Leaning against a wall of lockers, three teen girls are watching the other students walking by. While they may be looking at the other kids in the hall, the kids walking the hall all know to not even look in their general direction as they pass. The Kanker sisters have a reputation in Peach Creek High as being the toughest three girls and the biggest bullies in the whole school. This reputation is not bad in the Kanker Sister's eyes, it has granted them a few perks, their own private restroom, cuts in the lunch line, the students part for them when they walk through the halls, and they are respected.
Marie the middle sister of the three, dressed in her usual attire of old blue jeans and a black shirt with the sleeves ripped off with blue hair covering her right eye, has a pair of large headphones on, and is drowning out the noises of the passing students with music from a mixtape she made. But she still watches them pass, that is until a boy and girl holding hands walk by.
Marie averts her gaze from the couple as they walk by, not wanting to see the boy happy with the girl. "Tsss, look at him, that heart breaker with a homewrecker." Lee, dressed in a white shirt with red polka-dots and jeans as old as the ones Marie has on, the eldest sister with curly red hair covering both of her eyes glares.
Marie lets out an annoyed sigh, she didn't have her music loud enough to stop her from hearing Lee. "He's not a heartbreaker, I broke up with him." She pulls her headphones down as she talks. "So just drop it already."
Lee looks at Marie than to the littlest of the three. "Come on, May, I want a soda before class, lets's leave Marie here to brood." Lee grabs May by her gay hoodie and pulls, revealing the white t-shirt and red basketball shorts under the long hoodie. May's platinum blond hair is tossed around everywhere as shes pulled down the hall.
Marie watches her sisters walk away. 'Seventeen years and she can still find ways to tick me off.' She thinks as she returns her headphones to her ears.
Later that day, Marie, Lee, and May are sitting at their table in History class in the back of the room.
"If the Teach doesn't show up soon, we're out of here," Lee says as she leans back in her chair. But Lee spoke too soon, as a teacher walks into the room just as she finished her statement.
"Sorry for the delay students," The teacher says as she drops a pile of papers onto the desk at the front of the classroom. "Ms. Marpole had a family emergency and had to leave immediately. I am Mrs. Davis, you sub for the foreseeable future."
Most of the students gave some form of greeting to Mrs. Davis, but the Kanker sisters say nothing. To them, a substitute teacher only meant they had to do real work until the sub gave up on trying to get anything from them.
"Ok, so Ms. Marpole left her lesson plan." Mrs. Davis says as she digs through the pile of papers. "Here it is." She pulls out a piece of paper and starts reading from it. "Junior classes are to be broken up into pairs and write a report on a historical figure that they admire, to be turned in on Monday of next week." She looks up from the paper. "Ok, here we go, pick a partner and start discussing who you want to write about."
The students all stand up and start moving around, partnering up for the assignment, but not the Kanker sisters. They know that there is an odd number of students in their class, and they always work together on partnered projects because of that.
But as the students were sitting down next to their partners, Mrs. Davis spoke up. "Hold on." She was reading one of the notes left for her by Ms. Marpole. "Lee, May, and Marie Kanker?" She asks looking up at the class.
"What?" The three sisters say in unison.
"Ms. Marpole left a note saying to not let you three work together, that you will underperform if you do."
"That's not fair." May stands up to protest against the decision. "My sisters and me work hard on school work."
"Look, kid." Mrs. Davis pulls her glasses off as she looks at May. "I didn't plan on being in this city this week, but here we are. Life rarely goes our way, nor is it fair." She turns away from May to address the rest of the class. "Any volunteers to change partners?"
No hands go up right away, the fear of the Kanker sisters doing its job, but just before Mrs. Davis is about to choose herself, a hand goes up.
"I'll switch." A hand goes up near the front of the class.
Everyone looks at the owner of the hand and is shocked to see it belongs to one of the most popular students, and is respected as much as the Kankers, the golden blond cheerleader Nazz Van Bartonschmeer.
"What, why babe?" The boy sitting next to her asks, his red baseball hat almost fell off his head he turned it so fast.
"We'll talk later." Nazz shuts him down.
"Very well, Nazz is it?" Mrs. Davis looks at the attendance list. "You'll partner up with… Marie. Kevin, you'll be with Lee… and May, it says your grades are the lowest in the class, so I'm going to put you with Eddward and Ed."
Confusion and horror cross the faces of everyone that was mentioned, say for Nazz that didn't show any emotions over the change in partners, and May whose face lit up with excitement at the mention of being partnered up with her crush, Ed.
"But, Teacher!" Ed speaks up, he doesn't share the same outlook on the partnership as May does.
"No. No buts, ifs, or ands. May, Marie, and Kevin go sit with your new partners and get to work." Mrs. Davis put her metaphorical foot down before the complaining could continue. So the named students all did as they were told, and moved seats.
"Princess," Marie says as she takes the seat Kevin had been sitting in next to Nazz. There was no malice in her voice, but she is confused and curious as to why she volunteered to swap.
"Marie, you good?" Nazz asks as Marie sits down next to her.
"I should be asking you. Why offer to swap?" Marie drops her old black school bag onto the table in front of her.
Nazz eyes the silver sharpie graffiti on the bag before looking back to Marie. "I just needed to get away from Kevin, he's getting… annoying." She had to think of the right word to use.
Marie looks over her shoulder at the table where Kevin and Lee are sitting. "Wow, they look pissed, like hardcore pissed at everything pissed."
Nazz looks over at Lee and Kevin herself. "Eh," is all she could muster to say before turning back to Marie. "So, the assignment. I've been reading this book about Amelia Earhart, and I think she would be a great choice."
"Who?" Marie raises her visible eyebrow at Nazz.
Nazz has a look of shock and disbelief on her face. "Amelia Earhart, aviation pioneer, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic."
Marie shrugs her shoulders. "We don't have cable, so I probably missed that news."
"News?" Nazz is in sure shock. "She disappeared in the late 30s', no one knows what happened to her or her plane. Ok, you know what. Forget whoever you wanted to do, we're doing this on Amelia so you can learn who she was."
Marie didn't see any reason to object to Nazz choosing the topic for the report, less work for her if Nazz is already this knowledgeable about Amelia Earhart. "Ok, so what did she do then?" She asks.
As Nazz gives Marie a quick and light recap of who Amelia Earhart is and what she did when she was alive, the sight of the two of them would invoke thoughts of how opposite the two of them look. Marie dressed in old jeans and dirty sneakers with the sleeves ripped off her black T-shirt compared to Nazz's new looking tight fitted jeans, clean white shoes, and bright green shirt, they look as if they are from two different worlds.
The bell rings, signaling the end of the class. "Look, why don't you come by my house after school, you can borrow the book and look through it and find some points you find interesting," Nazz says, standing up from her chair.
"M'kay," Marie responds, she is starting to like Amelia Earhart herself after listening to Nazz talk about her.
Nazz took one step away from the table before turning back to Marie. "Wait, I forgot. I have cheer practice today after school, so come by around five, ok?"
"Five, ok." Marie agrees.
"Cool, see ya, Marie." and with that, Nazz left Marie to catch up with her sisters.
"So Double D wanted to write about some guy named Tesla, but Ed said that this guy named Stan Lee was better, I guess he made comic books, but I sided with Ed and so we're writing about him, and Ed smiled at me. I think he likes me now." May is telling the story of her time with her new partners.
Lee grinds the flat of her first into May's head, "Don't go going all soft on me over your boy toy smiling." She says with anger in her voice.
"You and Kevin not get along?" Marie asks as they walk into their restroom on the second floor of the school.
"Heck no." Lee kicks open one of the stalls, looking to see if anyone made the mistake of going into their restroom. "That jocks' got nothing but ground beef for brains. He kept staring daggers into your back for talking to his girl."
"Wow, "his girl"?" Marie finger quotes Lee, "Is that what he was saying?"
"Yeah. I even tried to ask him about the assignment, but all he cared about was you and Nazz. so I guess I gotta do this crap on my own."
"Did you pick someone?" May asks as she brushes her long hair in the mirror, it's gotten long enough to touch the middle of her back.
"Yeap, Macho Man Randy Savage." Lee grins.
"Really?" Marie looks at her sister with shock.
Lee clears her throat before doing her best impersonation of Randy Savage. "Oh yeah." The three sisters all laugh at Lee's impersonation, May even letting out a snort.
"It's weird that Nazz volunteered, isn't it?" May asks as she puts her brush away.
"She said she wanted to get away from Kevin, that he was being annoying." Marie leans up against her sink. "Which I can see if what you said is true, Lee."
"Jocks are all like this, they get good at sports and they suddenly think they own the world." Lee tosses her backpack over her shoulder. "Come on, let's get to lunch before someone thinks to touch our table."
"You think she's just using you to get back at him for something?" May adds as the girls move to leave their restroom.
"I dunno, maybe." Marie shrugs.
After lunch, Marie has one of her few classes solo from her sisters, and it's her least favorite one, gym. She hates the class because she has to change in a room full of others, she gets a rare feeling of embarrassment when changing around others. She hates how the locker room smells strongly of every perfume ever created, causing her to sneeze at least once during the class. But most of all, she hates all the ridiculous activities that she has to do.
Turning the corner in the hallway leading to the girls changing room, Marie spots Nazz and Kevin talking just past the doorway, and it looks like Nazz is yelling at Kevin about something. Not wanting to get involved at all, Marie turns the volume up on her tape deck and hurries past them, but her mind couldn't help but pop up the question of whether Nazz is using working with Marie on the project as a form of punishment against Kevin.
Taking a locker that is furthest away from the rest of her class Marie changes into her gym clothes, a gray t-shirt and blue shorts, dreading whatever the gym coach has cooked up for the class for the day.
As she changes, Marie looks through the metal mesh of the lockers at Nazz, contemplating the question.
'Why would she use me to get back at her boyfriend for something?' She wonders. 'What could he have done? Did she want one of us Kankers, or was it all just a chance?' "And why do I care?" She asks herself under her breath, loud enough for only her to hear.
She was trying to figure out the answers to these questions in her head, but stopped and turned away from the direction she was looking when Nazz started to change out of her regular bra and into a sports bra.
Seeing that much exposed skin from Nazz filled Marie with embarrassment for watching her like she was. This isn't the first time embarrassment like this has hit her in the locker room, seeing any other girl change in the locker room has done this to her for a couple of years now. But she wrote it off as her being embarrassed because she wouldn't want anyone to look at her while changing.
But this wave of embarrassment didn't stop Marie from eyeing Nazz periodically as the class went on, trying to figure out what ulterior motives she would have for wanting to partner with her. It is while watching Nazz that Marie notices several things about Nazz for the first time. Like how shiny her shoulder-length golden blonde hair is. That she's petite like May but isn't as skin and bones skinny as her little sister is. And how she has a smile that gives her a look of determination, confidence, and joy. It's easy for Marie to understand why all the boys find her attractive, she is, for all intents and purposes, pretty.
Now Marie thinking Nazz is pretty is not a first or shocking thought in her head, she thinks a lot of other girls and women are pretty, but she just assumes that finding other girls pretty is just part of being a girl.
As the sun starts its descent for the night, Marie walks up to Nazz's house in the cul-de-sac. She has a lot of memories of this small neighborhood, most of them are of her and her sisters bullying all the kids that live in the surrounding houses.
Pulling her headphones off, Marie rings the doorbell and looks around. She knows that Nazz lives with just her mom and that her mom drives a yellow station wagon, and seeing there is no car in the driveway tells her that Nazz's mom isn't home.
She is about to ring the bell again when the door is opened by a sweating Nazz in a different set of gym clothes than the ones she had on in class.
"Hey, sorry. I just got home and my mom is working late tonight." Nazz quickly apologizes as she opens the door for Marie.
Marie quickly takes in the more revealing set of gym clothes Nazz has on, a tank top and short shorts, before looking away and walking into the house. "It's cool, I didn't wait long."
"Cool." Nazz shuts the door. "Well, the book is up in my room, so yeah, follow me." The awkwardness of Marie being in Nazz's home is obvious to both of them.
Following Nazz up the stairs, Marie finds it difficult to not notice how sweaty and tired she is. "I didn't think cheerleading made you work that hard, you look like you ran three miles."
"Huh?" Nazz asks before realizing. "OH! Well kind of, I went for a run after practice, so that's why I look like a pig in the sun."
Marie snorts a quick and quiet laugh at what Nazz said as they reach the second floor of the house.
Entering Nazz's room, Marie takes in her surroundings. There is a full-size bed with blue bedding and a nightstand separates it from the wall, a vanity mirror with all kinds of makeup and styling tools on it, a bookshelf full of books, CDs, and all kinds of nicknacks with a radio taking up the top shelf, and a dresser with a TV on top of it facing her bed. Nazz also has a desk in the corner of her room with what she thought was a second TV, but after seeing the keyboard and mouse, Marie realizes it's a computer, much like the ones in the school library only this one is curvy and made of see-through green and white plastic.
"Is that a computer?" Marie asks as Nazz looks through her bookshelf. "Yeah, it's an iMac G3."
"Is that good?" Marie asks, knowing nothing about computers.
"Yeah." Nazz pulls a book from the shelf, "My dad gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago, divorced parents am I right? Always trying to one-up each other with their kids."
"I wouldn't know." Marie looks away from Nazz and grabs her right elbow with her hand. "Ma never married any of our dads." Marie and her sisters never talk about their dads, partly because they don't care about them, but also because they know very little about the three men that fathered them.
Nazz's face fills with dread when she realizes what topic she brought up. "Oh no, I'm so sorry, Marie, I didn't mean anything by it, I wasn't thinking."
"Don't worry about it." Marie waves her off, "I'll forgive you if you tell me where you got that poster." Marie, wanting to completely change the topic, points at a mostly black and white poster of three guys walking with the words; "GREEN DAY"' written above them in big green blocky letters.
"Oh, I got that when they were in Lemon Brook for a show last year, I didn't know you're a fan of Green Day."
Marie looks down at herself, "Do I not give off the impression that I'm a punk rock fan? Cause I thought I did a good job at it."
Nazz's face gets red with embarrassment. "No no no, wait, yes. I mean, you do, I just don't know what bands you like, cause you know, we never talk to each other."
Marie laughs. "Wow, you're too easy to mess with." Marie feels a sense of relaxation come to her as she jokes around with Nazz. "But yeah, I like them, and almost every punk rock band. I'm a little shocked that Little Miss Cheerleader Captain is a punk rock music fan if I'm being honest."
Nazz puts on a faux stunned look on her face. "Just because I don't look the part, or because I like other music doesn't mean I can't like Green Day." Nazz holds her book out to Marie. "In fact, I bet you'll think that Amelia Earhart was rather punk for her time."
Marie takes the book. "Well see." She flips the book over and looks at the picture of the woman in an old flight jacket. "Thanks, for lending me this by the way."
"No problem, we can compare notes later this week and get the report done then, sound good?" Nazz asks, she is starting to feel sticky and wants to shower, so she is trying to rush the rest of the conversation.
"Yeah sure," Marie responds and follows Nazz out of her room, letting the fact that she had a friendly conversation with Nazz for the first time in longer than she could remember slip away.
Once Marie gets home, she helps her sisters clean up the kitchen of their school books and homework. Despite the tough no fucks given demeanor, the sisters do care about trying to get passing grades at the very least. This is one of the few things the Kanker sisters' mother instilled into them when they were younger, along with never letting anyone divide them as sisters, an honest day's work will get you an honest day's pay, and if something sounds too good to be true it probably isn't.
With the table cleaned, Lee starts cooking dinner, it was her turn, while May set the table and Marie washed the dishes from the day.
"Is Ma going to be home tonight?" May asks as she sets out the mismatched plates and dinnerware.
"No, she's closing up the diner tonight," Lee says as she dumps a plastic bag of noodles into the skillet she is cooking the Hamburger Helper in. "She'll be home after we're all in bed, so make sure to save some of this for her."
The sisters ate in silence, having spent most of the day together they have nothing new to talk about. Once they are finished, Marie finishes washing the dishes while Lee and May take showers and get ready for bed.
With it being her turn to wash the dishes, Marie ended up with nothing but cold water left for her to shower in, resulting in her being too awake to fall asleep right away. Years ago, the sisters upgraded from a single queen-sized bed to a single twin bed for Lee and a set of bunk beds for Marie and May. May has an old bed sheet as a curtain around the bottom bunk and Lee uses a sleeping mask, so Marie didn't feel any guilt in turning on the miss-colored Christmas lights she has at the head of her bed. Marie figured looking through Nazz's book would be the best use of not being tired. Eventually, Marie did fall asleep, with Nazz's book still open and in her hand.
The next morning, as the sisters walk to school, Marie is still reading the book, following Lee's shadow for guidance. The more Marie reads about Amelia Earhart, the more she likes her and she is even starting to get excited about doing the report on her.
Marie was so into doing the report, that she let a smile slip out as Nazz walked past her in the hallway. She even kept catching herself watching Nazz while the gym class played volleyball, and like the day before, she couldn't help but find Nazz pretty. And in the locker room, Marie watched her some more, not fully understanding why she is watching Nazz like she is.
Thursdays after school Marie is scheduled to work at the diner with her mom busting tables and washing the dirty dishes in the massive sink in the back. The sisters each have a few days a week that they help their mom, and even though they work under the table, the owner of the diner still pays them decently for the work. But the sisters give most of the money that they make to their mom to help pay the bills.
Halfway through her shift, Marie is taking her break in one of the booths in the very back of the diner. She has her notebook open on the table and is writing down notes as she reads Nazz's book.
"Whatcha got there Marie?" A voice asks, pulling Marie out of the book to see who's talking to her.
Looking up, Marie sees that it's one of the older ladies that is a regular at the diner. "It's a book about Amelia Earhart, I'm doing a report on her with another girl from my class."
"Amelia Earhart? Is that that pilot that went missing?" The old lady asks.
"Yeah." Marie looks at the clock hanging on the wall. "My partner suggested we do the report on her."
"It's good to see you and your sisters taking your schoolwork seriously." The old woman says as Marie gathers up her things, her break time is over. "I hope you're making plans for after you graduate." the woman adds.
"I dunno, maybe something with cars, I like reading magazines about fixing cars and that stuff." Marie hasn't really thought about life after high school, but she would like to work on cars in some capacity.
"A mechanic? A pretty young girl like you? What a waste." The old woman walks away from Marie before she could respond.
'What a bitch.' Marie tells herself as she goes to put her school bag back behind the counter. 'I can do whatever the fuck I want with my life.'
Marie stews over what the old lady said to her for the rest of the night, and when she gets home with her mother she goes right to bed, skipping a shower or even changing into her pajamas. Opting to just toss her blue jeans onto the floor next to her shoes and calling that good enough.
The old woman's words are affecting Marie's dreams. In her dream, she was a rich and famous NASCAR driver, a childhood fantasy of hers, who just won a big race. As the confetti falls around her, she holds the trophy over her head with one hand, and with the other, she pulls someone from the crowd to her. At first, it is a faceless and formless being, but her subconscious changes it into Edd as Marie pulls him close to her. She gives him a quick kiss before pulling back and they both smile at each other, but as Marie and Edd move to kiss again, the image of Edd changes. Edd changes into Nazz, still smiling and still getting closer to Marie. Dream Marie doesn't stop, or even flinch at it now being Nazz that is in her arm, she just pulls her the rest of the way, and the two kiss.
Marie snaps awake, her dream shocking her awake. Grabbing her head, Marie tries to shake the lingering flashes of the dream out of her head.
"The fuck was that about?" She whispers, knowing full well that she'd get yelled at if she woke up either of her sisters. "It was just a dream, yeah. It was Nazz because I've been thinking about her a lot because of the report, it means nothing. Just my brain being stupid." She tries to find a logical reason for the dream, ignoring anything the dream might have been trying to tell her.
Marie couldn't fall back asleep right away, the image of herself kissing Nazz had taken up permanent residence in her head, so she didn't get much rest and was groggy for most of the morning. But as the students in the history class moved around to work on their group report, the sleepiness in Marie was quickly replaced with a weird feeling bubbling in her stomach as she sits down next to Nazz.
"Hey," Marie says as Nazz digs out her notebook.
"Hey, Marie, did you get through the book?" Nazz asks, smiling at Marie.
Marie takes out her notebook. "Mostly, I wrote some stuff down." She opens her notebook to the pages she's written out her notes on.
"Cool, let me see." Nazz looks over Marie's notes, skimming the page and a half that Marie wrote. "Hmm, not bad, I didn't think of some of these." She says after reading the notes.
"Thanks, I wish I had more time to read the book. I had to just skim it fast." Marie smiles at Nazz's praise but quickly stops herself.
"If you want to borrow it longer you can." Nazz opens up her notebook. "So I think we should combine our notes, but I'm not sure how we should frame the report."
Marie looks at Nazz's notes, noting the purple gel ink that she used, "What if we just say what we did? We read this book and here are the cool things she did that we learned about her."
"That could work." Nazz likes Marie's idea. "And we can split it into two lists that we can take turns reading out."
"Ok." Marie isn't big on speaking in front of a group, but the thought of doing it alongside Nazz made it seem less of a pain to her.
"Sweet. Do you want to come over to my house after school and we can use my computer to type it up?" Nazz flips her notebook to a fresh page and starts writing. "We'll need to add more meat to what we wrote before typing it out."
"Ok." Marie follows Nazz in opening a fresh page and starts to add more details to the notes she wrote about Amelia Earhart.
The two work in mostly silence for the rest of the class, and as the bell rings Nazz stands and tells Marie; "I don't have cheer practice today, but I'm going to go for a run after school, so come by around four."
"Ok," Marie responds as she gathers up her things.
"Cool, see ya later, Marie." Nazz gives Marie a smile before turning and leaving.
For a reason Marie doesn't understand, she feels her cheeks get warm as she watches Nazz walk away.
When she is in gym class, Marie's stomach starts to fill with that bubbling feeling again. "Am I getting sick?" Marie asks herself as she changes out of her gym clothes. "God I hope not, I have to work all day Sunday."
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath to try and calm her stomach. 'In, one, two, three… out, one, two three'.
The slow deep breath helps her, but when Marie opens her eyes, she sees Nazz changing tops and her cheeks fill with heat and she quickly looks away.
Walking down the sidewalk, Marie feels very nervous. She isn't sure why she feels this way, but it is so strong of a feeling that even listening to music didn't help quell her nervousness. Marie sees Nazz's mother's car parked in the driveway, and she isn't sure if she's ever actually seen Nazz's mother before as she rings the doorbell.
She gets her answer as the door is opened by a middle-aged woman with golden blond hair like Nazz's.
"You must be Marie Kanker." The woman says, inspecting Marie from head to foot with the piercing eyes only a protective mother could have.
"I am." Marie fires back, she never lets any adult intimidate her, say for her own mother.
The woman quickly examines Marie once more before standing to the side. "Natalie is up in her room," she says, finally willing to allow Marie into her house.
"Thanks." Marie walks past the woman. 'Natalie? Is that Nazz's real name?' She wonders to herself. As Marie climbs up the stairs, her bully instincts kick in.
Opening the door, Marie starts to say; "Hey, Natalie, I just met-", but she stops mid-sentence at the sight of Nazz pulling a tank top on in just her underwear.
Hearing Marie's voice scares Nazz, "EPPP!" she yells as she grabs the bath towel from her bed and quickly wraps it around her lower half. "Why didn't you knock? And where did you hear that name?" she demands, red in the face from embarrassment.
Marie had quickly spun around when she saw Nazz not fully dressed. "Sorry, I'm used to my sisters, locking the door. And it's what your mom called you." Her face is equally red.
"Uggh." Nazz pulls on a pair of cloth shorts under the towel. "She knows I hate that name." She is madder at Marie for using her real name over her self-given nickname that she completely forgot about being walked in on. "Please don't ever use it again."
"Noted," Marie says before slowly looking over her shoulder. "Are ya decent yet?" she asks.
"Yeah." Nazz tosses the towel back onto the bed and adjusts her clothes.
Marie turns around fully, and once again feels that bubbling feeling in her stomach at the sight of Nazz in a tank top and shorts. "So… how did you want to do this? The report typing." She asks.
"Ummm, I guess we could type up our own parts, and then check them for errors." Nazz goes to her desk and opens her school bag.
"I'm not very good with computers, it might be faster if you typed it all up." Marie looks at the computer on Nazz's desk and feels intimidated by the machine. The school library has a computer lab that she has done some school stuff in, but she's never gotten the hang of it all.
"It's ok, I can show you stuff and help you with the typing." Nazz pulls out her notebook with one hand and pushes the power button on the computer with the other. "Do you remember your finger placements?"
"Do what with my fingers?" Marie asks, looking at her hands.
"Finger placements, you know, "Left index on F, right index on J"." Nazz quotes a lesson from the Freshmen English teacher they both had years ago on typing on a computer.
"Oh, I think so. I'm not really good at the whole using all my fingers to type thing." Marie vaguely remembers what the teacher had told the class, but she had spent most of that day flicking balls of paper at the other kids in the class.
"Sweet, well I'll get the typing program loaded up and you can start, while I get some drinks and snacks." Nazz moves the mouse and makes a few clicks with it and a program opens up with a blank page taking up the majority of the screen.
"Um, ok." Marie sits down at the computer and takes her notebook out.
"What kind of soda do you want?" Nazz stops at her bedroom door. "We only have diet anything though."
Marie didn't drink a lot of soda, it was a rare treat when her mother bought some for the house. "Um, Pepsi, I guess."
"Ok." With that, Nazz leaves Marie alone in her room.
All alone, Marie looks at the computer screen, then at the keyboard in front of her, and then back to the screen. Not wanting to be intimidated by a machine, she sets her notebook, opened to her notes, down on the desk next to the keyboard, and then places her hands on the keys, with her index fingers resting on the F and J keys. "We can do this, just take it one work at a time." She tells herself as she looks down at her notes.
"Hey, we don't have any Pepsi, so I hope Coke is ok." Nazz walks into her room carrying two cans of soda. "And my mom also said no to any snacks cause it will spoil dinner, so I guess she wants me to invite you to stay for dinner."
Marie hadn't made much progress in typing. She had to keep looking at her notes and then to the keyboard to find the right keys, causing her bangs to keep falling in front of her eyes that she'd have to keep pushing to the side, so she's only gotten about three sentences done. "What?" She asks, pushing her bangs away, having not heard Nazz.
Nazz sees two problems right away. "Here." She sets the sodas down on the desk and pulls a metal clip on an arm attached to the computer out. "You hang your notebook from this so you don't have to lay it on the desk."
As Marie attaches her notebook to the arm, Nazz walks over to her vanity. "And these will help keep your hair out of your eyes." She holds out a pair of hair clips to Marie. "I never understood why you don't use these" she adds more to herself than Marie.
"I like having my bangs loose and free," Marie says cracking open her can.
"Well, it wouldn't hurt to use some for tonight, would it?"
"Mmmmmm." Marie isn't sure how to respond, "I dunno."
Fed up, Nazz takes the initiative. "Look," She pushes Marie's bangs to the side and snaps the clips in place. "Now you can see, and you still look like the free spirit that you are."
Marie initially was going to fight against Nazz touching her, but Nazz's fingers were soft, her touch was gentle, and Nazz calling her a free spirit shut down all defenses she had.
"Thanks." Marie looks away from Nazz, unable to even look at her. "For the soda, and the clips."
"No problem." Nazz noticed the red in Marie's cheeks but chose to not make anything about it. "So how far have you gotten?" She asks.
"Not very," Marie responds. "I told you I wasn't very good at this." She types out another word, but she doesn't use all of her fingers, only her index fingers, pecking out the word one letter at a time.
"Here," Nazz places her hands on top of Maires. "you need to keep your fingers in the right position, and use all of your fingers." She guides Marie's fingers into the right position. "You just have to keep at it and you'll get it."
Nazz touching her hands had the same effect as when she touched her hair, stoppling all defenses in one fell swoop.
"Ok," Marie says meekly as Nazz pulls over the spare chair she bought into her room before Marie even got there.
After a few hours have gone by, the girls took turns typing out their report and they are getting near the halfway point, a call comes from the bottom of the stairs.
"Natalie, dinner time." Nazz's mother calls up to her daughter.
Nazz's eye twitches at the sound of that name. "Ok." She yells back. "It's probably time for a break anyway." She says to Marie.
"Yeah," Marie has felt more and more comfortable around Nazz as they two worked. "Typing is such a slog."
"It gets better the more you work at it." Nazz pushes her chair back and stands. "Mark my words, everything will be done on computers someday, we might not even have pens anymore at some point."
Downstairs in the kitchen, Nazz's mother had made a grilled chicken with a side spinach salad with dried cranberries and a vinaigrette dressing.
"Wow, you really do take eating healthy seriously," Marie says as she sits down at the table. She quickly remembers what little manners she has and adds; "Thanks for dinner Nazz's mom."
"Call me Victoria, or Ms. Van Bartonschmeer, Marie." Nazz's mother corrects Marie on what to call her. "And we do, Natalie had a big weight problem when she was younger if you recall."
"Mom!" Nazz's face is red from embarrassment.
"I don't, she must have lost the weight before we moved to Peach Creek." Marie couldn't imagine Nazz being overweight, she has always been lean and fit.
In desperate need to change the topic, Nazz asks; "Where is your family from, Marie?"
"Portland," Maie says as she stabs at her salad, she is sure this is the first non taco salad she's ever had. "My grandparents still live there."
"Why'd you move?" Nazz asks, her mother has already checked out from the conversation.
"My Ma didn't want us growing up in a "too big and dangerous city"." Marie finger quotes her mother.
Nazz raises an eyebrow. "She thinks Portland is dangerous?"
Marie shrugs her shoulder, she never questions her mother on why she moved them down to the suburban town of Peach Creek.
After they finished their dinner, Nazz and Marie returned to Nazz's room to continue working on their report. They are staying focused on the task at hand, Nazz did stop at one point to put a CD in the radio for them to listen to. But try as they might, they are not making the best of progress.
Looking at the time in the bottom corner of the computer, Marie sees it's getting late, and she should be leaving soon before it gets too late. "It's getting late, Nazz, I should probably get home, my Ma has a curfew for us."
Nazz stretches her arms above her head. "But we're so close to finishing." Nazz gets an idea. "What if you stay here tonight? We can power through to the end and save our weekend from homework."
"I dunno, I'd have to call my Ma, and she'd probably say no." The idea of staying the night over at Nazz's worried her for some reason.
"It'll be fine." Nazz stands up from her chair. "I'll go ask my mom and you go call yours, the phone is downstairs in the kitchen."
Nazz's mother is ok with Marie staying over, and because it was to finish a school project, Marie's mother is fine with her staying the night too. So with fresh cans of soda, and some good tunes on the radio, they work tirelessly into the night and finish just before one in the morning.
"We did it, finally." Nazz leans back in her chair and rubs her eyes.
Marie rubs her own eyes. "Are your eyes supposed to hurt like this after using a computer?" She asks, also leaning back in her chair.
"I dunno, I've never used it for this long." Nazz sits back up. "It's also super late."
"Yeah," Marie says just before letting out a yawn.
"I'll lend you some pajamas and we can crash." Nazz stands up from her chair.
Nazz offered Marie a pair of pajama bottoms and a top, but it didn't feel right to Marie to wear the baggy pink shirt, so she only changed into the pajama bottoms.
"So, should I go sleep on the couch downstairs?" Marie asks, returning from the bathroom where she changed clothes.
"What? No way." Nazz says, shes changed into pajamas of the same style as the ones she gave Marie but are blue instead of pink. "My bed is big enough for both of us."
"I don't mind the couch," Marie says. Sharing a bed with her sisters when she was younger was one thing, but with Nazz it felt inappropriate for some reason.
"It's no big deal. I insist." Nazz puts her metaphorical foot down. "Plus the living room gets cold at night."
Nazz wouldn't take no for an answer, so now Marie is laying on Nazz's bed, on the side closest to the wall, looking up at the ceiling. "So…" Marie is trying to find something to talk about. "Is what I heard about you and Kevin true?"
Nazz looks over to Marie, "What did you hear?" She asks.
Still looking at the ceiling, Marie says; "That you broke up with him, again."
"For good this time," Nazz responds. "I am so tired of his double standers bullshit."
"I always thought he was kind of an ass clown," Marie says, getting a laugh out of Nazz.
"If you don't mind me asking, what happened between you and Double D?" Nazz asks, hoping that Marie has gotten comfortable enough around her that she might open up to her.
Marie looks over at Nazz, she opened up and answered her question, so it is only fair that she does too. "Well, I finally got him to go on a date with me, even to see where things would go after that. But after a few months of being with him, something just didn't feel right."
"Like, he was not a good boyfriend?"
"No, the exact opposite. He was everything you'd expect and then some. But I didn't feel anything from all he was doing." Marie starts to fidget with her hands as she talks.
"You finally caught your white whale, only to find your victory hollow and unfulfilling."
"What?" Marie is confused by what Nazz said.
"Nothing, book quote." Nazz didn't think Marie has read Moby-Dick. "So you broke up with Double D cause you didn't feel anything?"
"Yeah." Marie hasn't even talked to Lee and May in this much detail about her relationship with Edd. "But, he was cool about it, was happy that I was honest with him, and that he'd like to be my friend if and when I was ready for that."
Nazz is impressed at how mature Marie was about what happened with Edd. "So, are there any new guys in your crosshairs?" She asks.
"No guys." Marie feels comfortable around Nazz, and the conversation has made her vulnerable. "I don't know about guys, like… I thought Double D was what I wanted, but now, I don't know… I just, don't know…"
Nazz leans up on her elbow. "Maybe, it isn't guys you want." Nazz has noticed quite a few things this past week about Marie, looks from her and the way she's been acting around her, and she has a hunch about something. Nazz reaches over, brushes Marie's hair away from her eyes, and sees the red on Marie's face, "Maybe it's something else." she then leans down and kisses Marie on the lips.
Marie is so confused by Nazz kissing her, but at the same time she likes how soft Nazz's lips feel on hers, she is too conflicted to even try and stop her.
Marie not stoping Nazz emboldens her, and she lets her hand wander, moving from her hair to her stomach.
Maire feels Nazz's hand touch her stomach but is too distracted by the bubbling in her stomach, which is reaching the point of boiling, and the fact that she is kissing Nazz. But as Nazz's hand goes up her stomach and nears her bra, Marie panics and rolls away from Nazz.
With her back to Nazz, Marie curls up into a ball. "G'night." She says as she wraps her arms around herself. For the rest of the night, Marie's heart races, and she is filled with confusion over what just happened.
Nazz however only smiles at herself as she rolls onto her side, facing away from Marie to give her as much privacy as she can. 'I had a feeling.' she thinks before closing her eyes for the night.
The next morning Marie wakes to an empty bed and rolls over onto her back and tries to process what happened the night before. "She got me to sleep in her bed, which was bad. But we had a good conversation about our old boyfriends, which was good. But then she surprised me with that kiss, which was bad." She sits up in the bed. "She must have just been messing with me, pulling a prank on me." Is the conclusion that Marie comes to, and she didn't stop Nazz right away was because she was just caught up in the moment. 'But she is a good kisser.' A small little voice in the back of her head says, cursing her cheeks to burn. Marie shakes her head to get the thought out and ignores what the thought made her feel.
Marie changes back into her clothes from the day before and ventures out of Nazz's room to try and find her.
Down in the kitchen, Marie finds Nazz, still in her pajamas, pouring herself a bowl of cereal. "Morning." Nazz stays as she looks up from her bowl on the counter.
"Hey." Marie feels a little nervous now that she's found Nazz.
"Sleep well?" Nazz asks, acting as if nothing had happened the night before, that she didn't kiss Marie.
"Your bed is a little too soft." Marie looks away and rubs the back of her neck as she talks. 'I have to ask about last night.' She closes her eyes. Seeing Nazz filled her with confusion, and she is working up the courage to ask why Nazz kissed her.
Keeping her eyes closed, Marie walks forward. "Hey, Nazz, I need to ask why you-"
*crash*
Keeping her eyes closed, Marie didn't see that Nazz had her bowl of cereal in one hand and a glass of juice in the other, and was walking towards Marie while closing the fridge door with her foot. Both teens were not paying attention, and it results in them colliding, and Nazz dumped her bowl of cereal on Marie, splashing her in the face, and sending the milk down her low-cut top. Both teens stand there in silence, shocked at what just happened.
Marie hates the smell of milk, and even more so the smell of whole milk, which is what Nazz had in her bowl of cereal. Nazz offered Marie to use her shower to clean up, between repeated apologies for dumping the bowl of cereal onto Marie.
"Hey, Marie," Nazz says through the bathroom door. "Your shirt and bra are soaked, um, I think I can clean them, but it'll take a while. So I have something of mine you can wear. Again, I am so sorry. I'll leave them here by the door."
Marie, just standing under the water, looks in the direction of the door. "Ok." Is all she says.
After washing the milk off, Marie cracks the door of the bathroom open just enough to get the clothes Nazz left for her. Luckily, her underwear and pants didn't get dirty from the milk, but Nazz is smaller than Marie, so the bra is a size too small and the t-shirt, a Green Day shirt Nazz got from the concert she went to, is a little tight on Marie.
"Well, at least I look good in it." Marie says as she adjusts herself in the mirror."Even if I'm suffocating myself."
"Hey, Marie." Nazz is talking to her from the other side of the door again. "My mom is leaving for the gym, but she said she'll help me clean your clothes tonight."
Marie opens the bathroom door, seeing that Nazz has changed out of her pajamas. "That's ok."
"But, um, my mom says that your bra is so old it might not be worth trying to save it." Nazz feels guilt from repeating what her mother said, her mother isn't as aware of Marie's life as Nazz is.
"I only have three that fit, I need that one." Marie knows what was about to be suggested, and didn't like it.
"Well, seeing as I sullied that one, let me get you a new one."
Again, Nazz wouldn't take no for an answer, she practically dragged Marie downtown to the local mall to a lingerie store to buy her a new bra.
After they finished in the lingerie store, Nazz needed to use the restroom, leaving Marie to wait outside for her. Marie is leaning against the wall next to the entrance to the restroom area with a bag in one hand and her headphones on.
Listening to her music, with her eyes closed, Marie goes over what happened in the store in her head. Nazz didn't just buy her a new bra, but a matching pair of panties that is more risque than anything she's ever owned.
"Hey, what's your waist size?" Nazz asked through the dressing room door, as Marie tries on the different bras Nazz picked out for her.
"Why do you need to know that?" Marie asked back.
"It's a surprise." The sound of Nazz's voice only concerned Mare more than she already was.
'Does this mean anything?' Marie wonders. 'Does she want to see me in these? Do I want her to see me in them?'
Marie is so lost in thought, and her music is too loud, that she doesn't hear her name being called, but she does feel the kiss planted on her cheek.
Marie jumps away from the person that kissed her and glares, while Nazz laughs. "What the hell?" She pulls her headphones down.
"Sorry, I couldn't help myself." Nazz grins at Marie. "I was calling your name, but you couldn't hear me."
"Not cool," Marie says as she wipes her cheek with the back of her hand. "You can't just go around… doing that, to people." She can't bring herself to say the word kiss, cause she is worried about what her mind would start jumping around to if she thought about it at all.
"Ok." Nazz stops her laughing. "I'm sorry, Marie. Ready to head out?" She asks after apologizing.
On the bus ride back from the mall, Marie and Nazz sit in the very back corner, with Marie sitting next to the window. Marie is looking out the window, headphones on, and staring out into space.
Nazz leans over and lifts the headphone on the left side. "Hey, can I listen?" She asks flipping the headphone around, it pivots on a metal bar so Nazz flipping it around did nothing but take away the noise cancelation from that side of Mare's head.
Nazz doesn't wait for a response from Marie, she scoots right next to her and rests her head against Marie's, getting the headphone mostly onto her ear. "Thanks." She adds.
Marie isn't sure how to react to this. On the one hand, Nazz isn't doing anything aggressive, but on the other hand, she is invading her personal space, but on the other other hand Marie finds some kind of comfort being this close to Nazz. Marie does her best to look over at Nazz, without moving her head, and she sees that Nazz has a smile on her face and her eyes closed. 'Fuck.' she thinks as she realizes how cute Nazz looks right now. She has to look away from Nazz, so she goes back to looking out the window. Looking out the window helps calm Marie, and lessen the redness in her cheeks, but that all was for naught as Nazz places her hand on top of Maires.
Marie feels her heart race, her cheeks burn red, and her palms start sweating. But she doesn't pull her hand away, she keeps it under Nazz's.
As the bus leaves the stop near the Cul-de-sac, Marie watches it drive away not wanting to look at Nazz.
"So I'll read over the report once more before printing it out," Nazz says, turning to face Marie, who is still looking away from her.
"Ok." Marie can't bring herself to face Nazz. "See ya la-" She is cut off by Nazz hugging her from behind.
Nazz wrapping her arms around Marie confuses her. "What are you doing?" She asks, her cheeks growing redder.
"I had fun today." Nazz says as she lets Marie go, "I know today started out lame, but I hope you enjoyed it too."
Marie fixes her hair, it had fallen in front of her face. "It wasn't, lame." Marie isn't sure how to describe the day she spent with Nazz, but she didn't hate her time with her.
"I'll take it." Nazz smiles at the back of Marie's head, brushing her hair behind her ear and blushing slightly herself. "So, see ya Monday then?"
"Yeah, Monday," Marie responds before taking the first step on her walk back to the Park n' Flush.
Nazz stood there and watched Marie walk for longer than she should have, and when she finally turns to walk home herself, she is still a little red in the cheeks. "Well, this is an interesting development." She touches her stomach, hoping to quell the butterflies that have developed inside herself.
On her walk back to the Park n' Flush, and for the rest of the day, Marie is trying to understand what is going on inside of herself. The feeling in her stomach was similar to the ones she once got when she was dating Edd, but these are stronger. Nazz is constantly invading her thoughts, and they are getting more and more aggressive and she is subconsciously fighting against them less and less.
She is having such a hard time controlling her thoughts, that when Lee, May, and her arrived at the diner Sunday morning for work, she volunteered to wash dishes all day so she wouldn't have to talk to anyone. So for eight hours, Marie washes plates, cups, bowls, and silverware with her music so loud she couldn't hear anything, letting her think, trying to understand what her mind, and now heart, are telling her.
Marie is still unsure of the cause and the why of all of this, but by the end of the day, she knows she has to talk to Nazz about this, whether she likes it or not.
Walking into history class Monday morning, Marie sees Nazz is already in the room, and she feels a lump foram in her throat. "See ya after class," Marie says to her sisters before going to sit down next to Nazz.
"Hey, Marie," Nazz says with a big smile as Marie sits down next to her, she sees that Marie has a pair of hair clips in her hair keeping her bangs out of her eyes. "I got your copy of the report here." She pulls a piece of paper out of her bag.
Marie takes the paper from Nazz. "Thanks." She looks over the paper, seeing all the words she typed out just a few days ago. Looking at the paper reminds Marie of that night, of how comfortable she became around Nazz that night, but she then remembers the kiss Nazz gave her and her cheeks glow faintly red.
Having to talk in front of the class was tough for Marie, but she got through it by focusing on her paper, on each word that she needed to speak.
"Well done, girls." Mrs. Davis says from behind the teacher's desk. "It sounds like you both admire Amelia Earhart."
"Thank you, Mrs. Davis," Nazz says. "I do, and I think I got Marie interested in her enough to learn more."
The two girls sit back down at their table as Edd, Ed, and May start their report.
"Hey, Nazz," Marie says quiet enough for just her to hear. "Could I, we, talk later?"
Nazz is confused by the request but isn't going to dine it. "Yeah, sure." She says also with a hushed tone. "Wanna come by my place later tonight? I got cheer practice today though."
"Ok," Marie says as she starts to figure out how much time she has between now and five o'clock that night.
Later that night, as the sun is setting, Nazz lets Marie into her house. "Hey, Mom is on the phone, so we have to be quiet." She says, standing to the side to let Marie into the house.
"Ok." Marie is too nervous to say anything more.
"You cool with sitting outside?" Nazz asks as she closes the front door. "We just got a new swing sofa and it's really comfy."
In the backyard, there is a two-person swing sofa with a thick cushion on the small patio.
"So," Nazz says as she sits down on the swing. "What did you want to talk about?"
Marie sits down on the other end of the swing and takes a deep breath, she is feeling very nervous with each passing second. "I have some questions for you." She finally says. "And I need you to be honest."
Nazz has never seen this serious of a look on Marie's face. "Yeah, of course." Nazz has no idea where this conversation could be about, but she is starting to make a guess.
Marie takes a deep breath, calming herself, and plunges into her questions. "Do you like girls, like you like boys?" She asks.
'Oh, I definitely know where this is going.' Nazz figures out what the conversation is about to be about. "Yes." She answers.
Marie can't look at Nazz as she talks. "When did you know, that you liked girls and boys?"
"This is going to sound super cliche, but when I went to cheer camp last summer, there was this older girl, but that's a story for some other time." Nazz felt a little embarrassed about the tale of how she discovered she is Bi, becoming really friendly with an older girl and then kissing her in a game of spin the bottle sounds like something from a teen drama movie.
"Ok," This was going to be a hard one to ask. "Why did you kiss me?"
Nazz takes a moment to gather her thoughts, making sure she has the right answer. "Honestly, I did it to just mess with you at first, but then you kissed back, and then I wanted to keep kissing you." Nazz answers, being honest with Marie like she said she would.
Marie's face turns red as she asks the next question. "Do… do you like… me?" She closes her eyes and prepares for whatever the answer will be.
But Nazz doesn't answer the question, instead, she asks her own back. "Do you like me, Marie?"
Nazz not answering the question made Marie mad. "That's not what I'm asking," She jumps up from the swing out of frustration. "I need to know if you like me, or if you're just messing with my feelings!"
Nazz looks Marie in the eyes and sees anger and confusion on her face. "What are your feelings, Marie?" She asks, trying to push Marie to acknowledge what is going on inside herself.
"I… I don't know." Marie looks away from Nazz. "Maybe I do too." She says.
"Do too what?" Nazz asks, pushing Marie again.
Marie sits back down. "Like girls too… like you." She hides her face in her hands.
"Marie." Nazz pulls Marie's head from hiding. "You don't have to hide from this stuff, it's not like when we were kids, people are more accepting and understanding." Nazz thinks Marie is worried about being demonized for being gay, and that made her hide her face.
"I don't care about what people would say or think." Marie states.
"That's good, so what's wrong?" Nazz asks as Marie fiddles with her fingers.
"I don't know if this is all real." Marie points to herself and then to Nazz then back to herself. "Do I really have these feelings? Do you like me like I think I like you? Could you ever forgive me?" Tears start to form in the corners of her eyes.
"Forgive you for what? Being unsure of your sexuality?" Nazz skipped over the important parts of what Marie just said.
"No." Marie wipes tears out of her eyes. "Forgive me, for being the grade A bitch that I've been to you all these years."
Nazz looks at Marie stunned. "That's it? You being mean when we were kids?" She lets out a laugh. "If it means making it easier for you, then I forgive you, Marie."
Marie wipes another tear away. "Fuck, why am I getting all emotional, I'm a Kanker."
"Confessing your feelings can do that to you." She picks up Marie's face. "And to answer your question, yeah I kinda like like you too, Marie." Nazz smiles at Marie, telling her what she figured out about herself shortly after she parted ways with Marie at the bus stop the other day.
Nazz smiling at Marie made her feel a warm feeling in her stomach that is quickly growing. "So what does this mean now?"
Nazz lets go of Marie's face. "Well, what do you want it to mean?"
Marie looks down at her feet, the warm feeling is making looking at Nazz hard again. "I… I don't know, I'm still not sure what I feel."
Nazz reaches over and takes one of Marie's hands with her own. "We can take things slow, nothing has to be official." She says giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.
Marie smiles and squeezes her hand back. "So what now? We're like, secret dating but not dating?" She asks as her emotions start to calm down.
Nazz pushes the swing back a little and leans back in the swing. "Well before I say yes to being your secret not girlfriend girlfriend, I need something from you." She is feeling emboldened by Marie's confession.
"You do? What?" Marie asks as she leans back in the swing as well.
Nazz grins wide. "You need to come over here, and kiss me yourself."
Marie looks at Nazz, at that big grin she has on her face, and feels her Kanker confidence kick in. Marie isn't sure what the future holds for herself, this could be a journey of her learning something new about herself, about her sexual identity. But Marie has never been a big picture planner, she takes her life one day at a time, doing what she wants to do now, and figuring out later when later gets here. But right now, she wants to kiss Nazz, and so she leans over, still holding Nazz's hand, and kisses Nazz of her own volition for the first time.
AN:
Hello everyone, happy pride month! I wish I could say why I haven't posted anything in *checks notes* almost two years, but time just kind of past me by. I started working on this around the beginning of the year, but haven't been very motivated to sit down in front of my computer and just write, but then I took a proper get out of my state vacation last month and found the drive while on a 5-hour layover. I have two more chapters for this story to come, I'm almost done with the 2nd and I know what 90% of chapter 3 will be, so look forward to that. And to answer the question of why a Maire & Nazz story, I came out as Bi last year and I've always felt more in touch with the character of Maire, so using her as a proxy for my own personal journey just made the most sense.