Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On Halloween of 1980, a tiny, five-pound girl was born in the downstairs bedroom of a terraced house in Hackney. As the youngest child of three, she didn’t care to cry or even speak much; she preferred quietly listening in on others’ conversations, turning their words over and over again in her head until she became numb to them. Her blue eyes were startling to look at, even when she was a baby. It was like they held centuries of secret turmoil just in their color alone. 

She was an odd kid. In school, she would sit in the corner during play-time, taking whatever unfortunate toy’s turn it was on any given day and seeing what sounds she could make from banging it on the floor. 

“Isa,” her one of her earliest primary school teachers had said one day after months of watching her beat a metal car into the tile floor. “Why don’t you come with me?”

That was the day she was introduced to drums, her first love. During play-time, her teacher allowed her to go to the music room—which was normally reserved for the older kids—and bang her heart out on a dilapidated kit sitting in the corner of the room. That year, she always knew she had exactly twenty-seven minutes until a class of older kids came in for their lesson, and she would make the most out of every second.

Eventually, the other kids caught on that Isa wasn’t like them—that she didn’t like to talk, or have any interest in making friends, or possess the ability to understand their immature humor. 

“Mum,” she said as her mother took a long drag of a cigarette one day after school. “I don’t think the other kids like me.”

Her mother sighed, looking over to the tiny, fragile daughter she had somehow managed to create. “Isabella. Fuck ‘em. What other people think of you is none of your business anyway.”

What other people think of me is none of my business. That day, Isabella Summers was handed her mantra for life.

The fact that kids didn’t like her in Hackney didn’t much matter anyway, because by age ten she was moving to the sea, the promise of a better space for their bookshop with better business in the surrounding area too good to pass up for her parents. 

Moving hundreds of thousands of books out to Aldeburgh proved to be a difficult task for the Summers, and it was the time spent in various moving trucks that Isa found her second true love: books. 

She devoured them, each promising her hope for a life outside the dark, cloudy atmosphere of the English sea. She loved nothing more than when her mind would go into a trance and she would forget that she was even reading words on a page as her mind created images more beautiful than her eyes had ever seen. As she grew older, she moved on from reading little-kid books to the books she had seen her parents read over and over again, and finally began to realize why they loved the stacks of paper so much. 

When she was fifteen or so, Isa began to grow annoyed by the neighbors that would blast loud, American rap just outside her window. So annoyed, that one day, she decided to go outside and see what they were up to herself. 

And that was when she found her third and fourth true loves; hip-hop and pills. Though it took months of dedicated research on American rappers at the local library computer, the older boys next door eventually accepted Isa as one of them. She wasn’t allowed to ever touch the decks, but she was handed more cassettes than she ever had time to listen to, filled with songs of beats that reminded her of the wild banging of drums she used to fill her play-time with and expletives. As they grew closer and closer, they started allowing Isa to take the pills of E too, figuring that it would help initiate their new recruit into the music scene. 

Isa liked the pills because they made her feel like for once she wasn’t so damn awkward. When her oldest brother was sent away, they made her forget he ever existed. It was a feeling of warmth and contentment like no other, and it was then that she realized she probably wouldn’t ever be able to give it up. 

That was, until she finally got the money to get her own decks and start DJing at the squat her neighbors frequented. The act of making music on the fly gave her that same, satisfied feeling, and finally, almost twenty years later, what had once made her the weirdest kid at school made her the coolest person in a room filled with creatives from all over London. 

Realizing she’s been lost in a train of thought, she stops reminiscing on how she ended up playing a four hour set on her own birthday, and quickly snaps into high-gear, queueing up the next few songs before setting her headphones around her neck and walking over to the table where a drink is waiting for her. “Laydeeee Isssssa,” Dale says all slurred, wrapping his arm around the much shorter girl in the darkness of the abandoned church basement. 

Isa laughs. “You feeling this good already?”

Dale briefly struggles to swallow a sip of beer before answering. “Baby Bella’s birthday only comes once a year! You know I’m already feeling good.”

Isa shakes her head as she carefully guides the straw of her drink to her lips. “Where’s Matt?” she asks over the sound of the bass that is shaking the walls as the colors of the lights around them rapidly switch to the beat. She hadn’t seen Matt in nearly six months after he basically dropped off the face of the planet to go record an “experimental” record. “He said he was bringing that girlfriend who is yet to be determined as being real.” 

Even through his drunkenness, Dale laughs at Isa’s snide remark about their friend. “I think he’s on his way. He was saying, ehm—I think she didn’t really want to come,” he shouts over the song.

“Ah,” Isa says. “Yeah, this would be a lot for someone new.”

But sure enough, when Matt arrives, it is clear his date is higher than anyone else in the room. 

“Isa!” he says, holding the poor girlfriend’s hand as they move through the crowd to where Isa and Dale are leaning against a table. “Happy birthday, Baby Bella.” 

The girl who is with him is staring at Isa like she has four heads. She looks young—far too young to be so high off E that she can’t keep her eyes focused, and far too young to be dating Isa’s 28 year-old friend. She looks familiar though, and it bothers Isa that she can’t place where she knows the green-eyed-girl from. 

Matt quickly introduces her, but Isa misses her name. Before she gets a chance to ask, someone is calling her name to get back to the tables.

From her spot at the helm of the room, she watches Matt dance with about twenty different girls as the nameless girlfriend wanders the periphery alone. Matt went through girlfriends quickly—it was one thing that truly bothered Isa about him. He would stick around until the sex got boring, and then he would ghost them until they moved on. It was like he didn’t even realize how bad he was, because when Isa’s long-term boyfriend respectfully broke up with her over a dinner that he paid for, Matt threatened to kill him. Yeah, the self-awareness needs work, Isa thinks as she watches him start making out with a girl she doesn't recognize.

A few drinks and probably thirty songs later, Isa is released from her duties at exactly 2:30am. She goes and looks for Matt and Dale, but becomes side-tracked upon seeing Matt’s girlfriend trying to put her head through the drywall.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Isa says, gently taking the girl by the shoulders and guiding her away from the wall. “You’re going to hurt yourself.” Her shoulders are bony and cold, and Isa feels like she could fall over if the slightest gust of wind hit her.

The girl laughs in reply, looking straight through Isa. “It’s melting!” she squeals in the softest voice Isa had ever heard.

“ Jesus Christ ,” Isa mumbles under her breath as she pulls out her phone to call Matt, who was nowhere to be found. 

Fourteen missed calls later, Isa finally leaves a voicemail. “Your girlfriend is tripping balls and I’d like to go home since it’s nearly 3 now,” Isa says sharply into the phone. “If you could come pick her up and bring her back to her parents since she looks like she’s of an age where she probably has school tomorrow, I’d appreciate it.” Isa flips her phone shut and looks over to see the girl studying her hands, flipping them over and over as her eyes rapidly move back and forth.

“Look,” she says, turning to Isa. “I’ve got fucking hands!”

Isa sharply inhales and slowly exhales as she wonders how she got stuck babysitting on her birthday .

Around 5, Isa and the girl are pretty much the only people left in the squat, and she gives up. “You look familiar,” the girl says as Isa helps her up. She’s sobered up, and Isa thinks she might finally be able to get her to tell her where she lives. “Who are you?” 

Isa sighs, looking up and down at the thin girl in front of her. She is wearing white ankle socks and loafers with denim shorts and a plain, tucked-in white t-shirt. She hair is long and the darkest shade of nearly-brown auburn Isa had ever seen. “My name’s Isa, I’m one of Matt’s friends. And yours is…?”

“Florence—ehm, Flo,” she fills in, and suddenly it clicks. 

“Oh, I used to babysit your cousins!” Isa says, remembering the girl with the dyed black hair and shocking green eyes from some of the various birthday parties they had both been to. “You changed your hair.”

Florence laughs and then winces, her head starting to hurt from the come-down. “Yeah, yeah I changed it loads of times.” 

“Where do you live? Can I help you get home?” 

“I live with my family pretty close to here I think, but the door is definitely locked by now.” She pauses, and her eyes look empty as she scans her surroundings. “Do you know where Matt is?”

Isa sighs. “I have no clue. But I do have a couch and some pain killers about a block from here if you’d care to join.”

Florence looks hurt, but she is grateful for the dark-haired girl in front of her offering up a place to stay and some much needed relief from her throbbing head. She does her best to brush off her boyfriend abandoning her in an unfamiliar place, and stands up to join the girl in front of her.

“Yeah, that would be great.”

Though this is pretty pretty typical behavior for Matt, Isa can’t help but feel different about this particular abandonment because usually his girlfriends were just as horrible as he was. They were loud and rude and promiscuous, and Isa usually hated them from the start. Florence on the other hand was young and vulnerable looking, and Isa’s chest hurts as the younger girl starts softly crying on the way home.

The streets of Peckham are nearly empty, only illuminated by a few working street lamps and the headlights coming from a few cars. It’s a haze of black and grey and yellow, with little puddles of water on the concrete reflecting the lights above.

“You okay?” Isa asks as Florence sniffles beside her, their footsteps the only sound around them.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. My head just fucking hurts ,” she replies quietly.

Isa nods, and then they turn the corner to her flat. She quickly unlocks the door, and then turns to Florence, taking her hand to lead her up a flight of stairs.

“Careful,” Isa says, the stairs difficult to navigate even without various substances coursing through her body. Florence drags her feet along, and Isa feels as if she could cry once she manages to get a good look at her dejected face.

When they reach the top, Isa pulls out another key and opens the door, guiding Florence over the threshold. “Why don’t you sit down here,” she says, guiding Florence to her couch. Florence’s arms are red from the cold October night, and there are streams of tears running down her cheeks. Her eyes are swollen and red, and she shakily breathes in and out, willing herself to stop crying in front of this girl she barely knows.

“Thanks,” she croaks out when Isa returns with some water, two tablets, and a small pile of neatly folded clothes. 

“It’s no problem. I’m sorry my friend is such a dick.” 

Florence closes her eyes, shakes her head and laughs slightly, as if to say if only you knew in reply to Isa’s comment before the tears make their return. She quickly swallows the tablets, and Isa can tell she’s holding her breath as her eyes begin to glisten again.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Isa says as she gently takes the clothes and glass out of Florence’s hands and places them on the table. She sits down next to the younger girl and wraps an arm around her, not really sure of how she should deal with the situation. She didn’t have a sister and wasn’t ever particularly close with any girls, so it feels foreign to try comforting her friend’s girlfriend.

Florence gently collapses into Isa’s side, no longer caring if a near-stranger saw her in this state. “Do you want to talk?” Isa asks.

Florence shakes her head.

“Okay, that’s fine. Do you mind me asking how old you are?”

“I just turned twenty.”

Isa bites her lip. This girl is a child compared to Matt.

“Okay,” Isa sighs. “If you want to talk I’ll listen. I know Matt’s no angel, and it seems like there’s something going on there that’s making you this upset.”

Florence quietly exhales and then nods. “Thank you for all of this.”

“Of course,” Isa says. “I hope you’re feeling better soon.”

That morning, Isa wakes to find Florence staring at the ceiling from her spot on the couch. “You alright?”

Florence absently nods. “If we’re being honest, I only remember about half of last night, and you’re going to have to remind me your name.” Her voice is scratchy and tired.

“Isa,” she replies. “I’m one of Matt’s friends.”

She watches Florence process what she said, and then sees a flash of recollection in her eyes. 

“Right, right.”

The sit in silence before Florence speaks again. “Isa, do you mind me showering here? I have class at 11 in Camberwell and I don’t think I have time to get home.”

Isa bites her lip. Of course Matt would go and pick up some twenty-year-old art student. Of fucking course he would.

“Yeah, ‘course you can. It’s around that corner on the left. There's a blue towel on the rack you are welcome to use.”

Florence wordlessly leaves the couch, ungracefully stumbling out of the small space towards the bathroom. Isa briefly wonders if she would be able to safely manage standing up in the shower.

Once Isa hears the water going, she returns to her bedroom and grabs her phone off her side table, curious to see if Matt even noticed the absence of his girlfriend.

She flips it open, and there is one, single text from him that was sent only an hour ago. whoops. do you know where she ended up? im sure shes fine.

Isa’s blood boils. He really didn’t care.

She doesn’t get much of a chance to get worked up about it though, because she is interrupted by a loud rendition of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” coming from the bathroom.

She jumps up, carefully listening to the strong, bluesy voice verberating through the wall. “ What the fuck ,” she whispers, wiping the sleep from her eyes as she listens to perfectly-pitched sustained notes, followed by delicate little runs. She is confused, because the girl who had just left her couch had, quite literally, the quietest voice Isa had ever heard, and now it sounded like the second-coming of Nina Simone—albeit a soprano version—was just a wall away from her. 

The song abruptly ends and the water shuts off. She hears the air turn on and the door creak open, and then Florence is standing in the doorway of her bedroom wrapped in a towel with her hair dripping down her shoulders. “I’m sorry to be asking for so much, but would you by any chance have some spare clothes? Mine smell like vodka and weed, unfortunately. I can give them back to Matt to return to you.” Isa stares at her, trying to figure out if the voice she had just heard had really come from this stick-thin, delicate looking girl. “...or you can say no since you’ve already been nice enough to let some random kid stay in your flat. You know what, actually I’m just gonna—”

“You are welcome to anything in there, don’t worry about it,” Isa says, motioning towards her closet.

Florence exhales, relieved that she didn’t have to go to class smelling like a rave.

“Thank you so much, I—”

“On one condition.”

Florence furrows her brows and leans against the doorframe. “And what’s that?”

“Next Saturday, you’re going to meet me at my place in Crystal Palace. I’ll get your phone number and send you the address.”

“Okay,” Florence says cautiously. “And what exactly do you want to get up to at Crystal Palace?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

—

The next Saturday, Florence finds herself in a makeshift studio with the girl who had basically saved her earlier in the week. 

“Welcome to the shloft,” Isa says, leading her into a little space covered in posters and paintings and doodles. There were stacks of records everywhere, and antiques covered the tops of the shelves that lined the room. To put it nicely, it was semi-organized absolute chaos.

Florence sets down her bag and then plops down on a futon sitting in the corner. She watches as Isa trops up the stairs of the space and returns with a carefully rolled joint.

She holds it out to Florence. “Care to join?”

Florence shakes her head. “No thanks, I ehm—I can't handle weed.”

Isa pauses with a disbelieving laugh. “I’m sorry, you ‘can’t handle weed’ ? You were the highest person in the room a few days ago, and you’re telling me you can’t handle weed ?”

Florence cracks a smile. “The last time I tried it, I thought a vacuum was trying to kill me.”

Isa covers her mouth and laughs. “So you’re an expensive girl, got it, got it.”

Florence laughs right back. “I mean, perhaps , I just prefer to not be under the impression that electrical appliances are trying to kill me. I like the smell though, so please, go on.”

“Fair enough,” Isa says with a smile as she holds it up to her lips.

An hour later, they are in deep conversation about the worst trips they’d ever had.

“I made this piece for a class, it was like, a great big canvas that had fake floral arrangements all over it, and the day of my presentation I was so far gone that I thought it was my house and that I couldn’t leave it,” Florence says as Isa cackles. “Later my professor asked if me sitting in it was part of the instillation, and I made up some shit story about how ‘yes, me being inside it represents how I feel trapped in my art.’”

Then they are both laughing, Florence comfortably sitting on one side of the futon while Isa hangs on her every word from the other.  

“So art college?” Isa asks.

“Yeah, my mum is absolutely desperate for me to get a degree in anything .” Isa shakes her head in sympathy. She had also once been subjected to go to school just to please her parents. “But also, anything wrong with art?” Florence quips back.

Isa shrugs. “No, not really except for the fact you sound like the next Nina Simone and should be in music.”

As soon as she looks over at Florence, Isa realizes she hit a sore spot. Florence’s eyes drift downward, and Isa can see her shrink into the futon.

“...Unless there’s a reason you’re not?”

“No, no, I um—I…” Florence laughs as she tries to find the words. “It’s just, I was in a band and I basically signed my life away without realizing it last year, and so I had to resign in order to get out of this contract. So I was alone, but then I met Matt, and he’s been playing guitar for me just at like, local club nights and stuff in exchange for me singing backing vocals for his band.”

Isa nods. “Music contracts can be a bitch.”

Florence forcefully exhales through pursed lips. “Learned that one the hard way.”

Isa thinks carefully before speaking her next sentence. “Matt never mentioned you sing.”

“Yeah, he um…he kind of forgets as soon as the gigs are over.”

“Do you like being in his band?”

Florence laughs. “Not really. Their stuff is a bit much. But I need a guitarist, you know?”

Isa bites her lip as she studies Florence. Something tells her that Florence isn’t at all happy in their relationship, and that there was something other than love keeping them together. “Do you like Matt?”

Florence takes a moment to think before answering, which for Isa, is an answer in and of itself. “Yeah, I do. He’s good to me. He can be a bit...overbearing sometimes though. I think he kind of forgets that this is like, the first proper relationship I’ve ever been in.”

Isa simply shakes her head, not quite wanting to pry any further. “You’re young, it’s okay to tell him to slow the fuck down and be nice you know.”

Florence lets out a facetious chuckle. “ I’ve tried ,” she whispers under her breath.

“Pardon?” Isa quips, missing whatever the quiet girl said.

“Nothing. So are you going to show me the upstairs or not?”

The upstairs, Florence finds out, is equally chaotic, save for a corner filled with expensive recording equipment and a desktop.

“Fancy,” Florence says, eyeing a mic and keyboard. Isa laughs.

“The mic I got from an estate sale, the keyboard is a literal piece of shit, and the desktop is on loan in exchange for some mixing and mastering,” she says. “So, do you want to mess around for a few hours?”

The hours pass quickly; at some point they realize that the sun has set and they pause to turn on a pulley light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Isa struggles to find a distance that Florence can stand from the mic that gives good quality without getting distorted feedback from just how loud she is. By the end of the night, they have a few random things recorded, from covers of Beyoncé to Christmas songs.

“You have a fucking voice,” Isa says as the clock strikes two in the morning. Neither of them had eaten any real food all day, but they don’t notice, the banter between them to entertaining to depart from.

Florence blushes. “I’m kind of used to doing the backup vocals thing,” she confesses.

Isa scoffs. “Do they even put a mic on you?”

“I mean, yeah. Sometimes we share mics, but—”

“It was a joke. You’re loud ,” Isa says.

Florence laughs and furrows a brow. “Really?”

Isa laughs back at her, fairly surprised the girl wasn’t deaf just from listening to herself. “Florence, I’m shocked we haven’t gotten a noise complaint yet. You’ve got some lungs on you babe.”

The little studio sessions become a somewhat regular occurrence, Florence coming over at 2:38 on the dot every Tuesday and Thursday on her bike after her 2:30 class gets out. Eventually, she starts bringing little poems she had written over, letting Isa rummage through them to pick out ones she wanted to work on.

“What the fuck is this,” Isa asks one day, stopping on a particularly disturbing poem dated from 2002 titled Halloween .

Florence quizzically glances over to find her old notebook opened up to a poem she had written on a day she was particularly upset about her parents separation. She laughs as she looks at Isa’s confused face.

“I dunno, I was kind of a fucked up kid,” she giggles. “It was about my parents, but I mean, it’s funny looking back at it now.”

Isa raises an eyebrow. “This tale of pre-meditated murder is about your parents ?”

Florence shrugs. “Perhaps not the murder part. The rest of it though? Basically what happened.”

Isa grimaces as she reads the words about deception and lying and revenge again. “That sounds like a lot, I’m sorry Florence. We don’t have to record this one, even though I’m really into it.”

Florence laughs. “Are you kidding? I think it’s funny, and if you like it, we're doing it.”

The days linger on like that; Florence comes over, complains about how awful school and her mother and Matt are, Isa nods along, then tells Florence some story about one of her side projects and how awful it’s going, then they head upstairs and bang on the walls and sing until Florence’s voice starts cracking.

They spend a lot of time telling each other about their lives too. Florence tells Isa about her five siblings, three of which are step-siblings, and Isa struggles to remember their names as Florence flips from story to story of them fighting and stealing each others things and generally being horrible to each other. Isa tells Florence about her somewhat overbearing parents, and eventually, her two brothers: Jack, an older brother who Isa says was sent away a few years ago without giving Florence much explanation, and Wade, a younger brother who had started dealing with schizophrenia about a year ago. Florence tells Isa about her father up and moving to Russia, and Isa tells Florence about an ex-boyfriend who had threatened to kill her over some pills. 

It’s weird, Isa thinks, because even though they had been getting closer and closer, Florence never really talked about her and Matt’s relationship. She had told Isa some pretty horrible things he had done and said, but she never once spoke a good word about him. Isa spent an entire night scouring the web for any shitty videos or audio she could find of Matt’s band, listening to Florence sing in the background about violence and generally weird stuff that his band liked to write about. He gets mentioned in passing a few times after gigs on Friday nights and the weekends, but other than that she seems like she wants to forget about his existence and the fact they are in a relationship.

She doesn’t push it though, choosing instead to focus on the music.

After a few weeks, they have five or so demos that Isa feels are ready to leave the walls of the studio.

“Alright, what’s our name,” Isa says, curled up in a blanket on one side of her tiny balcony late one Friday night. The November air is chilly, but she liked the balcony; it was a space where time didn’t exist, where she could be alone with her thoughts and just watch the moon slowly move across the night sky. 

Florence sips on her drink, carefully contemplating the question. She can see the white screen of Isa’s laptop reflecting in her eyes as she looks at her with an impatient face. “Florrible and Misrabella.”

Isa scoffs. “What?”
“My dad used to call me Florrible when I would get in all sorts of trouble as a kid, and you are always miserable so— Misrabella .”
Isa laughs but nods her head. “You know, that might work,” she says, quickly typing it on her keyboard. 

“This feels so official,” Florence says. “Do we have an official photo?”

Isa turns her laptop around, and the profile picture is a photo Isa must have snuck in the studio, half of it Isa’s face and the other half Florence singing into the mic in the background.

Florence laughs. “I guess that works for now. We can have a professional MySpace once we start making the big bucks.”

Isa cackles. “Oh Florence, if you think we’re gonna be making big bucks doing this you should go ahead and run away now .”

“Alright, alright, fine . We can have a professional MySpace once I use my charming ways to convince whoever’s in charge of Glasto to let us headline and we get some real money.”

Isa laughs loudly, tossing her head back against the balcony rails. “Could you even imagine? Me, just sitting playing three chords on a loop, and you blowing the entire sound system? That would be fucking hilarious .”

“I think the Gasto crowd would love it, who doesn’t love some good songs about murder?”

The two of them go back and forth, adding onto the ridiculous hypothetical performance until they are in tears, unable to speak because of their laughter. 

—

The Tuesday after the MySpace goes up, Florence doesn’t show up to Crystal Palace. Isa spends the afternoon trying to convince herself that it didn’t mean anything, that Florence was probably just busy with some new project or school had run late. 

She starts getting annoyed when she doesn’t answer her phone though. Two calls turn into twenty, and later that night, Isa finally decides to text Matt.

From Isa, 22:27: u know where flo is?

From Matt, 22:39: she’s with me

From Isa, 22:39: can u ask her if theres a reason shes not answering me?

From Matt, 22:58: cos shes not your girlfriend

Isa feels her heart catch in her throat. Is Matt jealous of his girlfriend spending time with anyone but him? she wonders. She scoffs as she puts her phone down and crawls under the covers. She thinks about Florence, and all the stories she had been telling Isa about just how controlling and manipulative he is. How he had taken a song that she basically wrote herself and recorded it without giving her any credit. How he had all but forced her to double drop on LSD just so he’d have someone to commiserate with the next morning. She briefly has a thought that perhaps Florence isn’t safe, but then is upset with herself for even thinking that about Matt. Sure, he is a dick, but he would never hurt someone .

She spends the next few days blankly staring at her television screen, leaving only to get a blunt or map out some chords on her piano a few times every few hours. She starts losing track of time, and finds herself getting more and more anxious about the absence of her new friend. She wants nothing more than to go and bang on Matt’s door, but she knows it would do no good for anyone. She flicks through the channels, desperately trying to find something entertaining enough to make her forget about the girl she should have known would disappear eventually. The balcony becomes a hiding place, the cold wind making the days pass a little less painfully as she tries to convince herself that Florence would soon just be another one of Matt’s ex-girlfriends that she wouldn’t remember come New Years.

Chapter Text

Isa was nineteen when she stopped taking pills. 

The decision came in church on a cold day in 1999, the morning after Isa had come as close to death as she ever wanted to get. 

When Dale had started giving her E, it was always the same little circular shape with bright colors that reminded her of the valentine’s heart candies that people gave out at school when she was younger. Her group of friends had used those for years, and she didn’t care enough to really consider where they were coming from. Dale would give her some every once in awhile, and in return, she would buy him meals here and there when they would all go out at 2am on Friday nights. In those years, nothing bad had ever happened to a single one of them. They would all happily watch the lights morph into funny shapes and listen to music and make out with each other, and then go home once it started to wear off.

When she met Frank, though, it all started to change. 

She was seventeen, and he assured her that the white pills he presented her with were no different than the candy-looking pills she had been taking for years. She knew they were different—they made her heart pound and the colors she would see were actually dimmer rather than brighter. She didn’t dare question him though, all too aware that this was the first guy who didn’t look at her like she was their little sister. Frank was the first to tell Isa that she was pretty, that she was smart—talented, even. 

And so Isa didn’t question him when he started giving her nexus pills either. It was somewhere between MDMA and LSD, he told her, and it would make her feel like time didn’t exist. 

It did as he promised, though Isa wasn’t sure if she liked it. She would see things that would disappear as soon as she tried to focus on them, and she felt like she could feel the earth spinning beneath her feet. Every time she took one, it felt slightly different. It was never the same experience twice, which made her feel uneasy.

You just have to make sure it’s pure , she could remember Dale telling her the first time she took E when she was fifteen. If it’s pure and you’re not taking too much, it won’t cause any harm, promise .

The problem was, Frank wasn’t cautious like Dale was. He was happy to take whatever he could get his hands on, and was always sure to strongly encourage Isa to keep up. It went from E, to Nexus, to magic mushrooms, to LSD.

That one fateful Friday night, Frank handed Isa a little green tablet, one that reminded her of the ones Dale used to get. 

“E?” she asked. Frank only nodded, continuing to mingle with his friends. She shrugged and downed it without much of a thought. She music and lights were blaring, and she wanted to make the most of the time she had that night.

Turns out though, the seemingly harmless pill was laced with fentanyl.

Within minutes, she felt more tired than she had the day after she pulled two back-to-back all nighters. She found an empty corner of the basement they were in, and slumped down against the wall before closing her eyes, no longer able to control the urge to fall asleep. “You good?” she vaguely remembered someone asking her. 

And that was it.

Next thing she knew, she was waking up in A&E, an oxygen mask on her face as doctors whirred around her. Through her hazy vision, she could see Dale being questioned by police in the opposite corner of the space. 

She squinted at the lights, desperately trying to piece together what happened, but was quickly filled in by a nice police woman who came to ask her about what happened. 

“Took two doses of naloxone to get you back, love,” she said gently as she hovered over Isa. “Do you know what you took?”

Isa shakes her head. “I think it was supposed to be E. Clearly it wasn’t.”

The older woman shook her head. “Any idea where it might have come from?”

Isa shook her head. “My boyfriend gave it to me. We were at a party. I don’t really remember much,” Isa said. 

The woman finished taking down her notes, and then bit her lip as she looked at Isa. She placed her hand over Isa’s, and softly spoke.

“I see way too many dead kids, love. I’m really not supposed to say anything like this, but I really thought you were going to be another one of them back there. If this is a regular occurrence for you, it’s got to stop. If it’s not, don’t make it one.”

She left without another word as Dale shimmied into the room. 

“Jesus Christ, Iz,” he said, quickly moving over to her bed before engulfing her in a hug. “Never again,” he whispered over and over again, through tears. Isa hadn’t ever seen him so emotional.

After he told her about how she was blue, and unresponsive, and breathing only once every ten seconds or so though, Isa got it. 

“Isa,” Dale had said earnestly as tears streamed down his face, “I really thought you were going to die.”

They kept her in the hospital for the day before discharging her with pamphlets for treatment centers and support groups. She went home that Saturday afternoon and simply told her parents that she had ended up staying the night at one of her friend’s houses and gotten caught up working on a project. 

The next morning, as her parents solemnly kneeled in the church a block away from her house, she meditated on the words from that police officer, and promised herself that she would never touch another pill for the rest of her life. 

—

From Dale, 13:48: u coming over tomorrow?

Isa had been dreading the weekend, knowing that her group of friends had plans to go watch Matt’s band and then hang out afterward. She felt weird about Florence—she couldn’t think of anything she might have done wrong, but the silence from Florence was painful. They had gotten so close so quickly, and Isa was happy to finally have a friend she could be emotional with. She was desperate to be able to share her pain with someone that somewhat understood. After a week or so of no responses though, Isa had given up on trying to make contact.

She knows that Florence will be at the gig; in fact, her name is on the bill as the opening act for the night. Isa is stuck between wanting to go and force her to explain the radio silence, and wanting to give her the space she apparently wanted. 

She surprises herself as she types back a reply to Dale.

From Isa, 14:01: yea of course, ill be there at 7

Around seven-thirty, Isa arrives to Dale’s flat. In the typical way a twenty-something-year-old guy’s place is, it smells vaguely of beer and is filled with various black items of furniture with old, cheap prints of bands hung on the walls with thumbtacks. 

She opens the door and is met with the comforting smell of smoke laced with the slightest bit of weed. “In the back!” she can hear Dale shout. She steps over strewn about shoes, and makes her way through his living room and into the small kitchen. There are various containers of alcohol open along with some plastic cups. 

“Glad to see you’re alive,” Dale says, handing her a coke and vodka in one of the clear cups. There are the usual suspects, Ollie, and Mo, and Issac, along with a few new faces leaning against the countertop as music plays in the background. One of the new guys lights up, and Isa has to hold back a laugh as he chokes on the smoke. He is the tallest in the room, but looks like he can’t be more than eighteen or so, especially as he spectacularly fails to convince the others that he has any experience smoking. Another, shorter new guy laughs at him, his grey eyes flicking between his drink and the kid caught in a coughing fit. “I feel like I haven’t heard from you in years.”

“It’s been three weeks,” Isa says, grabbing the cup out of Dale’s large hand. “Quit being dramatic.”

Dale smirks and raises his eyebrow. “Alright then,” he says, “was just worried is all.”

Isa rolls her eyes. “How have you been?”

Dale nods his head as he slowly sips on a beer. “I’ve been alright. Still having a bit of a hard time finding work, but can’t complain. How have you been?”

Isa takes a long sip from her drink, somewhat somewhat enjoying the burning feeling in the back of her throat and chest. For some unknown reason, just seeing his bright blue eyes triggers something in her, and she finds herself desperately craving one of those bright little tablets he used to press into her young, innocent hands. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

When they arrive at the pub, the stage is set up, but Florence is nowhere to be found. Isa desperately looks around the room for any sign of the lanky girl, but she is only met with unfamiliar faces caught up in their own little worlds. She continues drinking glass after glass of whatever Dale and Issac hand over to her until she can barely remember where she is.

At some point in the hazy chaos, one of the guys in Matt’s band steps up to the mic and announces that Florence was unable to make it.

“We’re going to start our set a little early to make up for it, we hope you all enjoy,” he says, putting the mic back in the stand and resigning to the old drum kit situated at the back of the small stage. 

“ What the fuck ,” Isa says indignantly to Dale, falling into his side as she tries to navigate the crowded room; she is too drunk to try and play it cool.

“What?” he asks, unsure of what Isa is so upset about.

“Florence, where is she?”

“Who?”

Isa scoffs. “Matt’s girlfriend. She’s not here.”

“Oh,” Dale says, looking to the stage. “Yeah, guess she’s not. I dunno, they were having a bit of a fight last week I think. Matt was saying she was being annoying.”

Isa furrows her brows. “And you think that’s why she’s not here?”

Dale shrugs. “I mean, maybe. I don’t think he’s quite used to having girlfriends who aren’t down to wait on him hand and foot. Or maybe she’s just sick or something.”

Isa shakes her head as she listens to the band start playing. The sound of the snare drum makes her think that her head might explode. 

“I haven’t heard from her in weeks now.”

Dale looks at her in confusion. “You know her?”

“She went home with me on my birthday.” Dale raises his eyebrows. “ Fuck you , not like that,” Isa sighs. “Matt left and she couldn’t get home. We ended up going to the studio a bit and recorded some stuff. But now she’s ghosting me like it’s her job.”

“Huh,” Dale says, studying the stage. “To be honest, I didn’t even know the girl sang until I saw she was supposed to open tonight.”

Isa rolls her eyes. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Matt had always been a bit of an outsider in the group Dale had created. Dale was one of the nicest people Isa had ever met; his family had moved to Aldelburgh from New York when he was twelve, making him and Isa sort of kindred spirits as they tried to make friends in a place that wasn’t really meant for them. He had a weird accent from the day Isa met him when she was fifteen. It was an American accent, but after years of being surrounded by Brits, his vowels had gradually grown longer and longer. 

He had an amazing way of making people feel welcome once they were able to get over his intimidating gaze and love for hardcore rap music. With a knack for being able to read people just from one interaction, he surrounded himself with individuals who really cared about one another, and Isa was thrilled to be included in his ranks. 

Perhaps his caring nature was why Matt was inducted into the group the summer after Year 11. “This is Matt,” Dale had said after arriving on one of their typical Friday nights. “Let’s all be nice to him.” 

Matt was nice enough. He played along with the group’s banter, and seemed to show sufficient interest in everyone. He tolerated the rap music Dale loved to mix, though he was very vocal about how it wasn’t “real” music. He and Isa bonded over a mutual love of EastEnders, and soon after began collaborating on a few small projects. 

He quickly became very protective of Isa, even though he was only a whopping two and a half years older than her. Isa was never sure what to think when he would watch her like a hawk when she would sneak into clubs underage, or when he would walk her home when she was too drunk to navigate the empty streets alone, but eventually she learned to just be grateful someone cared about her at all.

As they grew up though, Matt became withdrawn, getting so caught up in the lights and sounds and feelings that came with music and drugs that he started to forget about the group. Isa didn’t mind, really—she never really understood why Matt hung out with them in the first place. He wasn’t like them. He wasn’t a genuinely nice person, he wasn’t laid back, and to be perfectly honest, he was a little too preoccupied with some messed-up-shit for Isa’s taste. But Dale always made an effort to continue including him, and only in the last year, Matt—and his various, fleeting girlfriends—returned to their lives.

Isa struggles to reconcile his reappearance with her newfound friendship. If Matt hadn’t started hanging out with them again, Isa wouldn’t have met Florence. But she also wouldn’t have had to deal with his messiness. Or his various stories that she absolutely did not want to hear.

Like when he starts talking about Florence later that night after the gig is over.

“Yeah, she was so fucking high she couldn’t speak in sentences,” he hears him cackle from her spot in the kitchen. She is pouring herself another drink while the guys smoke in the living room, but puts it down upon hearing Matt’s voice.

“No, no,” she hears him respond to someone quite loudly. “I think she’s like, nineteen maybe? But she is just so inexperienced. I originally thought that would make it hot, but it’s a mess. I don’t think she even wants me. It would help if she would at least pretend she likes it,” he laughs. “I have to basically force her to even hang out with me.” 

She feels sick listening to Matt’s loud voice, but suddenly, she is joined in the kitchen by the kid who was choking on the cigarette earlier in the day. “Hey,” he says, shimmying next to Isa to make himself a drink.

Isa nods at him in acknowledgement. He quickly downs the alcohol in one sip, and Isa raises an eyebrow. “How the hell do you deal with them?” he asks, putting the glass down and looking to Isa.

“With what?”

“With them talking about their girlfriends like that. Most of my close friends are girls and I have three sisters. I don’t put up with that shit. You’re friends with them?”

Isa chokes on her words. “I—ehm, kinda. I mean, well, not really. Not Matt, anyway.”

Rob nods. “He’s a fucking asshole.”

Isa isn’t sure what to think. She has no clue who this guy is, and even though he wasn’t wrong, Isa felt a bit odd about him making a judgement like that about someone she used to care about, even if only a little bit.

Instead of fighting him though, she just nods. “What’s your name?”

“Oh, Rob,” he says, sticking his hand out. “I met Dale a few weeks ago at a gig and we’ve been working together a bit. I do a little bit of mixing, but guitar is my main… thing , I guess.”

“I’m Isa,” she says, squeezing his hand in return. “Keyboard is my thing . It’s nice to meet you.”

Isa and her new baby-faced friend spend time talking about some of the local bands, and his failed attempt at music school, and her currently failing attempt at film studies. 

“You recording with anyone right now?” he asks.

Isa hesitates. “I was recording with a singer, but that’s kind of on hold right now,” she says, trying to hide her disappointment while avoiding questions about who exactly the singer was.

Rob nods. “Well if you ever need a guitar over some of your beats,” he says, grabbing an old envelope and a pen from Dale’s countertop, “just let me know.”

He gently hands Isa the scrap paper before giving her a small smile and departing the space.

With no one left to talk to, Isa decides to leave. Without anyone noticing, she slips out of Dale’s door and onto the streets of Peckham. The air is cold and wet, the kind of weather that makes her lungs ache and the skin of her face burn with pain. She wraps her thin jacket around herself a bit tighter and listens to the sound of her footsteps as she replays what Matt said over and over again in her head. 

“She couldn’t speak in sentences.”

“She is just so inexperienced.”

“It would help if she would at least pretend she likes it.”

“I have to basically force her to even hang out with me.” 

She feels sick as she turns the corners and watches her breath dissipate into little vapor clouds in the cold air in front of her face. 

She gets home and rolls a blunt, hoping it will settle her stomach and her thoughts, even if only a little bit. She slowly inhales and exhales, savoring the feeling in her throat and lungs as she gradually begins to relax. 

After awhile, she pulls out her phone, promising herself that this will be her one last attempt at making contact with Florence before actually giving up.

From Isa, 01:21: please answer me

From Isa, 01:21: im worried about u, im sorry if i did something wrong x

The next morning, she wakes, and exactly as she expected, there is still no response.

—

The days of silence turn into weeks, and soon enough there are Christmas decorations strewn about the buildings of Crystal Palace. 

One Thursday afternoon, Isa is finally determined to get some work done for a soundtrack she is making for one of her film projects. She takes the normal bus out to Crystal Palace, and as soon as she arrives, she turns on the space heater that she fears will one day burn the whole place down. As she starts working on some chords, she can’t help but wonder what Florence is up to, and why she had so suddenly disappeared on her. Isa thought they had started building a solid partnership, and now all she had to show for it was a few poor-quality MySpace files.

She works for a few hours, quietly going back and forth between the keyboard and the desktop, and around eleven, she decides to retire to the futon downstairs. Her mind wanders through everything going on her world, ranging from the disappearance of Florence to the new video series she was trying to get up on YouTube. She had so much video to edit, but can’t even bring herself to look at it until she finishes up the soundtrack she had been assigned. She thinks about her car that still needs to get fixed up, and her parents who were struggling to manage the book store. 

Just as she begins to finally get warm and comfortable under her small blanket, she hears a quiet knock. She pauses, trying to figure out if it actually came from her door. Then there is an unmistakable banging. 

She cautiously gets up, knowing that someone outside her door at nearly midnight couldn’t be a good thing. 

“Hello?” she says hesitantly through the thin piece of wood.

“Can I come in?” she hears faintly in a familiar voice.

Isa opens the door to find Florence biting her lip, dressed only in a pair of shorts and a thin sweater. Her face is pale and stained with tear trails, and her hair is haphazardly pulled back into a ponytail.

“Oh sweetheart,” Isa says gently, guiding her in by the shoulder. She closes the door behind them and takes Florence’s hand, leading her to the futon. Her skin is freezing to the touch, and Isa moves the small heater closer to them, desperate to get Florence warm. “What happened love? How did you get here?”

Florence shakily inhales as her face contorts into a frown. “I know you don’t want to see me, I’m so sorry, I just didn’t know where else to go,” she says.

Isa shakes her head in confusion. “Flo, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve missed you. I’m glad you came here. You weren’t answering my calls. I—” she pauses, knowing there was a bigger issue than Florence’s lack of communication. “What happened? What are you doing here?”

For a moment, Florence doesn’t answer. She opens her mouth to answer, but then starts sobbing instead, awful cries escaping her slightly parted mouth as her eyes squeeze shut. Isa cautiously wraps an arm around her, guiding her head to her shoulder. Florence shakes with each breath until she finally calms down enough to speak. 

“Matt, he, ehm—we got in a really bad fight,” she says quietly. 

Isa sympathetically nods her head. “Are you okay?”

Florence shrugs.

“Florence, did he…” she struggles to get out the words. Even though he was far less than perfect, this was her friend, someone who used to walk her home at night. “Did he hurt you?”

Florence immediately shakes her head and adamantly denies it. “No, no. He put a pretty good crack through the wall of my room though.”

Isa holds her tighter. “Why didn’t you call? Did you walk here all the way from Camberwell?”

“I rode my bike. I actually went to Peckham first. You weren’t there so I figured you were probably here. I’ve called you hundreds of times.” Florence pulls out her phone and opens up her call list, and there it was, Isa’s number listed over and over and over again. 

Isa gently takes her phone in disbelief, looking through all of the calls that span weeks. 

“I texted you too,” Florence adds in a whisper. Isa looks through all of them, and oddly, not a single one of hers was showing in the thread. Isa goes back to the call list, and calls her number. She waits for her phone to go off, but there is nothing. She scoffs and then calls Florence from her phone. Nothing. 

“And your phone is working for other people?” Isa asks.

Florence nods in reply. 

Then it hits her. 

“cos shes not your girlfriend .”

She goes into Florence’s settings, and exactly as she had expected, her number is blocked. She silently deletes it off the list, and then calls again. Miraculously, her phone instantly starts playing its ringtone. 

“There, it should work now,” Isa says, trying to hide her disbelief that Matt would do such a thing. 

“Thanks,” Florence says. “I have no idea why it was doing that.”

“Yeah, weird,” Isa replies.

They sit in silence again, Florence leaning forward on the edge of the futon with her head between her hands. “I’m really sorry to intrude like this, I just really couldn’t think of anyone else to go to at the moment. I got kind of scared.”
Isa shakes her head. “No Flo. I’m really glad you came here. I wouldn’t want you to be anywhere else right now,” she says, wrapping Florence in a tight hug.

Somehow, they manage to both fit on the futon that night, tightly nestled together under Isa’s blanket. 

Florence is exhausted, the hour and a half bike excursion taking its toll as she tries to fall asleep. Isa had given her an old pair of joggers and a t-shirt to sleep in, and Florence is thankful for the dry warmth as she lies with Isa’s arm wrapped around her side. She feels relieved that it was her phone acting up, rather than Isa being mad at her, that had resulted in the silence. School had gotten busy, and by the time she was able to come back and record, it had been a week of no responses from Isa, and she would have felt weird barging in.

Florence sleeps peacefully through the night, Isa’s breaths on her neck washing a sense of calm over her. She wakes with the sun streaming through the small window the next morning. Isa gets up first, and Florence remains in a sleepy, half-awake haze until she smells coffee burning. 

Florence gets up, her feet aching as they tread across the cold ground to the upstairs. 

“Morning,” Isa says, pouring the pot of coffee into a styrofoam cup. She hands the cup to Florence, and Florence smiles in return. 

“I thought you didn’t like coffee,” she says, adding a packet of sugar that Isa had ready.

“I fucking hate it,” Isa laughs. “I keep it here for when people visit. I remembered that you said that you liked it.”

“I do,” Florence says with a smile as she carefully sips on it, despite its slight burntness. “Thank you, for all of this.”
Isa waves her off. “It’s no problem. I’m really glad you came over. I’ve missed you.”

Florence sighs and puts her coffee down. “I missed you too. I’ll get a new phone tomorrow if it means I don’t ever lose you again,” she says with a laugh.

—

That afternoon, after taking the bus home and a long, long shower, Florence texts Isa a question.

From Florence, 16:26: do u want to go out tn? matt is gone

From Isa, 16:32: yea, would love that. wheres matt?

From Florence, 16:33: ill explain later. meet you at yours around 10?

From Isa: sounds perfect x

Florence arrives outside Isa’s flat closer to 11 than to 10, but Isa isn’t at all upset when she is met with a ferocious hug and a huge grin. She is wearing a plain dress, and Isa feels overdressed in her skirt and heels. Florence quickly dispels her qualms though, insisting that she was dressed perfectly for the place they are going.

“I’m so excited,” Florence says. “It’s been ages since I’ve just gone out with a friend. I’m usually with all the guys.”

Isa laughs. “Me too,” she replies. “So, where exactly are we going?”

Florence pulls out her phone. “There is this place that does theme nights that me and my friends go to, and tonight is Madonna. I was thinking we could head there for a few hours?”

“Oh my god, amazing,” Isa says, grinning.

When they arrive, the bar is full of girls and gays, and Isa realizes why Florence felt comfortable coming here without any male friends. 

“Express Yourself,” blares in the background, and Florence walks Isa over to the bar, where they order two drinks that are quickly downed before Florence takes Isa’s hand and pulls her towards the dance floor. 

They dance hand in hand for awhile, twirling to the beats until they are dizzy. At some point, Isa pulls Florence close. “I’m taking a picture,” she shouts over the loud music, pulling out an old polaroid camera from the bag slung across her waist. 

“Where the hell did you get that?” Florence asks loudly with a laugh.

“I stole it from one of my classes years ago, I bring it everywhere.” Isa extends her arm out in front of them, and Florence plants a kiss on Isa’s cheek. There is a quick flash, and then the picture is quickly ejected out of the front. Isa pulls it out with a smirk, waving it through the air a few times before safely tucking it into her wallet as the lights flash in time with the beat above.

They spend the rest of the night dancing, taking short breaks to the bar to get drinks, and eventually, they drag themselves back to Isa’s apartment. 

By the time they arrive back, they are mostly sobered up, and they giggle in Isa’s bathroom as they wipe the makeup from their faces. They recall some of the best songs that were played throughout the night, and the best drinks they had. 

When they are done changing into t-shirts and pants, Florence says goodnight as she heads to Isa’s couch. 

“Flo,” Isa scoffs as she walks away. “I know you now, get in here.”

Florence shakes her head. “I really don’t mind, I can sleep out—”

Isa takes her hand and pulls her towards her room. “Florence, look at the size of me, and then look at the size of that bed. It’s truly no problem. I could use the extra heat anyway.”

Florence finally agrees, following Isa into her room and crawling into the bed. Once they are settled, Isa pulls the string on her lamp, and they are engulfed in darkness.

Florence lies still, thinking about where Matt must have run off to as her head sinks into the pillow. He had texted her that he needed space and was leaving London for the week, and that if she wanted him to continue playing guitar for her she needed to “get it together” with no further explanation. She listens to Isa breathe, and suddenly, she feels overwhelmed.

Under the safety of Isa’s warm blankets, Florence begins to cry. It is subtle at first, her breaths a little ragged, but after a few moments there are cries escaping her throat as her whole body shakes.

“What’s wrong?” Isa whispers, propping herself up on her elbow next to Florence.

Florence shakes her head as she tries to wipe the tears from under her eyes. “I had such a good time tonight. I haven’t had that much fun in a long time. I just—” 

Her face scrunches up, and then she is sobbing, fully unable to control her tears.

“Shh,” Isa says, coaxing her to sit up before wrapping her in a bone-crushing hug. Isa rests her chin on Florence’s shoulder as she cradles her head with one hand while rubbing small circles into her back with the other. Florence gasps for air, and Isa patiently continues to hold her until she calms down. 

After awhile, Florence pulls away. She looks down at her hands, and Isa can tell there is something on her mind.

Just as Isa is about to ask her what she is thinking about, Florence speaks.

“Can I talk to you about something?”

“You can talk to me about anything.”

Florence looks at her and pauses. “Have you ever had a serious boyfriend, Isa?”

Isa nods. “Two serious ones.”

“Were they nice to you?”

Isa hesitates, thinking back to all the shit Frank used to pull with her. “No. The first one wasn’t.”

Florence nods as she stares down at the blanket and chews on her cheek.

“Matt isn’t nice to me,” she says breathily after a period of silence. She looks up at Isa to see her thoughts in the soft glow of the moonlight. Isa nods, Florence’s words only confirming what she already thought.

Silently, Isa wraps Florence back up as she starts to softly cry again. She smoothes her hand over her hair until she is ready to talk.

“Why don’t we start at the beginning, Flo.”

Florence takes a deep breath and quietly begins talking.

It all started with her old band, she tells Isa. It was a large band, 10 or so musicians, and they were doing fairly well playing around London over the past two years or so. She met Matt when she was in that band one night at a gig. They were both playing in the same pub, and the two of them hit it off, quickly becoming friends. They would hang out at parties, and get rowdy during the other’s sets, and all was good and fun. 

Eventually, Florence’s band signed a contract with a local label, which Florence thought was great until she realized she was not allowed to perform or record any solo work. 

Quickly, her dad hired a lawyer, and she resigned from the band, which freed her from the restraints the contract had imposed on her, but also left her entirely without a band or the rights to the songs she had written. She spent a while performing covers, burning whatever instrumental arrangements she could find onto CDs, and one night, Matt saw her performing alone after not having heard from her in months. 

He took her out for a late dinner, and proposed that she start doing vocals for his band in exchange for him playing guitar for her. She immediately agreed, and their business deal gradually evolved into a relationship. Matt had showered her with compliments and invitations to parties until eventually, she finally agreed to go out with him.

It started out nice enough—he would take her out to dinner, or pick her up to watch reruns of old shows on Saturday mornings. They would go out and watch whatever new bands were playing, laughing at each other’s dumb jokes as they would walk their way home.

The one thing she was incredibly aware of, however, was that no matter how nice their arrangement seemed, he was eventually going to want more from her. 

“What do you mean?” Isa asks when Florence stops talking. Florence leans back on the pillow behind her and exhales as her eyes float up to the ceiling. 

“Sex. He wanted sex and I was fucking terrified. I was the last of my close friends to hook up with a guy, but it was just not something I ever wanted. Matt was patient enough when we first got together I suppose, but eventually he was getting so mad every time I said no and I felt like I had to agree to it.”

Isa’s chest tightens. She sometimes forgot just how young Florence is. 

“So what happened?”

Florence shakily exhales. “Eventually I said yes. And I hated it. Every second of it. It was so—” she shakes her head as she looks for the words, her eyes glistening in the bit of moonlight coming through the curtain. “It hurt. There is no aspect of it that I enjoy. Eventually he wasn’t really asking me if I wanted to, but it was kind of like, who was I to say no at this point? This is what people in relationships do.”

Isa shakes her head. “That’s not right, Flo.”

Florence scoffs and then shakes her head. “What’s more not-right is hitting your girlfriend and then punching her wall when she finally decides to say no.”

Isa’s breath catches in her throat. “He hit you? I thought you said he didn’t hurt you,” she says quietly. 

Florence ever-so-slightly nods. “I sort-of lied. That’s why I came over the other night. We were at my mum’s, I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t want to stay there. He hit me, and I think it kind of shocked him, because then he put a hole through my wall. I don’t think he meant it—we had been arguing all day and I think me telling him I was just too tired for sex put him over the edge.”

“Are you okay?” Isa asks, delicately lacing her fingers through Florence’s under the blanket. 

Florence nods. “Physically, I’m fine. It barely even left a mark. I’m just afraid of what could happen next time.”

“ Next time?” Isa asks indignantly. “Florence, no. There will not be a next time. You need to end it.”

Florence shakes her head as tears return to her eyes. “It’s not that easy,” she whispers.

“Yes it is, Flo. You need to stop seeing him. I don’t think he’ll give you much trouble, he tends to move on quickly.”

“I can’t Isa. I already had my one stroke of luck in finding someone willing to play for me. I’m not going to have another.”

Isa shakes her head. “You could find someone Florence. In fact, there was just someone the other day who said he plays guitar and was looking for people to play with.”

“That would mean starting all over again , and I’m not ready for that.” She pauses before quietly, slowly speaking again. “And to be perfectly honest, somehow, I still love him . I don’t want to, but I do.”

Isa shakes her head before slowly wrapping herself around Florence again. “I get it. Love makes you do and think some weird shit.”

All Florence can muster is a small nod in agreement.

The next morning, Florence insists that Isa come back to her mum’s so she can cook her breakfast. She promises Isa that the house will be empty, knowing that all of her siblings had their various Saturday-morning activities and her mum and step-dad would be at the university. 

“I want to,” Florence says pleadingly. “You’ve done way too much for me. Just let me make you some mediocre waffles as a thank you, okay?”

After adamantly insisting that Florence didn’t owe her anything, Isa hesitantly agrees to join her.

As promised, the house is empty, and Florence and Isa enjoy making up hypothetical festival lineups over a breakfast of waffles with strawberries and whip-cream. They also discuss a few messages they had received on MySpace, and a few potential gig opportunities they had been offered at random places.

“I want to see your room,” Isa says after they sit with their empty plates for awhile. “I don’t believe you when you said it is messier than the shloft.”

Florence cackles. “I can tell you for a fact it is.”

Isa should have known Florence wasn’t kidding. She can not identify one single, clear surface in the room. The tables and desks and floor are covered with clothes and books and art and antiques—though not in an inherently messy way—and Isa takes her time slowly moving about the space like it is a museum, asking questions about various things along the way.

"And this is…?” she asks gently upon seeing a crack in the wall directly above the center of Florence’s bed. 

Florence sighs. “Where Matt punched the wall.”

Isa nods, putting a single finger into the crack and then pulling it out. 

“Hold on a minute,” she says, walking over to a framed pressed-flower. “Do you care about this?” Florence shakes her head in reply and Isa gently removes the delicate flower from the gold frame. Isa goes back into her wallet and pulls out the polaroid. Isa spends a moment studying it. Isa had a huge grin on her face, her eyes closed as Florence kissed her cheek. She was radiating happiness, and Isa smiles as she flips it over and puts it in the frame. 

She returns to the bed, and kneels on it before taking the small nail that was attached to the frame and pressing it right above the crack in the wall. She hangs the frame, and then steps back to admire her work.

“Better.”

“Better,” Florence agrees.

Florence smiles, looking at the new piece hung on her wall. Isa tosses herself down on the bed, exhausted from the long night spent dancing and crying and talking, but pleased that she was able to help with something that was bothering Florence. Her hair is strewn about Florence’s red satin pillow, and she stares up at the younger girl in front of her. 

Florence looks down at Isa, and she feels a burning sensation in her stomach, and then her chest. 

Isa laughs slightly at Florence’s serious face and the prolonged eye contact, but then all of a sudden she feels uneasy. Florence hovers over her for a second, and even though she knows what is about to happen, she for some reason doesn’t flinch as Florence delicately places her lips on hers.

Florence’s lips are warm, and her hand feels soft as it gently caresses Isa’s cheek. She holds her hair back to avoid it falling onto Isa’s face, and her lips softly trace their way around Isa’s. Isa feels like her lungs are collapsing as she tries to comprehend why this doesn’t feel weird .

Suddenly though, she comes to her senses and sits up, forcing Florence to pull away. Her eyes are wild as she stares at Florence, and Florence immediately regrets it all as she watches Isa’s chest rapidly rise and fall. 

“I’m so sorry,” Isa says, pushing herself up from the bed. “I’ve got somewhere to be that I completely forgot about.”

“Isa,” Florence says, her voice shaking. She can’t find any other words to say as Isa quickly collects her things and shows herself out the door. Florence watches her disappear through the window, and then she is gone as quickly as the kiss started and ended.

Florence sits back down on her bed, tears filling her eyes as she tries to understand what just happened. She doesn’t understand what led her to make such a bold move, or why Isa had reacted the way she did. Isa hadn’t kissed her back, but she didn’t immediately move away either. Florence studies the way her tears distort the light coming from her lamp, and then, as her eyes turn to the new photo above her bed, she begins sobbing until her chest feels like it is full of bricks.

Chapter Text

On a late August day in 1986, Florence was born in King’s Hospital just a few minutes away from her childhood home. She was the first of three children, and spent her first years in libraries and being towed to and from Italy with her American mother who was earning her PhD in Renaissance studies while her dad stayed home and worked in an advertising agency. Her earliest memories were filled with blowing out candles in giant churches, huge libraries filled with the smell of old books, and holding her mother’s hand in art galleries across Europe. 

When Florence was two, her little sister was born. The first time they met in the hospital, her parents allowed Florence to hold the little blonde baby, and Florence held her tight and kissed her repeatedly for what must have been an hour before they gently pried her away. Florence cried and cried until the next time she was able to see her, and the second she arrived home, began trying to teach her everything she had learned up to that point.

From that day, the two of them were inseparable. Florence and Grace were a package deal; at some point, Florence learned how to crawl into Grace’s large cot, and Nick and Evelyn would wake to find the two of them sound asleep next to one another. When Florence learned how to read when she was around four, they would sit side by side for hours, Florence slowly sounding out the words on the page as Grace sat listening. 

In those early years, Florence felt safe at home. She had two parents who loved her, and a little sister who doubled as a best friend. Her house was beautifully decorated with simple Renaissance art, and they had a small garden where Florence could play pretend for hours. 

At school, however, she was a bit more out of her element. 

Florence managed to make plenty of friends, and initially, her ability to read quite fluently at an early age made her an exceptional student. When she started learning about numbers and was expected to be able to not only read, but write words, she struggled though. Nothing seemed to make sense, and all she wanted to do was go into the back of her classrooms and get lost in books for hours on end.

Eventually, after many appointments, she was diagnosed with a learning disability when she was around six. 

“Mum,” she had asked Evelyn on the way home after a psychologist had explained what exactly her learning disability meant, “does this mean I’m not smart?”

“No,” Evelyn said adamantly, looking intently at her daughter. “It actually means you’re smarter than the rest of us. You have a special brain, so you learn differently. We just have to find better ways to teach you.”

And so they did. 

Evelyn and Nick worked tirelessly to make sure their daughter was learning as much as she could. They saw specialists and got her involved in all sorts of activities. She and Grace began violin, which was painful for all involved, but her violin teacher pointed something out that turned out to be quite prophetic.

“Florence has perfect pitch,” he told Nick after one lesson. 

Nick laughed right at him. He had listened to more “performances” than he would have ever cared to, and refused to believe that either one of his daughters was musically gifted. “You’ve heard her play. She doesn’t.”

The teacher shook his head. “She does. She can recreate a note from memory. I asked her to sing the song before we played it, and she knew the exact pitch of every note. She can recreate pitches I play. It’s quite impressive for someone as young as she is.”

That day Nick left the tiny music studio with a laugh and a shake of his head as Grace and Florence trotted behind.

The day after Florence turned seven, her little brother was born. Though she and Grace weren’t too sure about adding a boy to the pack, JJ quickly fit right in with their shenanigans. He would willingly play dress up with them, and would ride right behind on a scooter as they rode their bikes around their neighborhood. They made friends with the kids down the street who were around their ages, and the six of them would stay up until dusk running up and down the block. They traded cards and books and bruises, and eventually, Evelyn would invite them all in for dinner on those long nights, including their widowed father. 

Florence admired the two older Wilson kids so much; she would read the thick books of science fiction that Sean and Jacob would give her, and pretend to be interested in the football teams they seemed to worship. She and Grace gradually became some of the boys, and the four of them were great friends. 

That was, until they became siblings instead. 

When Florence was eleven, Nick and Evelyn sat her, Grace, and JJ down and explained that they would be separating in the gentlest terms they could. Florence couldn’t help but study her father’s dejected face the whole time—seeing her father cry made a part of her want to die deep inside. 

Within the month, her father had moved off to Russia to write a book, and her mother had announced that she was seeing the father of their friends down the street.

Within the year, Nick had moved back to Wales to run a campsite, and Evelyn married George Wilson. Begrudgingly, Florence moved into the Wilson’s home with her siblings, and there were then six kids from five to fifteen all under one roof.

It was hell.

The same year she moved into the neighbor’s house, all four of her grandparents died. It was traumatic to say the least, and Florence felt herself dissociating from her family more and more with each passing month. Her only respite in all of it was the musicals and choirs that she found herself getting involved in at school. One teacher immediately recognized her perfect pitch that her father had been told about years ago, and began privately teaching Florence after school twice a week in the hopes she would become a soprano prodigy.

Once she mentioned the lifestyle of a professional singer though, Florence quickly stopped showing up.

Florence began spending more and more time outside of the house, exploring all that South London had to offer. She would sneak into concerts and parties, sometimes with Grace and sometimes without. At school, she started a coven, which surprisingly proved to be a good way to make friends. They would spend time in the yard after school, scribbling spells into a book and creating rituals that would have probably qualified as satanic to anyone outside of the group. 

Her mother was too caught up in her studies to do much of anything to control her oldest daughter, but she did draw a line the night she smelled hair dye coming from Florence’s room, only to find Grace dying her hair a shade of black. 

Apart the hair color, however, Florence was essentially free to do as she wanted. 

She eventually got caught up in the music scene of Camberwell. Posing as college students with her fellow coven friend Sophie, they got themselves into squat parties, which helped them befriend older kids who could get them to festivals and bigger parties. Nothing was more thrilling to Florence than standing in the front of a crowd and being deafened by the bass coming from huge speakers. Add E to the equation, and she was in her own sort of demonic heaven. 

Florence had never really felt the need for a boyfriend until all of her friends started getting them. Though she logically knew it was stupid, she wanted one just so she could feel like someone other than Grace or Sophie thought she was pretty. 

In Year 11, she got a boyfriend who was equally as clueless. Though she never felt particularly fond of him, he wrote her nice enough notes and said the right things and she got her first kiss out of the way. She would hold hands with them as they walked around London after school, Sophie rolling her eyes as they would awkwardly kiss each other upon their departure. 

Florence was so attached to the idea of having a boyfriend that it became the first real thing her and Sophie got in a fight about after Sophie failed to mention him in Florence’s yearbook write up. Florence was so upset that Sophie hadn't included the fact she had a boyfriend that she didn't speak to her for a week.

Eventually the two “broke up” after the poor kid realized Florence was more interested in showing him off than actually getting to know him. Aided by Sophie’s pragmatism, she resigned to being single while she worked to finish her GCSE’s. She did well in school, and after much begging from her mother, applied and was accepted to art college. 

Though art was something Florence had always excelled at, she found it all to be a bit boring once classes began. What was once a catharsis, a way to do whatever she wanted without any rules, became a rigid set of guidelines that she had to follow if she wanted to receive passing marks. Sculpture was a personal hell for her; she wanted nothing more than to paint delicate little flowers, and was instead being forced to take bent wire and fabric and clay and make something out of it. In her first year, after giving up on trying to make anything beautiful, she made a large instillation with a canvas and fake flowers that spelled out “You’re a twat,” and turned it in without a second thought. Her mother screamed at her when she saw it, but her professor ended up giving her a high B, commending her “bold creativity.”

With art somewhat boring and frustrating her, Florence moved on to singing with bands, ready and willing to play with anyone who would take her. Her voice was intimidating; it was rare that someone would let her take the lead, because they knew the second they did, she would be swept away by someone with a better offer. 

Which is how she ended up signing a contract as a backing vocalist with her first band. She didn't really care for the music they made. It was a rather forced blend of jazz with hip-hop and rap, but it gave her something to do besides art and she felt cool being a part of something. Without reading it, she signed the contract put in front of her and graciously accepted the measly amount of money that it provided her with.

After realizing that the contract she signed essentially stripped her of all her rights though, she quickly resigned with the help of her dad and a lawyer, which is how she found herself with Matt. 

The first time Florence met Matt, he was charming. He was a good guitarist, and he was quick to compliment her voice and ask her what she was doing singing backup. They became quick friends, and after Florence left her first band, they started playing more and more together. Florence wrote a few songs for his band, and in return, he helped put chords behind the songs Florence would write for herself. 

Along with the music, Matt also provided a pretty steady supply of various party drugs Florence couldn’t find herself. For months she wondered if it was love or the MDMA that was making her fall in love with Matt, but eventually she stopped being able to tell the difference. 

If Florence was being honest with herself, she knew that their relationship had moved far too fast to be healthy. This was her first real relationship, and she had little to no interest in sharing her feelings or bed or body with him. After awhile, she wasn’t even sure why he was still interested at all.

They had gone on for months though, just trading pills and music and heavy make-out sessions, and Matt seemed okay.

But things had changed in the last month, and Florence knows it as she lies on her bed, looking at the little edge of the crack peering out from behind the photo of her and Isa. She groans as she flips over, burying her head into the pillow for a moment before dragging herself out of bed and towards her desk. Her Monday classes were cancelled for a long weekend, so she had more than enough time to finish the painting she was assigned for Tuesday, but with nothing else to do on this rainy Sunday afternoon, she clears her desk and lays out the canvas. 

Mindlessly, she paints tiny flowers and thin vines around the blank space, gradually filling it with color as her mind wanders over the events of the last 72 hours. 

She tries to justify kissing Isa by going through everything Isa had done with her up to that point over the weekend. At the club, she could have sworn that Isa was grinding on her. They had been dancing close all night, but at some point, it drunken boldness, Isa had lost all her restraints, her hips moving against Florence’s in a way they had never moved before. In bed that night, Isa grabbed her hand and held Florence as she cried. Florence had shared more with Isa than she had shared with Grace about her relationship with Matt after that conversation. At her house the next morning, they danced around the kitchen as the waffles cooked, Isa laughing as Florence told stories about her many siblings and the trouble they got themselves into. 

Then, even though it makes her cringe, Florence forces herself to replay the kiss. 

Thinking it through as thoroughly as she can, she concludes that it had to have been at least five seconds that Isa knew the kiss was coming, and then another five seconds before Isa pulled away. And she figures that had to have been more than enough time for Isa to actively think things through. If she truly didn’t want it to happen, she would have stopped it much , much sooner , Florence thinks.

Then, like a slap to the face, Florence remembers that there is a much bigger issue than Isa not reciprocating: Florence is straight , and she has a boyfriend . She ponders those two revelations for a moment, wondering why she craved that sort of intimacy from Isa at all. It wasn’t like she had even realized that desire before her lips were on Isa’s. Her body did that without thinking, and now her mind can’t stop wondering what it all means . She wonders why it felt so different than kissing Matt. She wonders what Matt would even think of all of this. Does it count as cheating if you’re only kissing one of your friends? Does this count as cheating at all?

Florence soon finds the canvas she is painting full, two hours passing without her even realizing it. She takes the brushes to the kitchen sink to clean them, and then makes two pieces of toast for lunch before resigning herself back to bed. Sleep is the only answer to unanswerable questions, she figures.

—

On Monday afternoon, Florence receives a call from Isa while staring at the ceiling after many hours of trying to fall back asleep.

“Hello?” Florence answers. 

“Hey Flo,” Isa says in a friendly enough tone. 

Florence hesitates, unsure of and extremely nervous about why Isa is calling. “Hey Iz.”

Isa sighs. “I just wanted to call and first say I’m really sorry for leaving so abruptly on Saturday, I—”

“Isa, don’t apologize. I’m sorry. I really misread that. My head wasn’t in a good place, and I wasn’t thinking.”

What Florence wants to say is, I’m confused, but I don’t regret it at all and for some reason that’s fucking terrifying and I need you to tell me what it means, but she refrains. 

“It’s okay, Flo,” Isa says, searching for and failing to find words to add. Instead she decides to quickly move on. “I also wanted to ask if you’d come over tomorrow. I miss our Tuesday-Thursday sessions, and I have a few people I’d like you to meet.”

Florence thinks about it for a second, trying to figure out if she would be able to handle seeing Isa again after that embarrassing incident a few days prior. Knowing that there will be other people there makes her feel better, though. It would give her an easy way to ease back into Isa’s life without having to face her one-on-one. “Yeah, yeah I’d love that.”

“Good,” Isa says. “I’ll see you tomorrow Flo.”

The next morning, Florence reluctantly gets out of bed and readies herself for class. She tucks her large portfolio folder under her arm and clambers onto her bicycle that was thrown against the house before making the ten minute ride to school. 

She arrives two minutes before lecture starts, and quickly pulls out the painting she had done Sunday from the large folder, tossing it onto Professor Smith’s desk before finding a stool for the day. 

Professor Smith was one of her favorite teachers, her class a welcome refuge from all of Florence’s sculpture and 3D design classes. She had a way of helping students with their technique without hindering their creativity, which Florence appreciated, and she always started out her lectures with a bit of wisdom.

“Good morning,” Professor Smith says, walking in a few minutes late with a coffee in hand. She carefully unwraps a scarf from her neck and sets it on a chair along with her jacket. Florence can see that her hands are freshly stained with paint, and briefly wonders how she manages to do nothing but teach students how to paint all week, and then presumably go home and do it for fun over the weekend. 

“I’m excited to see what you all did over the weekend,” she says, carefully shutting the large folder on her desk shut. “Today I wanted to talk to you for a bit before we begin the lecture. About things I wish I had known at your age.”

Florence puts her chin in her hand and leans against the wooden work table in front of her. She wonders what Isa is doing right now, and then thinks about the way her lips felt on hers Saturday morning. 

“...if you want to be an artist, you need to love the medium you are working with. You cannot survive on talent if you don’t truly connect with what you’re doing…”

Florence feels a tinge of shame as she replays the moments over and over again in her head, but then decides that there is no need to feel shame if it is only her thoughts. She thinks about the way Isa’s lips felt under hers, so much more full and soft than Matt’s. She wonders if she would ever have the opportunity to kiss a girl ever again.

“...I used to think that I wanted to be a chef. I was good at it, my parents thought it was a good career, and I was able to put my creativity to good use…”

Florence stares at the clock and starts to think about what Matt is doing. She wonders where he ran off to, if he was still there, if he had found a new girl to hook up with while he is away.  

“...and lastly, your talent is useless if you don’t surround yourself with people who truly see it and appreciate it. If people don’t recognize your talent, or your worth as a human being, get them out. They don’t deserve your time of day.”

After class, Florence gets up in a daze and slowly starts putting her jacket on and collecting her things. 

“Miss. Welch, dear,” Professor Smith says, walking towards where she was sitting as the classroom empties out. “Care if I talk to you for a minute?”

Florence momentarily looks confused, as if maybe there was another girl with the last name Welch in the room and Professor Smith was wanting to talk to her instead. The room is empty though, and Florence nods her head as her professor pulls up a chair across the table from her. 

Professor Smith sighs. “Are you okay, Florence? You’ve really been up there during class lately,” she says, pointing up towards the ceiling. “Your work is some of my favorite to look at, but you’ve seemed a bit…” she struggles to find the word. “Lost?”

Florence shakes her head. “No, no I’ve been fine. Just a bit tired. Some of my other classes have had a lot of projects due recently,” Florence lies. “I’m sorry if I’ve seemed disinterested, this class is one of my favorites and I’ve really enjoyed learning from you.”

Professor Smith sighs from behind her glasses again. Through over forty years of teaching, she had gotten quite good at recognizing when one of her students is struggling, and she knows that the frail girl in front of her had something besides projects bogging her down. “That’s alright. Your work is beautiful, and I hope you know if you ever want to talk about anything at all, my office is right outside that door.”

“Thanks for checking in, I really appreciate it.” Quickly, she collects her things and hurries out the door. “See you Thursday!”

For some odd reason, Florence feels tears pressing at the back of her eyes as she rides through the cold London air. She feels like her brain is starting to leak out into reality. Florence had always believed that she could feel whatever she wanted to feel so long as it stayed in the confines of her skull. After that conversation with Professor Smith, though, she knows those feelings are about ready to burst at the seams.

When Florence finally arrives at the shloft, she has to take a deep breath and collect herself before meekly knocking on the colorful door covered in graffiti. Immediately, she hears footsteps from inside, and then Isa’s bright blue eyes are peering from behind the door. “Hiya,” she says with a smile. “Get in here.”

Inside, the space heater is going and Florence can smell burnt coffee brewing upstairs. There are two guys; one very tall one with shaggy brown hair, and a slightly shorter guy with grey eyes and black hair.

Florence puts down her large portfolio folder and tosses her jacket on the futon before making her way towards them. She makes a conscious effort to focus on the feeling of her numb hands instead of the awkwardness between her and Isa. 

“How was class?” Isa asks, handing Florence a cup of coffee. 

“Fine,” she says, not wanting to think about what Professor Smith had said. She looks between the two guys, and then quickly introduces herself.

“Florence, by the way,” she says, extending her hand first to the taller of the two.

“Rob,” he says, his gentle eyes looking into hers. “I think Isa wanted me to come over to try and play some guitar for you. It’s nice to meet you.”

Florence raises her eyebrows as she nods. “And you as well.”

“And this is Hugo,” Rob says, looking at the slightly shorter guy standing beside him. “We used to play in a band together, and he’s decent on a kit.”

“Florence,” she says, extending her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Isa smiles somewhat awkwardly. “I met them at a party, and thought maybe we could just jam for a bit,” she tells Florence.

Florence nods. “Yeah, that sounds good to me.”

After three hours of effortless music making, Florence is amazed by just how well Rob and Hugo were able to blend with her and Isa. Florence was even able to teach Rob a few of her old songs after sounding them out on Isa’s keyboard for him. They spend the afternoon drinking and chatting, and Isa proposes that they all get together to try and record some more sometime soon. Florence enthusiastically agrees before remembering that Matt would probably not approve of her working with another guitarist, but she keeps quiet and smiles along anyway.

By the end of the night, Florence had forgotten about any awkwardness between her and Isa as she sits on Isa’s lap while Rob tells a story about accidentally getting in a fight with someone when he thought they stole his guitar. Florence decides that she could be friends with Rob and Hugo, their carefree demeanor similar to hers, and their musical skills not too bad either.

“Hey, you go to the Smash n’ Grab nights, right?” Rob asks Isa as he and Hugo are about to leave. 

Isa nods. “Yeah, I’m there most Thursday nights.”

“Do you?” Rob asks, turning to Florence. Florence suddenly remembers all the time she and Sophie snuck into those nights before Sophie had left to study in the states. They were fun; run by Queens of Noize and dotted with C-list celebrities who lived around London, they were always a good place for a good time. There was always plenty going on, but Florence was never of a status to actually be invited to one of them. There was also the problem of being underage for ninety-percent of the nights she had snuck into in years past.

“Ehm, I’ve never been legally been, but I’ve been if you know what I mean,” she says. 

Isa laughs. “Alright, well you’re coming with us legally on Thursday.”

After Isa shuts the door behind Rob and Hugo, she turns to Florence, and she can sense the nervousness. “You okay?” she asks. 

Florence meekly nods. 

“Hey,” Isa says, wrapping her hand around Florence’s shoulder and looking her in the eye. “We’re okay. Whatever it is, don’t worry about it. I’m not going to tell anyone what happened. I overreacted, and I’m sorry about that. There’s nothing to be weird about, alright? I mean it.”

Florence quietly nods, and Isa wraps her in a hug. As if on cue, Florence’s phone buzzes from her pocket. She pulls away from Isa, and opens it up. 

From Matt, 23:14: coming home thursday, what r ur plans?

—

Thursday night, Isa hangs by the bar sipping on a martini with Dale and Hugo. Rob had texted Dale that he was going to be late, and Florence was supposed to have arrived with Matt over an hour ago. Dale protectively wraps an arm around Isa as he watches Hugo, who he had only met a few weeks prior, look her up and down. 

Isa is too drunk to pick up on any of it though, and she anxiously taps her heel in time with the blaring music as she checks her phone again. 

After awhile, Isa sees Florence stumbling towards her, dressed in a full, black tux with gold glitter running down her face.

Isa laughs as Florence falls into her arms. “Isa!” she squeals. “I was so worried you weren’t going to be here,” she says so quickly Isa can barely make out the words. “Matt’s back, but I really wanted you to be here and I’m just so glad that you—wait, have you taken anything yet? Matt can get you something. Just hold on, I’ll—”

Isa laughs. “I’m okay, Flo. I’ve already had enough to drink. I’m really glad you’re here, too.” Isa smiles, but quickly bites her lip as soon as she sees Matt glaring at her. 

Florence departs to go greet Hugo, and Matt comes up to Isa. He is beyond drunk, and Isa cringes as he begins speaking. 

“My fucking girlfriend insisted on wearing a fucking suit to go out. She looks like a dyke ,” he laughs as he sips on a drink. “It’s so weird that you’ve become friends, she’s annoying as hell. Wouldn’t expect you to put up with that.”

Isa shakes her head. “No she’s not. And she’s got a fucking voice, you know.”

Matt rolls his eyes and nods. “Yeah yeah, can’t argue with you there. That’s about where her list of talents ends.”

In the background, the bass is so loud it shakes the floor, and the lights are low enough to give Isa enough confidence to say her next words.

“So, why’d you block my number in her phone? Scared she’ll find other people to play with?”

Matt laughs and shakes his head. “It was a joke , Bella. She wouldn’t shut up about you. It was just a prank. I mean, I guess she figured it out, then.”

Isa looks at him sternly, studying his cold blue eyes and long, brown hair. “Don’t fuck with her, Matt. I mean it,” she says before leaving to find Florence.

Isa finds Florence with Rob and Hugo on the dance floor. Rob is laughing at Florence as she tries to teach him to ballroom dance, and Hugo claps along to the music, cheering the two of them on. “Isa!” Rob and Florence both shout as Isa shimmies her way towards them. Instantly, Florence grabs Isa, wrapping one arm around her back and lacing her fingers between Isa’s other hand, leading the two of them in a proper dance. Isa laughs at Florence’s antics, and soon enough Rob and Hugo are dancing right next to them. People stare, but they are too caught up in their own little world to care. 

“Are you sure you don’t want anything? Matt has E, I’m sure I can get some for you,” Florence says.

Isa shakes her head. “I’m sure. How much have you taken?”

Florence laughs and holds up four fingers, and Isa’s eyes go wide. “Do you normally take that much?”

“Tolerance,” she shouts as she grabs Isa’s hand. 

Isa isn’t sure if Florence got over whatever leftover awkwardness remained after Saturday morning, or if the drugs were doing it for her, but she was happy to dance with Florence, only being interrupted by Matt a few times when he would try to convince her to join him at his friend’s place or hand her another drink.

“I’m going to the loo,” Florence says at some point, galloping away from where they all were. 

“She’s fun,” Rob laughs, watching Florence half-run half-skip towards the bathrooms. 

“Yeah.”

“Wish she had a boyfriend who didn’t talk about her like a piece of shit.”

Isa bites her lip.

“Yeah.”

In the bathroom, Florence can feel her entire body shaking as she sits on the toilet. She feels anxious, though she doesn’t know about what, and she can feel every beat of her heart in her chest. She sits there for a moment, watching the wall in front of her shake. Eventually she remembers that Isa and her new friends are outside waiting for her, and she gets up.

As Florence exits the stall, she recognizes the woman who puts on the club nights, though she is too out of it to remember her name. She and Sophie used to avoid her at all costs, knowing that she would be able to tell they didn’t belong. Florence must have been staring trying to remember for a bit too long, because eventually, the short-haired woman is asking if she’s okay. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine ,” Florence says a bit slurred in response. She struggles to put on her jacket, and after a moment, the woman offers her help. 

“Thanks,” Florence says with a laugh. “Can’t ever figure out which way is up when I’m like this,” she adds with a wild expression on her face.

The woman just nods her head, looking at the strange young girl in front of her with confusion. “It’s no problem.”

Florence isn’t sure what to say, but as the woman starts leaving the bathroom, she decides to be bold. “Hey, you put on these nights, right?”

The brunette turns around and sighs as she starts to wonder if one of her bouncers let someone underage in. “I do, yeah.”

“Can I sing for you?” Florence asks, not really waiting for an answer. “I’m gonna sing,” Florence says definitively, nodding her head and clearing her throat. 

The woman sighs and lightly hits her head against the wall, wanting nothing more than to escape the wildly inebriated girl in this bathroom.

However, the moment Florence starts belting out Etta James, she straightens up and cocks an eyebrow as she moves her hands with her eyes closed. A few girls enter the bathroom, but Florence is unbothered as she finishes out the song. 

When she finishes, she slowly opens her eyes and blinks a few times, as if she was being transported back to the real world.

“ Holy shit ,” the woman says, taking a step towards Florence as if she was a foreign animal whose behavior she couldn’t predict. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Oh! I’m Florence,” she says as she looks blankly at her with a smile on her face.

The woman nods her head. “Mairead,” she replies back, placing her hand into Florence’s. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

All Florence does is look at her directly in the eyes, a drunken smile on her face. 

“So,” Mairead continues awkwardly, starting to doubt if the voice she had just heard actually came from the young girl in front of her, “can you do Christmas songs? Would you want to do a Christmas set?”

Florence doesn’t quite comprehend what she’s asking, but enthusiastically replies back, “I love Christmas!”

After exchanging numbers with Mairead, Florence returns to where Isa, Hugo, and Rob are. Matt and Isa’s friend are there too, and she loudly announces the new development. 

“I landed a gig! I’m playing the Christmas night!”

Quickly everyone is asking her how she managed that by simply going to the bathrooms, and then she is in Matt’s arms for a moment before he gives her another pill.
Isa catches a glimpse of the little blue pill in Florence’s hand as the lights overhead flash and looks to Dale, hoping he would say something. 

He doesn’t see her though, or the pill Matt slipped into Florence’s hand, so Isa speaks up. “Hey, I think you’ve had enough, Flo,” she says quietly to the younger girl, putting her hand over Florence’s.

“Oh come on,” Matt says, shoving Isa’s hand away. “Your one bad hit doesn’t have to ruin everyone else’s fun.”

“ Woah ,” Dale says, stepping in front of Matt. “First of all, your girlfriend is inebriated, stop giving her shit. Second of all, you don’t want to fucking go there, dude,” he says loudly. 

Matt scoffs in Dale’s face. “Seriously D? Your little girlfriend got a bad hit seven years ago from that junkie. I’m not him, okay? Calm the fuck down.”

He soon realizes it was the wrong thing to say as Dale shoves him against a wall. 

“Let’s go,” Isa says, quickly taking Florence by the hand and dragging her out as Hugo and Rob break up Matt and Dale. 

Florence looks confused but follows along. 

Isa calls a cab, and they sit in silence as they drive back to Isa’s apartment. Isa’s head is spinning, and she can barely remember what Matt said to make Dale react so violently, though she figures it is probably for the best.

When they arrive, Isa is somewhat sobered up, though Florence seems even worse than when they were in the club. 

Isa helps her up the stairs, and the second they get in the door, Florence is mumbling “ bathroom, bathroom .”

Isa leads her to the toilet quickly, and almost immediately Florence is vomiting into it. Isa winces and holds back Florence’s hair as her entire body shakes. “You’re okay,” Isa whispers when Florence continues to heave. She rubs small circles into her back, and upon realizing that she is sweating through her shirt, helps her remove it. Her skin is cold and clammy, and Isa thanks god that she didn’t let her take that pill as she lurches towards the toilet again.

Once Florence stops for a few minutes, Isa quickly leaves to change and returns with a hair-tie and satin pyjama pants with an old, soft t-shirt. She helps Florence out of her pants, and then helps her replace them with the pyjamas. Wordlessly, Florence takes off her bra and Isa reflexively diverts her eyes downward as she slips the t-shirt over her head. Isa helps Florence put her hair up, and then soaks a washcloth with cold water before leading Florence to her bed. 

“Where’s Matt?” Florence asks as Isa helps her lie down. Isa sits against the headboard, and Florence puts her head in her lap before Isa places the cold cloth on her forehead. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Isa replies matter-of-factly. 

They sit in quiet for awhile, Isa’s anxiety raising with every shake of Florence’s body. Every once in awhile, Florence lets out a tiny moan of pain, her head beginning to hurt from the comedown. Her entire body is covered in sweat, and her skin is a pale shade of red.

After an hour or so of simply lying there, Isa speaks up.

“When did you start taking drugs, Flo?” Isa asks, holding Florence’s pounding head in her lap.

“Does it matter?”

Isa shrugs. “Just wondering.”

Florence sighs. “I think I was thirteen, probably. There was a lot of shit going down in my life, and I had a lot of older friends, so I just started using. It’s just kind of always been there, you know?”

Isa nods. “I started young too.” She pauses, wondering if she should even say anything. Part of her wants to let Florence continue her ways, while the other part of her screams to tell her to stop before something bad happens. After a short moment, she pushes forward. “Haven’t touched anything but weed since ‘99, though.”

Florence pauses. “ Seven years? You haven’t touched anything harder than weed in seven years?”

Isa nods. “I—I ehm, overdosed when I was nineteen.”

Florence’s eyes flick up to Isa’s face. “Fuck, Isa.”

“Yeah. That shit scared me.”

Florence closes her eyes and exhales. “ Fuck , Isa,” she says again. “How bad was it? What was it from?”

“It was...pretty bad. They had to do that whole emergency drug-reversal-overdose-thing and take me to the hospital. My boyfriend had given me what we thought was E, but it had traces of fentanyl in it.”

“ Fuck ,” Florence says a third time, as if every other word has left her vocabulary. 

The silence makes its way into the room again, and Isa quietly runs her fingers through Florence’s hair as she continues to shake. 

“I don’t want that to happen to you, Flo. I thought I was invincible too once upon a time. You don’t know what’s in those things. You don’t know what your dose should be on any given day. It’s a dangerous game to play. Do what you want with that information, but you really scared me tonight.”

Florence nods. “So now’s not a good time to tell you this is a regular occurrence then?”

Isa sighs. “No. It’s not.”

Florence nods. “I’m really sorry, Isa.”

“No need to apologize. I’m just trying to protect you because I care about you a lot. You’re far too talented to have something stupid like that happen to you, okay?”

Something clicks in Florence's head at that moment, but she can't quite put her finger on it. Gradually, Isa's soft fingertips tracing over her head guide her to sleep, and for a few hours, she forgets about everything.

Chapter Text

When Isa was twelve, her older brother left home.

Well—maybe was kicked out of their home is a better way to put it.

It was the fall, just shortly after the semester had begun, and Isa arrived home from school to find her parents packing every last one of Jack’s belongings into various suitcases and duffels. Jack was nowhere to be found, and Isa was concerned as she watched her parents carefully fold up all of his clothes from her spot in the doorway. 

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Her mother looked up at her middle child like she had been caught stealing something. “Nothing. Weren’t you supposed to meet us at the bookstore?”

“I forgot my notebook at home.”

Isa’s mother sighed before resuming her work of packing away her brother’s things. She didn’t look at her daughter as she zipped up his bags and lined them up against the wall.

“Where’s Jack?” Isa asked, leaning against the frame of his door. She watched as her mother stacked his books and put them away in old boxes they had used for the move to Aldeburgh years ago.

Her mother sighed, putting the last box down before walking towards her daughter. “Why don’t you come with me to the bookstore.”

The ten minute drive to the store was a quiet one. Isa’s mother was uncharacteristically afraid to speak, unsure of how she could explain to her daughter the reason her older brother needed to leave.

“I know this is all very sudden Belle, but Jack is going to a very nice school in Oxford. There was an opening and your father is going to drive him down there tonight.”

“What’s wrong with St. Paul’s?” Isa asked. She had been so excited to finally be in the same school as her brother, and now it felt as if her heart was in her throat as she looked at her mother’s stoic face.

“This school is just a better fit, Isabella. You know we want the best for you three.”

Isa bit her tongue, knowing that it was completely useless to argue with her mom that the education they were receiving at St. Paul’s was probably just fine.

Isa didn’t hear from her brother for months. He had always been a bit withdrawn, but Isa became more concerned with each passing day when he wouldn’t respond to the many calls she placed to the school or write back when she sent letters to the address her parents gave her. Her younger brother, Wade, would cry and cry, wondering when Jack would return, but her parents would only continuously tell them both that he must be too busy studying to get back to them. 

Eventually she got back in contact with Jack, and he seemed happy enough in Oxford. He talked about his classes and how his music lessons were going. He would tell her that he missed her and that he couldn’t wait to see her at Christmas. Isa missed him terribly; she missed their late night talks and their afternoon walks. She even missed when he would yell at her about her mess of a room.

Through all those years, Isa was confident that this is what was best for him. Isa believed that her parents only sent Jack away for the opportunities the prestigious school presented to him. It didn’t make sense, but she trusted her parents. Jack was weird with them when he would return for breaks, and they were equally weird back,  but Isa chalked it up to him not being home for so long. At that point, she could have never imagined that her parents would show the three of them anything but unconditional love.

When Isa was sixteen, she learned the real reason Jack left. 

It was May, and Jack was due to graduate from school. He had excitedly called Isa to tell her he had received all A’s on his GSCE’s, and had accepted a spot at Warwick to study film. Isa could not have been more proud of him, and was immediately planning all the fun things they would do the week of his graduation to celebrate.

Her family didn’t seem interested in attending his graduation, telling her that they needed to tend to the store and help Wade finish his final projects, but Isa was determined to watch her older brother walk across the stage. 

With her brand new license, she borrowed her parent’s car for the weekend and made the drive out to Oxford. 

Jack’s school was beyond nice, Isa discovered. The lawns were impeccable, the buildings looked like they were newly built despite their gothic appearance, and all of the young men wandering the place were dressed in neatly pressed slacks and shirts. When she arrived for family day, Jack excitedly ran out from the house he had been living in and hugged her tight. 

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he told Isa, leading her by the hand into the house. 

Isa was shocked by the small amount of space Jack had been living in. In one half of a tiny room he had a bed, a desk, and a small dresser. He had some photos neatly hung over his desk; a photo of him with Isa and baby Wade, a more recent photo of him and Isa, a photo of him and his friends from back home, and an old photo of their grandparents. She thought it was odd that there was no trace of their parents, but again, she thought almost nothing of it at the time. 

The day went on with lunch and a presentation from all of the house masters, giving small speeches about the members of the graduating class. Jack’s house master recalled a funny story of him nearly setting the house on fire when he mistook the celsius oven for fahrenheit, and then spent the rest of his speech complimenting his genuine kindness and sharp academic skills. Isa smiled proudly as his friends cheered and patted him on the back.

That night, Jack took Isa out to dinner.

“How did your semester end up?” he asked.

Isa nodded as she started eating. “It was good, I got mostly A’s.”

“Good, that’s good,” Jack said, suddenly going uncharacteristically quiet.

“Yeah, I’ve started looking at schools. I think I want to do film too.” 

Jack smiled. “Maybe we’ll finally get to go to school together after all.”

After filling each other in on all that had happened through the year, Isa drove Jack back to campus. She was staying at a nearby hotel, and Jack had one night left in the house he had called home for the past three years. 

When she parked in the school lot, Jack didn’t get out. He stared at the floor and nervously ran his hands through his hair in silence.

“You alright?” Isa asked.

Jack nodded. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about that I didn’t get a chance to at dinner.”

“Okay,” Isa said hesitantly, “everything okay?”

Jack sighed, slumping back against the seat. He put his head back, and then exhaled as he looked to the ceiling.

“So...I wanted to tell you, because I think you’re old enough to get it…like, there’s actually a reason mum and dad aren’t here.”

Isa looked at him quizzically. “I mean, they’re really busy with the shop and all. I wish they would’ve come.”

Jack bit his lip and shook his head. “No, Iz. They didn’t want to come.”

“Whaddya mean?” she asked innocently.

Then he started crying, and Isa was completely unsure of what to do. He frantically tried to wipe the tears away, but his shaky breaths were enough to illustrate the amount of pain he was in. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Isa said, reaching across the console to hug her older brother. She still had no idea what he was talking about. They stayed like that for awhile, Jack resting his cheek on his sister’s shoulder, and Isa gently patting his back. Suddenly, he pulled away and the words quickly left his mouth.

“Isa, I hope you don’t hate me, but they kicked me out because I’m gay.”

Isa felt her chest go tight and the air leave her lungs. She could feel her heart pounding right beneath her skin. This was her brother; her brother that she thought she knew so well. Her brother who she hadn’t seen for the better part of her teen years.

Her brother who probably could’ve helped her with all the confusing feelings she had managed to push down a little deeper with each passing Sunday for the past three years.

She knew it was ridiculous, but for some reason she was upset that Jack was so easily able to say those words. Through years of guilt and shame, she had managed to forget she ever even thought she might be that horrible three letter word. In her memory, she chalked it up to just being a stupid kid who didn’t know what she wanted.

But now she was unsure of it all.

She knew she couldn’t tell him. She knew confiding in him would only make things worse. 

I’m over that phase , she told herself. 

It was only a few stupid thoughts years ago. 

I’m more mature now, I just needed some time to learn to like guys. 

Those thoughts weren’t legitimate. 

I could never actually fall in love with a girl. 

Dad and Mum would kill me if they found out.

In the dark car, Jack looked to Isa for reassurance, for any sort of response, but began crying all over again when he saw his younger sister’s disappointed face. 

—

The morning after their disastrous night out, Isa wakes to find Florence sleeping in the space between her arm and ribs. There are lines of sunlight covering the bed from the blinds, and Isa can feel a bit of cold air drifting in from where she had cracked the window open the night before. 

She does her best to remain still, letting Florence sleep as she replays the previous night’s events.

Florence swallowing the pills.

Matt snapping at her.

Dale pinning him against a wall.

She carefully reaches to her nightstand and picks up her phone, flipping it open with one hand before opening up her texts.

From Dale, 03:49: u and florence get home okay?

From Dale, 04:09: text or call when you wake up

From Rob, 04:15: im guna kil that gwy

From Rob, 04:16: fukin asshole

Isa chuckles at Robs texts, but she becomes worried as she remembers the scene she left behind. She wonders if she would have been better off keeping her mouth shut, but as she looks down and watches Florence breathe peacefully, she knows she was in the right.

She worries about Dale. He could be the nicest guy in the world until he wasn’t. She had watched him get in a fair number of fights through the years, and would never want to be on the receiving end of his fist. When she was younger, he had taught her how to punch properly. He insisted that it would make him feel better about her wandering around London alone at night when they had first moved. While she secretly hopes that Dale managed to land a few punches, she also hopes that he managed to keep himself out of trouble. 

Florence eventually wakes, groaning quietly as Isa gently rubs her arm. “Holy shit my head feels awful,” she whispers with a raspy voice. Her skin is pale, and there is still a bit of residue mascara under her eyes.

Isa grabs the bottle of painkillers and a half-empty water bottle from her nightstand, passing them to Florence as she sits up. 

Florence graciously takes them and downs two of the little red tablets. She shrinks back against Isa’s headboard as she tries to remember everything that happened the night before. She remembers singing in a bathroom, and dancing with everyone, and Isa practically dragging her out of the club. She remembers puking and then lying in Isa’s bed as the whole room span around. She remembers Isa telling her that she overdosed when she was around her age. 

She can’t for the life of her remember what happened to Matt though.

“Isa,” she asks tentatively with the duvet up to her chin, “where’s Matt?”

Isa sighs. “I have no fucking clue.”

“What happened last night? Why did we leave?”

Isa bites her lip, trying to figure out just how honest she should be. “Matt got a bit mouthy with me, and my friend Dale didn’t like it.”

Florence looks confused. “Why did he get mouthy?”

Once again, Isa bites her lip and looks around the room. “I don’t know, Flo. I mean, you had already taken what must’ve been like, 200-ish milligrams of E? And he went to give you more and I said no.”

“ Two-hundred ?” Florence asks, her eyes wide.

Isa nods. “If it’s anything like the ones I used to take. You told me you had already had four. I think you were already pretty close to having a heat stroke and I didn’t think another one would do you any good.”

Florence shakes her head. “ Shit .”

They sit in the silence of the room, the only sounds coming from the street below Isa’s window. 

“I’m going to go call Dale, I never got back to him last night.”

Florence nods. “Yeah. I’m going to lie down for a bit longer if you don’t mind. Sorry I crashed your flat again.” 

Isa shakes her off with a wave. “You’re welcome here any time, Flo.”

Isa leaves Florence behind and wraps a blanket around herself before going out to the balcony to talk to Dale. 

He picks up pretty immediately, and before Isa can even get the word hey out of her mouth, he is already talking. “That son of a bitch was lucky I didn’t kill him last night.”

“Annnd good morning to you too,” Isa says, watching cars drive by below. She leans against the wall and then slides down it, pulling the blanket closer to her in the cold winter air. 

“Sorry,” Dale says apologetically, “are you and Florence okay?”

“We’re fine, we got a cab home. I think she might have been pretty close to having a heat stroke but she’s alright now.”

“Okay, I figured you guys left when I didn’t see you after.”

Isa sighs. “What happened in there?”

“With Matt? I punched the shit out of him and got us kicked out. Dude will be lucky if he’s able to open his eye this morning.”

“ God ,” Isa says. “He kind of deserved it.”

“He’s really become a fucking asshole in the time he’s been away.”

Isa nods. “Yeah, he has.”

There is a lull in conversation before Dale asks a question that startles Isa. 

“Iz, is that girl okay?”

“Florence? She’s fine, she was sick, but I mean—”

“Iz, no. Not like that.” Dale pauses. “I mean, I don’t want to assume anything, but between the way he talks about her and the way she would flinch every time he came over last night, I just—” he sighs. “I dunno. Something’s off. And that’s all aside from the point he was giving her way too much of that shit.”

Isa thinks back to last night, struggling to remember the details. “Whaddya mean she would flinch every time he came over?” she asks, shaking her head.

“She would try and move away from him. At first I just thought it was because she wanted to dance with you guys, but then she started pushing him away. She would cringe every time he touched her. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it.”

Isa pauses, and then looks inside to make sure Florence isn’t close before quietly speaking. “Dale, she told me he hit her last week. She made it sound like it was a one off, but now…I dunno.”

She hears Dale breathing on the other end of the line. 

“Dale?”

“I’ll fucking kill him Isa, I swear to god.”

—

After driving Florence home, Isa picks up Jack before making the drive out to where Wade lives in a group home for young adults with psychiatric disorders. 

After a few episodes of increasingly scary hallucinations, Isa and Jack had gently encouraged Wade to go seek treatment, and he was ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia. Wade had decided it would be best to live in a place where he could continue going to school while getting therapy, and Isa and Jack had wholeheartedly supported him through it, picking him up every Friday afternoon to go run errands and get lunch. 

“How are you doing?” Jack asks, sliding into the passenger seat of Isa’s car. She still hasn’t found the time to get it fixed up and it makes an awful clanking sound every few turns of the wheel, but it still works well enough to get from point a to point b, which is enough for her.

“I’m alright,” Isa says, not looking up at her brother.

“You sure ‘bout that?” Jack had always had a way of knowing when his little sister was lying.

Isa stares absently ahead and nods her head. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just had a weird night out last night.”

They drive in silence most of the way to the group home, only the sound of basslines and windshield wipers filling the otherwise quiet space. 

“You know how he’s doing?”

“Ehm, he seemed okay when I talked to him the other day. Said he finished his literature thesis.”

Jack nods. He pauses for a moment before speaking again.“I worry about him.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Wade had always been the special one out of the three of them. Where Jack and Isa were cynical and narcissistic, Wade was optimistic and gentle. While Jack and Isa always looked nearly identical with their dark hair, wide-set blue eyes, and small frames, Wade was tall with blonde hair and almond shaped green eyes. Jack and Isa constantly joked that he must have gotten all the tall genes after he passed them both in height when he was only thirteen. Wade had been a great relief to Isa when Jack first out; his jokes filled the then quiet house, and he would join Isa on her long walks along the shoreline. They would sit with each other while they cried, and eventually, Isa took on the role of the elder sibling for him.

Right after Wade’s twentieth birthday though, he suddenly became less optimistic. He and Isa would have long talks about it, but they could never quite put their finger on why he was feeling the way he was. He was initially diagnosed with depression, but it seemed like all the therapy and pills in the world weren’t doing anything to help.

One day when she had decided to visit home about a year ago, Isa found him in his room crying. She hadn’t seen him cry since their younger years when Jack had first moved out, so she immediately knew something was wrong.

“Wade, talk to me,” she said. 

He simply shook his head, holding his hands over his teary eyes.

“Whatever it is you can tell me. What’s wrong? How can I make this better?”

“I’m hearing voices, and they won’t shut the fuck up, Iz,” he said as Isa wrapped an arm around him. “I didn’t think it was real so I didn’t want to tell anyone, but I’m really fucking scared.”

After calming him down Isa immediately called his psychiatrist. That day marked the beginning of an increasingly scary journey for her younger brother.

Isa pulls up to Wade’s house, which to be fair, looks more like a doctor’s office than a house. She goes inside and fills out a form that tells them what time Wade will arrive back before being handed a list of numbers to call in case of an emergency. Like every week, it takes about five minutes before Wade appears downstairs.

“Hey Iz,” he says with a smile, giving her a big hug. He never liked hugs as a kid, but had eventually broken down and started hugging his sister once he realized just how much he missed the feeling of being embraced by anyone .

“Good to see you,” she says back before saying goodbye to the secretary and walking out with him.

When they get in the car, Jack turns around and gives him a hug from the front seat before asking him about his thesis.

“Yeah, it went well. Got a high A on it. My professor seemed to enjoy it, I think I’ll probably take some more classes with him.”

“What was it on?”

“Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,” Wade replies.

“Ooh, that’s a good one,” Isa says. “I think I read that a while back.”

Wade nods. “How are your projects going, Iz?”

“Eh, they’re alright. Not really getting much done with the film series. I think it’s turned into a bit of a joke.”

“That’s a shame,” Wade says. “I actually liked them.”

“That’s because your sense of humour is as fucked as mine,” Isa laughs.

“And you Jack? How is advertising treating you?”

Jack laughs. “It’s still shitty. Not exactly what I want to be doing. I think I’m working on a Tesco advert for the next few months.”

“Exciting stuff,” Wade says with a smile. “If you need an extra just let me know, I’m free on the weekends.”

“Oh perfect,” Jack says. “We’ll probably be able to pay you about two pounds for a sixteen hour day with how this budget is looking.”

“You say that like two pounds is nothing. Not all of us are big name filmmakers like you.”

Jack laughs heartily at his younger brother. “ Yeah, yeah. Anywhere in particular you want to go today?”

Wade pauses. “Anywhere but London. They’re going to destroy it, and I don’t know when.”

Jack looks to Isa before slowly speaking.

“Who’s going to destroy London?”

“I don’t know. I just know it’s going to happen. I’ve known for awhile.”

“Do you really think someone’s going to destroy London?” Isa asks Wade.

He doesn’t respond, instead just watching the beads of water roll down his window.

“Wade?”

“Well, I mean, unless someone’s filled my head with some really annoying sorcery, I think so.”

“I think someone’s filled your head with sorcery,” Jack says, turning back towards Wade.

“Yeah, they do that,” Wade replies.

“Who does that?” Jack asks.

“I have a hard time believing it myself, but they can do that,” Wade responds, ignoring Jack’s question.

Jack turns back to look at Isa and shakes his head. He looks so sad, and it breaks Isa’s heart. 

“You don’t actually believe that, do you Wade? ‘Cos you know it’s not true. Deep in your heart of hearts, you know that’s not going to happen,” Isa says.

“I mean logically, yeah, but you know that feeling when you know it’s going to rain, and then it rains? Or you just know that something’s going to go wrong before it actually does? It’s like that. But they’ve got a bomb. And they’ve told me they’ve issued demands and things.”

“By the people in your head?”

“Yeah.”

Isa bites her lip and sighs before Wade continues.

“Like, these organizations, they have a plan. And I’ve been given warning but I have no idea what to do with it. But the people in the organizations know for real.”

“ What organizations?” Jack quips.

“Like, the police and the military. They know.”

Isa bites her lip before attempting to end the conversation. “Alright. So no London.”

The three of them end up going Christmas shopping for their grandparents not far from Jack’s home. 

In recent years, their grandparents showed more concern for them than their parents ever had—especially following Wade’s departure. Countless holidays had passed with no contact from their mum or dad. They had spent the last few Christmases with their grandparents along with a few of their aunts and uncles, and they figure that this year will be no different. They settle on a kitchen set and some nice wine. Then they head to the grocery store to get Wade’s necessities for the week before driving back and dropping Wade off. 

On the way back to Jack’s flat, he does his best to force Isa to tell him what had her so quiet on the way to pick up their younger brother.

“Is it that series you’re working on?”

“No,” Isa says. “That should be stressing me out, though.”

Jack clicks his tongue. “Is it a guy?”

“ No , Jack. I’m fine .”

“ Alright , alright,” Jack says as she pulls up to his street. “If you ever decide to talk just call. Or we can do another interrogation next week.”

Isa rolls her eyes.

“And Iz? You should really get this tin-can fixed,” he says, patting the hood of the car before disappearing.

—

“Hey, mind if I come over?” Florence asks Isa over the phone the next Saturday. 

Isa and Florence had spent the better part of the week rehearsing for the Christmas gig, which Matt was none-too-happy about. After the previous Thursday’s incident, he and Dale had both been banned from the club, which didn’t leave Florence with too many options of who to play with. Matt had suggested that Florence cancel and that they try to find somewhere they could both play, but Florence refused to give up a chance to play at a place where so many music execs and producers spend their evenings. Besides, Isa was happy to help her make some backing tracks and come along to play the songs they had written. 

“Yeah, course you can. You alright?” Florence’s voice is shaky, and Isa knows that she had spent the night with Matt.

“Yeah, it’s just…I mean, ehm—yeah no, I’m fine. Just need something to do for the day.”

Isa knows that she has plenty of schoolwork she could be doing, or she could just sleep the day away after the long week she had with exams and all, but Isa doesn’t question it.

“Okay. My place or the shloft?”

“Your place,” Florence says quickly. Isa does her best not to try and interpret what it means that Florence so clearly wants to get away from wherever she is.

“How about half past one?”

“Yeah,” Florence replies. “I’ll see ya in a bit.”

At almost exactly one on the dot, Florence is out on the sidewalk in front of Isa’s place. Isa trots down the stairs to let her in.

Florence looks absolutely exhausted, and Isa can’t tell if her eyes look swollen from crying or from the cold.

Florence musters up a smile upon seeing Isa though, and wraps her up in a tight hug.

“Isa!” she squeals. “It’s nice to be over here while I’m not inebriated.”

Isa laughs and opens up the door to the stairs. 

When they get inside, Florence throws her jacket over a chair and then curls into the couch.

“You gonna come over and then just fall asleep on my sofa?”

Florence chuckles. “I’m fucking tired .”

Isa nods as she starts her stove to make tea and throws some bagels in the toaster. “How was Matt?” she asks, even though she truthfully didn’t want to know the answer. Florence had spent the last week trying to convince Isa that he never forced her to take pills, that it was her fault for taking it too far that night. 

That she was just being dramatic about Matt hitting her the one time.

Florence bites her lip, and Isa knows before she says a word that whatever she is about to say is a lie. 

“He was fine.”

“Just fine?”

Florence shrugs and Isa can swear she can see tears starting to collect in her eyes. “Don’t really feel like talking about it,” she says just slightly above a whisper.

By the look on her face, Isa knows it is best to drop it for now. “Okay,” Isa replies hesitantly. “You know you can though, right?”

Florence nods.

Isa throws the bagels on a plate and pours two cups of the water. “Black tea okay?”

“Black coffee would be better, but black tea sounds great, Florence says.

Isa laughs. “Gross.”

Isa sets the plates and cups down on the table, and then sits down besides Florence. She opens up her arms, and Florence immediately obliges, her frail frame sinking into her.

“Thanks for letting me come over,” Florence says genuinely.

“I already told you, you’re welcome here anytime.”

After finishing her tea along with two bites of bagel, Florence promptly falls asleep. Isa tosses a blanket over her before resigning to her bedroom. She pulls out her laptop and puts her headphones on, working on mixing the last two backing tracks she had done for Florence. They sounded very different than the guitar backing Florence had grown accustomed to, but she seemed pretty happy that she was able to have a say in the sound of it.

Isa finds herself wondering about Matt. About what he could have possibly done to make Florence call her and ask to come over on a Saturday morning. Isa remembers all too well hiding out in her friend’s places in the few months before things officially ended with Frank. She can remember them begging her to stop seeing him. That was probably in the time after the overdose and before the black eye , Isa thinks.

After a couple of mindless hours of adding layers here and there, Florence appears in the doorway.

“Mind if I…?” she asks motioning towards the bed. 

Isa smiles and lifts the covers, and Florence slips herself under them. 

“What are you working on?”

“Just putting finishing touches on a few of the tracks. I think you’ll have a pretty solid setlist.”

Florence studies the screen. “I have no clue what any of this is, but it looks great,” she laughs. “You’re like a little machine.”

Isa giggles. “I have my methods.” She shuts her laptop and leans back against her headboard. “Got any plans for the day?”

“Ehm, I don’t know. My house is pretty full today, so I’ll probably try to stay out of it. I think my sister is taking a bus out to see our dad, so maybe I’ll join her.”

“In Russia?”

Florence laughs. “No, no he moved back a bit ago. He’s starting up this experimental luxury campsite project.”

Isa cocks an eyebrow. “So he went to write a novel in Russia but got bored with it, so now he’s opening a campground?”

Florence laughs and rolls her eyes. “Isa, you don’t understand,” she says, obviously mocking her father, “it’s different , it’s an experience .”

Isa shakes her head. “I need to meet your family. I think maybe you’d make more sense.”

Florence laughs. “They’re… a lot.”

Isa smiles and then turns to see what was going on outside her window. 

“Why don’t you talk about your family?” Florence asks after a moment.

Isa laughs. “What do you mean?”

“You know all about my attachment issues stemming from my mother running next door to find herself a new husband, and my father running off to Russia, and all of my siblings’ weird quirks—I think you’ve mentioned your brothers maybe once and I couldn’t tell you a thing about your parents other than the fact you had a strict curfew and were forced to go to mass every Sunday.”

Isa bites her cheek. “Not much to say, really. We’re a pretty boring family.”

“Somehow I don’t believe that,” Florence says. “What do your parents do?”

My parents kick their own kids out of their home and then never talk to them again.

“They run a bookshop,” Isa says plainly, ignoring the intruding thoughts in her head. She pauses for a moment, searching for a way out of this conversation she didn’t want to be having. “Do you like to read?”

“Oh I love reading!” Isa breathes a sigh of relief as Florence begins talking about Dickens and Murikami and Woolf and the new Harry Potter book due next year.

—

Between classes and projects and rehearsing Thursday arrives quickly, and Florence comes over to Isa’s to get ready around seven.

Florence is sure to bring over no less than five different outfits, and eventually they decide on both wearing sequin dresses. 

“It’s honestly so weird not to be playing with a guy,” Florence says as she starts doing her makeup. “I’m excited though. I really like these tracks.”

“I’m glad since you’re kind of stuck with them now,” Isa laughs as she applies a small amount of glitter in the corners of her eyes. “You think it’ll be weird being alone?”

Florence shrugs. “I think I’ll be fine. And it’s not like I’m alone, you’re gonna be there. I mean, unless I completely misunderstood this arrangement.”

Isa laughs. “No, no, you’re stuck with me.”

“Well that’s good since I kind of had your name put on the bill.”

“Florrible and Misrabella?” Isa says, cocking an eyebrow.

“Nah, I did ‘Florence Robot/Isa Machine.’ I think it’s funny since you work like a machine, and if you ever leave me I can just slyly make it ‘Florence Robot Is A Machine.’”

Isa laughs heartily. “That’s long as hell. I think you might have to just shorten it to Florence and the Machine or something like that. That way, you know, if I ever leave you can keep the name,” she says with a cheeky grin.

Eventually the clock is pushing eight and Isa is gently trying to encourage Florence to hurry up.

“Flo?” she says, knocking on the bathroom door.

She gets no response, and with a sigh, she turns the knob.

“Oh, sorry,” Isa says when she opens the door only to catch a glimpse of Florence changing. Within a second though, her brain registers the deep purple marks along her ribs, and without thinking she opens the door again.

“Sorry, you can come in,” Florence says as she quickly pulls her shirt back over her head. 

Isa looks at her quizzically. “You okay?”

Florence nods as she turns her gaze back to the sink. “Yep.” She doesn’t seem confused as to why Isa is asking, which only confirms it all for Isa.

“Florence,” Isa begins delicately, “what are those bruises from?”

Isa can see panic rising in Florence as she tries to find a cover.

“I fell down some stairs at school.”

“Oof,” Isa says, already suspicious that it is a lie. “That sounds painful.”

Florence’s hands keep moving around her face applying makeup as she tries to keep things cool.“Yeah, I think it looks worse than it feels. Do you have any makeup remover?” she asks, desperate to change the conversation.

Isa nods. “Yeah, use whatever you need,” she says handing Florence the bottle. “Mind if I look? I might have something to help it.”

Florence bites her cheek, and then hesitantly lifts up the side of her shirt to reveal a huge bruise of various colors outlined with a deep purple line. 

Isa cringes, and gently reaches to touch it with her fingertip. Florence flinches at the sensation, pain shooting all the way around her rib cage. “This is bad,” Isa says as she begins to see that the huge mark is roughly the shape of a hand.

“Yeah, it was a long fall. I’m really clumsy.”

The deep purple and green against Florence’s pale skin makes Isa feel sick. She holds her breath before finally letting the words she’d been thinking fall from her mouth. “So, the stairs were in the shape of a hand, Flo?”

Florence is taken aback by the statement. Her light green eyes quickly dart over to Isa’s as she pulls her shirt back down. Tears are starting to form, and Isa’s heart sinks as she watches Florence’s cheek begin trembling. “ Please don’t tell anyone,” she whispers. “It was a mistake. It’s not going to happen again.”

She turns back towards the mirror and breathes deeply. Isa gently puts a hand on Florence’s shoulder as she tries to salvage her makeup from the tears.

“Flo, you’ve got to tell me what’s—”

“I’m fine , don’t worry about it,” Florence says with a tinge of anger in her voice as she continues wiping under her eyes. She pulls away from the mirror, and then takes a deep breath as if to signify that this conversation is over before retreating to the living room and getting her things ready to leave.

Alone in the bathroom, Isa types out three texts to Dale.

you were right

matt cant go anywhere near her later, do whatever you need to do to make that happen

ill explain later

—

The plan for the night is for Isa and Florence to meet up with Rob, Hugo, and Issac at the club, and then to go back to Dale’s before heading out to a house party at one of Hugo’s friend’s. 

Secretly, Florence fears that Matt will find a way to meet up with her. 

He was upset when Florence told him she would still play the gig even if he was banned. Yes, I’ll be going out after. No I’m not playing with another guitarist, she had told him a few nights ago.

Remember our deal. You better be back by midnight , he had replied. 

The little shocks of pain from her ribs as she breathes in and out are a near constant reminder of what might happen if he found out she was avoiding him.

She tries to logic her way through figuring out if there was any possibility of him finding her. It seems like he isn’t on speaking terms with Dale or Isa or any of their friends; he was banned from the club; she was fairly certain he didn’t know Hugo at all, let alone his friend. 

She stares at Isa, who is looking straight out of her window as their cab navigates the streets of South London. She seems preoccupied with something as she bites on her lip.

She wonders how much Isa knows. 

She wonders if Isa had seen him do this to other girls.

It is odd to arrive to the nightclub at a reasonable hour—it is almost unrecognizable inside, the empty space looking much smaller than it does when it’s filled with people.

“Hiya,” Mairead says, rising from one of the tables upon their arrival. She hugs Florence like she is an old friend, and it takes everything Isa has in her to try and ignore the obvious pain Florence is in as the woman wraps her arms around her. 

“This is Isa, she plays keys,” Florence says to Mairead after talking pleasantries.

“Yeah, I recognize you, you’ve been coming here awhile,” she says with a smile. “Had no idea you do music.”

Isa smiles. “Yeah, I actually DJ, too.”

Mairead’s eyes go wide. “No way, we’ll have to get you up here one night.”

Isa laughs. “We’ll see how tonight goes.”

Florence smiles and it looks forced, but Isa reciprocates anyway as they set up for a soundcheck.

During their short rehearsal, Florence is surprised by how natural it feels to sing with a keyboard or track rather than a guitar. She thinks it might even suit her voice better. A few people come in as she and Isa go through a few songs, and they are met with a small amount of applause after each one. 

When they are done, they disappear into the bathroom to change and put the final touches on their makeup. 

Isa does her best to forget about what she saw earlier; this is a big night for Florence, and Isa knows that it is probably in everyone’s best interest to have fun. Some things could be left for the morning.

Once they emerge from the bathroom in their sparkly dresses and fresh makeup, they find their friends sitting at a high-top table. It is still a bit on the early side, but people have filled the space and the lights have gone down as Christmas remixes play through the speakers.

“Hey,” Issac says, rising to hug Isa. “Big night,” he says, handing her a santa hat. Isa laughs and tosses it on. 

“Thanks for coming,” she says with a smile. “This is Flo, I don’t know if you’ve ever actually met.”

“Issac,” he says, stretching out a hand. “I’ve known her since before she was cool,” he adds, motioning to Isa before she punches him in the arm. “Nice to meet you.”

“You as well,” Florence says with a laugh as she accepts the santa hat he hands her. Isa helps her put it on, and adjusts her hair falling out of it.

They talk about their christmas plans and their setlist and then go over their plan for later. 

“Matt coming?” Issac asks, looking between Rob, Florence, and Isa. 

Isa quickly remembers that Issac had left to meet up with his other friends before the incident two weeks ago, and then curses herself for not filling him in. 

“Nah,” she says as coolly as she can. “He’s got other places to be tonight.” 

Issac looks confused, but Isa seems sure of herself so he doesn’t push it any further. 

“We’ve got ten, should we head over?” Isa asks, turning to Florence.

Florence nods, and under the flashing red and green lights, Isa takes her hand and leads her to the small stage.

Unsurprisingly set goes without any issues, and people seem to be pleasantly surprised with Florence’s huge voice. Any worries Florence had about not having a guitarist are suddenly gone as she commands the stage on her own. Isa backs her on a few covers of Christmas songs, and by the end of it, they have everyone singing along to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” as Florence jumps around, her santa hat falling off at some point in the chaos.

Once they finish their set, a DJ takes over and they get lost in the lights and flow of the dance floor. Rob tries and fails miserably to teach Florence and Isa how to do a dance, and eventually they all resign to grinding on each other like no one else was in the room.

Without Dale to stop him, Hugo ends up all over Isa, but she likes the attention. She has a passing thought of how nice it was to be able to go out and have fun without Dale hovering over her like an older brother; she immediately feels guilty, but she continues to dance with the dark-haired guy and accept every drink he hands her.

Florence and Rob awkwardly dance with one another with Rob keeping his distance; he is extremely aware of the fact that she has a boyfriend, and doesn’t really want to get on his bad side after what he had witnessed the previous week. Rob cringes every time he sees her accept an unknown pill from strangers who had watched and enjoyed her set, but he doesn’t say anything, simply keeping a closer eye on her with each bold swallow.

After awhile, Florence begins to feel anxious from the pills and the alcohol and the crowdedness of the place. Her phone is blowing up with texts and calls from Matt, and she fears her plan to casually act like she had coincidentally gotten swept up into places he wouldn’t be able to go to is going badly. 

From Matt, 00:18: where the fuck are you?

From Matt, 00:21: i swear to god if your still with isa ill kill you

From Matt, 00:25: ill be at the arms when you decide to do whats good for you

Florence feels her chest burn as she reads the texts, but she does her absolute best to stop looking at her phone and enjoy the night. She watches as Isa dances with Hugo, and feels a tinge of what she can only call jealousy, though it pains her to admit it. She thinks back to the Madonna night she had gone to with Isa, and then the unfortunate morning after.

She thinks about the feeling of her lips on Isa’s. 

She thinks about the sensation of Isa’s finger tracing along her ribs, no matter how painful it might have felt.

She reaches into her wallet and then swallows another pill, willing her brain to forget that Matt or Isa even exist.

Eventually they head back to Dale’s. It is lowkey, and it gives Florence some time to sober up and work through the anxious feeling she felt in her chest before moving onto the next place. 

At some point though, she looks at her phone and sees that she has a number of texts and missed calls from Matt.

Florence pulls Isa into the bathroom. She immediately starts crying, but Isa is drunk enough that it takes her a moment to remember all she had seen earlier before they left.

“We have to go back to yours,” Florence says as her chest rapidly rises and falls.

Isa shakes her head in confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“He won’t stop fucking calling me.”

“Who?”

“Matt,” Florence whispers like it is the most obvious thing. In her drunkenness, she didn’t really care what Isa thought of her boyfriend. She was too tired to try and defend him at this point. “I lied to him about where I was going afterward and I thought I’d be able to get away with it, but I think he’s really mad.”

All of a sudden, everything clicks for Isa and she once again feels sick. She thanks god she had thought to text Dale before they had left for the night. “Flo,” Isa says gently, “I already told Dale to not let him anywhere near any of the places we’re going tonight.”

“You told Dale?”

Isa bites her lip. “It’s not like he’s Matt’s biggest fan at the moment anyway.”

Florence lightly hits the back of her head against the wall in frustration. “Isa, he’ll kill me if he knows I told anyone.”

“Are you being serious?”

Florence bites her lip. “I mean, no , but...he can get pretty scary. I dunno.”

Isa shakes her head. “We’re going to have to talk about this, you know that right?”

Florence nods. “Yeah.”

“Do you want me to talk to Dale?”

Florence shakes her head. “No. I think I’m just overthinking this.”

“Alright, well he’s not coming anywhere near here and I’m not letting you out of my sight, why don’t we go try and have some fun?”

After an hour or so of hanging out at Dale’s, they leave for Hugo’s friend’s house. It is a decent size place for a twenty-something in South London, and people are flooding in and out of it. Inside, there is a layer of smoke above everyone’s heads that is illuminated by the flashing lights. Remixes of christmas songs blast in the background, and the smell of alcohol and weed is overwhelming. 

Florence seems to relax once she sees the amount of people in the house, and before she knows it, Isa sees that she is up on a table dancing with Rob. Isa laughs at the two of them and their awkward lanky-ness as they try to coordinate the moves to the Macarena to “A Wonderful Christmas Time.” 

With Florence clearly feeling better and happily dancing with Rob, Isa leaves with Issac and Dale to find drinks. Hugo follows closely behind, clearly wanting to continue where they left off at the club. 

When they reach the somewhat empty kitchen, Dale pulls Isa aside. 

“Is she okay? What the fuck were those texts about?”

Isa exhales. “I really don’t know. He’s definitely hurting her, and she’s definitely been putting on a front to keep anyone from knowing how bad it is.”

“Why did you let her go out? Do you realise how badly this could end?”

Isa bites her lip. “I had no idea how bad any of this was before tonight.”

“Do we know where he is?”

“I mean, I would guess he’s at the Arms? That’s kind of his go-to.”

“No one told him about this party, right?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Good. I’ll keep an eye out.”

In the other room, Florence feels her phone buzzing even though she could’ve sworn she’d turned it off. 

As she reads through more missed texts, she reluctantly leaves Rob’s side. “Gonna go to the bathroom,” she shouts over the music before trotting up the stairs. 

She leans against the door and listens to the voicemail he’d left. 

“Hello, it’s me. If you don’t tell me where the fuck you are I can promise next week will be worse than last, Flo.” His words are slurred and Florence can tell he’s in the pub. She hears his phone click shut at the end of the recording, and she feels sick as she curls into the bathtub and starts crying.

Downstairs, Isa searches for Florence with no luck. 

“Rob,” she asks, knowing he has a much better view than she does, “do you see Florence anywhere?” 

He looks confused. “No, she went to the bathroom like twenty minutes ago. I thought she probably met up with you.”

“Fuck,” Isa says. “Can you help me look for her?”

They split up and search their way through the house. Isa feels extremely disoriented as she tries to navigate the downstairs; every room looks the same, full of people and lights and smoke and bass. 

Eventually, she finds a staircase and ungracefully climbs up to the second floor. 

There is a handwritten sign that says BATHROOM with an arrow pointing to a door on her right, and Isa stumbles towards it.

“Florence?” Isa asks as she slowly opens the door. Before Florence has a chance to protest, Isa walks in, carefully shutting it and locking it behind her.

“I was wondering where you went,” she says, kicking off her heels and climbing into the tub with Florence as if it were the most natural thing in the world to sit in the bathtub crying in the middle of a house party. 

She watches Florence sniffle, her head resting on her knees with her arms wrapped around her legs. She refuses to look up, instead studying the little patterns of the tiles on the wall.

“You okay?” Isa asks, gently putting a hand on Florence’s bare knee. Just the feeling of human contact is enough to make Florence burst into tears again. She looks up, and Isa is met with a face full of glitter and running mascara. Her green eyes shine in the fluorescent light, and Isa thinks to herself that they are so green they almost seem unnatural. “What’s the matter love?”

“I’m just tired of this,” Florence whispers through the sobs. Her sparkly dress is falling off her bony shoulders, and Isa wants nothing more than to find Matt and beat the shit out of him as she looks at the pathetic girl in front of her. “Matt left a voicemail and he’s really angry. And he’s not far from here and I’m honestly a little scared.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s at the Arms. I mean, I’m assuming he’s still there.”

“Oh, Flo,” she says, moving closer to Florence and opening up her arms to offer her an embrace. 

Without thinking, Florence collapses into her, resting her cheek on her shoulder as she silently sobs, wondering how in the world she was going to be able to avoid Matt moving forward. 

Isa feels her stomach turn as she feels Florence shake beneath her hands. “Dale is on high alert, you don’t need to be scared. Do you want to go home? I can call a cab if you want.”

Florence inhales and exhales, taking in the scent that she recognized as Isa’s shampoo that she had used months ago. “I really want to stay, I was having fun.” She shakily exhales and more tears start falling. “I look a mess though and I’m very drunk and think I should probably just go home.”

Isa pulls away and looks at Florence’s face. “No,” she says. “You look beautiful, it’s nothing we can’t fix.” Carefully she takes her thumb and wipes around Florence’s eyes, clearing up the black smudges and tear trails. 

She studies Florence carefully; her eyes, the way her eyelashes slant downwards, the sharp angles of her cheeks. She smells like a mix of old books and vanilla, and her skin is so pale that it almost looks like it’s glowing in the dark bathroom. Once she finishes her work, her eyes meet Florence’s, and without thinking she kisses her cheek, letting her lips linger on the soft skin beneath them for a moment.

In their drunkenness, neither of them overthink the casual gesture. As Isa pulls away though, she once again meets Florence’s sad green eyes and then watches as she bites her lip. Isa can see the confusion in Florence’s face as she gently presses her lips closer to her mouth, feeling the corner of Florence’s lips just to the side of hers. Isa pulls back, trying to understand what she is doing. It feels so wrong, and yet the only thing she can think about is the feeling of Florence’s lips on hers two Saturdays ago and how much she regretted not kissing her back when she had the chance.

Florence looks hesitant, but as soon as she meets Isa’s calm gaze, she reaches a hand to the back of Isa’s neck.

Isa holds her breath and feels her chest burn as, in slow motion, she feels herself press forward once again, this time planting her lips directly on Florence’s. 

It is a new feeling, actually kissing a girl. Isa finds herself getting lost in how soft and gentle it feels. She can taste the acidity of whatever drink Florence was sipping on her lips, and then she feels the sensation of Florence combing her fingers through her hair and wrapping her hand around the back of her head. She feels Florence’s warm breath on her lips in between kisses. She finds herself briefly thinking about her brother, and then her parents as Florence deepens the kiss, but does her best to ignore it as she gets lost in this new feeling. When Florence opens her mouth wider and tentatively touches her tongue to Isa’s, Isa responds with a small hum and gently reciprocates.

The sober part of Isa screams no, bad idea, while the drunken part of her whispers yes, good . Isa’s fingertips trace over Florence’s back, and her lips feel as if they are melting into hers. 

“Isa,” she hears Florence whisper at some point between soft kisses. She tries to pretend she didn’t hear as her hand runs through Florence’s hair, but then Florence’s hand is on her chest, forcefully pushing her away. “Isa, stop .”

Florence looks scared as she quickly rises from the tub. Isa isn’t sure what to say or do, so she sits frozen on the cold tiles as Florence collects her things from the vanity. Her dark hair is falling out of the neat half-up style it had been in, and there is glitter all up and down her arms and on her dress. “I think I’m going to call a cab home, I’m pretty drunk and not feeling good,” she says, exiting the bathroom before Isa has a chance to say even a word.

After a moment of trying to comprehend what just happened, Isa eventually rises from the tub. It feels as if she leaves her body as she watches herself walk out of the front door of the house and across the dark street.

She walks past the club, past the school, past the café that her second boyfriend had broken up with her in years ago. 

Without thinking, she walks into the old pub that she and her friends frequented, and immediately zones in on Matt downing a shot from a barstool. 

She walks up behind him and, as if it has its own brain, her hand is flying towards his temple faster than it had ever moved before.

“What the f—”

Before Matt can even finish his sentence, Isa has him knocked over, pinning him to the hardwood floor. Around them people gasp and instinctively step away as they watch, in horror, the tiny girl repeatedly strike him in the face with her fist. Her strength surprises her as she watches a bit of dark red blood drip from his nose. She mostly punches him for what he did to Florence, but also to get out her frustration with the world; for her parents, for Wade, for Jack, for how horrible people can be to one another.

For how horrifically cruel it was for him to introduce her to this incredible person who brought back Isa’s least favorite part of herself. 

He frantically tries to push her away, but she keeps landing punches until someone is prying her off of him. 

“What the fuck is happening here?” a bouncer asks them as a guy holds Isa back.

Isa’s heart is beating so fast that she can barely register what she just did. She remains in a state of shock as she watches Matt wince in pain on the floor and sees the large amount of blood surrounding his head. 

“Get her out of here before I call the police on her,” the bouncer tells the person holding Isa back.

Immediately, Isa’s arm is sharply pulled towards the door.

Outside, the cold makes her skin burn. She looks up at the stranger who had dragged her off of Matt only to realize that it was Dale who had pried her off him and pulled her outside.

His blue eyes are huge in the pale moonlight illuminating the street. He looks at her— she was still tiny little Isabella Summers who had come outside to tell him his music was interrupting her reading all those years ago.

Her hands are covered in blood and her eyes are huge and wild. He looks at her with a sense of brotherly admiration and scoffs. “Didn’t know you had that in you Iz.”

Chapter Text

“Grace, open up,” Florence says quietly. It was a long walk home from the house party and if she was being honest with herself, she really didn’t feel like being alone with her thoughts at the moment. 

Uncharacteristically, by some miracle the front door of her house hadn’t been locked. This likely meant her parents weren’t home, which meant Florence didn’t have to worry about them seeing her in her current state. After coming in, she had made sure the front door was locked about ten times before making her way to her seventeen-year-old sister’s bedroom. 

“She’s asleep,” she hears her fifteen-year-old step-sister whisper. “What do you—”

Molly is cut off by a haggard looking Florence opening the door herself. Right below the hem of her dress, her knees are freshly-bloodied, likely from a drunken fall on pavement Molly realizes. Her face is full of glitter and running makeup, and she recognizes the ashy-color of Florence’s skin all-too-well. 

Grace stirs awake from the sound of her door opening, and the DVD player on her lap falls to the side as she sits up. Her vision sharpens and she sees Florence, looking worse than she’d ever seen her—if that’s even possible—slumped against her door frame.

“ Fucking hell, Flo .”

She tosses the covers aside and immediately gets up to examine her older sister.

“Are you okay?” she asks, the concern dripping in her voice as she gently hugs Florence after looking her up and down. She notices her bloody knees first—then the smell of alcohol, then her messy makeup, and then her unfocused eyes.

Florence can only manage to shake her head no.

“Com’on, let’s go,” Grace says, leading Florence to the bathroom by her hand. When they reach the brightly-lit bathroom, Florence begins to softly cry, tears pouring out of the corners of her eyes. Grace squeezes her hand as she tries to piece together what could have possibly happened to make what should have been a good night for her sister end like this. “Can you get bandages and water?” she quietly asks Molly.

Molly nods and then disappears as Grace gets Florence leaning against the countertop of their bathroom.

“Let’s get this off and hung up,” Grace says, helping Florence lift her arms above her head to slip the sparkly dress off. “You okay?” she asks as she notices her sister wincing. She wonders if maybe she twisted her shoulder awkwardly or accidentally pulled on an earring before suddenly seeing the real reason for Florence’s pained expression.

The dress is forgotten about as Grace gasps in horror after she sees the full, dark-purple bruise on Florence’s rib cage.

“Flo, what the fuck is this?” she whispers, well aware of her siblings asleep only a few walls away.

Florence suddenly sobers up a bit as adrenaline hits her. “ Fuck ,” she says to no one in particular. “ Fuck, fuck, fuck . You weren’t supposed to see that,” she says. Her face has gone even paler and her eyes are full of tears. 

“Florence,” Grace starts slowly, “did Matt do that to you?”

Molly returns and starts cleaning up Florence’s knees with a washcloth as Florence stares back at Grace in silence. Sitting on the toilet lid with just her bra and pants has her feeling completely exposed; she can feel Molly and Grace looking at every mark on her body, all of them slightly different colors depending on how old they were. Some of them were from some rough bedroom encounters, others from shoves into walls, and a few from random hits and punches.

“Flossy,” Grace says gently as she reaches out to softly touch the bruise on her ribs with the back of her finger, “I asked you a question.”

Florence shakily exhales as a sob escapes her chest, and that is enough of an answer for Grace.

Suddenly Florence is breathing as if she had just emerged from drowning. She looks between her sisters, desperate for any sort of reassurance. “Shh, hey, you’re okay now. You’re okay,” Molly says as soothingly as she can as Florence gasps for air. Florence curses herself for letting her youngest sister see her like this, but completely collapses into her after she gently embraces her. Florence shakes in her arms, and feels even more comforted as she feels Grace’s hand run along her hair. 

Florence isn’t quite sure what exactly she’s crying about; her ribs hurt like hell, and she is fully terrified of the guy she calls her boyfriend—but somehow, even more painful was the look on Isa’s face when she left her behind in that bathroom.

The whole situation makes her feel horrible— technically cheating on Matt, leaving Isa behind without a word, daring to let that kiss last for as long as it did when Isa had made it pretty clear she didn’t want to kiss her back when they were sober. 

All of that aside, Florence feels weird about how much she enjoyed kissing Isa. How natural it felt. The thought that she might like girls in a non-platonic way makes her feel dizzy and sick as she stares at the bright bathroom lights.

She worries that Isa won’t want to make music anymore. She worries that she had completely fucked everything up in the span of a few hours. 

She worries that Matt will make his way back to her house. 

“Flo, you need to breathe,” Grace says. Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t even realized she was having a full blown, substance-fueled anxiety-attack. She panics, feeling like all of the air in the room had suddenly rushed out. 

Grace puts Florence’s hand right below her collar bone, and then exaggeratingly breathes in and out, in and out, trying to get her sister to follow her. “Good, there you go,” she says as Florence slowly begins to calm down. 

Molly hands her a glass full of water, and Florence sips on it, savoring the feeling of water hitting her dried-out throat. 

Eventually, with a sister on either side of her, Florence makes it back to Grace’s bedroom dressed in an old pair of satin shorts and a big Green Day t-shirt. 

Molly collects her things, gives Florence a tight hug, and promises cinnamon waffles in the morning before retreating to her own bedroom.

It is weird, Florence thinks, being at a point in her life that she would go out and deal with very adult problems, only to come back home and have her little-sisters take care of her.

Grace dims the lights and then crawls under the covers with Florence, carefully wrapping her arms around her sister.

Florence is still sniffling, and Grace isn’t sure if this necessary conversation should happen now or be left for the morning.

“You know I love you, right?”

Florence nods a little bit, nuzzling her head into Grace’s shoulder.

“Do you want to talk now, or in the morning?” Grace asks.

Florence sighs. Her eyes are glassy and lifeless as she stares at Grace’s wall full of various photos and posters. Lying in her sister’s bed, she feels a sense of safety, like nothing bad could ever happen so long as she stayed under her covers. Grace’s heavy duvet is warm and familiar, and smells like the detergent that their mum had been using since before they were born. 

“Can I tell you something, Grace?” Florence says, basically ignoring her question.

“You can tell me anything,” Grace says firmly.

She continues smoothing her hand down her sister’s head, something they had both done to calm each other down since they were small kids.

“You know girl I was telling you about? The one I’ve been recording with?”

“Izzy? Or Isa? Whatever it is?”

Florence nods. “Isa,” she confirms, suddenly feeling sick.

“What about her?”

Florence gulps and she feels the backs of her eyes burn with tears. She tries to focus on the feeling of Grace’s hand gently holding onto her shoulder instead of how scared she feels to say something so small, so insignificant compared to the fact that her boyfriend was hurting her.

“Florence?” Grace asks after a moment.

“I think I like her,” Florence replies, her shaky voice barely above a whisper.

Grace looks at her sister’s patchy, pale face and she isn’t sure what to say. Of course it wasn’t a big deal that Florence liked a girl—Grace had had her suspicions ever since she had watched how painfully Florence had interacted with her first boyfriend, and how flirty she would get with Sophie upon one sip of alcohol. But in light of how scared Florence looks right in front of her, Grace isn’t sure what to say.

She hugs her tighter. “Okay,” Grace says soothingly after collecting her thoughts. It feels weird, ignoring the much bigger, much more concerning elephant in the room, but she resigns to following Florence’s lead. “Tell me about her.”

That’s enough to open the floodgates for Florence. She tells Grace about the squat party, and then the schloft, and how invested Isa was in her music. She tells her about how kind Isa is, and how willing she was to go out of her way to make Florence feel safe and comfortable. She reluctantly tells Grace about that first kiss, cringing with every detail. Grace, however, just continues to nod and prod Florence along as she intently listens. She tells Grace about the backing tracks Isa made and the gig, and finally, she tells Grace about what had happened in the upstairs bathroom of a house party just a little over two hours ago. 

“So you just left? You walked all the way home?” Grace asks incredulously. 

Florence nods. “Yeah, I ehm—I kind of fell and bloodied myself up pretty good, but it was fine.”

Grace shakes her head. “Why didn’t you call me? Sean’s car is here, I could’ve taken it.”

Florence bites her lip. “I really wanted to just get out of there. I needed to get home.”

Grace hesitates, unsure if she was ready to have that conversation with her sister.

“Were you scared that Matt was going to find you, Flo?” she asks quietly.

Florence closes her eyes and nods before breaking down into tears again.

“I’m scared, Grace. I’m fucking scared .”

—

Isa wakes the next morning and her hand is throbbing. As her consciousness begins to function again, her lungs burn as feelings of shame and guilt overwhelm her. She lies in bed trying her best to just breathe as she remembers the warm, soft feeling of Florence’s lips around hers. Her eyes start watering as she recalls the image of Florence quickly getting up and out of the tub. Then, as a wave of pain hits her hand, she remembers the feeling of warm, sticky blood on her fingers and the snapping-feeling of Matt’s nose beneath her fist. She doesn’t realize it, but she begins hyperventilating from her space on the bed.

“ Fucking-A Iz, are you alright?”

She jumps up and peers over the side of her bed only to find Dale wiping his eyes awake from his spot on the floor. 

“Hope you don’t mind but I stayed over. You seemed really out of it and to be honest, I was too drunk to get home anyway. I didn’t really want to leave you here alone.”
Isa shakes her head and takes a few deep breaths, looking down at Dale who was lying on the hardwood floor in his outfit from last night. “Thanks for staying.”

Dale nods. “What happened? I had gone over to the Arms just to make sure that Matt was still there and then all of a sudden you were beating the shit out of him.”
Isa exhales and then flops back down onto the bed. “Florence had this huge-ass bruise on her side that I saw when she was over here getting ready last night. She basically admitted that it was Matt’s doing, and then all of last night he just wouldn’t leave her alone. She was having a breakdown when I finally found her at the party. And then...I dunno, I wasn’t really thinking, it just sort of happened.”

“Where did Florence go?”

Isa racks her brain, desperately trying to figure out where Florence might have gone off to.

“I don’t know, I think she went home?”

“You think ? You mean, you don’t know where she went?” Dale says incredulously.

“I mean, she wanted to leave and so she left?”

“You just let her leave , Isa? What kind of stupid are you? She was wasted!”

“It was out of my control, alright! I can’t tell her what to do!” Isa snaps back.

“Iz, she weighs like a hundred pounds at most, you could’ve just held her—”

“ Dale, shut the fuck up !” Isa screams. She is frustrated, and worried about Florence, and confused about how she feels about last night’s events.

Dale looks at her in shock before gently beginning to speak. “I’m sorry Iz, I didn’t mean—”

“I kissed her,” Isa says, cutting him off. “I kissed her, and then she ran off,” Isa says quietly.

“Okay, drunk girls make out all the time,” Dale says. “I mean, that’s really not a big deal. Unless, you know—”

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

Dale raises his eyebrows and bites his lip. “ Oh ?”

Isa groans and throws herself back on the bed. “Don’t ‘ oh’ me. I really don’t want to talk about it, I mean it.”

“Consider it forgotten about,” Dale says quickly from his spot on the ground. He was the only person Isa had ever confided in about her confusing feelings, especially after Jack’s ordeal came to light, and he had nearly forgotten about it in the almost decade since that initial conversation. They sit in silence, the only sound in the room coming from the cars below. 

“What are we going to do about Matt?” Isa asks quietly. 

Dale shakes his head. “I wouldn’t worry about him. I’ll deal with him. If he so as much looks at a girl wrong moving forward it’s over.”

“Dale, please don’t go getting yourself in—”

“Bella, you beat the shit out of him last night. They could’ve arrested you. Don’t go telling me what to do now.”
Isa bites her cheek hard. “Yeah, you got me there.”

Eventually, after individually checking every one of Isa’s bruised fingers to make sure nothing was broken, Dale leaves.

She types out about twenty texts before finally working up the courage to send one to Florence.

u home safe?

She puts her phone down next to her head and closes her eyes, trying her best to not build up too much anxiety waiting for a reply.

The hours tick by, and very suddenly it seems, the sun is setting outside Isa’s window. Realizing she hasn’t eaten anything all day, she forces herself to the kitchen, scarfing down a piece of toast and a banana before crawling back under her covers. 

She has that awful feeling of vague sickness, the one where her head feels heavy and the room spins just ever so slightly. She checks her phone to make sure she didn’t miss anything, but there is nothing. She audibly sighs, and eventually falls into a restless sleep.

Saturday passes, and Sunday passes, and still, she hears nothing. 

im getting worried. 

anything, flo. just want to know ur ok

—

On Monday, Dale pays Matt a visit. His apartment wasn’t far from Dale’s, and Dale still knows the code to the keypad from all the parties he had been to in the years before Matt became a total asshole. 

Dale quietly opens the door to the flat, and sees Matt sitting at a small table. He shuts the door behind him, and Matt suddenly turns around, his eyes going wide in the middle of his swollen, bruised face. 

“ Fuck ,” he says with a jump, surprised from the early-morning intruder. “What the fuck do you want, D?” Around him there are empty bottles and baggies and aluminum wrappers littering the floor.

Dale shakes his head. “I don’t want to start anything dude. But you know I care about Isa more than just about anything else on this planet, and if you do anything to retaliate against her, this ,” he says, motioning to Matt’s face, “is going to seem like nothing .”

Matt slowly nods. “D, you know I used to love that kid like a sister. She’s gotten bitchy though lately, and I’m not going to put up with that shit.”

Dale scoffs with a slight laugh. “You’re ‘not going to put up with that shit’? She fucked you up, man. I think she’s not putting up with your shit.”
Matt shakes his head. “ What shit?” he mumbles.

“ What shit ?” Dale says in disbelief. “Do you really think we’re fucking stupid ?”

Matt looks at Dale cautiously, suddenly realizing that Dale might know more than he would prefer. “Your girlfriend —you know, the one who you left for dead, and then basically tried to kill, and then beat the shit out of and did god-knows what? Isa’s seen all that. I’ve seen all that. Thursday she was in fucking tears because she was so afraid of you finding her. And I’m certain we haven’t seen the worst of it. So I’m really glad you brought me to my next point, because I want it to be perfectly clear that if you so as much go within fifty feet of that girl, ever again , I’ll ruin your life without even having to lay a hand on you.”

That same Monday, Isa considers going to Florence’s house. She knows the address still, and even just hearing from one of her siblings that she was alive and well would make her feel better. 

Her mind, however, tells her that this is probably a bad idea. Maybe Florence needed some space; the image of her face as she pushed Isa away prevents Isa from trying to contact her beyond texts.

The days become a monotonous cycle of waking up past noon, finding something to eat, working on some tracks, maybe smoking, maybe eating again, curling up on the couch, watching shitty television until she wakes up with a cramp in her neck in the early hours of the morning and walks herself to bed. In between her daily activities, she sends an odd text to Florence, desperate to her anything from her.

But after Christmas passes, and then the New Year, and then two cold January weeks, Isa pretty much gives up on making contact with Florence. Dale had randomly seen her at a shop with her family, which brought Isa some peace, so she did her best to move on. Dale had also gone to have a “talk” with Matt; he spared Isa the details of their discussion, but assured her that he wouldn’t be going anywhere near Florence for a long, long time. 

She spends some time in the schloft making soundtracks that some of her friends had requested, slowly making her way through a long list. Eventually the list is empty, so she spends a lot of time at Jack’s place, quietly sitting on his couch while he edited or adjusted his films.

It had gotten to the point where she could manage to go more than an hour without thinking about Florence when one day, her opens her phone to see a single text.

From Florence, 12:48: call me later? hope ur doing well x

—

The beginning of February is busy. Florence and Isa had been booked for more gigs, and the pressure was on as conditional offers for management and record deals started rolling in, contingent on them making a solid discography. 

Florence was over at the schloft a solid four or five days a week. Somehow, the topics of what had happened at the party, or why or how Matt was suddenly out of the picture never came up. Maybe she was blackout , they both think as the days pass without so much as an allusion to that bathtub kiss. Florence had taken on a new serious in the face of all the new developments, and Isa quietly followed her lead.  

As they work one day though, Isa suddenly has a realization. 

“Have you been going to school?”

“Hmm?” Florence says, concentrating on something she is scribbling down on a notebook. Isa closes her laptop, and turns around to face her from across the room. 

“When are your classes? You’ve been over here a lot.”

Florence had really thought she’d managed to escape having this conversation—with anyone. After going and having a long discussion with Professor Smith the first day of the term, she’d officially dropped out. She was free to return and resume her degree any time in the next fifteen years. 

Professor Smith had left her with a tight hug, telling her that she was confident Florence would flourish in any creative setting. As Florence walked out of her small office, the professor reminded her that her door was open at any time and to keep her updated.

She didn’t tell her parents—they were too busy in their own worlds to really notice anyway. Grace and her other siblings were all out of the house during the day, between work and school and other activities. And if they weren’t, she’d just go to the schloft.

It wasn’t that she hated school—it actually gave her a sense of accomplishment, a sense that she was actually good at something. It was just that she was tired of the monotony, tired of feeling like she was going nowhere fast. 

That, and the amount of emails she’d received through MySpace after that Christmas gig. It was shocking to read such kind words about her voice that never really fit in with other musicians. Her voice that she had been told to quiet for years and years. After the fallout with her first band, she had promised herself to never get into the mess of the music world again, but after receiving what must of been the fiftieth offer, she caved. 

And so that was how she ended up a college-drop out, staring at Isa unable to speak. 

“Flo? Hello?”

Fuck, Florence mouths to herself before beginning to speak. She bites her lip and closes her eyes. “I kind of ehm, dropped out?” she says tentatively. 

“You what ?” Isa responds almost angrily. It is already painful enough to watch Florence make all the same mistakes she did, and dropping out of school was definitely not something she wants to add to the list.

“Isa, it’s fine ,” she says, trying to downplay the seriousness of it. “I wanted more time to work on music.”

“Florence, you’re twenty ! You’re at a great school! Why the fuck would you just leave?”

Florence groans and throws her head back. “Because I wanted to, okay?” Isa can see her eyes just ever-so-slightly glistening with tears, and she softens up as she sits down next to her.

“I’m sorry I yelled.”

Florence brushes it off. “You’re fine. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Isa nods. They sit on the futon, the whirr of the space-heater filling the small room.

After awhile, Isa turns to her. “You know how stupid that was though, right?”

Florence closes her eyes and nods. “Yeah,” she quickly mumbles.

Isa turns back, thinking about how much potential their current arrangement held. If they did this right, they could actually make something out of themselves. 

“Flo,” Isa begins after a while. “Thanks for coming back.”

Florence slowly nods. She isn’t sure exactly what Isa means, or if she means anything at all. She thinks about dramatically hugging Isa, or launching into a long-winded rant about how much Isa means to her and how relieved she was that they had gone back to the way things were. She quickly tells herself that it would be stupid though, and instead just smiles slightly though her tears and mumbles back, “ Yeah .”

Chapter Text

The dreams Isa starts having begin simply enough.

Florence is just a side character as Isa dreams about nonsense in the distorted reality of her brain. She’ll be in a hallway, or on the street, and Isa will just stop and say hi before continuing on to whatever her head wants to do that night.

She figures Florence just keeps popping up because of the sheer amount of time they are spending together. The long days in the shloft leave Isa with little to think about other than the new tracks they are making and long auburn hair and green eyes. 

The dreams start becoming more personal though. It’ll be Florence at the schloft, or in the apartment, or even in her bed, simply sleeping.

She finds it weird how often Florence appears, but doesn’t really think much of it, until one night, her head decides to bring her back to the bathtub she had tried so, so hard to forget about.

Isa’s hands are in Florence’s hair and she can feel her perfectly straight teeth just under her tongue. This kiss lasts much longer than the original one, and Isa feels her heart beating hard in her chest as her lips continue to crash against Florence’s.

She waits for Florence to push her away, to get up and leave, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, Florence leans back against the tub and Isa follows her, gently moving her hand down her side as she continues to kiss her. Soon enough she can feel ribs under her fingertips, but then, something startles her.

There is a hole in Florence’s side, right where that awful bruise was.

No skin, no bone, just a gaping hole that Isa’s hand falls right into. 

Immediately her mind flies back to Sunday school lessons about the holy wounds: the sword that pierced into Jesus’ side, Thomas reaching into it. 

She wakes with a gasp and tries not to think too hard about what it all means. 

—

“You’re being fucking weird , Iz,” Dale says from corner of Isa’s flat the day after that weird, god awful dream. Both desperate to get work done, he had come over to Isa’s apartment with his headphones and laptop and declared that he wasn’t leaving until Isa finishes editing a video and he successfully makes a track. 

Isa shrugs from her spot on the couch. “I’m just tired, we’ve been trying to get demos together and it’s exhausting.”

“Mm,” Dale says, nodding his head as he moves his headphones down to his neck. “How is she doing?” he asks, referring to Florence.

Again, he is met with a shrug. “We haven’t really talked about anything,” she replies plainly. It was the truth—they had gone nearly three weeks now without so much as alluding to Matt, but from how much happier Florence seemed, she knows that he is no longer an issue. 

Dale looks at Isa with a quizzical look. “Well you’re chatty today.”

He is met with a simple eye roll. 

“Isa,” he says firmly again, “what in the fuck is it? You look exhausted, you’re not talking, and you’ve been staring up into space for the last half hour.”

Isa closes her eyes and takes a deep breath out of frustration. She and Dale are so strangely similar that he has the annoying capability to read her like no other. “I just had a weird sort of nightmare last night and I wasn’t able to sleep after, okay?”

“You’re twenty-six and still getting nightmares?” he asks with a laugh.

Isa bites her lip and again shakes her head. “What’s the point of asking me what’s wrong if you’re just gonna make fun of me?”

Dale puts his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry.” He pauses, taking the time to consider what he should ask next. Clearly something is very wrong, and he realizes that now is not the time for their sarcastic humour. “What was it about, the dream?”

He is opening Pandora's box with that question, and Isa knows it.

She feels her chest burn as she tries to figure out what to say, how to lie so that Dale won’t ask any more questions. 

She hesitates a second too long though. Dale’s face turns to pure worry, and before she has a chance to blurt something out, she begins tearing up instead.

“Isa,” Dale says, shutting the laptop and awkwardly standing from his spot on the floor. He sits next to her on the couch, “what’s going on?”

She brings her hand to her forehead, slightly covering her eyes as she feels Dale lightly place a hand on her shoulder.

“ Fuck , I don’t want to talk about this,” she says quietly, her voice shaking as she tries to regain composure.

“Whatever it is, I think it’s pretty clear you need to talk about it.”

Isa deeply inhales, and then in one, single breath, opens up a part of her that she knows can’t be closed back up.

“Remember what I told you right after my brother’s graduation?”

Dale bites his lip and shakes his head. 

“I don’t know… you’ve told me lots of things.”

“The thing that we haven’t talked about since.” She really doesn’t want to have to spell it out for him, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult as he gently shakes his head.

“Bella, you’re going to have to be a little more direct here. I don’t know what—”

“I like Florence,” she says quickly, suddenly growing brave. “Like, I’m in love with her. I had a dream I was kissing her at the party again, but there was a hole in her side and it scared the shit out of me.”

Dale blinks his eyes a few times, immediately going back to the moment when Isa kind-of-sort-of-not-really came out to him when they were sixteen. She had just returned from Jack’s graduation and was slightly drunk when Dale found her in the park. Through tears she told him everything, and then made him swear on his life that he wouldn’t tell anyone and that he would do his best to forget she ever said anything about it. 

If he remembers correctly, that was the same summer Isa started dating Frank. 

Dale snaps out of his reminiscing and wraps an arm around Isa as she slowly breathes in and out.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he says, running his hand up and down her back as she shakes. “Have you talked to her at all?”

Isa shakes her head. “She, ehm, she kissed me a few weeks ago when we were at her house and I freaked the fuck out, but then at the party I was drunk and not quite thinking clearly, and I kissed her like I told you. I wasn’t that drunk though, I knew exactly what I was doing, and it felt… right, which is terrifying” Isa says as her voice grows quiet. “I’m scared , I’m fucking scared. I wish there was a way to just make it stop.”

Dale feels his heart grow heavy as he watches Isa, who was closer to a sister to him than any of his actual siblings, start ugly crying. 

—

Isa spends the next few weeks desperately trying to get herself together. Though there is much to think about, she tries to clear her head so that the only thing she worries herself with is music. She spends time on her keyboard and MPC, recording little loops when she finds a sound she likes. When she gets tired of the music, she starts cleaning the schloft, organizing odds and ends into little bins that she tucks underneath the futon. 

Florence comes over on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and they spend time writing and recording. They are too busy to really discuss anything other than music; Isa is extremely thankful for this as she tries to avoid opening up any more than she already had.

While Isa spends her time trying her best to be productive, Florence spends hers doing her absolute best to completely dissociate from the world.

She spends a lot of time in bed with her headphones blaring, drinking more than she’d ever care to admit alone in her bedroom. 

She had finally worked up the nerve to tell her father about school; he was confused and slightly angry that she hadn’t told him earlier, but he was generally supportive. 

After getting the fact that she was a drop-out out of the way, she told him about the tracks she had recorded with Isa and Mairead taking her on as her manager.

“A manager?” he had asked quizzically.

“Yeah. She is doing it free of charge in exchange for me performing at a few of her parties. I figure that she probably knows a whole lot more about contracts and deals than I do, and she has connections. Hopefully she can actually get me somewhere.”

Florence’s father just nodded his head. “Just please, for the love of god Flossie, do not sign anything without letting me look at it first this time,” he had asked her. 

She had shook her head in promise, even though she knew she’d probably find a way to get herself into trouble again.

—

“You’ll be fine,” Mairead says at lunch a few days before Isa and Florence are set to meet with a label executive in Manchester. “You have what, five tracks? I’m sure it’ll be plenty.”

It is an usually warm day in early March, and they sit outside eating as Mairead talks them through how they should approach getting a deal. She talks about LPs and EPs and studios, and it all bores Florence as she tries her best to focus.

“My mother is going to legitimately kill me,” Florence mutters under her breath as she stabs at some vegetables with her fork. 

“Hmm?” Mairead says, not quite catching what Florence said. 

Florence deeply inhales and exhales before beginning to explain her history with music deals. “I had a little stint in a band and got in a lot of trouble with a record deal, at which point I decided to stop pursuing music—much to my mother’s relief—and went to art college. But then we posted those tracks and I have about five-thousand people in my inbox wanting to talk about deals, so I kind of dropped out? And now I’m going back to where I got in trouble the first time? Hence, my mother is going to kill me .”

“Ah,” Mairead says with a sigh, suddenly realizing just how young Florence is. “Hopefully this works out and you’ll just receive a slight punishment instead of a death sentence.” 

While Mairead had no experience with managing, she had contacts, which landed Florence and Isa a meeting with a label managed by Universal out in Manchester. She told Isa and Florence that they should try hard to get signed before the next two year album cycle starts up within the labels, so she made a few quick calls and was now fairly certain that this would work out for all parties involved.

Florence isn’t so sure though. For all the rash decisions she had made in her life, this felt like one where she should maybe slow down and think about what she was doing first. She had already dropped out of school, which was feeling like a stupider decision with every passing day, and now she is feeling a strong sense of deja vu as she listens to Mairead and Isa talk about rights and recordings and ownership and money. 

At some point, Mairead catches a glimpse of Florence’s pale and anxious face. 

“Florence,” she says gently, “any label would be stupid not to take you and give you the best deal possible.”

After lunch she cycles home, her head absolutely spinning from all the recent developments of her life. She thinks about the sudden disappearance of Matt—which she tries not to question too much—then about school and all her half-finished projects that would never see completion, and about the four hour drive to Manchester tomorrow with Isa. 

Isa. 

Isa had been taking up most of her headspace for weeks now, and she internally groans as her thoughts turn back to her. 

It isn’t that Florence had been trying to avoid thinking about her feelings for her. It is more the fact that those feelings are absolutely fucking terrifying , and she prefers to live life not in a constant state of anxiety. 

In the middle of her thoughts, she finds herself going up the steep hill right before Waterloo bridge, and suddenly realizes that it’s the first time in a few weeks she’s managed to make it all the way up without her ribs being in horrific pain from that awful bruise. She breathes in and out, letting her lungs recover as she slowly peddles her way across the flat bridge. 

She coasts down the sidewalk, and in the clear daylight she can see a few hazard signs with cones merging vehicle traffic into one lane. On the sidewalk, she brakes behind a few other cyclists as they wait for a traffic controller to tell them when to go. She squints her eyes, and in between bright spots of reflected sunlight coming off of buildings, she can see that there are people putting up some sort of art installation across the bridge. There are big block letters, but she doesn’t get the chance to make out what it says before they all start moving again.

When she gets home, she ditches her bike against the side of her house and disappears into her room.

She takes a moment and sits on her bed, trying to figure out what she needs to pack for the weekend. 

The plan is to drive up tomorrow night, stay the night in a hotel, have the meeting around 3pm on Friday, and then drive back. Florence first throws in a dress she is certain she wants to wear to the meeting; it is a plain, white dress with dark green embroidery around the hems. It is slightly dated but very her , and modest enough that she feels okay about going into a formal meeting with it. She packs a pair of flats to go along with it, and then finds herself worrying about what else to pack. 

She feels stupid as she realises that it doesn’t even matter. The only other person who would be seeing her outside of the meeting is Isa. 

Painfully, she then realises that Isa is exactly why she is worried about what to pack.

She feels this odd need to impress the older girl, to prove that she is a peer , not just some young girl who needs rescuing and wisdom. 

And someone to fall in love with , her brain adds before she has a chance to shove it down.

Florence closes her eyes and shakes her head as she flashes back to the feeling of Isa’s lips and her hands in her hair. She doesn’t want to think about it, but her brain just continues to betray her.

It’s going to be a long weekend , she thinks.

—

Thursday afternoon Isa pulls up to Florence’s house, her old car making enough noise that Florence knows she has arrived before she gets a chance to knock on the door. 

“Hiya,” she says, dragging a duffel bag to the threshold of the front door. Isa has an intruding thought about the last time she walked through this door, but she does her best to ignore it as she opens the trunk and helps Florence get the bag in.

They are quickly on the road, and Florence opens up a binder of CDs that she brought along.

“I figured we have a lot of time to kill,” she says as she puts a Billie Holiday album in. Isa smiles and they start talking about anything and everything.

Isa tells her about the Youtube series she is working on. It was a project she had started years ago in school, and now she was doing her best to get it to completion.

“So it’s like, you trying to kill off this demonic version of yourself?” Florence laughs after Isa attempts to describe the premise.

“I guess,” Isa laughs, acknowledging the ridiculousness of it herself. “I started it a while ago when I was in school, now I’m trying to finish it to see if I can maybe do something with film.”

“I’m sure it’s great,” Florence says earnestly as they start seeing more and more fields as they get out of London. 

Isa laughs and shakes her head. “It’s shit. I’ll show you when we get back.”

Around nine, they reach the hotel. It had been paid for by the label they were meeting, and everything becomes a bit more real as they walk into the fancy lobby filled with white walls and furniture with gold accents. 

“Holy shit,” Florence whispers as she places her bag on the ground. “We don’t belong here.”

Isa looks a bit frantic as she looks around. Above them is a large, crystal chandelier, and there are people in fancy clothes buzzing all around them. 

“I’m going to go check in,” she says, leaving Florence with their bags.

Florence watches Isa walk over to the desk, just barely tall enough to get her head over the countertop. She returns with two keys and a confused look on her face, telling Florence that they were put in a suite on the top floor. 

“What the hell,” Florence whispers as she takes the key and walks with Isa over to a glass elevator overlooking an indoor pond. 

When they reach the room, Florence is shocked. She knew that the label was paying for their hotel, but in her head she had pictured a motel with concrete walkways and decor that looked like it was out of the eighties. Nothing could have prepared her for a huge, expansive suite with floor to ceiling windows and a tray with wine and two glasses. 

“This is fucking insane,” Isa finally says after a few seconds. She puts down her bag and then flops onto a plush sofa in the back of the room, right next to the ensuite kitchen. “Ugh, what the fuck is happening ?!”

Florence laughs at the outburst. “This is not our speed,” she says, sitting in the space next to Isa’s feet on the sofa. “I was expecting maybe just one step up from the schloft.”

“This is like, fifty flights of stairs up from the schloft,” Isa scoffs in reply.

They spend the night swapping stories and ordering food that had been already paid for before settling into their beds and watching a movie.

Unbeknownst to each other, they were both silently disappointed that there were two separate beds; as much as neither one of them wanted to admit it, sleeping together was kind of nice, and becoming a thing of the past with each passing day.

It’s a fun night though, and Florence is sure to go over to Isa’s bed and hug her goodnight before slipping under her own covers and falling asleep. 

—

“So what exactly is the machine?” an older man in a perfectly pressed suit asks the next day. Florence bites her lip from across the table as she tries to come up with an answer. There are three men staring her down, and she so badly wants to know their thoughts on the demos they had just played for them.

Isa had convinced her to go in as “Florence and the Machine,” though Florence is starting to have doubts about the ambiguous name as the man looks her in the eyes.

“It’s Isa,” Florence says, turning around to Isa. Isa had opted for a dress skirt and blouse, and Florence feels slightly out of place in her embroidered dress. “Well, the machine is Isa but I think we decided it can just be a sort of general term for anyone playing with us. Hopefully we’ll have a full band soon enough.”

Isa nods her head seriously as the man begins speaking to her.

“So I understand you did the production on these?” he asks, turning to Isa. Lining the white wall behind him are framed photos of iconic album covers, and she begins to feel overwhelmed as he stares her down from across the shiny wooden table. 

“I ehm, yeah. I did. They still need a lot of—”

“They’re excellent ,” he says, putting Isa at ease. “It’s incredibly impressive that you did these just with a personal studio. I would love to see what you can do in a professional setting.”

Next to Isa, Florence beams. She is so excited for Isa to potentially take a step into the professional music world. She has so much talent, and sometimes it seems like she’s the only one who doesn’t see it. 

“My only concern is, these demos seem to cover a quite wide range of… genres , I suppose. How would you classify this?” he asks both of them. 

“I guess I would say it’s alternative jazz and rock. Maybe a bit of pop. It has a quite… feral sound, everything’s a bit rough and I think that’s how we intend for it to be,” Isa says shakily. 

He looks at Isa quizzically and then turns to Florence.

“I think it sounds like—almost like a chorus of nuns falling down an elevator shaft.”

—

“ A chorus of nuns falling down an elevator shaft ?” Isa says with a scoff once they reach the car. 

“It worked, did it not?” Florence says with a smirk, holding up an envelope with a thick packet of papers to look over with Mairead. 

Isa shakes her head. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” she says without thinking, immediately blushing when she realizes the potential implications of that statement.
Florence ignores it though, smiling and laughing the whole way back to the hotel. 

They pack up quickly in an effort to get back on the road before traffic hits. They change into comfortable clothes and then say goodbye to the fancy hotel before getting back in the creaky old car.

“2009 seems so far away and so soon at the same time,” Florence says at one point, leaning back on the seat as she watches empty fields fly by her window. “I don’t know if we can make an album of songs in two years .”

Isa shakes her head. “You have no faith in me, huh.” 

“No, it’s not that,” Florence laughs. “I just have such a hard time being creative when there’s structure to it. I just can’t imagine having like twelve fully written and produced songs in two years time. Not ones that I’m proud of, anyway.”

“I’m sure we can make it work. Didn’t you say you wrote a few songs with your old band?”

Florence bites her lip and shakes her head. “The funny thing about that contract is that they took all my rights to those songs. I can’t record them, I can’t perform them.”

“But you wrote them!” Isa says indignantly.

Florence shrugs. “I’ve written plenty of songs that I don’t have rights to. Trust me.”

“That’s a shame,” Isa says. “Any good ones?”

“I wrote one for my old band that’s kind of a jig about an abusive relationship? Written before… all of that , ironically enough.”

Isa lightly laughs at the absurdity of a domestic-violence-themed jig. “ What ?”

“It’s weird. I was like, eighteen when I wrote it. It was about this couple in the band who were literally so in love that they were violent with each other. But I like it, and honestly I think it could sound really good with a different arrangement.”

“What’s it called?”

“Happy Slap.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Isa says, shaking her head. “Your songs are so fucking weird .”

Florence just laughs. “I’ll show you when we get back, I think I have a recording somewhere.”

They listen to the sounds of Nina Simone, then RZA, then Nick Cave through the car’s stereo, only interrupting when a funny thought pops in one of their heads or they remember something else from the meeting.

Isa falls into a trance, staring at the curving roads until Florence speaks up just as the sun begins to set.

“We never really talked about Matt,” Florence says as they pass more empty fields. 

Isa waits for her to add on to the statement, but she is met with silence. She sighs, resigning to the fact that it is a necessary conversation, regardless of the questionable end to the night that she knocked him to the ground with her fist.

“Yeah, ehm, what ended up happening?” she asks quietly, trying to feel out what exactly Florence knows and remembers.

“He never contacted me again after that night. He called me right after I left the party, and that was the last thing I ever heard from him.”

Isa nods. Having been in a relationship like theirs, she isn’t sure how Florence feels about the sudden disconnect. “Were you upset about it?”

Isa turns to briefly look at Florence’s face before turning her focus back to the road as the car clicks along.

“I ehm—I guess, I… I dunno. I was really confused at first, but then I realized Dale probably said something that made him not want to come near me.” She hesitates, and Isa holds her breath as she realises Florence has a pretty solid idea of what happened. “I was relieved though, Isa. Whatever happened, I’m just thankful he’s gone. I really did love him in the beginning, but I felt trapped by the end. I was just scared all the time. I’m just—I’m glad he’s gone.”

Isa again looks over to meet Florence’s eyes. She reassuringly places her hand over Florence’s for a moment before pulling it back up to the wheel.

“Me too,” Isa says quietly. “Me too.”

Suddenly, there is an awful clunking sound coming from one of the back wheels of the car, and it slightly veers off to the side as Isa shifts the gear down and brings it to a stop. 

“Fuck,” Isa whispers, quickly opening her door and getting out to inspect whatever was going on. The sun is starting to fall behind trees, and the air is getting cooler by the minute. 

“Fuck!” she says again, louder this time as she sees the small stream of smoke coming from the engine.

“What’s happened?” Florence says worriedly. Isa can see the panic building on her face, and she kicks herself for not taking the car to a mechanic before venturing out to Manchester.

“The engine is fried, I’m going to call my brother. He’s less than an hour away, he should be able to come get us.” 

Florence nods quietly as Isa goes back into the car to retrieve her phone. She looks around, and there is not a trace of another human in sight. No cars, no houses, no stops, no lights—just nothingness in every direction.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” she hears Isa scoff in quick succession from inside the car. Isa groans before walking back around to where Florence is.

“So, there’s no service out here,” Isa says. Florence feels her heart drop. Even though in reality, she knows they will be fine, her brain has a way of quickly thinking of worst case scenarios before she can put an end to them.

Like getting kidnapped.

Or lightning hitting the field and instantly killing them both.

Or a truck running into them in the middle of the night.

Her brain just keeps adding to the list.

“We can walk and see if we can find anyone or a signal,” she suggests, panic evident in her voice.

Isa furrows her eyebrows. “Flo, it’s about to be pitch black out. We’re staying here,” she says firmly.

Then it starts. The tears, the ragged breaths.

Isa quickly moves to Florence’s side, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Flo, Flo honey, hey,” she says as she wraps her up in her arms. She isn’t shocked by the sudden panic; within the first day of getting to know Florence Isa knew she was quite prone to anxiety, but nothing could have prepared her for the way Florence sounds like she is struggling to get even a single breath all the way down to her lungs.

Isa goes into the car and pulls out a large blanket she had used for a picnic with Wade a few weeks back. 

“What can I do?” Isa asks gently as she returns to Florence’s side. When she is left without an answer, she takes Florence’s hand and leads her towards the grass. 

She tosses the blanket behind her own shoulders, and then wraps her arms around Florence before leading them both down to the soft grass below them.

She sits behind Florence, wrapping her arms and the blanket around both of them. 

Florence continues to breathe erratically as tears trail down her face. She is exhausted, and Isa knows that it probably isn’t helping her at all. Isa runs her hand up and down Florence’s arm, hoping that the sensation would help her relax.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Isa whispers from behind her as Florence slowly starts to calm. Once she is breathing somewhat normally, Isa lies down, silently inviting Florence to join her.

Florence graciously curls into Isa’s side, resting her head in the crook of her neck as she tries to stop crying. 

“You alright?” Isa asks after a few minutes of silence. She can feel Florence nod against her shoulder. “I know this wasn’t exactly the plan, but we’ll be fine out here. Once the sun rises we can walk and find a phone, I’m pretty sure there are stores about a mile up the road.”

“Sorry I freaked out,” Florence says meekly.

“You’re fine, I’m a little freaked out too if we’re being honest,” Isa says with a slight laugh. “This will make for a good story some day.”

Florence nods, and then spends a good amount of time looking up at the stars. With no light pollution, she can make out all the constellations her father used to teach her as a kid. She marvels at just how bright they are, and how clearly she can see the full moon above them. 

Meanwhile, Isa tries not to think too hard about how badly she feels the urge to confess all her feelings to Florence. The feeling of Florence’s breath on her neck and the cocoon of warmth they are surrounded in under the blanket is overwhelming, and Isa finds herself trying to focus on simply falling asleep.

After a while though, Florence asks a question. “You said you’ve had boyfriends before, right?”

“Mhm,” Isa responds plainly. “Two.”

“Can you tell me about them?”

Isa sighs, but she knows she has nothing better to do while lying on this field. 

“Ehm, the first one’s name was Frank. I think we got together when I was sixteen or seventeen. We went to the same school and he was kind of always known as the troublemaker. It was a catholic school and I swear he probably spent more time getting yelled at by nuns than actually learning,” she begins. “I became kind of obsessed with him, and eventually we got together. He was my first time, and I was stupid enough to think that because of that, I basically had to stay with him.” Isa pauses, slightly shaking her head. “I’m not even really catholic, but catholic school just makes you think shit like that,” she says with a shrug. “Looking back, he treated me so horribly, but I never knew in the beginning because I didn’t know any differently.”

“It happens,” Florence says quietly.

Isa suddenly sees all the parallels between Matt and Frank, and feels her heart clench before continuing on. “Eventually, he um… well, he would always take me to these crazy parties, and he would get me to try all these pills. I had only ever taken E from Dale, but I was dumb enough to trust that he knew what he was talking about. One night, I ended up overdosing on fentanyl, like I told you awhile ago.”

“So he was that boyfriend,” Florence says, suddenly remembering the club night all those months ago when Matt had yelled at Isa when she stopped her from taking another pill.

Isa nods. “He was that boyfriend. So that happened, and suddenly I had this huge realisation that he really didn’t give a fuck about me or my wellbeing. I started ignoring him and trying to slowly get away, but ehm, I… um,” she says, having a hard time getting out the words. Florence wraps her arm around Isa’s waist, holding her tighter under the blanket. Isa exhales, not sure if she feels more anxiety from recounting her experiences with Frank or from the feeling of Florence’s hand on her back.
Eventually, she continues. “He started hitting me. It got really, really bad and eventually I was terrified of seeing him. Dale taught me how to punch when we all moved to London, but I never had the nerve to punch Frank. I was too scared of what he would do back. But eventually he hit me in the eye, and it was bad enough that my brother took me kicking and screaming to A&E. I couldn’t open it and it was dark purple for weeks. After that incident I got a restraining order and I never saw him again.”

“Oh, Isa,” Florence says, feeling her heart sink as tears pool in Isa’s eyes. “So that’s why you cared so much.” She reaches her hand up to Isa’s cheek, stroking her thumb across her temple. 

“Can I tell you something?” Isa asks quietly.

“Of course you can,” Florence responds confidently as she continues to try to calm Isa down.

“That night of the party, after you left, I went and found Matt,” she says, hesitant to tell the full truth.

“Okay,” Florence responds, unsure of where Isa is going with this. “What happened?”

“I hit him. I hurt him really badly. I took every bit of frustration I have with the world out on him. And I don’t think I realized it at the time, but I now realise I was punching him like I wish I had been able to do to Frank all those years ago.”

Florence shakily exhales. She isn’t sure what to do with that information, but knowing that Isa was keeping her safe while she walked home alone in the cold that night makes her heart melt.

“Thank you,” Florence says, unable to find other words as she presses a small kiss into Isa’s shoulder. 

They spend the rest of the night holding each other. As horrible as it feels, Florence feels a certain sense of comfort that Isa had also been through a similar experience. It feels good to know she’s not alone, that she has someone who she knows she can talk to about these things without feeling weird. Eventually Isa falls asleep, and after spending more time than what she would probably consider healthy just looking at her face, Florence falls into a deep, peaceful sleep on the side of a field in the middle of nowhere.

Chapter Text

“You slept in a field ?” Mairead laughs at lunch the next week. Florence’s father had driven to meet with Florence and Isa too, and now they all laugh at their misadventure as they wait for food to arrive at their little table in the corner of a small restaurant.

“We didn’t have much of a choice,” Isa says with a laugh. “We went from the fanciest hotel I’ve ever seen to a field, I guess the universe had to keep us humble somehow.”

Florence just shakes her head. “I was fully terrified.”

“It’s good for her,” her father says. His face is nearly identical to hers—it is almost scary to Isa how alike they look with their long, slender faces and squinty smiles. “She hates the outdoors—she always refused to go camping with me and her siblings.”

“To be fair, there was the one time you thought a deer was going to kill you all,” she laughs.

“But it didn’t!” he exclaims. "I'm still here!" Isa is finally seeing where she got her weird sense of enthusiasm from. 

Florence simply smiles and shakes her head. “So shall we look through this mess?”

Mairead looks through the various papers, handing them to Nick to inspect after she is done with each one.

Florence looks between them, searching for any sort of response. 

Mairead studies each paper intently, her dark brown eyes tracking back and forth across the pages. Suddenly her eyes go wide.

“They’re offering you a full record deal?”

“I guess?” Florence says, looking to Isa. “I don’t really know what that means.”

“They want to give you all of the money to produce an album, and then twenty-five percent of the royalties. That is the highest payout I’ve ever seen for a new artist. By a lot .”

Florence’s father takes the paper next, looking over things through a pair of reading glasses that had been sitting on top of his head before.

“This is crazy,” he whispers. “This is precisely why you needed to leave that band.”

“And Isa, this stipulates that you'll own a portion of any masters you produce. That’s huge, ” Mairead says.

“So,” Florence draws out. “We should sign it?”

“You should definitely sign it,” Mairead says with certainty. "They clearly have a lot of faith in you."

Florence leaves the little business meeting with a new sense of purpose. Mairead had mentioned looking into getting the rights to the songs she had written back, and now she wants nothing more than to go to the studio and start reworking them.

As she cycles across the bridge, she can finally see the sign that had been put up last week.

“THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER,” it reads in big, rainbow letters. She wonders what it’s supposed to mean, and meditates on the words the entire way home. 

When she finally reaches her house, she enters to find her older step-brothers arguing with Molly and Grace. Her younger brother, J.J., sits at the kitchen table, looking unamused with it all. 

“Sean, you said we could have the car tonight last week ,” Molly says looking up at her older brother. Their dark hair and eyes are nearly the same, and for a moment, Molly’s harsh tone makes Florence forget that she is a full seven years younger than him.

“Moll, something came up, we have somewhere to be. I’m sorry ,” he says with annoyance. 

“Flo, is it not a dick move to tell us we can use the car for a concert and then not tell us that’s changed until three hours before we’re supposed to leave?”

Florence grimaces. “ Kind of a dick move,” she agrees, turning towards her brothers.

“Surely there’s another way to get there” Jacob whines. 

Florence rolls her eyes. “Where is it, I can tell you what bus to take,” she says, turning to her sisters. "We can figure something out."

“It’s in Cambridge , hence why we wanted the car,” Grace says.

Florence sighs. “Okay, yeah, really a dick move,” Florence reiterates sharply. 

Suddenly, she has an idea.

“Let me see what my friend is up to tonight, she has a car. Think you can find two more tickets?”

When Florence calls a few minutes later Isa picks up pretty immediately.

“Flo, we just saw each other,” she laughs. “What’s up?”

“My sisters have a concert they’re supposed to go to tonight in Cambridge, but my brothers are being assholes and aren’t letting them take the car. So I’m kind of asking for a huge favor, but would you be up for a trip?”

Isa laughs. “Of course I’d be up for a trip. I’ve been dying to test out this new engine anyways.”

“Perfect. Can you be here in like an hour?”

“Yeah. What’s the dress code?”

“Think teenager grungey, I guess,” Florence says.

Isa laughs in response. “That’s how I dress all the time. I’ll be there in a bit.”

Isa arrives dressed perfectly for the occasion in dark wash denim and a black and white flannel. Immediately, Grace is giving her a hug, telling her how many good things she’s heard which makes Florence cringe slightly, even though it’s just her sister’s outgoing personality. Isa takes it in stride though, telling her the same. Molly meekly introduces herself, thanking Isa profusely for saving the day. 

“It’s really no problem,” Isa insists. “It’ll be fun to relive my teenage years.”

The entire drive there, they listen to the band they are seeing. Florence and Isa had never heard of this new band, and Grace and Molly chastise them, accusing them of not staying with the times. Florence laughs at all the antics and suddenly feels old as Grace and Molly shout every lyric from Isa’s back seat.

Isa beams at Florence every once in a while as her sisters perform duets to the songs blaring through the speakers; it is clear that she is the only musical one in the family, but Isa finds it amusing none-the-less.

Eventually Grace and Molly settle down and start to ask Isa about herself. 

She tells them all about her experiences in Catholic school, and her parents bookstore, and growing up not far from the sea. She tells them about her brief stint in film school, and then about some of the projects she is working on. 

They start drilling her about her favorite bands, and she tells them all about Dale and the mixtapes he used to give to her and how she discovered her love of hip-hop. 

“Don’t get me wrong though,” Isa says, “I love stuff like Green Day too.”

“Oh my god I love Green Day!” Florence shouts next to her. “Dookie is my favorite album of all time, why did I not know this about you?”

Isa laughs as Florence begins shouting the lyrics of that album over the song playing in the background, much to her sisters’ chagrin.

They arrive just in time to see the last of the opening act, and then the main performance begins shortly after. Even though Florence and Isa have never even heard of this band, they have a good time jumping up and down with the beat of the percussion and shouting along to choruses they are able to quickly pick up. The venue is small and dark and smells just slightly of weed and beer, and Isa feels nostalgic, thinking of all the concerts she used to sneak into while underage with Dale. 

Florence grabs her hands and they wildly dance together in the mosh pit of people. It’s weird, being totally sober at a concert, but being with Isa is enough to keep Florence feeling good.

“When we’re up there a few years from now, I’m going to force people to jump up and down,” Florence says loudly with a laugh as she spins around.

“What?” Isa says, not quite hearing her over the speakers.

“I’m going to force people to jump and hold hands!” she screams with a big smile on her face.

“You’re bossy,” Isa screams back with a grin. “But pin that.”

After the concert, they grab a bite to eat and begin the ride home. Molly and Grace are shouting and laughing in the back seat over some inside jokes that Florence and Isa don’t understand, but they laugh along none-the-less.

At some point Florence pulls out Grace’s CD and requests the case, which Grace begrudgingly hands over. She pulls out “Dookie” and immediately she and Isa start screaming the lyrics.

“I DECLARE I DON’T CARE NO MORE,” they start together in perfect synchronization, eventually forcing Molly and Grace to join in. 

When they get home to Camberwell, Isa gives Molly and Grace hugs before they quickly head inside, clearly not accustomed to being awake at two in the morning. 

“Thank you for doing this,” Florence says earnestly, leaning against Isa’s car.

“Seriously no need to thank me. This was a lot of fun,” she says, opening up her arms to hug Florence. 

Florence wraps her arms around Isa tightly. As much as she appreciated her coming to save the day for her sisters, she was even more happy that they got to spend some time together outside of Crystal Palace.

“We’ll have to see when there’s some more music in London. As much as I like squats and bars, I forgot how much I love actual concerts.”

Florence nods in agreement with a smile. 

“Get going before you fall asleep at the wheel,” she says sweetly. 

Isa laughs and shakes her head. “Goodnight, Flo.”

“Goodnight, Iz.”

When Florence gets inside, she quickly heads upstairs to the bathroom, which is thankfully vacant. She quickly gets ready for bed, looking forward to closing her eyes and thinking about all the good moments of her night. It was nice to spend time with Molly and Grace, and it was nice to spend time with Isa, and it was even better to spend time with all three of them together. 

She changes into pyjamas, washes her face, brushes her teeth, and loosely braids her hair before quietly walking back downstairs to her room on the first floor. When she opens the door though, Grace is laying on her bed, finishing typing out a text before putting her phone down and looking at her expectantly. 

“Sleeping over tonight?” Florence asks, slipping under the covers. 

“Yeah,” Grace says, shuffling under the blanket. “But also wanted to ask you something.”

“What’s that?”

“Well it’s not really a question.”

“Okay,” Florence says, trying to see what her sister is getting at. “What is it?”

“You love her, don’t you?”

Florence’s heart suddenly pounds with the question. “I ehm—well that’s a big question,” she replies, suddenly remembering drunkenly opening up to Grace that horrific night of the Christmas party. 

“You know it’s okay if you do,” Grace adds, pulling the string on Florence’s lamp so the room goes dark. “You seemed really happy tonight, Flo. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you that happy. And you were sober .”

Florence nods. The fact that her sister was somewhat shocked that she could be sober and happy is a bit of a punch in the gut.

“I um—she does, she makes me happy.”

“Do you love her?”

“As a friend? I love her to pieces. But ehm—I’m still a little confused on the whole being in love with her thing, if that's what you're asking. And afraid”

“That’s okay,” Grace says. “I’m sure it’s not easy. There’s nothing to be afraid of though, Flo. Everything is going to be alright.”

Florence nods. “I know. It’s just hard to feel that now.”

Grace nods her head and pauses before asking her next question. “Do you think she’s in love with you?”

“Um…” Florence says, thinking deeply about every conversation, every interaction, every touch they had shared over the past five months. “I think that’s hard to tell.”

“I think she is,” Grace says confidently. “I know none of my friends look at me the way she was looking at you.”

Florence thinks deeply about that statement. She knows Grace isn’t the type to lie or exaggerate, and somehow it is reassuring that she noticed the way Isa interacted with her. “Honestly Gracie, I’m more afraid of her not liking me like that than I am of anything else.”

—

“This song is so fucking weird,” Isa says, taking off her headphones. Florence had her listening to her old band’s CD, and finally she had gotten to the song Florence wants to rework. It is one of a few songs without a weird, unnecessary rap in the middle of it, and Isa thinks they can work with it. “I like it though.”

There is still a bit of sunlight filtering in through the dirty window of the upstairs of the schloft, and Florence smiles as Isa starts messing around on her keyboard with the chords. “What if we moved it down a few steps and slowed it down?”

Florence nods. “Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking. I want it to be kind of grunge.”

“Yeah, the whole happy-sounding-jig-about-domestic-violence is weird,” Isa laughs. “What if it was just like electric guitar and percussion?”

“Ooh, that would be cool,” she says as Isa starts playing chords. “Also, definitely gonna rename it.”

Isa laughs. “Why? And to what?”

“‘Happy Slap’? That doesn’t even make sense,” she says with a giggle. “I want it to be ‘Kiss With a Fist.’”

“Ooh yeah, that sounds a lot more badass,” Isa says.

“A lot more badass.”

They spend some time polishing over some demos, recording harmonies and rerecording parts where Florence’s voice breaks or is slightly out of key. They want everything to be perfect, and it starts by perfecting the sound of the songs they already have. 

After that’s done, they take a break. It’s dark outside, and Isa starts a pot of coffee and then goes searching for her “Dookie” vinyl as Florence sits in the middle of the floor.

“So you never told me about your second boyfriend,” Florence says from her spot on the ground as she scribbles something into a sketchpad. “How come he didn’t work out?”

Isa cusses internally. She thought she had gotten away with not having to discuss Noah—possibly the nicest person she’d ever met—with Florence. 

“Just didn’t,” Isa casually with a shrug as she thumbs through a crate of records. 

Florence shakes her head as she closes the sketch pad. “When did you break up?”

Isa bites her lip. “Three-ish years ago, I think.”

Florence looks at her quizzically. “And you haven’t dated anyone since?”

“Nope,” Isa says, moving the stack back before starting to go through it all over again. 

“So you haven’t dated anyone in three years?”

Isa raises her eyebrows and nods silently, clearly not wanting to engage in this conversation as she continues rummaging through the records with her back to Florence.

“Okay, now I need to know what happened,” Florence says as she gets up and stands next to Isa. “No one just stops dating like that for no reason.”

Isa laughs lightly and shakes her head, first thinking back to the night he broke up with her, and then everything before that. 

Isa had met Noah in a film class in 2001. He was a lean, tall guy with dark skin and the biggest, kindest looking eyes Isa had ever seen. 

On the first day they were assigned to be in the same group and hit it off immediately. Noah’s had a huge interest in black-and-white film, which coincided perfectly with Isa’s interest in horror. They worked well together, and eventually realized that they were spending a lot more time together than was required for the projects they were doing. 

One day Noah finally worked up the nerve to ask her out properly, nervously asking if she wanted to come over for dinner.

That night Isa learned that he was as good of a cook as he was a filmmaker. They spent hours at his small kitchen table, recalling stupid things they used to do as kids and telling each other embarrassing stories and talking about their goals for the future. 

And that’s how most of their time together was, just casual hangouts, being stupid together. There were no expectations of parties, or sex, or staying over, and the only time Noah would ever get angry with her was when she would beat him every time they played poker. 

Eventually Isa trusted Noah enough to tell him about Frank. It was after a late night of editing footage for a side project they had started, and Isa was unusually quiet. 

It had been three years since her overdose, and the significance of the date wasn’t yet lost on her. 

Noah asked her what was wrong, and she told him exactly what it was, knowing that he would find a way to make her feel better. 

But what started out as telling him about one scary night turned into her telling him about several scary nights. Eventually she found herself telling him absolutely everything about her horrible first relationship.

He held her close and said all the right things, and Isa felt lighter afterward. It felt so good to have everything out in the open, and to finally feel like she could start over again after what she had been through. 

The problem was though, not everything was out in the open.

That became clear the night Noah asked her if she wanted to meet at the cafe around the corner of his flat for dinner. With the way he was able to cook, they rarely went out to eat, but Isa didn’t think much of it at the time. 

She was met with a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek that night, and Noah had the same big smile he always had, but she could tell something was wrong. 

“I wanted to talk to you about something, Iz,” he had said gently after they were done with their food. The place was abuzz with people eating and chatting on a busy Friday night, but as soon as he said those words she tuned it all out.

“What’s up?” she asked nervously. 

Noah bit his lip and then reached for her hand. 

“The other day when we were working and I was using your laptop, I saw something that I don’t think I was supposed to see, but it confused me and I wanted to ask you about it.”

Isa’s mind immediately started moving a million miles an hour trying to figure out what he was talking about, but the confusion on her face must have shown because he got to it before she was able to.

“Iz, do you think you might be gay?”

Fuck . 

“I ehm...no, what?” she said, squinting her eyes and shaking her head. Her heart felt like it was about to beat out of its chest as she thought about all the forums she had been searching through, trying to see if there was anyone else in the world as confused as she was. 

She had a perfect boyfriend, and a comfortable life, and she was fairly certain that she would be just fine living the rest of her life the way she was living it then. But something inside of her still felt weird, and old thoughts had crept back up. That led her to a black hole of forums discussing the very feeling that had been bothering her for years. 

Now Noah had seen them though, and it felt like she’d managed to completely ruin everything she had tried so hard to attain.

She did her best to keep her composure, but upon seeing Isa’s teary eyes, Noah put thirty pounds on the table and gently led her out by the hand. 

When they were back out on the street, he held her tightly as she started to cry. She had officially given up on trying to even pretend that what he saw was a misunderstanding. 

“Shh, you’re okay, you’re okay,” he had said while she tried to get herself together. “Let’s talk.”

He walked her back to her flat and they sat on her couch for hours talking through things. Unsurprisingly, he said all the right things like he always did, and by the end of it, Isa felt a little bit better. 

“It’s okay not to know how you feel, Iz,” he had said gently, her head resting on his shoulder. “How about we take a step back so you can have the space to figure things out though?”

Even though she knew he was right, that nearly broke Isa. She simultaneously felt better and a thousand times worse, and in that moment of watching Noah shut her door she accepted the fact that she might never be truly happy.

In the time after that, she distanced herself from him, not wanting to be reminded of how she couldn’t figure out a way to love him with her whole being. She never went back on those forums either; she also didn’t want to be reminded of the explicit reason why she couldn’t love him.

In the schloft, Florence wraps a hand around Isa’s shoulder. She is zoning out, her eyes cast downward as she breathes deeply. “You okay?” she asks quietly. 

“Yeah, I’m—I’m fine,” Isa says, slowly working up the nerve to open up to Florence about Noah and the reason behind why they broke up. “Just thinking.”

Florence nods. “I’m sorry I kept pushing it. You don’t have to tell me anything,” she says meekly.

Isa shakes her head. “No, don’t apologize. I um—I think I actually do want to tell you.”

Isa pulls on the light to turn it off and then leads Florence down the creaky stairs to the futon. If she was going to take the hour to tell Florence all about Noah, then she at least wanted to be comfortable doing it.

She grabs the coffee pot and two mugs, placing them on the small side table before going back and getting the big duvet sitting in the corner. She pours the cups of coffee and hands one to Florence.

“I thought you don’t like coffee,” Florence laughs.

Isa smiles and shakes her head. “I used to not like it. But you made me realize I like the smell, and eventually I tried it and realized it’s not half bad.”

Florence laughs and pulls the duvet over them, Isa sitting on the end opposite her. Even though the days are getting warmer, the nights are still cold, and she feels cosy under the blanket with a hot cup of coffee in her hands.

“So this second boyfriend...” Florence begins after a few moments of silence.

Isa breathes in and out before beginning. “Noah,” she says quietly, before telling Florence everything about him.

As she talks Florence smiles and laughs when Isa recalls funny memories and stories, and maintains full attention the whole time. She nods along as Isa begins explaining that things didn’t quite feel right even though from the outside, everything was perfect. 

Eventually Isa reaches the part where she has to recall that dreaded night, but she hesitates, quietly sipping the last of her coffee that has gone cold and nervously fidgeting with her fingers.

Eventually Florence speaks up. “So why did you break up?” she asks gently, moving herself so she is closer to Isa. Isa looks sad, and Florence grabs her hand under the blanket. 

With that though, Isa’s face scrunches up and tears pool over her grey eyes. 

“Oh Iz,” Florence says softly, wrapping her arms around her. She cradles her head as she shakes, and Isa wants nothing more than to disappear as her breath catches in her chest over and over again. 

She shouldn’t be so afraid to say it, she thinks. It’s two words and surely Florence has somewhat of an idea after kissing her not once, but twice.

It’s two words she’s never dared to say out loud before though, and the thought of saying them now makes her nauseous. 

After a few minutes Florence sits her up and wipes away her tears with her thumbs. She looks Isa in the eye and once again takes her hand. “You don’t have to say another word if you don’t want to, but I hope you know you can tell me absolutely anything.”

There it is. An open invitation.

Isa shakily inhales. “I just—I’ve never told anyone this before really, and I’m really, really scared,” she says as she furrows her eyebrows and bites her lip in order to stop herself from crying. She can feel Florence squeezing her hand, and she tries to focus on the feeling of Florence’s warm skin rather than the blood rushing around her head.

“It’s okay, take your time,” Florence says, her own heart pounding as she waits for Isa to speak. 

Isa diverts her eyes to the ceiling, and then, with a wavering voice, she quickly lets the words out.

“ I’m gay, Flo .”

There’s an awkward silence in the air, and all Florence can manage is to reach out and hold Isa tight as she begins to finally breathe again, letting her emotions pour out.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Florence says firmly as Isa shakes under her fingers. Florence can feel a lump in her throat and her own eyes start tearing up. She had never seen Isa cry before, and it was making her upset to see her so scared and sad. "Shh, shh. You've got to breathe Iz," she says, gently rubbing circles into her back as she sobs. She tucks her chin onto her shoulder and holds her as tight as she possibly can. “I’m really proud of you for telling me.”

They sit in an embrace for a while as Isa calms down. Florence can feel Isa’s rib cage expanding with each breath, and eventually she notices a tiny stain of tears on the fabric covering her shoulder. Eventually, Isa pulls away and wipes the tears from her cheeks before sitting up and taking a deep breath. “I’ve never said those words before,” she says quietly.

Florence puts a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezes it. “I’m proud of you,” she says again. 

Isa nods, taking that statement to heart before speaking up. “So—that’s why we didn’t work out.”

“Gotcha,” Florence says gently, signaling that they can drop the subject of Noah. Florence wasn’t expecting the answer to her question to be that Isa is gay, but suddenly things are making a lot more sense.

The only sound in the tiny studio is the light rain hitting the tin roof and a few cars driving past on the hill outside. Isa lets the sounds calm her as she and Florence sit together, staring at the ceiling. 

“Not to make tonight about me, but can I tell you something?” Florence asks after a while. Her mind has been racing, and she finally feels brave enough to let it out.

Isa nods and pulls her close. “You can always tell me anything.”

Florence’s heart is beating so hard she can hear her pulse in her ears, but before she has time to second-guess herself, she starts speaking.

“I think I like girls too.”

Isa sharply inhales before quickly remembering that this moment isn’t about her. There isn’t really much to say—she probably should have seen this coming, but a deep sense of insecurity had kept her from even considering it.

“How long have you known that?” Isa asks, realizing that she has to say something in response.

Florence bites her tongue, trying to figure out how to be honest without resigning to simply declaring her love for Isa. 

“A few months. I guess I’ve always sort of known though—I like guys, but I think I feel the same way about girls...maybe even a little bit more so,” she whispers quietly. “It’s weird.”

“Yeah,” Isa agrees. “Yeah it is.”

Once again, they find themselves sitting in silence before Florence asks a question.

“Why did you kiss me at the party?”

Isa begins speaking, but then she stops when she comes up with a better question. “Why did you kiss me at your house?”

Florence bites her lip, realizing that they had both made their own, individual confusing move. They hadn’t discussed either kiss, but now everything is out in the open.

“I don’t know,” Florence begins. “I wasn’t really thinking, but it just felt right. It also really freaked me out. I thought I had completely fucked everything up after that.”

Isa nods. “I’m sorry I left you after that. It just—it brought all these things I’d been trying to push down back up, and it really scared me. But ehm...I guess I kissed you at the party because a part of me really regretted not kissing you back at the house. It just took a bit of alcohol to make me brave enough to do it. But then when you left I thought I had fucked everything up.”

“I only pushed you away because I was afraid you would regret it, and I was afraid of losing our friendship,” Florence responds softly.

“Yeah,” Isa says as tears well in her eyes. “I, um...I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” Isa says with a shake of her head. Florence tilts her head, waiting expectantly to hear what Isa is about to say. “Those feelings actually came back before you even kissed me.” Florence nods, and she can feel adrenaline course through her veins as Isa continues. “That night we went to the Madonna night at the club was the freest I have felt in such a long time. I felt safe with you. I felt loved. And it really freaked me the fuck out because I have been denying myself those feelings for so long. I think that night everything sort of clicked. So when that happened the next morning, I just wanted to hide. I wanted to forget about it all,” she says, beginning to choke on her words.

“Hey, you’re okay,” Florence says, wrapping her hands on either side of Isa’s face as she wipes away her tears. Isa's eyes are closed and her cheeks are trembling under Florence's fingers. Her mind wants to stop and analyze Isa’s every word, but right now, all she worries about is getting Isa feeling okay again. “You’re okay, Isa.”

Isa finally raises her eyes to look at Florence. She instantly feels at peace when she meets Florence’s pale green eyes under a bit of dark fringe that had fallen out of her ponytail. Florence is giving her a reassuring look, and it is a huge relief to know that her feelings weren’t completely one sided this whole time. 

Before she even has a chance to register what she is doing, Isa finds herself leaning forward, taking a shaky breath as her nose gently touches Florence’s. Their foreheads meet briefly, and then she can feel Florence’s lips delicately feathering over her own.

Even though she’s felt these lips before, Isa knows that this is different. Everything had been spoken into the air between them and now here she was, gently wrapping her lips around Florence’s while tears trail down both of their faces. 

Florence’s hand is wrapped around her jaw, and everything feels so perfect that she is fully expecting the ground to fall out from under them at any second. 

It doesn’t though, and they sweetly kiss each other for what feels like an eternity, their breath mixing into one.

Eventually they both pull away, resting their foreheads on each other. 

“That was…” 

“Nice,” Isa finishes for Florence quietly.

“Yeah.”

Isa sighs. “Florence, I’m going to need time to figure this out.”

She can feel Florence nod against her head. “Of course. I think we both do,” Florence says. 

“I just—this is still scary. I love you, and you know that, but this is just a lot to wrap my head around. I need time to think.”

“I know,” Florence says sweetly. “You don’t need to explain yourself.”

Florence shifts herself around on the futon before opening up her arms, inviting Isa to join her.

Isa obliges, resting her head on Florence’s chest and shoulder. She is absolutely exhausted, but she feels a thousand times better now that all her feelings are out in the open. She feels scared and proud and excited and just plain tired all at the same time, and all she can manage at the moment is slowly drifting into a dream world.

“Isa,” Florence begins quietly just as Isa’s eyes begin to flutter closed. "Are you still awake?"

"Mhmm," Isa whispers back sleepily, opening her grey eyes just enough to look up at Florence.

“I just wanted to say—you deserve to feel safe. And you deserve to feel loved. You deserve to be happy . I hope you know that.”

Isa nods into Florence’s shoulder, feeling so grateful to finally feel heard after all this time. 

“I know,” she whispers in reply as one final tear falls down her cheek. “I know.”

Chapter Text

The next morning, Isa stirs awake in Florence’s arms. One of her legs is hanging off the futon, and her arm is completely numb as she slowly blinks her eyes open. Suddenly she feels lightheaded, all of last night flooding back into her memory. She thinks about those dreaded two words, and kissing Florence, and then falling asleep while Florence rubbed small circles into her back. She has that slight, vague feeling of being hungover that she always gets when she overshares; for some reason, the dark always made her brave but the second the sun comes up, she usually has major regrets.

Her heart pounds as she tries to figure out what she is going to do when Florence wakes up. While last night was nice, she knows that she isn’t ready for things to be entirely different between them. Getting those two words out into the air was exhausting enough, and now she just wants a break before she has to revisit that issue. Even though she wants nothing more than to lock herself in the schloft for the rest of eternity, she knows that is not a possibility.

Especially once she feels Florence start to wake beside her. 

Florence deeply inhales and then lets out a disgruntled sigh, not quite ready to join the waking world. Isa stays as still as possible, as if she might just disappear if she doesn’t move.

“Good morning,” Florence says sleepily, each syllable slowly drawn out into the air between them. Her eyes slowly open before quickly closing again, the bright light coming through the window too much to adjust to. Without much thought, she rests her cheek against Isa’s shoulder, even in their awkward position on the small futon. 

Florence feels her chest go tight as she remembers everything from last night. Isa is not the type to be vulnerable, and Florence knows just how drained she must be from everything. She tries to get a read on what Isa is thinking, but all she sees is her blank face staring at the ceiling above them.

Just as Florence goes to pull Isa closer, Isa quickly gets up, stretching her arms above her head before making her way up the creaky stairs. 

Florence furrows her brows as she feels the space where Isa was going cold. She wasn’t sure what to expect from this morning, but it wasn’t that . She wraps the duvet around her a little tighter as she listens to Isa rummage through some drawers upstairs. She tries to think of what to say, or what to do, but before she gets a real chance, Isa appears downstairs, dressed for the day in jeans and plain, white shirt. Her dark hair is neatly pulled up into a bun, and she grabs her phone and keys from the small table before making her way towards the door. 

“Bye, Flo. I’ll see you—”

“Isa, wait,” Florence says. She brushes off the duvet and slowly walks over to where Isa is standing. Isa bites her lip and blinks away anxious tears as she waits for Florence to continue speaking. She was really hoping to leave without having to talk, and now Florence is standing directly in front of her, looking as timid as ever. 

“Isa, I…” Florence tries to get words out, but they’re just not coming. She looks at Isa’s face, and feels her heart rise to her throat as she realizes Isa is doing her best not to cry. “Just promise me you won’t close back up. Please. I care too much about you for that to happen.” 

Isa doesn't know how to respond to that. She isn’t sure how Florence always manages to get such a good read on her when even she herself usually can’t express her emotions. Isa just nods, and then hesitantly wraps her arms around Florence. She doesn’t bother trying to talk; she knows that the second she opens her mouth, the tears will start flowing. Instead, she focuses her attention on the feeling of Florence’s hand running up and down her back, and the slight coconut smell of her hair, and the way she presses her cheek against the top of her head. After last night, she was absolutely terrified that she had made the mistake of oversharing; but now, with Florence’s arms around her, and the feeling of Florence’s heart beating against her shoulder, she knows she is safe with her.

Not only safe, but free , however scary it is. 

“Thank you,” she whispers meekly as she slowly unwraps herself from Florence’s lanky arms. “Just lock the door behind you,” she says as she leaves, not sure how to gracefully leave such an intimate moment. 

—

Isa buzzes Jack’s apartment for what must be the fiftieth time before he finally lets her in. 

She isn’t sure what brought her here—she had intended to stop at the store, get some food, and then spend the rest of her day in her flat contemplating the meaning of life and if she could manage to live the rest of it alone. 

Instead, she found herself driving all the way out to where Jack lives, subconsciously desperate for some solidarity.

“Jesus Christ Iz, it’s not even ten on a Saturday—”

Jack quickly stops talking as soon as he sees his little sister, in tears, standing outside his door.

“What’s happened?” he says gently, wrapping an arm around her shoulder before closing the door and leading her inside. 

Isa sits down on his sofa, shaking her head as tears pool in her eyes. Jack stares at her, completely unable to comprehend what is happening from his spot beside her. His mind flashes back to when she showed up at his doorstep with a black eye, sobbing all those years ago. She didn’t speak to him weeks after that, upset that he forced her not only to tell him what happened, and not only to go to A&E, but to expose the horrors she had been through to a room full of strangers in scrubs and white coats. Though he doesn’t regret a thing he did, he knows that Isa must feel pretty shitty to come to him of all people with a problem.

“You gonna tell me what’s going on?” he asks plainly. 

Isa deeply exhales and then raises her eyes to meet his. “I feel so stupid.” She blankly stares at the patterns of lines on her hands, trying to work up the courage to say the words she needs to say.

“You’re not stupid.”

Isa shakes her head, and finally settles on where to start. “Jack, I owe you an apology.”

Jack turns his head and squints his eyes, unsure of where his sister is going with this. “What did you do?”

Once again, Isa shakes her head. “It’s—nothing bad. It’s from when we were kids. I, ehm…” 

She sits in silence for a moment, trying to gather what she is trying to say. She thinks about that moment in the car nearly a decade ago. Jack had come out to her, the night before his graduation, looking for reassurance, for love, for encouragement. She gave him none. Isa thinks about how difficult it was to say those words to Florence, and how horrible she felt even as Florence held her tight and spoke kind and gentle words. Isa can’t imagine how she would have felt if she had told someone she trusted only for them to go silent. The thought of Jack wordlessly leaving her car and going back to his room alone all those years ago makes her heart hurt.

“Jack,” she begins slowly. “The night you came out to me—I’m sorry I didn’t show you love. I really, really regret how I acted that night,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.” Her eyes are red and her face is pale as she chokes back a sob. 

Now tears pool in Jack’s eyes. He isn’t sure why his sister is choosing now to bring that up. Sure, it had hurt him in the moment, but Isa never treated him unkindly, or any different really. He had always figured she had just been cold because it was a shock to her. He shakes his head and puts a hand on her knee as he deeply inhales, trying to keep his own tears at bay.

“It’s okay, Isa. I forgave you a long time ago.”

She hugs him tightly, trying to calm down before she continues. She takes her time, not wanting to move the conversation along.

Eventually, Jack speaks up. “That’s not all you’re upset about,” he says as more of a statement and less of a question.

Against his shoulder, Isa shakes her head.

“What is it?” he asks gently.

Isa pauses for a moment before speaking. “The truth is, I was really jealous of you that night.” Jack furrows his eyebrows in confusion, but doesn’t interrupt as his sister keeps talking. “I, um—I thought I might be… gay , for awhile back then. It terrified me. And I hated myself for it. You know how mum and dad were, probably better than anyone. So for you to say it so simply, it really, really bothered me for some reason. That’s why I didn’t take it well.” She lowers her head, studying the stitches in the fabric of the sofa and the misshapen rings on the hardwood floor below them.

Jack contemplates his sister’s words for a moment, trying and failing to come up with something to respond with. 

“Are you?” he eventually asks, putting his hand over Isa’s.

Silently, Isa nods as she wipes a stray tear from her cheek. 

Jack pats her hand and presses a kiss to the side of her head before completely engulfing her in a hug. 

When she gets home after a long talk with Jack, she reaches for the bottle of liquor on top of her fridge and pulls the top open, drinking straight from the bottle as she leans against her kitchen sink. She feels sick, but keeps drinking, trying to numb the feelings throughout her body. She drinks and prays that it won't be this hard forever before her stomach turns and empties everything she had just drank into the sink.

—

That same evening, Grace barges into Florence’s room after failing to get a response out of her after politely knocking. 

“What are you doing?” Grace asks, ungracefully launching herself onto the foot of Florence’s bed. 

Florence is staring blankly at the ceiling, her eyes unfocused as she drums her hand against the bed to a rhythm of a song that isn’t playing. 

“Flo?”

She stops and lifts her head to look at her little sister before flopping her head back down and going back into her own little world. 

Grace shakes her head at her sister. Knowing she isn’t going to get any words out of her anytime soon, she studies the chaos of her room. It looks like a horribly organized antique shop, with old birdcages and newspapers and records and glass bottles strewn throughout the space.

Eventually, her eyes land on a glass bottle sitting on her nightstand. 

Unlike the others, this one isn’t old; it still has a brightly colored liquor label on the front. 

“Flo,” Grace snaps suddenly. She rises from the bed and walks around to pick up the bottle. “Have you been drinking ?”

“No,” Florence says indignantly. She struggles to sit up, managing to prop herself up on her elbows as she looks at Grace. Her eyes are unfocused, and Grace notices that she can barely manage to hold her head straight.

Grace’s eyes go wide. “Florence! What the fuck are you doing?” she says in a shout-whisper. 

“Leave me alone,” Florence says, her head slightly bobbling with every slurred word. She stares daggers into her sister before collapsing onto her back.

“How much have you had?”

Florence responds with a shrug, and Grace suddenly becomes all too aware of her slowed breathing. 

She takes the clear handle and tucks it underneath her jacket, disappearing into the bathroom down the hall. Florence hears the toilet flush, and then the tearing of the label, and then the sound of the bottle hitting other bottles in the recycling bin before Grace is back in her room. 

She locks the door behind her and then lies down next to Florence. “You have a problem, Flo,” she says plainly after twenty minutes or so of sitting in silence. 

Florence shakes her head. “No, I don’t.”

“ Yes ,” Grace says with emphasis, “you do .” She thinks about the many times over the past few weeks that she’s found Florence in various states of inebriation alone in her room. And that was besides all the Friday and Saturday nights that she’d come home from parties with drugs clearly in her system.

Florence bites her cheek and feels a single tear escape the corner of her eye. “Why are you doing this, Gracie?”

“Because I’m worried about you,” she says, softening up a bit. “What happened this morning? You were being weird when you got home.”

“It’s nothing,” Florence says.

“Clearly, it’s something ,” Grace replies, turning herself to face Florence. “Weren’t you with Isa?”

“Yeah,” Florence says meekly. 

Grace contemplates what could have possibly happened to make Florence so upset, but eventually realizes it’s pointless.

“What happened, Flo?” she asks, the anger that was in her voice only a few minutes earlier completely gone. Florence looks at her sister closely for the first time in a long time—her blonde hair is longer than she remembers it, and her face is becoming slimmer and more adult-like with each passing day.

“I—I mean, we , had a long talk,” Florence finally replies after a moment. 

“About?” Grace prods on when she realizes Florence isn’t finishing her thought.

Florence sighs deeply. “Please don’t ever tell her I told you all of this,” Florence says, seemingly sobering up a bit as she frantically looks back and forth between Grace’s eyes.

“I would never,” Grace says, anxious to hear whatever Florence is about to say.

Florence nods. “A few weeks ago, she told me about this boyfriend she had who was essentially the same as Matt. It was horrible. But it started making sense why she cared about me so much. She didn’t want to see me go through that. So that was super upsetting, but it kind of made me feel… closer to her in a way? It was just nice knowing that I wasn’t alone, you know?”

Grace feels her heart drop when Florence says Matt’s name; after Florence had finally completely opened up a few weeks ago, Grace couldn’t bear to think about what Florence had gone through. Now becoming aware that Isa had gone through something similar makes her feel sick, but she simply nods at Florence’s words, urging her to go on.

“So then last night, I asked her about her other boyfriend because she never really talked about him. And, ehm, long story short—she ended up coming out to me,” Florence trails off. 

“Holy shit,” Grace says quietly. “So what—I mean, did you…?”

Florence ever so slightly nods. “I told her. And it turns out she’d been feeling the same way.”

Grace nods, letting everything sink in. She flops down on the bed and lies next to Florence, thinking about all the events of the last few months, especially watching Florence happily dance and sing with Isa under the flashing lights of the concert they had gone to. She stares at the ceiling, trying to think of something wise to say, but she can’t think of anything. This is a lot, even for Florence who always manages to get herself in the oddest situations. Instead, she laces her fingers through Florence’s, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze as they sit in the dark room together.

“How did you know, Grace?” Florence asks after a while.

“How did I know what ?”

“That night we went to the concert together, you told me you thought I loved her. How did you know?”

“Well, I mean, you did basically tell me back in December,” Grace says, recalling that horrible night. “But it’s more than that, Flo. You’re happier after you’ve been around her. Even when Matt was still around. You talk about her constantly. And the way you were looking at each other that night of the concert, and the way you were dancing—it was just so painfully obvious.”

Grace reaches across the bed to wipe away the tears collecting under Florence’s eyes. “So are you going to tell me what has you so upset?”

“I’m scared that she’s going to shut me out. She seems really scared, Grace. And to be perfectly honest here, I’m fucking terrified too. There is just so much going on, and I wasn’t really planning for this.”

“What makes you think she’s scared?”

Florence shakes her head, doing her best to control her tears. She quickly decides to just tell Grace everything.

“We kissed after everything last night,” Florence starts, trying to gauge Grace’s reaction. When Grace squeezes her hand and offers her a little smile, she continues. “It was so nice. It felt so right , Grace. But understandably, she told me she needs more time to think through things. And it’s like—sure, that’s absolutely fine, but then this morning she basically just tried to leave without even talking. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I tried to let her know that everything is okay, but she just started crying and then left.” Florence bites her lip, trying to get the hot tears behind her eyes to calm down. “I just—after everything with Matt, I can’t do this anymore—I can’t just keep putting my heart out there and letting it get broken,” she says, her voice breaking. “I get hurt so easily, and it’s like—” She pauses, trying to find the words to express exactly what she’s feeling. “It’s just like, fuck , I’m in love with this girl and I’ve barely even managed to come out to myself. How do I think I’m going to come out to other people?”

“Well,” Grace begins gently, “like it or not, you’re stuck with her for at least the next two years. And I highly doubt she meant anything by this morning, Flo. She’s probably terrified. It seems like she’s been through a lot. If you’re scared of your heart being broken again, imagine how she’s feeling.”

Florence nods, thankful for her little sister’s maturity and wisdom. 

“It was one weird interaction, Flo. Don’t overthink it. She said she needs time, so… just give her some time.”

Florence nods, and then shuffles herself over towards Grace. Wordlessly, Grace cradles her head against her shoulder and pulls the duvet up so that it covers both of them. “And as far as coming out Flo—I don’t have much advice to offer here, but I love you so , so much. Nothing can ever change that. And I love Isa.”

“You’ve only met her once,” Florence says with a little laugh through her tears.

Grace smiles. “Once was enough. I love the both of you. Take your time, just be patient. With her and yourself. Things will work out in the end.”

—

The first week of April is warm in London. A few trees begin to bloom, and the streets are more crowded as usually as people get outside to walk or jog in the warm sunlight. Florence and Isa had started playing more and more gigs at pubs, occasionally having Rob and Hugo join to make it more of a full band. 

One Saturday, Florence joins Isa for breakfast at her flat before they sprawl out on the floor of her living room, working on new songs. Florence had taken Grace’s advice to heart, and had tried her best not to think about her and Isa for a while. For the most part, it had worked, and the two of them had made much progress on their growing discography. Their friendship had evolved too, as they finally started feeling more comfortable being vulnerable after putting all their feelings out in the open.

Though Florence likes to tell herself that everything is fine, that she doesn’t mind their odd relationship being unspoken, the wild scribbles covering up Isa’s name throughout her notebooks say otherwise. 

She is cautious to skip over those pages around Isa, instead presenting her with songs that are about less scary things—like death and murder—to work with.

After a productive morning, Florence notices a bike crammed in the storage closet of Isa’s flat. “You have a bicycle?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’m not really good at riding it though, and it became somewhat useless after I bought the car,” Isa shouts back from her bedroom.

“Why did I not know this?” Florence asks, shaking off a few odds and ends before pulling it out and examining the slightly flat tires.

Isa appears from her bedroom, laughing at Florence as she puts air in the tires with an old pump.

“I didn’t think it was important for you to know, my apologies. I’ll be sure to start including that when I introduce myself.”

“Do you want to go for a ride?” Florence asks.

“Now?”

“Why not? It’s gorgeous outside.”

“Flo, I don’t know how—”

“I’ll help you. And we won’t go far.”

Isa quickly finds out that is a lie as Florence starts moving towards Waterloo Bridge. 

“You said we weren’t going far!” Isa yells behind her as Florence continues on. She pedals hard and then coasts, standing up on the pedals as she looks back and laughs at Isa. 

“Come on!” she says, turning her attention back to the bike lane. Cycling was one of her favorite things in the world, and she finds amusement in just how terrified Isa is of such a simple activity. 

“We are too fucking young to die, Florence!” Isa says, flinching as a bus passes by them. The sun is bright and reflects on the water below them as the breeze helps them coast along the bridge. Florence simply shakes her head at Isa’s shouts of protest until they arrive safely on the other side. When they reach a corner of a block, Isa pulls up besides Florence. “You said we wouldn’t go far.”

“This isn’t far.”

Isa rolls her eyes. “Where exactly are we going?”

“Coffee. As far as I’m aware, you’ve never actually had good coffee.”

“Are you saying my coffee isn’t up to your standards?”

Florence laughs as they start moving again. “You’ll see.”

When they reach the tiny cafe, Florence threads a lock through both of the bikes and then leads Isa in. 

Florence isn’t exactly sure what she is doing; she had told Isa that they were going for coffee, a seemingly harmless outing. Subconsciously, though, she knows she wanted to go somewhere other than Isa’s flat or the schloft because all they seemed to accomplish in those places was work. They never ventured too deep in their discussions, and she is desperate to know what Isa is thinking. She feels stupid for thinking that a coffee shop will be a welcome place for tough conversations, but she hopes that this odd logic of introducing a novel location will work. 

Isa finds a quiet booth in the corner of the shop, resting her chin on her hands as she waits for Florence to return. She wishes she could pause her life at this very moment—she was the most content she had been in years, between spending time with Florence and burying herself in work. They were really starting to make progress, and now they are getting invited to play at gigs outside of Mairead’s club nights. 

She watches as Florence pays for the drinks, nervously laughing at something the guy across the counter says as she hands him a few small bills. Her long legs, Isa notices, are unbruised for the first time in a long time, whether from clumsy falls or otherwise. 

She is wearing a typical Florence outfit of denim shorts with a loose oxford shirt half-tucked in, along with loafers and socks that remind Isa of the ones she wore to school so many years ago. Her hair has gotten darker, much more brown than auburn now, and falls in loose waves over her shoulder. Isa wonders if it was dye that had given it the red undertones, or if being inside over the winter had reverted it to a darker brown.

When Florence returns she goes to ask Isa if she wants any food, but before she gets the chance, she is interrupted. 

“What color is your natural hair?”

Florence quizzically laughs. “This. I had dyed it red last summer, and had blonde highlights before that, but it’s pretty much faded. So alas, here it is in its natural form.”

"How red was it?" Isa asks.

"Red red. Much more red than you've ever seen it."

Isa nods. “I’ve always wanted to go blonde.”

Florence raises an eyebrow. “I can’t picture you without dark hair.”

Isa shrugs. “I can’t picture you with red hair.”

Florence laughs. “It was— interesting . Wouldn’t recommend trying henna dye on yourself.”

Isa smiles and they sit in silence for a moment, watching the busy street outside the window. Eventually, someone brings them their coffees, and Florence tries to explain how they brew it before realizing that Isa is completely zoned out.

“You in there?” she asks with a sigh, tilting her head from across the table. 

Isa blinks her eyes quickly and deeply inhales. “Yeah, sorry, just...thinking.”

Florence sips on her coffee, purposefully giving Isa a moment to gather herself. “About what?”

Isa shrugs. “Life.”

“What about life?” Florence asks with a casual curiosity, trying to get Isa to open up just a little . 

Isa quickly tries to reason with herself, trying to decide exactly how much she should tell Florence. She thinks back to talking with Jack, telling him how terrified she was to get too attached to someone whose recklessness reminded her so much of herself in her younger years. She loved Florence dearly, but she couldn’t bear the thought of having to watch someone treat themselves as horribly as she did at one point. 

“Just... things. What are you thinking about?”

“My sister turns eighteen soon, so I’m pretty excited about that,” Florence says happily. “I’ve been waiting for years now for her to join me on nights out, she has always refused to go anywhere underage.”

“As she should ,” Isa says with a laugh. “It’s funny, I thought she was only like a year younger than you.”

Florence shakes her head. “Two. She’s just very mature. Way more mature than me. Sometimes people think she’s even older than me.”

Isa smiles. “How old is Molly?”

“She’s...fifteen, I think?” Florence says, trying to quickly do the math in her head. “She’s also way more mature than me.”

“They’re both pretty cool,” Isa says with a smile.

Florence laughs. “It’s funny because Grace literally thinks you’re the greatest person ever, and you’ve only met once .”

Now Isa laughs. “Cool people just spot each other, you know?”

Florence rolls her eyes. “Yeah, alright.”

“You should bring them over sometime.”

“To the shloft?”

“Yeah, why not? We can put them to work playing percussion.”

Florence shakes her head. “They would love that.”

“Well, the invitation is always open,” Isa says, finally taking a sip of the coffee that had been too hot for her liking before. “Ooh, this is good ,” she says with an approving nod.

“See, coffee’s not half bad when it’s made properly,” Florence laughs. 

Once again, they find themselves in comfortable silence. Florence starts to feel slightly anxious as she works up the nerve to say something that might open Isa up. As comfortable as she is in this weird sort of limbo, she is beginning to worry that Isa forgot anything ever happened between them, and she needs to know if it would be safer to just go ahead and go through the heartbreak now before she’s in too deep.

“So,” she begins slowly, carefully choosing her wording as she watches Isa sip on her coffee. She isn’t wearing any makeup this morning, and her blue eyes are bright against her dark hair that is pulled back into a neat ponytail. “I told Grace about what happened.”

Florence doesn’t feel the need to specify exactly what “ what ” is. Personally, she hadn’t really stopped thinking about it since that night, and she knows that Isa probably isn’t much different. 

Without looking up, Isa slightly nods her head. “That’s...good. I actually told my brother,” she says quietly.

“Oh, wow,” Florence says, looking at Isa’s anxious face. “That’s big, Iz. I can’t imagine telling one of my brothers.”

Suddenly, Isa realizes she never told Florence about Jack. She had only told her that Jack got sent away—she didn’t feel like getting into how her parents were… not the most understanding , to put it nicely.

Isa quickly finishes the last of her coffee before collecting hers and Florence’s cups and walking over to put them in the washtub. 

“Let’s go hang out for a bit, yeah?” she says, extending her hand to help Florence up. 

On the way back, Isa feels a bit more confident riding over the bridge. Finally, after she manages to get up the seemingly endless hill, the feeling of coasting down the bridge gives her a huge rush of adrenaline. She starts to understand why Florence loves it so much.

They pass under a big sign of rainbow letters before making a few turns and landing outside of Isa’s flat. Florence locks up her bike before helping Isa get her own up the stairs. 

Once the bike is solidly leaned against a wall, Florence flops onto Isa’s sofa, seemingly worn out from the journey. 

Isa sits down on the opposite end, quickly responding to a text before flipping her phone shut and looking at Florence.

“So, there’s something I never really told you about,” Isa says quietly, trying to get everything out before her brain has a chance to convince her otherwise.

Florence looks up, staring intently at Isa. “What’s that?”

“My brother, Jack—I never really told you why he was sent away.”

With that, Isa spends the next hour or two telling Florence all about the day he moved out, and the night before his graduation, and the long drive back home that she spent mostly crying by herself. From across the sofa, Florence nods along, only talking when Isa goes silent. 

“So that was when you were like what, sixteen?”

Isa nods. “Yeah. The night after I got home from Jack’s graduation Dale found me in a park, and I broke down and kind of told him what I had been feeling. But after that I just pushed it all back down,” Isa says, resting her head on the cushion to the side of her. “Our parents are just…” she trails off, trying to find the proper words. “They love us, they really do, but I think they expected the three of us to be just completely perfect. Sometimes that love feels really conditional.”

“So now with Jack and Wade, you feel pressure to be that perfect child,” Florence says knowingly. 

Isa deeply exhales, finally feeling understood. “ Yes . I don’t even really care, because they’ve treated my brothers like shit and I’m old enough now to know I don’t need their approval, but it’s still just like—I want it for some reason.”

Florence nods her head. “I get it. Obviously it’s not the same, but my mum is kind of like that. She’s just brilliant , and I think she has always expected to have really academic children. And I mean, we’re smart, but we’re not smart in the way she is. I think it really bothers her, and even though we’ve never really explicitly talked about it, I can just kind of feel that sort of, I don’t know, judgement ?” 

Outside, the sun is starting to set. Wordlessly, Isa moves herself on the sofa to sit next to Florence, leaning her head against her shoulder. 

“Yep, I’ve definitely been there too,” she replies quietly after a moment. “Did you ever tell her about school?”

Florence nervously laughs. “No. She would quite literally kill me if she knew I dropped out. When I was little she was always talking about me getting a PhD in literature or art or something. It’s going to break her when she finds out I couldn’t even survive art college.”

Isa exhales, quietly waiting for Florence to finish her thoughts.

“I think the thing that bothers her the most is that I actually have some sort of learning disability that she worked so hard to help me with when I was little. Reading came so naturally to me so she had super high expectations, but then I got to school and I couldn’t write, I couldn’t do math. It was just… yeah,” she says, trailing off.

“I didn’t know that, Flo,” Isa says after a moment.

“Well I never told you that,” she says with a little laugh, wrapping her arm around Isa. “It’s gotten more manageable with time. I’ve sort of taught myself tricks to do math, and I’ve memorized how to spell most words because I can’t sound them out for the life of me.”

“That’s impressive, Flo,” Isa says. “I’m shit at spelling just because I was lazy in school, never mind memorizing spellings.”

Florence laughs. “You just need lots of flashcards," she says with a smile. "Anyways, do you have any food? I’m starving.”

Florence finds a box of pasta and sauce, and Isa chops up random vegetables she finds in her fridge before sautéing them in a pan. Years ago, Noah had taught her how to time everything so they all cook evenly, and had shown her what spices to add for flavor. Soon enough they have a large pot full of food, and Isa serves it in two smaller bowls.

There is something oddly domestic about cooking with Isa, Florence finds, and she enjoys wordlessly moving around in the kitchen together, the spices fragrant in the warm air. They eat across from one another at Isa’s tiny table, talking about childhood memories, and embarrassing moments, and essentially anything other than music. 

After a while, Isa collects their bowls and puts them in the sink. “Do you want to stay here tonight?” she asks meekly. “The weekends are starting to get lonely,” she says with a smile. 

“That’s because you never come out with us,” Florence laughs. 

And that’s because I can’t stand to see you blackout , Isa thinks to herself, too scared to say it out loud.

Isa rolls her eyes. “I’m just too old for that,” she lies. “Do you want to hang out or not?”

Florence nods. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

Isa disappears, finding Florence a pair of pyjama pants and an old t-shirt before returning. “They’re gonna be short, sorry,” she says with a laugh. Florence gratefully takes them and leaves to change into the more comfortable clothes. 

While Florence is in the bathroom, Isa grabs her duvet off of her bed, and then drags it out to the balcony along with a large beanbag chair she has sitting in the corner of her living room. She starts a pot of coffee with the ground coffee she had bought from an actual coffee shop rather than the last aisle of her grocery store. When Florence reappears, she points her towards the balcony. “I’ll be out in just a minute.”

Florence smiles and then slides the door shut behind her as Isa takes the coffee off of the drip machine. She pours two glasses, carefully adding milk, sugar, vanilla, and whiskey and stirring it with a spoon. She brings them to the balcony, handing one to Florence before shutting the door. 

“How fancy,” Florence laughs before sipping on the drink. She chokes just a little bit after the first sip, not expecting the slight burn of alcohol. “Is there whiskey in here?” she asks, taking a larger, more prepared sip this time. 

“I found a recipe a few days ago,” Isa says with a smile. “Any good?”

“ Really good, even though we just had coffee this afternoon,” she laughs. “Thank you.”

Isa places her coffee on the ground next to the soft beanbag before settling into the space beside Florence. They quietly sit for a while, studying the stars just above the skyline and the faint sounds of music pouring out of clubs a few blocks away. 

After their drinks are finished, and the night starts to grow colder, Isa collapses into Florence’s side, once again letting her head rest on her shoulder. Florence pulls the duvet around them tighter, and then gently strokes Isa’s hair, something Grace had done to comfort Florence since they were little kids. 

“So you said you told your sister?” Isa asks, referring to their brief conversation in the cafe earlier. 

“Yeah. I actually kind of told her back at Christmas, but we’ve talked about everything a lot more recently.”

“What did she say?”

Florence just shrugs. “Not much. She just wants me happy and safe, always.”

Isa nods. “Yeah, siblings are like that.”

Florence mindlessly runs her hand up and down Isa’s back as she stares off into space, thinking about all the questions she’s been too afraid to bring up.

“Isa,” she says suddenly, briefly stopping her movement, “can I ask you something?”

“Yeah,” Isa says somewhat cautiously. Florence resumes gently rubbing her back as a cold breeze hits them. 

“Do you think we have a chance? Like, of being together?”

Florence can almost feel Isa shrink under her touch. She does her best to remain patient, like Grace has reminded her to, and simply continues trying her best to keep Isa relaxed. 

“I’m… scared. I’m just really , really scared,” Isa replies quietly, not really answering Florence’s question.

“What are you scared of?” Florence asks gently. She readjusts herself so she can hold Isa tighter, wrapping a hand around her head as Isa curls into her side. 

Isa sighs and bites her lip. It’s funny, because when she tries to find an answer, it’s hard to come up with anything concrete. Of course, she’s scared of having to come out, and find acceptance, and deal with a part of herself that once brought her so much shame and grief; but it’s more than that. She does her best to find the words as she turns her head to look at Florence.

“This sounds so stupid, but it’s like I’m afraid of being happy,” she says quietly. “Right after I talked to Jack after the night that we talked about everything, I came home and drank straight liquor,” she says with a little laugh. “I don’t know what I was thinking, because I haven’t drank like that since school. I ended up throwing it all up in the fucking kitchen sink five minutes later,” she says with a scoff. “Who the fuck throws up in a sink?”

“I’ve vommed in odder places,” Florence says, shaking her head. Once their laughter dies down, Florence asks another question. “So why are you afraid of being happy?”

Isa contemplates the question, memories of crying so hard she thought she might pass out after Noah left rushing back. “I just—I’ve experienced heartbreak, and it’s not something I ever want to experience again. Sometimes it feels like if I want to survive, if I want to be content, I just need to stop accepting love from people. People can’t hurt you if you don’t accept their love to begin with.”

“That’s a pretty dark way of thinking,” Florence says, feeling Isa relax just ever so slightly. 

“Maybe. But it’s how I protect myself,” Isa says confidently despite her voice breaking.

Florence can feel tears pressing on the back of her eyes as she tries to think of what to say. She doesn’t want to have to beg Isa to love her; but she doesn’t want to just let this go either. 

“Isa,” she says reverently. “I really think I’m—I don’t even know how to put it,” she says, her teary eyes darting back and forth between Isa’s. The sting of the cold, night air is the only thing keeping her from crying. “I think I’ve already fallen for you. I’m really scared that I’m going to get hurt.” She pauses, studying Isa’s face. “And I’m even more scared that you’re going to get hurt.”

A train horn blares in the background, and the two of them are silent for the two or so minutes that it takes for the train to get through the crossing in the distance. Florence prays to whatever higher being there is that she hadn’t gone and fucked everything up in a single breath.

“I’ve been thinking about this for weeks,” Isa finally says, sitting up so her face is even with Florence’s and so that she can really look at her. “I think the best way I can put it is like, the feeling of jumping from an airplane. Like you’re just rushing towards the ground and moving a million miles an hour, but it’s so far and it’s actually sort of peaceful being able to see the air around you. That’s how I feel right now.”

Florence tilts her head to the side, and Isa notices that her green eyes are glassy. “I don’t know what you mean,” she says. 

“I don't know how to really explain it. It’s like, yeah, right now I’m just flying through the air, and it feels peaceful, but in the back of my mind I know that eventually I’m going to hit the ground. And that’s when I get hurt,” she says, biting her lip. “Does that make sense?”

Florence ever so slightly nods. “So you’re saying that whatever we have going is eventually going to end in heartbreak.”

“I mean—” Isa sighs. “No. It just feels like that sometimes. It’s like I have this survival instinct that just won’t ever shut off, and it is just constantly trying to prevent me from feeling love.”

“So no , to answer my original question then,” Florence whispers so quietly Isa can barely hear her.

“Florence,” she says, wiping her thumbs under Florence’s teary eyes like she did in the bathtub of that house-party many months ago. “I really, really like you. The fact that I’m fucking terrified is just proof that maybe, just maybe , I’m finally learning what it is to trust people again. To love again. It sounds ridiculous, but please trust me here, okay?” she says running her hands up and down Florence’s arms. 

Florence bites her lip and nods. “Isa,” she starts, her voice shaking. Isa wraps a hand around her jaw, gently stroking her cheek. “I—”

Before she has a chance to finish her thought, Isa’s lips are on hers, the taste of coffee and whiskey still lingering on them. Florence slightly parts her lips, letting Isa slowly kiss her top lip, then her bottom lip, then gently brush her own lips across Florence’s jaw. 

Florence eventually puts her hand at the base of Isa’s neck, gently guiding their lips back together. Florence swipes her tongue across Isa’s lip, and Isa responds by slowly reaching her own tongue out, letting it gently touch Florence’s before their lips crash together again. 

Though Florence feels safe in the dark of night out on the balcony, she eventually pulls away from Isa, picking up the duvet and reaching for Isa’s hand.

Isa accepts it as Florence wraps the blanket around her and leads her inside. She locks the balcony door behind them, and guides her through the living room and to her bedroom. 

Once they are in the dark bedroom, Florence tosses the duvet on the bed before placing her hands on either side of Isa’s face and resuming where they had left off. They are both breathing harder, making it difficult to keep up, but it feels nice nonetheless as they delicately run their hands up and down each other's sides and languidly press their tongues together.

Florence realizes that this is the first time they’ve kissed standing up, and somehow it feels even more intimate as Isa reaches up to even herself out with Florence. 

Florence eventually leads Isa towards the bed, both of them collapsing on top of the duvet as their hands continue to roam. At some point Isa grows brave, gently tugging at the hem of the t-shirt she had given Florence. Florence helps her pull it over her head, revealing her breasts as their lips meet again. Isa starts to feel uneasy as she feels Florence’s bare skin under her fingertips. This is all moving entirely too fast, and she isn’t sure what to do. 

She follows Florence’s lead, removing her own shirt after Florence pulls on it. She is conscious of her bare torso pressed against Florence's the only reassurance being Florence's hand softly running over her breasts.

Isa’s anxiety begins to overwhelm her, and she does her best to just try and focus on the feeling of Florence’s lips gently tracing her own. It is such a calming sensation, and she focuses her attention on that instead of the overwhelming fear of the unknown. 

Florence’s breathing is getting harder, and Isa reaches for her hip bone, letting her hand rest on it as she kisses Florence’s jaw. 

Again growing brave, Isa opens her eyes for a moment to look down at Florence’s face. She doesn’t find at all what she expected.

Florence is crying, biting her lip as tears fall from her eyes. “ I can’t do this ,” she says breathily, her chest rising and falling rapidly. 

Her eyes meet Isa’s, and Isa panics as she watches Florence begin to gasp for air. Her hands fly to cover her face, and Isa can see her ribs through her expanding chest.

Isa immediately turns her lamp on, and then helps Florence sit up. She pries Florence’s hands away from her face, revealing pale, blotchy red skin and tears running down her cheeks. 

“Shh, okay, okay,” Isa says, pulling the duvet from beside Florence and wrapping it around her. She quickly pulls on her own shirt before sitting next to Florence and rubbing her back. “Breathe, keep breathing, Flo,” she says while her mind races, trying to figure out what happened. Even through all the muscles of her back, Isa can feel Florence's heart pounding. 

“What’s happening Flo?” Isa says as calmly as she possibly can as she runs her hand firmly up and down Florence’s sweaty back. Florence is still gasping for air, and her face has gone even paler. 

“Call… Grace,” Florence says shakily through her breaths.

“I can’t leave you—”

“Please,” Florence gets out, her scared green eyes, meeting Isa’s. 

Isa quickly runs out of the room and grabs Florence’s phone, flipping it open and scrolling through her contacts. 

The phone gets through one and a half rings before Grace picks up. “What’s up?” she asks calmly, even though it is pushing two in the morning. 

“Grace, it’s Isa. We’re at my apartment, your sister is…” she trails off, not knowing how to describe her current state without scaring Grace. It seems like she can’t breathe at all, and she is choking on her own tears.

“Panic...attack,” Florence quietly breathes out as Isa looks at her helplessly. 

“She’s having a panic attack.”

“Shit,” Grace says across the line. “Where are you? I can take my brother’s car.”

The next ten minutes are some of the longest of Isa’s life as she waits for Grace to get to them. Florence’s breathing only seems to get worse, and eventually, she isn’t even responding to anything Isa is saying. She contemplates calling 999, but hopes that Grace will get there quickly enough to avoid a whole trip to A&E in the middle of a Saturday night.

Eventually, Florence’s phone is buzzing again with Grace calling to let Isa know she is outside. 

As quickly as she can, Isa races down the stairs to let in the blonde, who seems like she was in bed herself before this. They climb up the flight of stairs together, and Grace naturally follows the sound of Florence’s ragged breathing right to where she is.

“Hey, hey, I’m here, it’s me,” Grace says gently, sitting next to Florence on the bed. She is too concerned to wonder why Florence is topless, instead focusing on getting her breathing normally. 

Isa watches helplessly from the doorway as Grace takes Florence’s hand and places it right between her collarbones. The younger girl exaggeratedly breathes in and out, and Florence seems to calm down just a little bit. Eventually she opens her eyes, staring at Grace as she continues to deeply breathe. 

“Can you get a glass of water?” Grace asks Isa quietly. Isa nods, and then returns to the room with the requested drink. She sits on the other side of Florence as Grace helps her hold it up to her lips. 

“Just little sips, just a few,” she says quietly, coaxing Florence to drink. 

Isa is stunned at how well Grace is able to calm Florence down. While she is close with her brothers, neither of them have any sort of connection like that. 

“Do you have a tub?” Grace quietly asks Isa after a bit. 

Isa nods. “Yeah, should I run it?”

Grace nods back. “Just lukewarm water, and some sort of liquid soap if you have it.”

“Got it,” Isa says, leaving Florence and Grace alone. 

Once the bath is run, Grace helps Florence to the bathroom and gets her settled in the water. Florence thanks her profusely, embarrassed that her little sister had to come rescue her in the middle of the night. 

Once she is certain that Florence is okay, Grace leaves the bathroom and finds Isa sitting out on her balcony. 

“Mind if I join?” Grace asks, sliding the door open slightly.

Isa shakes her head, and then lifts the duvet she had brought back out, offering Grace the space next to her. 

“You okay?” Grace asks Isa. She can tell Isa has been crying by the way her eyes are red and swollen around her bright blue irises. 

Isa just shakes her head no. “What was that?”

“She gets panic attacks. Somewhat often,” Grace says plainly, not sure exactly how much Isa knows about Florence. 

“She was fine one minute and then just not breathing the next,” Isa says with a ragged breath. “That scared the shit out of me.”

Grace nods, and then wraps an arm around Isa. “Yeah, it’s scary. I’m sorry you were alone when that happened.”

Isa is thankful for Grace’s calm demeanor as she tries to calm herself down. 

“Can I ask if you were talking about anything when that happened? Or what was going on?” Grace asks half knowingly. She just wants to make sure Isa understands what happened so she doesn’t have to fear the unknown moving forward. 

Isa nervously shakes her head. “We were...I mean, it was—we were just in my room, about to go to bed.”

“Isa,” Grace says gently, taking her hand like she does with Florence when she needs reassurance. “I know pretty much everything—I think. Of course you don’t have to tell me anything, but I hope you know you can.” 

Grace looks over at Isa before looking away, trying to give her the space she needs while also trying to get confirmation of what she thinks happened.

Finally, Isa sighs, looking over at the seventeen year old who looks like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed version of Florence. 

“We were out here talking about us, and eventually we started kissing, and then we went to my room. I don’t even know what was happening, but I think we started to take it a little further and then all of a sudden she was crying and breathing like that,” Isa says, her voice breaking a little bit at the end.

“It’s okay,” Grace says, wrapping up Isa in a hug just as she begins crying. “The first time I saw it happen I was completely terrified, you’re okay,” she reassures her, firmly rubbing her upper back. 

Isa breathes deeply, allowing herself to find comfort in Grace. “Thank you for coming over,” she says genuinely. 

“Of course, thank you for handling this so well,” Grace replies back. Grace bites her lip, contemplating just how much she should say to Isa. They both sit under the blanket for a few minutes, letting the cold air wash over them. 

Just as Isa goes to get up, Grace stops her.

“Wait,” she sighs as Isa shifts her weight forward. “I want to talk to you about something else.”

Isa nods. “Okay.”

Grace hesitates, and then finally lets the words fly out. “She really cares about you," Grace says, pausing before her next statement. "She loves you. I just want you to hear that from someone other than her. She adores you, and so do I—not that it matters, really, but I just want that out there.”

Isa smiles. “That means a lot.”

Grace nods. “I think you just have to understand—the way her brain works, it’s like the joy switch is right next to the complete panic and terror switch. Sometimes it’s when she’s really happy that she gets like this. Sometimes it also just happens when she's scared or anxious.”

Isa thinks about the time Florence panicked when the car broke down on their way back from Manchester. Though that attack hadn't been nearly as bad as this one, it was fairly similar. Isa quietly looks at Grace, and she can tell there’s more. 

“She’s also had quite a few panic attacks because of Matt,” Grace says slowly. “She insists that she’s absolutely fine, but I have a feeling that any sort of physical intimacy is going to be hard for a while. She’s so headstrong and stubborn that I’m sure she’s going to want to rush into things. I don’t want to assume what was happening, but I just thought I should let you know.”

Isa’s eyes get teary again as she thinks back to the first few times she and Noah had sex after everything she had been through with Frank. She had tried her best to pretend that everything was fine for Noah’s sake, but internally, she was terrified even though she knew Noah would have been absolutely fine waiting until she was okay if she had just told him. 

“Thank you,” Isa says quietly, reaching over to hug Grace. “”For the record, I absolutely adore you too.”

After half an hour or so, Grace checks on Florence, draining the tub as Florence changes into a new t-shirt and pair of satin pants that Isa had given her. 

“You okay?” Grace asks Florence once she’s all changed. Her skin is finally back to a healthy color, and her breathing is normal again. The pants Isa gave her are a good six inches too short on her, falling well above her ankle, but it makes Grace smile to know that Isa was so willing to give her sister whatever she needed.

“Yeah,” Florence says quietly, responding to Grace’s question just as the tub finishes draining. “I just did too much too soon, I think.”

After making sure that Florence and Grace are comfortable in her bedroom, and going out to move their brother’s car to a space she is certain won’t get ticketed, Isa pulls out a small blanket from her closet, pulling it over herself as she settles into the sofa. It has been such a long day, and now that it is nearly four in the morning, she wants nothing more than to fall asleep. The day had been so good up until the end, and she tries to block out the images of Florence gasping for air, instead thinking of cooking dinner together, and the funny stories she had told, and how she had been brave enough to tell Isa exactly how she had been feeling. 

As she falls asleep, she replays what Grace had said over, and over, and over again.

She loves you.

She loves you.

She loves you.

Chapter Text

Florence wakes up confused the next morning, momentarily thrown off by the sight of Grace beside her in a bed that isn’t either of theirs. She closes her eyes and presses her head into the pillow below her, inhaling the scent of Isa’s shampoo that she had grown so familiar with. 

Isa .

It all comes flooding back, and she immediately wishes she could fall back into a peaceful sleep, oblivious to the embarrassment she had put herself through last night. 

Knowing that this isn’t an option, however, she sinks back into the comfort of the soft mattress and heavy duvet. It’s funny, she thinks, because this is probably the closest thing she has to what feels like home. Home doesn’t feel like home—“ home” is her neighbor’s house that she had been forced into, while her actual childhood home sold a few years prior. Her bedroom was in fact the living room tucked away in the front corner of the house that she had procured after a long fight with her mother that a nineteen year old and seventeen year old shouldn’t have to share a teeny, tiny bedroom when every other one of their four siblings had their own. 

It is terrifying, Florence thinks, that home doesn’t feel like home, but neither does anything else, really. 

She shakes the thought, quietly rolling out of bed and opening the door to the living room. She finds Isa asleep on the sofa, her hair wildly cascading down the side. She is still in the same pyjamas from last night, and Florence cringes as her mind flies back to pulling her black t-shirt over her head only moments before things fell apart. 

Isa is so small that she only takes up two of the three cushions, and Florence gently sits herself on the open third one. She studies Isa’s face; her eyebrows are slightly furrowed, like she is studying a confusing math problem, and her lips are slightly parted, just enough to gently breathe air in and out. 

Eventually, Florence resigns to curling up and leaning against the side of the couch as she waits for Isa or Grace to wake up. Outside, the sun is only just starting to rise, and she realizes that she must have only managed to sleep for a couple of hours. 

She studies little trinkets scattered around the space; a photo of Isa and her brothers from when they were kids haphazardly hung up on a wall covered in art; a large, vintage looking box of films sitting under an old desk covered is miscellaneous mail in the corner; a lamp with a cracked lampshade that probably doesn’t work next to the door; several cookbooks and a few bottles of liquor stacked on top of her fridge. The place is messy (albeit, not as messy as her own space) in a somehow cohesive way. It’s very, very Isa, Florence thinks. 

Just as bright sun peaks through the blinds and bright stripes of white light start to cover Isa’s face, she wakes. 

“Morning,” Florence whispers as Isa deeply inhales. Isa blinks her eyes open, and then cracks a small smile once they settle on Florence.

“You alright?” she asks, her voice cracking. She sits up, reaching her arms above her head and stretching her neck side to side before quickly moving over to sit next to Florence. Without even waiting for a response, she curls into Florence’s side, tucking her head into the crook between her neck and shoulder. 

Florence breathes a sigh of relief that Isa isn’t acting weird after the events of last night. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she breathes out as Isa traces shapes into the palm of her hand. “I’m sorry I—” she pauses, not sure how to apologize for having a horrific panic attack in the middle of what was supposed to be an intimate moment. Before she has a chance to come up with the words though, Isa cuts her off. 

“Nope,” she says, lifting Florence’s hand and gently pressing her lips to it. “No apologizing.”

Florence audibly exhales, and Isa wraps her arms around her. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Flo,” she adds. “Last night was really, really nice. The ending doesn’t change that. I’m just glad it wasn’t worse—and that you have possibly the best sister ever.”

“God, you’re so nice,” Florence says with a little laugh as she bashfully buries her face in Isa’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispers as she pulls back just enough to look Isa in the eyes. 

There is a line from her blanket across her cheek, and her eyes are still half-closed from sleep, but Florence feels her heart flutter as Isa cracks a smile and leans in. 

This kiss feels less hesitant and less rushed than any of their previous ones. Florence can feel Isa smiling under her lips as they gently close over one another. Isa gently strokes Florence’s cheekbone with her thumb, feeling the soft skin under her fingertips. 

As if on cue, they hear the bedroom door creak open, and they both jump as they instinctively pull apart. 

“Well good morning,” Grace says with a smirk as she confidently saunters into the living room and squeezes herself right between Florence and Isa on the couch. Florence and Isa are both blushing, with the smallest of smiles peeking from the corners of their mouths. They are both silent, shyly shaking their heads as Grace looks between them. “Still waiting for my good morning kiss here,” she says deadpan before Florence smacks her across the arm and Isa bursts out in laughter.

—

A bit later that week, Florence finds herself in Mairead’s makeshift office—a large closet tucked in the corner of a recording studio in North London, with a desk pushed against one wall and a large filing cabinet against the other with room for two chairs in between. 

After divulging the fact that she had a few songs she wanted to record but didn’t have the rights to, Mairead had promised Florence she would do her best to get in contact with people who could help her start recording and performing them.

“They’re your songs, Florence,” Mairead says as she flips through pages tucked away in an off-white folder. “I got in touch with that lawyer, you have every right to perform them.”

Florence furrows her eyebrows. “I was told I couldn’t even touch ‘Happy Slap,’ and there’s absolutely no record of me writing that Ludes song,” she says, referencing the song she had helped write for Matt’s band. Nervously, she bites on her thumbnail as she spins herself in her chair ever so slightly with her foot.

“You rename the Ashok song and rearrange it slightly, you’re good to go. The Ludes song will technically be a cover in the fine print, but you don’t have to say that anywhere else.”

Hesitantly, Florence nods. As much as she wants to be able to sing the songs she had put so much work into, it would have almost been easier to have been handed a hard no—playing these songs means processing the baggage that comes with them, and she isn’t sure she’s ready for it. “When we start recording the actual masters, can we record those songs?”

Mairead nods. “No reason why not.”

Florence stops the spinning, putting both heels down and covering her face with her hands while audibly exhaling. “I’m fucked.”

—

“Alright, well we have two new songs to rehearse,” Florence announces the next day as she pushes the large door of the schloft open. Rob, Hugo, and Isa have been smoking judging by the smell of the tiny studio, and not wanting to be lagging behind, Florence pours herself a generous shot of vodka from a handle on top of some drawers into a teacup. 

Rob raises his eyebrows as Florence downs it with just the tiniest of winces, and then after thinking for a brief moment, goes to pour another.

“Slow down, we’ve got all day,” he says, taking it out of her hands as she rakes a hand through her hair. 

“So we can play those songs?” Isa asks curiously as she thumbs through a notebook of handwritten lead sheets, quickly copying them down before handing them to Rob. 

Florence looks up and nods. “Add them to the list.”

Isa shuffles past Rob, who is busy putting a capo on his guitar, and scribbles out two songs onto a piece of paper that she then pushes into the wall with a thumbtack. 

Girl With 1 Eye

Kiss W/A Fist

“What else?” she asks, turning around.

“Ehm, Best Dress, Throwing Bricks, Old Hope?” she says quietly, listing off the songs that had already become staples for the four of them.

Isa writes them down, and then takes a step back as if she is examining a piece of art. 

“Yeah, yeah. I think that’s good.” 

Even though it’s just another gig, the fact that they were invited to play Blue Flowers is a big deal and they all know it. This is an opportunity to get booked for bigger gigs, to branch out of their South London audience. This is a chance to have more support before they start recording seriously. 

The thought overwhelms Florence, and she slyly drinks straight from the handle while Isa, Hugo, and Rob occupy themselves by trying to figure out the correct keys to play the new songs in.

After two hours of rehearsing, Isa and Florence are the only ones left at the schloft. 

“Nuh uh,” Isa softly snaps as Florence reaches for more alcohol. “It’s a fucking Wednesday afternoon,” she says, tucking the handle away out of sight.
Florence pouts as she flops onto the futon.

“Nervous?” Isa asks, taking off her shoes and then curling up beside Florence.

“I wasn’t really before Mairead said we could play those songs.”

“But now you are?” Isa asks quizzically. 

Silently, Florence nods. 

“Why?”

“I mean,” Florence whispers, “you know.”

Isa shakes her head. “Not really.”

Florence bites her lip. “I guess, it’s just—Matt wrote those songs. They’re Matt’s songs. And if we’re being honest, they’re pretty fucked up in retrospect. I thought they were just a big exaggeration, or like, a fictional story back when we wrote them. But now...”

Isa takes a moment to think about the lyrical content of those two songs. Florence isn’t wrong. 

“But you wrote them too, Flo. They’re yours too,” she says, starting with Florence’s first worry.

Quietly, Florence responds. “I just don’t like them, I guess. I was kind of hoping Mairead would just say no.”

Isa pulls her close, and feels her shake ever so slightly as she wraps her arms around her back. “We don’t play them then. It’s as simple as that.”

Florence pulls away. “I kind of want to play them though.”

“Why’s that?” Isa asks plainly. 

“It’s kind of a fuck you to him. You know? Like yeah, I’m gonna play the song that I wrote, about the fucked up things that you seemed to like, and they’re nothing you can do about it—I mean, nothing you can do legally , I suppose…” Florence trails off, a look of pure worry evident in her face.

“Hey,” Isa says, cupping Florence’s cheek. “He’s not going to give you any problems, okay? I will make sure of that.”

Florence nods, and then delicately kisses the spot right between Isa’s eyebrows. “Thank you.”

That evening, instead of disappearing into her room and drinking herself into oblivion like she normally does, she takes her notebook and walks down the street to the park she and her siblings had grown up in. It is surrounded by a small fence, and there are plentiful benches perched under large trees. The one she usually takes is occupied, so she moves on to the next one, curling her legs beneath her.

She thinks about Isa, and all that she had told her last weekend. It hurts Florence to think about how guarded Isa is, and how scared she is to open herself up. The fact that she is afraid of being happy is simultaneously heartbreaking and completely understandable to Florence. 

Is she happy now? Was that what she was trying to say? The way Isa explained it, it was almost as if happiness was a fucking train, or something that was coming to demolish her. 

Florence scribbles meaningless phrases onto the pages until she is interrupted by a meek voice.

“Mind if I join you?” Molly is in front of her, a seemingly forced smile on her face as she sits on the other side of the bench and leans back. “Nice to see you out of your room,” she says not unkindly, yet with a bit of a bite.

Florence slightly nods. “Yeah, it’s nice out. Thought I’d get out.” Molly doesn’t respond, instead closing her eyes and ever so slightly biting her lip. “You okay?” Florence asks quietly, shifting over to sit next to Molly, her notebook still open on her lap. Her dark hair is pulled up into a ponytail, and Florence notices that the springtime sun has brought out the freckles on her nose and cheeks that used to be more prominent when she was younger. Looking at her face, Florence is struck by just how young she is—she is so mature that sometimes Florence forgets that Molly is a solid two and a half years younger than Grace. 

“Yeah, I'm... I'm fine, really. This was my Mum’s bench. I come here a lot. I wasn’t exactly expecting to find you here,” she says with a little laugh as a tear falls onto her cheek.

“Come here,” Florence says, pulling Molly tight. “Do you want to talk?” she asks, unsure of what to say. She can’t recall the last time she had seen her younger sister cry.

“Not really. I just really, really miss her,” she says shakily into Florence's shoulder.

Florence nods her head. As much as she likes to lament in how difficult the past few years had been for her, she sometimes forgets that the Wilson kids lost a parent. That they had to watch their mother disappear before their eyes. That while they got to keep their home, four new people had moved into it not a year after the death of their dear mother. 

Thinking about all of this, she squeezes Molly one final time and then rises from the bench, pulling Molly up with her by the hand. “Come on, we’re going somewhere.”
Wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands, Molly wordlessly follows. 

They walk around the perimeter of Camberwell and through Walworth in silence. Florence can feel her head start to hurt and she craves some sort of drink to dampen it, but she perseveres, wanting to make sure that Molly wasn't left alone in her current state. 

“What was she like?” Florence asks Molly. 

“My mum?”

Florence nods as she continues to look at the pavement below her feet.

“She was smart. The smartest woman you’d ever met. But she never would dare act like she was better than anyone. All she was ever concerned about was making sure that the knowledge she had was being put to good use.”

Florence nods. “She worked at Kings, right?”

Molly nods. “Yeah. They really loved her there. They told me I can take her spot whenever I’m ready,” she says with a little laugh. “I think I have about a decades worth of school to finish before that can happen.”

Florence smiles. “What kind of parent was she?” Florence asks after a pause when they get to Waterloo bridge. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean like, was she the stern one? Or the fun one?”

“Definitely the fun one, for sure. If it wasn’t hurting anyone, she let us do it. And dad always went along with it because all of our antics always made her so happy.”

Once they are across the bridge, Florence stops in front of the cafe that she and Isa had visited only days ago. Florence opens the door, and then turns to Molly. “Coffee? Ice cream?”

Molly smiles. “Both?”

They find a small booth to sit in, each picking at their cups of ice cream as they wait for their coffees to be made. 

“This is a cute place,” Molly says, looking around the space that is decorated in yellow and oranges with accents of gold. 

Florence smiles. “It’s one of my favorites. Your mum introduced me.”

Molly’s head flicks up as she smiles. “Really?” 

Florence nods, laughing at the memory. 

“I think I was probably around seven, and some kids were bullying me in school, as seven year olds do, and I pretended to be sick so I could go home. Problem was, both my parents were away at work.”

“So they asked mum to get you,” Molly finishes.

Florence smiles. “Yep. It was after your mother had stopped working, and she was always happy to help my parents when we all became little friends. My parents cooked for your family a lot, and in exchange she would watch Grace and J.J. in the years she had retired and was doing all of her art. She picked me up that day with you in tow, and being the brilliant woman she was, she immediately knew that I wasn’t actually sick. She said she knew just the thing to make me feel better, and she brought me here. She made me promise not to tell my parents because she ‘didn’t want me to get in trouble,’ but in reality, she just didn’t want them to feel bad about having to pick me up when I was clearly fine,” Florence laughs. “You were so little at the time. And the three of us just sat in here eating ice cream until I forgot about every little thing those kids had said to me.”

Molly grins. “That sounds like her.”

“That’s really the only solid memory I have of her,” Florence says, pausing to thank the barista who sets down two cups of coffee on the table. Florence’s head is pounding by now, and she hopes the caffeine will help even a little bit. “It’s the only memory I have, but it’s such a good one.”

Molly seems a little lighter as they continue to talk, telling Florence about school and hockey and all of her various adventures with Grace. 

“What have you been up to?” she asks Florence as they leave the cafe and begin their hour-long walk home. “I feel like I never see you anymore. The only updates I get are from Grace.”

“Ehm,” Florence begins, deciding that mostly drinking alone in my room with a little bit of music in between isn’t a good answer. “I’ve been working with Isa a lot on music. And we have a guitarist and drummer that started playing with us a few weeks ago.”

“Isssa,” Molly draws out with a smirk. 

“What?” Florence asks, playing dumb.

“What do you mean ‘what’?”

Florence curses under her breath. “What the hell did Grace tell you?”

Now Molly raises her eyebrows. “Grace didn’t tell me anything . Swear on it. But you aren’t exactly good at hiding your feelings. Especially during concerts. Or when you leave your notebook open in plain sight when someone sits down next to you.” 

“ Fuck ,” Florence mutters. Molly laughs loudly as Florence blushes.

“I’m sorry,” Molly says seriously in between little laughs. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“It’s fine ,” Florence says with a slight, embarrassed roll of her eyes. “We’re just… figuring it out right now, I guess.”

“She’s really nice, Flo,” Molly replies sincerely. 

Florence sighs, happy that she at least has someone besides Grace to talk about Isa with now. “She is.”

They continue walking along as the sun begins to disappear behind tall buildings. It is warm and the air is fragrant, and for the first time in a long time, Florence feels like life isn’t so blurry. When they reach their house, Molly wraps herself around Florence tightly.

“Please take care of yourself, Flo. Grace is worried about you. I don’t know the complete ins and outs of your life, but I love you, and I hope you’re doing okay.”

Florence feels tears press against the back of her eyes as she continues holding Molly. After a moment, she forces a smile on her face and pulls away. “I’m fine. Thank you for coming with me. I really needed that,” Florence says, consciously realizing that her head actually does feel better, even with the lack of alcohol. 

—

Friday night, Florence receives a text from Rob. 

Want to grab dinner? My groceries haven’t lasted the week and I’m a little lonely if we’re being honest ahah

She smiles at the text. She had really taken a liking to Rob. He was goofy in the best way possible, and their banter was always effortless. 

Sure, where?

A moment later her phone is ringing. 

“Howdy, partner,” he says in a thick American accent. After learning that Florence’s mother is from Texas, he poked fun at Florence’s American roots relentlessly. 

“Shut up,” Florence laughs from across the line. “Where to?”

“Tea House?” he asks, remembering that Florence had said she had an addiction to Chinese food.

“That’s good, meet you there in twenty?”

“Yeah, that sounds great.”

"See you then?"

"I'll see you then, Florence."

When Florence arrives, Rob is already leaning against the side of the building, dressed up a bit from his usual clothes in a pair of shorts and a short sleeve oxford. 

“You dressing fancy for me?” Florence laughs, dressed in an old band t-shirt tucked into a pair of denim shorts. 

Rob blushes, but Florence doesn’t notice. “Just want to make sure you know I own more than t-shirts is all.”

The meal passes quickly, with Rob telling Florence all about his childhood and Florence explaining to Rob her brief stints in a band and then art school. They laugh at each other's little stories, and talk about all of the recording they have ahead of them.

“That is, if you keep me around,” Rob says bashfully, looking down at his plate as he pushes a single grain of rice around. 

“Of course you’re staying around,” Florence says firmly. “You’ve already made these songs a thousand times better, and it’s not like I have people lined up to play with me exactly,” she laughs. 

Rob shakes his head. “Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense to me. You’re gonna be huge, Florence,” he says seriously. 

Florence laughs. “I don’t know about that,” she says. “I’ve never been a sort of… I don’t know, front woman, I guess? I usually do the backing.”

“You have the best voice I’ve ever heard. I’m not just saying that.”

“Well thanks,” Florence says in a southern American accent, shyly deflecting the compliment. “You’re not too bad at guitar yourself.”

On the walk home, Rob points out various places of significance to him, like his primary school, and where his grandparent’s restaurant used to be, and his childhood home, and Florence does the same. She feels like this is the first time she’s really gotten to know Rob, and she is glad to have someone so caring playing alongside her.

“This was nice,” Florence says with a smile as they reach her house. 

Rob smiles, his mouth tilting to one side. “Yeah, I’m really glad we’re friends, Flo.” 

Florence beams at the use of her nickname, and must hold eye contact for a second too long because before she knows it, Rob’s lips are on hers.

For a fraction of a moment, she stands frozen, completely taken aback by the sudden move. Her heart beats out of her chest as she gently yet firmly pushes him away. 

“I’m sorry,” she says with a deflecting laugh as tears fill her eyes. Her cheeks burn, and her heart is still pounding. “I’ll, um, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says with a certain finality as she turns on her heel and disappears into her house. 

Rob stands on the sidewalk, and feels so dizzy that he thinks he might pass out. Instead, he tries to distract himself by focusing on his breath as he walks the rest of the way home.

When he finally gets into his house, he flops back onto the sofa, covering his face with his hands in embarrassment.

“You okay man?” his roommate asks him, sitting on a chair across from him with a steaming bowl of pasta.

“Yep, I’m just a dumbass,” he replies with a groan as he pushes himself up and pulls his phone out of his pocket. 

He dials Isa’s number, and within seconds, she answers.

“What’s up?”

“I just majorly fucked up.”

Just across Peckham, Isa furrows her eyebrows. “What did you do?”

“I kind of took Florence out on a sort of date? But I think I read the whole entire thing wrong and then… I fucked up , Isa,” he says as his voice breaks.

Isa feels her heart rise to her throat. “Okay, calm down. What exactly happened?” she asks as her phone buzzes and Florence’s number flashes across the screen. She declines the incoming call, waiting for Rob to finish his story.

“We went to dinner, and it was really nice, and then I walked her back home and I just read the whole situation wrong, and I kissed her. She was really polite about it, but I could tell she was really freaked out and now I don’t know what to do.”

Isa deeply inhales and exhales. She is angry with Rob, though she knows there’s really no reason to be. How should he know? 

“I think she’s kind of seeing someone,” Isa says hesitantly. “Maybe that’s why she was weird.”

“Why wouldn’t she tell me that to begin with?”

“I think it’s… complicated,” Isa says as she winces. Right about now she wishes she knew Rob’s thoughts on gay people—it would be so much easier to just come clean than to have to walk on eggshells.

“Okay, well that would make sense then,” Rob says calmly. “I had no idea.”

“I’m sure it’s fine, Rob,” Isa says, thinking back to when Florence kissed her out of the blue. “Just apologize and move on. It’ll be okay,” she says reassuringly.

“And what if this guy finds out and decides to kill me?”

Once again, Isa winces. “I can assure you, he won’t .” 

Back in Camberwell, Grace is trying to talk Florence down. “I’m sure she’s just busy right now, Flo,” Grace reassures her after her third call gets declined. “And she wouldn’t be mad. These things happen, Rob had no way of knowing and she probably knows better than anyone that you can’t just avoid what’s coming.”

Florence is choking on her own tears as she buries her face into her pillow. 

“Flo, you’ve got to calm down. This is not a big deal,” Grace says, firmly rubbing her back. 

“It is a big deal!” Florence responds dramatically. “This whole arrangement is already fucking complicated and now it’s even more complicated,” she says defeatedly. 

Quietly, Molly opens her door and slips through. “Everything okay?” she asks, shutting it behind her and making her way to the bed.

“She just unknowingly went on a date with the guy who’s been playing guitar, and he kissed her,” Grace whispers to Molly as Florence sobs into the pillow. 

“ Oh ,” Molly says, twisting her face up. After her talk with Florence the other night when she all but confirmed her suspicions about Isa, she had finally convinced Grace to tell her more about the tiny brunette who her sister was clearly in love with. 

Florence calls Isa a fourth time, and this time the call goes through to voicemail. Florence doesn’t bother leaving a message, simply flipping her phone shut and resuming crying. 

Molly gently pries the phone from Florence’s hand and then leaves to retrieve a glass of water before Florence gets the chance to cry herself into a panic attack. 

Just as she gets back to Florence’s room, she hears a quiet, subtle knock on the front door. 

She opens it slightly to find Isa waiting outside, with just a backpack over her shoulder.

“Florence home?” she whispers.

Molly nods, and lets Isa in before shutting the door behind them. 

Molly leads Isa to Florence’s room, which is just a few steps beyond the entrance, and Isa quietly slides through the door. “Mind if I come in?”

Both Grace and Florence whip their heads around to find Isa and Molly standing in the doorway. In an odd way, it looks as if the two of them could be sisters, both standing around five feet tall with dark hair and big eyes. 

Florence only starts crying harder when she sees Isa, and Grace gets up and gives Isa a small, almost apologetic smile as she leaves the room with Molly. “Let me know if you need anything.” 

Isa nods with a small smile, silently thanking Grace and Molly.

Once the door is closed, Isa drops her backpack to the floor and moves towards Florence. “Hey,” Isa says, sitting next to Florence. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Florence says. “Why are you here?”

“Why wouldn’t I be here?” Isa responds calmly, putting her arm around Florence’s shoulder and leaning into her slightly.

“I did something awful.”

“No you didn’t,” Isa says, lightly kissing Florence on the cheek. “Rob called me. I saw your calls, but I figured it would be better to just come over.”
Florence exhales as a sob escapes her chest. “Rob called you?”

Isa nods. “He told me everything, Flo. You’re okay, I promise. He feels really awful, but I told him everything is fine,” she says, rubbing Florence’s arm. As she turns to the side, she notices the polaroid of her and Florence from the club all those months ago still hanging on the wall above her bed. “In fact,” Isa says with a small smile, “I’m pretty sure you made a similar bone-headed move a few months ago in this very spot.” 

Florence smiles through her hot tears as she finally starts to calm down. “Yeah, yeah I did.”

“It’s okay,” Isa affirms, gently placing her lips on Florence’s. “Promise.”

Florence finally breathes out deeply and rests her head against Isa’s. “What did you tell him?”

“That I think you’re seeing someone, and that’s why you reacted the way you did.”

Florence nods. “I honestly think that’s half the reason I’m so upset. If you were a guy, I would’ve just laughed and told him, and that would have been that.”

Isa nods. “It won’t be that way forever,” she says, not entirely confident that she’s right.

After a while, Isa gets up to leave. “I’ve got to get going, I walked here and I think the last bus leaves soon.

“Can you stay?” Florence asks, looking pleadingly at Isa. “My parents aren’t home, you can use the bathroom upstairs, I just—I really want you to stay.”

“Yeah,” Isa says nodding her head as she puts her backpack down. “Of course I can.”

Florence collects the smallest pair of sleep-shorts she owns and a large pullover from a family holiday many years ago. “It gets kind of cold in here,” she says, handing the small pile to Isa. 

Isa smiles and follows Florence upstairs to the bathroom. 

After they’re both ready for bed, they climb under the covers, and Florence naturally curls into the shape of Isa’s body, tucking her head in the space between her neck and shoulder and wrapping one of her legs over Isa’s. Isa mindlessly runs her hand through Florence’s hair. This is the first time they’ve slept in an actual bed together in a long time, and Isa savors the feeling of Florence’s weight against her body. 

Florence feels a unique kind of warmth spread throughout her body as she relaxes into Isa. She wishes life could just be this simple, lying in darkness forever. No need for alcohol, no need for drugs, no need for explaining herself to anyone; just being alone in the world with someone who actually loves her, flaws and all. 

“Isa,” she asks after a few minutes. “When do you think we can tell people?”

“We already have,” Isa says unflinchingly. “Jack knows, and Grace knows, and based on the look she gave me, Molly knows,” she adds with a little smile. 

Florence smiles back as she reaches her hand towards an exposed area of Isa’s skin, gently stroking her stomach with her thumb. “I know. But when do we tell, like, our friends? Or our parents ?” 

“I don’t think I’ll ever tell my parents,” Isa says quietly. Florence had forgotten about everything they had done to Jack, and she instantly regrets saying anything at all. 

“Of course, you don’t have to,” she responds. “I didn’t mean that—sorry I even suggested that.”

“It’s okay, Flo,” Isa says, so thankful that Florence understands. “I think we can tell people whenever we feel ready.”

“And how will we know when we’re ready?”

Isa pauses to think. She had been the one so hesitant to even say anything initially—how is it now that Florence is the one who seems scared?

“I think we’ll just know,” Isa says. “Or it will just happen. It will be okay.”

Isa feels Florence nod against her chest, and then delicately kiss her neck before they both fall asleep in the dark of night.