By the time spring melted into summer, Valerie's strategy to gain Muriel's mother's trust seemed to be working. She had decided on the ultimate test of these efforts—asking Muriel's mother if Muriel could spend the night at her house. It seemed to barely take any convincing on Valerie's part. Muriel's mother insisted on talking to Valerie's father and grandfather on the phone about the visit, and on driving Muriel there herself, but she did allow the visit, which was a great breakthrough as far as Valerie was concerned.
Muriel signed up to join the cross country team with her that summer, which meant they spent more time together than ever. And Muriel did get more freedom, despite her insistence it wasn't going to happen. She was allowed to make her own way to practices and to come with Valerie certain afternoons to visit at her house. And when the school year started it became entirely routine for them to alternate spending Friday nights over at each other's houses.
The first warning signs that something was about to change didn't strike Valerie as important at first. She even dismissed them when Muriel pointed them out. She did realize that more pointed interest on Muriel's mother's part couldn't be a good thing—yet when she asked if she could join them that night for their movies, neither of them felt they could say no. Muriel and Valerie sat side-by-side on the couch, and Muriel's mother sat in the armchair, making occasional comments about how the situations in these types of movies gave kids ideas and the like. Valerie glanced at Muriel at one point during one such diatribe. Muriel's eyes were riveted to the screen, in a way that made Valerie think she was being very careful not to look away.
"We'll probably stop after this film," Valerie said as the credits began to roll. It was late, but they'd normally stay up even later than this and watch another. But the intrusion of Muriel's mother had not really been welcome and Valerie really didn't want to encourage it.
"Oh, yes," Muriel's mother said, standing. "Of course you will. You two sleep in separate beds when she stays the night at your house, right?"
Valerie glanced at Muriel, who was once again not looking at either of them. "Yeah, of course," she says. "I have bunk beds—plenty of room."
"Good," Muriel's mother said. "That's the funny thing about what we let our kids get away with…just because it's two girls we don't think anything about them staying the night in the same room."
"Right…" Valerie said, catching on to what Muriel's mother was getting at. "I don't know, I know someone whose best friend is a guy, and they're allowed to stay the night." She shrugged. "It's not a big deal if you trust your kids, right?"
Muriel's mother stared at her and didn't say anything. Valerie didn't know how to react to that, and faltered at saying something, when Muriel caught her arm and tugged.
"Let's go to bed," she said. "We do have a meet in the morning."
"Yeah, okay," she said, gladly turning away from Muriel's mother and going upstairs. She waited until the two of them were in the room together before she asked the question burning in her mind. "Okay, what the hell was that about?"
Muriel went over to the bedside stand to turn on the lamp. "She got into my stuff again," she said. "The other day. She saw some of the stuff we've texted and decided we've probably been fooling around."
"Maybe she should learn to stay out of your business if that bothers her," Valerie said with a shrug. Obviously, this meant they'd have to be more careful about not making contact on the school datapad, rather than Muriel's secret COM pad she kept in her locker. But other than that, it didn't seem like such a big deal.
"Yeah, well, you know how she is," Muriel muttered, turning off the overhead light. "We'll probably need to stay in the public areas of the house for a while when you stay over, just to make sure everything looks all right. Like watching the movie tonight and stuff."
"We only did that because she asked to watch with us," Valerie said. Otherwise they would have watched it on one of their datapads in the bedroom, even though the screen was smaller.
"Yeah, exactly," Muriel said. "Look, don't forget that she could shut everything down on us if she wanted to. I've been awfully lucky with how much she's been letting me do lately."
"I don't think it's that big of a deal," Valerie said. "Like, if she really thought we were fooling around and that really bothered her, wouldn't she have sent me home tonight?"
"Don't expect her to make sense," Muriel grumbled, lying down in her bed and pulling the covers over herself.
"I'll keep it in mind," Valerie said, kicking the flap of her sleeping bag aside and lying down within its folds.
It was close to the end of cross country season now, and the revelation seemed to cause some tension between Valerie and Muriel. Muriel had been a good friend for over a year now, and Valerie didn't necessarily want for anything to change, but the concerns of Muriel's mother caused a lot of aggravation for her. Essentially, it seemed that Muriel's mother had picked up on some subtext in Valerie's messages that Muriel herself had never noticed. That, or Muriel had ignored it.
It never occurred to her that Muriel felt the same way.
The Friday after cross country season came to a close, Valerie chose several horror movies for the two of them to watch. It was going to be nice not to have any obligations that Saturday morning and staying up late watching movies—more movies than usual—was going to be a nice way to celebrate that. Muriel came home with her after school, and they had pizza for dinner as they settled in to watch the first one. Unlike Muriel, Valerie had a TV in her room, so the two of them were able to settle in on the bed as Valerie turned on the first one.
"How scary is this movie?" Muriel asked, settling in on the bed next to her.
"Scary," Valerie said. "Why?"
"I don't know how much I like scary movies," Muriel said.
"Don't worry, I'm here," Valerie said. "If you need me to, I'll hold on to you through the bad parts."
"Don't make fun of me," Muriel said, laughing a little.
"I'm not," Valerie said. "I'm serious."
"Sure," Muriel said.
"Watch," Valerie said, putting her pizza down on the bedside table and slinging her arms around Muriel's shoulders.
The other girl laughed and put her arm around Valerie's waist. "All right, now I believe you."
It was nice sitting this way, and eventually Valerie laid her head on Muriel's shoulder. The first jump scare happened early on and Muriel let out a little shriek, causing Valerie to laugh and tighten her grip around Muriel's shoulders. "It's okay," she said.
"I know," Muriel said. "I told you not to make fun of me."
"I'm not making fun of you, I'm just saying, it's okay." Valerie glanced up from Muriel's shoulder to look at Muriel's face. "Really."
"Fine then," Muriel said, not looking down at her for a moment. But then she glanced down at Valerie and met her gaze. "What if we kissed?"
"Huh?" Valerie said. She sat up, facing Muriel. "Did you say, 'what if we kissed'?"
"Well, what if we did?" Muriel said. "You want to, I know you do."
"You do?" Valerie said.
Muriel sighed, an exaggeratedly impatient one. "Valerie," she said.
Valerie felt a sly smile spread across her face, and she leaned in to press her lips against Muriel's.
"Feel better?" Muriel asked once the kiss had broken.
"Not yet," Valerie said. She leaned in to kiss Muriel again, but her COM pad rang. Valerie paused, then turned to see who it was. "It's your mom," she said. "Hello?"
"Is Muriel at your house?" she demanded.
"Yes," Valerie said, bewildered at her tone. "It's Friday."
"I want to talk to your father," Muriel's mother said.
"He's not home yet," Valerie said.
"Let me talk to your grandfather then," Muriel's mother said.
"He's not home either," Valerie said. "He stayed at the office late."
"Give the phone to Muriel," Muriel's mother said sharply.
Valerie looked at Muriel and held the COM pad out to her. "She wants to talk to you."
Valerie couldn't hear every word of the following rant, but it was fairly audible regardless. She watched in dismay as Muriel broke down in tears over the course of the conversation. The girls had tried to trick her into thinking the cross country season wasn't over yet, her mother charged, and Muriel had never received permission to continue staying over on the weekends after the meets had ended. Furthermore, she had never been allowed to stay over at Valerie's when no adults would be there. She then started talking about how Valerie was trying to get Muriel into bed with her, something that she knew Muriel's mother had come to wonder about, but hearing that said about her made Valerie feel ashamed and angry.
Muriel's mother concluded by saying that she was already waiting in the driveway for Muriel. Muriel would not be allowed to spend the night again, and Muriel would not be allowed to associate with Valerie again outside of school. When the call was over, Muriel rose, shaking, and went to gather her things.
"Hey," Valerie said, coming over to her and putting her hand on Muriel's arm. "We'll fix this."
"No, we won't," Muriel burst out, turning toward her. "She's not going to change her mind on this one. It just takes one mistake. Haven't you learned?"
Valerie let go of her, stung, and Muriel returned to putting her stuff back into her bag. "I'm going to fix it, Muriel," she said.
"No, Valerie," Muriel said. "If you try, you only make things worse for me." She slung her bag over her shoulder and started for the door. "Don't follow me outside."
Valerie followed her downstairs and watched her go out the door, then watched through the front window as Muriel walked out to her mother's car. Valerie's fists clenched; she watched as Muriel's mother's mouth moved and Muriel seemed to sink into the front seat. She couldn't help it—she rushed to the door, rushed to the driver's side of the car.
"Muriel wasn't trying to lie to you about cross country," Valerie said. "It was my fault. I assumed and Muriel didn't think any different."
"That really doesn't matter," Muriel's mother said, then put her hand up when Valerie started to speak. "It doesn't matter! Don't talk to my daughter again."
"But…!"Any words Valerie would say in rebuttal were lost as Muriel's mother pulled out of the driveway and drove away.
Life was different from then on. Valerie could message Muriel on her cheap friends-only COM tablet, but all she would reply was that she wasn't allowed to talk to Valerie anymore and that Valerie should leave her alone. Their schedules hadn't really aligned this school year, which meant as long as Muriel was actively avoiding her, Valerie simply wasn't going to be seeing her anymore.
"Where's your friend been?" Grandpa Lars asked her one night at dinner. "Muriel? I haven't seen her in a while."
Valerie frowned, pausing before responding. "We're not friends anymore."
"Oh?" Grandpa set his hand on the table, letting his fork tink against his plate. "Why not?"
Valerie shook her head. Details were the wrong thing to share. Grandpa would only try to contact Muriel's mother, and that would draw things out even more than they were. And she knew a situation like that would only make things worse for Muriel. "Just because."
"But you girls were so close," Grandpa said. "Surely you can work things out."
"No," Valerie said. "We can't."
Grandpa looked at her for a moment. "Some things aren't worth being stubborn about forever," he said. "Maybe attitudes will change once some time goes by."
Valerie nearly laughed, but let out a bitter snort. He actually thought this whole situation was on her head. "I doubt it."
"Well." Grandpa tilted his head with a cluck of his tongue. "I think that's a shame."
"Yeah," Valerie said. "It is."
