"Pacifica, you shouldn't be picking," Mabel commented with worry, eyeing her girlfriend's attempts to pick at her hand. The two were out in the forest surrounding the Mystery Shack, the only place the two could be themselves together without intrusion.
Pacifica smirked and scratched a spot on her hand. "Mabel, you shouldn't be dating me, but here you are." Satisfied with the rebuttal, she put her hand down and rubbed it on the metal button of her jeans.
Mabel crossed her arms. "I'm not going to stop you, but tell me you have some bandaids," she pleaded, "because I don't want you to get your hand infected."
"Mabel, quit worrying. Nothing has ever happened besides one infection when I was little, and besides, I won't do something stupid like that and not be able to see you for a few days."
Pacifica took an interest in her girlfriend's arm and stroked it with her hand. "I'm not going to lose time with you when I don't have to, because soon enough I'm going to lose you anyway."
Mabel sighed, and tried to look her girlfriend in the eye. "You're not losing me," she reasoned, "we're just going long distance after this summer! And, besides, my parents are weird. They've never shipped us off somewhere all summer, and I think there's something going on. If it's not fixed, we might be here all year."
Pacifica refused to share the look, instead choosing to study a mushroom growth at bottom of an adjacent tree. "I know you're hoping, and optimism is your thing, but you're going to jinx it if you keep on saying it."
"No such thing," Mabel retorted, looking playfully offended. "We have no clue if anything is going to work out, and all we have is hope. Thinking hope is going to jinx it will only make us feel worse."
Pacifica did not reply, or look away from the mushrooms. They seemed to almost glow.
Mabel closed her eyes tight and rubbed her temples. "Look, do you want to go to the Shack and watch Ducktective? There's a plot twist you won't believe on the rerun coming on in fifteen minutes."
Pacifica laughed, giving her girlfriend's hand a squeeze and finally returning her gaze back to Mabel. "Sure. That show is weird, but sure."
Mabel smiled. Her newfound relationship with Pacifica was unlike anything she had imagined relationships to be like, and what felt like a constant tug-of-war between Pacifica's pessimism and Mabel's hope and attempts at positivity could be draining, but Mabel wouldn't trade for the world.
They didn't know what would face them when summer came to a close, but they both tried to make due with the times they had, and maybe, if they tried their best, they could make it work.