Mabel's last day at the diner falls on Wednesday, August 26. Even though she worked there for less than two months, Lindsay is as emotional during the departure as she always is with her employees. She hugs Mabel, she cries, she makes Mabel promise to come back and visit an unreasonable number of times per year. It's fair enough - I've caught snippets of the conversations they've been having in the back office about Jason. They really seem to have bonded over the situation, and while it has crossed my mind that Lindsay may once have been a victim of abuse herself, I don't think that's the case. I think she simply has an innate mastery of caring for those who are in pain.

On Thursday, I go with Mabel to the Mystery Shack to gather up the last of her belongings that she didn't move into my apartment. Later on that day, we drive back again to greet Jason's parents, which might be one of the most bizarre interactions I've ever witnessed. I was terrified to meet them, assuming that the couple to raise such a monster would be at least a tad monstrous themselves, but as soon as they get out of their car and Mabel approaches them, the mother wraps her up in a tight hug and begins to sob into her shoulder. The dad's hug is briefer, but still sincere. I watch from the porch of the Shack, out of earshot, as Mabel converses with them, and they nod, and frown, and shake their heads, and by the end of the day I'm convinced that they're dismayed by their son's behavior. We all load their car up with Jason's things and they don't mention his name once, while they talk to Mabel like a daughter.

I guess it doesn't require a bad influence to become a villain; some people go down that path all on their own. I'm glad that one of them is at least somewhat paying the consequences.

When Jason's parents take off back to California I sit on the porch again and let Mabel have her long goodbye in private, because no matter how many times they promise each other to stay in touch, is that really a realistic option? Mabel stands in the driveway for a moment after they're gone, the noise of their engine eventually fading behind the chatter of birds and the pines rustling in the breeze. She turns and walks up to the porch, toned arms and legs on show, in a tank top and denim short-shorts. She sits down and hugs me from the side. I wrap my arms around her and we waste away the afternoon, our legs dangling off the porch and catching the sun, silently coexisting in the way that we do.

On Friday I come home to a spotless apartment once again. Mabel emerges from her bedroom to greet me. "Hey, you."

"Hey. Have you been packing?"

"Nah, I'll do all that tomorrow. I just thought I'd clean the place before I leave. Now, sit down."

"Excuse me?"

"Sit down."

I plop myself down on the couch. "Why am I sitting?"

She stands in the center of the room holding her hands together.

"Oh god," I say. "What are you doing? You're gonna say something serious, aren't you?"

"Pacifica."

"No, don't start with my name! Now I know you're definitely gonna say something serious."

"Will you be quiet?"

"Okay."

"Pacifica. It isn't fair that you let me stay in your home, and eat your food, and sleep in your clothes."

"I didn't know about that third-"

"It isn't fair that you've been such an incredible, wonderful, caring friend despite what I've put you through in the past. I can never, ever repay you for what you've done for me this summer, but I at least wanted to thank you somehow. So I got you a present." Mabel wanders back to her room, her socks silent on the carpet. She shuts the door behind her, and I don't think much of it until I hear her talking to someone.

There's somebody in there. In that room. I straighten my posture and brush my skirt. Who would she have brought here to surprise me? It must be a woman, right? She's gifting me with a woman because I talk about them so much. A prostitute, though?

While I'm trying to decide whether I'd have sex with a prostitute at four o'clock in the afternoon paid for by the girl I'm in love with, Mabel emerges from the room cradling a little Shiba Inu puppy in her arms - which makes even less sense than my original conclusion. She stands over the couch and sings, "meet your new best friend," her tone wavering at the shock on my face. "Oh my god, you hate him."

"I- what? You got me a dog?" I extend my arms to hold him and Mabel sets him down, my palms holding him up by the belly. I don't move, totally unsure what to do, while my 'new best friend' pants happily and looks around the room, clueless as to where he is but clearly enjoying it.

"I thought with me leaving you might want a new companion, and I remembered how you always used to say you wanted a puppy but your parents wouldn't let you have one."

I look up at her, dumbfounded. "I've never said that to you before in my life."

Mabel's eyebrows drop. "Shit, am I thinking of someone else?"

The puppy yips and squirms in my hands. I lower him onto my chest and he sniffs my chin for a while, before deciding to lick it.

"We'll take him back," Mabel says. "I still have all the paperwork and the breeder's only-"

"No, don't take him back," I say, and an involuntary laugh pops out when the dog tilts his head at me. "He's adorable."

Mabel's whole body appears to sink in relief. "So you like him?"

"I love him," I say, squeezing his cheeks and giggling when he goes on panting, totally unfazed. "I just can't believe that you bought me a dog. I mean, you bought me a dog! And he's so cute, look at his little face." I stand up, cradling the pup how I saw Mabel do it, and kiss Mabel on the cheek. "Thank you."

"No, thank you. It's like I said, I don't know what I would have done without you this past month."

The puppy wrestles against my arms again and I set him down on the floor. He immediately begins to survey the room with his butt held high like he owns the place.

"I got him some stuff - there's a little cage for taking him to the vet, about a week's worth of food and treats, and some chew toys. All in my room. Oh, also some cleaning products for when he inevitably poops on the carpet."

"Oh, fantastic."

"Yeah, it happens. And I realize all of this might be a little overwhelming, so I will vow to you right now that I'll be up here every few weekends to give you a hand."

I chuckle dryly. "Yeah, right."

"What? I will."

"Yeah, that's what Nina said, and she hasn't come to visit me once."

She pinches my ear. "Nina has a boyfriend to look after. I'm a free woman."

Mabel watches the dog sniff at every inch of my apartment, unaware that I'm watching her. She has no idea how many butterflies are throwing up in my stomach at the thought of being able to see her every few weeks. That would almost make it... possible. Almost.

"What are you gonna name him?" she says, beaming at me.

I don't know where the thought comes from but I say, "Spark."

"Spark. Any reason?"

I shake my head, honestly clueless as to where the name came from. "Nope. He just looks like a Spark."

That night we eat fajitas at the kitchen counter while Spark gnaws on a colorful rope, very content on his couch cushion of choice.

"I have one tiny proposal for you," Mabel says, and takes a sip of water.

"Oh god."

"Why do you keep saying that?!"

"Because! You do crazy impulsive things, like buying me a fifteen-year commitment in the form of a ball of fluff."

Spark yaps loudly.

"That was him agreeing with me," I say.

"This next thing isn't impulsive," Mabel assures me. "It's just an idea."

"Shoot."

"How would you feel about staying with me in Cali this weekend?"

How would I feel about being with her for another two days before she disappears until an indeterminate date? It's a no-brainer, really. But I have to play it cool. "You mean stay at your house?"

"Yeah. Well, we'd stay there on Sunday night, then on Monday after the party I thought we could go up to Sacramento and stay in my dorm room. My roommate won't move in for another week or so. I can show you around campus."

I finish a mouthful of chicken and smile. "Sounds good."

I drop Spark off at my mom's house on Sunday, without any forewarning. It was a last minute decision; I had my bag packed to stay at Mabel's and then realized oh, I have a dog now. My mom was predictably dramatic when I showed up on her doorstep, but Spark made friends with Toby the kitten right away and she seemed to loosen up after that.

My guest room is empty again, but I have a two-night vacation in California to keep my mind away from the impending loneliness. Sure, I have Spark now, but Spark won't let me put my feet in his lap when I need to stretch my legs. He won't wake me up with the smell of French toast. And he won't strut around the apartment with a towel wrapped around him and drive my hormones wild, like Mabel does. Strangely enough, that's the same reason I'm using to convince myself that her departure is a good thing - I don't know how long I had left before temptation got the better of me.

We make one stop at a gas station on our way down south so I can buy a bottle of water. When I step out of the building into the arid heat, Mabel isn't anywhere in sight, the Jeep parked in the empty lot to the side of the building. Bewildered, I walk to the side of the road and look left and right, but there's nothing but the occasional distant car, appearing to shimmer in the heat. I eventually walk around the back of the gas station to find her peeing on the wall.

She screams.

I turn around sharply and cover my eyes. "Oh my god. What the hell are you doing?!"

"What does it look like I'm doing?!"

"Why? Why there? There's a row of bushes right in front of you!"

"There's a drain here, though," she calls out, and sure enough, the reason I can hear the stream so loudly is that it's echoing inside a drain. "The toilets inside are out of order but the guy said I can use this."

"Literally anybody could have walked around the back of the building, Mabel."

"Well, I'm sorry, Little Miss Priss, but desperate times call for desperate measures."

The next thirty minutes of the journey is pretty awkward. We keep the volume loud on the radio until we get off the I-5 to head towards Piedmont, when Mabel turns the dial to the left.

"Did you see my... you know what?" she asks, deadpan.

I turn my head and she raises her eyebrows at me. "Briefly," I say. "Nothing I haven't seen before."

When she next glances across at me there's a huge smirk on her face. "Touché."

Pulling up in her driveway is kind of surreal, like physically stepping into a memory. The exterior of the house hasn't changed one bit - the hedges surrounding the property are immaculately trimmed, the concrete driveway practically gleams white under the sun. I walk around to the patio out front and all the furniture is still the same - the dining table with the glass top, the cushioned bench overlooking San Francisco where Mabel used to take her Skype calls (where the Wi-Fi was so spotty that the image refreshed once every ten seconds).

And Dipper's sitting in it. He sees my shadow and looks to the side, plucks out his earbuds, his eyebrows furrowed. "Oh my god," he says, a grin taking over. "Look who it is. Mabel didn't tell me you were coming." He walks up to me and immediately goes for a hug.

I hold on to him for a long time. It's a strange feeling, that I wasn't expecting. Like I missed him but I didn't realize how much I missed him until he was standing in front of me.

When we pull away he says, "it's been a while. You look great."

"So do you." I reach up to squeeze the toned bicep barely contained by his shirt. "When did this happen?"

He laughs and pulls his sleeve down further. "My friend gets me free gym membership."

"You once told me that the only reason people go to the gym is to make up for the lack of a personality."

"C'mon," he says, smirking. "We all said dumb things when we were younger. You used to say that gay people were only fishing for attention."

I'm about to dispute that when Mabel comes around the corner, wheeling a suitcase with a box perched precariously on top. "A little help, little bro?"

"There she is," Dipper laughs, wrapping her up in a similar wordless hug, which lasts a moment longer. Mabel clamps her eyes shut, rests her chin on his shoulder. I get one of those pangs of remorse that I never had a sibling, like how I used to feel when I watched them, before I decided that I would never be as close to any sibling as these two were. I smile; the sentiment still holds true. "How are you doing?" Dipper asks her quietly, still holding her arms.

"I'm okay," she says, her eyes flicking to me like she wants to tell him more but not here, not now. I glance around awkwardly, but there isn't really anywhere I can go, other than over the hedge and down the mountain.

Mabel's room is different. There are boxes and bags lining the far wall, bleeding clothes onto the floor. I'm guessing when she moved here at the start of the summer she didn't bother unpacking, and only brought the essentials and a limited wardrobe with her to Gravity Falls. The bed looks newer, a sleek black wooden frame with black and white sheets. All of her posters have been taken down, leaving chips in the paint.

Her parents get back from the supermarket and welcome me with open arms. Mabel already asked them over the phone if I could stay tonight, though I had to heavily persuade her to do so. She wanted me to be a surprise. What an underwhelming surprise, I thought.

She isn't going to tell them about Jason until I'm back in Oregon, because they would be likely to taint the twins' birthday by asking Mabel how she was feeling every five minutes. I never really understood it when she rolled her eyes at her parents and claimed that they worried too much. Surely it's nice to be worried about?

We eat pizza that night in Mabel's cluttered room, talking about the things we used to do and the people we used to know, riding a wave of nostalgia. Somehow I wind up telling the story about Toby Determined's arrest for stealing a woman's panties at the laundromat, and Mabel laughs so hard that she rushes off to the bathroom with her legs clamped together. Shortly afterwards, Dipper turns to me with no humor in his expression and I feel myself tense.

"Thank you for everything you did for her."

I can't explain why, but I was certain he was going to confront me about slapping his sister four years ago. Inherently unable to accept gratitude for anything, I look at my feet and shrug. It's not like keeping Mabel in my apartment was a selfless act. I needed her as much as she claimed to have needed me.

"Seriously," Dipper says. "I had a freakin' anxiety attack when she told me about... him. I calmed down a lot when she told me she was staying with you." He closes the pizza box and sets it aside, just to give his hands something to do. He rests his chin in them. The drone of a TV commercial filters through the door until he says, "I can't believe she didn't tell me sooner."

"It can be difficult," I say. "To talk about something like that. And I can only imagine it got harder to tell you the longer it went on for."

"Yeah," he says, as if reprimanding himself for suggesting otherwise. "I just... I could have helped. Somebody could have helped."

"I think she's very brave," I say, thinking out loud more than anything. "The way she's handled it all. To stand up in court the day after she left him and testify against him. I didn't see it myself, but Lindsay said she was tough as a rock."

He smiles. "Sounds like I need to meet this Lindsay."

"Yeah, you do." I smirk. "It'd be nice if you stopped to say hi the next time you spend a whole two weeks up there, too."

"I'm really sorry about that. I got so wrapped up with Ford's maps-"

"I know. Mabel already explained it to me."

I sleep on the couch, because no matter how long it's been, I can't forget what began in that bedroom. Mabel is okay with that decision, it seems, until she hesitates in her doorway after saying goodnight. The way her mouth opened and closed keeps me awake for an hour, gazing up at an unfamiliar ceiling.

The next morning I tell the twins that I won't be going to their birthday party. I didn't think that announcement would be such a big deal, but they both look at me like I killed their cat. Their friends from high school are taking them out to lunch and they're going bowling this afternoon, neither of them interested in doing anything wild despite it being their twenty-first. I wouldn't feel comfortable being there, I would feel like I was intruding; down here in California they've lived entirely different lives to the glimpses I saw of them in Oregon, and that includes long-standing friendships that I've never been a part of. If you didn't think I was unsociable before, you probably do now.

I can't tell if Mabel's mad at me when they leave, but I'm taking her out for dinner tonight before we arrive in Sacramento, so I have plenty of opportunity to make up for it. Of course, at home alone with Mabel's parents, I feel just as out-of-place as I would at the birthday bash, so I go for a walk around the neighborhood and find myself exploring a tiny shopping mall - the kind of barren place where half of the outlets are vacant and you look around wondering which of the desolate stores are fronts for money-laundering. It's shamefully late to be shopping for Mabel's birthday present, but I find something that will at least make her laugh, in a disorderly gift shop owned by an overly bubbly woman who talks too much.

Satisfied that I'm not a total failure of a friend, I take the rest of the afternoon to relax. I find a park and lie down in the grass, lather myself up with sunscreen. Just like the last time I was here, it surprises me how green the landscape is. When I first met the Pines twins and they talked to me about California I would always picture a cabin on a white beach, overlooking a calm ocean, maybe with a couple palm trees out back and a hammock. My dream home. It never seemed to occur to me that the state wasn't just one long beach, and when I'm here, actually, there aren't any obvious differences to Oregon. Maybe Wendy's right; California really isn't that far away.

I wake up to my phone ringing, immediately aware that some caring but ultimately creepy soul has picked me up and moved me into the shade. I sit up and whip my head around and, nope, it's just that the sun has dipped behind a tree. I've been asleep for four hours. I answer the phone and Mabel asks me where I am.

"I don't know," I tell her, while I rifle through my beach bag to make sure everything's still there.

There's a pause on the other end of the line. "Well are you alright?"

"Yeah. I'm at a... park. I dozed off."

I smile at the melodic giggle. "You promised you'd buy me dinner, and it's already 7 P.M."

"Hmm. I said I'd take you to dinner, I didn't say I was paying for it."

She gasps. "I should have known. You always were a bit of a cheapskate."

"Oh, I'm the cheapskate? You're the one who's having their birthday dinner at Applebee's."

"What's wrong with Applebee's?"

"I don't know, I just prefer restaurants where the menus aren't sticky."

"We could go somewhere else if you want."

"No, I'm kidding," I say, standing and turning around to figure out which direction I came from earlier this afternoon. "It's your birthday. I will follow you to the end of the Earth and back if that's what you want to do."

"How romantic."

I've only taken two steps towards the road before the tone of her voice makes me freeze. "It wasn't supposed to be romantic," I say.

"No? Hmm. That's a shame."

I glance around at my surroundings with a broad grin on my face. At a loss for what to say, I hastily climb up a grass embankment to the road and spot the mall I was in further down the street. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes. Are you all packed?"

"Eh, I'll do it in a minute."

"Start packing. Now. I'm already hungry."

I hang up, because I know she would have said something like hungry for what? with a purr on the last syllable, as a joke, and I'd buckle at the knees because she has no idea what effect she can have on me.

It's 9:45 P.M. by the time we arrive on campus. Mabel parks the Jeep out the front of her dorm building, the campus so lifeless that she doesn't need to compete for a parking space. The building itself doesn't look too impressive until we walk around the front, and I see that it wraps around a neatly kept courtyard in a horseshoe shape, with picnic tables and flowerbeds. We walk along a wide, illuminated concrete path carrying two boxes each of Mabel's things.

"It'll be easier doing this with nobody around", she says, in reference to moving her stuff in. "Two years ago I turned up the day before classes started and I couldn't get down the hall without stepping on somebody's foot."

"That might just be because you have freakishly large feet." Something crushes my toes and I gasp. "Ow!"

"Oops," Mabel sings, walking backwards and smirking.

I set the boxes on the ground and fold my arms. "I guess I'll just leave your stuff here, then."

She barrels onwards towards the door without looking over her shoulder. "I guess you'll be sleeping on the sidewalk tonight, then."

At the end of the path, she slips through a set of glass doors and disappears behind a wall.

"God dammit," I mutter, swallowing my pride and picking up the boxes again.

It takes three trips to the car to unload everything into her room. There are two single beds, but it's far more spacious than any dorm room I've seen before. Mabel tells me that she put aside some money she earned over her internship so that she could afford a more upmarket space to live in for her final year. Even if she hadn't done that, the money she was saving for her wedding would have covered it.

As soon as the last of the boxes is set down on the floor, I collapse onto one of the beds, and Mabel waits all of five seconds to say, "right. You ready for the tour?"

I sit up and grimace. "Aren't you tired? You've been running around since six o'clock this morning."

"No, I'm not tired, because I'm twenty-one years old. And you have been sleeping all afternoon, so get up," she says, and pulls me to my feet.

The 'tour' takes me first around Mabel's dorm building. She shows me how to turn on the shower and then pushes me into the cubicle, leaving cold water to trickle down my hair. I tilt the shower head and leave a splatter of droplets on her shirt. When I turn off the shower and step out she's ready to fend me off with a toilet plunger. I shush her every time she screams, even though we've only passed one other student in the whole building.

The buildings that are used for classes are all locked, but Mabel tries every single door anyway. "This is shaping up to be the worst tour ever," she says, forcefully rattling a door handle. She stops and looks up at me, eyes wide. "But there is one thing I can show you."

I struggle to keep up with her as she weaves between buildings and hurtles across courtyards. My heels are sore - the shoes I'm wearing were a size too small on purchase but too cute to return, and I've drastically exceeded the twenty minutes or so I can walk around in them without discomfort. My left eye stings from sitting in the sun this afternoon, and keeps clouding over because it needs sleep.

"Come on," Mabel calls out, twenty feet in front of me, standing on the corner of a building.

"Where are we going?" I moan. "Are we even on campus anymore?"

"It's just along here," she says, pointing behind the building.

I cross a patch of grass and slip between two bushes to get to her, then glance into the dark void she just pointed to, a brick wall fading into it.

"It's down there," I say flatly. "The thing that you're so excited to show me... is down there."

She doesn't answer, just begins to walk along the edge of the building. I stay a little closer to her now, reaching out to touch her shirt, irrationally afraid of getting lost. It only takes us twenty seconds to come to the next corner of the building, and tucked away behind it, Mabel points to a black service ladder that, when I look up, appears to extend all the way up to the roof, four or five (six?) stories above us. She stands back, hands on her hips. Proud of herself, for some reason.

"You hate heights," I say.

"I used to. Until my friend Rosie took me up there." She steps into the dirt at the bottom of the ladder and begins to climb it without a second thought.

I stare at her waggling butt for a second too long and call out, "are we even allowed up there?"

Even in the dark I can see her frowning. "There's nobody here, stupid."

I sigh. There's a cylinder of railings wrapping around the ladder from the second floor upwards, so there's no risk of falling off. Maybe if I weren't half-asleep I'd be more liable to object, but I grasp the rung of the ladder just above my head and hoist myself up, and, holy hell, by the time I'm at the top I'm fully awake. As soon as I crest the ladder I see, over the top of the trees lining the campus, the skyscrapers, all brightly lit against the night sky, white, orange, some blue and a dash of red. I take a few steps onto the roof, my mouth agape, and Mabel takes my shoulder and spins me around to face the other direction.

"Fuck," I say, my voice wispy. She chuckles.

There's another line of trees; beyond that, a river, a ferry traveling along it on the opposite side; and beyond that, the golden glow of a home, repeated hundreds if not thousands of times into the distance. At a point it ends and abruptly transitions into a plain black landscape, a single stream of streetlights extending farther than my eyes can see.

I don't know how long I've been staring when I clock that Mabel's arm is around my shoulder. I glance to my side and she smiles so warmly that my arms wrap around her stomach instinctively. Some kind of girly, dreamy sigh that doesn't sound at all like me escapes my throat.

When I focus, I can pick out the headlights of cars crawling along the streets, on their way home or on their way into the city. But I find it best to squint, and let the many hues of golden light dance on my retinas.

"I think I like the view from our porch in Piedmont better," Mabel says. "But this is good too."

"It's nice," I murmur. "What about the Aurora Mysterialis?"

"That wasn't really a view. That was more of an experience. And none of this compares to the views in Gravity Falls."

I frown. "Really?"

"Well, yeah. Up there it's all natural. Unspoiled beauty. Don't you think so?"

"I guess. The lakes are nice. Most of the time though I find it pretty boring."

"That's just because you've lived there your whole life."

"Yeah," I sigh. "Don't remind me."

"What? I think it's nice. You've built up a nice life there. Watching you work around the diner this summer, and watching you at home... you seem so much more relaxed, these days. You seem happy."

The warm breeze sweeps her hair into mine while I struggle for what to say. "There's more to life than working in a diner in the middle of nowhere, though. Especially for a twenty-one year old."

"Why? You enjoy your job and you make a comfortable living."

"But I never get to see anything new," I say. I don't mean to sound annoyed, but this feeling - that I'm not living life to its fullest - it's ingrained in me, and when I can't keep it suppressed it drives me insane. It fully dawns on me now that Mabel's presence has been suppressing it for me for the last two months, and things will go back to normal. As early as tomorrow, in fact. "I do the same thing every day. See the same people. I may enjoy what I do and I may love those people, but... I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say." When I turn my head Mabel's looking at me inquisitively. "What?"

She shakes her head in response. "Nothing. I think I get what you're trying to say."

Whatever it is, she doesn't enlighten me. She turns her head back to the suburbs and for a while longer we watch those golden lights diminish in number as their inhabitants turn in for the night.

When we get back to Mabel's dorm room I yawn, collapse onto the bed that isn't covered in her belongings, and ask her what time it is.

"Eleven-thirty," she says, moving some of the boxes from her bed to the floor.

"Then it is still your birthday. And I still have time to give you your present." I sit up and rummage through my beach bag at the side of the bed.

Mabel turns to me and tilts her head. "You didn't have to get me anything."

"It's nothing serious," I say, holding the plastic bag to my chest. And it really isn't. Inside is a pair of sweaters resembling the Thing 1 and Thing 2 outfits from The Cat in the Hat, only they say Bitch 1 and Bitch 2 instead. The product of a juvenile mind, designed for an even more juvenile mind. To emphasize that point, Mabel laughs for longer than I would have ever expected.

"Wait," Mabel says suddenly, holding the sweater up. "You should be Bitch 1 though."

"Why?"

"Because you're like, the, um, what's the word? The dominant one."

"In what way am I the 'dominant' one?"

"You're like, the one who calls the shots. Between us, I mean."

"That has literally never been the case. Two hours into your training at the diner you started telling me what to do. And I've been blindly following you around the woods all summer, obeying your every command. The hell are you talking about, I'm the dominant one?"

"Hmm." She frowns, really taking the time to think that through. "Maybe you're right. Anyway, I love it. I'm gonna wear it to bed."

"I got them so that even when we're hundreds of miles apart," I say, pausing to put on my own sweater, "I'll always remember that I'm your bitch."

She cackles and lays back against the unmade bed, bumping her head on a discarded shoe.

"Right, I need the bathroom," I tell her. From the doorway I add, "and just so you know, I'm going down the hall to pee. You know, in the bathroom. I'm not gonna go outside and piss on the wall."

I grin on my way down the hall when I hear her call out, "it was out of service!"

I pause while washing my hands and gaze at myself in the mirror, the silence and the lack of distractions allowing my mind to dwell on the fact that we will be hundreds of miles apart, again, starting tomorrow. I lean against the sink, all the energy sucked out of me. How many times in my life has this feeling hit me, the night before she leaves? I sigh and shut off the faucet. It's like every time before - all I can do is make the most of the morning.

Mabel's sitting on my bed when I get back to her room. I grin and point to the other one. "Am I sleeping there now?"

She doesn't answer. She holds out one hand, towards me, and subtly wiggles her finger. My heart leaps, rattles against my ribcage, and the grin falls from my face. I think I feel my eye twitch. She isn't playing around. Her expression is serious, confident, but like she's on the verge of tears.

There's a ringing in my ears as I close the distance, my right hand connecting with her left. I keep walking, and our other hands come together naturally. And then I'm there in between her legs, my knees touching the bed, and her neck is craned up at me. I dip my head and our kiss says so much that we can't say ourselves - I think, more than anything, it says that we could have been something, all of those years ago.

She stands, and we're both too stubborn to separate so our teeth bash together but neither of us seem to care. Her arms wrap around my neck and mine around her waist, the urgency takes over, and after two minutes my back's against the wall, my hair is ruffled, and her sweater is rolled up just below her breasts. I take a moment to breathe, or pant, and when she opens her eyes I frown, the gravity of what's unfolding crushing my head. "This complicates things," I mumble, but in response she goes straight for my lips again, and I let her.

It's a sensation I'll never be able to adequately describe, kissing your best friend, the person you'll love to the grave and the person who knows best how to drive you insane, putting aside years of rapport and letting attraction take over. The adrenaline could keep me awake for days.

Burning on the inside, I have no choice but to tear off my sweater. I kiss Mabel's neck, jawline, cheek, then her lips, stopping to pull strands of my hair out of my mouth, but my body yearns for more so I pump my hips forward to press against hers, and I don't know how much further I would have gone, if it weren't for the sudden cold touch of her fingertips under my shirt.

I'm back in that room in Wendy's lake house, I'm lying on my back, and Mabel's straddling me, her hair hanging messily, trapping our faces in a sweaty prison. Her pupils are wide in the dark.

I'm in the road, my knees digging into the rough tarmac, and her car is disappearing over the horizon.

And then I'm at that party at the start of the summer, this summer, and Mabel's wearing a green dress and her hair is up in a bun. Her fiancé grabs her waist from behind and for a second her eyes are alight with terror - she isn't startled, I know now, she's afraid.

I turn my head and look at the floor, our heartbeats the only sound in the room. I take a breath and turn back to Mabel.

"What's wrong?" she says, breathless.

I shake my head. "We can't do this."

"Why not?"

I lean back against the wall and stare into her eyes, the anguish preparing a bucket-load of tears to spill all over her carpet.

Her face softens. "You think I'm going to run away again."

I blink my eyes shut, hard, but it doesn't help. I manage to keep in a sob, at least. I feel Mabel roll down my shirt and reach for my hands again.

When I hear her speak, her voice is wet. "I'm not- I'm not that person, anymore, okay? I promise you. I promise you, Pacifica, I'm not like that anymore, and I'm so, so sorry."

"I know," I say, shaking my head again.

"You need to know that this is- this is real, it's always been real, how I feel about you. I've never been in the right place to express it, but I am now. I love you. I've always loved you, and I'm so far away from who I used to be when I left you that morning."

"I know," I repeat. "That isn't- I know that you're not like that. But that isn't the problem."

"Then what is?" she pleads, holding my hands to her chest.

"It's what's always been the problem," I say, irrationally bitter. "We live in two separate worlds. You're down here and I'm... up there. It got in the way of us before and it will get in the way again, you know it will."

"Then move here," she breathes, her forehead bumping against my own.

"What?"

"Move here. With me. We'll get an apartment just like you have now, either here or out in the suburbs." A laugh escapes through her tears. "We'll get an apartment like the one we always talked about. It won't be on the beach, but we'll decorate it like it is. We'll hang surfboards on the wall and rowing oars. We could live somewhere with a balcony overlooking the river."

"I can't do that. What would I do here? I'd be giving up my life in Gravity Falls."

"I know, I know it isn't fair to even be asking you, but... you said so yourself, earlier. You wanna see something new. The city would be new. This is new," she says, chuckling again, picking up our hands and thrusting them into my eyesight. "This is all kinds of new."

I laugh with her but it soon fizzles away. The coolness of her room, without her touch, begins to creep up on me. My bare arms shudder. "Mabel, you were with Jason for five years. Maybe you don't realize it now, but you need time to heal. To forget about him."

She frowns and shakes her head. "No, I-"

"You do, sweetheart, you do. You were talking about him only yesterday, talking about him like... like he never did anything wrong. You do need time, and so do I."

She glances at the floor, but when her eyes meet mine again they're brimming with understanding. She takes a step back, our hands still linked.

"I'm not saying no," I tell her. "And I love you. I love you more than anyone in the world, but, I can't. Not now."

After a moment she murmurs, "it wouldn't be good for either of us."

"Not now."

"Not now." She smiles, in spite of everything, and finally drops my hands. In a motion that will surely haunt my dreams, she steps away, back toward her bed, and says to me, "then I'll wait."