Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There's something about the whole "eyes lock across a crowded room" trope that I hate. I don't mean to blow my own horn when I say this but I've had a pretty shitty life. Makes sense that fate isn't really my thing right? It isn't the most shocking thing about me.

I believe nothings controlled. Nothing's meant to be. Life isn't some poetic, romantic movie where everything falls into place.
Because life is shit.
Like really shit.

Here I am, living in yet another house, with yet another random couple, except this time I had to move across America to be in Texas.
Everything about everything is terrible. No family I stayed with in my life has stuck and I don't care. I've been moving from zip code to zip code over Minnesota. So what's so great about the life I left behind? Why do I hate Texas so much? Great question.

Simple. Martha-or Marty. My best friend, sister. The person who kept me alive. Who is still in Minnesota, with a family that I love and a family that I wish was mine, well they are my family. But not the kind that I can live with, who could have raised me since I was a child, filling my life with love, focusing on me, me and Marty. But I didn't get that.

So really its getting kinda hard to see the good in the world. The fate and the fortune and the love at first fucking sight.

And yet here I am, in the canteen on my first day of school. And I can't break eye contact with a pair of eyes. I have no idea who it is, I have no idea who any of it is. Without moving my eyes all I can see is perfect blonde hair and a denim jacket. But even 3 tables across I can see the piercing green. Her eyes are like, bright, and perfect. And happy.

And I don't mean to be overdramatic but for a fleeting moment I swear fate and fortune are real. Her eyes remind me of four leaf clovers. The one thing I remember about my father was that four leaf clover t-shirt he used to wear. There's a photo in my wallet of 4 year old me wrapped up in it.

It brings me luck to have it with me before a game.

Those eyes staring back at me offers me lifetimes of luck in just 10 seconds.

Before a large arm wraps around her shoulder causing both girls to jump back to reality.

I follow the arm to the face of some brute looking guy. Wearing a varsity jacket. What the fuck kinda place is this? 2009 Ohio? Get a grip man.

The blonde girl quickly looks down at her food and plays with it before smiling up at the guy and laughing at something he says.

I realise I've been standing by the food area holding my tray for a solid amount of time. So I walk over to a table with with the girl I was sat next to in bio class. She's surrounded by her friends so I breathe in shakily trying to muster up some confidence. "Hey Fatin, can I sit with you?"

I stand over them awkwardly, offering a weak smile.

"Damn girl are you in pain?"

"No- what? I'm just smiling."

"Oh. Kinda looks like you're wincing."

My smile fades and I stay standing- wishing I was dead instead.

"Well whatever, c'mon girly, join us."

Letting out a sigh of relief I take the space that Fatin shimmied out of the way for at the end of the bench.

"Guys this is Toni, she's new, you're gonna love her, apparently at her last school she threw piss at somebody!"

I wipe my hands on my knees as I put down my tray down in an attempt to remove the anxious clamminess before I dig in, "It was for a good cause,"

"No way dude, that's wild shit,"

"Toni, Dot- Dot, Toni."

Fatin then carelessly points around the table, "That's Leah, Rachel and Nora."

The other three give me awkward smiles causing me to start stressing,

Shit I'm intruding, I should've just eaten alone.

Fatin interrupts my thoughts.

"Alright, ladies, gaydies and maybies." In turn she looks at Nora, Leah, Dot and finally resting her eyes on Rachel. "My parents are at some kind of trip this Friday night, so you know what that means?" Smiles grow on everybody's faces, "It's time for a fun little get to know sesh with Toni, and don't worry my sweet dumplings, alcohol will be very much involved."
She pauses for dramatic effect. "Whose in?"

"Alcohol? Yeah I'm down." Dot gives a nod.

"Sure, we've survived an entire 4 hours of this shitshow, I think we deserve a break," Leahs offers in a somewhat jokey tone but she just sounds scared.

"Toni?"

"Huh"

"Alcohol, gossip, Friday, night. You in or not?"

"I mean, yeah, yeah for sure. Where?"

"Give me your number I'll send you the deets."

"I don't know if I can guys,"

"Oh come on Rachel why not, what will you be doing instead? booty call?"

"On Saturday I have a swimming g-"

"Nope, you have a drinking night, come onnn Rach, live a little please, for meee, for us, for nora?" Fating pleads, her eyes blinking quickly as she pouts her lips.

Rachel stares at her unimpressed but quickly lets her head drop, "fine, fine I'll come," she rolls her neck as Fatin celebrates.

"Fuck yeahh, this is gonna be great," suddenly she throws her arm over my shoulder taking me by surprise,

"Shit," I mumble.

"This is gonna be great, you're gonna love it Toni, you're gonna love us!"

Fatin keeps her arm around me as the conversation picks up around the table again. Completely spacing myself from the conversation I find myself searching the room for the girl. I don't mean to, it's just kind of, hypnotising.

My eyes move around and I quickly skip back to somebody. It's her again. She's staring right at me. How long has she been doing that for? I don't offer her a smile. All I can do is look into her eyes.

Her lucky eyes.

Chapter Text

Oh my stars.

I can't take my eyes away.

Two dark eyes, staring- hard.

A firm jaw, tightly clenched like she's thinking too hard.

Her hairs tied up in a pony like myself, but her hair is far darker, and slightly wilder than mine.

But oh my goodness it's those eyes I'm tied to.

There's a new girl, I'm sure she's new. I would remember her, and her-- well, just because, I know everyone. I'm just that kind of person.

That's my job you know. Know who everybody is, how everybody is. And I'm pretty darn good at it if I do say so myself. My boyfriend, Andrew, and I are what some might refer to as the popular people at school.

Now in all honesty I find that quite ridiculous, I am not the Regina George of our school. I pride myself in loving every damn person I meet, even when they don't make it easy. But how am I supposed to love someone I don't know.
In this situation I'd say I'm more Janis and she's more Cady.

But I don't like Cady too much.

So lets forget about mean girls.

I think I should get to know her a bit more. Make her feel more welcomed into the school community.

Andrew makes some joke about our science teacher and I snap out of the tunnel me and the new girl seemed to have made with our eyes.

I lean into him laughing. Wanting to seem more present in the conversation with my friends. When I look back up to the girl she's turned around. My eyes follow her around the canteen until she sits down with Fatins friends.

Their laughter always seems a bit more real than mine.

Their friendships seem a bit more filled with love.

I ain't jealous or anything.

No the Lord frowns down on jealousy.

But its okay to be sad.

I'm sad that Fatin and I aren't as close as we used to be.

And I'm a little bit sad the new girl with the drop dead gorgeous eyes didn't come and sit with us.

But I can't let that bring me down.

She doesn't know me. Not quite yet.

So maybe after lunch I'll head on over and introduce myself, make sure she knows she's always got a friend.

"Hey babe," Andrew lowers his voice into my ear while the rest of the table move on in the conversation.

I smile at his voice, "Yeah baby?"

"My parents are helping out at that church clothing drive Friday which means I've got the house to myself,"

I have a feeling I know where this might be going.

"You wanna come over?"

I pick at my food a bit. I love Andrew, truly- he's the best thing that ever happened to me.

But he often wants to...connsumate our relationship.

And my family and my beliefs are very clear that that kind of thing, well it sure ain't for the unmarried. And I'm just not ready to undo my trust with God in that sorta fashion- certainley not with Andrew practically beggin' for it every day.

See what I want is something real romantice. Something slow- filled with lots of love.

Maybe some candles, a few rose petals.

And of course a wedding band on my finger.

I'm afraid Andrew might just not be the person for that.

I mean of course he is, I love Andrew- I just mean- maybe he's not ready for that kind of thing. And until he's ready for that kind of thing- I'm not sure I'm ready for any kinda thing.

"Sorry Andrew, I can't , I've got some work I've gotta be catching up on,"

Not entirely untrue. I was hoping to get a read ahead on the chemistry textbook tonight- of course I'm never behind.

My grades are one of the things I'm truly relying on to get into an ivy league.

I do plenty of extra-curricula, but unfortunatley some colleges see my pageants as...retrograde when it comes to female-empowerment.

Which means I'm gonna have to push myself with these grades- and maybe looking into some sorta feminist extra-curricular? I'm not sure what that counts as though.

Softball?

He lets out an angry sigh and turns his body away from me to talk to the group, shunning me away from the rest of my friends slightly.

I won't lie and say it doesn't hurt.

But every boy has needs, I'm just glad he's been so patient with me.

That's how I know he loves me.

Ignoring the chatter beside me I dig into my salad, and I find my eyes falling back to Fatin's table, they're laughing at somethin' she says.

She was always was funny. I used to play soccer with her and dottie when we were younger. She was one of my best friends for a while, but I guess high school started, I found Andrew, and- well she found her people.

As my eyes drift around the table I find my eyes falling onto the new girl again.

I'm curious about her is all.

The way she holds herself- confident but holding herself back nonetheless- it's...curious.

She turns her head and catches me staring but this time I don't take my eyes away. Instead I see the furrow between her eyebrows softening.

And even from here, across the lunch hall.

I can see the brown in her eyes- like the soil that homes the plants that we breathe in.

So I take a breath.

Chapter Text

The next day Shelby heads into class, her hair falling (as always) perfectly past her shoulders, holding her book to her chest, saying hello to everybody in the hallway as she floats part (as always).

Yet as she glides into her first class of the morning she's stopped in her tracks at sight of the same girl from the lunch hall.

Her hair is down today, just like Shelbys. Seems like they just can't stop matching.

After a few moments she drags her eyes away from the girl and looks up at the board to see the seating plan for this year. Her eyes scan the board and finds her name next to Toni based on the positioning of the table she assumes that's the name of the new girl.

She flattens down her skirt and goes over to join her, placing down her bag next to the chair leg before turning to the girl, making sure to give her the official Shelby Goodkind welcome to the school.

"Hiya there, you must be new, I'm Shelby,"

She puts out her hand to shake as she takes her seat. Toni looks her up and down with an amused smile, before cautiously taking her hand, "Toni,"

Toni's slightly taken back, not just by the very enthusiastic introduction but also the softness of her hand, she lets her hand linger for a moment longer than necessary before taking it back quickly and resting it on her bouncing knee.

"Why it's a pleasure to meet you Toni. I just want you to know, as the class president for our year, if you ever need anything I'm more than happy to help."

Toni gives a slightly strained smile in return, "good to know," her low slightly gravely voice captures Shelbys attention and she has to remind herself to close her mouth offering back a wide grin.

Mr Johnson starts leading the class, jumping straight into the learning material so they both face the front. Shelby making intense notes, with her highlighters lined up in front of her in a very specific order.

Toni on the other hand mainly doodles in her notebook, trying to catch glimpses of the gorgeous, and very outgoing (though slightly cheesy), girl sat next to her. She can't get Shelby out of her head. Obviously theres not much opportunity to since she's sitting mere inches away from her.

But when she looks down at her notes twenty minutes in and sees a light sketch of her side profile she knows she needs to focus.

And pull herself together.

Embarrassed she scribbles over the drawing, ripping a slight hole in the page, and turns to the front.

"Ok work through these activity sheets with your partner please, you have till the bell rings, anything you don't finish, you will be finishing for homework." Mr Johnson says in a bored voice as he walks through to the back of class handing out the papers to each duo.

Toni looks at the worksheet in front of her utterly confused.

There's ten questions on balancing equations and she doesn't even bother to check the other side because shes stumped at the first question.

"How about you take the first 5 and I'll take the last 5 and we can catch up and exchange answers," Shelby says with her pageant worthy smile.

Toni looks at her, slightly overwhelmed, "uh yeah yeah for sure," before flashing another awkward smile. Shelbys eyes stay on her for another moment before returning to the paper in front of her. Toni glances over to see her blasting through the question and quickly turns her eyes back to her own page.

With the end of her pencil in her mouth she starts biting on the eraser, staring through the paper more than at the paper. Toni knows she's not the smartest or the most hard working- but looking at this jumble of numbers and letters she's starting to wonder if she might be downright thick.

After a few more moments Shelby glances over at Tonis sheet and sees nothing but random scribblings. She glances back at her own, already full answers. After a second of hesitation she moves her sheet to one side and nudges Toni's arm slightly to get her attention.

"huh?"

Toni's head snaps up suddenly and looks at her wide eyed, "yeah whatsup."

"I think most people are working on them together," Shelby says glancing around, "Should we do that instead of half and half,"

Toni laughs slightly uncomfortably, "uh yeah sure but, here's a bit of warning, chemistry is kind of my biggest weakness,"

"Well that's alright, I go crazy for chemistry," Shelby says excitedly.

Toni think this might just be the cheesiest girl she's ever met. Though its kind of cute so she won't complain.

"You do huh?" Toni says, flashing a grin, and looking right into her eyes.

"Uh-yeah" Shelbys smiles turns down a bit to a more subdued smile.

Toni likes it though. It seems a bit more real.

"Well show me what you got chem wiz."

Shelby tries to supress a grin as she moves her chair closer to Tonis- though not entirely neccessary considering they're already almost touching.

But as she leans in and they start to work, they both find it impossible to ignore the burning sensation whenever Shelbys arm brushes past Tonis, or when she laughs at one of Toni's jokes and places her hand on her arm.

Toni doesn't know what she likes more, the feeling of her fingers grasped around her arm, or the sound of her laugh whenever she tells one of her cheesy jokes.

"Shelby, Toni," Mr johnson calls from the front of the class, suddenly Shelby rips her hand away from her like it was actually on fire and her her eyes widen, "yes sir?"

"Too much laughing ladies, not enough working. This is a classroom not a comedy club"

"Yes sir," Shelby says, with a grin.

She turns back to Toni wrapping her arms around herself this time before she continues talking to her.

Toni looks at her slightly funny but tries to ignore it, writing down the answers as Shelby says them.

When the bell rings Shelby picks up her bag and takes the paper, "it was real nice meeting you Toni, I'll see you later,"

She rushes out, dropping the worksheet on the teachers desk on the way out the door.

Toni just watches her go before slowly packing up and strolling out, wandering around trying to find her next class.

Chapter Text

As Friday afternoon rolls around everybody splits into two cars, Fatins and Rachels, and they drive over to Fatin's place.

Shelby sees them all laugh, including Toni, and can't help but feel a pang of Jealousy as Andrew comes up behind her and wraps his arm around her.

"Hey babe what you looking at,"

She flinches slightly in surprise and tears her eyes away as they start to drive off, "Oh nothing, just heading out to my car,"

"You sure you don't want to head back to mine? The house is all ours," He says leaving wet kisses up her neck.

She laughs, slightly uncomfortable, "Babe stop we're in school."

"Not like you let me do it at home either," He mumbles letting his arm fall down to his side.

She rolls her eyes before continuing, making her voice more chipper, "Sorry babe I've just got so much to work do, but I'll text you later," They share a brief kiss before she walks away, looking over her shoulder to quickly wave.

She gets in her car and drives off, just missing the way her boyfriend leads Christa Findlay back to his car.

They pull up into a large driveway paved with bricks. As Toni climbs out of the car she looks up at the massive house in front of her.

It's modern and has clearly had a shit ton of money poured into it.

Toni can only assume Fatin has never had to work a day in her life... the lucky bitch.

"You like it?"

"holy shit Fatin it's insane,"

"Yeah my parents may be dicks by boy is it good to be rich."

She jokes as she leads the gang through the front door.

Toni can't help but feel slightly spiteful as she enters the obnoxiously large house. Somehow the Jadmani family have managed to spend twice as much money on the interior as they did on the exterior.

The walls are all white and grey, with expensive looking paintings, and fancy looking lights hanging down from the ceiling.

"Take a seat in the living room ladies, I will get us some booze from my parents stash."

"What have you got, a secret wine cellar?" Toni asks, trying to joke but an ounce of hatred still stinging on her tongue,

"Damn Toni who do you think we are?" Fatin pauses for a moment before flashing a grin, "We keep whiskey down there too bitch," She winks before disapearing round the corner.

Toni cant help but laugh at the ridiculousness, the sheer contrast between this home and hers. She follows the rest of the girls as they've clearly all been here before.

Everybody gets comfy, Dot swinging her legs over the legs of the armchair and she throws herself down, Rachel and Nora both choosing to sit on the sofa, Rachel leaning forward on her legs and Nora taking up as little space as possible. The rest of the girls sit on the floor around the coffee table so Toni follows suit, sitting beside Leah, leaving a space between them awaiting Fatins return.

Most of the girls just scroll through their phones but Toni sits there picking at her nails and staring around the room. Watching the girls.

She glances over at Leahs phone, and Toni would recognise the search page of ao3 any day. Marty writes her own fanfics, and although she writes on wattpad, the stories she reads (and obsesivley sends to Toni,) are always on ao3.

"So Toni," a slight texan drawl from behind her, "Where'd you move from,"

She turns to see Dot looking at her, "Uh, minnesota."

"Neat."

Silence falls over the room again.

After what fells like forever Fatin walks in with a bottle of tequila under each arm, a bottle of soda in one hand, and a stack of glasses in the other. "Whose ready bitches!!!"

Everybody turns to look at her, "God you guys are boring when I'm not here."

She sits on her knees sliding the glasses across the table, to each girl.

"You're a bit off with the booze to mixer ratio dont you think," Dot says with a smirk picking up a glass,

"I guess if youre a pussy yeah." She replies quickly with a look of disgust at Dots comment.

"So I'm thinking we start with truth or dare, if you don't answer you have to take a drink. Whose first."

Leah finally puts down her phone, and pours herself a glass, "I'll go,"

"Ok truth or dare,"

"truth"

"fuck yeah you mysterious bitch."

Rachel buts in, "That guy you fucked last year, how old was he really."

"Leah said he was 22," Fatin says defensivley

"Dude look at him, he looks like he has a mortgage and three kids."

They all look at Leah, Fatin looks annoyed when Leah picks the cup up to her lips, "Hey no way girl."

"You said drinking was a way out,"

"not for you how old was he?"

She falters for a moment and Toni is suddenly super into whatever the drama is.

"He was 30."

"THIRTY?"

Even nora seems shocked by the revelation.

"Leah thats a whole ass pedophile there."

"He wasn't a pedo."

"What becuase you were in love." Fatin says before taking a swig of her drink.

"He didn't know I was 17,"

"16 when you met."

"Yes 16 when we met..."

Everybodies eyes fall onto fatin as Leah turns a deep red before piping up-

"Toni truth or dare,"

"The drunker I am the more dares I'll do so lets stick with truth for now,"

"I know you're new to the school, but is there anybody you've got your eyes on?" Fatin asks, the glint in her eyes returns.

Toni, already knowing her answer lifts her cup to her mouth, before hesitating.

"Oh my god you have to tell us!"

"Ok ok, but it doesn't leave this room, its this girl I sit next to in chem- shelby something? very thick texan accent?"

The room goes quiet except for a low, "oh..." from fatin.

Toni starts stressing out, the girls seemed chill- she didn't think having a thing for a girl would be an issue. But she is in fucking Texas she should've known better. This is why she doesn't talk to people, it always ends up blowing up in her fucking face. She takes a swig from her drink before breaking the silence.

"What?" She spits out angrily.

"Shelby Goodkind is kind of like, religious in that sense," Fatin says.

"Religious? That girl is the epitome of a bible thumping texan. Her pastor 'daddy' runs conversion therapy out of their house." Dot jumps in correcting Fatin.

Tonis eyebrows furrow, no longer angry at the group but angry at Shelby. And her dad. And herself for thinking for a moment something might actually happen between the two of them.

"Seriously?"

Rachel nods, "I mean she's never been outwardly homophobic but her boyfriend certainly doesn't hold back."

Toni lets her head fall back, "fuuckk. but she was so nice in class."

"Yeah thats kind of her thing. Sorry man," Dot says refilling Tonis cup for her.

The group moves on to never have I ever but now Toni's just thinking about how she's gonna be stuck sat next to her for the rest of the year.

As the night goes on the girls get drunker, they drop the drinking games after Fatin admits to sleeping with a teacher in a game of who'd you rather.

Tonis sat with Rachel and Leah, sharing anecdotes and giggling while at the front of the room, Dot and Fatin are killing it at karoake.

Fatin stood with one arm out wide and one arm holding the microphone, with Dots arms wrapped around her waist- "NEEARRRRRRRRRRR FAAAAAARRR WHEEREEEVVEERRRRRR YOUU ARREEEE,"

"My God its deafening." Toni half shouts over the noise.

Rachel starts booing at them and throwing crisps at them. Toni, thinking its the funniest thing she's ever seen, falls off the sofa after laughing too hard which only gets the whole room laughing more. Toni stands up swaying back and forth slightly, suddenly hit by the amount of alchol she must have consumed- "ok c'mon my turn my turn."

She heads up to the front and Fatin hands her the mic- "choose wisely young shalifoe, with great power comes great responsibility," She looks very stoic as she says this but Toni just swats her away as Fatin giggles her way to Dots side as they move to find a seat, Fatin falling down into Dots lap as she sit back down on the armchair.

"At least let me buy you dinner first Fatin,"

"no need campbell, lets get straight to it," Some of the girls laugh at their little show as Fatin dives into her neck.

"HEY HEY HEY" Toni looks at them seriously. Everybody turns to face her shocked- "My culture is not your costume!"

"your culture?"

"Yes." She says very seriously- "as a dyke of course!!!" Toni yells cracking a grin, as everybody screams in excitement.

Honestly the only word Toni can think of to describe these girls is silly. Which is in itself a silly word.

Toni finds the song she wants and clicks play, getting into position for the best performance these girls will ever see.

She stands dramatically looking down as the song starts, and as soon as the lyrics begins she looks up, singing along with every bone in her body.

The girls cheer her on, and she can see Fatin recording her from her phone so she gives her a real show, jumping onto the sofa as she reaches her favourite part, "TONIGHT THE MUSIC SEEMS SO LOUD, I WISH THAT WE COULD LOSE THIS CROWD,"

Shelby smiles as she watches Fatins instagram story- the quiet, funny girl from class, now jumping around the room belting careless whisper.

She bites down a grin as she watches Toni pretend to play the saxaphone along with the song, the next slide being a large group selfie of all the girls grinning up at the camera.

It's 1am on a Friday, and they're out drinking and having fun together, while Shelby sits in bed watching the notebook and ignoring her boyfriends texts.

She tries not to feel jealous of them, trying to push down the envy she's feeling, knowing her daddy would be disappointed. So she replays the video of Toni singing instead, watching the way her hair follows her around the room, and how she pushes it behind her ears whenever it flies in front of her eyes. Watching how easily she throws herself around, not careful or anxious just leaping from sofa to sofa. She seems so free.

Shelby turns off her phone and chucks it to the other side of her bed as she looks around her room. Her pageant sashes hung up on the wall and her crowns neatly places in her trophy cabinet. She has so many accomplishments, but does she actually have a single friend?

All her girlfriends at school are so, and she doesn't mean any harm by this, shallow. She doesn't feel that deep or a connection to any of them except Becca. And she moved away last year after a little mix up she had with her daddy.

She's got chemistry with Toni Monday morning, maybe she could be her first real friends- besides she'd love to get closer with Dot again, she sure does miss their friendship.

Chapter Text

The following Monday Shelby takes extra care in the morning getting ready. I mean don't get me wrong, she always wakes up at the crack of dawn to shower, shave, moisturise, wash her face, straighten her hair, pick the perfect outfit, spritz herself with her signature perfume, and still sit down for breakfast with her family.
But she has Chemistry with Toni today, and when she looks good she feels good, and she might be able to make a better connection with Toni today if she's got her head screwed on right this time, last time she was all over the place.
Could hardly concentrate in class with Toni making all her jokes, and whatnot, but this time, she'll make a better impression, show she's smart and concentrated, but can also have fun, and maybe she can hang out with the girls more.

That makes sense right? The reason she's doing this? It makes sense. No ulterior motive at ALL. No deep sub-conscious feeling shoved so darn deep down away from people and sunlight and life.

Right?

Right.

She pulls her white range rover, that her daddy gifted after her most recent "Miss Texas" Win, into the school car park. She looks for Andrew out of her window, but it seems like he's not here yet. She looks in the mirror, tucking a stray hair behind her ear, before hopping out of the car.

She glides through the car park and the hallway with a friendly smile, waving to anybody who looks at her, stopping briefly at her locker to update her perfume, before heading to class.

As always she's one of the first there, so she takes her seat, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Toni. As she waits she unpacks her bag, lining up her pens at the corner of her desk, and opening her notebook to a plain page, neatly writing out the date, and the title of todays lesson written up on the board.

With four minutes to go before the bell rings, she pulls out her phone to a text from Andrew.

--

Won't be at lunch today. Got plans with Ryan.

Okay baby. See you later x

--

She tucks her phone back into her bag as the bell rings, and right on time her benchmate makes her way into the classroom, a deep scowl on her face as she chucks her bag under the table and sits in her seat, shuffling the chair slightly away from Shelby. Something she shrugs off.

"Hiya Toni how was your weekend,"

Toni ignores her at first, pulling out her singular biro and notebook. She flips through to a random page and scribbles the date in the corner.

Shelby opens her mouth to repeat the question when Mr Johnson begins the lesson.

"Alright kiddos, today we're looking at organic chemistry, this can be a tricky subject, but pay attention and make notes and you'll have your head wrapped around it in no time."

Once again Toni isn't focusing on the notes, and the dutiful note taking from Shelby that she found nothing short of endearing last week, only makes her spiteful.

How can such a beautiful, friendly girl, actually be filled with so much hate and homophobia.

Her plan is to just keep ignoring her for the rest of class and hope she gets the message. And if not she'll make it clear what a big dyke she is. Then maybe she'll leave her alone.

Unfortunately enough for Toni, after 30 minutes, Mr Johnson once again gives out group work.

"Now this could be a fun one for you, and it might feel like I'm throwing you in the deep end, but we're going to try this experiment, and if it doesn't go successfully we'll try again at the end of the unit to see if you've figured it out a bit more. So in partners, you will be making biodiesel out of vegetable oil. So if one of you get the equipment from the from of the class and the other gets the lab coats and goggles."

Chairs scrape against the floor, as everybody in the class starts moving around, "I'll get our equipment if you get our coats."

Shelby says with a smile.

Toni looks up at her, face unmoved, still sat at her seat. After a few seconds she simply offers her a reluctant, "fine." before moving to the back of the class.

"And remember ladies, and Marcus," he says with a coy smile and point, "make sure you tie your hair up for this one."

Shelby returns to a waiting Toni, "Oh shoot I forgot to bring a hairband today, do you have a spare one Toni?"

God it's hard to ignore a girl you're partnered up with.

Without a word, Toni pulls her hair out of her pony, giving Shelby one of the hairbands she was using before tying hers back up.

"Thank you," she says smiling at the kind gesture.

They settle back into their places and begin the experiment, Shelby yapping her ear off as she does most of the work. Toni just jotting down whatever numbers Shelby tells her to.

As they wait for the final results Shelby turns to Toni, watching her rapidly bouncing knee for a few seconds, "are you alright? You're being awfully quiet."

Toni glares at her, before turning back to the doodles in her notebook.

"Did I do something? I sure would like to know if I did."

"We're not friends alright Shelby. You don't have to pretend to like me just because that's your 'duty' at the school." She finally spits out angrily.

Shelbys taken back by the outburst, and her smile drops off her face for just a moment before returning to its place.

"I promise I'm not pretending to like you Toni. I- well I was really hoping we could be friends actually."

Toni scoffs at this and turns her back to Shelby slightly.

"Now hold on just a minute there," Shelby says, grabbing Toni's shoulder and pulling her back to face her. She takes a second as they both seem shocked by the slightly aggressive physicality of what just happened.

"I'm sorry 'bout that. But come on, why you rolling your eyes and scoffing. I really do want to be your friend."

"Yeah? $50 bucks say you change your mind when I tell you I'm a lesbian."

Shelby swallows roughly, and her eyes subconsciously glance around to see if people heard.

"My god, you can't even handle the idea of people knowing you talk to someone like me huh?" Toni prides a now smug grin, the first time she's smiled all morning, feeling sort of like she's won some kind of fight.

"I-I have nothing against lesbians," Shelby says lowering her voice, a scared look on her face. "I have nothing against anybody. God has taught me to love everybody and that's exactly what I do."

"Yeah alright Shelby." Her voice low and gravely now, "I know about you and your God loving Father. Heard all about the Goodkinds'."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Shelby says, now standing her ground instead of acting defensive.

"I dunno, I think the term bible-thumpers got thrown around a bit."

Shelby goes to fight back but the bell rings, their experiment sat forgotton, Shelby grabs her stuff and runs out.

Toni smiles to herself as she starts to slowly pack up her bag.

"Toni, could I have a quick word." Her smile instantly fades as her head shoots up to make eye contact with Mr Johnson.

"uh sure," she mumbles as she throws her rucksack over her shoulder. She waits until the class is empty before approaching his desk.

"Whats up."

"Can I see your notes from today."

This always fucking happens. Her teachers notices she's not paying attention, then ridicules her for it after class.

She doesn't say anything, but throws her rucksack down and pulls out her notebook, dropping it in his hand.

She looks at the floor, kicking herself for not making more notes, ready to get given detention.

"Lot of empty pages in here Toni, does my class bore you?"

She doesn't respond, just clenches her jaw and looks up at him.

"Look Toni I'm not going to tell you off, chemistry isn't for everybody. I prefer biology myself." He says cheerfully, clearing attempting to make her laugh. But her head is once again filled with all the voices of her old teachers. Calling her a failure. Stupid. Telling her that if she doesn't try she's never going to make it anywhere in life.

She can feel the anger building in her body, she's getting jittery and wants to get out of there as quick as possible, and avoid getting in anymore trouble by yelling at a teacher.

"To be honest Toni, I didn't call you up here to talk about class work. I read your file from last year,"

And suddenly her head is completley clear.

'i read your file' always ends poorly.

"I noticed you were the champion on the basketball court of your schools team in Minnesota. I was wondering if you'd be interested in joining our girls team here?"

"oh." she says, realising she completely misread the situation.

"See i'm the basketball coach here, and it really doesn't make me look good that both the guys and the girls team are failing pretty spectacularly. I think a star player such as yourself could really skyrocket our ratings. How would you like to try out?"

"Uh yeah, that...that would be cool."

"Fantastic, you can go now," he hands back her notebook, "but please do try and focus more in class. If you're having trouble in my class I can always set you up with some extra student tutoring. Shelby Goodkind has managed to turn many Ds into As during her time here-"

"NO...No tutoring. Sorry. I just- I'll try harder in class sir, I promise I don't need a tutor."

"Alrighty then, just come along to training on Thursday at 3:30pm and we'll see how you get along with the team."

"Ok, thank you sir. See you then."

"Oh wait up." He grabs a pen and scribbles a note, "just hand this to your next periods teacher. to explain for your tardiness. Don't want the girl who could save my team stuck in detention now do we."

"Thanks," She mumbles again, taking the note, before heading towards her next class as the tardy bell rings through the halls.

Chapter Text

Shelby sits at her usual spot on her 'friends' lunch table, eating the pasta salad her mom made her, but she can't focus on anything and instead ends up picking at her food.

Toni Shalifoe is a lesbian.

In hindsight its fairly obvious, but the thought never crossed her mind before.

But more than a lesbian that girl clearly has anger issues. She never once talked down to her or mentioned her sexuality, and yet Toni blew up in her face out of gosh darn nowhere.

Although in Tonis defence, she is right, if her father knew she had a friend like Toni, theres no saying what he would do. 'specially not after last time.

Maybe it's better this way, being friends with a girl like that would only complicate her life further. And they'd never be able to hang out at her house anyway, so what's the point if they'd hardly be able to see each other.

Yeah this is for the better, clearly Gods path for her, does not include being friends with that group. So she takes a lesson from the bible and gives thanks for what she has, for this Gods path. She clears her thoughts of the other girls out of her brain, drawing her eyes away from their table, and focuses on the friends she is grateful to have.

As she turns her attention back to her table, Ryan sits down with his tray and joins in the conversation,

"Ryan?" Shelby says without thinking, the group all turns their heads towards her, conversation falling short,

"Wassup Shelby,"

"Andrew said you two were getting lunch out today?"

Ryan and Damon share a look, and Ryan licks his lip nervously before putting an overly-confident grin on his face, "Right yeah, no that was the plan, but I uh, had to cancel last minute, he should be around here somewhere."

He glances around for a moment before Damon starts the conversation back up, "So shelby, got any Paegents coming up soon?"

She's slightly taken back to have one of them ask about her life, normally she's on the outskirt of the group, "Oh well that's real sweet of you to ask Damon, I have one in a couple months, so I've got some downtime leading up to it."

"Sweet," he says nodding his head dumbly, before one of the girls cuts in and starts up a group discussion.

Shelby focuses back on her food, the small smile fading from her face, as she starts to pick at it again with her fork.

After a few minutes it becomes abundently clear that Andrew isn't around, so she decides to call it a day and head to the library to cram in some more studying.

"I'll see y'all around," She says with a grin, standing up. She closes the tupperware, and puts her half eaten lunch back into her bag. She gets one or two 'see ya's' and walks towards the exit.

Walking past Toni's table she subconsiously goes to push some hair behind her ear before realising she still has it tied up from chemistry. After a split second of deciding if its worth it or not, she stops in her tracks and faces the table.

Fatin notices her first and stops mid ramble.

"Shelby? What can we do for you."

"Fatin hi!" She says grinning, "Sorry to interrupt y'all but I just gotta return something to Toni."

Fatin and Dot both turn to give Toni a look, but she just blanks them instead frowning at Shelby. Her frown does lift slightly though, as Shelby pulls the hairband out effortlessly and lets her hair cascade down her back.

For a moment Toni feels like everything turns to slow motion, it's your typical movie shot, eternal flame playing in her mind, Shelby shaking her head back and forth as it falls down, settling back perfectly in place.

Her hand then reaches out to hand it back, and the music abrubtly stops, she slams her mouth which somewhere there must have fallen open.

She snatches the band back from Shelby and she falters for a moment,

"uh thank you for letting me borrow it, and uh. sorry about earlier."

Toni doesn't respond, just puts the hair band around her wrist, ignoring the strong vanilla scent her hair managed to imprint onto it. Instead she focuses on her food.

After a painfully long two seconds of pure silence, Shelby drags her eyes off Toni, instead scanning over everybody elses confused faces, she is dying to get out of there.

"Well I'll see y'all around," and she practically sprints out of there.

"The fuck was that about."

Fatin says, taking a loud slurp of her slushie, breaking the awkward tension over the table.

Toni grunts but clearly its not enough of an answer because all eyes are on her and she just wants to disappear, but unfortunately that's not an option.

"We got into like, I guess an argument? During class this morning."

"The gay thing?" Dot asks,

"yup."

"well spill what happened."

At around 4:30, Toni makes it back to her new "home."

For once it's not actually awful. The house is pretty small, and the kid who lives there is a dick. But the couple who fostered her aren't awful.

It does feel a bit like they fostered her to get brownie points with god sometimes. Fortunatley they're not so religious that they force her to church every Sunday, and they're okay with the whole gay thing.

Which is a nice change of pace, a lot of her past foster parents, even up in minnesota, have had issues with her sexuality, but this couple has made it abundently clear throughout the past week that they're on board with all of it. Honestly Toni was kind of surprised hearing it, especially considering they go to the same church as every other Trump voting, gun weilding, hate spewing, bible thumping loser in this town.

Unfortunately though, they do say she has to go to church on Easter and Christmas. But Marty reasoned with her that its a small compromise for an actual sane family in Texas.

She's the first person home today she slumps down in bed and immediatley facetimes Marty.

And within seconds she's picked up, her grinning face right up against the screen, it's like calling a boomer.

"Toni!!! I've missed you so muchhh. How are you?"

Immediatley Tonis face relaxes into a small smile.

"I've missed you too Marty. And I am far better now I'm talking to you."

"Rough day?"

"Rough life M."

Marty gives a small laugh to this but there is very visible concern on her face that she has never been good at hiding.

"Well it's not been all bad, you had fun at the party the other day right?"

"Yeah I guess that was good fun. And at least I'm not sitting alone at lunch. But-" Toni pauses for a moment, already angry at the thought of her, "You know the girl in my chemistry class?"

"The super hot, blonde girl you told me about last week?"

"yeah well, turns out she's like, the worst."

"Oh come on she can't be that bad? The way you talked about her she sounds quite friendly."

"yeah marty, except for that small fact that her whole family hate gay people, and her dads a pastor, who runs a fucking conversion therapy,"

"Oh shit"

"yeah, we kinda got into it at the end of class,"

"Toni," Marty says with a sigh,

"No no, I know what you're going to say, I tried to ignore her, for like the entire class I just fully ignored her, but she would not stop chatting in my ear the entire time and I couldn't help it."

"i'm sorry Toni that sucks. Just- don't get into any trouble with her ok? You've gotta try and stick this place out, so just- keep ignoring her. It's probably the way to go."

Toni sighs, fiddling with the hairband on her wrist, that still smells like Shelby. "fuck," she mumbles under breath before ripping it off her wrist and catapulting it across the room.

"She's just so- she acts so fucking perfect but she's actually like super hateful. And now I have to sit next to her for the rest of the year, and my teacher is trying to set me up with her as a student tutor. It's bullshit Marty." She spits out.

She drops her head onto her pillow and groans into it, trying to stay calm.

"I'm sorry Toni. I wish I could make it all better for you."

Toni looks up at the screen again, feeling a pang of guilt for unloading all her shit on Marty like usual.

"Just getting to talk to you makes it better for me."

They share a smile before Toni shakes out her body and puts on a smile, "So how about you, hows school? Any juicy gossip from up north."

"Same old same old. We do have a new student joining in a few weeks and I've been asked to show her round and be her buddy until she gets settled in."

"I'm sure you'll make her feel very welcome, you've got such a positive vibe to you Marty."

"Thanks," She says with a small laugh.

After a pause of silence Toni remembers the good news, a big grin on her face for the first time all day, "Oh my god Marty, actually I do have some slightly good news. My chemistry teacher is also the basketball coach, and he asked me to try out for the girls team."

"No way! See every cloud has a silver lining! What is meant for you will find its way!"

Toni smiles at the cheesy Instagram quotes her best friend is rattling off.

"Yeah well, apparently the team is absolute trash- but if I can push myself into a captain position, and push the team, I'm hoping by the end of the year I could get myself noticed by some scouts for college."

"That's such a good idea Toni! You can put all your time and energy into this, and forget about all the negative energy you're surrounded with."

"That's my plan, by the time I next see you I'm gonna be RIPPED,"

"Speaking of, when are we gonna see each other,"

"if your moms okay with it, and I can convince my foster family, I'll hopefully come see you over christmas?"

"heck yeah, i'll talk to my mom tonight, she'll totally be up for it, she misses you so much!"

"Maybe next time we call it can be when she's around?"

"I don't think she's working on Saturday, we can facetime then,"

"Awesome,"

There's a knock at Toni's door, "Alright Marty I gotta go,"

"Okay, I'll talk to you soon,"

"Love you Marty,"

"Love you too,"

Toni hangs up, "come in,"

Jenna, her foster mom, comes in, "Hey Toni, who you talking to?"

"Oh I was just talking to Martha," She says sitting up on her bed to face Jenna, she still feels a little out of place here, and makes sure to be on her best behaviour around the family, "Sorry if I was being loud I didn't think anybody was here,"

"Oh don't worry about that, I just got home from the shops and was wondering if you wanted to help me cook?"

Her first thought is to say she's got work to do, because Toni is notoriously a terrible cook, but she's clearly trying to make her feel more comfortable in the house and with the family.

"Yeah I'd love to, I'm a pretty terrible cook though,"

"Don't worry about it, I can teach you a few things." She says with a wink,

"Just come down whenever you're ready."

Chapter Text

Toni washes her hands as Jenna pulls out the ingredients,

"I'm thinking something nice and simple tonight, just some fajitas, so how about you cut up the peppers, because they're fairly easy."

"Sure thing," She gets set up, and starts chopping, while Jenna cuts up the onions.

"So Toni, tell me about Martha, you've mentioned her a few times now,"

"Uh yeah um," She clears her throat, wanting to open up to her, "Marty is my best friend. Like since I could talk. She's been like, the one constant in my life."

"Yeah, your case worker mentioned you've moved around a lot, that must be tough, do you mind if I ask why?"

"um," some of the reasons aren't entirely Tonis fault, she knows that, but she also knows a lot of the reasons are. She doesn't want to give Jenna a bad impression so early on,

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but don't worry, nothing you can say is going to make me think badly of you.

"There are a couple reasons to be honest. I kind of have a bad track record...losing my temper. I've been suspended from schools a lot and even kicked out of one or two. And most of my foster families haven't been as patient and understanding as you seem to be."

"I see,"

"And- I mean- sometimes the people I was staying with were just like...i dunno. not good people."

"Well I'm sorry to hear about that Toni, and I'm glad you have Martha. And I can't promise you're experience here will be perfect, I know some of our neighbours aren't the nicest." She turns to Toni, leaning against the counter, "But I promise that myself and Clark, will try our absolute hardest to make you feel happy here, and if you ever need help trying to regulate your feelings, we want to try. We want to keep you around for as long as possible. All that moving around can't be good for a girl your age."

Toni offers Jenna her first genuine smile since arriving here, "Thank you."

"Actually I was hoping to ask you something,"

"Go ahead," She says turning back to focus on the onions,

"I was hoping to go visit Marty and her mom over christmas. It- it doesn't have to be on Christmas day or anything, but it's only been a week and I already miss them quite a bit."

"Of course Toni, I would prefer if you were here for Christmas Day, but I mean we'll have you all the rest of the time, so if it works for them to have you on the 25th, then I'm okay with that. As long as the four of us to get to spend some time together celebrating."

"Oh my god, thank you so much Jenna,"

"Of course, as long as you're happy Toni, thats what we're here for. Now back to chopping, the boys will be home soon."

Nearby, Shelby is sat in her room, brushing her hair, waiting to be called down for dinner.

She puts down her brush and just stares at herself in the mirror for a while.

She can't forget the face Toni gave her when she went to return the hairband. She was so angry. So so furious.

Shelby doesn't hate gay people, by any means, I mean- she. Well- it's complicated.

So complicated.

Any time she thinks about that stuff for too long she winds up in a downward spiral about all of it. About who she is.

About who she's expected to be.

She shakes out her arms and rolls her neck, trying to keep her mind clear.

It's fine, its certainly not the end of the world. She still has Andrew.

Class might be a bit awkward, but if there's one thing Shelby knows how to do flawlessly, is fake a smile.

So thats just what she will do, suddenly her door opens behind her, bringing her out of her thoughts, she turns to see her dad.

"Oh my, daddy you scared me," Putting on her patented smile and placing her hand over her heart.

"Sorry 'bout that Shelby, but dinners ready why don't you come on down."

"Right behind you sir,"

He glances around the room slowly, before exiting, leaving the door wide open behind him.

She takes her seat at the table, as her mom serves up the lasagne she's made,

"This looks delicious mom," Shelby says as her two younger siblings run up to the table,

"Fantastic job as always Jobeth,"

The family sit around the table, hold hands, and say grace before eating.

"Father, thank you for blessing us with these beautifully grown ingredients that sit before us, thank you for blessing my beautiful wife with the skills to turn your creations into our delicious meal, thank you for sustaining us, keeping us strong, and keeping us on your path. We ask that you bless this food, and continue to guide us to your mighty domain. Amen."

Shelby keeps her eyes closed a moment longer, hoping to feel that same connection with God she used to feel so strongly.

"Oh alright guys, lets dig in."

The family sit in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the meal,

"This is great mom!" Spencer says with his mouth full,

"Mouth closed now son, God see's all and I promise he does not want to see that," he follows it with a chuckle but the glances shared between Dave and Shelby, only shows that malice he seems to hide between every single one of his words.

"So Shelby, how was school," Jobeth asks kindly, serving herself some salad.

"Yeah it was-" She breathes and smiles, "it was alright,"

"What's wrong honey, you seem burdened," Dave says his fork halfway to his mouth.

"There's just this- this girl in my class."

Her parents share a look, so she hurries to finish her sentence, "She is so mean. And- and I just don't know why. She's new to the school, and I tried being friendly but she's-" She pauses, picking her words carefully, making sure to omit the real reason Toni doesn't like her, "She is just so angry, and blows up over the smallest things."

Dave hums as he ponders over his advice, Jobeth offering something before he can,

"Maybe she's just nervous about being in a new school. People deal with their anxietys in different ways sweetie,"

"Or," Dave says, speaking over his wife, "Maybe she needs the help of God. Maybe she hasn't found him quite yet and so hasn't found the peace within her.

She finishes chewing, knowing there was no point in looking for advice from him, "Yeah daddy, that's probably it, thank you."

"How about you kiddos? How was school."

Spencer goes on a big ramble about how he beat everybody at basketball during lunch, and how he got all the answers right in his maths quiz.

But after a while Shelby stops listening. Instead picking through her food, taking the occasional bite. Just waiting to be excused back to her room.

Back at Tonis house, Clark and Dennis have arrived home, and they're all sat around the table. The three of them join hands and say grace while Toni sits in silence.
The first night she was there she felt really awkward when Jenna assured her she didn't have to join in, but at least respect it.

She's gotten used to it now, but she's still not really sure what to do other than stare at the food until they're done. As soon as they say amen, Toni picks up her food, but waits for the others to start before joining in. After a few moments Clark turns to Toni,

"So how was school today Toni?"

She swallows her mouthful as quick as she can, not wanting to keep them waiting on her answer.

"Um yeah it was good actually," She says, ignoring the bad mood she was in all day to focus on the positives, "My chemistry teacher invited me to try out for the basketball team,"

"Well that's great Toni,"

"You play a lot of basketball?" Jenna asks

"Yeah, I was the captain of the team back in Minnesota,"

"Woah didn't realise we had a star player eating with us tonight," Clark says with a smile, raising his glass to her,

She offers a small laugh as she takes another bite.

"You and I should throw a ball around some time, if you'd like to of course?"

She nods as she chews. She quite likes Clark. This past week he's acted quite enthusiastic to have her around, really stepping into a father role. She doesn't know how comfortable she is with this, considering 1- she hardly knows the guy, 2- he's not her dad, and 3- this is all probably temporary. A nice glimpse of what a family could be like for her before it's all ripped away again.

He does seem to catch himself a lot, back pedalling a bit every time he acts a bit too 'fatherly'

Honestly it depends on Tonis mood if she's okay with it or not. If she's in a bad mood and he starts acting like her dad, she can feel anger boiling up, and it's not his fault. But he's not her dad. Her dad left. Her mom left. He'll probably leave. And she gets sent into one of her well known spirals.
If she's in a good mood- well it's nice that SOMEBODY wants to be her parent.

"How about you Dennis? How was school?"

Jenna says, pulling the attention away from Toni, which is a relief, now they're finished with her they normally go round the table and Toni can eat in peace for the rest of the meal.

"I got a yellow card." He says pouting.

"A yellow card? Dennis come on, what did you do?"

"IT WASNT MY FAULT"

Tonis eye widens, damn this kid might just be angrier than she is, she can't help but smirk at his sudden outburst.

"Alright Dennis, we don't yell okay? Just tell us what happened." Clark says firmly.

"We were doing grammar in English and the teacher started talking about pronouns! I don't wanna hear about that gay stuff." He says crossing his arms. "I had a go at her for it and she gave me a yellow card."

Toni's smirk immediatley drops off her face.

"Dennis," Jenna sighs, wiping her mouth with a napkin before dropping it on the table.

"Do you even know what a pronoun is?"

"Yeah! Ralph says that his dad says that its a bunch of gay snowflakes use them and that they shouldn't be teaching it to 10 year olds."

"I'm sorry are you dumb?" Spills out of Tonis mouth before she can stop herself.

"Toni," Clark says calmly, putting his hand up to stop her, Toni breathes deeply dropping her food on her plate and shaking out her arms and hands under the table, her leg bouncing like crazy.

"Dennis, we have told you again and again to not listen to what Ralph tells you. He's always spewing out garbage. Remember when he told you dinosaurs aren't real? We took you to that dinosaur museum and now they're your favourite animal."

"Well this is different. Ralphs dad said that gay people are freaks and Mr Goodkind said they're unnatural and inefsti-cating our country." Toni looks at him suddenly, at the sound of the name before processing what he's saying
"And he was right because now we have one of them IN OUR HOME."

Toni stands up suddenly slamming her hands on the table, "Listen here squirt,"

"Toni," Clark says, in that same tone as earlier,

"NO-" she says without turning her head, inching her face closer to Toni, "If you think gay people are freaks what the hell do you call yourself you fu-" She stops herself before she swears at a literal child. In the silence thats fallen around the table, she suddenly becomes very aware of the situation she's in. She's yelling at a child. In front of his parents. The parents who have taken her into her home. And she yelled at the fucking parents. She needs to get out of her. She needs to clear her head. "You don't know me. You don't get to judge me. You are quite literally 4 foot tall. So next time you go spouting that hateful, ignorant bull- maybe don't do it to somebody who could pummel you into the ground. And for the love of Christ, Pastor Goodkind? He doesn't know bollocks."

She storms away from the dining table, rushing out of the front door.

Bollocks might not have been the best choice of words, but it was the closest she could get to swearing to that little piece of shit without actually swearing at him.

The cool night air hits her skin and goosebumps rise on her flesh, but she's not cold, she's burning hot as she storms through down the road.

fuck. fuck FUCK. it's not even been a full week and she's already blown up at the dinner table.

She's so fucking stupid. This is literally the nicest house she's ever lived in and she's screwed it up.

Who fucking knows where she's gonna end up next when Jenna and Clark ship her off.

Probably for the better. See Toni prefers some nice, old fashioned, blatant homophobia.

Not whatever they've got going on. What like, pretending to be okay with it, even though they drag their kid to that homophobic piece of shit Church every Sunday to listen to Dave spout out all these lies about gay kids? Then what? Indoctrinate her and convert her?

Swear to god, if she ever meets Dave, she's punching him right in that stupid mouth.

Toni hates Texas. She hates Dennis. She hates Dave. She fucking hates Shelby.

She misses Marty. She misses Marty so much. And she misses Bernice so fucking much.

She just wants to go back to them.

She's so in her head, filled with anger and anxiety, she's not paying attention to where she's going, and when she rounds the corner to somebody running straight into her that pushes her over the edge.

"WHAT THE FUCK."

She blinks her eyes a couple times, looking up to the person above her, backlit by the streetlamp behind them.

"Oh my stars, I am so sorry let me help you up." A hand reaches out to her, but she recognises that stupid accent, and that stupid cheery voice, and that stupid blonde pony tail.

"Fuck off Shelby."

Finally Shelby realises it was Toni she knocked flat on her bum, and for a moment she has to fight off a smile at the idea of knocking little miss angry on the floor.

Until of course little miss angry reminds her that she is in fact very angry.

"Do you not fucking look where you're going." Toni spits out as she stands up. Trying to be intimidating, but also being a solid 3 inches shorter than Shelby.

"Jeez Toni, I said I'm sorry okay."

"Whatever," She brushes herself off and elbows past Shelby.

"My gosh, do ya always run so darn hot."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean." She says spinning round to shove her face in Shelbys.

Shelby doesn't say anything. Just breathes heavily. Eyes wide, staring at her, and for a split second Toni is sure she see's Shelbys eyes dart down to her lips. She shakes the thought out of her head, and deepens the crease in her eyebrows.

"I-I didn't mean anythin' by it. Forget it." For a moment Shelby actually feels quite scared of the girl, she looks like she could explode any second now.

"Screw you Goodkind." Toni says, looking for a fight. Looking for somebody to take her anger out on. And who better than one of the reasons she's feeling so damn angry.

"I'm not gonna do this Toni. I mean- you don't even let me explain myself so I don't see the point.

She turns around and starts to walk away.

"Explain yourself then." Shelby pauses but doesn't turn back, just fixes her posture.

"No please, tell me why I shouldn't take it personally that you go around acting like an angel on earth, but then sit down with your bible group and talk about how awful us gays are."

Shelby stays facing away, and shakes her head.

"I don't think this is about me Toni. I really find it hard to believe that you're so angry over one interaction we had."

She pushes out a deep breath as Toni laughs at the back of her head.

"Yeah of course. Nothings ever your fault right. The 10 year old kid who I live with, spouting out hate that YOUR DADDY TAUGHT HIM. No that's NOT YOUR FAULT." She says, her anger manifesting itself into a snarky smile plastered on her face, though her eyes are still filled with fury.

But before Tonis even taken a breath Shelby turns back around, and within a second she shoves Toni back. "I AM NOT MY FATHER."

Toni's so shocked by the outburst that her anger immediatly dissipitates. She tries to quickly hide the shock and smirk at her instead.

"Of course not. You just get uncomfortable whenever I mention that I'm," She leans in close to her again, and whispers slowly, "a lesbian."

And right on queue, shelby glances around, "there we go."

"i'm not- that's not what-" she glares at Toni. Clearly Toni is looking for a fight. So Shelby takes another deep breath, and puts on a smile.

"Goodnight Toni."

She starts to jog away.

"GO TO HELL GOODKIND"

Shelby doesn't turn, just throws a middle finger over her shoulder and sprints off back home.

They were only round the corner from her house, so she enters through the front door slowly, hoping her dad didn't hear the commotion.

"Shelby?" He calls her name from the living room.

"One moment!" She calls back taking off her shoes.

If he did hear she'll be in a lot of trouble for a whole lot of reasons. She may have disrupted the neighbours. And they might have heard what the fight was about. And then she might have to explain everything her dad. And then only God knows what would happen.

But thats if.

He probably didn't hear anything, she reassures herself as she walks round the corner into the lounge.

"Hiya daddy, hi mom." She says with a sweet smile as she see's her parents sitting on the sofa watching an old black and white movie.

"How was your run sweetie?" Jobeth asks, a cup of tea in her hands.

"It was real good, real refreshing."

"Proud of you darlin' keeping that temple in tip top shape," Her dad says, with his grin that she hates. It's like, ever since the whole...Becca incident, every smile he sends her way, every comment he makes, they're all filled with an undelying tone of pure malice.

"'course daddy, I best get showered off and ready for bed, enjoy your movie."

"Goodnight baby," Jobeth says fondly,

"Sleep tight Shelbs,"

She heads upstairs, and closes the door behind her. It's not until her clothes are in her laundry basket, her hair is untied, and she's under the warm stream of her shower, that she finally relaxes. For about 2 minutes. Until she starts thinking about Toni again.

Toni hates her so much and she can't even- it's like.

Shelby wants to explain to her, that she doesn't hate Toni because she's gay. But she doesn't know how Toni will ever believe her. And she doesn't know how she'd even explain to her because she's so-

It is all so complicated.

She doesn't even know why she so badly wants Toni to understand.

She is far too angry, and far too cocky, and that stupid little smile she does when she thinks she's won an argument, and- and she's just not worth taking up all this headspace.

Shelby shakes her body out, and rolls her neck slowly, letting the water rinse the shampoo out of her hair.

She's just gonna have to push Toni out of her mind.

Chapter Text

After another 30 minutes of walking around mindleslly in the dark, Toni arrives back on the front doorstep, before promptly realising she left her keys inside. The living room light is on and the curtains are drawn, but she can see the sillouhette or Jenna and Clark talking.

She knocks lightly on the door and after a brief moment both Jenna and Clark appear in the door way. "Oh thank God you're alright Toni, we were so worried, you must be freezing."

Jenna steps to the side and ushers her into the warmth of their home. She closes the door, and turns to Toni.

"Look Toni-"

"I'm sorry," Toni mumbles, swallowing her anger and her pride.

"No Toni really," Clark interjects, "We're sorry. Really, Dennis has no idea what he's talking about. We had a chat with him, and for now we've confiscated his nintendo switch, but we know this is much bigger than that."

Toni looks up from the floor, confused by their apology.

"C'mon into the lounge Toni, the three of us should really talk."

Jenna leads the way and they all take a seat, Toni on the sofa, Jenna on the armchair, and Clark sitting on the arm of Jennas chair.

"We first of all want to reitterate, that we have nothing against your sexuality. And we support you fully."

"Why was Dennis saying all that stuff then." Toni says, trying to sound angry, but for once in her life she's not, she just wants answers.

"There's only one church in this town, and unfortunatley it's run by Mr Goodkind. And 80% of the time he's actually not bad at his job,"

Clark picks up where Jenna stops, "But the other 20% of the time he lets his own personal beliefs get in the way of his preaching. And unfortunatley for us it seems to be the only content that Dennis pays attention to."

"We are fully aware of the area we live in. We are aware of the kind of people who live around us. But you've gotta understand, not everybody is like Mr Goodkind. I'd say 40% of the people who go to that church hold the same beliefs as us, and just have to put up with it. Now we are trying to unteach those beliefs from Dennis, but it's hard when he's surrounded by them even at school." Jenna says, "And we are so, so sorry, he said those things to you at dinner. We want you to feel safe here, and well I'm sure that didn't help."

Toni doesn't know what to say.

"okay."

"Also I know you have trouble with your anger sometimes, so we want to thank you,"

"Don't think we didn't notice how you held yourself back and removed yourself from the situation. That was very mature of you."

Toni clears her throat, maybe it's the fact that she's not used to them, but having open, mature conversations always makes her kind of uncomfortable.

"Well um- I am sorry for yelling at him."

"It's okay. Thank you for not swearing at him."

"Yeah well I uh-" she clears her throat again, "I guess he's just a kid. He's not really who I'm angry at."

"You're angry at Dave?"

"Dave, myself a bit, and Shelby."

"Shelby..." Clark says as if he's trying to remember who it is.

"The Goodkind's eldest daughter." Jenna says, "You know her?"

"I'm sat next to her in chemistry and, I bumped into her on my walk and we just, we keep getting into arguments."

"Understandable. But you know..." The couple share a glance, "She's not all bad and, well- she's not her father,"

Toni chuckles at that, thinking nothing of it, "Yeah that's what she said."

The room falls quiet again, "So um...would you like me to apologise to Dennis for yelling at him?"

"No no, there's no need really. When he comes to apologise to you for his comments-"

"And we promise he will," Clark interjects,

"You can feel free to apologise back, but you handled that whole situation as I would expect anybody to in your position."

"okay...cool."

"Well you have school tommorow, how about you go get ready for bed."

"Sure thing, goodnight guys and-" She pauses for a moment as she stands up, wanting to remove herself from this conversation, "well, thanks for understanding,"

"Of course Toni, goodnight."

"Night Kid,"

Toni heads upstairs, shuts her door behind her, and flops onto her bed. Unplugging her now fully charged phone, and opening it to a message from Marty.

She swipes it open to a selfie of her and Bernice, We miss youuuuuu!!!

Miss you too Marty :)

Even though it's hardly gone 9:30, she puts her phone down and falls straight asleep.

The next few days pass by quietly, she doesn't have class with Shelby, and when she see's her in the hall she simply gets ignored.

Fatins not throwing any parties.

Dennis hasn't apologised but also isn't talking much at all.

It's a quiet couple of days, but it gives her time to focus.

Her tryouts are after History class today, and with nothing else to distract her, it's all she's been thinking about.

Her leg has been bouncing all day, and she hasn't focused on a single word any of her teachers have said.

As the last bell of the day Toni is finally forced face to face with her nerves.

It's just a basketball tryout, she's been playing basketball since she was a kid. Besides Mr Johnson himself said that the team was utter crap. So the nerves aren't even really about if she's good enough of not.

But joining a group of teen girls who are all already friends, is nerve-wracking. She already had to do it once with Fatin and that lot.

She wants to show she's good enough to join the team. And confident enough in both her skills, and her tactical knowledge of the game to fall into a bit of a leadership position.

But she doesn't want to come across as cocky, and have the entire team, dislike her for the rest of the year because of it.

She races out of last period, and gets changed in the bathroom so she doesn't have to get dressed with the team. Pulling on some shorts and a Minnesota lynx jersey, she's dressed and ready within a minute. She still has ten minutes before she has to be there so she takes her time walking across the school, taking slow, deep breaths.

She gets to the doors of the school gym and can hear Mr Johnson talking to the girls, but can't quite hear what he's saying. She checks the clock. Gives herself 30 more seconds to breathe, and heads inside.

"Ah Toni! Welcome, welcome. Ladies this is Toni, she's gonna be joining us for practice today, I'm hoping she's the missing puzzle that can get us out of the knock out rounds this year. Toni how about you introduce yourself."

"Oh uh...yeah."

She drops her bag on the bleachers and steps forward. She didn't even think about introducing herself. She's not gonna have time to run through a rehearsed line in her head twenty times over so she just swallows harshly and starts talking.

"Uh hi, I'm Toni. I'm from Minnesota."

"WOO TONI" She follows the cheer and see's fatin sitting in the stands excited, Leah is sat next to her, head deep in a book.

Tonis face burns bright red with embarassment. What the fuck is she doing here. That's when she notices Rachel and Dot are both in the team, Rachel gives her a small smile, and Dot throws up a reassuring thumbs up.

"Well I was the I point guard at my last school, and almost lead us to the finals but I...got kicked off for throwing piss at the opposition." As soon as the words leave her mouth she regrets it but once again Fatin chimes in from the bleachers,

"FUCK YEAH YOU DID!"

Some of the girls on the team actually look quite impressed.

"Sorry about Fatin up there, she insists on showing up to every practice." Mr Johnson says with a smile and an eye roll.

"Well as long as you promise not to throw piss at any of us I'm sure you'll fit right in." He says, patting her on the shoulder.

"I promise not to throw piss at any of you, the opposition however I can't make the same promise."

A small cluster of laughs break out within the team, and Toni can feel her confidence building.

"Alright then ladies, lets start warming up, you know the drill, sprints up and down the court till I call it, then we stretch."

The group starts running back and forth, and Toni makes sure to stay at the front, but paces her self so she's not miles ahead, just gently leading the group.

Her and Rachel seem to be the ones putting the most effort in, Dot seems to just be there for the sake of being there.

After 3 minutes, the pace of the whole group has clearly slowed down so coach blows the whistle and leads them in a selection of stretches.

"Okay ladies, you have 60 seconds to get some water, than we're gonna start with some drills."

The group all split apart to their respective bags. After Toni grabs her bottle she jogs over to her group of friends.

"Guys you never told me you played basketball."

"Well you never did either," Dot responds,

"Fair enough. Rachel I thought you were a swimmer?"

"A diver, but yeah, thats mostly during the summer, it ends in a couple weeks and doesn't start up again until April, gotta stay in shape."

"This is so cool,"

"Hell yeah it is bitch,"

"You really just sit there and watch the whole time?"

"A bunch of hot, sweaty girls, running around a basketball court shoving each other? Yes Toni, I'm gonna watch that."

Leah shoots her a pointed stare, looking up from her book for the first time, but Fatin ignores her.

"Now go out there and show and 'em whose King Toni,"

As she says this the whistle blows, and the team all return to Mr Johnson.

"Okay we're gonna start with some dribbling,"

The girls spend the next 30 minutes non-stop running, between dribbling, passing, and shooting, Toni is exhausted.

Every time she gets a few seconds to stand still, she makes sure not to follow suit of the other girls, who all bend over, hands on knees getting their breath back. Instead standing up straight, and shaking out her body to stay in the zone.

Her face is bright red, her throat is dry, and her hair is laced with sweat.

Finally Coach lets them grab another drink, but Toni still doesn't allow herself to rest, while the rest of the girls sit down, Toni stays standing, stretching her legs as she takes a swig of water. Rachel walks over to her, breaths laboured,

"You are really pushing hard out there Toni."

"Just wanna prove that I'm good enough."

"Toni. This team won one match in the last 2 years, I think you've proved you're good enough."

"Jesus christ one???"

"Yeah we're uh...we're not proud of it."

"How do we keep playing so poorly."

"The girls on this team are good. You saw them in practice, they are good. They just don't care enough about. They're not motivated enough like you and I. They couldn't care less if we win or lose."

Toni chews on her bottom lip for a moment.

"I don't wanna overstep, I know I'm the newest member of the team, but I like, really wanna get this team as far as we can go, this team is like, my one shot at getting to college, do you think the girls will mind if I kind of take a bit of a leadership role, I mean basketball is like- my life."

"Dude are you kidding?" Dot says walking up to join the conversation, "We need somebody to lead the team. I tried getting Rachel to motivate everybody, but she doesn't know shit about basketball."

"Hey," Rachel says defensively,

"No offence man, like you're good, and your fast, and your fit, but you don't know any of the technical stuff. And your idea of motivating people is just...getting mad at people."

"They don't take it seriously! It pisses me off sometimes."

Toni and Dot share a smile over this, "Dots right though. Take charge man. If we don't do well this season my last 2 years have been a waste. We have got to win something."

"Alright, thanks guys."

Coach blows the whistle again, splits the team into two halves and they play a match.

It does start getting on Tonis nerves every now and then, the girls put a lot of effort into the practice for the first half, but now they seem to be over it. A bunch of half assed passes, and missed shots and the girl on defence for the other team don't even try and stop Toni from shooting. After 20 minutes, Tonis team wins by 16 points and Mr Johnson blows the whistle one final time.

"Alright team that wasn't...bad. You've played worse! That's what we should focus on. Now hit the showers, I'll see you tomorrow."

The girls split off.

"Toni can you just stay behind for a minute."

"Sure thing."

She goes to finish off her water, and for the first time allows herself to sit down on the bleachers, the team empty out of the hall through to the changing room, and Fatin and Leah stroll past, "See ya tomorrow Shalifoe."

"See ya,"

Once the hall is empty Mr Johnson sits down next to her and takes off his cap.

"So what did you think Toni?"

"It was fun yeah, it felt good, I haven't played in a couple months."

"Good, good, we'll we'd be very happy if you decided to join the team. We really need you."

Toni laughs at this, "I mean...you've got an alright team here sir."

"Do I? Really that's your honest opinion?"

She bites her lip for a second before choking out a, "yeahhh,"

"Toni one of the girls sat down in the middle of the court half way through the game."

Toni laughs at the memory and shakes her head.

"If you let me sir, I really think I could turn this team around."

"You want my job? Because I'm getting close to giving up."

"No sir come on, just, tell me to be bossy and I will be bossy. I will turn in to the ultimate teachers pet if it means I can push these girls."

"You think that's all it will take?"

"100%. Like- okay, how often do you guys train?"

"Twice a week."

She pull a face of disgusted shock.

"Sir, no wonder you're doing poorly. Okay here's what we're gonna do. Push it up to 4 afterschool training, and make lunchtime training mandatory 3 times a week. I'll lead the lunchtime one so you don't have to give up your lunchtimes, we can focus on fitness them, we'll run laps around the field, then after school you keep up with this."

"I could convince the school to let us have the hall for two more days I guess."

"That's the spirit. When's our first match."

He looks down at his clip bord and flips to a different page.

"Three weeks."

"Three weeks is all I need."

"You're real enthusiastic about this Toni, it's nice to see it."

"I'm gonna get us a trophy this year sir, I promise."

"Alright then. But...whose gonna break the bad news to the girls that they've gotta start training 5x as much as before."

Toni grins and stands up, swinging her bag over her shoulder,

"You're the coach. Would seem unfair to make me do it."

He laughs at this, "alright then, I'll send out an email, see you tomorrow Toni."

"Bye sir."

Toni waits till she gets back to the house before showering. Letting the warm water run over her muscles and relax them.

She feels good about this year.

It might not be too bad after all.

Chapter Text

Toni sits down at the lunch table with the girls.

"Toniii, how ya doing girl."

"I'm actually alright." She says, sounding somewhat surprised.

"Got any gossip? These girls are so boring."

All the girls look up at this, as if offended, but none of them actually defend themselves, clearly they know she's right.

"Unfortunately not."

Dot slams her tray down on the table, taking a seat, "You will never guess who I just sold to."

"Finally!!!" Fatin says excitedly, "lay it on us Dottie,"

"Sold what?" Toni says, taking a bite of her lunch,

Dot glances round the table hesitantly, "I have a...side hustle. Where I sell products...to people."

Catching on Toni simply nods, choosing to focus on her food for the rest of this conversation.

"Anyway...tell us tell us."

"Right, so you know how Andrew is like, one of my biggest customers,"

"Shelbys boyfriend?" Toni asks, immediately drawn back in,

"Yup. Well I went to his truck to give him the stuff, and dude was straight up getting a blowjob, like right there in the school park,"

Half the girls at the table groan in disgust at the thought, but the gleam in Fatins eye only glows stronger,

"Who would've guessed it! Shelby Goodkind is a DOG."

Toni rolls her eyes as she picks at her food.

"That's the thing, it wasn't Shelby." She pauses for dramatic effect, "Christa Findlay."

She finally says triumphly,

"That actually makes a lot more sense,"

Rachel says, pretending to act like the conversation isn't interesting to her.

Toni starts to smile, this is like the ultimate argument ender next time her and Shelby get into it.

She's gonna be real patient, and wait to use it at the best possible moment.

On the other hand.

She could go and use it straight after lunch while they're in chemistry together.

That option does sound WAY more fun.

When lunch ends she goes to get her textbook from her locker, a smile on her face at the idea of rubbing this in her face when she see's Shelby in class.

But oh goodie, she doesn't even have to wait, because there's Shelby, at her locker, all alone, three lockers down from Toni's.

"Shelby," She says with a grin, grabbing her book.

"Toni." Shelby responds, somewhat confused by the friendliness.

"How are you...how's Andrew?" She says slyly.

At this Shelby swings her locker shut and turns to her, holding her folder across her chest, suspicious of where this is going.

"I'm doin' alright, Andrew is...also alright."

"Oh I'm sure he is alright. In fact I would put money on the fact that I bet he's doing FANTASTIC."

"What on earth are you goin' on about Toni?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." She says with a smile, before walking off.

Instantly, Shelby is on her heel, racing to keep up. "What are you up to Toni?"

"I don't think I'm the one you wanna be asking that question to, maybe try asking your boyfriend."

Shelby scoffs, "I dunno why you're tryna be mysterious, but you're starting to sound like a real weirdo."

"I mean I'll tell you but I wouldn't wanna ruin your day or anything."

Shelby grabs Tonis arm and pulls her outside the school so they're not surrounded by people.

"I don't know what you're playing at but why don't you just tell me."

Toni smiles in her face.

"Your perfect little boyfriend, is cheating on you."

Shelbys frown slides off her face, and she just stares at Toni for a second. Eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

"what."

"Yeah man, some girl was sucking him off in his car-"

Shelby shoves Toni into the wall.

"What the fuck?"

"You're lying."

Toni shoves her back, "I'm not a fucking liar."

"Oh please, you are a lot of things Toni, and I am confident Liar isn't the worst of them."

Toni shoves her again, harder this time, and Shelby stumbles onto the floor.

"The fuck is that meant to mean."

Shelby, breathing hard now, gets back up on her feet, and dusts herself off, trying to stay calm.

"Please Toni, you're like obsessed with me. And now you're obsessed with my boyfriend."

"My god, not every Lesbian is in love with you Shelby, you're like a 6 at best. And I am not obsessed with you. Everybody in school knows you're a big fucking prude. Probably why he had to get some action somewhere else." At this Shelby slaps Toni round the face, not even thinking. For a moment she regrets it, but that moment immediately vanishes when Toni tackles her to the ground.

They grapple on the ground for a few moments, "you stupid bitch," Toni forces out between breaths.

Eventually Shelby takes control of their grapple, grabbing Tonis arms, and pinning them to the ground. Her full body on top of her, her eyes crazy, her breaths ragged.

"Why can't you just leave me the fuck alone." Shelby says, their faces real close.

She is such a bitch, but fuck the way her tits are pressed up against Toni's chest is driving her insane.

Her eyes flicker around Shelbys face before landing on her lips for a second.

Fuck why does the girl she hate have to be so fucking hot.

6 my arse. That girl is a 10. And on top of her.

Fuck.

She shoves her off, and climbs on top, her legs straddling Shelbys hips, and no, this position is no better.

Shelbys eyes are staring at where their crotches are touching, and her face burns red.

Toni laughs at how uncomfortable this must be making little miss christian.

She swings her arm back ready to punch, when a large hand grabs her arm and pulls her to her feet.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Toni looks up at Mr Johnson.

"Shit."

Shelby scrambles to her feet, embarassed about the commotion she's caused.

"I am so sorry sir,"

"She started it." Toni said quickly.

Mr J drops her arm and looks at her in utter disbelief, while shelby slaps her arm, annoyed at her throwing her under the bus.

"Do you two wanna tell me why you're grappling around on the floor like a bunch of children."

The two girls stay silent. Shelby staring at the ground, disappointed at herself. Toni stood next to her, arms crossed, breathing hard.

"This is unacceptable behaviour, I really expected better from the both of you."

"Please don't tell my father," Shelby says frantically, finally making eye contact with him.

He takes a deep breath. "Normally, when two student get into a fight, we call home and issue a detention."

He takes another deep breath, while Shelby looks at him nervously.

"But, Toni has practice this afternoon, and we need her on this team. And it would be unfair to punish you and not her. So... I will let you both off with a warning, but if I catch the two of you fighting again, I can't promise I'll let you off so lightly."

"Yes sir," Shelby says, her hands writhing together behind her back.

"Now get to class. And if I see even a dirty look between the two of you, I swear to God-" he says pointing a finger at the two girls.

Neither of them move for a moment, "Go on get out of here,"

They rush away, and when they get back inside, they walk side by side in silence until they reach the classroom, being the first two people there.

And sit in silence.

Shelby unpacks her bag, as always laying everything out neatly.

Toni rolls her eyes and scoffs.

"What?" Shelby snaps.

Toni firms her jaw and doesn't react, just keeps staring forward, sure Mr J could walk in at any moment.

Toni grabs out her notebook and pen, and starts clicking the pen on and off. The clicking matching the speed of her bouncing knee.

Shelby lets it slide for a minute, taking deep breaths with her eyes closed trying not to snap again. But three minutes later Toni is still doing it.

Shelby slams her hand down on the pen so it's trapped under hand,

"Can you not- it's like you're tryna get under my skin."

Toni glares at her, staying silent.

After a moment Shelby lifts her hand back up, and Toni stops clicking the pen.

Though that only lasts 5 seconds, she turns her head to Shelby and smiles at her and she starts clicking the pen again.

Shelby opens her mouth but people start filing into the classroom, including Mr Johnson who stares them down as he takes a seat at his desk and logs into his computer.

She promptly closes her mouth and stares at the board.

Eventually it loses it entertainment purposes and Toni puts her pen down, sitting quietly for the lesson to begin.

As the final bell rings Shelby storms out of class at such speed she almost knocks all the papers off Mr Johnsons desk. Toni can't help but stifle a laugh as she slowly packs up her stuff.

Mr Johnson clears his throat and Toni's eyes whip up to look at him, he looks at her disaprovingly so she offers him a timid smile, before clearing the smile completely off her face.

"I'll see you on the court sir,"

"Yes you will."

She walks down the hallway to get her kit out of her locker, and there's Shelby leaning against her locker talking to Shelby, she's not really paying attention, her eyes skating over his shoulder while he leans in.

When their eyes meet, Shelby immediately becomes physically uncomfortable, and Toni can't help but smile.

She stops at her locker, putting in the code, and glances over to them again, Shelby's eyes already staring her down, she looks shocked when Toni catches her staring and out of nowhere, Shelby grabs the back of Andrews neck, cutting him off mid sentence, and pulling him to her lips. Toni watches for a moment and rolls her eyes as they finally pull away five seconds later.

"Woah babe, you never let me kiss you at school. Must be my new aftershave huh."

Toni stands at her locker a few lockers down to shelbys.

"Your parents are out of town right? How about I come round to yours tonight?"

She says loudly. Toni slams her locker shut and storms off. Shelby smirks.

"Wait seriously?" Andrew says excitedly.

And as Toni falls out of ear shot, Shelby realises what she's just gotten herself into.

"uh- y-yeah of course baby. I'll just need to run it past my parents."

"Nice."

They walk out of school towards Andrews truck, and when he's not looking Shelby quickly texts her mum '!!!'

They agreed a while ago on a code for whenever she wants to get out of something. And by the time they get into his car she's getting a phone call.

"Hold on a moment babe."

"Hey mom whatsup."

"Don't forget we're having guests over tonight, so try get home as quick as possible so you can help me prep yeah?"

"Oh man, I was gonna go over to Andrews I completely forgot."

"Sorry sweetie, maybe another time, I really need your help over here, I am elbows deep in different dishes for tonight."

"Of course mom, I'll see you in ten."

"Bye honey love you,"

"Love you too."

She slips her phone into her pocket.

"I'm really sorry babe, I can't tonight."

"Jesus Christ, are we ever gonna have sex?" He says angrily.

She suddenly becomes very flustered at the mention of it, "Andrew c'mon there are people around."

"Whatever, just get out of my car."

She doesn't for a moment, just looks at him, hurt showing all over her face. But he's not looking at her.

She follows his eyes, and see's them planted straight on Lola F. A girl on the cheerleading squad.

But she doesn't say anything. Of course she doesn't say anything.

She just quietly opens the door, climbs out, and walks over to her own car. She sits in the passenger seat and buckles in but doesn't move. Just stares at Andrew through her wing mirror.

He doesn't move either. Just keeps staring.

After a few moments of watching him watch another girl she finally drives off.

She doesn't really know what she was waiting for.

Waiting to see if Lola got in the car with him? Waiting to see if what Toni said was true.

But by the looks of things he's not a cheater.

He's just a man with urges, and when she won't give in to those urges, I guess a bit of staring isn't too bad.

The entire drive home all she can think about is Andrew and that girl. And what Toni said about Andrew. And Toni.

Because of course it always comes back to Toni.

She hasn't been able to stop thinking about that god forsaken girl since the moment she saw her in the school cafeteria.

She gets her all hot and bothered.

Not hot, like-

She just, she gets on her nerves.

All the darn time.

She is so frustrating, and she's clearly trying to be, and she just- she just wishes Toni would listen to her.

Shelby doesn't, does not, N-O-T hate gay people. She thinks gay people are- are they're- great. You know Lesbians are very pret- cool. They're cool.

They're proud of who they are, and they're community. And community is important. Community is beautiful.

Shelby loves communities not lesbians, not that Shelby doesn't like Lesbians.

CHRIST.

Toni is in her head and it is confusing.

Whenever she thinks about her, or talks to her, tries to defend herself, she just gets all confused and caught up and she can't think straight.

On account of...of the stubborness. That is.

She needs to lie down.

Chapter Text

It's been a few days since the fight with Shelby, and only a week or so since Coach implemented the new training schedule for the team, and there is already some visible improvements within the girls, they're running faster, jumping higher, trying harder.

Toni goes home each night actually feeling proud and accomplished. And pretty quickly she falls into a routine.

She goes to school, bickers with Shelby, has lunch with her friends, goes to practice, calls Marty, has awkward interactions with Dennis over dinner, and falls asleep exhausted.

She even takes up going for runs on the weekend to stay busy. She actually feels at peace most of the time too. The only times she gets worked up or angry is with Shelby and Dennis, but she just goes and runs it off each time, an idea that Clark actually suggests to her after the big fight with Shelby on Friday.

She wasn't going to tell them anything, she didn't see the point, Mr Johnson wasn't going to call them so she could get away scot-free. But then her mind starts racing about what might happen if they find out so she decided to just rip the Band-Aid off.

After breakfast Saturday morning she waited for Dennis to leave the table and told them.

"Uh so, something happened at school yesterday that I thought I should maybe tell you?"

Clark puts down his newspaper and Jenna places the dishes down in the sink before returning to the table, "Go on," Clark says, taking his glasses off.

"So you know how I mentioned I've been getting into a few arguments with Shelby Goodkind, things escalated a bit the other day, and I- I wasn't going to tell you because we got off with just a warning, but I figured if something like this happened again, and they brought up this incident to you guys, it wouldn't look great for me,"

"That's probably a good idea Toni," Clark says seriously.

Jenna smiles softly, "Do you want to tell us anymore about what happened."

"Honestly, it was probably mostly my fault in- in hindsight. She just, she really gets under my skin, and I guess I kind of crossed a line, pushed her buttons intentionally , and it turned kind of physical. She just, she gets me so worked up because she acts like she's so perfect and like she's better than me and-" she catches herself ranting and tries to calm herself down a bit, "and I guess I just, I can't control myself you know, it gets to a point where I just kind of lose myself in it a bit."

Jenna and Clark share a glance, and Jenna takes the lead, "Well we appreciate you telling us, we understand that you struggle with...keeping your cool sometimes, I think maybe it's time we talked about some ways you can cope with this a bit better."

Toni nods, biting down on her lip, feeling slightly ashamed.

"Maybe Clark could help with that, he's met plenty of young people who needs this kind of support, right Clark?"

"Yes, yes that's true. Though admittidly most of them end up reoffending and ending up in juvie," he scrunches his eyebrows as he thinks about it then turns to Toni, seeing her concerned look, "Not that you'd go to juvie of course, you're nothing like those kids. Not that those kids have anything wrong with them, most of them just come form troubled homes you know? It's the adult offenders I have the most issues wi-"

"Clark! Honey, getting off track here."

"Right yes of course, well, sorry about that tangent."

Toni smiles slightly, stifling a laugh.

"Well you're into basketball aren't you, so how about running? When you get worked up or in your head, just go for a run, sprint it all out of your body."

So that's what she starts doing. Every weekend. And sometimes after a particularly aggravating altercation with Shelby, she'd run right home, burn it all off before calling Marty.

And after a week of this routine, she can feel the anger dissipate away before she even starts running.

But a couple Wednesdays later, Andrew gets involved.

She's leaving her last class of the day, ready to grab her bag and head to basketball training- Andrew and his cohort of Proud Boys, (maybe not explicitly so, but Toni gets the vibe), are stood around Shelbys locker, which means they're practically stood around Toni's locker too.

She puts her head down, trying to ignore them, when her foot gets caught on something and she goes tumbling onto the floor.

The group laugh, and she looks back at them, seeing it was Ryans foot she happened to trip on.

"Woah Shalifoe, careful there."

She gets back on her feet. "Just leave me alone man."

"Or what." He says pulling her by the shoulder, forcing her to face them. Finally looking at the group, she see's Shelby in the middle, staring at her. Toni furrows her eyebrows at Shelby, and Shelby just stares back, her mouth slightly downturned, her eyes wide, but she doesn't say a word.

"Stop staring at my girlfriend faggot."

He shoves her shoulder, Shelby drops her eyes to the ground, and Toni finally rips her eyes away from Shelby, focusing on Andrew.

"What did you call me?"

"I called you a faggot. A dyke. A fucking bitch-"

Toni spits in his face, and immediately Andrew swings, punching her hard, her body falling to the ground, her head hitting the floor hard.

Shelby gasps at the noise when it does. She doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know what she CAN do. So she just keeps watching.

Toni picks herself back up, gently touching her eye, it already feels warm, the pain already pulsating.

"You're a real asshole you know."

"Oh boohoo, the freak dyke doesn't like me, whatever will I do."

The group laugh again and Shelby just stares at the ground, hugging her books close to her chest. Toni glares at her willing her to look back, to say something- fuck even laughing at her would make her less of a fucking coward.

But there's nothing.

Toni picks up her bag off the floor and swings it onto her back, she storms through the group, muttering 'bitch' as she slams her shoulder into Shelbys.

She heads to the locker room, and gets changed with the rest of the girls. They're all chatty and excited, the team has their first match in a week, but Tonis mood is ruined. She just breathes heavily, and tightly laces her shoes. Nobody bothers her, they've learnt by now that her mood can swing either way. They also know that todays training is going to push them a whole lot harder.

When she's in a good mood she plays her best, but when she's in a bad mood she plays her hardest.

And today she proves them right, she doesn't slow down for even one second. Whenever coach blows a whistle, she stays in her corner and stretches- Rachel and Dot leaving her to it, instead talking with Fatin about some upcoming parties and get togethers.

After a 90 minute practice, she feels slightly better, but still decides to run back instead of take the bus or get picked up. As all the girls file out of the room, she reties the laces of her shoes, plugs her earphones in and starts running the 3 miles back.

And by the time she's unlocking the front door, she's pushed it out of her mind, and just looking forward to calling Marty tonight.

When Coach asked about the forming bruise under her eye she said she walked into a tree, and when Jenna asks about her black eye, she says it happened in basketball.

Shelby keeps replaying it over in her mind. She couldn't defend her to Andrew without him getting weird about it, or it getting back to her father.

The look of Tonis face when she was on the floor, staring at her. She can't get it out of her mind. Shelby feels so darn guilty. She just let Andrew assault Toni. You know it's different when they fought, it wasn't one sided, they were similar heights, they both had equal chances, but Andrew is far taller, and he was surrounded by 4 of his mates, she was completely outnumbered.

And Shelby didn't do anything.

Come Friday, she knows she has to say something, she gets to Chemistry early and sets up her gear ready for Toni to arrive. She runs through what to say in her head, but when Toni sits down next to her she's just not sure what to say.

She keeps glancing over at Toni but not once does Toni glance back. The class is working in silence and she doesn't want to cause a scene so she just doesn't say anything for a while. After 30 minutes or so they're instructed to work together and Shelby realises this is her chance to apologise. The class starts filling with low chatter and Shelby takes a deep breath turning to Toni.

Toni doesn't acknowledge her at first, and Shelby's just staring at the bruise on her eye that Andrew left. The swelling has gone down, but yellow has seeped into the brown.

"Look Toni I'm-"

"Don't you fucking dare Goodkind." Toni spits out from behind gritted teeth, turning for the first time towards Shelby, her face just making her more angry.

"Toni please, I really am-"

"Shut uuup Shelby."

"I'm sorry." She forces through to Toni, sighing when she finally gets it out.

"Bullshit."

"What?"

"Bull. Shit."

Shelby looks at her shocked, Toni glances at her, her eyes searching her face, "You know what Shelby, you're not sorry. You feel guilty. You feel guilty because you could've stopped him and you didn't, so I'm not gonna give you the satisfaction and forgive you. Next time, fucking do something with your privilege."

Shelby stares at her, upset at Tonis words, and Toni doesn't falter, just stares right back.

"Anything else or can I go back to work?"

Shelby doesn't say anything, and just watches as Toni turns back to her book, her eyebrows furrowed as Shelby watches her actually work for once. It takes her like ten minutes but she does complete a question correctly. Which is more than Shelby can say for herself. She just spends the entire hour building up the courage to say something.

The bell rings at the end of class and Toni starts packing up, ready to head to basketball practice, and run off the anger thats been building for the past hour sat next to Shelby. But she's gotta say something to her. She physically can't help herself. The class starts to empty and Shelby's about to stand up to leave, but before she can Toni slams her hand down in front of her, getting her attention.

"You know what bothers me about you Shelby. It's not that you're homophobic, I'm in a church town in Texas, I expected there to be homophobes here. No what bothers me is you can't own it. You can't own your homophobia. You pretend you do love everybody and hate the sin love the sinner whatever. But you also can't own that, you can't stand up for people. You're a coward Shelby. You don't believe in anything. Your buddies were laughing at me. Your boyfriend fucking attacked me. And tell me Goodkind. What did you do."

Shelby watches Toni intently and swallows harshly, shaking head, she's not a coward. She's just in a situation that Toni could never understand.

"I didn't laugh at you." She says quietly.

Toni can't help but laugh, a single bark, "Quite the fucking ally you are." At this Toni storms off.

Shelby watches Toni leave, and glances back at her desk, she starts putting her books away and makes eye contact with Mr Johnson who gives her a questioning look, she just smiles and hurries off. Not wanting to throw anybody under the bus.

As she's rushing out to her car she bumps into Andrew.

"Woah where you off to in a hurry Shelby."

"I'm going home, I- I need to lie down."

He lets her pass and she continues a few steps. But it bothers her that her own boyfriend doesn't even care enough to ask what's wrong. And she's thinking about what Toni says. That's shes a coward. That she doesn't believe in anything.

Well Tonis wrong. She believes in a lot of things. She believes in kindness, and compassion, and love, and standing up for what you believe in, and she believes that if God spoke to her right now, he would say that she's letting herself down by not following through, and therefore letting him down.

She spins on her heel and looks at Andrew. He doesn't notice her at first so she just...starts talking.

"Andrew I- I think what you did to Toni the other day was pretty nasty."

He turns slowly to her looking confused.

"What?"

"I just- I don't know why you can't just leave the girl alone. She was mindin' her business, and you acted real immature."

"Shelby what are you on about. She's a freak. A nobody. She's a fricking sinner Shelby. You of all people should understand by that."

Shelby's eyes crack open wide, "wh-what do you mean."

"You dads the pastor Shelby. You know what he has to say about girls like her. She's not worth shit."

"Right- right yeah well. If you're treating her this way because of the bible, the bible also says to be kind to people. It's not your job to judge Andrew, it's God's."

"Jesus Christ shelby why are you defending the dyke. I thought you didn't even like her?? Just let it go dude."

She recoils at this, eyebrows furrowed, nose scrunched "Don't call me dude I'm your girlfriend."

"Yeah well sometimes it's real hard to tell isn't it." At this he storms off, leaving her in his wake.

She doesn't feel better having stood up to him. In fact it kind of feels like she's at the bottom of the pit.

Everybody hates her. She has no friends. She hardly has a boyfriend.

She's tryna focus on the positive but honestly she can't see how her life could get any worse than it is right now.

Chapter Text

At 6:00 sharp Monday morning, Shelby turns off her alarm, throws off her duvet and starts getting ready. After showering, dressing and packing her bag, Shelby sits in front of her mirror, applying mascara lightly to her already blooming eyelashes.

Then her door slams open, giving her the fright of her life and causing her to draw a line of mascara all the way down her right cheek.

"WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?"

Her father says, looming over her holding a crumpled piece of letter.

She turns to face him, terrified of how angry he looks.

"I-I don't know what it is?"

He throws the paper at her, but it falls short onto the floor.

Confused and scared, she slowly reaches down to the paper.

Shelby,

I know it's been a while.

It's Becca. I know we can't text but I wanted to get in touch.

Before she can read on he grabs the paper back from her.

"HAVE YOU TWO BEEN TALKING? EVEN AFTER I FORBID IT."

"Daddy no, no I swear." Her bottom lip wobbles as her voice quivers, "I-I genuinley have no idea why she's wrote me that."

"SO SHE JUST WROTE YOU A LETTER OUTA THE BLUE? YOU DO NOT LIE TO ME SHELBY. AS LONG AS YOU LIVE UNDER MY ROOF, YOU DO AS I SAY."

"Daddy please, please I promise," She stands up, tears starting to roll down her face, "I would never disobey you, I- I know the rules."

"Dave," Jobeth says quietly from the doorway, arms crossed over her chest, pulling her cardigan in close, "C'mon we both know she wouldn't do that."

"SHUT UP JOBETH. YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN FAR TOO SOFT ON HER."

Jobeth flinches at his yelling, stepping back, but still watching.

Daves face is still full of anger, his jaw firm, but he takes a breath before continuing, "Go to school Shelbs, I will be searching your room."

Shelby doesn't move at first, frozen in fear. Still getting over the initial shock of everything.

"I SAID GO."

"yes sir," she whispers before grabbing her bag and running out of the room. Tears now streaming down her face.

She slams the door of her car, and races to school, not giving herself even a moment to pause.
Because if she pauses she will break down.

And her makeup is already ruined.

Why was Becca writing her a letter.

What could she possibly be saying.

Surely she knows her dad opens all her mail before she gets a chance.

What could possibly be worth it.

She'll never know whats in that letter. She's sure the letter will be burnt by the time she's got home.

She pulls into the school park, and pulls into her parking spot. Dave sent her to school about 30 minutes earlier than usual, and even then she's normally the first person there.

So she lets herself just cry.

Her shoulders heave, and she grips at her hair as she sobs into to the steering wheel.

Her fathers face runs through her mind, his bright red, veiny face, in her face. Screaming.

Just like when he first found out about the incident.

The kiss.

She doesn't know if she's for sure gay. She tries not to think about it as much as possible, so she hasn't had the time or space to actually imagine if that's who she is.

She has however been able to think about what that would mean for her.

She wouldn't have a family anymore. A friend. A community.

So of course she tries not to even entertain the idea.

But all she can think about is how, although she has in a way lost Becca, she could have lost her forever because of all of this.

Why do I have to be like this. Why can't I just be happy with Andrew.

But Andrew isn't enough.

She slams her hands on the steering wheel before slamming her head back against the headrest.

She see's another car pull into the car park, and slows down to take a deep breath.

She quickly wipes her tears as she see's Toni jump out of a car, wave, and walk towards the school, while the car drives away.

Because of course it would be Toni.

Once Tonis disappeared into the building she opens her mirror.

She wipes away the mascara thats now all over her face, and pulls her travel makeup bag out from the glove compartment, and wipes her face clean, deciding it would just be easier to start again.

She tries to move quickly, and after ten minutes she's done the best she can.

There's still very evident red circles around her eyes, and her eyes match the red, so there's not much else she can do about that.

She takes a deep breath, and steps out of her car, the car park now slightly busier, but still fairly empty considering class doesn't start for another 10 minutes.

She walks straight to Chemistry and is the first one there.

"Good Morning Mr Johnson," She says with a small smile, not being able to muster the big grin she normally offers the hallways of the school.

"Morning Shelby, good weekend?"

"As good as I could ask for, how about you?" She takes a seat, and starts unpacking.

"Can't complain," He takes a proper look at her face, which is easy enough considering her desk is right in front of his.

"Are you alright Shelby?" He asks, sounding purely genuine.

She takes a deep breath, "Just got the monday blues," She tries to joke,

"But I'm fine thank you for asking."

She sniffles slightly, as she sits on her phone. Mr Johnson, setting up the lesson on the board.

After a few minutes of scrolling mindlessly on instagram, the room starts to fill up.

Toni takes her seat, dumping her bag on the floor.

"Shelby."

"Toni."

She says without glancing up. Just returning her phone to her bag, and picking up her pen ready to make notes.

The girls sit in silence, but she can see Tonis constant glancing out of the corner of her eyes.

She can probably tell she's been crying. Lord it's so embarrassing.

After a few moments of low chatter in the room, Toni finally pipes up.

"Shelby you kno-"

Before she can finish, Shelby slams her hand down and glares at her,

"Not today Toni, I swear to God, any other day, fine rip into me. But I can't do this with you today so don't even try."

Toni looks taken back, and Shelby stays in place, her nostrils flaring as she stares right into her eyes, her eyebrows furrowed.

And Toni finally notices that the girl has clearly been crying.

"Jesus Christ Shelby, I was just going to say you've got some mascara on your shirt, save you from looking like a fucking moron for the rest of the day. But fuck me right."

Toni turns away and starts scribbling away in her notebook.

"Oh. Sorry."

Shelby pulls her hand back and finds the mark on her shirt, scratching at it until it fades, embarrassed at her outburst, but thankful that Toni seems to be leaving her alone now.

The rest of the class goes past quietly. Toni and Shelby sit in silence.

And as the bell rings to signal the end of class, Toni grabs her stuff, and accidently smacks her bag into Shelby's arm as she walks past.

"Christ," She says rubbing her arm after Toni's left the room.

"Shelby, front and centre, c'mon."

She looks up at the teacher, and sighs. She packs her bag, and walks to the front, while the class empties.

"What's wrong Shelby. I catch you fighting the other day, which is incredibly out of character for you, now you come in today clearly upset. What's going on?"

"I um- I don't know if I want to talk about it," She picks at her nail as she talks.

"I understand, but I'm worried about you Shelby. Clearly something is wrong."

They stand in silence for a moment so he takes a deep breath,

"I understand if you don't want to talk to me about it. But do you have somebody you can talk to? Maybe I can set up a meeting with the school counsellor."

She shakes her head, as a tears start springing to the edge of her eyes, "I'm fine sir, really, I-" she clears her throat, "I just need to get out of here."

He stares at her for a moment, his arms crossed, his stare serious, but his mouth offering a tight lipped smile, "Alright, you go ahead go to class,"

Shelby thanks him and leaves, breathing in deep. Trying to refocus.

The more people who ask if she's okay, the higher the chances there are of a complete mental breakdown.

She spends the next eight hours simultaneously wishing the time would go faster she could get out of here and have sone peace, and willing time top stop so she doesn't ever have to go home. Her fingers stay fiddling with the cross around her neck.

It doesn't bring her the same level of comfort as it used to. But it's something to do, and the repetitive movement eventually calms her. As the final bells rings she heads out to her car, she see's Andrew but her only glances at her before walking away, and Shelby is really not in the mood to even pretend to care about his temper tantrum. Nothing new anyway, every time she shoots him down, or cancels plans- it's like dealing with a 7 year old.

She gets in her car and immediately starts driving, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. But she doesn't go home.

Not yet.

As soon as she gets home her dad will be on her case from sunrise to sunset. That's how he works.

He'd have had all day to mull over that letter and come up with a way to steer her away from 'that lifestyle' and she just needs a moment alone to think about everything.

She drives out the school car park and starts heading in the direction of home, but before she reaches the rows of houses she takes a left, after a few minutes she finds herself at the bottom of the familiar dirt road coming off the main one, she drives another minute before parking and climbing out of her car. She pulls out her phone and sets a timer for 15 minutes, she doesn't want to be too late home. As long as she's home by 30 minutes after the last bell, her father tends not to question her. Shelby looks up the hill in front of her, making sure nobody is up there, before trekking up it.

She gets to the top and sits on the swing attached to the large tree, gently kicking off the ground so she sways back and forth.

She used to take Becca up here. As kids they'd take turns pushing each other on the swing, and as teenagers they would take their homework up or bring a picnic and spend hours talking and laughing.

Shelby's always favoured being outside over inside, especially over being at home. She always feels trapped there, like she can never be herself. Always having to be the version of her that her father approves of.

Never laughing too loudly, never eating too much, never slouching, never crying, never having fun.

Or never having fun without him.

She's allowed some good old fashioned family fun; board games and movies and making dinner with her mom.

But spending too much time alone, or too much time with her friends, too much time not focusing on school, and church, and family, and pageants- they're all BIG no no's.

Tears start collecting in the corner of her eye as she thinks about all the pressure she's constantly under to be perfect. Or at least her fathers idea of perfect.

Shelby's idea of perfect is very different. Perfect would be seeing Becca again, perfect would be moving out, living on a farm with cows and sheep and pigs and fields and fields of green. Perfect would be being able to kiss a girl, and not immediately be told it's wrong. But instead actually getting to figure out if that's who she is.

And thats what pushes the tears over the edge and down her cheek.

Because she wants to be able to know who she is and love who she loves. But she doesn't even have the space to find out here. And until she leaves her fathers voice behind, telling her it's a sin, and telling her it'll be lonely- she can't leave her own little voice alone, the one that hides at the back of her mind until she thinks about girls that way, the one that made its way to the front of her head that first day in Chemistry when she couldn't keep her eyes or her hands off of Toni.

This is wrong. It doesn't matter that she's pretty this is wrong. I'm disgusting. God would never forgive me. My friends would never forgive me. My parents would never forgive me.

The one that appeared that day she kissed Becca.

She's jolted from her thoughts suddenly when the alarm on her phone rings loudly, buzzing against her thigh.

She quickly wipes her eyes, concsious that anybody could be around.

She turns off the alarm, glances around, and heads back to her car.

On the drive home she focuses on her breathing, just trying to stay calm, and stop the waterworks.

She's dreading seeing her father. The look on his face when he stormed in this morning still imprinted on her mind.

But she really can't put it off any longer.

She pulls into her spot on the driveway, turns off the engine, and takes one more deep breath in before heading into the house.

She quietly pokes her head round the corner of the door, nobody is in sight yet, she moves further into the house, taking off her shoes and placing them on the shoe rack. She heads to the stairs, sure she can make it to her room before her dad realises she's home.

But unfortunately luck is not on her side.

"Shelby,"

She spins around and see's Dave sat on the couch, bottle of water in hand.

"Daddy, h-hey" her voice wobbles slightly as she speaks, she clears her throat, trying to hide the fear she feels talking to her own father.

"I think we've got a few things to talk about don't you agree?"

She doesn't say anything to this, just stands perfectly still.

"Lets head into my office." He stands up and walks past her, pushing through the double doors behind her to his office. After a beat she turns and follows, leaving her rucksack at the bottom of the stairs.

By the time she's joined him he's taking a seat behind his desk.

The desk is made of ebony wood, its a dark brown, and takes up half the room, his chair a dark red leather. Shelby can't help but feel like she's in The Godfather when she walks in.

Not that she's ever been allowed to watch The Godfather, her father says its violent, and crude, and that it 'insists upon itself', she doesn't really know what that means considering she's never seen it- but it sounds more like an opinion, so she can only assume her dad has broken his own rules before and watched it himself.

Dave points at the chair on the other side of the desk, encouraging her sit down.

It's always seemed strange to her that conversations with her own father often feels like a meeting with a boss. It definitely intentional, a way to be in control.

Dave breathes in slowly, watching his daughter intently, not saying anything for a couple moments.

Before finally his voice comes out, calm and steady.

"I may have overreacted this mornin' though I'm sure you understand why. I checked your room and I talked to your mother and I've realised that you are likely telling the truth."

"I was daddy, I swear on the Bible, that letter came out of nowhe-" He holds his hand up to silence her, and she stops in her tracks.

"However, you can never be too certain. So I'm instilling a few new house rules. You hand in your phone every night, and if you've added a password there will be trouble. You are home by 3:45 every afternoon, and you are at home until you leave for school or church the next morning. No exceptions without my permission. Speaking of church, I don't think you've been givin' it enough of your time recently Shelby, so every Wednesday after school is over you'll be joining the church youth group for their weekly session, honestly I should have enrolled you sooner, I just thought with pageants it would be too much for you and that's my bad."

Shelby basically watches her freedom drip away as Dave continues to rattle off all his rules one by one.

She didn't even do anything, and yet from now she'll basically be living in North Korea.

After two more minutes of him talking about all the ways he's gonna be controlling her from now on, she can't take it anymore.

She stands up abruptly, not thinking, and he stops midsentence.

"I've been slacking Shelby, and that's because I thought we had a mutual respect thing going on, but trust me when I say, I will be keeping a closer eye on y-- I'm sorry have you got somewhere better to be."

"Sorry daddy I just, I think I'm all caught up, I know your new expectations of me, and I was really hoping I could go for a run before dinner as it's already getting dark out."

Dave clasps his hands together, leaning forward on his elbows and sighs deeply into his hands as he thinks.

His gaze falls onto his desk for a moment before leaning back and regaining eye contact with Shelby.

"Sure thing sweetheart." For the first time he smiles, but as always theres nothing genuine about it.

Shelby feels uneasy as she watches his face, but is nonetheless grateful that he said yes,

"Thank you,"

"You have 30 minutes from the second you step out the front door. See you at dinner Shelby, and close the door behind you."

Shelby steps outside his office, shutting the door carefully behind her. Once she's out of his gaze she releases a deep breath.

Surprisingly that went far better than she imagined.

Chapter Text

Toni blasts Kanye in her headphones as she sprints through town. She turns to the volume up on full to drown out all her thoughts.

She wants to just- not think of anything for once.

She finds herself at the edge of a wooded area, and slows down to a jog as she runs through, it's getting dark out so she wants to make sure she doesn't get lost or anything.

As she gets more comfortable on the path, she picks up her pace, returning to a sprint as she reaches the peak of her workout playlist, black skinhead rings through her headphones.

But her foot latches on a branch on the floor that she didn't notice and she topples over, rolling into a hedge. "AH FUCK."

She lies in the hedge for a moment, accepting that this might just be life now.

After the song ends, she starts getting up, fighting with the bush, struggling her way out of it.

"Fucks sake," She mutters under her breath.

"Hello? Is- is somebody there?" A soft texan accent calls out.

"Great. Fucking great." Toni mumbles, immediatly recognising the voice.

She finally clambers out of the bush and brushes off the leaves from her body.

"Oh. Toni."

"No need to sound so disappointed."

"I- I'm not, sorry. I just, are you alright?"

Her voice stays soft, not escalating as it usally does during their encounters. Toni looks at her, and even in the dark she can see the same red circles around her eyes as she had this morning.

It was clear she'd been crying again but Toni wasn't gonna say anything.

"I'm fine, I just, I tripped and fell into the bush."

Shelby lets out a laugh and immediatly slams her hands over her mouth.

"I'm glad its entertaining for you Goodkind."

She lowers her hands and bites down on her bottom lip to stop from smiling.

"I'm sorry. I- it's not funny, i'm sorry."

"Damn rights its not fucking funny, why are you still smiling."

"You've just..." She points awkwardly, "You've got a twig in your hair."

Toni grabs it and throws it off to the side. "Fuck off Shelby."

"Sorry I just- didn't want you looking like a git all day." She says with a smile.

Toni just glares at her.

"Isn't it crazy how- you hate me. And, well I'm not your biggest fan, yet we keep bumping into each other."

"Yeah really fucking crazy. It's like you're obsessed with me or something."

Shelby smiles again.

Toni breathes hard, trying to calm down. Clearly Shelby isn't looking for a fight today.

"What's got you all chipper. You've been miserable all day."

The smile slides off her face.

"Yeah, I don't know. I guess just. Being out of the house, in the fresh air. It's like, the place I'm happiest."

Toni goes to give a snarky comment about not wanting to hear her life story, or something like that.

But she has to admit, this is the happiest and freest she's ever seen Shelby look. She's not seen her smile seem so genuine since that first chemistry class.

"Why do you hate me Toni."

She breaks the silence.

"You know why I hate you."

"I've told you I'm not like...homophobic."

"Jesus Shelby, you cant even say homo without clamming up." She steps closer. "How the fuck do you expect me to believe that you don't hate gays, when you've grown up in that house, and whenever anything gay gets mentioned you get visibly uncomfortable."

Shelby glances down, fighting her natural instinctive look around for a sign of people who could overhear.

"I'm- I'm not Toni I swear I just-"

"Just what?" Toni says taking another step closer, till their withing arms length of each other. "Just, 'hate the sin love the sinner'? Just sit by while your boyfriend all of his friends outwardly hate on gay people."

"I- I don't have a choice Toni, you- you don't understand." Her voice starts shaking, but she refuses to cry.

"It's far more complicated than you seem to believe."

"Try me Shelby. Trust me I know what a complicated life is. I could be put on the fucking brochuer for it."

Toni's jaw is firm as she looks up at Shelby, inches away from each other now.

Shelby looks at Toni. Her eyes wide, glancing all overs Tonis face, landing on her brown eyes. Her breaths are shaky, "i-"

She takes a deep breath, and lets her eyes fall to Toni lips.

"Exactly, you can't even expl-"

She surges forward, taking Toni's face in her hands, and shutting her eyes tight as she takes Toni's lips in hers.

Toni doesn't move for a moment, and Shelby is about to pull back, preparing herself to frantically apologise, when Toni's hands fall to Shelby's waist, pulling her closer.

Toni doesn't really know whats going on. Of all things to happen with Shelby, this was not even in the top ten list. Killing each other was higher.

But fuck she's beautiful, and fuck her lips are soft.

She pulls her slightly closer at the hip as her mind finally shuts off of for a moment. No thoughts no feelings just...Shelby.

Shelby's mind on the other hand is screaming at her pull away pull away PULL AWAY

But Toni's grip on her waist is making her brain go blurry, 5 seconds feel like 50, and those thoughts fade away as all she can focus on is how cold Toni's cheeks are, but how warm her lips are, how soft this all is, how much better this is than any kiss she's shared with Andrew.

There's no stubble itching at her chin, her lips- though chapped- aren't dry, and she actually feels like she's drunk a glass of water in the last week. Andrew always seems to be insanely dehydrated.

She can feel Toni move her hand up her back and she moves naturally with it.

But just as fast as it started, it ended.

A rustle in the trees behind them shocks Shelby, she pulls back suddenly, eyes wide and frantic.

Her hands are still on Tonis face as she looks around for the sound. Her eyes fall back onto Toni, who staring at her, mouth open, not a single thought behind her eyes.

"Christ," Shelby says, before dragging herself away from Toni and sprinting off in the opposite direction.

It takes a moment for Toni to snap back into action, storing away the kiss to process later before running after Shelby.

"SHELBY. SHELBY!"

Her voice cracks on the second call.

She sprints after her, catching up with her for a second, almost having her in reach, when Shelby jumps over a log, that Toni- once again didn't notice, and topples over it.

She bounces back faster than last time, but Shelbys already out of the woods, and she knows better than to scream her name in the middle of town.

She keeps running though, right up until Shelby turns into a driveway, and runs straight inside, only glancing back once, when putting her keys in the lock.

Toni stops in her tracks. Almost toppling over at the sudden stop in speed. She stares at the house for a second, allowing herself to get her breath back.

What the actual fuck.

After one final deep breath, she drags her eyes away from the front door and looks around, trying to figure out where she's ended up.

She recognises where she is, which she considers to be fairly impressive considering how identical every street is in this suburban neighbourhood.

She turns the corner and gets back to her street. Turns out she's only like a 2 minute walk from Shelbys house. In fact, she realises as she unlocks the door to her house, her back garden must lead onto Shelbys neighbours' back garden.

With this knowledge she does look out the back window to see if theres any sign of Shelby over there- but to no avail.

She wanders around downstairs, checking to see if anybody's up so she can tell them she's home. But downstairs is empty, so she goes up to her room and just collapses on her bed.

She lays there, star-fished on the mattress staring up at the ceiling.

What the actual fuck just happened.

Is Shelby...gay?

No right. Like thats insane.

Well it's not that insane.

A lot of homophobic people have gay kids. It's not unheard of in the slightest.

But maybe she was just experimenting.

Not that Toni has turned down many experimenting girls, but this is different.

There's a chance Shelby was doing it just to get Toni to shut up. To prove to herself that she was right and that Toni IS obsessed with her.

Not that Toni's obsessed with her. That's fucking sad.

She just thinks she's insanely hot and can't stop thinking about her, and hates her for it.

A healthy amount of obsessed.

Everybody needs to be a little bit obsessed with somebody. Perfectly normal behaviour.

God Monday morning is gonna be sooo fucking awkward.

Toni can't decide if she should try talk to Shelby or if that will just make it worse. What would she even say to her?

I mean there's not much to say.

"Hey so should I still hate you and verbally attack you every time I see you, or can I pine over you in a normal way now?"

She groans and drags herself to the shower, wanting to wash away all her murky, confused thoughts.

But as the water runs over her body all she's thinking about is that damn kiss.

Shelby steps out of her shower, and moves to her desk, towel still wrapped around her waist. She stares at her reflection, but hardly see's herself, she is freaking the fuck out.

This is like, the one thing she was trying to avoid until at least she went to college.

And Toni of all people?

She touches her lips gently, letting herself relive those few seconds in her mind again.

She wants to tell herself that the only reason she kissed Toni was because of all her pent up energy, and emotion, and Toni just happened to be there when it spilt out.

But then she thinks of that first day in the canteen. When that ten seconds of eye contact felt like her life changed entirely.

When she couldn't keep her hands off her in Chemistry, just because she wanted to feel her skin.

And lying in bed that night, watching the video of Toni dancing around singing Careless Whisper.

So maybe, maybe it wasn't just wrong place wrong time.

But that doesn't matter. Really none of that matters.

Any occasion where she kisses a girl is a bad occasion.

But right now? When her dad is right on her tail everywhere she goes.

It doesn't matter that she was in the woods, anybody could have been there. Anybody could have seen her. It was stupid, and careless.

And she needs to up her game. Be on her toes. Be more aware. Have some darn self control.

She's just gonna have to avoid Toni at all costs. And pray to God that Toni gets the message.

And hope to God this whole letter thing blows over in a couple days.

For the entire weekend, Shelby is on fucking edge. Every time her father calls her name, her hands start shaking, and her brain starts going a million miles a minute.

Her dad comes in her room every 30 minutes, if she goes anywhere he asks a million questions. On Saturday evening she was drivin' to the gym, got stuck in a nasty traffic jam, and after 5 minutes of sitting in one place on a random road, he immediatly facetimed her to make sure she "wasn't anywhere you shouldn't be."

He also checked her phone several times on both days just in case.

And on Sunday morning he made a last minute change to his sermon, choosing something that felt....somewhat targeted.

"I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Romans, chapter 1 and follow along as I read verse 24-27. 'Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error."

For the next 30 minutes he talked about how homosexuality is a sin, but the people who partake in said sin, still deserve love, and guidance.

So basically spot on what Toni said the other night. Hate the sin. Love the sinner.

Throughout the whole sermon, Shelby ensures she keeps her head high, nodding along to what her father said, making eye contact with him, as he constantly looked over to her when driving a point home.

But behind the restricted view of the pew in front of her, her hands were writhing in her lap, taking off her rings and putting them back on, over and over again.

After her mom glanced over to see her fidgeting, she held her daughters hands in one of her own, and gave her a sad smile.

Shelby smiled back, rolled her neck out, and just tried to sit still for the rest.

After it ended, Shelby, Jobeth, and her two siblings rode home in one of their cars. Dave often came home an hour or so later on Sundays, so Shelby could relax in peace for the first time in two days.

As soon as she got home, she changed into her pink sweatpants and matching hoodie, with her name embroided in the corner. Something her mother gifted after her most recent Pageant winner.

She put her headphones on, turned on the soundproof setting, and listened to Taylor Swift, just staring up at her ceiling.

In a mood like this, Shelby would normally listen to Billie Eilish. But since she came out as queer, and started making songs about it. Well she got banned in this household pretty quick.

Dave has a very strict list of media they can consume. And unfortunately that had to include one of her favourite artists.

She closes her eyes and listens to treacherous a tear starts to slide down her face when she feels one side of her bed weigh down slightly. She opens her eyes suddenly, and see's her mom sitting at the edge of her bed.

She takes off her headphone and quickly wipes the tear away. "hi mom," She sits up slightly, leaning against her headboard.

Jobeth lays her hand gently on Shelbys shin and strokes it with her thumb.

"I tried knocking but I don't think you heard. How you doing baby?"

"I'm alright,"

Jobeth sighs deeply, watching Shelby intently.

After a moment of silence, Shelby starts feeling a bit awkward, "Whats up mom."

"I just, I wanted to check in on you. I know the last few days, you fathers been quite hard on you."

"I swear, mom I have no idea why she sent me that letter."

Jobeth shakes her head slowly, "You don't have to explain yourself to me Shelby. I love you so much. And I know your father does too. He just, he thinks he's protecting you."

Shelby looks down at her hands, and starts playing with her rings again.

She takes a deep breath and looks up at her mom, before saying very quietly, "Did you see what the letter said?" After a short pause she rushes to correct herself, "It's not like- I don't want to know for any of those reasons, it's just- she was my best friend. And I've been worried about her. You know with how we left off and all."

"I know sweetie, I know. Unfortunately your father burned the letter, otherwise I would show it you because, you're all grown now, and you deserve your privacy. But it was mostly just checking in on you, and she's starting her new school soon up in Minnesota or something."

She nods, "thank you."

"Of course sweetie. Just know-" She pauses for a moment, thinking over her words, "I'm here for you always okay, I know your father might not be somebody you can talk to, but I promise I am. You could say anything to me, I won't stop loving you."

Shelby swallows harshly and stares at her mom. She knows what she's getting at, but she can't.

So instead she starts crying, she covers her face with her hands as she starts sobbing. Jobeth immediately shuffles up, and pulls Shelby into a hug.

Shelby cries into Jobeths chest, and Jobeth, tries hard not to cry too.

"I'm so sorry honey. You deserve better than this."

At this Shelby starts crying harder, her whole body shaking now. Jobeth gently strokes her head, kissing her hairline every now and then. And they stay like that for five minutes, until they hear the second car pull into the driveway and the front door opens.

Shelby pulls back, still shaking. She tries to stop crying, sniffing agressivley.

Jobeth wipes away the mascara that has pooled under her eyes. Or tries to at least.

This girl needs some waterproof mascara ASAP, she can NOT keep doing this.

Daves walks up the stairs and enters Shelbys room immediately at the sound of the sniffles and cries.

"What's goin' on in here?"

He asks, when he see's his daughter curled up in his wife's arms.

His tone doesn't sound caring though. Just his usual constant suspicion.

"Don't worry about it Dave, I've got it covered, just some boyfriend drama."

"Well now I'm curious." He sits down at the foot of the bed. "Whats going on with Andrew honey?" His tone not wavering from the same stern tone.

Shelby scrambles to think of something that goes along with Jobeth's lie. And then remembers the reason she should probably actually be upset about, but has completely forgot about since her big fight with Toni, and the letter and...the other thing.

"I um- I think he might be cheating on me."

"Well now that doesn't sound like Andrew, he's a real gentleman,"

Shelby has to fight back a scoff at the way he's immediately defending him over his own daughter.

"You might be right, but I've heard a few things, and I'm just real worried it might be true."

"Well you know what the Bible says about gossip Shelby. I'm sure it's nothing more than teenagers saying stuff for the sake of saying stuff. If I know Andrew, I know that he loves you very much."

"But he doesn't respect me," She says quickly, shutting her mouth quickly. Talking back to her dad won't get her on very good terms with him.

He firms his jaw and breathes deeply.

"I just- he doesn't respect the boundaries I set. I know what the bible says about gossip daddy, but I also know what the bible says about waiting for marriage. And he just doesn't support that."

Dave looks at Jobeth, but when she doesn't look back he returns his glance to Shelby, "Well if you keep following the word of God, I'm sure it will all work out for you. Just give him a chance Shelby."

At this he slaps his hands on his knees and stands up, putting his weasley little grin on his face, as if 'it will work out' was some mindboggling, life-changing piece of advice.

"Well I better get some work done, Jobeth, you gonna get started on lunch?"

Jobeth keeps her eyes on Shelby for a moment, and offers her a pained smile,

"Of course honey, I'll get started in a minute,"

"Fantastic, I am ravenous! I'll see you two in a little bit,"

At this he leaves the room, closing the door behind him for once.

After they hear his footsteps go down the steps to his study Jobeth turns back to Shelby,

"Is what you said about Andrew true?"

"Yeah...you remember Dottie?"

"Tims daughter?"

Shelby Nods,

"Oh Bless her heart,"

"Well she said that she saw Andrew...doin' stuff, with another girl."

"I didn't know you two were friends?"

"Not exactly, but that girl I mentioned the other week, the one whose all mad at me, she told me that Dot told her."

"I'm sorry sweetie, you're really going through it at the moment aren't you,"

Shelby snickers at this, "You can say that."

Jobeth kisses her forehead again before standing up, "Well I better check on Spencer and Melody, do you wanna come help me with lunch?"

"Yeah sure, I just need a minute then I'll come down."

"Of course sweetie, take your time."

Shelby lies there for a moment. Thinking about what her mom said.

How maybe if she was- well.

Interested in girls.

Interested in Toni.

Maybe she wouldn't be entirely alone.

Maybe she would have her mom.

Chapter Text

I got to school twenty minutes early today as asked by the principle. I head straight to her office, and greet with the receptionist with a smile.

"Mrs Howard! How are you,"

"I'm feeling pretty good today Martha, how are you?"

"I'm great thanks, I've got a meeting with Ms Kent is she in?"

"She sure is, you can go straight through,"

"Thanks,"

I walk past the desk and knock on the door just in case.

"Come in,"

"Good Morning Ms Kent,"

"Good Morning Martha, why don't you take a seat."

I sit down and cross one leg over the other- even though I know why I'm here, I still get nervous whenever I have to sit in the principles office.

The classrooms here are very colourful and you can tell the teachers spend a lot of time on the displays, but Ms Kent keeps her walls very bare. The walls are painted white and the only decoration is her framed degree on the wall, next to a couple of grey cabinets I presume are filled with files of the students.

She puts her pen down on the desk, giving me her full attention as she leans forward on the desk.

"So our new student should be arriving in about 5 minutes. For the week I want you to stick to her like glue ok? Meet her after each class to take her to the next one, and invite her to eat lunch with you until she gets settled in and makes some new friends."

"Of course yeah,"

"She's also new to the area, so, maybe invite to show her round town,"

"Of course Miss! Sounds really exciting."

"I knew I could rely on you Martha, thank you for doing this."

"You know I love to help." She says with a smile.

There's another knock at the door. "Come in,"

I stand up as the girl enters. A small girl, around 5'4" walks in, her hair is brown and curly, her face small and round. She smiles timidly as she enters.

"Becca welcome," The principle says with a smile, "This is Martha Blackburn, she'll be showing you around this week. Martha- Rebecca Gilroy."

I reach out my hand for her to shake and make sure to give her a friendly smile, "It's nice to meet you Rebecca,"

"It's real good meeting you too," Becca reaches out her hand and we shake for a moment, her smile spreads slightly and I can tell she's already feeling slightly more comfortable, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

"I'll let you two get better acquainted in a moment, but here is your timetable, your map, and a little welcome package to help you settle in."

"Thank you so much ma'am," Becca says, taking the pack of paper from the principles hand.

"If you have any questions you can ask Martha here, or come to me or any of your teachers. Information about any clubs or sports teams can be found on the billboard outside my office."

"Alright thank you very much,"

"Fantastic, well you guys better head out, Martha can give you a tour of school before class starts. You have quite a while so should be able to see everything you need to, canteen, home room, all the tourist destinations." She finishes with a smile.

"Alright thanks Miss, we will get out of here,"

I open the door for her and follow Rebecca out into the hallway.

"So, I figure I'll show your your locker and your classrooms first so you get the general idea."

"Sounds great,"

"So Rebecca-"

"Oh you can call me Becca, everybody kinda does"

"Alright Becca, " I say with a smile, "Tell me about yourself, where are you from, because- and correct me if I'm wrong- that does not sound like a Minnesota accent."

Becca offers a small laugh, "Well that is where you're right. I am from Texas,"

"What a small world, my best friend actually just moved down there! Where in Texas are you from?"

"Fort Travis-"

"SHUT UP." I say with a grin before realising that came out a little more aggressive and a little less excited, I glance around and lower my voice, "Sorry I just- my friend, Toni, she literally moved there in September."

"Okay you know that coincidence is crazy," Becca says, grinning now too, giggling at my outburst, I smile with her.

"Well you know what that means?" I hold out my arm, and Becca loops hers through it, "It means that the universe wants us to be best friends."

Becca laughs at this, "I think I can get on board with that."

We walk down the hall arm in arm till we get to Beccas locker, talking about Texas, and her old school. "This is your locker, the pin should be in your folder. Do you have anything you want to put in it now?"

"That's alright I'll come check it out later,"

"Okie dokie, how about you show me you're timetable, and I'll take you round to your classrooms,"

Becca searches through her folder for her timetable before handing it over to me.

"Fantastic," I scan over the paper, hoping to find some classes in common, "Okay, well you've got homeroom with Mr Cannetoni so I'll take you to his class,"

We walk down the hallway, as I lead her to her homeroom "Now Mr Cannetoni, he's a pretty nice guy, but he is big on ice breakers. So get ready for that?"

"Contrevsial opinion, but I actually kind of like ice breakers, my friend back home, Shelby, she has really shone a good light on them for me,"

"Maybe when the whole class is doing them, sure- but he will make you stand up at the front...by yourself, and ask you for two truths and a lie,"

"By myself?"

"Yeah when there's a new student, he has the whole class guess,"

"That sounds slightly more daunting," Becca laughs nervously,

"Oh don't worry too much, you know in advance now so you can think of them before you get up there."

"I have a few locked away already, my church youth group back home did them a lot so hopefully will be okay?"

"You went to church?" I pause for a second cogs turning as I think back to some of the conversations I've had with Toni, "Wait your friend, Shelby? Is she the pastors daughter?"

Becca smiles slightly thinking about her, "Yeah she is- hold on how d'you know?"

I furrow my eyebrows for a moment thinking of everything Toni's told me about Shelby, not many good things admittidley, but I feel Becca's eyes on me and offer her a smile, well aware that Toni can sometimes jump to conclusions about people intentions, "I think Toni's mentioned her a couple times,"

"Oh of course, that makes sense, she's quite the outgoing type," My smile is tight lipped and I try to get a read on the girl. She seems perfectly nice, but if Shelby is as homophobic as Toni says, and if Becca was friends with her...well I don't want to be friends with a bigot. I decide to come back to it later, not wanting to treat her poorly based off assumptions.

"Well anyway- here is your homeroom, you can poke your head in it seems empty," I stand just outside while Becca takes a few steps inside and glances around, while she does that I look back down at the timetable, properly reading it this time,
"Oh great we have Math and History together! So we can just stick together for them until of course you make some new friends, I don't want to hold you back or anything, but we can just walk to those together so I won't show you those now,"

"Sounds great Martha, I really appreciate you bein' so friendly."

"Of course!" I say with a smile, leading us away from the classroom, "I know joining a new school in the middle of October must be pretty scary, but you've always got me!"

Becca smiles bigger, her eyes shining, "So what about clubs, I would love to get some extra-curriculars under my belt,"

I turn the corner and lead us up the stairs towards the science labs as I answer her question.

"Well if you're into sports, we have a great girls basketball team here, our soccer team is pretty trash admittedly but the girls there are really nice, we also have the group of cheerleaders, some of them can be pretty mean-"

"Really leanin' into the stereotypes,"

"Oh yeah, but honestly if you give them a chance a lot of them are actually pretty chill."

"What about non-sports teams?"

"Well we've got the yearbook club, which I'm in, and if you're into photography we could really use a hand, we've got a drama club, they put on two shows a year, a play in winter, and a musical in summer, the theatre kids really give it their all, it's a lot of fun to watch, so I'm sure it's even more fun to work in," I figure this is the perfect time to drop something into conversation and see how she reacts, "we've also got a GSA here, it's pretty popular here, I know it's a bit different down in Texas, but our school is very accepting here, we've only got a few trouble makers in that area."

"GSA?"

"The gay straight alliance-" I side eye Becca looking for a reaction, and I think she picks up on it because she immediately puts a smile on her face before responding enthusiastically,

"Oh that's super cool, my old school did not have that, I'm sure you can imagine, it's a pretty toxic environment when it comes to queer people...which sucks of course. But it's a super religious town, so there's not really any out people down their."

I nod along, happy at her answer.

"Yeah Toni mentioned there's quite a few people down their who treat her poorly."

"Oh I'm sorry to hear that, can't say I'm entirely surprised though."

So she's not a bigot! Always a good sign. I decide to push it all out of my mind and give her a good experience as we continue to walk around the school, talking about clubs to join, teachers to avoid, and I fill her in on whose dating who.

The rest of the day goes well, I drop her off and pick her up from all of her classes and at the end of the day we exchange phone numbers.

I wave her off as she gets into her parents' car and I get in line for the school bus.

I spend the journey listening to Taylor Swift in my earphones thinking about what homework I have to do tonight. I've got Jingle dance practice tomorrow so I've gotta do all my work tonight.

Once I'm back home I text Toni- Facetime when you're back?

Toni's got practice after school today so I don't expect to hear from her for a while. So after grabbing a snack I head up to my room. I glance at the empty space on my bedroom floor where Toni used to spend many nights sleeping in and pick up Mr Snuffles, my pet Rabbit and cuddle him as I climb into my bed.

"Hello Mr Snuffles, hello sir, how was your day, mhm, mhm, very busy then sir,"

I laugh at myself, before putting him on my stomach, and absent mindedly stroke him while I open Instagram.

I spend the next hour or so completely lost in my explore page, scrolling through and liking all the inspirational quotes and pretty sunsets, reposting a few of them to story.

Suddenly my phone rings and I get shocked out of the haze I was in.

Jeez I've spent the last 90 minutes scrolling, I should really pick up a book one of these days.

I pick up the call,

"Toni hi!"

"Hiya Marty, how ya doing?"

"Really good, how was school?"

"Uh yeah not bad,"

"Any troubles with Shelby?" I lean my phone against the lamp, pulling Mr Snuffles back into my lap while I wait for her to answer.

Toni glances around for a second before spurting out, her voice a little gruffer than normal, "Nope, nope all good, we're good no issues today."

"Good to hear, because I have something fun to tell you,"

"Well I love a bit of fun, hit me with it," Toni smiles at me through the screen, she's lying on her stomach and I can see her feet kicking in the background and smile.

"So I showed around that new girl I told you about today."

"Oh yeah how was that?" Toni glances at her finger before chewing slightly on her nails.

"It was good yeah, she was lovely, but here's the crazy thing- she actually came from your school, you two basically swapped places."

"Oh no way that's crazy!"

"I know! That's what I said, actually she mentioned Shelby,"

Toni looks directly at me at this point.

"Shelby?" She seems slightly on edge than normal. I don't know why, but I keep going.

"Yeah, apparently they were like best friends, her name's Becca,"

"Did she mention why she transferred?"

"Nope."

I see Toni's eye's shift away from the phone, having known her so long I can see the subtle way her eyes glaze over, that either means she's thinking deeply or not thinking a single thought.

It's usually the latter.

"Yeah I just thought that was crazy, like what are the chances right?"

Toni's attention lands back on me, "Yeah- yeah that's mad. But uh- how's your mom, how Mr Snuffles,"

I easily let her drag me away from the topic, and we stay on call for another hour. I answer her question and ask her about basketball, by the end of the call we're talking about the most random stuff, that's how it normally goes down. We talk about celebrities and stupid memes and just the kind of stuff that takes no brain power. It's my favourite way to end the day and wind down.

I miss Toni a lot, and I worry about her all the time, but every day when we call it's easy to forget she's a thousand miles away from me.

Chapter Text

Shelby didn't show up to class yesterday. 

Toni can't exactly say she's surprised, or really disappointed either.

Confused.

Confused is probably the best word to describe what Toni's feeling.

She's confused as to why Shelby kissed her, confused as to what happens next, confused about her own feelings, does she want something to happen next? Does Shelby even like her? Does she even like Shelby.

I mean of course at the start of term she had a bit of a thing for her but that lasted a whopping 24 hours.

Even though she's spent the last couple months hating Shelby, she's never been able to deny how pretty she is. No matter how much she may have wanted to at the time

When she gets to school Tuesday morning she keeps an eye out for that blonde ponytail or that preppy Texan voice.

But nothing. She thinks about Shelby just about all day and it's driving her insane, when she gets into the cafeteria she sits down with the normal girls, her mind still busy- she simply says hi and let's them get back to their conversation while she eats.

She thinks about Shelby still, so finally she just slams down her fist, "jesus christ."

"Woah Shalifoe, what's on your mind," Fatin asks, her eyes dart around the table, surprised by the outburst.

Toni, embarrassed now, quickly draws back her hand to under the table, "Sorry it's just, it's nothing don't worry about it."

"Well now you've got my curiosity piqued," Fatin continues, a smile spreading on her face,

"Forget it."

Fatin turns to the rest of the girls smirking.

Toni puts her fork down, "actually I was wondering if you guys knew a Becca? She went here last year but transferred."

"Becca Gilroy?" Dot asks

"Maybe? I don't know she happened to move up to my old school."

"small world" Leah says disinterestedly, head in her book.

 "Actually there was some crazy drama last year, but nobody really knows what happened." Dot says

Fatin, excited to share the drama, puts down her fork and leans foreword on the table "her and Shelby were like best friends, joint at the hip."

Toni chews on her lip slightly as she focuses on what's being said, Dot picks up after Fatin stops.

"Becca was actually really sweet. like even though she was friends with that lot, she would always come and apologise after Andrew was a dick to us."

"so what happened?"

"Unfortunately I really don't know." Fatin says looking genuinely disappointed, "one Friday they were best friends, and the next monday, shelby came in with her lil pageant win, and gave her the complete cold shoulder."

"like two weeks later Becca tried to kill herself, ended up getting sent away to some kind of retreat, came back to school for like three days, then her whole family upped and moved away."

"Oh shit."

Toni sits there, the conversation stays on Becca for a few moments longer before it moves on, so she blanks them out.

That's one helluva fall out from one fight between friends.

Unless it was more than that.

Maybe the reason Shelby sprinted away after the kiss, is because she's already been through this shit.

Did Shelby kiss Becca too?

If so it would make sense, she kissed a girl before Toni, and the worst possible thing happened because of it.

Of course she's gonna run off and avoid her at all costs.

She could be reaching, but it would make sense. 

The whole, 'it's more complicated than you think' the way she's so anxious whenever she's near her house.

Toni knew that Dave was a bag of crap.

But if Shelby actually is gay. Well that must be one of the worst fucking houses to be gay in.

She almost lost her best friend, and right when she got her back. 

Well, she lost her anyway.

She has to speak to Shelby.

She doesn't know entirely why. But she gets now why Shelby is the way she is. Why she's so uptight and annoying -and what she initially thought was homophobic- about everything.

Toni pushes the kiss from her mind. Shelby needs some kind of support, something to show she's not completely fucking alone.

So after school Toni finds the house she saw Shelby enter the other day, and walks up close, there's only one car in the driveway and she recognises it as Shelby's, so she figures it's safe to knock on the door without her dad opening it.

She reaches up to the doorbell and rings it, hearing it echoing through the house. Then footsteps come down the stairs and the door opens.

Shelby's eyes open wide when she realises who it is.

"Toni?" She says in a hushed voice, "What on earth are you doin' here?"

"We need to talk."

"You can't be here becca."

"I know I know I'm sorry i just. I wanted you to know im moving."

"What?"

"My family they- they can't handle all the stares and the talking. we don't have the privilege to have the pastor in our family and the whole town in our pocket and- we're moving up to stay with my daddy's family for a while in Minnesota."

Shelby looks at her, tears brimming in her eyes. She shuts the door quietly behind her.

"Let's go for a walk."

"Won't your daddy mind?"

"He's not home, and my moms a bit more slack with the rules. c'mon."

They walk down the street in silence until they get to the opening of the woods. Once Shelbys finally confident that nobody will overhear she sits on a log and starts talking.

"I'm so sorry Becca." Immediately she starts crying.

"I never meant for any of this, I never should have...I never should have kissed you it was so so wrong. And you- you almolst died because of those horrid horrid things I said."

"I know you didn't mean it Shelbs."

Shelbys voice breaks as her cries turn to sobs, "It doesn't matter that I didn't mean it I said it. And if you- if you'd have died I don't know what I would have done with myself."

"But I didn't die. I'm still here that is what matters."

"But you wont be for long. You're moving and, you know my daddy. He wont let me talk to you. I might never see you again and you're my best friend."

Becca pulls her into a tight hug. It's the first time they've been close enough to touch since Dave walked in on them.

Shelby grips on tightly. "I'm so so sorry. I'm so sorry. I was just so darn scared. And I'm so darn sorry."

They stay like that for a few moments until Becca pulls back and looks at her best friend sadly, tears now brimming in her eyelids now.

"I'm sorry too. I'm sorry you're stuck here. Stuck with him twisting you up. Shelby if- if you are gay-"

Shelby glances around suddenly, "I- I'm no-"

"No but if you are. I want you to know that there's a lot of places and people out there that wont treat you the same as your dad does because of it. I'm so scared to leave you here without anybody Shelby and I need you to promise that one day, as soon as you can- you will get out of here."

She holds out her pinkie.

Shelby sniffs, and wipes some tears from her face. "I promise." They pinkie swear and hug and again.

"I know I'm sorry, I don't want to get you in trouble it's just-"

Shelby closes the door behind her and storms past Toni. Not looking back.

Toni, taken back, falters for a moment before following after her, "Uh Shelby?"

"SHut up just- please stop talking just," she breathes heavily as she walks off, Toni struggling to keep up.

Once they get over a few streets away from the house, Shelby stops suddenly, Toni walks right into her,

"Shit sorry," She backs up a bit, as Shelby turns around, her arms crossed 

"What is this Toni what are we doing here?"

"I- um I- right yes, I actually wanted to talk to you about the other day- "

"Toni I'm sorry but I really can't talk about this. Frankly there's nothing to talk about. We bumped into each other on a run, it was great to see you I don't know what you want to talk about"

Toni gives her a look, shocked by this weird act Shelby's putting on. She feels like the stepfather that the annoying teenager does NOT want to talk to. Like ever. Sighing, she pulls out her phone, texting Marty.

"What are you doing, who are you texting?"

"Nobody I'm- I'm just texting Marty."

Shelby's eyes widen, "You told her about us?"

"There is no us right?" Toni says angrily before looking up at Shelby and seeing the genuine fear in her eyes, "Christ," She feels her heart drop looking at this girl who has to live like this every day, "No Shelby, I didn't tell her, I haven't told anybody. I swear."

Shelby's face relaxes slightly but her body is still rigid.

Tonis phone pings and she looks down, tapping her screen a few more times before handing it over to her.

"What is this?"

Toni licks her lips, slightly nervous, "I don't want to overstep. But um- I know about Becca Shelby. Or I think I know about Becca. Fuck I don't know but I think stars aligned or some shit, cuz' she's at school with Marty now. That's her number."

Shelby's mouth falls open, shocked, her eyes brimming with tears, she glances down at the phone, her eyes tracing over each number.

"I thought maybe, only if you wanted, you could give her a ring, or text her or whatever. It's my phone, so your parents would never know."

Shelby hesitates for a moment, before pulling herself together, closing her mouth, and handing back the phone.

"No, no thank you Toni but it's a bad idea."

"What is?"

"just, talking to her it's a bad idea.."

"Why?"

"Because! because- if Dave found out."

"He won't. Shelby c'mon. we can go to my house or into the woods, or somewhere else private, he'll never know. you deserve to be happy Shelby. And if talking to your best friend would make you happy, well I think you should."

Shelby stare at Toni for a moment, her eyes wide, tears brimming at the edge.

Talking to Becca is all she's thought about since Becca left. But if her daddy found out-

"Okay,"

"okay?" Toni says softly

"Okay, let's um"- she glances around making sure nobody can see them, "let's go into the woods,"

"Alright then,"

Shelby turns on her feel and walks towards the woods without saying another word.

"Jesus, should've worn my trainers," Toni mutters to herself, glancing at her converse before doing an awkward jog to catch up with her.

Once they reach the opening of the woods, Shelby's shoulders drop, and her fists unclench, her body almost swaying the moment her feet touched the dirt floor.

They walk further into the trees for another five minutes before Shelby takes a seat on a log. The same log she last saw Becca at. Seems only right this is where she talk to her again.

Toni sits down on the other end of the fallen tree, Shelby doesn't call her right away.

Just sits there staring at the phone.

Toni doesn't say anything for a few minutes, but she's been really nice to Shelby for like a whole fifteen minutes and she's starting to feel slightly impatient.

She breathes deeply for a moment, making sure to speak in a gentle voice, "Whatcha waiting for Goodkind?"

Shelby turns to face Toni, her eyebrows knit together, her eyes look far beyond Toni's face.

What is she waiting for?

Before she thought it was fear of Dave finding out.

But Toni's right, it would be incredibly unlikely that he ever finds out.

So what's holding her back.

What if after getting some distance Becca realises what a terrible person she is. And she doesn't even want to talk to her. Doesn't want to even think about her.

What if she realises she hates her.

Shelby said some pretty terrible things to her. Things she'll never forgive herself for. So how could Becca possibly forgive her for them.

Maybe now she's off in Minnesota, meeting new people, meeting Martha, she realises that what went down was unforgivable.

She'll pick up the phone, realise whose calling, and immediately hang up.

Choosing not to talk to Becca ever again is far better than being rejected by her. Again.

She doesn't want to give Becca the opportunity to realise that Shelby doesn't deserve her or her forgiveness.

"Shelby?"

Shelby suddenly notices that Toni has moved closer to her, she then realises she's been crying for the last few minutes.

She turns her face away from her, and wipes her tears.

And now she has this girl, this passionate, angry, grudge-holding girl, being nice to her too.

She doesn't deserve this.

She doesn't deserve anybodies kindness.

She's on her feet before she even knows what her legs are doing.

"Thank you Toni," She holds out her arm, phone in hand, "But this is a bad idea." 

Slowly Toni reaches out and takes the phone, standing up too.

"why?"

Shelby forces a smile on her face, even though her eyes are still filled with tears and she can't stop sniffing.

"This was really kind of you Toni, but I don't deserve that kindness. I mean-"

And now she's gonna do what she does best, lie about who she is to save herself, say somethin' rude enough to somebody who cares about her, just to make her own life easier.

"We hate each other right. I mean I'm a homophobic bigot. I don't know why you're being nice to me." 

She takes a deep breath before continuing,  "you're-" she clears her throat, "you're obsessed with me because I'm pretty, I get it just," she drops the smile from her face, "stay away from me, yeah?" 

She turns on her heel walks back home without looking back.

Toni has no fucking idea what just happened. She stares, jaw slack, mouth open, as Shelby walks away.

She sits back down, phone still in hand, mouth still open, eyebrows furrowed.

"What the fuck."

She rubs her face with her hand as she watches Shelby disappear out of view.

Then she starts to laugh. 

I mean that attempt at homophobia was hysterical. If that was her trying to get Toni to leave her alone she could've just said it.

But she stops laughing just as quickly as she started.

This whole situation is fucking devestating.

Of course that performance was Shelby trying to convince the both of them that she wasn't gay.

But fuck man, she kisses like any lesbian Toni's ever been with.