Prom, it was a nightmare. Only the popular kids with boyfriends or girlfriends like it, seeing as they get to spend hours dangling off of the person they love, or at least, like. Ama did not get that luxury.
Throughout her childhood she had never had any friends. Due to her slightly insane mother, Ama had to move schools almost every year, making it impossible to build close relationships. The young lady acknowledged the fact that this made her super insecure, and socially aquward, which wasn't exactly attractive to teen boys.
Finally, in Junior year of high school, she felt like she had some semblance of a friend group. This group consisted exclusively of other theatre kids, who she had been lucky enough to not scare away permanently with her atrocious behavior freshmen year. However, while Ama had some theatre "friends" she knew a good chunk of them didn't really care about her.
There were two people who stood out as being the most supportive and caring. Izzy and Kristian. Kristian was the "Gay best friend" Ama had no doubts that he was a true friend that she could rely on, he also allowed Ama to work through some leftover homophobia that her mother had trained into her. Izzy, was a much more complex case.
No doubt about it, Ama absolutely adored Izzy. Her long straight hair, always dyed a different color, her tall disposition that fit her personality perfectly, her natural elegence that made you want to be close to her. Izzy was the first and only person she had ever met in person that had similar interests. They had started out at odds with one another, because of Ama's horrendous personality during freshmen year, and Ama's hidden jealousy that Izzy was basically a better version of herself. Eventually, by sometime sophomore year they had a pleasant friendship, starting and ending with the school day. They slowly grew closer, bonding over shared love of fanfiction, and the inside jokes of chemistry.
However, it wasn't until a set build for Thoroughly Modern Millie, that the two girls really became close. Ama had arrived a bit late, which was the usual, and decided to join Izzy in painting. The conversation started fairly superficial, with their typical topic of fanfiction and Supernatural, which left them cracking up, enjoying each other's company.
As the hours went by the topics became deeper. Izzy soon asked her if she wanted to know a secret, and proceeded to share that her and one of her close friends had shared a short relationship, which was the first Ama had heard of Izzy being Pansexual. Ama also clearly remembers discussing their shared longing for adventure, their disappointment at people not understanding them, and most clearly Izzy's mention of soulmates. Izzy had asked "Do you believe in soulmates?" and Ama had replied "I don't know, I want to, but it feels too good to be true". Izzy went on to explain why she believed in soulmates, but Ama was already busy rethinking her answer. Looking back on it, this may have been the moment that Ama fell in love, the moment that she started to believe in soulmates, because there was no way it wasn't Izzy. Of course, Ama didn't realize it at the time, being the strictly heterosexual woman she was.
Over the next few months, Ama and Izzy continued to grow closer. Ama being oblivious to her true feelings, and Izzy falling for Brody. When Izzy confided her new crush to Ama, she felt a twinge of jealousy, but at the time she brushed it off as not wanting to lose time with her friend to a boy.
By the time it was opening night, Ama definitely considered Izzy to be her best friend. Izzy, of course, had other people who she had known for longer, were better people, and easier to get along with. Ama knew that the friendship was uneven, but at least she finally had someone to call a friend. It was hard for her though, because all of her attention went straight to Izzy, the overwhelming need to share everything with her, to spend as much time with her as possible. When Ama gets a friend, she doesn't just get a friend, she gets her entire source of happiness.
Ama was used to putting everything into a relationship. She would do anything Izzy wanted her to do, no questions asked. She recognized that this was probably unhealthy, but it was so hard for her to ever find a friend that she didn't want to lose the one she had. The hard part, is when Ama would give her entire self to a friendship, and they wouldn't give anything, and unfortunately, that went the same with Izzy.
Ama's intense need for people to talk too, and be around, led to her texting Izzy constantly, always trying to make plans to do something. But, both Izzy's lack of enthusiasm at these attempts combined with Ama's intense insecurities, led to Ama fearing that Izzy would grow sick of her soon. But then they would have a laughing fit at school together, and it would all go back to being confusing. This is before Ama even realizes that she had feeling for Izzy.
This realization of feelings, came during one of their performances, which was super inconvenient. Ama can recall sitting in "her" chair backstage and Izzy making a joke saying
"I was talking to my step sister and she said, "at this rate you'll have a crush on Ama in a few weeks""
Ama responded quickly sharing that her dad had made a similar comment, about them being married in 20 years. The two girls laughed, Izzy quickly moving onto another subject, but Ama was stuck. She realized that that was exactly what she wanted, she wanted Izzy to like her, she wanted a long term relationship.
This was a huge bubble burst for Ama, who had always seen herself as strictly heterosexual, and had no idea how to process this new information. By the end of the show she was utterly perplexed, she decided to talk about the general situation with Izzy herself.
"Weird question, but what is sexual attraction?" Ama asked quietly. Izzy laughed and gave a short and confusing answer, that didn't really help much. But then she said "I'd think you'd be Demi" Ama knew that she was probably right. The rest of the show went fairly poorly, because of how unfocused and heartachey Ama was feeling.
Later that night Izzy and Ama exchanged texts discussing Ama's sexuality crisis, she excluded the fact that Izzy herself was the cause of it. Unfortunately, this new discovery was really tearing her up, and she was having trouble finding anyone to talk to about it. After a few days of deep thought and little sleep, she knew that she was truly and utterly in love with Izzy. She also knew that she was going to spiral down pretty quickly if she couldn't find someone to talk to.
Luckily, Ama and Kristian walked to the show together one night giving her time to blurt out that she was in love with Izzy. Kristian went on to give a small pep talk about how it was fine, and she could always talk to him. This helped a bit, mostly because the secret wasn't her own anymore.
Then, it was closing night. The most emotional day of a theatre kid's year. Ama was completely torn up inside already, and now she had to deal with a whole nother loss. After the show, Izzy and Ama clung to each other, surprisingly, not crying. Izzy grasped ahold of Ama's hands, dragged her along, and gave her muiltiple hugs. This was heaven for Ama, but it also hurt, knowing that to Izzy she was just a friend, not a lover or a best friend, but a passing interest.
That night was the cast party, which may have been one of the most unsatisfactory and painful experiences of Ama's life. This show had meant a lot to her, and it didn't come to a nice conclusion. It was short and superficial, and Ama definitely noticed that Izzy spent most of the night flirting between her close friends and flirting with Brody. Izzy did make a pit stop, asking Ama why she had been crying for the whole cast party. Ama was both tempted to blurt out the entire truth, and to say nothing at all. In fear of losing Izzy she settled for a middle ground, saying that it was hard to not have a friend group, and to sit alone in a crowded room. She nodded in assent, but quickly moved to sit with her friends.
Ama in no way thought that Izzy shouldn't spend time with her friends. She didn't want Izzy to ditch everyone to spend time with her, but she did wish that Izzy had tried to incorporate her into the group, or at least said bye at the end of the night.
The next week was absolute torture, everyone in the show was super behind in school work, and all of a sudden Ama didn't have her source of happiness anymore. Sure, she saw her friends at school everyday, but it was so structured and only for an hour or so a day. This was a serious skew in what she was used to having. This sent her quickly going back to the self harming tendencies that she had had freshmen year. Luckily, avoiding blades, but punching herself at every second of despair.
Ama didn't blame her friends, and recognized her own unhealthy coping mechanism of theatre, and her need for constant validation. Unfortunately, she didn't feel comfortable talking to anyone about this, knowing that Izzy wouldn't understand, and also wouldn't get to know the whole picture, and that Kristian just wasn't the sort of person to talk to about something this serious. Ama jokes about it at school, the depression part, not the self harm, and everyone nods along and agrees.
After a couple of weeks to adjust, life went back to "normal" fairly quickly. Ama's burning passion for Izzy, dulled into a deep throbbing pain, not unlike the fanfiction her and Izzy both loved. Ama found the courage to discuss the matter with her father, who responded positively, and she also prepared herself for a year of lying to her mom about her true emotions, knowing about the homophobia her mother had.
Ama had hope occasionally that Izzy returned her feeling, but quickly beat them down knowing they were signs of friendship. This was okay with Ama. She wanted a friend more then anything and if that's all Izzy wants to be, that's perfectly okay with her. One time, Izzy askes her if she would want to come with her and her family to the beach for spring break, and Ama's heart soars. She finally feels like she has a real friend regardless of harbored feelings, however, the cynical insecure part if her asks
"What are the chances this will really happen?"
And sure enough, a few weeks later Ama finally asked if the spring break trip was still an idea, and Izzy answered "Idk, my mom never said anything".
It was this that really bothered Ama. She knew that she was a lot to handle, she was annoying, obnoxious, mean, narccessistic and a whole bunch of other negative things. But why would someone make plans, it put a nice idea into someone's head only to not even ask their mom about it. Making it seem like they never want to spend time with you. And maybe that's the case, maybe Izzy doesn't want to spend time with Ama. And that sucks, but it's fine. Ama would just like to be given the opportunity to detach herself from easily one of the most important people in her life, if that person doesn't want to spend time with her.
But Ama knew that she was probably blowing it all out of proportion, that Izzy was a real friend, who just had issues communicating, or knew at this point about Ama's infatuation, and didn't feel comfortable doing something as big as a beach trip with an unrequited lover.
Currently, the big debate was Prom. The stupid dance, that cost too much, and was overdone in TV shows. Prom finds Ama sitting in her room at night thinking. Ultimately she decides, that even though Izzy doesn't return her feelings, it is necessary to tell her at some point, and hope they can continue as friends. Ama wants to do a big dramatic confession, like something Izzy would have read in a fanfiction. But she also didn't want to embarrass herself, with what she is sure to be a kind rejection.
Ama knows herself well enough to know she could not do this in person, she would freeze up, and undoubtedly start crying. But Ama does have an idea, a genius idea that took her 3 hours when she should have been doing math homework.
Izzy, will you go to Prom with me?
If not as a date, as a friend, who you hopefully can forgive for falling in love with you?