So.

This was new.

There had been a time (or two) (or maybe more and she just didn't want to think about that right now) (especially now) when Reagan had been on the other side of this equation. When she'd been firmly on Sophie's side. A time or two (or, oh fuck it, four) when Reagan had been the one slowly turning circles - literally and in her mind - feeling that sickening feeling, that pain mixed with jealousy mixed with the urge to duck and cover as all the pieces seemed to click into place by falling square onto her.

A time or four when she'd been the one cheated on. When she was the cheated, instead of the cheater.

Maybe (not really maybe at all) that was why she didn't say anything, not a single word in her own defense. Maybe it was empathy or sympathy - one kind of 'thy' or another - that stilled her tongue as she simply stepped aside and let Sophie pass, let the other woman (oh, wait, that was Amy) slip inside the apartment without a word.

Or, maybe that was just because, really, what the fuck could she say?

She could have tried. The words came to her, easily and quickly. The words she'd heard before, the explanations that seemed so… easy, so obvious, so perfectly typical.

Maybe a little 'It's not what it looks like'? Well, maybe it wasn't. Maybe Sophie was reading this entirely differently, thinking it was a one time thing - and oh, how sick Reagan felt at that notion, that maybe it was - and maybe she hadn't pieced any of the rest together.

Not yet, at least. But she would or, in the end, Reagan would tell her because if she didn't, then Amy would, for sure, because if there was one thing that Reagan still knew about her ex?

With her, the truth would always out. Maybe not willingly or pleasantly or in a way that actually did any good for anyone, but it would.

Reagan considered - for about ten seconds - trying a bit of 'I can explain'? She knew that was always good, a classic, a can't miss, probably line number one on page number one of the So You Got Busted Fucking Around handbook, the definitive guide to what to say when you get caught with your hand between some other girl's legs.

Except… she can't explain. Reagan doesn't know how it happened (lie) and she doesn't know why (bigger lie) and she has absolutely no idea how she feels about it.

OK, Pinocchio. Whatever you say.

(Your nose is showing)

And even if she could explain - and she so fucking can, but she so fucking won't because, recent choices notwithstanding, Reagan isn't stupid - there's a bigger problem. Those legs she got metaphorically caught between?

They don't belong to just some other girl. Not for her.

And not for Sophie either.

That means the lie is out and the explanation is way out and, really, that leaves Reagan with only one thing to say. The one thing she knows is absolutely true and absolutely won't make even the tiniest bit of difference, but she says it anyway.

"I'm sorry."

The words slip free in a sigh as she shuts the door, leaning back against it and she wishes them back between her lips almost before they're out. Reagan knows those words - those words in this situation - as well meaning as they are, she knows there's only one person in this equation that they do anything for.

And it's not the one they should.

Those words are for her - the wrong her - and all they do is slap a band-aid (a tiny one, one of those miniscule round numbers meant for a paper cut and this is a fucking chest wound) on her guilt. If she was Sophie, Reagan knows, those words would probably be met with scorn or derision.

Or a right to the fucking face.

But she isn't Sophie and Reagan knows Sophie won't do that. There will be no punching.

(And, later, Reagan will wonder exactly how many times in one day can she be wrong?)

So when Sophie doesn't say anything back, the silence is almost a relief - and Reagan's almost ashamed to even think that - and she doesn't even look in Reagan's direction. That would only distract her, would take her focus from the slow and steady appraisal of every single thing in the apartment.

Fuck. Reagan knows that look. She hates that look.

It isn't so much the look as what's in it. The question. The questions, plural. None of them good, and the answers… oh, the answers are so much worse.

Did they do it over there? (Yes.) (At least some of it.) Were they one the couch when they kissed? (Does up against count as on?) (As if that would help.) Did they kiss? (Yes.) Or was a kiss too… intimate? (No.) Or is that who they were, who they are? (Were, yes. Are… who the fuck knows?) Were they intimate, more than just a quick fuck, more than just some instant attraction they couldn't ignore - no matter the consequences - more than just a desperate need and lust? Was there actually something there?

Reagan knows - knew - the answer to that. And she knew the other answers would hurt, would wound, would cut.

And that one would kill.

Her mouth was dry and her lips couldn't part and the words… well, this time they seemed bound and fucking determined not to come out no matter how hard she tried.

Which wasn't all that hard. Not really. Not at all.

But, in the end, it didn't matter. Cause Sophie had the question.

"You're her."

And, apparently, she had the answer too.


"You're her."

The first time she ever kissed a girl - really kissed a girl, not some stupid peck on the cheek playing some stupid game with some stupid boys - Sophie knew. She knew she was gay, she knew that, for her, it would always be girls and only girls, she knew that her life had irrevocably shifted with the touch of just two soft lips.

What she didn't know was how the hell she hadn't known.

Sort of how she was feeling just then. If, by 'sort of', you meant exactly. Exactly how she was feeling right then. How? How had she not known?

It was all right there, if she'd only looked. Literally all right there, in the far corner of the room, the spot Reagan had breezed over in the grand tour, the one Sophie herself had ignored - she had had far better things to look at - tucked away in the shadows next to the bookcase, by the window.

DJ gear.

Two turntables and a microphone ran through her head and Sophie almost smiled but then, instead, she remembered. (As if she could have forgotten.) It was all right there, in that corner, two decks, a pile of tangled headphones and cords. A stack of vinyl as high as her waist. It was all right there.

It was always right there.

"It was there," Sophie said, softly. "The night I was here. When you were…"

When Reagan was ready. Ready to forget. Something Sophie wished, right then (and five seconds later, and an hour later, and an hour and five minutes and one punch later) she could do. Forget.

"It's funny," she said. "The stuff we don't see. When we don't want to."

Reagan took one short step toward her, one hand reaching out, but not quite getting there, not landing on soft skin or wrinkled shirt, catching nothing but air. That was Reagan's choice - an idea that seemed to cover a brand new multitude of sins - because Sophie didn't flinch. She didn't pull away, didn't make a mad dash toward the door.

Reagan didn't touch her - Sophie had an inkling that would never happen again - but Sophie stood her ground.

"You're the ex," Sophie said, surprising even herself with how little bitterness there was to it, how even that word - 'ex' - didn't snap off her tongue like a curse. "You're the one that dumped Amy in high school," she said, her eyes never leaving that darkened corner. "Because she wasn't gay enough for you."

There's a moment - it's brief and passes quickly, though maybe not quickly enough - when Sophie can feel Reagan fighting it down. That urge to protest, to argue, to say 'no, that's not the way of it' (read: that's some bullshit.) Sophie can almost hear the words battling it out inside the other woman, the other words, the other reasons, the ones she's sure Reagan has spent the better part of two years trying to convince herself were the real reasons.

Karma. Amy's lies. Liam. Karma. Amy just wasn't ready for a relationship. Karma. Their lives were going in different directions and it just wasn't there time and it wasn't really anyone's fault.

Did she mention Karma?

But - and this time it's to her credit - all her (inner) protestations aside, Reagan doesn't argue with the simple truth.

"I was stupid," she said, taking a step back, her hand slowly dropping back to her side, as she confirmed Sophie's suspicions without, you know, actually confirming. "Stupid and young and I'd had my heart and my trust broken."

There was a split second of pause, a humming moment of silence when they both waited to see if Sophie would point out the obvious: she knew the feeling.

"What your ex did to you… the 'phase' one?" Sophie nodded slowly. "What she did to you, it just sucked."

She heard Reagan take a short quick breath behind her, the knowledge sinking in. Sophie knew. She knew all of it. She knew about Charlotte and she knew about her and she knew about her and Amy and about her and Amy and the breakup. She'd known all of it, all along.

Everything except the one part that mattered.

"It's my own fault," Sophie said. She'd drifted somehow - Reagan didn't understand how she hadn't seen her move, she was looking at her the whole damn time - and was now by the gear, one hand lightly brushing against a pair of headphones. "I was the one who made the rule, I was the one who said no names."

She laughed then. A soft, hollow, it's not funny, it's ironic - like actually ironic, Alanis - little cough of a laugh. One word. One name. It all could have been prevented with one damn word.

"It was that night, wasn't it?" she asked. "The night I… introduced… you two. That was why you bailed on our date."

Reagan slumped back hard against the counter, as the memory of Amy's face - of Amy's everything - rounding that corner in the hall outside their room, flooded her. "Yeah," she muttered. "That was the first time we'd seen each other since… well… since she tried to get back together with me."

It's Karma, isn't it?

And then it was Reagan's turn to laugh - though hers was just a touch more bitter, a shade more 'should have seen this coming' - because, well, yes.

It really was karma.

Sophie took another few steps, her fingers drumming atop the stack of records. In a bad movie or a TV show - the kind of shit they'd show on MTV, probably - she'd pick one up. Smash it on the floor while Reagan watched. And then another. And then another. One for every one of those multitude of sins.

The records stayed neatly stacked. Sophie wasn't a rager, she wasn't the kind for tantrums, she wasn't a violent angry woman.

Not yet, anyway.

"Why didn't you?" she asked, surprising herself and Reagan. "When Amy came to you and asked you to take her back, why didn't you?"

She left the rest of that mercifully unsaid. You weren't in love with Heather, not even then. It was still Amy, even then. You hadn't let go, even then. You never let go.

I know. Because you told me.

"It wasn't that simple," Reagan said. She pushed off the counter and crossed the room to the couch, her defeated and guilty posture slipping aside, replaced by… something Sophie couldn't quite read. "I had Heather and Amy…"

The rest of that sentence screamed it's way across the room.

Amy had Karma. Or, more accurately, Amy had her want for Karma. Her need for Karma.

"She wasn't running to me," Reagan said. "She was running from Karma. Why would I have taken her back?"

The word - love - rolled its way up from inside of Sophie and she had to bite it back, gnash it crush it beneath her teeth. Ten minutes ago, she would have said it.

Ten minutes ago, she might have believed it would have mattered.

"She came to you," Sophie said instead, marvelling to herself at her grasp of the blatantly obvious. "Didn't that count for anything? Amy could have gone anywhere but she -"

Reagan cut her off so softly, Sophie almost didn't hear her. "She did."

She turned to the older woman - the one she'd thought… well… what she'd thought or imagined or projected or fucking dreamed didn't seem all that relevant now - and watched as Reagan slowly, but inexorably, crumpled, sliding down along the arm of the couch, her knees coming to her chest.

There were tears in her eyes - fucking tiny puddles that Sophie could still imagine falling into and God, when was that going to stop? - but Reagan was refusing to let them fall. Maybe she thought she didn't have the right (she really didn't) or maybe she thought crying would just piss Sophie off (it probably would) or maybe, really, when it came right down to it?

Reagan had cried enough damn tears over Amy Raudenfeld.

(She had.) (She most definitely had.)

"She did go anywhere," Reagan said. "One minute Amy was standing in my doorway, wanting me back. The next she was on a bus." She wrapped her arms around her knees. "She told you about the bus, right?"

Sophie nodded, a glimmer of understanding - and fuck all, that wasn't fair - slipping in. Amy's bus stories, the tales of her summer on the road, were the one set of stories where they didn't need the rules about names.

Amy didn't remember most of them anyway.

"I heard all about it from one of my friends in the band," Reagan said. Sophie stood rigidly in place, refusing to even acknowledge the faint hint of sympathy or empathy - fuck all the 'thy's, fuck 'em all to hell - she felt tingling its way up from her toes. "Every little detail cause, let's face it, wild child Amy is an awesome story. And let's also face it, I was over her, right? I was with Heather, after all."

Reagan shook her head and swiped at one eye with her sleeve. Sophie leaned up against the bookcase and slowly sank to the floor across from her. She watched as Reagan fumbled with Amy's phone, the one she'd never actually put down.

"That summer, Amy could've gone anywhere," Reagan said. Her thumb ghosted across the screen, her touch light and tender as it slipped across Amy's smiling face. It was the touch of a lover, and Sophie had to look away. "And she did. She went anywhere… anywhere else."

Reagan didn't say 'leaving me heartbroken, leaving me in a loveless relationship, leaving me wondering what might have been'.

She didn't say 'leaving me with the wrong girl'.

She didn't say it. But Sophie still heard it.

The phone slipped from Reagan's hand, clattering on the floor, landing squarely between them and neither of them made any move to pick it up. "Amy just walked right out my door and she disappeared."

She glanced around the apartment, as Sophie tracked her eyes, knowing exactly what she would find. No one but the two of them, anywhere in sight.

"Apparently," Reagan said, "some things never change."