her bottom lip. Her eyes bounced around the parking lot, alighting on her teammates and the other Wild Girls as they adjourned to their cars to stow their gym bags. They were back to jeans and leather jackets. Sleek bouffants and hoop earrings. Soon the lot was filled with the song of rumbling engines, backed by a discordant guitar in the distance and the bandoneon and saxophone. Tré grinned like she never does, pale lips a half moon on her face. Lucia's heart did something strange. Her stomach dropped. Her fingers twitched between the pages of her abandoned book. All her favorite novels called it foreshadowing; to her, it was simply dread.
"You know them?"
Tré tried to keep a straight face. Tremaine never had to try. Disaffected was her thing. Cool was her default. Not soft like this (unless she's looking me, Lucia thought, and tried not to think again). Tré stroked her fingers through her messy hair, and that's when Lucia knew: Tré wanted her to approve. That's why she was telling her first. Because that's what friends did and Tremaine Kilallen was such a good friend.
"Can I tell you something? About someone? I haven't told anybody else."
Lucia swallowed her heart lodged firmly in her throat. Hunter had told her once that nobody would ever look at her like Tré looked at her. Lucia hadn't believed her. Lucia would believe her for the rest of her life if she ever looked at her that way again.
She bumped her tense shoulder against Tré's as gently as she could. She put a smile on her face. "You can tell me whatever, love. You know that."
Tré took a deep breath. "That band that's playing, it's this Samba jazz band called Brown Sugar, and the drummer and leader singer is my new girlfriend. Her name's Zima."
"Zima?" The name rung a vague sort of bell. Maybe from Youtube or Soundcloud? Lucia wasn't much into music; she listened to what her parents listened to when she was with them, what her friends listened to when they cruised in her car. She preferred silence. She missed silence right now.
"Zima Pereira. She's going to the community college in town." Tré slung her hands together between her knees to hide how they twisted together. This was when Lucia was meant to do the friend thing, so she did.
"Oh, that's fantastic." It was the last thing Lucia wanted to hear; that didn't make it bad, just poorly-timed.
"You think so? You don't think it's weird?"
"No weirder than Phae going gaga for Baby face." They all thought of Xia as baby-faced despite her being only a year and some change younger than the oldest of them. She took it in stride. In just a few months, she had become the little sister most of them never had, slightly irritating save for the baked good and party planning, worth smacking racists for. She was good and good for Phaedra; that was all she needed to be.
"Okay, good. I want everyone to meet her, so that's good. It's great." She smiled big and wide, all teeth. Tré was never all teeth. Lucia looked down at her book to find she'd wrinkled the previously pristine pages of The Paying Guests. She snapped it shut lest Tré should notice. No sense in making things awkward. If Tré had been into her once, as Hunter swore up and down, she wasn't anymore. Lucia would get over it. Eventually.
"It's perfect. But Phae's gonna get mad you stole her new girl shine."
Tré chuckled and hopped down from the hood of Lucia's car, pausing from habit to rub her ass print off the paint job with her leather sleeve. They loved their cars, their lot, but they respected each other's. Lucia mimicked her, only deviating to toss her book in the passenger seat. She hadn't watched the game, she really wasn't a sports person, but she was more than happy to join the festivities.
"Come on, time for you to introduce me to the new girl."
Tré slung an arm over Lucia's shoulder. They were as tall as each other and different in every other way. "Okay, but we have to get snacks first, I'm starving after that game. That game! You should have seen it, Luce It was amazing."
While Tré babbled about her perfect game and hurried toward her new, perfect girlfriend, Lucia smiled at all the right moments and nursed her new bruised her heart. Her fault, she guessed. Nobody waited forever.
*
SABLE
Sable pushed past Ronnie Jensen and his minions to get to the Better Than Revenge food truck to the side of the staging area for the after-game concert. His being here was irritating at best in her current mood, but this time he was here for Garvey, who'd been middle setter #2 in today's game, and since they were on again, she was putting up with it. That didn't mean she had to be nice. She wasn't up for nice. Ronnie Jensen never had to be nice.
Wild Girls didn't have to be nice.
She'd kill for a drink or a stretch of road without the cops at the end. She needed to get out of here, but if she left her girls would come looking for her. If they looked for her, if they asked, she'd tell them what was up, and she'd feel stupid all over again. Because she had been in this situation before and they all knew the script.
Sobe Hu had dumped her again. She could already hear I told you so in all of their voices, whether they'd say it out loud or not.
They'd been kissing in the supply closet of the gymnasium where most of the miscellaneous sport equipment was kept between games. That wasn't new. Sable had been kissing Sobe since junior year at the winter dance. It had started with a dare from the school's quarterback. Sable didn't even remember his name; he was that irrelevant to her day to day life. Sobe had known Sable was a lesbian; it wasn't a secret. Sobe hadn't apparently known that Sable had a crush on her. Sable wished she'd never found out, wished they'd never kissed. Wished they hadn't kept kissing for two years. Maybe then when one of Jensen's minions stuck his head in to see if the make out spot was free Sobe wouldn't have been there. If she wasn't there, she couldn't have frozen. If she weren't there, she couldn't have freaked out on Sable and run. She couldn't have dumped her by text. Blocked her number. Blocked her on every single social media website there was. Even when she was ghosting a girl, Sobe did everything right.
Sobe was perfect. Class president, in the running for valedictorian, the lead in more student orgs than Sable could count. She was gorgeous. She did community service. She volunteered at animal shelters. She raised money for kids in need. She was perfect—and she was so deep in the closet, dust bunnies saw more daylight. Because her parents wanted her to be perfect and in their eyes, gay wasn't perfect. Gay was a mess that needed cleaning, disorder that needed correcting.
Two years of loving her—and Sable wasn't stupid, she knew her own feelings—hadn't convinced Sobe that they were really, deeply wrong. That all the bullies in the school who got their kicks scrawling lesbo on Tré's locker and Phae's car were dumbasses who should be reported to the campus Keystone cops at best, dunked headfirst in to a porta potty at worst. Sable couldn't convince her they weren't important because she knew, deep down, they were. So long as Sobe didn't feel safe, Sobe would run, and Sable would be left holding the bag.
"What are you looking for?" asked a distracted voice.
Sable stepped back when she realized she'd come to the front of the Better Than Revenge food truck line. The green and yellow truck was enormous, about as long as three wooden picnic table sat end to end. Old but carefully maintained. A cornucopia of fruits and veggie spilled across the side of the truck. Hand painted, Sable thought. The menu propped outside the window was written in all kinds of colors on a chalkboard. It was all vegetarian and every bit of delicious. Although Sable hadn't been much for produce before Sobe had put her two cents in, she guessed the habit would stick. She wasn't going to let the same bad breakup ruin falafel for her.
"Um." She sniffed and tried not to tear up. Tried not to think about how she swore she wasn't going down this road again. Same girl, same mess. Tearing up wasn't her M.O., not in public. No way was she about to ruin her reputation now. "Something sweet." Forget falafel. Sable would cry if she got that right now.
Falafel would only remind her everything wrong. Today was going to be good. Her girls had won the game. They were going to rock out to whatever band Tré wanted them to hear so badly and then they were going to drag till the early hours of the morning. After that, she was going to go home and sleep till Monday, when she'd have to face a girl who would pretend they hadn't kissed each other everywhere and exchanged a thousand love notes, all of them screenshotted on Snapchat. They were going to pretend to be strangers. Total bullshit.
The girl waiting to take her order pushed up her oversize glasses to squint down at Sable through the window. "You okay?"
Sable didn't have an answer. She rubbed the back of her over her cheek. Please don't let me cry. There were so many Webber students here, it would get back to everybody and if she didn't give a good story, they'd make one up. It didn't matter; some asshole would spray paint lezzie on her locker anyway. Usually, she didn't care. She might get herself expelled if it happened again, might destroy some expensive school property yanking that locker off its hinges. Might get arrested dragging the guilty party face first down the back stairs. She hated how much she cared.
She wasn't okay.
She swallowed. "I can't decide what I want. What's good?"
The girl at the window raised both eyebrows and began to list off a whole host of new menu items Sable hadn't noticed when she skimmed the menu. She and Sobe always ordered the same things. The samosas for Sobe and the falafel for her. They shared their food. Kissed between bites. Never finished anything because kissing was better than food, any day.
"I've never tried any of that."
The girl, Vanity, her nametag read, winked. Her eyes were dark as speckled marble and her skin was deep brown. A coil of frizzy hair tumbled down her nose and she blew it out of the way. "First time for everything, right? Time to try something new."
Sable laughed. She sounded stupid, she knew, her nose stuffed and throat sore, but it was a laugh.
Vanity snorted and shook her head. "All right, baby girl. Let me get you some samples. Put some sparkle back in your eyes."
Sable sucked in a quick breath and smiled. She couldn't remember the last time a girl had tried flirting with her. Hell, she couldn't remember the last time she'd noticed anybody else. Sobe had been her private sun for so long, nobody else compared.
Maybe someone else should.
"Sounds good," Sable said, trying to flirt and finding herself embarrassingly out of practice. "I'll take one of everything—including your number, if it's handy." It was so bad she wanted the ground to swallow her up, but Vanity didn't laugh.
Though Vanity pulled a 'you must be joking' face, she didn't refuse. Instead she offered Sable a cold glass of mango lassi with a rainbow straw. All the other straws Sable had seen had been red. She sipped her drink, enjoying how sweet it was and how it cooled the heat in her cheeks and started to calm her down. It was perfect. A different kind of perfect.
Vanity made a note on her order pad of everything Sable had requested. 'One of everything' was a lot, even for a food truck. "I'll give it to you, on one condition."
Sable propped herself up on the counter protruding fr the window. "Name it."
"At least try the food first. We're not going out if you hate it." Another vegetarian. It was fine; Sable didn't miss meat anyway.
"I won't hate it."
Vanity was skeptical. This had pickup line written all over it. "I bet you say that to all the cute girls you meet."
"Nope," Sable said, feeling a little softhearted and a little sad but not miserable, not right now. "Just you."
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This is the mini-prequel I posted for #WattpadBlockParty with some additions and changes. Hope you enjoy it! Vote if you enjoyed it, comment if you want more~! And thank you so much for reading.
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Photo Credits
1. Free People Clothing Boutique
2. Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash
3. Free People Clothing Boutique
4. Free People Clothing Boutique