"Are you sure you don't want to go with them? I'm fine, and I'll be there in a half hour anyway." Holly worried. She had chores to do at her dad's flower shop, but her friends wanted to go down to the lake and the new girl had insisted on staying with her at the shop.

"I know, but I like it here." Tash reassured for the umpteenth time. She walked around the shelves, stopping to smell each one, touch the petals, marvel at the colours.

There weren't many yet, Holly's dad had an ever growing garden and greenhouse that he planned to fill the three rooms with, but for the time being there was just the one room filled with the typical and most demanded plants. Holly loved it at the shop. She'd grown up with all of it's renovations, spent most of her days with her dad learning about all the different aspects of plants, growing, caring, it was her comfort space. She loved the smell, the arrangements, she loved the science of it all. So she wasn't always at ease with friends being there to just hang out while she did her work, it made her nervous and on edge. Especially Tash. Tash was someone who always made her nervous.

Tash silently watched her as she swept and wiped the shelves. Which only served to make her hands grow warm and sweaty, brought a light pink to her cheeks when she'd glace over her shoulder to find the blatant stare.

"Almost done."

"I'm in no rush. Like I said before, I like it here with you." Tash smiled in a way that always made Holly do the same.

"Could you pass me that pot over there?" Holly pointed to the far corner in one of the rooms they had for storage until it could be filled with plans. Tash happily complied and practically skipped into the next room. Holly turned back to her work, she found herself having to force herself to look away from her friend often. the amount of times she would find herself staring was bordering on creepy.

"Who's Gail?"

Holly froze. "What?"

"There's a heart with Gail in it on the wall behind the pile of pots." Tash elaborated, slowly walking back to the brunette. Holly shook her head lightly and tried to go act casual by going back to working.

"Uh. Gail's a girl-a friend I had when we painted the place." She bit her lip and hoped Tash couldn't see her.

"What happened to her?"

"Nothing. Nothing I know of at least. We went to camp together, we were really close, and yeah..." Holly didn't know what was happening to herself. She was deteriorating at a very rapid speed. It'd been a long time since she gave Gail a thought longer than a flash of a memory, a flash of recognition in a stranger on the street, it was an odd flutter in her chest at remembering the name she'd snuck in while painting. She bit her tongue to suppress the her grin from getting too big, Gail still brought her immense happiness. It made her feel like she was eight years old again.

"You're adorable, you know that."

"Is this her?"

Holly looked up from her text book, Tash -who was taking a break from studying- was staring at her cork board that was covered in memories. She knew right away who her friend was talking about, which photo had caught her eye. She licked her lips.

"Yeah." Holly answered and turned back to her studies, her heart fluttering nervously.

"You guys look happy." Tash observed. Holly couldn't tell how the darker girl felt, she was always bad at reading people but she could tell Tash wasn't conveying everything. There was an undertone to her words, like she was hurt or upset that Holly and Gail were happy together. Which was really weird and didn't make any sense to Holly.

She nodded. "Gail was great."

"Is this what I think it is?" Tash questioned from Holly's room.

"Is what what you think it is?" Holly called back from her spot in front of her bathroom mirror.

"A photo album of you and Gail?"

Holly met her girlfriends gaze in the reflection in the mirror. And low and behold, Tash had the small album in her hands. Her heart skipped a beat. It'd been at least a year since Gail was last the point of conversation, seven years since she last saw her, and she still brought butterflies to flutter in Holly's veins. Holly knew why now. She could put reason to all of the strange rushes that came with the mention of Gail, the sight of her smile, the bell in her laugh, Holly finally pieced it all together. She had had a crush on Gail. A big fat crush that still affected her after seven years.

"That's not what it is."

Tash raised a questions brow.

"It's an album of camp that year, not just Gail and I." Holly explained as she applied her mascara.

Tash nodded, her lips curled into the beginnings of a smile. She turned the small book in her hands, examining its cover, it's wear and tear. "You know, I was kinda jealous of her when I found her name in the wall."

Holly stopped mid swipe and blinked at her girlfriend. "What?"

"You wrote someone's name in a heart and I was jealous. And then you smiled in a way I hadn't seen before, I'd remembered all of your smiles by then, and I knew she really had to be special. I wanted to be that person."

Holly spun around on her heel and took the one step to stand toe to toe with the girl of her affection. She stared into dark irises with nothing but adoration, and gently placed a hand on either side of her girlfriends face. "You are that person," she leaned in and kissed her, "and then some."

Tash hummed in contentment and leaned in again. She always tasted sweet, a feat Holly could never understand but wouldn't complain about. The kiss broke when Tash smiled and pinched Holly's side.

"We're going to miss the movie if you don't hurry up." She teased.

"Not my fault my girlfriend is so distracting." Holly shot back with a wink.

Holly traced a long thing scar across her girlfriends shoulder. "How'd you get this one?" They laid closely under the loose blanket on Tash's bed, tired from recent activities, warm and sedated.

"We were playing tag and Oscar ran to take cover on the top bunk of my bed, he ended up dropping the cat on me and I got that beauty." Tash retold the story with her eyes close. Though she continued her lazy circles on the heated bare skin of Holly's hip. Holly took the pause in conversation to plant a kiss to said scar. "How'd you get that one on your thigh?"

It took Holly a second to recall which one she was talking about, but when she did she bit the inside of her cheek. "Swimming."

"Swimming?" Tash questioned and raised her head to look into her girlfriends eyes.

"Yeah. I kinda jumped into the out of bounds side and got nicked off the dock when rushing out."

Tash kissed her collarbone, then her chin. "My adorable little rebel." She gave Holly a dopy grin. "How old were you?"

"Eight."

Tash gave her a glance, a knowing light in her eye. "Gail?"

Holly only nodded.

"If I was to die or whatever, and you were to be with someone else, I'd want it to be Gail." Tash said seriously. They were walking hand in hand at the park they used to spend all their days, neither had spoken in twenty minutes as they simply enjoyed the company.

"Where's this coming from?" Holly inquires, swinging their joined hands.

Tash shrugged. "I don't know, it's been on my mind."

A few minutes passed before Holly spoke again. "Why Gail?" At that her girlfriend grins.

"She's your first love, and if I wasn't completely in love with you I'd do my damnedest to bring you guys together. Gail was special, she knew how to work you almost as well as I do, and you guys were absolutely adorable." Tash squeezed her hand and pulled her ever closer. "Besides, I know you still have a crush on her and I've come to terms with that."

"I do not." Holly's cheeks grew warm and she could imagine the colour they were turning.

Tash laughed and kissed her burning cheek. "You do and it's cute."

"Shut up." Holly bumped their shoulders together.

"Only if you get me ice cream."

She rolled her eyes but turned them in the direction of the ice cream shop just past the edge of the park. "You suck."

"Only some nights." Tash winked. And a whole new wave of red painted Holly's cheeks, across her chest, all the way to the tips of her ears.