Amy can't remember the last time she was in this room. She does remember (knows) it wasn't this pink then, or this girlie.
No, not girlie, she thinks as stares at the walls and briefly wonders if maybe this is what it's like to be food when you swallow it, sliding down that river of pinkish insides and she's so not mentioning that to Lauren cause she knows that's an automatic trip back to the other side of the door. And as uncomfortable as she is on this side (this pink and pink - and did she mention pink - side) it's still better being uncomfortable with someone than without.
Even if that someone is Lauren.
Besides, it's not girlie because 'girlie' is a loaded term. It suggests that Lauren and her room (and it is definitely her room now, more than it was ever anyone else's, more than it was ever Farrah's office or her yoga room or, briefly, the place Hank went to hide) are so very not, things like immature and childish and since she started having 'the feelings' Amy has spent way too much time on tumblr and she knows that is patriarchal thinking and she should be all sorts of offended on behalf of womankind everywhere.
But God, that is just so much work. And besides there's nothing immature or childish about Lauren's room even if it is home to the tiniest person Amy's ever known (and she knows, even after only a few months, that Lauren is tiny in stature only. There is nothing else small about the girl who will be her sister. Nothing at all.)
Now that she thinks about it, Amy thinks that, maybe, it is, in fact, the most adult room she's ever been in, including her mother's (which, she knows, isn't saying much). Everything has a place and everything is in its place, right down to the books on the shelf over the desk (she's not checking if their alphabetized but come on) and all of Lauren's photos, neatly framed and aligned in a perfect size-and-shape-emphasizing configuration on the dresser.
It's the one in the front that catches Amy's eye. A blonde woman with the shiniest hair she's ever seen (and if it looks like that in a photo, it must have been Rapunzel singing to save Eugene levels of glow in real life). She's holding a small girl on her lap, one with bright eyes and a huge smile and if it weren't for… you know… the bright eyes and the huge smile... Amy would swear it's Lauren.
"That's my mother," Lauren says, sliding across the room and effectively blocking Amy's view of the picture. "I was like four or five in that picture. It was a year before she…" Lauren stops and leans up against the dresser with her arms crossed and Amy immediately knows sharing time is done, at least from that end. "So," Lauren says, "gay?"
Amy nods, both because she's still a bit dumbstruck by the picture (because smile) and by Lauren's mention of her mother, which is a first, and because she's already said it (gay) once and she's not sure it (gay) will ever leave her mouth again cause saying it (gay) once was about a thousand times fucking harder than she ever imagined it would be.
And she'd thought it would be pretty fucking hard.
She settles down on the edge of Lauren's bed with its light pink sheets and its white duvet sprinkled with tiny pink roses. It's color overload, a bombardment of pastels and pinks and it's entirely different world than the blander, plainer, don't notice me, don't see me, don't find me hiding here in plain sight world Amy usually lives in. In some ways, it's almost too much, like a cliche. It's almost what Amy imagines a woman's room would look like if it were designed by a man, one trying (too fucking hard) to make it match the ones he'd seen on TV or in a magazine or catalog, like he was trying to hit on every feminine trope in the book.
Overcompensation, she thinks but that's the last thing she's going to say cause, again, other side of the door and as much as it surprises her, with every passing second, she really wants to stay on this side.
"We going to talk about this?" Lauren asks with a tone that says, yes, we are. "Or are you just gonna sit there staring?"
"Sorry," Amy says. "It's just… a lot." And they both know she could be talking about the room or about it (gay) but they both also know only one of those is up for discussion right now. "I know you think we're faking it and Kar…" She almost says 'Karma is' but she's not confirming that for Lauren (even though she sorta already did) who, despite apparently being at least one level more human than Amy would have given her credit for, is still Lauren. "But, I'm not," she says. "I'm really not."
Lauren shifts against the dresser, clearly out of her element with someone being in her element, her room, her space. Amy worries she's about to throw her out or yell or mock or… well.. any of about a hundred things the Lauren she knew up until about five minutes ago might have already done.
"Why?" Lauren asks and at first Amy thinks she's asking her why she thinks she's… you know… (gay)... but then "Why tell me? Isn't this the sort of thing you should talk to Harvey about? Or your mother?" Lauren smirks a little (but it's less than usual and her heart doesn't really seem in it) "Or, I don't know, your girlfriend?"
All excellent points, if not excellent choices. "You saw my mother's reaction at the homecoming dance," Amy says. "And Shane is…" She shrugs. "Shane thinks he's the guru of all that is gay. Except…"
"Except he's got no fucking idea what it's like," Lauren says softly but there's still more venom behind those quiet words than there was her smirk a minute ago. "Shane doesn't remember the terror or the confusion because he lives in an all gay, all the time world," she says. "He's forgotten, or maybe he never even knew, what it's like to straddle them...gay and straight or bi and straight or whatever the fuck you are and straight."
Amy nods and if she's shocked by the level of insight and understanding Lauren has… well… it's written all over her face.
"Don't look so surprised," Lauren snaps and Amy tries to school her face back to something normal but this is all so…. surreal and she's sure she's dreaming it all. She has to be. Lauren steps away from the dresser and moves toward her bedside table. "You all think my problem with you is that I don't like lesbians, like I'm some sort of unevolved old school Texas rube."
"I don't think…" Amy cuts herself off as Lauren glares at her and she realizes that's a pointless lie that even she wouldn't buy. "OK," she says. "Thought's crossed my mind."
Lauren stands next to the bed, one hand resting on the night table and for a moment there's this look on her face, like the one Karma gets when she thinks her parents don't think she's as good as Zen or the one Amy imagines falls over her own face when Farrah drones on and on (and on) about how wonderful Lauren is.
She looks hurt. And if the rest of this was surreal, this is fuckging Salvador Dali territory now and Amy has the sudden urge to either flee or wrap Lauren up in a giant hug and never let her go.
She stays perfectly still on the bed.
"Yeah, well, that's not I don't like you or your… friends," Lauren says. "It's got nothing to do with your sexuality. Or Karma's. Or Shane's." She pauses for a moment to think. "Definitely not Shane's." She rolls her eyes. "Being straight would probably take away his only redeeming quality."
Amy's not entirely sure about that but this is the longest she and Lauren have gone without trading insults (real ones) so she lets it slide.
Lauren opens the drawer on the table and reaches in, her hand coming back out with what looks like the same bottle of pills Amy saw her holding downstairs, except this one doesn't rattle when Lauren holds it and Amy can tell it's empty. She sets them down on the table top and slides the drawer shut. "You still didn't answer the question," she says. "Why me? Why not Karma? Even if she is faking, and I know she is, you two are still best friends. Isn't this something you'd go to your best friend with and not your…"
"Frequently angry, often mean, and clearly overcompensating for something step-sister-to-be?"
Lauren's glare is back but there's something else there, something behind it. There's a hint of that smirk and a touch of fire and a bit of… pride, maybe? Admiration? A little 'well it's about fucking time you stepped up your game'?
"Point taken," Lauren says. "Question still stands. Why not me is obvious. But why not Karma?"
Amy stares at the floor. She can't quite find the words and she's been trying, she's been trying so very hard because even she wonders why she just doesn't talk to Karma about this. Except she knows why she's not going to Karma with this, why she hasn't even hinted at it (like Karma would pick up on a hint) but knowing all that and finding a way to say it out loud are two completely different things.
"I can't," she says finally, and it's the simplest and truest explanation she's got. "I can't tell Karma. Because telling Karma I think I'm… that means having to explain how I know. And that means having to explain when it started and telling her that it started the moment I kissed her…"
"That would tell her a lot more," Lauren says.
"A lot more that wouldn't be true," Amy says. "Kissing Karma was… it was like someone turned on the light in the closet and yeah, I know, bad analogy." She laughs softly at her own inadvertent humor. "But… that light was always there," she says, sniffling as tears pool in her eyes but she refuses to let them fall because crying in front of Lauren is one step past what she's ready for.
"Always?" Lauren asks. "Like forever always?"
Amy nods even if she's not sure it's been forever but it's been so long she doesn't remember what it was before so forever will do. "Every time I held her hand," she says. "Every time we hugged. Every fucking morning when I woke up with her cuddled beside me and I never wanted to move again."
Lauren fidgets nervously against the bed, like she can't decide whether to sit or stand or run from the room because this has taken a turn for the serious she didn't expect.
She stands there and waits.
Amy fidgets with her hands in her lap, unable to sit still. "I haven't had a friend, a real one, besides Karma since the fifth grade," she says. "So I thought it was all… normal. I thought everything I felt for her was what everyone else felt for their best friend. What Shane felt for Liam or what you'd feel for…"
She trails off, realizing (for the first time) that she doesn't know anyone she would consider Lauren's friend. There's Tommy and her minions (but even Amy knows they don't count) and Amy assumes there were others back in Dallas but Lauren hasn't made a single visit back there since they moved to Austin and it all just falls into silence and empty and Amy feels fucking horrible, like she just slapped the face of the one person who's even listening to her.
The tears come then and Amy can't stop them but she hates them, she hates every fucking one of them. And when Lauren doesn't fill in the blank, when she doesn't offer up a name or a suggestion or even so much as glare at Amy for the suggestion she might not have a friend, that just makes the tears come harder.
"I'm sorry," Amy says, swiping at her tears with her sleeve. "I never thought…."
Lauren settles onto the edge of the bed closest to the table. "Never thought what?"
"I never thought about how hard this must be for you," Amy says. She doesn't look at Lauren because she's sure that would set off another round of sobs and she's had just about enough of that tonight. "I was so wrapped up in me and my shit, even before..."
"It's fine," Lauren says and Amy, even through the tears, she hears it.
It's fine. Not I'm. It's.
And that makes it pretty fucking clear that it's anything but fine.
"I told you," Amy says, "because I can't tell her and because if I didn't tell someone I was going to lose my fucking mind." She stands from the bed, the sudden shift almost knocking Lauren off the edge to the floor. "And we're… supposed to be family," she says. "And maybe we could be, but I've already managed to fuck that up cause I somehow know even less about being a sister than I do about being gay and you already hate me."
Amy takes the two quick steps to Lauren's door and rests her head against the frame. It sits there, in the pit of her stomach, that gnawing regret that she didn't just stay in her room and start the project or watch Netflix or just fucking wallow like a normal teenage girl because now she's made a bad even worse and hurt someone else in the process.
"Amy -" Lauren starts but Amy's not listening and she's out the door and back across the hall and behind the safety of her door before Lauren has a chance to finish.
This is why she thought she needed the break, because she's breaking, falling apart from the inside and getting buried under the weight of everything she's trying to fake. She can't even keep track of it all anymore. She's faking being a fake lesbian and faking being in love with the girl she's in love with and faking that she's faking and it's all just pretend and thank God she's at least good enough to fool Karma or else her world might just burn up like one of her best friend's stars.
She stays there, slumped on the floor, her back against the door and her knees pulled to her chest, trying to breathe and then there's a knock, on the door, right above her head and she doesn't even stand, she just leans forward and reaches for the knob, cracking the door to see Lauren on the other side.
She kneels down on the hallway floor, bringing her and Amy to eye level and Amy watches as she rolls the empty pill bottle around in her hand. "You don't suck," Lauren says. "At being a sister, I mean. At least you don't suck any more than I do, so…" Amy doesn't say anything, afraid that even the tiniest of sounds will shatter the moment even though she has no idea what the fuck this moment actually is. Lauren sets the bottle down on the floor between them, just inside the door. "I know your secret," she says. "And now you know mine and now both of us will stay quiet and maybe we can… I don't know… work on sucking less."
It's the weirdest olive branch in the history of olive branches and Amy's almost afraid to take it for fear it's some kind of trick, some sort of plan, Lauren just pretending to be nice, pretending to be her friend (or a maybe friend) and then she thinks about how much pretending… so fucking much… and wouldn't it be nice, maybe, to have one person in her life (her family) she didn't have to do that with.
And that olive branch, as weird as it is and as much as she doesn't trust it (yet) is just too tempting to resist.
Lauren stands and moves away as Amy plucks the bottle from the floor, reading the label with confusion and a whole new set of questions she knows she'll be Googling all night and Lauren pauses in her own doorway. They both hear the front door open and the sound of Bruce and Farrah's voices downstairs.
"Emmy," Lauren almost whispers and Amy looks up, even more confused. "My best friend, my Karma. Her name was Emmy and when I…" She looks down at the bottle in Amy's hand and that branch takes on all new meaning. "She's in Dallas and I'm here," Lauren says, as if that explains everything and maybe it kinda does. "I'm going out tonight with Tommy, so you're on your own but… if you wanted a ride to school in the morning, you know, if you wanted to… talk… some more…."
Amy nods and then Lauren's gone, back behind her own door and Farrah's calling for Amy from downstairs and Amy's yelling back that she'll be right there. Right after she tucks the empty bottle away in the back of her sock drawer and makes a mental note to tell Shane to back off of Lauren tomorrow.
He'll want to know why and Amy knows she doesn't have a good excuse to give him because even if her all night Googling tells her the truth….
She'll just have to pretend.
At least she's good at that.
