Title: I Was Once a Loyal Lover
Author: Switz
Summary: Because they're the people that'll steal TVs and a find a picture of your ex to throw darts at. Macey-centric. Ish. For the Ally of Challenges.
Disclaimer: Don't Stop Believing is forever stuck on replay in my head. Disclaimed.
(Texts intercepted between Macey and Tina)
mace. i kno wht this looks like. plz dnt get upset.
-- tina
Don't Macey me, you bitch. You told me this wouldn't happen again. He's not even your type. How the hell can I not get upset? I liked him. And fucking use proper grammar.
i'm srry!
-- tina
Save it, slut. I hope you end up in the fucking inferno.
wts inferno mean?
-- tina
i.
She was supposed to be her best friend. She was supposed to be the one who was always there for her. But there she was, sucking face. No, not just sucking face on some poor innocent guy that looked like he belonged on the cover of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad, but sucking face with a guy that wore plastic Spiderman watches ("It's a collection," he'd told her) and had fantasies about Wonder Woman. And this guy also happened to be her boyfriend of eight months, three days and six hours. Her boyfriend who she was obsessed with, and actually liked. So when she saw her boyfriend (of eight months, three days and six hours) sucking face with her best friend, she got drunk and trashed the headmaster's car. And then proceeded to get expelled.
Hell, at least she had a back-up plan: Gallagher Academy for prestigious young women.
ii.
Gallagher was different. And not just different in the way that she found out that it was a school dedicated to make girls into spies. Gallagher was different as in everyone was in it together. Gallagher was different as in she actually made friends – real friends who helped her study for that COW quiz and gave her opinions on her outfits (not that she needed it). Friends who saved her from getting punched in P&E and knew all of her secrets (that she'd told them, unlike Tina who found them out from the rumor mill).
iii.
Cammie, Bex, and Liz were her sisters. Inseparable, one could call them. They were the kind of girls who wouldn't dare to kiss her boyfriend, attraction or not. They were the kind of girls who never hid anything from her.
And that's why she was surprised when she found out that they'd known about Preston coming on the campaign trail all along.
"We didn't want to hurt you," they'd told her.
She responded by looking at them with glassy eyes. "Too late."
And then she ran away. It was something she was good at, running away. (Something that she did quite often.)
iv
The campaign was tiring. From pretending to not be a spy, tolerating Preston, and smiling for the paparazzi, life was wearing thin for Macey. She missed her friends (although she'd never admit it). She missed Gallagher. Most of all, she missed that feeling in her stomach knowing she was safe.
That is, until Cammie came practically out of nowhere and saved her from that thug on the roof. And Preston was just standing there in the background looking like an idiot. What did she see in him?
But Cammie was there and that's all that mattered. Cammie saved her. Cammie was her friend. Cammie was not a (compulsive) liar like Tina.
v.
She was back at Gallagher, and the trail had ended. Her father had gotten the position, thanks to President Winters and his (dense) son. And Macey was finally, finally rid of her past and looking forward to her (spy) future. And graduation (which was so close).
But then Tina, ex-best friend Tina, had to join Gallagher and ruin everything.
And Macey just had to see Tina and Preston making out in the corner of some brick wall on an expedition to Roosevelt. But she couldn't take it this time. She just couldn't pretend to be the ice-queen and promise Tina a life's worth of revenge, because Macey wasn't that girl anymore. So she fled from the bench she was sitting on, abandoning the Cove Ops mission and muting out Mr. Solomon's voice in her earpiece. Somehow, she failed to notice that Solomon was not only upbraiding Macey, but three other girls, also.
vi.
Somehow, they made it to the room before she did –probably venturing through the vents that Cammie seemed to know on the back of her finger.
"We can either talk or throw darts at this," Bex told her, holding up a picture of Preston, her ex-boyfriend Preston.
Macey sort of half-smiled. "Where'd you get that?"
"Around."
Cammie rolled her eyes, "You know Bex."
Macey laughed, somewhat forced (but somewhat genuine). "Yeah, I do."
A minute and 23 seconds later, the door swerved open and Liz was carrying in a plastic bag with the Abrams Pharmacy seal engraved on it.
"Sorry I'm late," she looked down at the bag, taking out a pint of coffee ice cream and a plastic spoon, tossing it over to Macey, "the line was pretty long."
"Before I forget," Cammie said, taking out The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and John Tucker Must Die from her bag and tossing it on the bed.
Noting Macey's crinkled eyebrows, she smiled, "I may have snatched them from the local video store."
"We don't even have a TV," Macey pointing.
"We do now," Bex quirks her lip, nodding to the door, where Anna was posing with a flat screen.
"Someone order a TV?"
"Thanks, Anna," Cammie grinned.
"This one's so last year," Macey heard Bex tell Anna.
"I know, but it was the best I could do at such a short notice," Anna responded.
Macey grinned then (an actual real grin) and at that moment, she was happy. She had real friends, ones who wouldn't stick their tongues down her flavor of the week. Scooping up the ice cream and placing it in her mouth, she wondered if what Joe Solomon had told them ("Don't trust anyone.") actually deemed true.
It was more of "Don't trust people who exchange spit with your boyfriend, but trust people who steal TVs for you."
Top the cake: So, this was written in about two hours thanks to Death Cab (who else?). It's 30% out of character and 70% screwed up (the characters and the actual storyline, I mean), but 100% beta-ed by Divi. Thanks, dude, for being there on such short notice. (Hope your finger feels better!)
Review?