A/N: Finally got another chapter out, since I was too busy graduating to write for a month.
Important note: Viney's blind in this AU. I've done the research, but if I screw up on any details just let me know. I'm always happy for concrit. Enjoy!
It turns out that being the best wingwoman ever and ruling high school is a little more complicated than Emira thought.
Viney is sitting alone in the library, eating a sandwich, dog by her feet. She eats lunch in the library. Emira doesn't judge people, but people who eat lunch in the school library are losers. Well, nobody said Edric had good taste in girls.
"Hey," Emira says. Viney looks up, startled, and the dog perks up its ears.
"Hi," Viney says, and takes another bite of her sandwich. It's hardly a warm welcome, but she's probably just shy, and Emira can deal with that.
"Why are you in here all alone?" she asks, taking a step closer. There's still ten feet and a table separating them, so Viney has plenty of space to cut and run if she feels intimidated.
"Puddles can't handle the cafeteria," Viney says, patting the dog, who seems very excited by the mention of its name. "There's so much food that ends up on the floor, he'd get distracted."
Well, now Emira kind of feels like a bitch for judging her, and she doesn't like feeling like a bitch. Time to keep being friendly.
"I thought service dogs were trained not to get distracted," Emira says, and then kicks herself for continuing to say stupid things. She keeps approaching slowly, so they can have a conversation at a reasonable distance.
"They are, but he's still a dog, and he has his limits," Viney says. "One time when he was still pretty young, he saw a squirrel and chased it for three blocks."
"Three blocks? You're a bad dog, aren't you?" Emira coos at the dog, leaning down. The dog licks her face, and she yelps, tries to scrub the spit out of her eyes, and ends up overbalancing and falling flat on her ass on the gross library carpet. Viney is smiling, but there's a bit of tension in her face and she seems to be trying not to laugh.
"Do you have any pets?" Viney asks, and Emira shakes her head.
"No. I have a brother, though, so close enough," she jokes, and then remembers that making jokes at Edric's expense is not the best way to get them together. Maybe she can say she has two brothers and pass Amity off as a very girly-looking boy.
Viney smiles, but it seems like an obligatory polite smile, so Emira makes a mental note. Not a fan of dumb jokes. Edric's not going to like that.
The bell rings, and Viney starts packing away her lunch and standing up.
"Bye," she says in Emira's general direction.
Oh, no. This conversation was way too short to get enough information out of her, and Emira may not have made the best impression, but she needs to keep trying.
"Wait! Uh, will I see you after school? Do you have something going on then?"
"I have roller derby practice after. See you tomorrow," Viney says, and she's not mean about it, just matter-of-fact. She doesn't sound like she's looking forward to it at all.
Hopefully Edric is doing better.
…
Instead of sitting with his friends, Edric scans the cafeteria for noodles wearing black hoodies. There's a few around, but none of them are Jerbo. Edric considers finding a different boring emo boy for Emira and calling it a day. Nah, she'd actually kill him.
There's another flash of black hoodie in the hallway, and Edric peers around the doorframe. Finally, the man himself, walking away from the cafeteria. Edric follows him, flattening himself against walls, hiding behind trash cans, and humming the theme song from Mission: Impossible for maximum stealth. Plenty of people give him weird looks, but Jerbo doesn't seem to notice him and keeps walking, out of the building and into the sports fields. Edric is too cool to know what sports are actually played here, but Jerbo doesn't look like he's here to play. He walks over to a tree, drops his bag down in the shade, and pulls a book out of it.
Edric has plenty of conversation starters prepared by Emira, such as Where did you get that positively dreamy hoodie? and hey, is it hot in here or is it just you? He also has plenty of questions that just came up, such as Do crabs think fish can fly? What book is that? and are you sitting out here alone because it looks cool and mysterious, or do you just have no friends?
Despite the way Edric acts sometimes, he is in fact capable of restraint, so he selects the most reasonable option.
"Hey, Jerbo. I mean, person I've never met. I just happened to be passing by. What book is that?"
Jerbo looks startled, and a little concerned by how close Edric is standing to him.
"Uh, Pride and Prejudice." He holds up the book so Edric can see the title. "And do I know you?"
"I saw the movie one time. Kind of boring, but I liked the version with zombies."
Jerbo's face has shifted from confusion to polite horror.
"Oh, no, was that a blasphemy?" Edric asks, because he knows how seriously some people take their books, and, fortunately, Jerbo's face twitches in a way that you could call a smile.
"Yeah, a little bit. What did you say your name was again?"
"Edric Blight. My sister's in your English class –" Edric cuts himself off, horrified. Part of the agreement is not to mention their siblings, lest the plot be uncovered, and he's just screwed everything up in seconds. "I mean, you don't know my sister. I don't have a sister. I just followed you out here because it looked like you had no friends, and I felt bad for you."
There. Perfect save.
"Uh-huh," Jerbo says, looking skeptical and maybe slightly offended. "I'm Jerbo. Nice to meet you."
"Ever thought that maybe the world is a simulation?"
"Well..." Jerbo frowns. "Probabilistically speaking, it's hard to say. If it is possible to simulate a universe, odds are our universe is a simulation, but we don't know if it's possible to simulate a universe, and we're centuries away from having the processing power to try."
"But what do you think?" Edric prods. If all he gets is long boring talks about probability, he'll have zero information for Emira, and she's in a bad mood already.
"I think that we'll never know," Jerbo says, and then he says "terrifying, right?" at the same time that Edric says "awesome, right?" and then there's an awkward silence.
"No, dude, it'd be cool! Like, what if we were in the Matrix, and we could get out?"
"Yeah, but our existence is at the whim of some all-powerful machine that controls every aspect of our perception."
"Maybe that's already happening. I read this article that said Google is, like, controlling all of us through subliminal messaging."
"Wait, seriously?" Jerbo puts his book down and stares at Edric. "Tell me more."
Edric flops down into the grass, heart soaring.
Wait until Emira hears about this.
…
"You spent the entire lunch period talking to him about your stupid conspiracy theories!?" Emira's voice has risen to a scream. "What is wrong with you? Now Jerbo's going to think you're a total weirdo, and he's going to think that I'm a total weirdo too, and I'll never –"
"But he was interested in the conspiracy theories, Em," Edric protests. "Also, Mom's going to hear you if you keep shouting."
"He was just being polite!" Emira says, and her voice is slightly lower but still very loud. "He was just listening to you and acting interested because he's nice and considerate."
Edric decides that now is not an ideal time to mention that Jerbo thinks that Carey Elwes is a lizard alien.
"Sorry," Emira says, now at normal volume. "I'm just stressed. Did you find out anything else helpful?"
"He likes Pride and Prejudice, but not the one with zombies."
"I love Pride and Prejudice! I mean, the movie was good. I'll have to read the book." Emira sighs. "Uh, Viney seems – nice. She plays roller derby, apparently, and she doesn't like dumb jokes."
"My jokes aren't dumb," Edric says, a little defensively. "And what even is roller derby?"
"I don't know, look it up or something. I have to go read Pride and Prejudice cover to cover, and then look up some literary criticism articles so I don't look like an idiot when I try to talk to him about it."
…
Viney meets Jerbo as they walk out of the school building. They live on the same block, so they walk home together most days, unless it's snowing and Viney has to beg a ride from her mom. It's partly because they're friends and like spending time together, and partly because Viney's parents worry that even with a service dog, the fifteen-minute walk that she's taken hundreds of times could still be hazardous.
What if there's construction or something that you don't see? What if somebody tries to kidnap you?
Viney's used to people fretting over her. Having eyes that work wrong is apparently a signal that she's completely helpless.
"How was your day?" Jerbo asks, and Viney sighs.
"It was fine. Um, Emira Blight tried to talk to me at lunch today."
Jerbo raises his eyebrows, but doesn't say anything, his signal for keep talking.
"It was weird. She just walked up and started a conversation, all casual, except clearly it wasn't casual, because I eat lunch in the library. She had to have been looking for me."
"Viney, you're being paranoid. Maybe she was just stopping by the library, and she wanted to say hi."
"People don't just do that," Viney insists. She feels the cement dip under her feet and stops at the crosswalk, then tilts her head to listen for approaching cars. None.
"How do you know?" Jerbo asks. "Because a crazy coincidence happened. Today, Edric Blight talked to me during lunch. And we talked conspiracy theories, and he didn't laugh at me or anything. He was genuinely interested in what I had to say."
"Jerbo, nobody actually believes your dumb conspiracy theories. You spend too much time on Reddit."
"Not the point," Jerbo says, then she hears his footsteps speed up.
"Jerbo, he was making fun of you. I'm calling it now; in ten minutes there'll be video of you spouting crap about aliens all over Snapchat. People like them don't just talk to people like us."
"Dude, Emira Blight was a bitch to you one time back in seventh grade. People change. Maybe, they're actually trying to be our friends."
"Maybe they're not," Viney retorts. "Maybe you should be less paranoid about the government and more paranoid about high school bullies."
"I'm not paranoid!" Jerbo says, and Viney throws herself into this new argument with full force, because it's familiar territory. Needling Jerbo about that time he thought the greenhouse their neighbors were building was actually a place to hide corpses, and he and their weird neighbor Tinella actually broke in and found nothing but tomatoes, is a lot safer than explaining why Emira Blight makes all her internal organs feel unstable.
On some level, she's aware that she's overreacting. But it's easier to overreact than to actually consider letting someone in.