Once she stops fumbling with her car keys (after one horrible second when she thinks she left them in the room), once she peels safely out of the motel parking lot (thank everything in nature she and her BFF brought separate cars, since, of course, Amy wasn't supposed to be staying), once she is finally speeding aimlessly around the highways surrounding Austin and is able to catch her breath and get her brain out of full-on panic mode, the first thing that pops into Karma's head is, "maybe this is what I needed. Maybe this is how I finally learn to think things through."

It's never been a skill of hers. And it keeps biting Karma in the ass. Maybe this time it'll scar her enough to teach her a lesson.

She's plenty smart. She always sees instantly how and why she screwed up… once it happens. She just never really, you know, figures it out in advance. Her hindsight is 20/20 – but who gives a fuck about hindsight?

She could easily blame Amy, really. Amy's careful, thoughtful, cautious (not boring, she's never boring, she's amazing), a planner. And Amy's always been there to reign her in, ever since they were little. Karma gets the big ideas, Amy points out why it's unlikely that a girl who can fit in her opponent's pocket is going to win the grand prize in an ice-cream eating contest (it was $100! That was how they were going to get their concert tickets! It made perfect sense to Karma) or how likely it was that trying to blackmail Zen into driving them wherever they wanted to go by planting porn in his room was going to backfire on them (okay, maybe she should have known her parents would fall for his speech about the need to explore his sexual side, but even Amy didn't predict how much effort he'd put into getting revenge. They'd had rashes for weeks afterwards). If she didn't always have Amy there to tell her that her schemes were going to fall apart, maybe she would have started working through them on her own.

Maybe she would have even stopped the really dumb ones, the half-baked ideas where she ended up screwing up final exams and losing summer jobs and hurting Mom and Dad's feelings and making them say things like "why can't you be more like your brother?", the ones she ended up crying on Amy's shoulder about because she was such a worthless shit.

The evidence wasn't on her side, since usually she just charged ahead with her brilliant ideas even WITH Amy's voice in her ear, and ended up having to go back and do the "you were right and I was wrong" dance they invented in third grade, but maybe. Yeah. It's Amy's fault. It's all Amy's fault.

But hopefully this time, she'll be able to change. Because this? This threesome or whatever? This was an epic disaster that should have been easily avoidable. Why the fuck didn't she think this through?

Come to think of it, why the fuck didn't Amy stop this?

Amy should have, she realizes. She hadn't thought about it before this moment (and why the hell didn't she? Why is she so stupid?), but there were so many times when Amy (or she) really should have said no, or put up a damn fight. A threesome? Really? That's exactly the sort of ridiculously bad idea that she counts on Amy to put the brakes on.

And she did. Amy did at first. And she changed her mind.

And why did she change her mind in the first place, without even another conversation? Karma was prepared to maybe beg one more time, than play the whole thing off as a joke with Liam, figure out some other way to ease his conscience. She wasn't going to give up on him, not now that she knew he wantedher, or at least the version of her he saw. But Amy just… all of a sudden agreed. Karma never questioned it. Why didn't she question it?

She was just so excited. She was going to get Liam, the most popular guy in school, and someone who had integrity after all, and liked her (sort of). Her, Karma Ashcroft, previously best known as "heydoyoumindmovingineedtogettomylocker." He noticed her. He was going to take her virginity. She was going to be a woman. So maybe she was focused on that when she should've been getting her Sherlock on, and who could blame her? (Aside from, you know, her. Now.)

It's all falling into place for her as she drives through the night, just like her plans always do once they've blown up in her face. She never questioned why Amy, her Amy, the most stubborn person on the planet, had decided she was going to have A THREESOME WITH HER AND LIAM without Karma even making so much as a pouty face. Not even after (and holy shit how is she just getting this now) Amy basically told her that she thought what she was saying yes to was the three of them all having sex with each other. Amy and Karma touching each other. Amy and Liam touching each other. That's what Amy was saying yes to, without Karma even having to promise to watch a lame documentary. Karma had just brushed that off, hadn't even noticed Amy's lousy attempt to cover her ass!

Holy shit, did she not think this through.

At the very least, even without Amy pointing out how stupid she was being, she should have seen how things were getting off the rails when Amy took her trench coat off. Because it should have been clear, right then, that something else was happening. Amy was not a sexy lingerie sort of girl, Karma never even knew she owned anything like that, and she thought she knew everything about Amy. She had been planning on wearing her cute little boxer/tank top combo like, yesterday, and that was fine.

Okay, so Karma was blown away for a second. It just struck her that Amy was… not beautiful, she'd always known that Amy was beautiful, Amy was the only one who didn't know Amy was beautiful… but sexy. People don't go around seeing their best friends as sexy, but her face, her body… she was hot, thin and taut and long-legged and everything Karma would never be. And that's what her goddamn best friend was showing Liam? She was going to be all "hey, check me out, I'm the hottest girl who ever walked the fucking planet, take a good, long look and then have a nice time with my buddy the pear over there." Karma was fucking boiling, not sure whether she was more jealous of her friend for looking so freaking fierce or ready to strangle her for doing whatever the hell she thought she was doing in front of Liam. That's why she didn't do anything, she was so pissed she couldn't think straight.

(And there was something else there, too, a different sort of fire, wasn't there? Something else that kind of/completely took her breath away?)

(Mother of fuck, did she not think this through.)

Everything just happened so fast.

Amy undoing Karma's trench coat. Amy smiling at her gently and fixing her hair and telling her to relax, and Karma suddenly struck by how fucking not relaxed she was, how fucking paralyzed with nervousness she was, how fucking scared she was, how badly she was hiding it, how her brain was just drowning in the jealousy and the anger and the nerves and the other thing, and then Amy… Amy…

(Karma had decided at the last second not to kiss her during rehearsal. She didn't think much of it at the time, she just didn't think they needed to practice, they had kissed before, and there was something a little odd about making out with your best friend in private, wasn't there? Because making out with her in public or for Instagram reasons to fake a relationship was so normal and IN THE NAME OF EVERY INCARNATION OF THE BUDDHA DID SHE NOT THINK THIS THROUGH.)

When Amy kissed her, her poor overloaded mind shut down like an overheating laptop, and she just… gave herself to it. Let herself be there, just in that one moment, with Amy. With her best friend. Her favorite person. With the person she loved most in the world, way more than her parents or Zen or Liam or whoever (combined). With the person who was melting her with her lips and hands, so much so that she had forgotten where the hell she was, what the hell she was doing.

She felt something, something Karma only recognizes now that she remembers feeling before… on stage at the homecoming assembly, the first time she and Amy kissed. This sort of fluttery, shaky, terrifying, wonderful thing that she had just dismissed, just looked past, just assumed was part of the moment and the scheme and fucking hell she really had just completely blocked it out of her mind, hadn't she?

Couldn't do that anymore. She maybe couldn't name it yet, not right now as she blows past the exit back to her (their) neighborhood for the fourth time, but she couldn't dismiss it now, it had left a mark on her this time, Karma knows that. And Amy maybe knows it too, because when she pulled back, Karma couldn't help herself from saying "whoa" just like she did the first time, because how else could she describe that feeling, that feeling was whoa, and she realizes she probably had the look on her face that Amy did that first time, and that Amy's really had that look a lot recently and Karma just hadn't really considered what it meant, and she thinks Amy recognized that look too because she smiled at her like she understood and said "I know" and why did Karma even suggest this?

And before she could even begin to process, Liam stood up and grabbed Amy. Kissed Amy. Had maybe the hottest makeout she's ever seen outside of really good porn with Amy. Touched (TOUCHED!) Amy. And Amy was totally fucking into it, like that's what she was there for. Her best friend/fake girlfriend. Her secret boyfriend. Right in front of her.

Maybe Karma couldn't name what she was feeling before that moment, but right then? That was just pure pain.

Finally, her common sense kicked in. As usual, way too late to help, the bomb already exploded, the damage already done.

Maybe blowing up her entire life was exactly what she needed to finally stop doing this to herself.

She can't fucking tell who she's angrier at, Liam for freaking erasing her from his mind after she was willing to cheat on her girlfriend and have a threesome with him the second he saw Amy's body or Amy for not just fucking leaving like she was supposed to and forcing Liam to look at both of them and choose or Liam for touching Amy, putting his hands on Karma's person, or Amy for kissing him like she was in an R-rated rom com and whatever the hell she was up to with him, or Amy for kissing Karma and making her feel things when she just wanted (wants, dammit) Liam, or Amy for not stopping this whole thing like she usually does before Karma really fucks up, or Amy for letting this play out as far as it did because she was trying to accomplish whatever Amy was trying to accomplish, or Amy for kissing her at homecoming, or Amy for being so fucking beautiful, or Amy for… or HERSELF, herself for getting herself in trouble, herself for never learning how to keep herself out of trouble, herself for being such a fucking loser, herself for not being enough to hold Liam's attention, herself for never learning how to live without Amy, herself for whatever this thing was that was in her heart that had her flying around the interstate, circling the city at three in the morning, ignoring the persistent buzzing of her phone and the tears on her face.

She doesn't know what to think. She doesn't know what to feel. She doesn't know what happens next, what she says the next time she talks to Liam, what she says the next time she talks to Amy, even what she says to her parents to explain why she's going to be out ridiculously late even by their oh-so-understanding-of-the-need-for-teenagers-to-explore-their-limits standards. She's tied up in knots, her throat is closed up, every muscle in her body feels set to burst.

(It has to be about him, right? Has to be. Karma may not be great at scheming, she may not be good at protecting herself, but she knows who she is. She knows herself. She wants Liam. She's hurt because after all she's done to get him to like her, it got fucked up by her best friend, maybe on purpose, and because it shouldn't be this hard to get him, to make him want her instead of whoever else crosses his sightline. That's what this is. The other thing is just… whatever. It's about him, and Amy getting in the way of things with him. Karma would know if it wasn't.)

She just wants, more than anything, to go back to that night outside her house and say something, anything, other than "we could have a threesome."

Seems like the sort of thing that shouldn't have taken her so long to figure out.

END NOTES:

So I wrote this in a damn hurry, I don't think it's as cohesive as I'd like it to be, and if you can't tell Karma's an unreliable narrator here blame me not her! I also purposefully ended with a nod towards her convincing herself that this is all about Liam in hopes of trying to keep it in line with canon. Hope y'all like it anyways.