"Amy?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you okay? Are you going to come upstairs? Are we going to talk? Or are you going to stand there smiling to yourself all day?"
"Sorry," Amy apologised shaking her head trying to rid herself of her distracted state. "What did you want to talk about?" Amy asked slowly meandering up the stairs toward Karma.
"We haven't talked in a while," Karma sighed perching on the edge go Amy's bed.
Amy walked straight across her bed and swiped the curtain away from her window. Much to Amy's surprise Reagan hadn't left, instead she was lying on the bonnet of her truck, eyes closed, cigarette between her lips as a veil of smoke surrounded her face and Amy wanted nothing more than to be laying beside her.
"What are you looking at?" Karma asked poking Amy's ankle to get her attention.
"Nothing," Amy lied not once tearing her eyes away from Reagan. Amy's eyes scanned the entire length of Reagan's body watching as she ruffled her hair and then lazily draped her arm above her head, revealing a thin strip of her stomach.
Karma watched curiously as Amy subconsciously pressed her entire against the window to get a better look at what was supposed to be 'nothing'. She decided against saying anything though, if this is what it took for Amy to be in the same room as her for longer than ten minutes then well… she would take it.
"Hey, Amy can we make this quick? Zen is coming over and my parents want this big family meal. You know how they are."
"Sure Karma. I'm all ears." Amy mumbled as she watched Reagan tap her foot steadily on the bonnet of her truck.
"Amy come on, the quicker we do this the quicker you can get back to feeling up Reagan," Karma reasoned.
"Okay," Amy said quickly turning her back to the window and giving Karma her full attention.
"Oh…I- I didn't actually think that would actually work." Kama laughed nervously.
"Why wouldn't it?" Amy replied giving Karma a blank stare.
"I- I- erm. I just-….actually you know what, it doesn't matter. I'm not here to argue," Karma sighed.
"Then why are you here?" Amy asked genuinely.
"I miss my best friend," Karma admitted playing with the hem of her dress.
"To be honest you've haven't been such a great friend lately."
"I deserved that."
"Yeah, you did." Amy agreed.
"It's just been hard for me. You and…..Liam. I still can't get my head around it. I don't understand why you did it."
Amy averted her eyes guiltily. "I don't know Karms, it was so long ago."
"Not really," Karma disagreed.
"Do you really want to know?"
"I really do."
"Honestly?" Amy sighed. "I just wanted to hurt you the way that you hurt me. You rejected me and I knew that sleeping with Liam was one of the worst things I could do, so I did it." Amy whispered, pretending she didn't see Karma visibly flinch at her explanation.
"But how did you do it?"
"I don't understand…?"
"Do you like boys?"
"No."
"But you must," Karma insisted pulling her legs onto Amy's bed. "How do you have sex with a boy if you don't like boys?"
Amy paused a moment arranging and rearranging her words into something that Karma would understand. "Karma it wasn't about Liam. It was about you. That whole thing was about you. Me and Liam did what we did because of you. Because we were hurt by you, because we wanted to get back at you. I don't like boys. In fact I has to close my eyes and visualise it was Troian Bellisario just to get through it."
"How did you-"
"Trust me, it wasn't an easy task. But do you understand?"
"I think so. The important parts anyway."
"Good," Amy nodded. "Because it's not about you anymore. Liam and I can't keep apologising or putting our lives on hold because you can't forgive us. What we did was incredibly shitty and if you can't forgive us that's something I will have to deal with, but just let us both move on. It will suck but I will understand. It probably won't hurt as much as it did when you took out your anger on Reagan. That was so low Karma, she didn't deserve that."
"I'm know, I'm sorry." Karma mumbled her eyes watery with tears.
Amy turned her attention back to the window, in the few minutes that she and Karma had been talking the sky had turned almost completely pitch black adn the street lamps were on. Reagan was still outside, an arm draped across her eyes, her legs crossed at her ankles.
"It's not about you anymore Karma," Amy concluded. "It's about-"
"Her." Karma finished sitting on the window sill beside Amy.
"Yeah."
"What is she doing out there?"
"I don't know." Amy admitted. "She has just been chilling on her truck since she left the house."
They both watched Reagan a little while before Karma broke the silence, "What are you doing Amy? What are you two doing?"
"We're friends," Amy said in what she knew was a pathetic tone.
"Amy, come on. You're not 'friends', friends don't do what you guys are doing."
"We're not doing anything that's the problem," Amy sighed leaning her warm face against the cool glass.
"I don't know. Seemed like you guys were up to quite a bit before I interrupted."
"We messed up. But we're good now, we got it out of our system and now we can go back to being friends."
"Do you want to be just friends?" Karma asked cautiously.
"Reag-"
"I'm not talking about Reagan," Karma interrupted. "I'm talking about you. What do you want?"
"I don't know."
"Yes you do."
"I-"
"Amy, you do know what you want. You just don't want to say it."
Amy opened her mouth to speak but closed it again when she was met with the disapproving look Karma was giving to her.
"Okay, well, I've gotta go. I'm already late to dinner and god knows how my parents will react. I don't know why they always have to put on some sort of strange show whenever he is around. He is family, there is no need to show off." Karma rambled to herself.
"No offence Karms but you know that I hate talking about Zen. He is so boring. Like his namesake."
"I know, sorry I just needed to vent a little." Karma apologised. "I really have to go now though," Karma pulled Amy into a hasty hug before leaving - a hug that didn't feel nearly as bad as Amy had expected.
Amy watched as Reagan went from a laying position to sitting completely upright when she saw Karma leaving.
Karma strolled past Reagan's truck, hesitated and then doubled back.
"Do you love Amy?"
"Err-"
"Do you love Amy?"
"Yes wh-."
"Then why are you being so difficult about it?" Karma demanded crossing her arms across her chest.
"It's complicated." Reagan sighed wiping a stray piece of dirt from her jeans.
Karma quickly glanced at her watch. "I have time."
"It's just... I don't know. I can't trust her to tell me the truth. Has she always been that way?"
"Yes, Amy does tend to bury the truth a lot. Not quite lying but not telling you the truth either. She walks that line often."
"I don't like it," Reagan mumbled. "How do I trust someone who habitually hides things from me? And not just silly things like my keys or my favourite hoody. Things like not telling me that you and her faked being lesbians, or the fact that you kissed her while I was inside having dinner with her parents. Why hide all those things? It as if she feels some sort of obligation toward you."
"The obligation isn't to me Reagan, it's to you. She didn't want to hurt you. Was it the right thing to do? Probably not. My doesn't think things through sometimes. But she was trying to protect you. Amy gets all mama bear sometimes," Karma smiled fondly, remembering all the times Amy had been her mama bear.
"I don't know. It's like I have a mental block up here." Reagan whispered tapping her head, looking at Karma with hopelessness.
"It's okay to have that," Karma reassured. "What's not okay is jerking Amy around and not letting her know where she stands. She deserves at least that much."
Reagan said nothing. Just looked past Karma's shoulder into the distance, but Karma knew that she had heard her and that she understood what she had said.
Karma nodded to herself tapping on Reagan's bonnet a few times before turning on her heel.
"Hey…." Reagan said gently grabbing Karma's wrist. "You guys okay?"
"Yeah," Karma smiled "Maybe…I think so."
"Good," Reagan nodded letting go of Karma's limp wrist. "I'm glad."
"Okay, well I gotta go have dinner with my annoying parents and my annoying brother Zen."
"Zen? Karma and Zen? That's clever."
Karma rolled her eyes. "Please don't remind me. And Reagan...I'm sorry...about what I did."
Amy waited a few minutes to make sure the coast was clear before heading outside. Reagan had lit another cigarette and was back to laying on her bonnet.
"I don't like when you smoke," Amy said visibly startling Reagan.
Reagan lolled her head toward Amy.
"At least you look hot doing it," Amy reasoned laying down beside Reagan.
They lay in silence for a few minutes, the only sound being the moderate rain that had now started falling.
"We should go inside," Amy suggested, breaking the silence.
"Why?"
Amy licked her lips eyeing the way Reagan's thin t-shirt clung to her skin, "It's raining."
"I like the rain."
"We need to talk."
"We can just talk here?"
"No." Amy insisted. "We can't. Your shirt is sticking to your skin and it's really distracting me." She slid off the truck and grabbed a confused looking Reagan by the hand, pulling her inside the house.
Reagan was pinned to the wall before she realised what was happening.
"Aren't we supposed to be talking?" Reagan smirked, amused at the way Amy's eyes roamed her entire body.
"Can't we just continue where we left off?"
"As much as I would love to be on my knees right now…..I think it would be more useful if we actually talked. Don't you?"
Amy groaned dropping her head onto Reagan's shoulder before reluctantly pulling herself away and motioning for Reagan to go upstairs to her room.
"Is anyone coming home tonight?" Reagan asked sitting on the edge of Amy's bed peeling off her boots and jacket.
"Nah, I don't think so," Amy replied throwing herself onto her bed. "Lauren is staying with Theo and my mom and Bruce are apparently staying at a hotel for the weekend. I don't know. I wasn't interested in the details."
"Cool," Reagan nodded pulling a silver case from her jacket pocket. The case was silver and covered with intricate floral patterns.
"That's pretty," Amy admired plucking the case from Reagan's fingers, turning it around in her hands.
"Well it's not as pretty as this," Reagan replied popping open the case and showing Amy a neatly rolled joint.
"Can I try some of that?"
"Definitely not." Reagan reprimanded slamming the case shut.
"Wh-"
"Amy, start talking."
"Okay, there is no easy way to say this. But I think we should break up."
Reagan's previously neutral face had now given way to a confused expression.
"I- I was kidding. That was a….joke," Amy explained. "I was trying to make this whole thing less… tense," she laughed nervously.
"Well that wasn't the best way to go about it. I'm actually much more tense than I was before before," Reagan admitted. "Maybe I should talk first and then you talk afterward?"
Amy dropped her head, which Reagan decided to take as a 'yes'.
"So the truth is….I kind of don't trust you."
Amy flinched, grimacing as she looked over at Reagan.
"You don't tru-"
"Hear me out, please," Reagan pleaded. "It's not that I don't trust you….no, actually it is that I don't trust you. You kept a lot from me and I know you're going to reframe it as 'keeping the truth from me' but that is lying and I'm pretty sure you know that. And if it was just small things I wouldn't give a shit. But it's big things like dating Karma, or not telling me that she kissed you. That was pretty fucked up by the way. I don't know…it just feels like you're not over her or something like that and it's just nagging at me. Also I can see you inching closer toward me and it's not going to work. We're going to talk, not finish what we started."
Amy frowned not realising that she had been leaning toward Reagan, but as she pushed herself into an upright position she realised she had been leaning the entire time Reagan had been speaking. It's not like it was her fault, watching Reagan's lips as she spoke put her into a trance and her body was acting involuntarily. Which was part of the reason why she could never speak to Reagan the way she wanted, because she would end up focusing on how inviting Reagan's lips looked when she talked, or how cute she was when she was annoyed, instead of pulling her aside and really saying what she wanted to say. Although now that she had the chance she couldn't quite think of the words.
Reagan crossed her legs, as she waited patiently for Amy to find the words to express herself.
"I'm not a liar. I'm not! And I know that's something a liar would say but I'm not one of those."
Amy didn't see it but she was sure Reagan rolled her eyes.
"Okay, so maybe I did lie. But for good reason!"
"Go on…"
"What would you have done when if we first started dating I told you I was kind of in love with my best friend and we kind of faked being lesbians?"
Reagan pulled at the wet material clinging to her skin while she mulled over her answer. "Honestly? I probably would have called it quits."
"Exactly. I really liked you and I wanted you to really like me. That wouldn't have happened if I had told you that I was hung up on Karma. So I didn't tell you. Would telling you have made it any better?"
"Probably not."
"The more I fell in love with you the harder it became to tell you about Karma. What was I supposed to say? 'Hey Reagan, I'm pretty sure I'm falling in love with you, by the way me and my best friend decided to be fake lesbians to be popular'."
"When you put it that way…." Reagan licked her lips thoughtfully, "Yeah, it makes sense. It just sucks that there is always going to be a thought niggling in my head about whether or not you will decide that it's Karma you've wanted all along."
"You," Amy cooed settling into a cross legged position opposite Reagan, "are who I've wanted all along. Yeah maybe when we first started dating I was kind of using you to get over Karma."
"Ouch."
"I just needed something, someone to make me forget, to make me feel like I didn't need her as a crutch."
"How's that working out for you?" Reagan teased light heartedly.
"Not so good." Amy admitted.
A comfortable silence washed over them for a few minutes before Reagan decided to break it.
"I'm wet."
"You're what?"
"I'm wet. My clothes. Can I borrow something to wear?"
"Yes, rain is wet therefore it will make you wet," Amy pointed out while she rummaged through her drawer to find something for Reagan to wear.
Reagan stood up from the bed and started peeling her sodden clothes from her body. Amy couldn't help but stare as Reagan started stripping herself down to her underwear, she couldn't help but stare at the way Reagan's muscles tightened when she bent over to remove her jeans, or the way her muscles loosened as she pulled her arms over her head to remove her t-shirt.
"Why don't you take a picture it will last longer." Reagan smirked throwing her wet t-shirt at Amy.
"I already have plenty of those…" Amy replied cockily.
"Did you post any onto one of those revenge site?" Reagan asked, dressing herself in the sweat shorts and tank top that Amy had offered to her.
"No. Never. They are for my eyes only!"
"That's a shame. Now everyone won't be able to see what a babe I am." Reagan teased.
"They don't need to see those pictures to know that."
Reagan cheekily raised an eyebrow at Amy's implication and Amy quickly changed the subject.
"Are you hungry? Because I am."
"A little yeah."
"Come downstairs and we'll find something to eat?"
"That sounds really good."
"What's your favourite kind of sandwich? Is it weird that I don't know that?" Amy asked while emptying the contents of her fridge.
"Peanut butter and jelly."
"What?"
"Peanut butter an-"
"I heard what you said!" Amy squeaked almost smacking her head on the inside of the fridge. "We don't have peanut butter here."
"I would hope so, unless your family are planning on killing you. I just thought you were asking in general."
"Wait, so when was the last time you've had a PB&J?" Amy enquired dumping a selection of spreads and sandwich fillings onto the kitchen counter.
"I haven't eaten anything with nuts since the day you told me they could 'literally kill you'."
"Don't you miss it?"
"Sure I do. Nuts are like my favourite thing."
"How did I not know this?" Amy gasped.
Reagan looked at Amy apologetically, "I didn't want you to feel bad, so I never mentioned it."
"You didn't have to do that."
"Yes I did. Otherwise I would have literally killed you. I mean we made out a lot. I could have sent you into an attack like 200 times at least."
"We did make out a lot," Amy hummed.
"Besides, you have the fillings for my second favourite sandwich. Cheese and apple."
"That sounds….not too bad actually."
"It's more than 'not bad'," Reagan scoffed prepping her bread. "The trick is to get the right thickness," she explained while slicing an apple. "Too thick and it's not enjoyable, too thin and you don't get that satisfying crunch." Reagan punctuated her thought by biting into the remainder of the apple. "If you do it properly you get the bitterness of the cheese and the sweetness of the apple. It's the perfect combo."
"Okay, you're making that sound really good."
"That's because it is really good." Reagan insisted, arranging her sandwich onto her plate.
"Do you know what mine is?"
"Just a ham slice."
"How did you know that?"
"I don't know. Might be something to do with the fact you used to live on ham sandwiches when we would hang out at my house."
"I did, didn't I? I really miss hanging out at yours," Amy admitted sadly.
"Hey Eeyore," Reagan said nudging Amy. "We can start doing that again if you want."
"I'd like that." Amy blushed as Reagan ruffled her hair playfully.
"Okay, we'll hang out then." Reagan decided biting into her sandwich.
"You should stay over," Amy said casually, clearing away the last of the ingredients from the kitchen counter.
"Err-"
"Do you want to stay over?" Amy corrected. "Unless you have somewhere to be that is," Amy added quickly.
"Um yeah, sure. I'll let Jack know," Reagan said grabbing her phone.
"Wait, why would you need to tell Jack?"
"She kind of lives with me now. Sort of, sometimes? It's a long story. I'll tell you about it another time."
"Okay cool. So you're definitely staying over?" Amy confirmed.
"Do you want me to stay over? Because it really sounds like you do." Reagan teased.
"Shut up."
Reagan's eyes twinkled as she looked fondly at Amy. A hint of a smile graced her lips as Amy's eyes locked with hers for a few seconds before looking past her as embarrassment took hold.
"You're so cute when you're pink." Reagan grinned brushing Amy's warm cheek briefly.
Amy cursed herself as she felt heat spread across her cheeks and burn the tips of her ears.
"Especially when your ears turn red." Reagan cooed stroking Amy's ear between her fingers.
"It's weird how your bed still feels the same even though I haven't been in it for months." Reagan commented nestling into Amy's pillows. "Like everything about it still feels the same."
"That's because it is still the same," Amy responded slipping into her bed. "It's like you've never left."
Reagan said nothing, blinking her large dark eyes against the darkness enveloping the room.
"You've changed though. You seem… unsure of yourself… unsure of us. And it kills me to know that I caused that. It kills me to know that I caused you to go from this strong confident girl to someone who has to put distance between us because I fucked up."
"It's not your fault," Reagan whispered.
"But it is."
"How many relationships have you been in before me?"
Amy said nothing.
"How many real relationships," Reagan clarified.
"None."
"Exactly. It's unfair for me to expect you to know everything about everything. That's not how relationships work Amy, there is no plan, you just make shit up as you go along and hope that it doesn't backfire."
"And when it does?"
"Sometimes you make it work and sometimes you don't."
"What about us?"
"Do you believe in love at first sight?"
"What?"
"Do you believe in love at first sight?"
"I-I don't know. Why? Do you?"
"Yeah, I do. But I don't think it's the 'I'm in love with you' kind of love. I think it's when you see a person and you think to yourself 'Wow, the potential to love this person is huge and I want to explore that'. I don't know. I know it sounds confusing but-"
"Did you have that with me?"
"Yeah, I did."
"When?"
"When you climbed up into my booth demanded that we should go out," Reagan laughed. "I felt it then."
"Do you know when I felt it? On our third date. When you kissed me, I legit thought I was going to give birth to some sort of alien baby, my stomach was flipping like crazy."
"Okay but what if it was an alien baby though? Like…would you raise it?"
"Would you raise it with me?"
"It would probably be an ugly little baby. Butttt it would be our ugly alien baby. So yeah, I would definitely raise it with you," Reagan decided.
"I think that would be so cool." Amy said excitedly. "You know, if I became pregnant with an alien baby every time we made out we would be raising like 500 alien babies right now."
"Wait, how does that work?"
"Because I get that weird alien feeling every single time you kiss me."
"You do?"
Amy nodded.
"If I kiss you right now will you promise not to have an alien baby. I can just about make rent, I can't take care of a child."
"I can't make any promises," Amy whispered as Reagan's hand slowly snaked up her back, before pulling their bodies tight against each other.
"We'll make it work."