*25 Years Ago*
"Ooooooooo, it's your turn, Mary." Beau said, crossing his fingers.
"Ahem!" Fred raised an eyebrow at Beau as he caught him and Beau nervously chuckled.
"Spin it! Spin it! Spin it! Spin it!" The group chanted and Beau came in late as he looked away from Fred.
The red head sighed as she spun the root beer bottle in the center of the circle. It landed on Gash and as the group cheered, they crawled toward each other, stealing a small kiss from one another. "Okay, Gash! Your turn!" Tall Boy said with excitement when Mary moved back to her spot between FP and Hermione.
"Spin it! Spin it! Spin it! Spin it!" They all chanted again as he did so. The bottle stopped on Alice who rolled her eyes with a grin, crawling into the circle to kiss him.
"Woooooo!" The group clapped and laughed.
"Ooooo, who's it gonna be?" FP winked at her and she rolled her eyes again before spinning the bottle as hard as she could.
The anticipation ate away at Penny as she watched it rotate, passing her several times before it began to slow down. Her heart began to pound as she feared it would or wouldn't land on her. But the one she feared the most….happened.
"Pennyyyy!" Half of the group cheered when it stopped on her. The soon-to-be sophomore internally screamed.
"She doesn't have to if she doesn't want to, guys." Alice said in her usually protective tone. Penny had been playing with a strand of her hair for the passed fifteen minutes and Alice came to know that it was her nervous habit. She was surprised, however, to see Penny look around at the other teens before biting her lower lip and letting go of her hair. She crawled forward, feeling her face growing warm and red. When she finally made it to the center of the circle, she locked eyes with Alice and her heart jumped. "Well?" Alice asked in her sweetest voice. "Are you gonna kiss me?" Penny leaned forward, locking lips with Alice Smith, the girl who saved her from bullies and introduced her to friends, claiming her as their own.
"Woo Woo!" The group cheered and the kiss abruptly stopped when Penny pulled away, remembering the others were there.
"Your turn now, Penny." Hermione told the youngest of the group.
"I don't wanna play anymore." Penny admitted and the others agreed, switching to a fun game of Hide and Seek.
"...and my mother told me that you are it!" Nani sang, choosing Hermione to be the Seeker first.
"What am I counting to?" Mary's best friend asked.
"We usually do 50, but I always feel rushed." Tall Boy admitted.
"Yeah, let's do 100 this time." Beau jumped in.
"Okay." Hermione sat up on the conveyor belt and covered her eyes. "One! Two! Three!"
As she continued to count, the rest of the gang frantically fled to find their hiding spots. While Mary followed Fred everywhere and he tried his best to playfully shoo her away, Gash stole a good spot from Tall Boy, who had to find somewhere small to squeeze into. Nani and Beau found their own place between two machines and Alice went into her own usual spot even other hiders failed at finding. FP found his way underneath one of the other conveyor belts and Penny followed him.
"Seventy Three! Seventy Four! Seventy Five!" Hermione continued to count.
"FP." Penny whispered when she made herself as comfortable as possible.
"Shh!" Forsythe the Second put his pointer finger to his mouth.
"You said that I can trust you with anything, right?" She felt her stomach churning inside. "There's something I really need to tell someone and I know that you'll be okay with it. You're my best friend." She scratched her head. "Well, my second best friend."
"Sure. What is it?" FP put the importance of the game aside, knowing Penny's needs mattered most. Especially since she hadn't been one for talking much in the passed few months they'd known her. When she had to talk….She had to talk.
"I…" She hesitated.
"Eighty One! Eighty Two!" Hermione shouted throughout the building.
"I'm in love with Ali." She said it so fast that he almost couldn't understand her.
"What?"
"I'm in love with Alice." She repeated a bit slower, turning her head to watch Hermione, hoping she wouldn't be able to see their hiding space from where she stood.
"You're-" He stopped, feeling his nerves were suddenly shot.
"Eighty Nine! Ninety! Ninety One! Ninety Two!" The Seeker was almost finished.
"Penny…." He slowly began. "So am I."
Penny's head snapped back to look at him and they stared at each other for a moment.
"Ninety Eight! Ninety Nine!" Penny opened her mouth to say something, but she stopped when she was interrupted by a louder voice. "One Hundred! Ready or not, here I come!" Hermione called out, finally opening her eyes.
It grew silent as she looked around the first floor of the factory, hoping to find someone soon. She yelled out names and made jokes and insults about everyone, hoping it would urge them to respond and she could follow the voice. Her plan almost worked on Beau, but Nani had covered his mouth with her hand before he could get a word out. "Aha!" She said, leaning over to find FP and Penny under the other conveyor belt. "Found ya!" She smiled at them.
"Great job, Hermione." FP quietly said as he and Penny crawled out from underneath.
"FP and Penny have been found!" Hermione yelled out to everyone else.
As Hermione continued to search, Penny made her way over to the main conveyor belt, sitting on it as FP stood, leaning his butt against it beside where she sat. "Penny…" He began in a hushed tone.
"Of course!" She said with a frustrated laugh. A tear fell down her cheek and she looked up to the ceiling, angrily wiping it away. "Of course this would happen to me!" She whispered. "Not that she would date me anyway, but now she would have to choose between you and me. It's a no-brainer she'd choose you."
"Penny. Penny, calm down." He whispered back, turning to face her beside him. He watched her furiously wipe away one more tear. "She's not gonna have to choose between us, okay? Because neither of us will date her. Alright? We'll keep our feelings a secret. Just between you and me."
"Promise me." The former cheerleader and basketball star demanded. "Promise me you won't ask her out." She asked with a broken tone, realizing just how complicated things were getting.
"I promise." FP held her hand in his.
Penny sniffled before weakly faking a smile. "And I promise too."
"Found everyone!" Hermione said with contentment as the rest of the group joined them at the main conveyor belt. "Well, not everyone. I couldn't find Alice until she came out of her spot. She won….again!"
"Where is your secret spot, Ace?" Nani asked.
"I'm not telling." She responded hesitantly as she noticed something was off between Penny and FP, but she brushed it aside as they continued to play their game.
Two years had passed and word had finally gotten out about Alice Smith and FP Jones being deeply in love with one another. Alice had, at some point, moved to the Northside with her parents and FP and Alice were in the same school once again. The moment Penny heard about their relationship, she stopped showing up to their friend group's gatherings at the old factory and she did her best to steer clear of Alice or FP. People at Southside High noticed a change in her and she began to dress differently. She began to only wear black and she had a new carefree attitude. She joined the Serpents in order to protect herself, feeling abandoned by her usual partner in crime, Alice Smith. Penny begun to get into trouble many times for fights at school and she eventually stopped talking to Alice and FP altogether. Till one day...she ran into FP on her way home from school.
"Penny." He ran up to her as she tried to quicken her step. "Penny, wait up! How come you haven't answered any of Alice's calls? She's been worried about you."
"Oh? Has she? That's nice." She said with sarcasm.
"I have been too." He admitted.
"Oh. You have? Wow. I didn't think you cared about me at all." She continued to walk faster, almost making it home to Sunnyside Trailer Park.
"Why would you think that?" FP wondered.
"You seriously don't remember, do you?" She asked with a shake of her head.
"No?" He was actually beginning to feel winded from her fast pace. "I heard about your suspension last month. What happened?" He held onto one strap of his backpack in one hand as his other hand carried his guitar.
"Got into a fight." She said with her head down.
"You? Why would you get into a fight?" FP looked ahead, seeing the trailer park getting closer and closer.
"Frankie was being a bitch. So I punched her." She admitted, trying to walk even faster.
"That's it? She was being a bitch?"
"Yupp."
"What did she say? Or do?" He wondered.
"She cut me in the lunch line and then called me some names." Penny turned into the trailer park, heading to her house, hoping to get rid of him at his own house, but instead, he followed her.
"Why would you do that?" They made their way up to her porch. "You got so pissed at me for rightfully avenging you and getting expelled for kicking Tony's ass, when-"
"Well, I've changed!" She abruptly turned to look at him in front of her door. "But you wouldn't know that, would you? None of you would. Not after all of you abandoned me."
"Penny….we didn't abandon you. We just….life happened." He watched her look away from him and nod with derision. "But guess what else has happened." He smiled brightly at her when she finally made eye contact with him again. "I'm getting married."
"What?"
"We're getting married." He repeated in a quieter tone, looking around the trailer park to see if there was anyone nearby. "Alice and I. We're running away." He put his hands on her shoulders with excitement. "Come with us….We want you to come with us. We can get out of this shitty town and go somewhere big where things happen! Wouldn't that be great? You could be her Maid of Honor AND my Best Man." He chuckled. "I know it sounds silly, but Fred is too caught up in his father's business here to come with us, but once he graduates, he said he'd come visit us and-"
Penny ripped herself away from him, causing him to let go of her shoulders. "You really don't remember, do you?" She gazed into his eyes, wondering if she could spot a lie.
"Penny, what are you talking about?" He asked, cluelessly.
She scoffed with an annoyed chortle. "Wow. You really forgot." FP slightly shrugged. "No, I'm not gonna run away with you guys so you can get 'married.' And I can't believe you actually fucking forgot! We made a pact, FP. A promise...that neither of us would date her and look what you did. Now, you're going to go get married and have cute, adorable little babies and have a happy life. Excuse me for not wanting to be a part of that." She turned, opening her trailer front door, going in and slamming it shut before FP could follow her in.
"Penny!" He banged on the door. "Penny! I'm sorry! I….." He slowly gave up. "I'm sorry." He leaned his head against the door with a sigh. "I wish there was something I could do to make it up to you."
After a few more seconds of silence, he headed down the first two steps before the door opened again. "There is something you could do." She smirked at him, remembering how badly Forsythe Senior wanted his son to join their gang and he turned around, ascending the stairs once again to hear her out.
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*Present Day*
"And that's when I, unreasonably, manipulated him into joining the Serpents." Penny gazed up at the roof of Byrdie's truck, too afraid to look at Alice as she came clean. "Little did I know that you would follow after him and join too. Seeing you two together was just...I don't even have the words to describe it anymore."
"Penny...what you did tore FP and I apart." Alice said, sadly looking at the woman beside her.
"I know. I know. That wasn't even my intention. It wasn't." She sniffled as tears slid down her temples, falling to the truck floor underneath her. "I just...I wanted him to pay for breaking that promise. And I've held that grudge against him ever since. I even...I'm even going so far as to hate his son for it, which now….after what Jug did to me, I see how what FP did wasn't even that bad. Especially since I knew I wouldn't have had a chance with you anyway." She ridiculously laughed sniffling and wiping away her tears with her left hand.
"Hey." Alice used her free hand to reach over, touching Penny's face and turning it to look at her. "Don't doubt things can happen before you even try them." As she kept her right hand on Penny's cheek beside her, her cuffed left hand grabbed ahold of Penny's cuffed right hand between them. "I'm sorry I didn't notice what was going on with you back then. It was my fault for being blind to it all."
"No." Penny finally turned over onto her side and they faced each other. "It was mine. I should've just told you instead of making him promise not to tell anyone. I guess I just didn't wanna make you choose between us or confuse you or ruin our friendship. I guess what I did did all of that anyway." She sadly laughed, feeling more tears escape her eyes.
"Hey...Penny, it's okay. At least I got to have the perfect family...for a little while." She let her right hand fall from Penny's cheek to play with the other woman's hand that was cuffed to her own. "Now it's time to go die together." She laughed at her horrible joke.
"I guess so." Penny laughed as well before it fell silent in the back of the truck once more.
Their smiles slowly faded and Penny couldn't help but gaze down at Alice's lips, longing to kiss them once more. Alice must have read her mind because not long after, Mrs. Cooper slowly leaned forward, gently kissing the lawyer.