Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Paisley

I was kind of hoping I’d be able to get back to my place and then just crash—like, fall face-first into my bed and blare some music and let myself be a moody mess—but there was a clattering noise in the kitchen, music playing. I rounded the corner into the kitchen, primed for revenge.

“Emberlynn. I told you I’d be cooking—” I stopped, scrunching up my face at the sight of Kay there, looking up from where she was, by all appearances, serving up strawberries and cream. “You’re not Emberlynn.”

She beamed. “I’m not! It’s true.”

I guess I could have expected this. It was definitely J-Pop she was blaring from her phone, the case decked out in glittery pastels and anime character stickers. That wasn’t Emberlynn’s usual music taste. But I put my hands on my hips, scowling. “Who do you think you are, just barging into someone’s house without asking?”

She scratched her head. “Emberlynn saw me waiting at your door and said I could just go in…”

“This is literally worse than murder.”

“Don’t you do this to everyone basically all the time?”

“Yes. But that’s different. I’m Paisley. You’re not. Ugh.” I paused. “Are you making me food?”

She perked up. “Strawberries and cream! I thought it could be nice. I brought some tea Gwen said I could share with you. She said the Emperor’s Clouds green tea would be a perfect match.”

“I guess I can forgive you, if you brought food.”

She laughed. “Wait until we’ve sat down to talk about what we said yesterday, before you decide whether you’ve forgiven me.”

Oh, god. I’d forgotten. I pursed my lips. “Right…”

She gave me an awkward laugh. “You forgot.”

“No!”

“Yes?”

“Yes.” I slumped. “Ugh. Fine. I’ll put the water on for the tea.”

“Oh—heat it to one-sixty-two, okay?”

“You think I have a kettle that precise? It’s only because of Emberlynn that I don’t just put a glass of water in the oven and call it a day.”

But still, the food was delicious, at least. I was pouting and grouchy the whole time I ate it, but it was delicious, and the tea worked nicely with it, even if I swear it just tasted like tea and there was nothing that special about it. I only got halfway through the food, though, before Kay gave me an awkward look over the pile of stuff on my table, and she said, “So… what’s eating you?”

“I wish something would eat me. A giant snapping turtle made of lightning that descends from the heavens to snap me up in its jaws and fly into the sun.”

“Well, barring that happening, do you want to tell me what’s on your mind? You look like you’re going through it.”

I slumped over the table. “Nah. It’s because of something that someone’s keeping a secret, and I don’t spill secrets.”

“Aren’t you the biggest gossip in town…?”

“There’s gossip and then there’s secrets. And it’s important to know where the line is. I share gossip. I do not share secrets. God, though, do I ever share gossip.”

She settled back in the chair, cupping her tea in both hands. “Is it something to do with Harper?”

“No! It’s nothing to do with her. Oh my god, stop bringing her up. I swear, it’s nothing to do with her.”

She sipped slowly at her tea, one long sip with her eyes fixed on me before she set it down. “Um… that was the only time I asked.”

I looked away sharply. “Well, then you’ve been wrong one hundred percent of the time. You’d better not do it again, or it’ll be two hundred percent.”

“That is not how percentages work. So…” She leaned forwards, folding her arms on the table. “Did something happen to her? Is she okay?”

“Ugh. No. She’s fine. Unfortunately.”

“Hmm.” She chewed her lip. “A crush? Are you into her?”

I hunched into myself, shoving my hands into my pockets, looking at my tea. “Oh my god. It’s not that.”

“You aren’t looking directly at me, though.”

I forced myself to look at her. Somehow, though, my gaze broke, roaming to the shelf of arts and crafts supplies behind her. “I am,” I said.

“You are very much lying.”

I forced myself to look at her again. I felt like throwing something when I found my gaze roamed again, settling on the door out to the back garden. “I’m not lying.”

“So… it is a crush.”

“Ugh.” I collapsed on the table, shoving the food away, and I raked my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know. What does a crush feel like?”

“Mm…” She traced shapes on the table, casting her eyes to the sky. “You think about them all the time? You catch yourself daydreaming about them? You want to be close to them, touch them, kiss them?”

“It isn’t that…”

“Is it not?”

I mumbled something even I didn’t know what. My face prickled.

“Um… I’m curious,” she said. “Have you ever really dated anybody? I’ve never heard about you being with anyone.”

“I dunno.”

“You don’t know? If you’ve dated?”

“Ugh. I guess I haven’t.” I pushed back from the table, turning to the door, and I sank forwards, resting my elbows on my knees. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right. Leave me alone. I’m waiting for the snapping turtle.”

She moved her chair over next to mine, sitting by me and watching clouds roll by. “What if,” she started, and I shook my head.

“No. Definitely not.”

She ignored me. “What if you like Harper and so you haven’t been interested in anyone else?”

I looked away, hunching tighter in on myself. “It isn’t that either.”

“Then what is it?”

I sighed, and I was quiet for a long time. Eventually, my voice came out in a mumble. “Like I said. It just doesn’t feel right.”

“Why not?”

“Dating is like—it’s for other people.”

“What kind of other people?”

“Um… datey people. I dunno.”

“Who are people you can see dating?”

I kicked at the floor. “Emberlynn and my lousy sister, for one. You and Gwen. Annabel, for sure. Obviously her girlfriend too. Probably the rest of her team, too. Sam and Jenna, and Charlie, and…”

“Is this just everyone but you?”

“Oh.” I frowned. “Oh, wow. I guess it is.”

She reached back and picked up her tea, cradling it in both hands, staring out the glass door for a while before she said, “Okay, let’s say… Annabel. You said for sure about her, so I assume she’s very datey. What makes her different from you?”

“Just… like…” I gestured. “You know. It’s obvious. You know the difference.”

“Red hair?”

“Ugh, you’re impossible. I’m going to hit my head on the wall until I die.”

“I really don’t know the difference,” she said. I sighed, hard, a pointed sigh before I realized I didn’t know what it was pointed at. I looked back down.

“Um…” I shifted in my chair. “I feel like I’m a little weird.”

She paused. “Is… that it?”

“Like I said, do not tell anybody.”

“I think everybody knows that already…”

“You’re the worst.” I hugged myself. “I mean, like… like…” I frowned. “Maybe I don’t know what I mean. But you know what I mean, right? I’m not pretty and cool and stylish and talented and smart and all these other things. I’m just… me. Just Paisley.”

She glanced sidelong at me. “You’re too… insecure to date people?”

“When you put it like that, it makes me sound like a loser. I just… I’m not the dating type. End of story. Fin. Kaput.”

“I’m not sure you know what kaput means.” She shook her head. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of, though. We all have insecurities. And I know they can really get in the way when we’re dating. Like… trust me when I say I know that very well. My insecurities almost lost me everything with Gwen.”

“Yeah, but, like… at least you have something that makes you interesting. Ugh. Forget it. I hate this conversation. I’m going to go climb into a hole and fill it back up behind me.”

“Does Emberlynn know you feel this way? She’s your best friend, right?”

I was of half a mind to just walk out the door and keep walking until I drowned in the ocean. Kay wouldn’t stop coming with the hits. I ducked my head. “I mean, ostensibly,” I mumbled.

“Did something happen?”

“No. Yeah. I guess. Just… you know. She’s dating my sister.” I shrugged, picking at my fingernails. “And I don’t have a problem with that. Not anymore, at least. I was a little brat about it for a while, but I don’t have a problem anymore. Just that she’s… well. Someone else is more important in her life now.”

She pursed her lips, a sad little pout. “She shouldn’t have to make you feel less important just to be with someone. A relationship doesn’t mean sacrificing your friendships.”

“I know. And it’s my problem. I guess it’s not that Aria is more important, just that she’s… just as important, in a different way. So now someone else has equal billing as me. And I’m not mature enough to handle that.”

She sighed sadly. “I’m sorry things are making you feel that way.”

I kicked at the floor. “It just feels harder to open up to her about as much. And we still spend all our time together, but it feels like there’s some kind of wall forming there, building up slowly, and it makes me want to scream until my lungs pop out like a party blower.”

“Ew.”

I sighed, standing up. My feet carried me outside, into the little lot behind the house, and I sat down on the stoop. Kay sat down next to me, and I guess at this point I kind of just accepted that I’d have to have this conversation with her.

“It sucks when I step back and realize I don’t have any identity outside of her,” I said. “I feel like I used to be all fun and happy and living my best life as me around everybody in town. And then Emberlynn moved into town and I was, like, literally obsessed, and I clung onto her, and it was even better. But now that she’s finding her own life outside of me, I’m kind of realizing that I don’t have my own life outside of her. I’m just a weirdo who looks like a goblin and breeds lizards.”

“I think you look cute.”

“Ugh. Don’t patronize me. If I could turn into King Kong right now and smash you into a pulp, I would.”

She smiled sweetly at me. “Well, as far as I know, you can’t, so I’m willing to take that risk. I do think you look cute. I like your hair, and you have pretty eyes.”

“I look like a soulless monster rolled in dog hair and lint.”

“Okay, now I think you’re exaggerating. Still, if you don’t like the way you come across, how you look and act and everything…” She shrugged, resting back against the door and looking up to the sky. Dark clouds formed on the horizon, and the winds whipping up said rain was coming. Kay breathed in deep before she looked at me. “I think it’s important to love ourselves. And sometimes that takes the form of accepting things about ourselves and learning to love them as they are, and sometimes I think that takes the form of finding the courage to change things about ourselves.”

“Ugh, you’re telling me to get better. I would, but that’s, like… work. And, ugh, pass.”

“It’s not work if it’s fun.”

I chewed my cheek. I believed that, but I still wanted to be difficult. Partly because this whole thing was way too close to home and partly just because being difficult was, like, my thing. “It’s work if it needs me to get out of bed or move or do anything at all.”

“Mm-hm.” She kicked her feet up, looking down at her rainbow socks. “What do you think the ideal form of you is like?”

“Ugh. Cooler and more interesting.”

“More interesting than the person who runs a lizard breeding camp in her spare bedroom?” She laughed. I scowled.

“Who even spilled the deets about the Ultimate Lizard? That was supposed to be a top-secret ultra-confidential high-security containment situation only verified top-clearance secure intel could pick up.”

“Emberlynn told me.”

“Damn.” I slumped back against the door. “For real, though, I don’t know. And I think it’d be too weird to try doing anything about it.”

“How come?”

“Because—this is how I am. Like, everybody knows me. I just have my reputation, you know? And people get weird if you go back on your reputation.”

“Mm… no kidding.” She dropped her gaze to the ground. “I get that. Totally.”

“So you admit all I can do is be a weird loser for the rest of eternity.”

“That’s a really remarkable leap. I don’t think that, actually, but I’m really impressed by the leap, so I have to give credit where it’s due.” She smiled softly at me. “I feel like you should probably talk to Emberlynn, you know? Like… she gets you in a way nobody else does.”

“Ugh, that’s the problem. She’s all caught up in how she thinks I should be. She’s got years of me already catalogued in her mind, and plus, she’s a permanent fixture now, too, which means if I make any weird random changes then it’s going to be something stuck there in our memory forever, and oh my god Kay you’re a genius,” I blurted, standing up, a hot rush in my head all of a sudden. She stood up with me, blinking fast.

“I—what?”

“Oh my god, you’re so right. You are just like Benjamin Franklin because you are on the money.”

“Th-thank you?”

I clapped my hands together, spinning on my heel, and I threw open the door back into the house. “Okay, great talk, Kay! I gotta go. I’ve got stuff to do. Places to do. People to do. Ew. Never mind that last part. I’m gonna run.”

“Paisley—your food!”

I paused next to the table and scraped the last third of my strawberries and cream into my mouth, and I slammed the tea back before I took off.