Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Catra has dreamed, in futility, in fury, in vain, about this moment before her. Her curled fists rapping against the wooden paneling- the sight of which leaves a salty sweet taste in her mouth reminiscent of childhood adventures long lost, and the feel of her bare feet bruising under the weight of the porch, Adora’s laughter floating like the dust they were kicking up as they dart down the steps and make a break for the trees, carefree shouts “Not it!” echoing through this rodeo of wilderness- Catra keeps Adora in the first passenger car of her train of thought to insure her will to see this through. Her stomach is an empire collapsing, having survived more than nine hours locked in a will-they-won’t-they panic attack on nothing but bits of bacon and one measly cup of coffee. Betty’s cardigan keeps the heat of her body entrapped and close to her skin. Like a solar flare, she’s on fire, a headstrong flame burning out here in the dark where the night sky is untouched by air pollution, praying don’t put me out, please don’t put me out.

Nothing happens once Catra brings her fist back down to her side. 30 seconds inch by. Then a minute. Then at least another two, maybe three. Catra grinds the back of her molars. Her fingers uncurl and curl back inwards. Grunting, she shifts her weight from one foot to the other, determined if nothing not to stay in one spot even if the rotting taupe of this door frame is the only sight she’ll be privy too for the rest of her fucking life. A nervous habit from years of being a target; better to be a moving target than one that sat still if you were doomed to be one anyway. 

Another minute passes and Catra tolerates it with her teeth digging into the death of her tongue.

“Any day now, Adora and co.” she says to an audience that isn’t there, that hasn’t bothered to honor her time and patience by coming to the show. Catra’s nail taps the surface of her skateboard; her mode of transportation leans against her leg in case this pending interaction flies south for a permanent winter, and she will need to make a quick getaway. Now, nothing could actually be more pathetic than the idea of skating home by herself carrying this end of the endings on her shoulders, surrounded by the mocking night, with the slamming of the door still ringing forever in her ears. 

But it might be what Catra deserves, though.

Ugh, did Glimmer come through or not? What, did she turn on me at the last second, too? Was last night just one big con to sucker me out of my deepest darkest secrets so she can run back to Bow and Adora with enough dirt to bury me six feet under?

Catra’s head falls back. Impatience crawls up her throat and down her arms, kissing each nerve with an itch she can’t scratch away. Nine hours Catra’s spent today with time and space in abundance- more than she could ever hope to wish for, Jesus Christ- to prepare for this plan’s hundred potential fallouts and in these final dwindling minutes the worst-case scenario comes clean in her mind.

What if Glimmer couldn’t get the stick out of her ass long enough to apologize to Adora? What if there’s no one behind this door to tell Adora to open up? Oh God, is fucking Sea Hawk gonna come to the door?

Is anyone?

As the fifth minute starts in a crawl, passing Catra by like a ship in the night signaling a pitiful S.O.S. signal, and Catra’s finger’s dig into the grip tape of her skateboard, nails skating against the resulting friction. Why again, had she trucked herself out here- to the middle of nowhere? What had she been chasing with such embarrassing desperation that could not withstand the separation from Saturday night to Monday morning? She could’ve easily withstood the barreling waves of the weekend knowing where to find Adora come the 8:15 A.M. bell, standing at her locker inattentive to everything that wasn’t her whistled rendition of the main theme from Peter Pan and her triple checked Honors Biology homework. Would’ve given her back the double-edged sword that had time coating one blade, space marking the other, cut both ways but hey- Catra could’ve blocked out the next two days for some extra practice with this whole ‘goodness’ stunt.

Was there ever any reason not to have chosen that path in the first place, hoping to bide Adora’s time in the purgatory before the first period they didn’t share anymore and approach her with a mixtape chock full of apologies and something akin to closure? Hell, Catra could’ve given this big rom-com speech to her in the lunchroom and probably moved the last man standing on Adora’s homeland whom Catra is never not offending it seems, Bow, to messy, unashamed tears.

This was Glimmer’s stupid idea. Sweep Adora off of her feet, do something like they would in the movies. Do what James would do.

Catra’s eyes come to a close. There’s a simmering heat she recognizes, one that burns to the brim with salt and stings like acid rain. She’s losing the will to wait any longer faster than she’s losing her split-second, once-in-a-blue-moon bravery to do the right fucking thing.  

“James was a world class idiot,” Catra hisses to herself, swallowing that heat back to the burning pit that her stomach has become. 

James was a world class idiot- and Adora must have better friends than the likes of Inez’s clique because the only single door that’s opened for Catra as long as she’s stood aimless on this porch is the one wherein the call to turn around beckons like a bullhorn. The force of some invisible string is what keeps Catra in the gravity of Razz’s porch- but all Catra wants is to make a break for it, to break that string and skateboard out of this nostalgic hellhole, and to live for the hope Adora will at least hear her out and think her word vomit over during Mr. Dessner’s lecture about the godless green light of forgiveness at the end of Daisy’s dock.

Sorry, Adora. Looks like I can’t do this after all. See you Monday, I guess, or see you never.

Disappointment sets in, a tiny ripple in a never-ending ocean as far as the eye can see, and Catra’s mouth falls back into its set line of defense. To turn away is to have her heart ripped out by this invisible force keeping her in place, to have her pinky finger torn clean off by the pressure from this invisible string, to give up on a momentary fervor and a bravery she stumbled into by accident knowing it might not find her by chance again when the start of next week rolls its head around. Perhaps it is for that reason that the universe, sensing the resistance forming in the tug of her left fist and knowing the hundred-to-one odds Catra will find it deep, deep within her to apologize again, that right as Catra’s skateboard is seven seconds from slipping out her fingertips and hitting the porch beneath her feet, impetus beyond the unknown flicker the porch light on. With it, Catra’s hope flickers back to life, too.

Breath catching in a rush up her throat, Catra’s heart is a snapping rubber band against her aching sternum. She brings her left pinky to meet her palm as the doorknob begins to turn. Time freezes where it halts to a chaotic stop, holding its breath the way Catra holds her. The door opens and then there is no more need to dream in restless sleep or wasted shifts woolgathering about what this moment will bleed to be- because it is here. Right here, right now. As if it’s right where she left it dying all those summer nights ago.

“Catra.”

Adora exhales her name the way someone might exhale a prayer. 

Catra shifts, her shoulders rolling forward slightly, and she fights off the unrepentant urge to retreat into the deepest depths of herself with a simple tug on Betty’s shoulder, bringing the garment up. Adora is slack jawed, those opal blue irises of hers washed out by her pupils dilating and taking in this porch lighted sight. Whatever else Adora might have to say to Catra- to spit and curse and cry in her direction- is lost in whatever current has swept her off her feet. Catra’s still trying to figure out if said current is one that bends in her favor.

“Hey, Adora.” Catra’s voice breaks. Gone is any irritation, any annoyance or self-defensive anger evaporates, taking the salt of the salt water with it. There’s just a softness. A homecoming. If seeing Adora standing before her with her shields down and her sword thrown somewhere behind her is the most honeysuckle Catra will get to taste, she thinks she’s okay with that. Because this is better than the highest point of any of her dreams- to see Adora, to be this close once again and be able to memorize the look on her face knowing she has no intention to leave scratches down her expression or trail this portrait with tears. 

For Catra, this is enough. Being this close is and was always enough. She can die a happy death now. Who needs the rest of these hopeless days when she holds so close this deathless hope?

~ 

“What- what are you doing here?” asks Adora. Adora’s head buzzes with a frequency only the crackling small bug zapper adorning the door’s archway can emulate. Like a moth to the flame, she’s drawn to the light illuminating the porch, the star under its spotlight, and expects any second now for the opprobrious shock to come and to burn like a taser in the back. Adora waits- lets the pressure of her held breath press against her skull- but the shock never comes. She stands there in the wake of her own question feeling tipsy. The bottle of rose, she knows, is on the coffee table thirty steps behind her sitting unperturbed.

Catra’s mouth opens and comes to a quick close. “I-I-'' she stutters for a second while Adora waits for the worst of words to leave her, the “I found someone new,” better yet translated to “I found another better version of you for me.” That’s what Catra’s going to tell her? Right? Why else on Earth would she be here of all places? Were there none of their shared holy places left to defile save the ground she stands on now?

It clicks in Adora’s head then. Her mind rewinds to not more than five minutes ago to the battle of whispers between her best friends. Lacking context and substituting her own, Adora assumed they were speaking of Glimmer’s aunt and jumped to the conclusion family problems were family matters, and Adora wasn’t welcome in either. In fact, what it seemed was so far from the truth; Glimmer had planned this , and Adora knows that because the proof is behind her in the bystanders boring their eyes into the back of her head. No, Bow and Glimmer were not keeping a conjugated secret within the family circle, rather divorced parents battling over custody. They were talking about Catra, weren’t they? Because Adora’s impending death has brought the two of them together, hasn’t it?

Adora is a want torn in two, a paper Valentine’s Day heart marked with two different addresses ripped down the middle. She needs to turn her head and hope the confusion on her face will deliver the nonverbal question What is going on here? Did you do this or am I the butt of some casually cruel joke? but more than the ocean wants to smooth over the shore, Adora wants to stay facing Catra before she evaporates in front of her the same way that split, burnt, and spurned version of her always does after she always drops Adora’s hand. Adora wants to have this last image of her inscribed forever before Catra is lost to the arms of another; this will be her life raft to cling to when she’s stranded back in those unforgiving seas, this image will be her last glimpse of relief as she relives her dream in search of some epiphany, with only twenty minutes left to sleep. She’ll still wake frozen on the inside unable to hear the beating of her own broken heart. Their last goodbye has come sooner than Adora could’ve ever planned for and it’s here in Adora’s doorway.

Oh, so that’s it then? Glimmer found out you’re dating someone new and she, what? So kindly convinced you to tell me yourself? Did she just think the news would finally kill me if I didn’t hear it from you?

“I just wanted to- '' Catra tries again and Adora hopes against all hope Catra does not hear the way her breath hitches a permanent stop in her throat. Out in the limbo of her peripheral vision, she sees Catra break into a beaming smile- cruelty beyond cruelty, what a trick up her sleeve- and the hole where her heart should be in her chest grows a little bit bigger, “Wait a second. Adora, are you... wearing my shirt?”

Adora’s eyes drop down to her own torso. Fuck, she thinks. Above her, the bug zapper crackles with a surge of white-hot energy having lured and caught some poor unsuspecting victim. “Uh-” Adora tries to reply, no explanation that does not reek of desperation anywhere on her tongue, when she looks from her exhumed t-shirt and back to its owner like she’s trying to a passing glance of herself in a mirror and finds a matching reflection, “Are you... wearing my cardigan?”

Betty’s cardigan, to be more specific. The apotheosis of this town’s infamy and the crux of Adora’s every disenchantment. Catra is wearing Betty’s cardigan and she’s standing on her porch. Adora’s throwing a party -if however abysmally. At some point or another she spoke to Glimmer and they’re both aware, like everyone around her is aware with a certain sour annoyance they expend no effort to hide, how voracious past versions of Adora have been for filling after filling of this town’s folklore. This is… straight out of Betty and James’ story.

The bug zapper lets out a SNAP-CRACK of fatal electricity above them.

~ 

“Are you… wearing my cardigan?” 

Catra’s boiling cauldron of a stomach drains and drops the deflated organ down a death drop to her feet. Yeah, okay, duh- she knew Adora was going to ask that question, or at least, eventually Catra figured Adora would bring up the fact that Catra adorned Betty’s cardigan up after stealing the precious heirloom away and shoving it under her bed every day so at night she could wear it like a petulant child scared of the dark and coaxed into believing the garment would function as armor for everything and anything waiting in the shadows that she was afraid of. If all else failed, if Catra dropped this ball made of glass to the ground and it shattered brilliantly upon impact, then Betty’s cardigan was less armor this time around and more a ‘Break in Case of Fire’ plan B. Or so that was the airtight strategy. 

Glimmer’s advice, said through pops of strawberry Hubba Bubba, was to apologize first , explain her grand gesture of fashion second.

“Adora’s a total movie buff, right?” Glimmer asked this rhetorical question as Catra blew a bubble big enough to encompass her mouth and nose, her head and feet on the same plane of the shag carpet beneath her. She nodded and the movement caused the bubble to pop and the residue to come down in a parachute over her face. The bloated pink balloon lasted thirteen seconds tops- no wonder they stopped making this crap. “Then she knows a total rom-com move when she sees one. But the most important thing is, you can’t make any other small talk, not even about the cardigan. Got that? Knowing you guys' small talk will turn into flirting and flirting will go straight to her head and you’ll start thinking you’re all that again and stop thinking you have to apologize to Adora.”

Catra corralled the bubble gum back into her mouth. “Shit, Sparkles. Wish your goodness lessons were as sweet as your secret candy stash. You know you’re a terrible teacher, right?”

Terrible enough to miss that the conversation- the first real one she would have with Adora that wasn’t the throwing knives of their half-witted, recycled insults of desperation across the tables in the mall food court in months - would jump straight to why Catra shouldered the cardigan in the first place. As to how they got here, skipping over the step where Catra apologized before she talked about Betty’s terrible taste in sweaters, is definitely not going to Catra’s head or making her feel like she’s all that and the cat’s hat. Why is Adora wearing her t-shirt?

Catra thought, and maybe still thinks as she stands here, that shirt was lost in their great divide forever. Breakups happen all the time, and all of those break ups leave broken pieces behind, some more precious than others. And it’s not like Adora and Catra- next door neighbors, caretakers with similar nefarious agendas, childhood best friends, cloak-and-dagger girlfriends- hadn’t been losing pieces of clothing at each other’s houses the entire time they’d known each other. The floor of Adora’s bedroom (and then later at some point during junior high, the left side of her bed) was a home Catra could not return to- and not just because Adora moved out and into Razz’s cabin. Almost every weekend from the time Catra and Adora were seven years old was dedicated to sleepovers; the only Fridays that were spent missing each other’s company were when one, or both of them, ended up in trouble with their resident Captain Hook and Wicked Witch of the West. Clothes were switched, clothes were lent and exchanged and handed down. Clothes were lost.

Catra just didn’t know that those lost clothes were kept. Her Eagles t-shirt was one that Catra tossed her way after Adora spilled her mom’s mole all over the button-up she was still wearing from riding with Mara. Adora had stripped out of the button-up once they were in Catra’s room and out of habit Catra averted her eyes elsewhere- to the posters on her walls, to her cat stalking the windowsill, to her guitar strewn about in the corner- rubbing her arms up and down in a poor distraction from the incorporeal, unshakable feeling of grit and grime sticking her skin like wet sand. They were together together, or the best approximation of what together together was when theirs was an illicit relationship was based in iniquity and walking a thin line between thrilling and endangering; Catra shouldn’t have to worry she was going to barf up her mom’s dinner because the guilt of catching a glimpse of her best friend in her bra turned Catra’s stomach to a hellscape of fire and brimstone. 

What really had chased that frothing fret away in its entirety was the way Adora folded herself against Catra once they were tucked in her bed, as she draped her arms over her and giggled, taking too much delight in kissing the back of Catra’s neck as if it was a bite of forbidden fruit. Catra felt the imprint of the vinyl band logo through her own surrogate pajama tank top as Adora did so. No stepdad in the house (he was off doing something shady, what that was they’ll never really know). No mom either (she preferred those days to run at night when her husband was off being shady). No door cracked open five inches to keep her and Adora worlds apart. Just them and their voices in a normal volume, talking about what to wear to the Spring Fling tomorrow.

Adora left Catra’s bed and went back to her house of cracked doors and locked windows to change into that crimson dress accented with gold that every then and now she wore to church when she wanted to see the congregation blanch at the sight of her shoulders. They called it off the day after that. Catra called it off.

Under the porchlight Catra’s tongue ties itself into a noose trying to form words. Adora is standing in front of her, in Catra’s own fucking t-shirt , after she reduced a lifetime of photographs and notes passed in Church and class and half-finished lyrics to ash in her bathroom trashcan, and all she can think while that stupid bug light above them buzzes is, Adora kept this even though I broke up with her literally a day later. Why didn’t I just hear her out during that stupid fucking fight? Why did I pick it in the first place?

If Adora wearing her shirt is any indication, then Glimmer was right. Catra almost doesn’t hate admitting that if what she was right about is that Adora is still in love with her. Alone it’s enough to get Catra high on this one single victory, because fuck if she doesn’t love Adora more than fucking anything in this entire callous and unrelenting universe. But if Adora wearing Catra’s shirt is any indication- it’s that she shouldn’t be. How could Adora love Catra after everything she said and after every strike she made to kill only makes Catra hate herself? It is in that simmering self-hatred, in those motherland pits of hells that Catra, she swings from the fences, and forgotten is Glimmer’s first crucial step like a pop of bubblegum. 

“Hmm, I asked you first,” Catra says, her voice slickened in the oil of snark and self-defense. Outside her body she’s sure her smirk is no less venomous. “It’s not like you to run out of clean laundry the day you’re throwing some big party. You forget to break out the champagne to fill up the pool, too?” 

Not a single one of the words uttered out of the comfortable place of self-deception was “I’m sorry.” Not. A. Single. One. Only once the sound waves of her own cruelty ricochet back to Catra’s ears can she comprehend the way Adora’s face falls. Only then it hits her why Adora’s hand comes back to the door handle. Catra can see it plain as day- the hurt on Adora’s face twisting her expression into one of pain and betrayal, the extinction of hope as color drains from her usual flush and Catra swindles her last chance. They’ve been here before, that day in the parking lot. Catra knows already how this is destined to end.

I’m such a fucking idiot.

Glimmer was right. The small talk went to her head. And Catra went willingly with it.

~ 

Adora is back on the concrete that breathes in the heat of the day and exhales the coolness of the night. She’s back bleeding opal blue and fiery red, her knuckles on a shaking dagger oxidizing the color of gold dug deep into where her chest meets her stomach. She’s projecting those memories onto a demolished film scene, tatters of a once intact canvas and she can’t get up because she loves Catra, but obviously not enough to move on and do the right thing by letting her go. The dagger stays and Catra does not. Catra didn’t stay because Adora didn’t ask her to, fight for her, too. 

Wow. Wow. Adora is no less than famous in this two-bit town for misreading the situation, for forgetting and having to relearn what her surroundings entail, but none more does she feel like a fool than right now at her own door. Half a minute ago she would’ve said this was Betty and James’ is story, this is a tale that ends with an apology, a reconnection, Adora’s going to get her one hundredth chance and she won’t break the branches she steps on this time- but she’s been a fool once to open the door and a fool twice to believe this could be anything more than another half-baked attempt by her ex-best friend to try and get her claws under Adora’s skin. Here Adora was thinking that version of Catra died in the fire.

But no, Adora is not Betty. She’s not even Augustine waiting by the phone for a call that will never come, a neglectful reason she’ll be expected to bandage her heart with and take with a smile on her face so James can hang up just in time to leave for Betty’s party. 

“Adora, you’re not a character in one of these stories.”

Mara wasn’t wrong about that, was she? Mara wasn’t wrong about anything. Characters in stories, their arcs having landing places and chapters that finish. But this is never going to end, is it? Because this is just a game of cat and mouse to Catra, that’s as obvious as the weapon she’s formed out of her smirk, toying with Adora like she’s going to ever tell her she’s doing better and or like she’s ever going to tell her why she bothered showing up at all. This is not a story but a merry-go-round, a repeat of a repeat; no matter how many times the skyline changes or how close the horizon seems, Adora always ends up right back where she left it with Catra.

So, if this night is just wasted potential, another rotation on this perpetual ride, a rerun of all their close calls, then standing here is nothing more than a waste, too. Adora was fine enough with the wanting for a phone call; that want, as tormenting and wicked and never ending as it was, Adora realizes now was enough for her. At least waiting by the phone in the kitchen like she was some adrift debutante sitting in some nameless airport bar put her in a place where Adora was shielded from the rocks Catra threw in abundance, the ones they were supposed to make diamond rings out of, the ones Adora picked up and slung right back. And now Catra’s gone and ruined that along with everything else by showing up here.

Fate didn’t lead me to the door to rekindle some lost spark. It just lured me into another trap, and I was stupid enough to walk right into it.

Adora moves to draw the door inwards and to a close, saying with a dejected sigh that mirrors the wreck of her heartbreak, “Okay, you know what, if you’re just gonna be rude, Catra-”

“Adora, wait!” Catra's hand comes to the door before it can close on her, her palm swatting the wooden surface as her tone changes from day to night. Panic and urgency are the dyads burning in her split irises and Adora finds herself faltering. She’s seen this look on Catra before. It’s not the casually cruel one that tosses broken bottles in her path just for fun. “Adora, I’m sorry! I’m sorry- for everything, okay?”

~ 

Catra won’t lie and say her apology comes to her naturally. Quite the opposite, almost, but that’s no leap of faith to believe. She’s chewing glass as she spits the sharpened words out and into the open, somehow continuing to talk despite the run of cuts left stinging up and down her tongue- but seeing Adora actually start to close the door on her coaxes this necessary evil out of her. Everything else about her and Glimmer’s masterplan has fallen apart without grace; there is no vessel coming to save Catra from this wrecked and sinking one. And watching Adora step backwards into the foyer behind her to leave her with a goodbye that would last forever? Well, that’s the last straw that forces Catra’s stubborn hand. There’s no choice now but to throw out the script she’d memorized and rehearsed a hundred times over and blindly trust in the hope that she’d land on her feet.

“I’m sorry- for everything, okay?” Catra says in a fast, near guttural desperation. She doesn’t care for a second about the way her voice breaks or how it sounds like any second she’ll fall to pieces and won’t get back up. By the disappointment on Adora’s face there’s nothing left to lose by making this the fucking messiest apology anyone’s ever had the joy to witness, “So please, just listen! I’m not exactly going pro when it comes to saying sorry, you know that Adora, but I am trying, I promise. I wouldn’t be here in your doorway if I didn’t mean everything I’m saying.”

For once, Adora doesn’t answer. If she’s without one, that’s a first and breaking news to Catra, and she keeps it locked behind the confines of her usually loose lips. Her hand comes to the door.

Catra swallows, fist shaking next to her. Every bone in her body quakes as if any second now her soul will be making a hasty exit out of her pathetic excuse of a body. How she treads forward on this road not taken is a mystery if she’s ever seen one. “I just- I’m sorry about the Spring Fling, about not showing up and not calling you back. That was stupid, it was all stupid , and I should’ve just heard you out and listened to what you had to say. I’m sorry that I couldn’t just grow up and tell D.T. and their idiot posse to leave you the fuck alone. I’m sorry I ditched you for them in the first place. I’m so sorry for acting like some stuck up bully and ruining your summer with Glimmer and Bow. I was so jealous and- and angry, and I couldn’t just tell you that because then I would have to tell you I was wrong and look how fucking bad I am at it, Adora.” 

As the words leave her in a wither, Catra just about collapses to the Welcome Home mat that marks the invisible barrier she cannot cross beneath her feet. A wraithlike veil, it mocks her, saying “ So you think you could come back here to this place you once called home. Unfortunately for you, we’ve changed the password.”

“Catra, that wasn’t-” Adora begins, forcing her gaze down to the infinite space of the great divide between them, but Catra charges once again like if she can just throw her shoulder at this concrete wall that is this empty space, it will move, it will budge, it will come crumbling down and then all her exhaustive efforts will have amounted to more than just this feeling of exhaustion. Total Adora move, really. 

Guess Catra shouldn’t be surprised there; for months, she envisioned their places would be switched, that it would be her at the door and Adora would be the one about to fall to her knees. But that was a premature fantasy born out of bitterness and immaturity, along with a litany of other symptoms of her own self-hatred. To kill Adora by spiting her wishes for forgiveness would be to take herself down along with her. And maybe that was what Catra wanted, when she was fading away on her bedroom floor ignoring smoke alarms and Melog’s meowing. Maybe that’s what might’ve been if the month of August had been kinder. If Catra’s the one one word away from falling to her knees, it means she’s here out of a genuine desire to do the right thing. Maybe there’s hope for her after all, certainly more hope than for this sorry state of an apology.  It’s not like Catra’s had much practice beyond the trial runs at the gauche kitchen of Holiday House. But Catra keeps hoping that if she keeps talking, it will not be a grave she digs but the attention of a lighthouse in the distance she catches, one that can save her damaged battleship from sinking too far below these hostile waves.

“Save whatever excuse you’re about to make for me, Adora. I promise it isn’t worth it. You and I both know that I’ve done a lot of bad things and hurt a lot of people this past summer and that there isn’t any excuse for my behavior, but the worst thing that I ever did, Adora,” Catra swallows the words as they bubble in her throat, her gaze split between Adora’s blue eyes washed opal in the porch light and her grip on the doorknob whitening. The fire and fury of her tone dwindles down to an ember, “was what I did to you.”

There. I said. I finally fucking said it! Catra lets out a growl that regresses into a sigh. I did the thing I swore I would never do and now I’ve given the only person ever worth doing it for the power to murder me. 

When Adora doesn’t reply, when the opal shimmer of her eyes drops back to the ground, Catra is left alone with the realization that she is willing to let Adora do her absolute worst. Catra was never supposed to have made it this far anyway; she was supposed to trip over her words by shifting the blame- it’s what she’s an expert in and hey, maybe she should go to college after all having found something she’s a natural at enough to major in- and she only survived not doing so by the skin of her teeth. She was supposed to utter three words on their lonesome, not the speech of a desperate person prosecuted into a corner on the stand and confessing to manslaughter. She was supposed to stand humble, not humiliated. She was supposed to walk away after having the door slammed in her face. 

Guess this is proof you can always change your destiny.  So much for my dear old stepdad’s predetermination, some are destined only for destruction bullshit. Thanks for nothing, Pops.

Now Catra waits on the edge of the exile she knows without a doubt she’s going to have to walk right back into. Adora’s sustained quiet is not the sign Catra wanted to be given; it could go either way at this point, love slips beyond Catra’s reach all the same. Before she can give Adora some satisfaction to take with her when they go their separate ways by telling Catra she can go fuck herself or take a nice vacation to hell, Catra shrugs off Betty’s cardigan. 

This was the broken piece of their breakup Catra kept out of a strain of pathological selfishness. Despite knowing what weight it carried for Adora and what it meant to her, Catra hid it away because it was the leftover crumb of their feast she couldn’t bear to give up. Every night she wrapped herself in the knitted wool and the smell of the barn buried deep within the fibers, Catra pretended it was Adora wrapping her up, just like she did the night she mistook the tepid spring air of April to be the cause of Catra’s shivers and warmed her up by kissing her with lips the color of dark pink roses as they danced around in flickering streetlights, sipping away their time together like they sipped that pillaged bottle of wine. She’ll miss laying down with that warmth when she goes to sleep. She’ll miss the way the cardigan rocked her to sleep as if Adora was still there in her bed, arms tossed around and kissing the back of her neck.

Catra was- is- pathetic. And so fucking selfish . It’s a chicken and egg clusterfuck, really, and Catra’s not proud of it as she balls up Betty’s cardigan to hand it over to its rightful owner. She just wishes she hadn’t taken those weekends Adora gave her so freely and so fearlessly for granted. She just wishes she had known better when she had the chance.

“That’s all I wanted to say.” Catra extends the cardigan like a folded white flag, speaking around a lump in her throat and blinking back the simmer that’s returned to the crests of her eyelids. “You can- you can have this back. It’s yours, anyway. Have a good night, Adora.” Pathetic. Selfish. And now soulless, saying goodbye to her like she’s just some stranger. I guess that’s what we are now. “Looks like a fun party.”

As the words leave her mouth in the shape of a dying wish, Catra can see the hurried scurry of Adora’s party guests, all her “stupid” friends, away from the foyer that leads to the door, save but one. Her resident Inez of This Story is looking at her with an accomplice’s sympathy in her eyes, a quiet ‘I thought this would work’ Catra takes in stride. Yeah, she’s going back into exile, but she did her one good thing, right? She gave Adora the closure she deserved, the chance to smooth out the wrinkles in her story this spiteful situation left, and now Catra can walk back towards her estranged hometown with her head held high despite the tears in her eyes.

Time is of the essence if Catra wants to beat her own water works, so she shoves Betty’s bunched up cardigan into Adora’s hands. It’s a little careless, but the hand on this kitchen timer is coming back around and the heat stinging her eyes is starting to boil over, and as a result Catra doesn’t check to make sure Adora has a grip on the thing before trying to turn around. There’s no need to. She needs- wait, fuck, what does she need? Right, to grab her skateboard and walk like a normal person down the gravel path because there’s no need to heap another helping of embarrassment onto her established embarrassment. She doesn’t need the cardigan anymore, she’s going to have to get used to not wanting it anymore, it’s time to go now, Catra knows.  

Adora’s fingers come to a close around hers. “Catra?” her voice barely breaks that of a whisper. The sound leaves a shattering of cracks all over Catra’s bruised and battered soul.

“Yeah?” Catra is already turned around, wiping tears from her eyes from the back of her hand as she still answers, because she’s the kind of glutton who can’t leave Adora hanging. Not anymore at least.

The soft fabric of the cardigan falls away as Adora slides her palm over Catra’s, intertwining their fingers. Fatal is her touch against Catra’s skin in its reverence and tenderness and it takes everything in her not to collapse onto the ground for good this time. Funny how Catra didn’t realize how deep her withdrawal could be until she is knee-deep in another fix. Her knees wobble, her fingers shake against Adora’s, and a sob escapes her throat. Catra can’t do this. She can’t do this and expect to survive it.

“Catra, please,” Adora all but begs with hope Catra is fluent in- it’s a second language at this point, one Adora has taught her how to speak, “Take my hand.”

~ 

It has never been too late for Catra to come back to Adora’s side.

With a blinding flash of clarity this is the truth that reveals itself to Adora as they stand in this flickering motion picture, cast in a bad light by the porch’s uneven glow. It is the electricity that then shocks her heart back to life, it is the glorious sunrise after the longest night meeting the first bud of spring that breaks beneath the wildest winter, it is the knowledge that has lived all this time and refused to die: they would be here, the Fates would lead them back to one another, and Catra would come back to Adora because they were simply… meant to. This is where the skipping record is lifted up by gentle and sympathetic fingers and placed back down on an unencumbered path. This is where the merry-go-round comes spinning to a stop, this is the part of the chaotic, nausea-inducing ride where they get to get off.

“I’ll never say sorry to anyone, ever!” is what Catra once yelled while she ran down a church corridor and her words echoed off the scopic architecture as she traveled further away from the potluck where Adora had been invited to eat with Lonnie and away from her advice to apologize after jealousy drove Catra into stabbing the other girl with her plastic spork. That was the ironclad creed Catra lived and died for, and never had Adora gotten more than a token, a plastic arcade ring held hostage in a see-through sphere, acknowledging that maybe her best friend pushed too far. 

And yet here Catra was, swearing her bad behavior was a symptom of an identity crisis only the heat of summer could produce and promising that she would try in the weeks that would follow as the temperatures dipped. Catra was trying in spite of her insistence that self-improvement was a conman’s ruse and that she’d fallen so far behind already, effort was a waste of her finite potential. 

Catra has- a lot to apologize for, that much is true. Each and every grievance she asks forgiveness for is one that has brought Adora to the foot of her bed, reeling from heart stopping waves of heart, lips curled over her teeth as tries to keep her sobbing to minimum, no longer able to hide her anguish or feelings of betrayal in the absence of anyone's suspecting she must continue to perform the grand “I’m fine” lie for. But for Adora, it’s not what Catra says or the specific sins she seeks repentance of, but the fact that she’s here to begin with. Adora hadn’t spent those wayward afternoons in the cabin’s attic doing everything in her power to keep her sadness from leaking out of her because Catra had dumped her. No, she had pressed the quilt Razz lent her to her eyes and her nose the way a widow dotted her eyes with a handkerchief, wondering what happened to her friend, what happened to that little girl the compass needle in her heart always pointed back to? Where was that girl who nestled her head so sweetly into Adora’s shoulder seconds before Adora suggested she apologize to Lonnie? And was it Adora’s fault that the girl died at the hands of this new one, armed with black lipstick and new age sensual politics?

Somewhere in the middle of Catra’s speech Adora catches sight of the fiery red of her headband sitting like a crown on her head of short, wispy curls. 

Adora is still in the midst of comprehending what is happening in front of her when Catra’s apology barrel rolls to its end and leaves them stranded in a sound comparable only to TV static. She can’t say what she thinks without scaring Catra back into the weeds. She can’t say, I knew you’d come back to me, deep, deep down, I knew it. All that Adora can do is stand tall within it. Here she and Catra are tall again. Here, they can finally be whole. In this resurrection, in this realization becoming clearer like frost on her skin melting that this pain and grief would not be for evermore, thank God, Catra stripping the cardigan from her bare shoulders is a near miss as Adora’s brain presses this image to memory. Catra’s Levi’s scrape the wood of the porch and then Betty’s cardigan is in Adora’s hand, the feel of it peculiar compared to this sight in front of her. Adora lets the piece of clothing fall to the floor.

Yeah, I don’t care about that.  In truth there’s only one thing she can’t bear to be without when this conversation finds its end.

It’s a bait and switch, a bona fide work of art Adora wouldn’t count herself capable of in any other situation, taking Catra’s hand when she only intends to give the cardigan back. Adora doesn’t blink at the notion that this is cheating for a prize she’s no longer in the running for. Because what a mythical thing it was, a confession from her best friend spoken without even a single hint of sarcasm, but it is all Adora needs to return back to her homeland. She is the sole inhibitor now of the singular want that Catra will turn around and face her. Tendrils of gleaming, twinkling gold travel down Adora’s arm like vines of ivy, wrapping around her pinky before interlacing hers with Catra’s. Threads once severed by teeth and golden blade begin mending. Adora intertwines their fingers. Fate has them tied together once more; it will not let them become another whim of forgotten folklore. 

“Catra, please,” that want that has permeated her to the point that it has become her bleeds into Adora’s plea, “Take my hand.”

Take my hand. Don’t drop it this time around. Ask me to stay.

“It’s okay,” Adora whispers, a sniffle in her nose that matches the one that leaves Catra.

Come back to me. Come back to me and stay. I’ll stay if you do, I’ll stay as long as you want me to, and I’ll wait even longer. 

When Adora squeezes Catra’s hand- once, twice, three times like those nights passed in the backseat of her Daytona when they couldn’t say what those three squeezes meant- that’s when Catra makes an almost reluctant turn back towards the door. She doesn’t lift up her face; instead, Catra keeps the back of her hand against her eyes, a faint blush peeking out beneath her cheeks. Overgrown bangs spill over her forehead casting a protective shadow over the tears Adora can hear but can’t see.

Two paths light up before Adora, both in part tempting, neither easy. One: she can act on the near suffocating instinct to pull Catra in and suffocate her with a hug and whatever physical pressure that has built up in Adora’s system with no outlet, to kiss her forehead and cheek and wipe her tears away, but Catra’s in a delicate state Adora would recognize even if she hadn’t spent her summer melting away in it. Two: Adora can make this reconciliation a private one by stepping out onto the porch and shutting the door on curious and intrusive, if not well-meaning, eyes. 

The porch creaks under Adora’s step and the door comes to a close with a soft click. 

“Hey,” she says. Catra bats her eyelashes open, relief washing over once tense features, and Adora knows she made the right decision, “Let’s get out of here.”

Catra coughs around her answer but she follows as Adora picks up the fallen cardigan with one hand and strays from the doorway, pulling them both around the house. “Uh, okay. Where- where are we going?” 

“Away. From the others, at least. I was thinking Razz’s garden in the back, the one near the willow tree. Right where the lakes come to the rocks and there’s that little cove?” She’s barefoot, risking splinters and stickers, but she does not and cannot care, not with the tips of Catra’s fingers digging into her palm. The front porch bends backwards around the cabin, and they descend, one foot after the other, down the steps of the back one. No need for such a rush, but still, Adora moves in the hope and in the faith that Catra will follow behind her.

“The one where we spent four hours trying to clean up your haircut after you gave yourself bangs?” Catra laughs. Proving Adora’s faith to be a good one, she’s quick to keep up with Adora’s hurried pace, never falling a step behind. Adora appreciates that the other girl’s innate nimbleness makes it so Catra’s not running those beat up Levi’s into her heels; she hasn’t forgotten how much that hurt. Adora leads them between a rivet in the bushes and down the darkness of a dirt path, the cardigan swinging in the dust left behind them. The crashing of the waves smoothing over a plateau of rocks and boulders meets Adora’s open ears and the quiet soothing sound pulls hers in with a gravity of its own. 

“I only gave myself bangs because you dared me to. Those were your safety scissors in case you forgot.” Adora shoots back with a swift little look over shoulder. Catra sticks her tongue out as Adora makes a careful hop over stranded twigs and dead foliage in their path. Looks like the clumsy nimbleness of that freed her from a lifetime of pageant schemes hasn’t failed her just yet.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you were actually crazy enough to go through with it! I thought the Wicked Witch was gonna kill me after you narced on us.” Catra’s voice echoes out over the water of the Lakes that meets them. Adora’s feet come skidding to an abrupt sun caked sand, the back of Catra’s sneakers meet her heels without warning. She lets out a grunt she can’t help despite the expression of instantaneous regret on Catra’s face. 

“Sorry,” the other girl mouths, then speaks with a shake in her voice, “I- I really shouldn’t bring… any of that up.”

“It’s okay.” Adora, tying her cardigan around her waist to match the flannel that hangs from Catra’s, presses her lips together to keep from elaborating. Really, she knows herself; she knows that if she doesn’t think this next part through then she’ll blurt out something impressively stupid and they will have to backtrack on their progress- again. The Lakes will evaporate, and the rocks will erode, and they’ll be back in that parking lot that was the setting of one kind of ending. 

Adora’s feet keep traveling, so as to keep her from putting a foot in her mouth, taking her to where the waves meet the rocky shore and she stares down the water, waiting to see her reflection distorted by the bending and breaking of the water. Obsidian is the color of the water, a liquid form of the iridescent, onyx sky it mirrors. The lack of light means the tide does not show her herself, it merely laps against her ankles. Adora pauses for a few seconds hoping that if she just waits and listens to the bellowing of the willow tree branches that rustle a mere few feet away, the right thing to say will come to her in a fully formed sentence on her tongue. They can tease each other for the rest of the night, the blunt edges of their words drawing new blood from old wounds be damned, but Adora knows she has to somehow pave a way forward. The standing of her legal guardian and the fate of Catra’s step dad may be trespassable territory for Catra, but for Adora they are dormant landmines laced in a land beyond the trenches.

Shifting her eyes towards the heavens where an explosion of stars marries the ink black sky like holes poked into the paper lid of a jar buzzing with fireflies, Adora takes a deep breath in. She can hear Catra shuffle in the awkwardness behind her. The edge of the water is the one place Catra can’t follow; in the spirit of their days as latchkey wanderers, Adora embraced and braved the natural terrain without blinking an eye, but Catra has made this trek in sneakers. It’s funny, how the tables have turned, how when this cove used to be a safe haven to pass time away in stretched out summers, Catra would be the one with dirt under her toenails and holes in her socks left by the ragged rocks and the soft bark of the willow tree. 

Other kids went to stay with their grandparents. Half the kids in their class would go to sleep away camp. Not Catra and Adora. Three summers they spent out here in a row; Adora used to think that up until the last one slipped through her fingers, she would get to spend all her summers discovering hidden worlds in the vast, mysterious landscape around them. They used to come here and play hide-and-seek, practice for the games their lives would turn out to be. Adora closes her eyes and listens to the waves crash, leaving a sheen of freshwater for the air to chill every time they recede, and waits for Catra to start to count to twenty. She waits to open her eyes and find Catra gone, never to have been there to begin with.

This is how my dream starts. The lights, they lead me here and I dive off the willow tree’s rock headfirst when their path takes me into the water, and then the next second I’m drowning in an ocean I can’t tread in, and the lights have abandoned me again.

There’s a gentle Splash! Splash! next to her that forces Adora’s eyes open. When she turns her neck, Catra is standing broad shouldered beside her. The cuffs of her jeans are rolled up, one farther than the other, and Catra looks down as her Levi’s land on some carved stone behind her. Too much longer, and this silence will let them both down. 

Adora knows what she wants to say. Adora wants to say remember the summer when Mara taught us how to swim and how scared you were of the water? Remember when you fell off the rock and I dove in after you because I thought you were drowning but the water was too shallow, and I hit my head? Do you remember that terrible sunburn that I got that first week and how upset I was that the Wicked Witch spent an entire afternoon lecturing me about ruining my natural beauty and so you put half a bottle of sunscreen on my back every day after that for the rest of the summer, expect for the day I made you mad by saying I was a better swimmer than you, so you just wrote your name on my back with sunscreen so that when I burned that’s all you could see? I never told you how I thought that was you saying that I belonged to you, that I was yours and you were mine. Would you do that again, write your name on my back? I want you to, you know.

A breeze blows to the west, tickling the chimes of the willow tree leaves, and it’s Catra who swings from the fences and breaks the silence before Adora can even say, “Do you remember?”

“So,” she clears her throat, a passing glance of hesitance and fretfulness exchanged between them under the starry sky, “I heard you were still going to L.A. next summer.”

“Then you graduate and go to the west coast- if that is still what you want. You pick another path and start your own story.” Mara’s words come back to Adora, whispered by the swell of the tide against her feet, “ But other than that, it’s yours to write, Adora, even if this is a pretty rough first chapter.” 

Here at the edge of the Lakes, where a garden of wisteria trees grows out from the grief that is buried here and wild roses need no one watching to bloom, Adora feels- knows - she can follow her fears all the way down. She can hold her breath and swim towards the shimmering opalescent path the golden light leaves, she can ascend in a gentler sea. No drowning, no dripping, no dancing into a path fraught with the threat of dying. Just catching her breath, finally washed clean of this wretched civility, changed for the better and ready to march back onto shore and scream unhinged, her deepest desires: the sun of the west coast turning her natural beauty a hyper pop shade of pink, and Catra’s name written on her back in sunscreen.

“Yeah, I am,” Adora answers. She tries not to smile when Catra’s eyes betray her by meeting her own, “Do you still wanna come with?”

~ 

Catra just about falls on her ass back into the waiting water.

Did she just-

Did those words actually come out of her mouth-

Hold, on a second-

Did Adora just ask me to come to L.A. with her? Me, she just asked me? Whatthefuckishappening? Did she drag me all the way out here to the Lakes just to not say anything and then tell me I can have back in on her escape plan like she’s a getaway driver short?

The stars above are not in alignment for Catra’s favor- other than the gift they’ve just granted her in Adora’s ludicrous, dorky grin and eyes that dance with legitimate sincerity that again, almost sends Catra slipping backwards into the tide- so her words are no more untangled than her thoughts, “But what about- I thought- when you switched out of Antonoff’s homeroom, wasn’t that because you were mad at me?”

Adora winces in a way that wrenches Catra’s heart. An opal eyed gaze drifts back to the water. “I- I, ugh this is going to sound really stupid,” she mumbles under her breath before continuing, “I only did that because, I dunno, thought it would make things easier for you if you didn’t have to see me every morning. I thought you would be less angry with the world if you weren’t reminded I was in it.”

Wait, she did that for me? Does she not realize I showed up here because I can’t stand not to be reminded she’s in the world? I thought I made that pretty fucking clear…

“Adora, I was only angry at the world because you and I weren’t exactly on speaking terms anymore and because that was on me ,” Catra tells her, voice low and somewhat restrained, “I mean, yeah, there were a few other things-” Fuck, am I really about to bring up my deadweight stepdad and the Wicked Witch for the second time? “But it wasn’t you that was making me angry. Not all the time, at least.”

“So, there was stuff I did that made you upset?” Adora asks, droplets of lake water flying up as she kicks her right foot up, and Catra curls her toes into the sodden sand underneath her.

“Yeah, at first. But like I said, I was jealous of really stupid shit, like you hanging out with Sparkles and Rainbow all the time, but then you wouldn’t even tell them we were going out.” Catra’s toes sink into the sediment deeper.

“That stuff isn’t stupid, Catra,” Adora replies, “You had every reason to be impatient with me. I was just so scared to tell anyone-”

“Because it might get back to her?” Catra finishes, her answer ringing hollow in her own ears.

“I’ve never been good at keeping secrets or being disobedient, but that would have never been something you had to deal with if I had just stuck to the original plan.” Original plan, what is she talking about? Catra’s eyes chase Adora in confusion and she catches them right as Adora adds, “You never would have had to deal with her if I hadn’t been selfish and kissed you on Prom night. So I’m sorry- for everything that happened afterward. Because that stuff was my fault, Catra.”

With a soft and gentle cadence, the waves of the Lakes cease in their gravitational violence as they wash over their bare ankles and crash into the shore that waits behind them.

~ 

It’s not exactly the leave-a-burning-red-handprint-on-her-cheek slap in the face to hear Catra laugh at her, but nonetheless Adora scoffs, irritated at the noise and all it’s nearly forgotten melody. She is trying to apologize! To say sorry for the suffering she knows she has caused Catra this past summer, and even in the months and years before that; she knows that even if she isn’t the Atlas of this situation, bearing the global burden of sole responsibility, she’s still had a starring role in Catra’s continued misery. Adora knew by the look on Catra’s face when she slipped on her skateboard on the other side of Aurora Lane and both their worlds came crashing down onto searing concrete, the bones of their souls shattering, that she was by no means the hero of this story anymore.

The hero of this story died such a pitiful death a long time ago.

Adora tries to say as much over the sounds of Catra’s laughter that bounce and ping off every given surface like shapes of light, only to stutter over her strawman’s defense, “Catra, I’m serious! How- I don’t understand- why is me trying to take ownership of my mistakes so funny to you? Do you- don’t you want me to?”

“Adora,” Catra’s nose wrinkles in the same way that stole Adora’s heart for good, because she is the only other bandit to con Adora into believing in a forever and boy, has Adora paid for it many times over, as she snickers. Her jubilee only grows, and she throws her head back, laughing just like when she was a little kid, before turning to her with a gleaming smile, “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m the one who should've listened to you that day after the Spring Fling Dance.”

That’s not what the scoreboard would show, Adora’s sure. She pictures the electronic one on the wall of the West student gymnasium, a buzzer sounding off the polished wooden floors every time a dotted red line was changed to a higher number. Her name hangs in blocky black letters where the home team’s would be. Catra’s hangs over the word VISITOR . In her head, Adora hears the shriek of a whistle from a distant referee, one that mimics the piercing of a police siren, and the clock on the electronic scoreboard stops but the numbers under HOME and VISITOR continue to go up and up and up.

The natural, near mercurial high of competition was a dysfunctional byproduct of being raised on a diet of mind games and conditional affection. There was always a catch, always a price to be paid, no matter what battle Adora picked. Even from behind bars her legal guardian was puppeteering Adora, trapping Adora in her unwinnable games that have been ripping her apart since she was a baby, limb by limb, love by love. The shadows blow their whistle and Adora comes running, ready, to lose everything and gain nothing in favor that will crumble in the palm of her hands, time and time and time again like some epic poem composed of a sad hero’s prose. 

What would this summer have looked like if Adora refused to let tragedies past burrow under her skin and define her? How would this story have played out if her name wasn’t opposite on a scoreboard to her best friend, just their heads opposite on the pillow, not so far as they stand apart now?

“I ratted us out.” It’s a simple sentence that tastes bitter in Adora’s mouth as she recycles Catra’s words from before. She thinks to the sharp whistle blow calling her foul as she was backed against the very liquor cabinet she broke into, the chill of the metal lock pressing into the back of her neck as she stuttered around for an explanation. Adora hears her sneaker scuff tile floor in this anamnestic kitchen her mind has constructed as a past version of herself, ever clumsy in her reasons and clumsier in her memories, chokes under pressure.

Catra’s tone is knowing. “Did you though?”

“Where were you that night, Adora?” the referee had demanded. 

Adora stood there gripping the T-shirt she was wearing as a dead giveaway. How unintentionally she had given signs of her relationship with Catra, how carelessly had she left the irresistible scent of blood for salivating predators to track down. She was no starry-eyed actress, that was for sure, but this was a test seventeen years in the making: had Adora, in her time dabbling delightedly in disobedience and deception, learned to lie like it came to her naturally?

“I was out driving. I didn’t want to go to the dance, so I didn’t. I wanted to clear my head and driving around by myself helps me do that.” 

“I know you were with someone, you wouldn’t have stolen from me otherwise. Who did you go to such foolish lengths to impress with your disobedience?” 

“No, I was alone, I swear! You can ask my friends, they were all at the dance that night, it really was just me-”

“You’re lying , Adora! You had your chance to come clean, but you’ve floundered it. Someone spotted you parked outside the woods with another person in the passenger seat- you were the Bishop’s daughter again, weren’t you? I’ve tolerated your companionship with her long enough- I’ve tolerated this phase long enough! You’re not to see each other again, do you understand?”

Though Adora had sunk to the waiting kitchen floor as the shadows dissipated and stormed off on to surmount more fatalities in this war they were waging, clinging to the fabric of Catra’s, no tears fell to honor her fear. Adora, made still as a statue in a cemetery, was trapped by the world ‘tolerate’ ricocheting off the plates and silverware she’d spent hours polishing to perfection in hopes of more. It was only when the clock on the wall struck a chord of seven did she lift herself and head to her room to change out of Catra’s t-shirt and into the red dress she bought with Glimmer at the mall only to shove in the farthest, most hidden part of her closet.

“You know,” Catra starts and Adora folds her arms, breathing through the last grimy dregs of such a painful recollection, “if there’s stuff you just can’t really talk about… with her, that’s okay you know.” Out of the corner of her eye Adora sees Catra’s fingers meet the tips of her bangs.

I think I’d rather just call it even between the two of us. We can barely get through a conversation about our guardians, and we used to tell each other everything. Are we ever going to get to have that again?

Adora finds the answer shining in the look on Catra’s face. One day they will. One day soon.

Sighing, she kicks up sediment as she flings her foot up through an oncoming wave, “It just felt like she won after she caught me literally red handed with the rosé, and then after she was arrested, there wasn’t any point in keeping score.” 

There wasn’t going to be a movie so why wait around for the happy ending?

“Adora, I swear, sometimes the more you say, the less I feel like I know. Why do we have to keep score?” Catra asks, whacking Adora with her bony elbow, “I mean, the end result is the same, right? Captain Hook gets eaten by alligators and the Wicked Witch gets melted with a bucket of water. They’re not around anymore to tell us what to do or how to feel about each other. We get to decide that stuff.”

And what have you decided? Adora wonders, the thought as brief as the flicker of the stars above, that burns out as bright as the faraway celestial bodies. You still haven’t said anything about coming with me to L.A.

“I thought you hated me.”   Catra says to the open waters in front of them. There’s a humor in her words, in the way she phrases such a self-deprecating sentence, as if she is that assured of the accuracy of her belief. It’s insulting, is what it is; to Adora, that’s the kind of joke that earns crickets in a packed auditorium. It’s a mutation of the wit Catra is famous for, libel of the treasured cleverness that makes her the wonder that she is.

The way the ocean smooths down the rocks that wait at the tide, Adora takes this opportunity to clear the slate, “Catra, I- I never hated you. Okay? Never, ever. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Opal blue eyes chase a mismatched stare. The corner of Catra’s lip quivers at the mention of their oldest promise. Cross my heart, hope to die. A stubborn vow made by even more stubborn seven-year-olds tying invisible knots around each other’s pinkies- knots that ache now, brought together by a magnetic push and pull not unlike the gravity that pulls the tide back to the shore, forever and evermore. Adora reaches out for Catra and what was severed reconnects, taking another step down the winding path towards healing. Their hands together bring the same relief as some groundbreaking epiphany, not a glimpse of what could be but a prophecy. If Catra really truly buys the complete and utter bullshit she’s selling, then Adora feels that it’s necessary to show her the receipt- to show her everything with no holds barred. 

“I could never hate you,” Adora whispers over the crashing of the wave. Catra’s eyes widen and Adora continues until that fading expression of disbelief is etched out of existence, gaining confidence as she speaks, “I couldn’t even hate you when I thought you had every reason to hate me.”

Unlike the bits and pieces that escape her about the final act between her and her legal guardian that have come through this conversation like the figments slipped through between the changing of radio stations, Adora is unblushing, unstuttering, in her honesty this time around. Because if her hero complex guaranteed she could never actually be the hero of this story, then it followed that Catra had no reason to make herself out to be the villain, not in any version of this tale. Nothing could be made better by Catra thinking that.

But everything could be made better by what Catra does manage to say next.

“Have every reason to hate you- you think I hated you?” her smirk becomes a winning smile, shining like the stars dancing in her eyes, “You really still don’t get it, Adora?”

“Get what?” Adora glances down at their joined hands.

Whatever clues cannot be found in the sight are revealed in the gentle way the fingers of Catra’s other hand come to Adora’s chin, lifting her gaze up until Catra can look right into her eyes. It’s the most prolonged and blissful amount of eye contact they’ve had since Adora opened the door. Adora’s knees threaten to buckle under the weight of it all, the tenderness of it all. “Adora, I love you. I’ve always loved you, you dummy.”

Adora is- speechless. Breathless. She’s without a coherent response, without ground to stand on now that Catra’s shattered her rickety lifeboat of a foundation using only her smile. There’s nothing to doubt or to question; no, every single fear that Adora’s ever had that she could never be loved for who she truly was is washed away into some nameless, equally faithless current by the look of pure hope and happiness on Catra’s face. 

It’s enough. It is so much more than enough. It is the call that echoes back through the night, across the surface of the water and the floor of the forest, after Adora talks in her sleep and her whispers of wants spill out open windows. It is the flickering flame of candlelight waiting in the window and it is finally enough.  

“You love me?” 

Catra laughs and Adora, for all her issues with short term memory, does everything imaginable in her limited power to commit the sound to a permanent, untouchable place in her mind, “Is it like super cliche to say I’ve loved since I learned what love really is? ‘Cause if it is, I guess I’m saying it anyway,'' Catra trails off for a few beats of Adora’s heart before picking the string back up where she dropped it. Her hand leaves Adora’s chin and blazes a trail of heat up the curve of her jaw. Adora brings her palm to rest over the back of Catra’s hand as her eyelashes flutter close, “You really had no idea, did you?”

“I mean, I just,” Is this really happening? Is this moment really happening to me, is it really mine? “I just knew what I hoped for. Like, when you kissed me back, that night in the car.” Adora finds herself laughing, her forehead bumping Catra’s. Catra must be reading her mind, or her laughter is that contagious, because she starts chuckling too. 

Fate is the subject of their laughter, Adora knows. For all its unspecified cruelty and its determination to lead them on this treacherous and hellish journey before dropping them off on Heaven’s doorstep, it sure is funny. So selfishly had Adora wanted to believe that the determination with which Catra kissed her that night was indicative of the real deal. So desperately had Adora yearned for a love that was really something and that made her feel the way she did when she was just inches apart from Catra as they are now. How brutally wondrous and exquisite was it that now Adora could chase that hope without falling down the rabbit hole of her own toppling expectations.

Catra loved her. Catra loved her! No conditions, no balancing pedestal or tightrope… no tolerating anywhere in the fine print or footnotes. No more breaking her soul in two looking for Catra beside her, she’s right here. Adora is loved by Catra, and it is a shimmering beautiful love that radiates, not reflects, off the best and truest version of herself. 

“I love you, too.”

Opening her mouth just to close it again, Catra’s laughter squeaks as she says, “We are such idiots.”

As they stand here together, surrounded by these lush and unapologetic gardens of Babylon, the waves crashing in tandem against the bare, exposed ankles, Catra bringing her closer, Adora sees the lights that have brought her here begin to fade. Their work is finished, for now. Never in all their time taunting her have they ever led her astray, always guiding her back to this point. And if at some point Adora falls off the path again, trips over her feet and her words, she knows she can return to this place- this town and the beating heart of its folklore that’s rooted in dancing and dreaming and demise, this hidden paradise in the forest where you can find Razz’s cabin, this secret alcove where the Lakes meet a rocky shore. Here she will find the lights, glowing underwater and glittering on the forest floor for only her eyes to see, to lead Adora away from the sidewalk chalk promises on pavement where she’s cracked her bones and the shadows that follow trying to bait her with get-love-quick-schemes, and back into Catra’s arms where she belongs.

Catra closes the distance first this time. Her kiss is a pause, a hand pulling Adora out from beneath chilly, tormented waters, a promise of days in the sun to come by her side. Adora returns the sweetness in kind, her fingers brushing back beautiful bangs and smiling wide against Catra’s lips as Betty’s cardigan rustles in the wind, hitting the back of her thighs. There is no rush or urgency as there was in abundance that night in Adora’s Daytona. No looming threat of imminent danger waiting for the first sign of a slip up. No more cursing each other for deeds committed out of sadness and separation and the loss of summer love. 

Just this, just the two of them- forevermore.

Adora stays kissing Catra. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the red of the lights of the school gymnasium scoreboard goes dark, never to return and ruin this ever again, their blank scores resting in peace for the rest of eternity.

~ 

If you never bleed, you’re never going to grow.

This is the final lesson Catra learns as summer fades away into a moment in time and autumn stares her down, its own casually cruel curriculum certainly in store. Throughout her entire body, she feels the tired shake of growing pains the stress of the day has left her without the resources to ignore, and she keeps her head in the crook of Adora’s shoulder, their fingers intertwined as she draws an absentminded star over the joint of Adora’s thumb. Drunk on another after that kiss, Catra hopped onto the willow tree’s rock and Adora climbed up after, their wet bare feet leaving prints on the rust-colored mineral surface. 

They had settled here for the time being. Adora had even untied Betty’s cardigan from her waist and placed it over Catra’s shoulders- the exact same way the night of their first kiss. But that kiss was a stolen one, a risky gamble that had almost done them both in. Tonight, Catra had gone for another kind of kiss altogether, a nothing’s going to keep us apart anymore, not even my own dumbass kind, and to prove this point further, she opened up the left side of the cardigan and gestured with it, come here and I’ll keep us both warm. Adora slipped underneath and Catra breathed a sigh of relief, a sigh of peace.

With their feet dangling off of the rock and their backs leaning up against tree bark, Catra knows they won’t be making another appearance back at the party. At least not any time soon. Adora did ask if she wanted to join them-

“Do you want to stay? I’d really like it if you did, but only if it’s okay with you.”

“Of course, I’ll stay, Adora. What, I’m just gonna bolt after that kind of conversation? Trust me, there’s no place I’d rather be.”

-only in hindsight her question must have been focused not on whether Catra would stay and stick around for the party, but whether or not Catra was comfortable sitting in Adora’s company.

Well, duh . It’s not like Catra had spent the entire summer waiting for Adora to ask.

“You know, you never answered my question,” Adora begins then, after an indefinite passing of time, in a volume barely above a whisper.

Yawning, Catra asks, “Wait, what was your question?”

“Did you want to come to L.A. with me after we graduate?” Adora lifts her head to catch Catra’s eyes.

Catra cracks a smile. Staring at the neurotic anticipation written over Adora’s face like she’s an open book, she thinks back to the University pamphlets bragging about their flash and sparkle of their prestigious music programs sent to live out the rest of their days in her kitchen garbage can. She thinks of the mess of ink still there on her arms after scribbling about lyrics during her shift earlier today and even ventures to think she might return to finish the bridge and chorus that were giving her trouble earlier. Catra knows that Adora is leaving regardless, come the end of next spring. Catra knows that wherever she means to go, whatever path she means to discover, that she’s leaving their hometown, too. It will be time to- for both of them, really. Catra knows that saying no is equivalent to breaking her own heart, to leaving the warmest bed she’s ever known, cardigan and all. 

Catra also knows that the road not yet taken looks real good right now.

“You have no idea how badly I still want to come with you… I never actually stopped.”

The grin that breaks on Adora’s face is worth every ounce of discomfort that comes with the territory of vulnerability. Catra allows herself one pat (or an indulgent few) on the back as Adora leans back in to kiss her. She could get used to this. This trying thing and learning and growing- yeah, fair is fair and parts of it downright suck , but it’s better than the growing pains and the bleeding that becoming a better person begets. To be able to give love and to accept love without guilt, to undo a childhood of conditioning by coming back to this most natural of acts, there might be a sundae to top with a cherry after all. 

“Good,” Adora laughs and the air tickles Catra’s lips, “I never stopped wanting to go with you, either.”

When Adora kisses her again, Catra is there to meet her halfway.

Catra is aware, just as she’s aware of the off-key belted karaoke floating on the wind brought in behind them (Sea Hawk must be subjecting the others to a shanty versions of Elton John and other various number one hits of 1997, Catra thinks she could murder him just for singing Lovefool loud enough for her to hear him half a mile from the cabin and knows their choice to not go back until there’s nothing but uneaten pizza to return to was, without a doubt, the right call), that the growing pains are far from done yet. As they sit here talking about the summer they spent missing each other, the phone calls they waited for instead of making, the disappearances and detentions that broke their collective chains, Catra tries to reach a place of acceptance of that truth. Even if they do cement their plans and leave for the west coast after the final bell of senior year, there is a danger that lives within both of them by nature of who they are and what they are to each other. Real and true peace will have to wait; it cannot exist in a place that is abandoning its wildness and trading it in for the hoax of civility like this town so quickly is.

Catra’s never had the courage to face her convictions before. Not like this. Whatever short-lived bravery she thought would slip out of reach once she butchered her apology on her own chopping block is given a few more breaths of life when she realizes how little awkwardness hangs between her and Adora. The worry gnawing at the back of her throat all day that Adora and her would be back to square one, even farther from the bond they had that first day they met when they were seven? Scratch that fear off the list of one hundred and one. Because they’ve picked up their rapport as if they’ve never dropped it. They’ve gone from being enemies to friends and lovers once more. What lessons wait for them in the fall and beyond- well they can do just that, wait.

Right now belongs to the afterlife that is their stories, the laughter that rings in the air as Adora tells Catra about Razz’s continued mystical adventures and Mara’s teasing, the way Adora holds her head in her hand as Catra fills her in on her brief stint in Holiday House.

“Wait,” Adora’s eyes narrow, the corner of her mouth creeping up in that way that always snags Catra’s heart, “You actually spent the night with Glimmer? Like Glimmer Glimmer? Glimmer Bowery, who you once said could eat your farts? And you guys didn’t kill each other?”

“Yeah, but not for lack of trying,” Catra tells her, her skin brimming with the heat of old wounds. The insults that she and the Harkness heiress flung at each other in poor attempts to gain the upper hand seem so far away. Were they really words Catra shouted only to try and take back just yesterday? 

Huh. Feels like a lot longer.

“So, she helped you plan this?” Adora continues and Catra nods.

“Pretty much. Once she found out I still had your cardigan she remembered the party you invited her to and well, we both figured you deserved a grand gesture.” Catra replies. It’s nothing short of the truth.

“Like the one James gave Betty?” Adora asks with a smug knowingness that gleams in her opal eyes.

Catra pushes a scoff past her lips, “Yeah, yeah. Credit where credit is due, James did have some good ideas.” 

“Since when is cheating a good idea, Catra?” laughs Adora.

Catra can’t help the squeak that escapes her. Fuck, has she missed this. She’s missed this love and this humor, she’s missed everything about Adora, she’s missed being with her best friend. “Yeah, you’re right. James was a total fucking idiot, but I guess I’m not one to talk. Who gives up someone like Betty? Who gives up someone like you?”

“So,” Adora begins again after Catra swoops in one more time to kiss her because this is, after all, a grand fucking gesture of romance, “Now that you’ve lived out Betty and James’ story, is it your favorite?”

“Favorite what?” She knows she sounds like a complete and total dumbass, but Catra just can’t help it.

“You know, of all the ones Mara used to tell us. The ones about this town?” Adora explains. “When we were little, I remember your favorite was Este’s friends getting revenge for her, but you seem to have a soft spot for Betty and James.”

“Hmm,” is all Catra says. Her mouth bends upward in a smile. And here Adora thinks Catra is the one who never has once listened to anyone in her entire life, “You’re my favorite, Adora. No competition there.”

You’re the one who made those stories any fun to begin with. The fact that you could hope to have something better than those over told tales of deception and woe, the fact that you believed you would… It gave me hope, too.

Adora’s forehead comes to rest on hers and she squeezes one time, two times, three. “You’re mine too, Catra. You always were.”

~ 

Black like the ink that will write the rest of their pages is the color of the night sky as the next chapter begins underneath bleeding, shimmering starlight. It’s a chapter that will be dedicated to one of the greatest loves ever known, and though it will never be adapted to film and shown in motion capture light, it will be a marvelous one for the books. A new page is turning, filled with greater heights and sunshine, of falling apart and trying again. Opal blue and fiery red imagery will fill this golden text; it’s rough on the surface, but I urge you to look closer, deeper into the water and past the reflection of your own self in these stories you cling to. 

Do you see how they cling to you? How we become them? 

The short of this long story is the breadth of hope. Hope is the leaves of the willow tree that ruffle like feathers in the wind but hope that is etched onto the heart like a knife into tree bark is the kind that is promised survival. It exists, a living breathing thing by no means breakable by the same hand twice, written in the initials on the willow tree. Under the faded and famous J+B, there you can find newer and fresher markings in the auburn bark, there under the spotlight of the sun. 

C+A.

Passed down like folk songs, this is the kind of love that stories cannot do justice. 

This is love that endures, forever and evermore.