Part 6: [The End]
One and a Half Years Later
You're really glad to have chosen Berkeley as your college because no one ever thinks about how hot it is in graduation gowns. It may only be a breezy, comfortable 70 degrees, but you're beginning to feel the telltale signs of sweat collecting where the polyester cap meets your forehead. Despite the relatively mild temperature, you can feel the sun scorch your skin through the dark material of the gown.
Finally, after hours of waiting, you have your diploma from Berkeley's College of Chemistry. You're holding your degree in Biochemistry in your hand and thus the final ticket for med school.
The first person you see is Lex, who is a blur of black and blue rushing towards you from her own College of Engineering ceremony. She throws her hands around you and nearly tackles you to the ground with her momentum.
Your parents appear by your side almost immediately with a blonde in tow.
"Q!"
"Hey S; congrats!"
"I can't believe you made it."
"I can't believe you made it."
You push her shoulder jokingly before turning to introduce her to Lex and then getting smothered by your parents.
-/-/-/-/-/-
"She's sorry she couldn't make it," Quinn starts before looking you dead in the eyes.
Lex eyes you both knowingly from across the room, but says nothing.
"Yeah?" You try to make it sound nonchalant but instead you choke out the word like it's a question.
"She had final showcase this weekend so she wouldn't have made it anyway," Quinn continues before pausing to assess your emotional state.
"I figured."
"She, uh, well, she wanted me to tell you congrats from her."
"Did she now?"
"Yeah she, uh, texted me earlier."
Out of the corner of your eye you see Lex visibly cringe at the word text and Quinn's face immediately goes apologetic. You cut her off before she can start to apologize,
"You know what, I graduated college today. And that only happens once. So I'm gonna get dressed and we can go hit up Oakland and SF."
With that you're rushing out of the room trying to ignore the meaningful glance that Quinn sends to Lex.
-/-/-/-/-
You're in your room door shut not even thinking about what outfit you should be picking out for tonight. You're going to New York for medical school and now you're thinking that maybe that was a mistake. Clearly, she doesn't have lingering feelings for you that way.
You're just about ready to completely wallow in self-pity when Lex appears in your doorway.
"Hey"
You only grunt in response.
"It sucks. I know. I thought my parents would be here, you know, their daughter is graduating from the College of Engineering at Berkeley. You would think that would be a big deal. But, I guess…well," Lex sighs dramatically.
"We made it this far without the most important people in our lives, we can make it a bit further can't we? I mean I don't really need my parents, and who needs love when you've got alcohol and med school?"
You break out a suppressed grin and let out a huge breath of air.
"We're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. Tonight you're gonna take home a pretty girl by telling her you just graduated, then you're going to sexile me and Quinn and I'm going to pretend to be pissed about it when really I'm just pissed that I'm gonna have to do the 'walk of shame' tomorrow morning"
You smile broader and lean into her.
"Thanks."
"It's what I'm here for Tana."
-/-/-/-/-/-/-
You wake up to Quinn's screech of surprise setting off about ten landmines in your brain. You feel a weight on your chest and legs tangled in yours. Carefully, as though expecting an impending attack of light, you blink your eyes awake.
The first thing you see is a mass of dark brown hair with highlights. The first thing you smell is Lex's shampoo. The first thing you finally put together is that you're lying pretty naked on a bed and Lex is barely clothed lying nearly completely on top of you.
You flip out.
"No. Not this," you scream, immediately setting off an even worse headache than the first Quinn-induced one.
Lex groans and rolls over before realizing exactly what she had been sleeping on and scrambling faster than you've ever seen anyone scramble out of your bed.
"Lex. Tell me that we didn't."
"I'm like 90% percent sure we didn't but,"
"No. I need a hundred percent here."
"Shit."
"Now is totally not the time."
"Well, I'm still wearing my underwear? So maybe…"
"Oh god. Shit."
"Like I said."
"Coffee first?"
"Advil, then coffee, then thinking."
-/-/-/-/-/-/-
You pour the both of you coffee as Lex hands you an Advil and sits down browsing her phone. About five minutes of dead silence pass (filled only with clicking and soft speaker of the phone) as you're trying to figure out how to make this as painless as possible. Then Lex speaks,
"We couldn't have done anything together last night."
"Why?"
"Because you left me this message at 4 am."
You press your ear to the ear piece,
"Heeeeeeyyyyy, Alexxxxannnnnder. Wait Alexandraaaaay. This girl was toe-tah-lee like all up in my grills and so I like cut a bitch at her and I tells her about my girl Britts. I mean damn. Talk about hung up on. Right? Anyway homegurrrl. I'm going home. Haha. Home girl home. Haha. Homeeeee. Be safe. Use dental dams! Buuuyyyyeeeee!"
"Oh my god," you mutter, just a tad mortified.
"You better hope you just drunk dialed me pal. Because that was pretty bad."
You just slump down lightly tapping your head against the granite counter before letting out a guttural groan. Lex just sits there and calmly rubs your back and handing you your phone.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-
"Yeah mom. No. I know. That was all. Yes mom. Yes. Love you too. Bye."
You look up to Quinn and Lex standing side by side both smirking at you.
"Poor girl she drunk dialed her mom too."
"Shut up Q."
"Well, when you're done apologizing about your drunken antics we've gotta drive Quinn to the airport."
"I'm done now. Let's go."
You're all hugs and no tears as you see Quinn off. You promise to call her immediately when you get to NYC in the late summer and with that she passes through to security.
"You didn't have to come with me you know."
"I didn't come just to see Quinn off, I have to tell you something."
"Okayyyy…."
"So a while back I applied for this thing called Officer Candidate School. For the marines."
"Please do not say what I think you're about to say."
"I got chosen."
"Yeah. For a death sentence."
"This is how I want to give back to my country. You want to heal people. I want to defend people."
"Lex. You can't seriously be–"
"It's my choice. Not yours. I just thought that you would be more supportive."
There's an uncomfortable silence as you quietly steer the car and she turns her body away from you and stares out the passenger side window.
"I don't want you to die," you say it so quietly you're not sure if she even heard you.
"I don't want to die either."
"When do you go to boot camp?"
"Two weeks."
"I'll be there to see you off," you force out.
She flashes a quick grin at you in thanks before climbing out of the car and into the apartment.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
You have to admit; had you not been so emotionally attached to Brittany, you might have jumped Lex when you saw her looking badass in both her camo and her dress blues.
But you think it's a lot less hot when she comes through the door wearing her dress blues with a look in her eye.
"What did they want?"
"I ship out on Tuesday and I'm–"
"And Tuesday. That's on Tuesday."
"Yeah."
"I didn't think I'd have to say goodbye to you so soon."
"This isn't goodbye."
"It could be." You look at her, eyes full of regret, before back pedaling, "I'm sorry. I know you're the one going to war. It's just..."
"I know. Anytime you need a friend, just call me or write me."
"I just – thank you for the past four years. You helped me grow up."
"We grew up together."
"Promise me you'll keep in touch?"
"Promise." She hugs you tightly as though she's sure this is the last time she'll see you, "I'll see you again Tana."
With a quick kiss to the forehead she turns towards the door and walks out, waving back to you once before she gets on the elevator.
You're glad that you kissed Lex under that street lamp all those years ago. You're glad for all the memories you've got of her. You may not be in love with her anymore, but you love her and you care about her, she's been one of your best friends for years.
She's going off to war, to fight for the country, to have a purpose and duty. She's going off to war and you can't help the tears that begin to slide down your cheek. Because there's a chance that she may not comeback in one piece and all of it, the break up, the going to war, the loneliness, it's all finally sinking in.
-/-/-/-/-/-
You instantly know something is off when you don't get a letter that month.
She'd been sending one letter a month for an entire year now. She wrote about her childhood, about her love of all types of music, about how her dream job was always to be a mountaineer.
The last letter should have been a sign. She had written about her will and where it was. She told you where she wanted to be buried and what she wanted to do about the apartment and her car. She told you where to find everything that was important.
But probably most importantly of all she told you that she wanted you to visit home. She told you that she always wished that she could visit her childhood home and see all the places she grew up with. She wanted to visit her teachers and her friends, mostly she said, to rub her success in their faces.
So when you see her face on T.V. under a caption that says "Assumed Dead", you're not entirely surprised. There will be a funeral to go to even though her aunt tells you that they were never able to recover a body. All they have are blackened dog tags.
You end up seeking out her parents because her aunt asked you to and you think they deserve to know that their daughter is dead. You call them drop the bombshell on that their daughter is dead and they thank you for the invite but tell you that they won't be going to the funeral. You don't ask why and instead just hang up.
Its times like these that you're grateful for your parents. As embarrassing as they can be, at least they love, care about, and understand you.
The other she in your life suddenly shows up on your doorstep one day. She's got bags in her hand and a tired, worn out smile on her face. You're super surprised to see her and you're pretty sure the shock is written all over your face but you let her in.
"I heard about Lex." She says by way of explanation. You nod, your brain still trying to catch up with your eyes. "Tim and I broke up."
With that simple sentence and her blue eyes staring into your soul, you're reminded of the last thing that Lex said to you.
"You never know where you're going to find that unconditional, never-ending, epic kind of love. Sometimes you're not ready to find it, sometimes you let it go. But when you find it and you have the confidence to admit it to yourself, you should never let that love go. Because that love is happiness."
You're not really sure how Lex sensed it when you had been with Brittany for years and had never had the awareness of an epic kind of love with the blonde. Sure you loved Brittany; sure you loved her a lot. But was it epic, star-crossed lovers, crossing time and space kind of love? Well you never thought so.
You'd loved her and you think you still do, but you had never thought that it would last beyond high school. The cynic in you thought that you would grow up and apart.
You hadn't considered that maybe you could spend forever with her. Maybe that's why you couldn't find your courage to come out before the last day of high school.
Now that blue-eyed dancer is standing in front of you and you feel four years old all over again. You're nervous and awkward like you were the first time she talked to you. But, you're also inexplicably drawn to her. In retrospect the love seems obvious but when you're the one in it its tricky to figure out exactly how good you've got it.
"Brittany." You nearly choke trying to swallow your spit. That's exactly how discombobulated she makes you.
"I know that I've missed a lot and that we haven't talked in a really, really long time but I thought that-"
You interrupt her by throwing your arms around her waist and just sobbing into her shoulder. She wraps her arms around your shoulder and just whispers comforts into your ear.
"I'm sorry. I, she's gone. One of my best friends is gone. And I have no idea how to deal with that. Sorry I just and you're here and-"
"It's okay San," She pauses and traces the letters on your door mat with her foot, "I'm proud of you, you know."
"Proud of me for what? I haven't done anything."
"You told me how you were feeling. And we didn't even need a sexy sharing circle for it to happen!"
You send a watery smile towards Brittany as you chuckle a bit to yourself.
"She made me better at that. She used to always say that even if it was only a little bit that I should share."
"She was good for you."
You see the sadness and admiration swirling in those blue eyes.
"She was."
And then the past tense has you sobbing and clutching blindly for the lapels of Brittany's jacket as you drag her forward and bury your head in her chest. You're surrounded by the smell you've always associated with the feeling of home and safety.
You sob until your tear wells feel dry and used and your eyelashes feel soggy and heavy.
Then you whisper into Brittany's sterum,
"I still love you."
A/N: Please don't kill me if you're still reading this. Chapter 7 is coming quickly though. This was just kind of a filler to get things moving again.
Love you all, even if you don't review, I still love you. If you're so inclined to review even with my horribly late update, I will love you more.