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"Hi?"
Even Lauren Tanner was surprised that when she opened the door it was Payson Keeler on her doorstep. Payson twisted the strap of her bag in her fingers as she stood outside the house, not even sure why she was there.
"Hi," she started hesitantly, "you busy?"
Lauren shook her head, opening the door wider and letting her friend in. She didn't understand what would have brought Payson here. She looked shaken, almost as if she had been on the verge of tears before forcing them down again.
"Were you training?" Lauren asked, pointing to her gym bag.
"Oh, yeah."
Payson replied absentmindedly, blankly looking around the hall.
"Are you alright Pay?" her friend hesitated as they walked to Lauren's room.
"Yeah," breathed Payson, putting a smile onto her face, "just tired, you know from last night."
"Did you have a good time?" she asked Lauren quickly, trying to divert the attention from herself.
"Yeah," smiled Lauren, biting her lip, "it's good to let off steam once in a while. There was this guy there-"
And off she went. For once Payson was happy that Lauren sometimes seemed to only care about herself. It meant that she faze out whilst the girl was telling some story which frankly she didn't about. She was moving unseeing through the corridor and into Lauren's room, now and then nodding, smiling maybe uttering some nondescript sound at a pause in Lauren's story. Only five minutes ago it had seen right, logical and even sensible to come to Lauren for help, but standing there her confidence was retreating.
Payson didn't know anything about boys, that she was sure of. But that didn't matter as she actually needed to know about men. Watching Sasha walk away, as if defeated, away from her, away from whatever they had, an illicit pleasure, an exhilarating misery. That one moment.
It was just a kiss though. It had been one small flurry of lips against hers, one hand pressed into the small of back, enclosing her safely. But when she had arrived today, walked into the room, into his gaze, she had expected…well she didn't exactly know.
But she hadn't expected this.
Lauren seemed to have stopped talking and was just looking at her, so Payson gave a forced little laugh. It seemed to do the trick, and Lauren grinned, swirling around on the desk chair in her room.
"What did you want to see me for?" she gabbled, apparently having forgotten her initial concerns about her friend through the telling of her story.
"Oh nothing much," hesitated Payson, clasping her hands together as she sat on the bed, "you know, just to-"
She broke off as she picked up a magazine, sprawled on Lauren's bed. As her friend pulled a jumper off the floor and wriggled into it, Payson quickly leafed to a page, pretending to be engrossed.
"Lauren," she asked, looking up, "what would you-"
Payson broke off again.
"What would do if you…liked someone you're, not supposed to?"
She pointed vaguely at the page as if it was just a question which had popped into her mind.
"What do you mean?" pressed Lauren, kicking off her slippers and putting on a pair of socks¸ "liking someone is liking someone, you can't change that."
"Yes but-" Payson looked anxiously around the room for inspiration.
"What if it's not right. To like them I mean?"
Lauren stopped, looking up at her friend.
"Did it stop me?"
She was joking, but her voice seemed to be hollow and a little quieter than usual as she joined Payson on the bed.
"I don't mean like Carter," Payson explained, squeezing Lauren's hand, "if it's someone's boyfriend already. I mean, what if it's just wrong?"
Lauren ran her hands absentmindedly through her hair.
"You know love's never wrong," she murmured, "even if other people say it is."
But even hearing the words she had hoped spring form her friend's lips, Payson couldn't smile. Something buried inside her heart was still protesting, still hammering at her conscience, whirring the incessant chaos in her brain.
"But what if it's like Romeo and Juliet," Payson struggled, "if it's just unthinkable? Forbidden?"
Lauren frowned.
"Is there something you're not telling me?" she teased, raising her eyebrows.
"No," rushed Payson, "I was just curious. You know me; I don't know anything about this kind of stuff."
She gave a flash of a smile, weak and false to appease Lauren's curiosity and pointed at the magazine, as if blaming it for her questions.
Lauren traced an invisible pattern on the floor with the tip of her foot.
"I'd fight for it," she said eventually, seemingly wrapped up in her own world, now her that had forgotten the other.
"I'd fight for anything I felt was worth it. No matter what."
A smile flushed across Payson's face despite herself. Lauren looked up, blinking away from her thoughts.
"Are you sure you're ok?" she laughed, confused at the sudden change of emotions.
"Of course," replied Payson, getting up.
"You know what I'm like when I get tired, I should leave you," she continued.
She was moving towards the door before Lauren could protest, leaving her sitting,, mouth slightly agape, on the edge of her bed.
"Well ok!" laughed Lauren as she disappeared round the corner. She sat for a moment, in suspended disbelief, then shook it off, riffling through the magazine left on the bed.
The smile on her face dazzled through Payson Keeler's heart as she made her way home. Lauren was right. It didn't matter what, she would fight for whatever it was she and Sasha had going on. As she opened the front door, she headed straight up to her bedroom, ignoring whatever it was her parents were doing, flinging herself onto the bed, and burying her face into the pillow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would make him see that she wasn't a girl anymore, and that she would do anything for him.
Payson didn't notice the figure her mother was sat with in the living room, passively listening to plans for the next fundraiser and being told how much last night's had raised. She didn't register a brain as blank as hers ignoring, just like she had done, the ramblings of someone else's story while their thoughts wondered to something more profound.
"Sorry, where's your bathroom?" he asked, as he was walked towards the door, the meeting over.
Kim pointed him up the stairs, smiling, clutching the fundraising folder to her chest and turning away to the kitchen.
Sasha Belov mounted the stairs. His footsteps, muffled by the plush carpet seemed to be treading upwards into uncertainty, his heart leaping as he faced the row of panelled doors. He knew which door was hers.
He slowly approached it, his shoes noiselessly leading the way, as if he was intruding upon something delicate and hidden. His fingers trembled as they touched the wooden surface of the door lightly.
From inside, Sasha could hear the faint hum of a radio, the indistinct rustling of un-guessable movement, the distant shuffle of feet. His palm spread fully across the door, pressing in.
He wasn't conscious of anything else. Time could have fleeted past, sounded the bell of doomsday and still he would have stayed, preying on the threshold. He laid his cheek against the door, his hand closing round the handle. The cool grip shuddered his senses, the encircling clasp of metal as he stood, not talking, or thinking, hardly even breathing.
His actions at once thrilled and disgusted him. He knew it was crazy, wrong to be there but he couldn't move out the safe and comforting moment of knowing she was there, as if he had happened upon a secretive creature he didn't dare approach. Sasha wanted to recoil, he knew he was acting like nothing less than a stalker. But something wouldn't let him go. The deep, drawing breaths seemed to slow, gain steadiness and stability as he stood.
She didn't know. She didn't, by some innate feeling, sense the devotion of an adoring heart pressed to her door. He turned away, despite his guilty feelings smiling. Sasha's fist unclenched the handle as he moved off down the stairs.
In that one moment, pressed upon the threshold, the chaos in his brain had retreated. Now there was only one idea, one shining light which he could see. He had left the door he came from closed, but the one he had searched for so desperately in his mind was slowly swinging open.