A/N: First things first: GamerKid, Guest-whose-name-I-don't-know, thank you for the reviews. I means a lot to me to have someone not only take the time to read my work, but to complement it as well. I hope you enjoy the ride because frankly, I've got no bloody idea where it's going.

I feel obligated to admit that I may have written this entire chapter just to use that "Mom would be proud" line. And I'm not really happy it either; I don't really feel that it lives up to the first and the mood is off what I wanted it to be (See below). Don't expect this pace to last. Chapter 3 is being an uncooperative pain in the ass so I don't see it being done for at least a couple of days, possibly more.

I never really got what authors meant when they said that characters sometimes wrote themselves until it happened to me, but man do I get it now. *ahem* On a related note... Amy, darling, I know you're a strong, tolerant woman —and we all love you for that— but what the hell! You were supposed to angst the fuck out, not suck it up, reason it out and accept it! Where's the drama in that?! You know I'm going to have to pay you back for that in chapter 3, right? (also, I have to write a chapter 3 because god this chapter was so... not negative)

Enjoy.


Chapter 2 - Introspection

The only person you cannot hide from is yourself, and that is not always such a good thing.


Introspection, Amy had decided, is rarely a pleasant thing. An apt observation, she felt, since it had taken her a good half hour to run out of tears and stop mentally screaming long enough to decide what to freak out over first. Oddly —or perhaps not, given that denial seemed to be one of her strong suits— what her tear-stained brain chose to focus on was that Jess and Karma were nothing alike. Physically, at least, although Amy was surprised to realise that she knew next to nothing about the girl other than the way she looked, even after they had—

She cut off that train of thought before it could distract her from her self-image collapsing in on itself.

Time enough for that later.

What concerned her the most, about Jess at least, was that she didn't care —which was really quite callous of her, now that she thought about it. But it was true. Even now, after the anger, adrenaline and raw, unmitigated lust had worn off, she didn't care. All she cared about was that Jess had been hot, sexy and there when she needed a distraction rather desperately.

She got the distinct impression she should feel guilty about that, and the fact that she didn't made her feel a little guilty in and of itself, but she pushed it away with the rationale, however weak, that she was into it too.

Which was a whole other kettle of fish that she wasn't going to touch right now since it would probably lead to a few... indulgences that would be detrimental to the whole 'mental breakdown' thing she had going on right now.

So what else was making the sky fall and the world end and pigs fly? I just lost my virginity in a drunken one night stand with a stranger after a party. Even in her miserable state, she couldn't hold back a snort of sarcastic amusement. I finally did something 'normal'. Mom would be so proud.

With that thought her mood soured all over again. Amy knew that she had blindsided her mother with her 'fake coming out' —not so fake, she amended— but it still hurt that her mom couldn't act normally around her. To give credit where it was due, she was trying, but it seemed she just didn't know how to handle it. And, like Amy, if Farrah Raudenfeld didn't know how to handle something, she ignored it until it went away or threw something in her face that she literally couldn't ignore. Where's a leggy redhead when you need one?

If she wasn't so committed to this being a big fucking deal, Amy might actually have burst out laughing at that.

All things considered, her family issues were probably the least of her problems. In fact, Bruce of all people had been strangely supportive, if in a I don't really want to think too hard about this kind of way. Even Lauren had... well, not been nice, but at least not been any worse about it. Maybe Hester High was rubbing off on her if her indifference to her step-sister-to-be's sexuality wasn't just an act for their parents, and Amy had no doubt that Lauren had seen straight through the 'act' that was her relationship with Karma. She may not have come right out and said it —something which showed a surprising degree of discretion, really— but Amy was pretty sure that her step-sister-to-be had figured out she was gay long before she had come to accept it herself.

Which brought her to the biggest, life-changing, I-am-so-fucked-and-not-in-the-good-way issue at hand. Was she gay?

All the evidence pointed to 'yes', rather strongly in fact. But, she reasoned rather desperately, I could be bi. It was a possibility, and slightly safer than admitting she was a full-blown lesbian —which she may or may not be and was, quite frankly, tired of debating— but that wouldn't change the fact that she had never really considered doing with a boy what she had done with Jess. Or anyone really. Beyond the obvious differences in anatomy, she had honestly never even thought about it.

So she tried it right then.

The first male to cross her mind was Shane, smiling that kind-of-cute-kind-of-irritating I-know-exactly-what's-going-on-and-it-amuses-me smile that he wore so often. She felt nothing in particular, but, she argued again, Shane's gay, of course I don't feel anything for him. She could almost hear his chiding-slash-supportive-slash-amused words ringing through her head, "oh, honey, that's not how it works."

Yeah, not happening. Next.

Next, was him. This time she did feel something. Murderously angry. So not helping. Although...

She drifted off, letting go of her anger and wondering when exactly he had gone from being Liam Booker —the name ran through her head in Karma's sweet, melodic tone, bringing with it a disproportionate feeling of loss, pain and longing— to him. Liam Booker —Karma's voice again— was that-kid-that-hung-out-with-Shane who lots of other girls talked about. He was a thing-that-was-not-her-and-must-be-hated-because-of-it.

She actually felt kind of bad after putting it to herself that way. It was also the moment she accepted that she might have been just a tad jealous and not realised it before now. Great, you're not just a lesbian —it felt surprisingly good to admit that much to herself— you're a clingy, jealous one as well.

Or maybe not... Remembering Jess, she didn't feel particularly attached to the girl. Hell, after seeing Karma and hi-Li-himbaby steps here— going upstairs last night, it was quite possible she would have gone home with any appropriately attractive and accommodating distraction. Which... wasn't exactly making her feel any better.

Unbidden, her own words in this very room came back to her, "I thought you wanted your first time to be special." Another snort, ...and now I'm a fucking hypocrite. The beginnings of laughter; literally.

Spirits raised, she mentally braced herself for one final test before bringing up her memories of last night; the way that the light from Jess' lamp fell on the girl's bare skin, the feel of her palms on those toned legs, of fingers curled in locks of red hair as lips crashed together...

As her breathing caught and a slight moan escaped her lips, Amy wondered just how good at denial she was because right now it was pretty fucking obvious she was gay.

And as she fell back into memories and fantasies, her last chaste thought was that she might actually be okay with that.


So this is what a sex drive feels like. Stepping into the shower, Amy felt her tired body relax under the pelting heat of the water. She felt tired, dirty and... oddly satisfied in a way she hadn't been before last night.

Sure she had masturbated before —she was a teenager after all— but it had never felt like that before. It had always been mechanical, clinical, almost forced and it was never that satisfying for that long. Honestly she had wondered what the big deal about sex was because so far, she hadn't really enjoyed her forays into self-gratification.

Now? Well, I'm pretty sure I like sex. A slight shudder as she ran soap over some of her more... sensitive areas. A lot. It was by far the easiest thing she had had to admit all day. Besides, she was a hormonal teenage girl, she was supposed to like sex. A pause as she considered just what people seemed to expect from kids her age; well, teenagers are supposed to like sex. Girls? Not so much.

That thought reminded her vaguely of one of Ivy's feminist rants —from the middle of their Homecoming Queens photoshoot, she thought— about sexist expectations. Which reminded her of Ivy herself. Which made her realise that naked in the shower while rubbing your hands all over your body was not the best time to start thinking about an attractive girl you knew well enough to imagine without clothes and… doing things.

Amy little out a breath; half sigh, half groan. So this is what a sex drive feels like.


Clean for the first time since she left for the party the previous night, Amy's first warning of impending doom was muffled voices coming from the front door. When Karma came through her bedroom door as if hell itself was chasing her, Amy considered that she might be even better at denial than she had thought because she had completely glossed over the reason she had spent the last hour considering her sexuality.

Joy.

After her friend had caught her breath enough to speak, the reason for her haste became apparent.

"Why haven't you been answering my calls?"

Having been forced to recognise that the rest of the world still existed and that retreating to her room hadn't magically stopped the passage of time, Amy realised with a start that she hadn't spoken to her best friend in over ten hours. There seemed something deeply unnatural about that but before she could delve deeper into the reasons she felt that way, she realised she hadn't even heard Karma's calls, and that meant...

"My phone!"

The words left her mouth before she could stop them, and at Karma's confused look she started thinking of how she was going to explain that if her phone wasn't here then it was probably laying on the floor of the room she spent the night in, having fallen out of her pocket in Jess' eagerness to part Amy from her clothing. Then she decided she'd much rather not have that particular conversation.

"Your phone?"

"I lost it. At the party last night"

Lying did not come naturally to Amy, it was just the way that she had been raised. With Karma though, that was an advantage because it meant that she took every word out of Amy's mouth as gospel truth.

"How'd you manage that one, silly?"

Ignoring the little shiver that went through her as Karma sat on the bed right next to her, she replied, with as straight a face as she could,

"A girl threw up on my jacket so I had to take it off. I think it fell out then."

She let out a sigh of relief when Karma just smiled and commented on how forgetful she was. Then she started talking about hi-Lia-him.

Amy wondered what she had done to piss off god today.


It was a rather surreal experience, listening to Karma go on and on about Liam —she was actually rather proud that she managed to mentally use his proper name— because after last night, after what she had done before her shower —and had to fight not to do in the shower— she got it.

Well, not what Karma saw in him, exactly, with his stupid hair and douchey attitude —she was declaring that a word now since it described him perfectly as far as Amy was concerned— but the concept of being stupidly attracted to someone to the exclusion of common sense? Well, Karma was sitting right next to her, with gorgeous brown hair that was just begging to have fingers run through it, lips Amy was dying to taste again and soft, smooth, silky skin she wanted to touch so badly. She just wanted to hold her, and cuddle her, and kiss her and touch her and love her and...

Okay so maybe she wasn't paying as much attention to what Karma was actually saying as she probably should be, but since her friend's very first sentence had revealed that she and Liam hadn't had sex last night —a long story involving locked doors, drunken students and, somehow, a scented candle— she had heard all she really needed to know to go from bitter longing to a warm, fuzzy feeling she hadn't felt since that first kiss in front of the school assembly.

Besides, if she payed attention she would have to remember that Karma was straight, in love-slash-lust —Amy hadn't quite figured out which one— with a guy Amy couldn't stand, and that the cuddling they were doing was strictly platonic and not a sign that Karma loved her back even a fraction as much as Amy did her.

Instead, Amy just sank into the warmth of her best friend, closed her eyes and imagined. Karma didn't even notice until she was fast asleep.