In the summer that I was fourteen, I was getting pretty good at playing the piano.

Every Sunday, the bar on Main Street opened its doors to people of all ages for open-mic night, and the usual flock of drunks was replaced by children, parents, elderlies, anybody that had nothing better to do than take a gamble on local talent for a few hours. Quite often, the stage was a train wreck that you couldn't look away from. Male belly-dancers, racist comedians, that kind of thing. All you needed to do to bring out the worst or the weirdest in people was give them a microphone and the attention of fifty-odd people.

But no matter how bad it got, the bar patrons had a newcomer to depend on for a solid quarter-hour of entertainment, and her name was Pacifica Northwest. From 8 P.M. to 8:15, the stage was all mine, and I would regale the audience with a couple of classical pieces I learned from my piano teacher, then move on to renditions of more contemporary tunes that I learned on YouTube, most of which I sang along to as well. The latter always received more praise.

It was the second week in June. I arrived at the bar at 7:45, with enough time to chug a lemonade and slink into a seat by the stage. I caught the tail-end of an Elton John cover act. He was really, really bad, which was great for me, because I had the chance to wake everybody up and dazzle them.

There was a round of applause for fake-Elton, and then the bar owner called me up to the stage. The uproar of a crowd following my name spoken out loud was something I would never grow tired of. I sat at the piano bench, wiped down the keys with a tissue - you'd be surprised how often people left unidentified sticky residue behind - and then I looked up. And my eyes landed on a booth at the far end of the bar, on a familiar face I had nearly forgotten everything about. His name was Dipper. We had become friends at the very end of last summer. He wasn't from around here, though, so he left at the end of August and I hadn't heard from him since.

Under the faint glow of the lamp at his table, I saw him smile right at me. I cleared my throat, frowned at the piano, tried to remember what I had come here to do. I reached into my purse and retrieved the crumpled up sheet music, smoothed it out in front of me.

"Um, hello everyone. I'm going to start off tonight with Twilight Waltz, and then we'll move on to some tunes you might find more familiar."

More applause and whistles. I wanted to look up at Dipper again, make sure he was still there, but decided against it. My heart jumped a little at the sight of him and I didn't want to deal with that while I was trying to focus on the music. I flexed my fingers one final time, exhaled into the silence, and began to play.

There isn't much I can say about how I played the piano. You just hit the right keys, at precisely the right times, and it sounds beautiful. Some people like to get all fancy with it, and jolt and sway around like a marionette while they play. My teacher described it as a way of infusing emotion into the music. I never really bothered - it still sounded the same.

I transitioned into Piano Man by Billy Joel, then finished my set with Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. Being up there on stage, singing my heart out, it was therapeutic. It was a welcome opportunity to forget everything for a while, including the faces watching me play. Just me and the music.

But the music always came to an end, and the lights came up, and people clapped. Reality set in. I drew a deep breath from the stuffy atmosphere and scanned the audience. He was still there, with his family sat around him. The sister, and the uncle.

"Thank you," I said into the microphone. "I'm here every Sunday, same time. Thank you."

I sat at a barstool and asked for a glass of water. Wondered what I would say when I approached Dipper. Wondered why the thought of approaching him made my arms break out in goosebumps. This train of thought turned out to be redundant, because he appeared right beside me and tapped my shoulder.

"Dipper. Hey."

"So you do remember me."

Remember him? Of course I remembered him. Was I not supposed to remember him? Oh, crap, he's waiting for me to speak.

"I caught your eye earlier and you frowned at me," he said, chuckling.

"Yeah. No, I wasn't frowning at you, I think I was just trying to concentrate. It's, um, it's good to see you."

"It's good to see you too. You were incredible up there, by the way. Like, so much better than anyone else in here."

"Oh," I laughed, looking at my shoes.

What. Are. You. Doing. Act normal.

"Thank you."

It was pretty clear, at this point, that the crush I had begun to develop at the end of last summer had bubbled back to the surface. I was not expecting his voice to be deeper. He was leaning on the bar, too, like a cowboy. Maybe he had a wagon parked out front and he'd ask me to join him on his journey into the north-west. Swoon.

I realized that those ten seconds spent thinking about his wagon had been in total silence.

"Hey, do you want to come sit with us?" he said, glancing back to the booth. "Mabel's here, and you remember my uncle Stan?"

"Oh. I can't actually, I have a stupid 9 P.M. curfew. Um. But I'll be here again next weekend?"

"Ok, cool. I'll be here too."

"Awesome." I smiled.

The following week, I took a shot in the dark and asked my parents if they were going to come and watch me perform. They said no, they were busy. When I left the house that evening, they were sat around the fireplace, reading in silence. I rolled my eyes and stepped outside without a word.

My driver, Ricardo, was waiting in the black BMW. I pulled up the hood of my coat and jogged across the front lawn through heavy rain, then clambered into the warmth of the vehicle. It had been about nine months now since my family had moved into this three-bedroom house, out in one of the regular neighborhoods that we used to literally look down on from our hilltop manor. The manor was under new ownership, after my carelessly entrepreneurial father invested in flimsy currencies that no longer exist and was forced to sell it.

Losing tens of millions of dollars in one swoop takes its toll on a person. Since then, my parents had become totally despondent. Whenever I walked into a room, they would look up for a second and go right back to whatever they were doing, as if I didn't exist. They would either bicker with one another under their breaths, or coexist in silence. Dead souls in flesh shells.

I tried not to think about it, focused my energy on wiping down the piano. A glance into the crowd stung me with disappointment. Several faces I had hoped to see, none of them were here.

There was one girl by herself, in the back. Mabel Pines - Dipper's sister, in a red sundress, sipping a milkshake. She caught my eye, smiled, and waved. I ignored her.

But she followed me out of the bar half an hour later, and called out my name. If the rain hadn't stopped while I was inside, I would have ducked into the car and told Ricardo to floor it. I wasn't in the mood to talk to this permanent ray of sunshine.

That may have sounded like a compliment to Mabel, but it wasn't. Imagine a ray of sunshine in your eyes while you're trying to sleep. Mabel was like that.

"Wow," she said, ambling up the sidewalk with her hands clasped at her front. "Is there anything you can't do?"

"What?"

"I was- I said, is there anything you can't do?"

"There are plenty of things I can't do."

She frowned. I got the feeling we weren't on the same page.

"Hey, is Dipper with you?" I asked.

"No, he's gone out with Wendy and some other guys. They said they were gonna go check out an abandoned building. I wasn't so interested."

"Wendy?"

"Yeah, she works at the Shack. You've met her, I think." She grinned and rolled her eyes. "Dipper's like, totally in love with her, but don't tell him I said that."

I ground my teeth. "Huh. Alright, well, bye."

I got into the car. If she said anything else, I didn't hear it.

Ricardo swiveled his nosy head. "A friend of yours?"

"Not really."

"Does she need a ride somewhere?"

"She's fine," I said, glancing out the window. She was just standing on the sidewalk, watching me. She always had been a strange one. "Just drive."

The next morning, I met Tiffany and Alina at our usual hang-out spot in the park. They were sitting side-by-side on a picnic bench, sharing earbuds, nodding their heads to something. I strutted up to them and planted my hands on my hips.

"What the hell?" I said. "Where were you last night?"

Tiffany let out an elongated oh. "That was last night?"

"I texted you about it yesterday afternoon. Nice try."

"Pacifica, we're just not that into piano music," Alina piped up.

"You don't have to be into piano music. If one of you guys decided to do something interesting with your lives, I would come and support you."

"Would you really, though?"

"Yes!"

"Whatever," Tiffany said, yanking the earbud out and standing up. "It doesn't matter. We're gonna go check out that new outlet store in the mall, Eternally Cute. Are you coming?"

"No, screw you," I said, turning on my heels and willing myself not to cry.

"Pacifica, don't be so dramatic."

"You're supposed to be my friends. I've been playing at that bar for weeks, and I ask you to come once, and you can't even drop me a text to tell me you're not gonna be there. No apology. Nothing."

I walked away with my head down, and they stayed silent behind me.

It got to another Sunday night and the bar was once again devoid of the people that should have cared about me.

She was there again, though, in the same seat as before. She was playing with the sleeve of a blue sweater, a pink flower in her hair. Once again, she caught me staring at her and waved, and before I could stop it, my hand drifted upwards and waved back. It was unlike me.

My music was tainted by anger, that night. I was angry at the world, angry at the people around me, angry at myself because I was the reason people didn't love me, I was cold, and mean, and I repelled people away. My fingers kept pounding the keys, which made every other note boom into the microphone. My voice would dip into an ugly deep pitch that I didn't recognize, and in my frustration I started missing notes by a fraction of a beat. It was all a mess, nothing sounded right, so I cut my set short and stormed out of the bar through an audience that was less enthusiastic than I was used to.

I didn't need to look to know who swung open the door behind me. She called out, "Pacifica, hey," and again I contemplated jumping in the car and jetting. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," I said. "What do you want?"

Her mouth hung open for a moment. "I just wanted to say how great you sounded. If I had a voice like that, you wouldn't be able to keep it shut," she laughed. "I'd be up on stage every night."

I didn't understand her. She was like this when I met her before, skipping around town with an apparent goal to make friends with everybody that so much as looked at her. I snapped. "What are you doing? Why do you keep coming to these and why do you keep following me outside afterwards?"

That wiped the smile right off her face. "I thought we could... I don't know, be friends. Candy and Grenda aren't in Gravity Falls this year, and Dipper's always running off with Wendy and her friends... I've been lonely. Sorry for trying to be nice."

I watched her brown locks whip back and forth as she walked back to the entrance, and something buried deep inside of me broke. The last week had been the loneliest I'd felt in my life. "We could be friends," I blurted out.

She turned around, tilted her head like a confused dog. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

We stood in an awkward limbo, ten feet apart on the sidewalk. I cut the distance between us and said, "my parents are holding a party at my place on the fourth of July. Um... you wanna come?"

Her face lit up like Christmas. "Okay."

On the day of the party, my parents came to life. At about 4 P.M., I trudged downstairs in my pajamas and stood in the sunroom eating cereal. I watched them dart around the back yard, hurling orders at the slew of people they had hired to ensure their evening went smoothly. They even appeared to be talking to each other without any bitterness on their tongues.

This was their first attempt at hosting guests since moving out of the mansion, and knowing my parents, they would settle for no less than a unanimous success. It was kind of pathetic, if you asked me. They hurried about like ants, smoothing out tablecloths, straightening cutlery, as if their lives were dependent on the outcome of this one freaking party. I bit into a cluster of oats and vowed that I would never take one single thing that seriously, but I accidentally vowed it out loud and dribbled milk onto the floor. I left it to soak into the carpet. Hopefully my mother would see it just before people arrived and freak the hell out.

The guests were due to arrive at 8, but some old douchebag and a wife half his age showed up at 6, so I was summoned to the yard to 'entertain' - and by that, my parents meant, 'make a cheese and grape platter and stand around like a human buffet table.'

I obeyed, but I ate all the grapes and then left a plate of cheese kebabs on the table for the early arrivals to enjoy. I wandered off to the front yard and sat on a bench, looking out into the road. I had texted Mabel the address and told her to get here for 7:30, so I figured I'd wait around out here until she turned up. Hanging out with somebody my age beat mingling with all the middle-aged snobs in my back yard, no matter how different Mabel and I were.

I had the sudden recollection that she wasn't a particularly good dresser, often choosing to knit her own clothes, like my grandma. It was likely that she would stick out like a sore thumb among my parents' company. Oh well. If it pissed them off, I was all for it.

But Mabel strolled up the pathway half an hour later, and she looked gorgeous. An indigo blue dress, clearly bought in an actual store, black heels. She had curled her hair. She wasn't so clueless after all.

I led her around the side of the house to the yard, and my parents, apparently having developed some kind of sixth sense for uninvited visitors, both turned towards us and hurried across the lawn from opposite ends of it. Presumably fearing that she was about to be lynched, Mabel stepped behind me.

"Pacifica," my dad said under his breath. "Who is this?"

"A friend."

"Oh is she now? Because the only friends on the guest list are Tiffany and Alina, and she isn't either of them."

"I didn't want Tiffany or Alina to be here, so I asked Mabel instead."

"Pacifica," Mabel whispered loudly in my ear. "Am I not supposed to be here?"

"She isn't on the guest list," said my father, tapping the clipboard in his hand.

"Well here's what I think of your stupid guest list," I yelled, plucking it from his hands and tossing it into the hedge.

Mabel stumbled along behind me as I dragged her by the arm across the lawn, into the far corner where nobody would bother us.

"I hate them," I told her. "I have no freedom when they're throwing parties."

"I'm sure they mean well," she said, smiling.

"Um. I've known them for fourteen years. They absolutely do not mean well."

Mabel told me about life in California until the sun set. I had always pictured moving down there when I was old enough to ditch my parents, maybe to a nice house on the beach. With a hammock, and a pool. My closet of bikinis and summer dresses were definitely better suited for the warmer climate.

We had created this little bubble in the corner of the yard, sitting at our own table eating steak off the barbecue and sharing stories about school, but inevitably, my dad had to come along and burst it. I saw him charging across the lawn over Mabel's shoulder. He stepped right up into my space, and bent down until his nose was inches from mine. Close enough to spit in his face, if I really wanted to.

He asked - or ordered - me to go inside and start washing the dishes. Fooling myself into thinking he could be reasoned with, I argued that the fireworks were about to start.

"Well maybe I would have allowed you to stay out here if you hadn't openly disrespected your mother and I earlier. Dishes, now."

He glanced down at Mabel, who didn't seem fazed by the man whatsoever. She stared right back at him and loudly sipped from a Diet Coke can with a straw.

"And maybe you can bring your little friend along to help, seeing as she wasn't invited but has helped herself to the food regardless."

I waited until his back was turned and stuck my tongue out. "Come on," I muttered, grabbing Mabel's arm and leading her back to the house.

The kitchen counters were stacked with dirty plates, glasses, and silverware. A true portrait of gluttony. I went straight to the refrigerator as Mabel whistled behind me.

"Where should I start?" she asked.

I picked out a bunch of grapes and found a clean bowl to put them in. "What do you mean? We're not actually gonna clean up after those slobs."

"We're not?"

I moved to the foot of the stairs, popped a grape into my mouth. "I don't know about you, but I didn't put up with my parents' bullshit friends all evening just to miss the only good bit of the party."

Mabel's soft footfalls came up the stairs behind me, and followed all the way to my bedroom. She stepped onto the purple carpet and said, "holy wow. Your room is huge."

I glanced around, at the queen bed, the walk-in closet, the grand piano. "Is it? My old one was bigger."

"It's like, three times the size of my room at home. And even that's bigger than the attic I share here with Dipper."

On the far side of the room, I drew the curtains and slid open the door to the balcony overlooking our back yard. "Voila," I said, but Mabel didn't respond because she was fixated on the piano, running her hand along the lid. "Don't touch that," I snapped, which shocked her, and admittedly shocked myself a little too. I supposed I was protective over my belongings.

"Sorry," I said. "It's expensive."

"How long have you been playing for?"

"Um. Since I was about eight. I have lessons every week."

She grinned and shook her head. "You're unfair."

"Huh?"

"You. You're unfair. You're smart, and talented, and beautiful. You have this huge house and all these lovely things," she sighed as she twirled and gestured to the room, her voice full of wonder. She brushed past me, out onto the balcony, and my eyebrows furrowed.

"Yeah, but you have a brother and a family that loves you. Probably a lot more friends, too."

Mabel turned to me with a blank expression. Embarrassed, I leaned on the concrete railing and gazed into the black forest beyond the yard. She started to say something, but the first firework whistled into the sky and made both of us jump. There were cheers and whoops from the crowd below us, with my dad's distinct laugh cutting through the noise. The kind of laugh that screamed everybody pay attention to me. I tried to tune it out and focus on the explosions of light high above me.

Red, white, and blue. An arm nudged me. "If you make a wish just as a firework explodes, it'll come true," Mabel said.

"I don't think that's a thing."

"Well, I'm making it a thing."

There was a lull in the display, but I squinted as somebody on the ground lit a fuse and over the bang, I yelled, "I wish my parents treated me like a daughter and not like an inconvenience."

Another few seconds of quiet. "I don't think you're supposed to say them out loud," Mabel told me.

"Well, I'm making that a thing, too."

"Okay. I wish Candy and Grenda had come back this year. I miss them."

"I wish... I wish my friends liked me for me."

"I wish I had bigger boobs."

A laugh rocketed from my lips. "I wish my hair was naturally straight."

"I wish Tom Henderson would notice me at school."

"I wish that Tom Henderson never notices you, ever."

"Hey!" She shoved my shoulder. "No fair, you can't cancel out my wishes!"

"Except I just did," I smirked.

Her laughter fizzled out just as the fireworks did, and the huddle of suits and dresses broke out in applause. I watched them spread back out into circles, trading mindless banter, as Mabel and I ate grapes from the bowl I had balanced on the railing. All of these people would likely be moseying around my yard late into the night, and when it got too cold, their voices would migrate to the house and boom through the floorboards as I tried to sleep. It was all too familiar. I sighed and rested my chin in my hands.

Mabel's finger extended out over the railing, pointed right at my dad. "Bet you I can hit him from here," she said, holding a grape out in front of me.

Before I could advise her otherwise, a green pellet soared into the brightly lit yard and hit my father square in the eye. He dropped his drink to the grass and looked around frantically, half-blinded. Mabel and I fell to the floor in synchrony, ducking out of view. Her hands were clasped over her mouth and her eyes were wide as golf balls. "I was only joking," she whispered through her fingers. "I didn't mean to actually hit him."

Replaying the look on my dad's face, I burst into incredulous laughter, clutching my stomach. Mabel keeled over in a fit of giggles as well, and before long we were both sprawled out on the cold concrete floor of the balcony. I wiped a tear from my eye and said, "if he looks up here, he's gonna see the bowl of grapes and the open door."

"I'm never gonna be allowed back here again," she gasped. "They're gonna get a restraining order."

Another burst of chuckles filled the air between us. I couldn't remember the last time I had laughed so much. Had I ever?

"If you keep throwing stuff at my parents," I said to her, "we're going to get along just fine."

It was about two weeks later that I saw the whole Pines ensemble at the bar again. I had gotten used to seeing Mabel week after week, her braces glistening in the light as she grinned up at the stage, but now the one with the fur hat and the one with the fez were back.

I strummed out a few classical tracks as always, and segued into a shorter version of Free Bird, which drew out raucous applause from the herd of bikers that had wound up at the bar that evening.

At the end of the set, I hopped onto a stool and downed the glass of water that had been set out for me, and smiled at Mabel as she skipped up to the end of the bar.

"Incredible as ever," she said, squeezing my arm. "Are you staying behind?"

"Yeah, for a little bit. I'm just gonna take these out to my driver," I told her, picking up the bag of pork rinds next to my water.

I walked out to the BMW, knocked on Ricardo's window. He looked up from a crossword puzzle and wound it down. I held out the bag. "Got you your favorite."

"Ah, Pacifica, you are a savior," he said, beaming. "Thank you."

"One of these days you'll find a place to park and come inside to watch me."

"I wish I could, my dear, but you know that would be against the rules. I have strict orders from-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You have strict orders from my dumbass parents to stay in the car at all times. Alright, I'll be out in thirty."

Dipper was hanging around by the door of the bar, waiting to speak to me. I took a deep breath and attempted a smile, but the result was one of those straight-line not-really-a-smile-smiles.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey."

A couple seconds of silence. Was I free to go? "You were great in there. Really great."

"Thanks." I inspected a chipped nail.

"Hey, um, me and a couple of friends were gonna have a pool day tomorrow. Over at the public pool? I was wondering if you'd like to come along."

My eyes drifted through the window of the bar, and landed on the girl dressed in pink, her ponytail swinging from side to side as she energetically told a story to a biker twice her size. I felt the corner of my lip tug upwards.

"If you're busy, or whatever, it's cool. You know, no worries."

I looked Dipper in his nervous eyes, and decided to cut right to the chase. "Is Mabel gonna be there?"