TWO YEARS LATER
Stanley Pines dies on the 15th of January, 2023. Unexpectedly, of a heart attack, in the bar where I used to play piano, where I developed a crush on my now-girlfriend, and where I met my friend Nina.
We're celebrating our two-year anniversary when Mabel gets the call from her mom. She frowns and then her expression turns to nothing, the permanent pinkness in her cheeks goes pale. A group at a nearby table laugh loudly and she plugs her ear with her finger. She says one word into the receiver - "okay."
Then she puts down the phone without hanging up and looks at me, so much life drained from her face. "Stan died," she mumbles, and then she stands and strides to the bathroom with overstated composure.
For a minute I have no idea what to do. Normally when Mabel flees from my company it's because I've said something stupid and become the last person she wants to speak to for an hour or two.
It's the second time she has lost a great uncle with no forewarning. We stayed at the Mystery Shack for two weeks in the summer and Stan was his usual lively, bitter self, cooking all of our meals, cracking moderately offensive jokes, fishing by day and hosting poker games by night. But then I venture a little further into the memory and Stan's diet wasn't great. A lot of meat and a huge fuss when Mabel served peas. I remember coming downstairs at 1 A.M. to get a glass of water and he was smoking cigars with his friends around the poker table. The coughing through the floorboards. Perhaps his habits had gotten the better of him.
But he was only sixty-three, and Ford was sixty. My slightly maniacal thought as I meander to the bathroom is that I hope early deaths don't run in the family.
Only one stall is occupied. Piano music plays from a speaker above the sink. I tap gently on the door. "Mabel? Baby, can you let me in?"
Nothing happens for a few seconds, but then I hear the fabric of her dress rustling and the lock turns from red to white. I slip into the space that struggles to fit the two of us, and lock the door behind me.
She's sat still on the toilet seat, and she doesn't look up so I crouch into her line of sight, take her hands, and that's all the contact she needed to break down. The sobs come in thrashing waves and reverberate from the tiled walls of the bathroom. My arms encircle her back, she cries into my neck, and as hard as it is to support our weight with just my feet, I will stay like this for as long as she needs, because the roles have been reversed dozens of times and I owe it to her to be her anchor.
She gets in the car while I pay the check, which turns into a real commotion because they've tried to charge us $47.50 for a Diet Coke, and it takes a lot of my patience to explain to the waiter that that clearly isn't right, unless they're using the vending machine in the Mystery Shack as a price guide.
In the Jeep, I lean over the console, kiss Mabel's cheek, and hold her hand all the way back to our apartment. Dipper is at the front door within twenty minutes and I let him take over as Mabel's couch cushion for the night, knowing that nothing I have learned in two years as a girlfriend can comfort her as much as her twin, though she would deny that if I said it out loud. A black and white movie plays on the TV, we don't change the channel, and it's 1 A.M. when Dipper nudges my foot to wake me up.
"She's fast asleep," he says, gesturing to his sister, balled up on the couch.
I push myself out of the armchair and stretch. "I'll carry her."
Dipper grabs his coat from the hook on the front door.
"Where are you going?" I say. "Call your girl and tell her you're staying here."
He's visibly hesitant. I've met his girlfriend and she definitely wears the pants in their relationship, but if she has anything to say about him spending time with his sister right now then my fist is going to need a chat with her face.
"Alright," he says, and hangs his coat back up.
"I'll move this lump out the way and then I'll get the spare sheets."
"Thanks."
Once I've brushed my teeth, I climb into bed next to Mabel. She's facing the wall so I turn out the light without saying anything, but then her hand finds mine and she rolls over. I shuffle closer so I can make out her eyes in the dark, and lift a palm to stroke her freckled cheek.
"Hey," she murmurs.
"Hey."
"Dipper's staying?"
"Mhmm."
"My mom's been texting me. She's going to try and arrange the funeral for the end of next week. Are you gonna be able to get time off work?"
"Yeah, of course." And if I can't, I'll quit and find a job elsewhere, which has become a bad habit of mine in the last couple of years. But I kind of like hopping from island to island, sampling all walks of life in the hopes of finding a purpose.
"Mom wants us all to stay in the Shack. The family. But I don't know if I want to. I can't imagine living among all of his things, when he's..."
"I know. My mom will let us both stay if you really don't want to. But I think you should. You should be around family."
She thinks it over for a moment, her shallow breaths tickling my chin, then shimmies forward and kisses me softly. "Our anniversary is kinda ruined," she whispers.
"We'll change the date."
A faint smirk plays on her lips. "I don't think that's how anniversaries work."
"For normal couples it isn't. For boring couples. But we're not a normal couple."
She hums and chuckles at the same time. "Mm. I forgot about that. We're a hot power-couple."
"The hottest."
She leans in for two more kisses, I steal a third, and then she lets her head sink into a pillow and shuts her eyes. Somewhere in my hazy minutes of drifting to sleep, I hear her ask me, "why do people have to leave before we've had a chance to say goodbye?"
And I have no answer, obviously. Nobody does. Mabel falls asleep and I cling to her body while a restless hour passes, attacking my mind with thoughts of my dad, and Ford, and Stan. The question itself was oversimplified. How often are we lucky enough that the only thing left unsaid is goodbye?
Most people wouldn't consider light rain to be apt weather for a funeral, but it's perfect for Stan. Rain was one of the very few things that brought out the sentimental side of him. One morning, years and years ago, I sat next to him on the porch of the Shack, listening to the pitter-patter, and he told me that the rain reminded him of his short time in a dingy apartment in Philadelphia, not long after being kicked out of his home. He had a tiny balcony overlooking a busy street and he'd sit out there in the rain for hours; it helped him think. It was the most Stan had ever told me about his personal life, and he said he was eternally grateful that that one era of it was long over.
That was the memory I shared with Mabel on our drive up to Gravity Falls. Now, I stand in the attic - her old bedroom, with the two beds still in place - and gaze out the triangular window at the rain blanketing the pine trees, while Mabel changes into her black dress.
"Okay," Mabel says from behind me, but I'm stuck in a trance. "Honey?"
"Mm," I say, pivoting on my high heels.
She points a thumb at her back. "Can you zippy-dee zip me up?"
After I've done it, she asks me if I'm okay.
"I should be asking you that question," I say, tucking her hair behind her shoulder and cupping her cheek.
"Well, I'm asking you."
"I'm fine. How are you feeling?"
She breathes heavily, takes a while to respond. "Like somebody's footing my internal organs."
Despite having known Mabel for a long, long time, and having been her most intimate confidant in the last two years, there are some things she says that I simply cannot decipher the meaning of, and I have learned that asking her to repeat or explain herself is usually counterproductive. Asking her to do that before her uncle's funeral would just be inappropriate.
"Oh, sweetheart," I say. "That doesn't sound nice."
"Yeah," she sighs. She stares at the floor and picks at a fingernail. "I think I'm ready, though. Just, um... I'm gonna take a few minutes up here, if that's okay."
"Of course. I'll see you very, very soon, okay?"
She nods, and leaves me with a slow, soft kiss. "I love you."
"I love you too."
The stairs creak under my feet, the house alive with its characteristic sounds, even if its owner is not. Mr. and Mrs. Pines sit at the table against the back wall of the living room. Dipper slips away from his girlfriend and joins me in the entryway, looking very spruce, except for the crooked tie. I tut and reach out to straighten it, but he swats my hand away and cocks his head.
"Hey," he says. "Stan wore them like this."
I smirk. "Really, Dipper? Using your late uncle as an excuse to dress like a slob?"
He grins but sobers quickly, nods at the stairs. "How is she?"
"She's okay. Should be down in a few minutes."
"Thank you. For looking after her these last few days."
I lift a shoulder. "Kinda my job."
"Hey," he says, reaching into the pocket of his jacket. He retrieves a folded slip of notepaper, and I already know what he's going to say. "Can you read the second-"
"No, Dipper. I'm not going to help you on your fifty-third draft, one hour before the service. Whatever you've written is going to be beyond perfect, I assure you."
He pockets the paper and exhales. "Okay."
"You got this," I tell him.
"I got this."
I punch my own palm. "You've got this."
"I've got this!" he shouts, startling Marie and his parents. He apologizes to the room, then faces me again. "You the best."
"You the best." I wrap him up in a hug, then wander to the table and hug his mom, nod politely to his dad. On my way out I touch Marie's forearm and smile. I don't know her well at all - only from our double dates with the twins - but it felt like the right thing to do.
The van's engine rumbles at the far end of the parking lot, and the rain is still falling. I wave frantically from the porch, trying to get Wendy's attention, but her eyes are set on her lap, and I can see her phone screen shining on her pale face.
"Freaking idiot," I mutter, eyeing the soggy mud at the foot of the porch steps. "You're an idiot."
I run as fast as heels allow across the lot and clamber into the passenger seat. Only then does Wendy look up, and thankfully my anger dissolves at the sight of her. "Oh my god," I say. "You look amazing?"
She frowns. "Thank you? But why was that a question?"
"Because I wasn't expecting you to wear a dress? But seriously, you look incredible."
"Thank you. So do you. Your hair's a little damp, though."
"Don't. Do not, or I am going to slap you. You couldn't have parked a little closer to the- you know what? Doesn't matter." I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, just like Mabel taught me. "No fighting today. Only love."
"Yay," she says, leaning over the console to hug me. "Those are my favorite kind of days."
Wendy puts her phone away but keeps the van in neutral, and her eyes on the door of the Shack, her fingertips drumming on the wheel.
I frown at her. "You saw him yesterday, right?"
"Yeah," she says, but her voice is so far away that I'm not sure she listened to the question.
"Wendy. You'd better not be thinking of doing anything dramatic."
She snaps her attention to me and glowers. "I wouldn't dare. It's his uncle's fucking funeral, P."
"Okay, okay. Sorry. Just, you know, you've been known to proclaim your love for people at inopportune times."
"Yeah, okay. Nice to know you think so highly of me." She continues to stare at the door. "I just want to know what she looks like."
A black car pulls into the lot and stops in front of the porch. They file out the door one by one - the mother, the father, my girlfriend, the subject of Wendy's intermittent affection, and lastly, the subject of Wendy's intermittent jealousy. Marie wears a tight-fitting, sleeveless black dress, her short hair matching the color and following the contours of her neck. The full tattoo on her left arm is on display.
Dipper is the only one to stop and notice the van. He holds the car door open for Marie, then holds up his middle finger in our direction. Wendy laughs and sends one right back at him, and he grins, then he ducks into the car and it pulls out of the lot.
"Just as I expected," Wendy murmurs. "She is a beautiful badass."
"Yeah, she's pretty cool."
"P. I'm trying to hurt over here."
"You had your chance with him."
"I know, I know. God, you need to stop saying that." At last, the van trundles forward over the uneven surface of the lot. "Your girl looks smoking hot, by the way."
"Oh, my god," I sigh. "So inappropriate."
The first half of the service takes place in the church. The urn, placed on a wooden stand before the altar, contains all that is left of Stan's physical form, and I find that almost as nauseating as seeing a coffin lowered into the dirt.
Dipper's eulogy tells stories of Stan's life both before and after he knew him; his years as a traveling salesman, his stint as the manager of the bizarre tourist trap across town - the Stan we all knew the best - and then Dipper talks about the remaining few quiet years, when the river of customers had become a stream, and Stan would pack himself a sandwich and a couple of beers and leave the Shack for the whole day, fishing from his boat out on the lake until the sun set behind the trees up the top of the tall cliffs.
Dipper is calm, unwavering. He doesn't shed a tear. Mabel, however, I watch from where I'm sitting, three rows behind her, watch her shoulders shudder and her head dip, silencing her sobs. Her mom's hand rubs her back but it isn't enough, damn the formalities, I want to hop over the pews and hug my girlfriend. I don't, obviously.
After the service, Mabel waits in the aisle for me and says nothing, but holds my hand as we exit the church. The congregation becomes a procession through town, past the businesses on Main Street, along the road, and through the passage between the trees leading to the shoreline of the lake. There are two small rowing boats waiting, motionless in the water, the lake calm, the rain and the wind having stopped while we were inside. We gather round and Mabel lets go of my hand, steps into a boat while Dipper steps into the other. They begin to row, side by side, as thirty-odd mourners, clad in black, stand on the shore, watching them go. Maybe two hundred feet out they stop, and begin to talk, their heads tilted to the water below them. I can't hear what they're saying, but it isn't for me to hear. It's between them and Stan - the twins were his closest friends. When I hear Wendy sniffle beside me, I link my arm with hers. Mabel leans over the side of her boat, lifts the urn, and pours Stan's ashes into the water.
We all walk over to the diner, after that. Lindsay closed it for the day but opens up for us, now, the counter transformed into a buffet and a makeshift bar set up at the end of the room, by the jukebox. Over the speakers, a Mazzy Star CD is playing - Stan's guilty pleasure. After twenty minutes or so Mabel strays from my side to talk to a circle of friends from the Sherville Factory, and I go stand by the buffet and shovel Doritos down my throat like they're my final meal. Dipper is talking to his parents and two other people I don't recognize, and Wendy is talking to Marie, which is worrying until I notice that they're getting along fine.
Lindsay squeezes my shoulder from behind and smiles, leans on the other side of the counter. She has traded out the blue Greasy's uniform for a black blouse and a gray skirt, a dish towel tucked into one of the belt loops.
"I miss it here," I tell her, unaware that I miss it here until I say it out loud.
"You also love Sacramento," she reminds me.
"Yeah, but I mean here specifically. Greasy's. Denny's doesn't have any character compared to this."
"Well, my offer always stands. I have two positions open if you girls find yourself back in my neck of the woods."
"No offense, but that would feel kind of like moving backwards. I mean, I was supposed to move to California to figure out who I wanted to be, right? So far I've figured out how to make fifty dollars every six months playing piano, and how to convince my mom to pay my half of the rent when I've eaten out three nights in a row. Besides, I wouldn't tear Mabel away from the school."
"How did she handle everything today?"
"She did well. She cried in the church but after that we went out to the lake to scatter Stan's ashes. She handled that by herself. She's very brave."
"She is. And, um... I'm guessing you haven't heard anything from her ex-boyfriend?"
"Nope. No idea what happened to him."
"Hopefully not causing anybody pain elsewhere."
"Mhmm. It's best not to think about that."
"Look who's here," Lindsay says, and I glance over at the door and Nina is walking in with Kyle. "Bless them. Did they come all the way from Portland?"
Nina spots us and comes over, boyfriend in tow, and gives me the briefest of hugs before running off to pay her respects to Mabel's entire family, while Kyle hovers over my shoulder.
"Hey, Kyle."
"Hey. Oh, shit, are those carrot sticks?" he says, and charges toward the other end of the buffet.
"Good talk."
That night, my mom cooks us pasta and we watch Family Feud in the living room. Mom sits in Dad's old armchair and continually glances over at Mabel and I on the couch, under a blanket in our default positions, her head on my shoulder, my arm around her, and Spark lying on our feet. Mom isn't a voyeur; I know that she simply enjoys seeing her daughter happy, and in love, but it's incredibly embarrassing, even if Mabel never notices. Tonight, I glare at her over the top of Mabel's head, but she doesn't wipe the goofy grin off her face.
"Do you two sit like that at home?" she says.
Mabel looks across at her and then up at me, like the question didn't make any sense.
"Yes," I say.
"I bet you don't keep your hands above the blanket at home. I remember when I was your age, me and Pacifica's father would sit down and watch a film and even while his parents were in the room, we couldn't keep our hands off each-"
"Right," I say to Mabel. "Let's take Spark for that walk, shall we?"
The sky is clear, granting us enough light to see when the street lights end and we enter the dark outskirts of town, hand in hand, Spark running ahead and sniffing every patch of dirt so we don't have to. We come to the perimeter of the lake, the moon reflecting off its surface, and we walk into the woods and around to the old fishing dock, fighting through the overgrowth. We sit down on the rugged wooden planks, our backs up against one post, which isn't entirely comfortable but it's the only way to cuddle up together without lying down and coating our hair in dirt. Mabel has been anxious all day, fiddling with the hem of her dress or chewing the ends of her hair, but now she rests her head on my shoulder again, her hands around my arm, and sits as still as the lake.
"We should find a boyfriend for your mom," she says, and yawns. "Ooh, or a girlfriend. Then you could say that your whole family are lesbians. That would be awesome."
"Why exactly would that be awesome?"
Spark barks at the end of the dock, staring at the water, as uncertain about jumping in as he always is.
"See? Spark thinks it would be cool, too."
"Spark, go swim," I tell him.
"He wants you to go in first. We've confused him, coming up here in January. It isn't summer, Sparky! The water's freezing."
Spark wanders over and lies against the post opposite us, with a whimper of defeat.
"You remember that night we fell asleep here?" Mabel says. "Years and years ago. I remember we woke up, and I got into the water and convinced you to come in too. When you jumped in the water, that was the first time I ever had feelings for a girl."
"What? You're a liar."
"No I'm not. You were sitting on the end of the dock, in your bra and underwear, and I wanted to reach out and touch your belly. I don't touch girls' bare bellies."
"There's no way you had any feelings for me back then. You were obsessed with boys."
"That's how I've always been, though. I mean, I still kinda am. My celebrity pass is Kit Harington."
I tut and fold my arms. "Mabel. Come on. I hate it when you say stuff like that."
"Like what?"
"When you say you're crazy about guys. It makes me feel anxious, like you're one step away from becoming straight."
She groans and wraps her arms around my neck, kisses my cheek. "Honey, no, no, no. How many times have I told you? As long as you're around I could never be straight."
"But it makes me feel like I can't... treat you properly, 'cause I don't have any... you know, boy parts."
"I don't need boy parts. If I could come home to a thousand oiled up Kit Harington clones or come home to you, I'd pick you every time."
"But you're still thinking about sleeping with a thousand Kit Haringtons."
"Oh, and I suppose you never think about sleeping with a thousand Emma Watsons."
"Of course I don't, Mabel. A thousand is too many. I'd take a hundred, at most."
She grins and presses her nose against my cheek. "I bet I can do things to you that Emma Watson couldn't," she whispers.
"Oh yeah? What kind of things?"
"You'll have to wait till we're back in Sacramento, because I'm not showing you in your mom's house."
I laugh and we kiss for a minute, until we're tired of our hair slipping into our mouths.
Mabel rolls her eyes. "What's rule number one about making out?"
"Always bring hair ties. But that's your job."
"I know. I didn't bring any. I didn't know this was that kind of walk."
"How come you never told me about any of that before? About wanting to... touch my belly and stuff when we were fourteen."
She shrugs. "You never asked."
"Oh, right, okay. You can talk for two hours about your last appointment at the hair salon unprompted, but if I want to know about the important stuff I have to ask first."
Her eyes flash with dejection in the dim light of the moon. "You don't think my haircuts are important?"
"Baby, everything you say is important to me. But some things are... less interesting than other things."
"So in the last five minutes you've called me a liar and now you're calling me boring. This is shaping up to be some night."
"I'm a bad girlfriend."
"The worst." Mabel grins, lays her legs across my lap, and kisses me again. "I don't want to stop coming here over the summer. Even though Stan is gone."
I nod, my forehead bumping hers. "Okay. I assumed we would anyway. We could stay with my mom if you didn't want to stay in the Shack."
"Yeah. Or maybe we could do, like, half and half. I could see if Dipper and Marie wanted to come up in the same week as us, so the Shack is less lonely."
"Okay."
"And I wanna sleep out here on the docks again one night this summer. Relive our youth."
"Mm, way out here with nobody else around?" I duck my head and kiss her neck. "We could do a whole lot more than sleep."
"I don't know, that might be weird." She tipped her head in the direction of the lake. "My uncle's right over there."
"Right. Yeah. Fair point."
On our last day in Gravity Falls, Wendy drives us up to her dad's lake house to spend the night. She navigates the dirt trail like a coked up rally driver, as per usual, and Marie, riding shotgun, clutches onto the grab handle for her life while myself and the twins jerk from side to side in the back seats of the van, Spark sliding between our laps. Dipper volunteered to take the middle seat - the only one without a safety belt - so if Wendy brakes suddenly, he's the valiant soul who will be rocketed through the windshield. Although, as an unfortunate squirrel discovered half a mile back, Wendy brakes for nobody.
Wendy mentions the forecast of snow and Mabel is enthralled at the prospect of being snowed in at the lake house, spending another couple of nights there, sitting in the hot tub where winter can't touch her, but I gaze out the window at the trees whizzing past and I can't help thinking back to the last time I was headed up this road to the lake house, the day that Mabel left without saying goodbye. Wendy drove slower that day, as if afraid a sudden jolt of the van would shatter my fragile heart.
Mabel says, "Wendy, Marie hasn't been initiated into van karaoke."
"You still got an iPhone?" Wendy unreels a long cable sticking out of the dashboard and throws it over to the back seat, and Mabel plugs her phone into it.
Dipper groans. "Not van karaoke. Anything but van karaoke."
"What's van karaoke?" Marie asks, as the first lines of Don't Stop Me Now filter through the speakers.
"Not Queen," Dipper says. "Anything but Queen."
"We go around in a circle singing a line of the song," Mabel says, "except you actually sing two lines because two people are singing at once. So, like, you would have to sing with Wendy and then with Pacifica and then you'd wait for Wendy again."
"You can skip over me," Dipper says.
"Dipper! There's no skipping in van karaoke. Except for Spark, because he's a dog."
"I wanna hear you sing, Dip," Marie says, turned around in her seat.
"Trust me," he says, "you don't."
"If you don't want to play, you can get out of the car and walk the rest of the way," Mabel says.
"That sounds a little extreme, don't you think?"
Wendy brakes and I have to grab Dipper's arm to keep him from lurching forward. The van comes to a stop. Wendy turns around, blows hair out of her face, and says, "you can get out or I'll throw you out."
"What?"
"You heard your sister. There's no skipping in van karaoke."
"Jesus Christ, fine, I'll play. But this is peer pressure and bullying and I'm gonna tell on you guys to my mom."
By the time I've had more than enough of Queen's best hits, the van pulls up at the side of the lake house and I jump out onto the grass and drink the fresh air. It's cloudy, so the lake is less blue and less impressive than I remember it, and the house has aged six years and been worn down by the elements, its once golden-brown porch now more of an oatmeal-gray. But Wendy runs up the front steps, unlocks the door, and turns the lights on in the living room, a yellow glow cast out into the fading daylight, and it does look like a cozy place to spend a winter evening, so I smile and follow everyone else inside.
We cook up some of the party food we brought with us, pile it up in bowls and scatter them around the furniture in the living room, and then we all lounge around for hours, talking, reminiscing, while it turns dark outside, Wendy and Dipper guzzling beer, Mabel getting hyper on Coca-Cola, Marie and I sticking to water. Wendy disappears upstairs and comes back carrying a stack of board games, which produce a cloud of dust when she sets them down on the coffee table, and we pick out a game called Other Halves, in which couples answer questions about each other and score points based on how many they get right. Wendy reads the questions from a card and Dipper and Marie stand back to back in the middle of the room, writing their answers on whiteboards with marker pens and then revealing them to everyone else. Marie is doing well - Dipper, not so much.
"You didn't even get the month right!" Marie says to him.
"I could have sworn we got together on Valentine's Day."
"You gave me that letter on Valentine's Day."
"Yeah, and I thought that was what sealed the deal."
"No, we didn't start dating until a month later, when I crashed my car into that telegraph pole and you drove out in the rain to come and get me. That kiss was unforgettable! Or so I thought. Clearly you didn't feel the same."
"Babe, hold on. Obviously I'm remembering it all wrong because I was so in love with you on Valentine's Day that I just assumed we were already together back then."
"Yeah, okay. Nice try, smooth talker."
"Guys," Wendy says, holding in her laughter. "You get one point because Marie got it right. This is the last question in this round. You ready?" She reads from the card, "what kind of sandwich would you make for your partner if they needed comforting?"
"Roast beef," Mabel says, while I massage her feet in my lap.
"Yes," Wendy says, "but once again, Mabel, you and Pacifica are not playing yet, so kindly shut your mouth."
"I've got mine," Dipper says, holding his board to his chest.
"Shit," Marie mutters, and taps her marker pen against her chin. "I don't know. He usually just goes to the fridge and stuffs whatever crap he can find in his sandwich."
"Five seconds," Wendy says.
Marie shakes her head and scribbles something down on the board. They reveal their answers and Dipper's guess of peanut butter is correct, but Marie's guess of ham and cheese is not.
"Oh, oh," Mabel says, flinging her hand in the air. "Can I guess?"
"Yes, but you don't get any points."
"Cold turkey. He eats that, like, five days in a row after Thanksgiving."
Dipper shakes his head.
"What? You're lying."
"I think I might know it," Wendy says. "Melted marshmallows, right?"
Dipper grins and points his pen at her. "That's the one."
"Melted marshmallows?" Marie says. "You can't put that in a sandwich!"
"Wendy's the one who introduced me to marshmallow sandwiches. I admit it sounds gross, but you have to try it to understand."
There's a short silence as Marie and Dipper sit down, and Marie noticing the grin on Wendy's face - proud that she knew something about Dipper that his twin sister and girlfriend did not - is the only awkward thing that has happened since we arrived, so I throw Mabel's feet off my lap, stand up, and declare that it is our turn to play.
"Okay," Wendy says. "Dipper and Marie, you guys scored six out of ten. Not bad at all."
Marie says, "and how many of those points came from me?"
"You scored four, Dipper scored two."
"That's hardly relevant, is it?" Dipper lies back on the couch and sticks his foot under Marie's nose. "It's a team game. We're a team."
Mabel clutches onto my arm in the center of the room and kisses my cheek. "Pacifica, if we lose I'm breaking up with you."
Wendy draws another card from the box and says, "alright, your first question is: What nickname does your partner prefer to be called by?"
I scribble Mabey on the board and we say "done," in unison. I turn around and show Mabel the board and she points and says, "yes! That's it, but she never freaking calls me it."
"Because it sounds so cheesy."
"It's cute, and I like it so you should call me it."
"Is Mabel's answer right?" Wendy asks me.
"Yep." She wrote NO NICKNAMES, with a sad face underneath.
"She doesn't like nicknames," Mabel says. "But even if she did, I'd use her full name all the time 'cause it's too pretty. Pacifica."
"Stop," I whisper, and tug her sweater.
"What?"
"If you keep purring my name like that I'm not gonna be able to keep my hands off you."
"Ooh." She grins and wraps her arms around my waist.
"Backs to each other, please," Wendy says. "Question two: In what year was your partner first attracted to you?"
"Shoot," Mabel says. "Pacifica, what year were you first attracted to me?"
"What?" Dipper says. "That's gotta be against the rules."
"Yeah, I'm joking, Dipper."
I think back to our talk on the fishing dock last night and count back the years to when Mabel was fourteen - 2014. Mabel writes 2013 and I point to it and say, "technically that's right, but I didn't know at the time that I was attracted to her. It took me a while to figure it out."
"Then you don't get a point," Dipper says.
"Well, no, hold on," Mabel says. "Pacifica has told me before that she liked me when we were thirteen."
"You were thirteen. I was fourteen."
"Okay, so, imagine me when I was thirteen and tell me if you find me attractive."
I wince. "That's kinda weird, Mabel."
"You told me before that when I used to come see you singing in the bar, that's when you got a crush on me."
"Right, but I didn't know back then that it was a crush."
"So Mabel got it wrong," Dipper says. "The right answer would be whatever year Pacifica realized she had a crush on her."
Mabel plants her hands on her hips. "Dipper, I hope you're not trivializing the struggles Pacifica went through to determine her sexuality."
"That's obviously not what I'm doing."
"Let them have the point," Marie says, slapping Dipper's leg. "They clearly know more than the question even asked them."
Mabel curtsies. "Thank you, Marie."
"Okay," Wendy says, "and was Pacifica's answer right?"
"Yes," Mabel says. "I mean, you should see this girl in her bra and panties."
"Oh my god," I say, "please stop."
"Question three-"
"Wait," Dipper says. "Make them say the answer to the question before they see each other's boards."
"We said we weren't gonna play it like that because we trust each other."
"Yeah, but I just realized I don't trust Mabel."
Mabel pokes her tongue out. "Fine. We're still gonna win."
"Question three: What can you do that will always make your partner laugh?"
We both write down an answer, and Wendy asks me what Mabel can do that always makes me laugh. "Dipper, you're gonna hate me for this," I say. "But she does a really funny impression of you."
Mabel flips her board around to reveal Dipper impression! and grins.
Wendy says, "okay, well now we all need to see her Dipper impression."
"Sling me your hat, bro," she says, and Dipper sighs and throws his cap across the room. Mabel puts it on her head and pulls the bill down past her eyes and says in a deep voice, "Hey guys, this is a pretty underground conspiracy right now, so keep it on the down-low, but I'm starting to think that JFK's assassin-" She whispers, "was a ghost."
Everyone laughs except for Dipper. "I don't sound anything like that," he says.
"You do a little bit," Wendy says. "Mabel, what's your answer?"
Mabel narrows her eyes at me and hums in thought. "I'm very ticklish."
I grin and flip the board around to reveal Tickling her, and I reach out for a high-five but she backs up a step and covers her ribs like I'm about to tickle her.
"Alright," Wendy says, "two points again. Question four: What is your partner's dream vacation spot?"
I write down Disney World and Mabel confirms it out loud, but then I give my answer - Hawaii - and Mabel's board says Anywhere with me!
"What?" I say. "You know I've always wanted to go to Hawaii. Why would you put that as an answer?"
"I thought that's what you were going to say!"
"Why would I give a bullshit answer like that instead of saying the one place that I'm always talking about?"
"Because this is a couples' game! Sorry for trying to bring a little bit of romance into it."
"No, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was supposed to read your mind at the start of every round."
"Guys," Wendy says, laughing. "Chill out. You still have seven out of eight points. You're in the lead."
"Any other pointless curveballs you're gonna throw at me for this round, Mabel?" I say, as she pinches my stomach.
"Question five, last one: Where did you go on your first date?"
I have to think harder about that, because the answer isn't exactly clear, but I think back to two years ago and write down Caprazzio's, the Italian restaurant I met Mabel at on the day I first moved to Sacramento. Wendy tells us to turn our boards around and when Mabel sees we wrote the same thing, she gasps and hooks her arm through mine. "You remembered!" she says.
"Of course I remember. It wasn't exactly the smoothest of first dates."
"Yeah, but, the cute thing is," she says, addressing the room, "we agreed before we went there that it wasn't a date. We were just going as friends."
"But we both secretly knew it was a date," I say, and she grins and kisses me a few times in front of everyone.
Marie holds her hand up to her chest and says, "you guys are so perfect together."
"Almost perfect," I say. "We got nine points out of ten."
The game goes on for a few more rounds, the twins' bickering eventually severe enough for Wendy to call the game, but within minutes they're throwing cheese puffs at each other and laughing. We switch on the TV and Wendy channel-surfs until the opening scene of Up comes on. Mabel puts her head on my shoulder and halfway through the movie I look up to find that the other three have fallen asleep, and I would join them, but Mabel likes to nudge me every now and again and whisper facts about the movie from the behind-the-scenes feature she has on DVD.
She goes to stand and asks me if I want a drink, but she's clearly as invested in the film as when she first saw it, so I get up and go to the kitchen for her. I take a glass from one of the cabinets and with the lights off, I can see clearly enough in the dark, out the window over the sink, to notice that the front lawn has turned white. I set the glass down and go over to the front door, switch on the porch light, and through the living room window I see that thick snowflakes are still falling, building up on the railing surrounding the porch. I smile and wave Mabel over to the window, and she tiptoes across the living room and gasps at the sight. "Oh my gosh," she whispers.
"If it keeps falling like that we might get stuck here after all."
She hurries over to the door and takes her coat off the hooks.
"Mabel, it's gonna be freezing out there."
"Pacifica, it's snowing. I don't care if it's negative a hundred. Are you coming?"
I seriously consider leaving her to it and returning to the warmth of the couch, but when she makes those eyes at me I could follow her into a burning building, so I grab my coat and follow her outside. We shut the door behind us and she jumps off the porch steps, walks out into the yard, gazing up at the black sky in wonder, her sneakers leaving inch-high prints in the snow. I follow her steps, but she soon gets tired of catching the flakes on her tongue and she runs down to the table and chairs by the water. I stand in the yard and look back at the cabin, the light from the TV casting glimpses of color through the living room window, an even layer of snow rising on the roof.
Then in my mind's eye it's summer, and a tent is sitting at the foot of the steps to the left of the house, and then my gaze drifts to the hot tub on the porch, and finally up to the window of the bedroom where we slept together for the first time. A snowball pelts me in the back and I turn and Mabel's walking back up the lawn, toward me, a huge smile on her face that fades away when she notices the solemn look on mine.
"What's wrong?" she says, coming closer, her nose and her cheeks equally pink.
"Nothing," I say, and withdraw my hands from my pockets to hold hers. "It just feels weird to be back here. All those memories."
She looks over my shoulder, up at the house, and nods. "Yeah." A tiny smile tugs at the corner of her mouth and she kisses me, and because her breath is warm I bring my hands to her cheeks and kiss her again, locking us in the heat for a minute or two. When we pull away, Mabel starts back toward the cabin and holds out her hand to me. "How about we make some new ones?"
A/N: Well, that's over. I have a lot to say about the last 125,000 words, but I'll try to keep this brief. This is the first novel-length story I've ever finished, so forgive me if I'm a bit too sentimental!
I would sincerely like to thank everyone who read this far, and I'd like to give a special thank you to everyone who favourited, followed or reviewed. Nobody in my personal life knows that I've taken an interest in writing, so you guys are the only ones who keep me motivated other than myself. Shout-out to these lovely people, who reviewed the story on multiple occasions: fereality, willam and jack and jake (still don't know how many people are operating that account. What a mystery!), swiftcity, RwOFogu, Tiffanyiscool, Silhouette amongst Stars, and johnnycatalina. I think I've said this before, but you reviewers have no idea how kind you are – on occasion, your comments have quite literally made my day. If you've ever written anything on here you probably know what I mean. People who leave feedback are unsung heroes to anyone who writes.
Now, I know that some of you might be disappointed in the ending I chose for Dipper and Wendy – to be totally honest, I received more comments rooting for them than I had expected, and I think that not developing them further was one of the mistakes I would go back and change if I wrote this over again. So, I apologise if their storyline did nothing but tease you. However, I am currently working on a shorter Wendy/Dipper romance in a totally different universe to My Life in Summers, so you can follow my profile if you'd like to see that. I think it's coming along really well. I aim to start posting it within the next month, maybe two months if I'm lazy.
I'm also currently writing a teen lesbian romance novel, featuring original characters and juicy high school drama. The style of that is very similar to My Life in Summers, part-comedy, part-drama, and if you're interested, I'll eventually post that on a site called Wattpad. I have a bare-bones profile there under the same name as here – I think you can follow it? Maybe? Or just bookmark the page? Or don't? E.T.A. for that story is mid-2019 at the moment.
If neither of those things interest you, then this is where we part ways. Thank you for your attention, and happy new year!