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At first, she thinks it’s about Nick.
She’s known Nick for years, after all, almost as long as she’s known Simon. He’s her friend, and she loves him. Of course she does. And platonic love could turn into love, after all. Even though she’ll never admit it, she’s seen enough romantic comedies to know this. She’s jealous of Abby because she has a crush on Nick. It’s the most logical thing.
But then, she goes along to one of Simon’s rehearsals because they’re going to Waffle House afterwards, and she’s intending to do homework. And she does do homework, earbuds in. But, at one point, she looks up, and Simon and Abby are sitting on the edge of the stage, and Abby meets Leah’s eyes and smiles, and Leah realizes it was never really about Nick, after all.
-
Simon, the oblivious (but lovable) dork he is, has no idea. Or if he does, Leah knows that he assumes it’s about Nick. Not that she’s given him any reason to think otherwise, of course. She’s not out, not to him (or any of her friends) yet, and that’s a whole can of worms she isn’t sure she wants to open right now. Her friends would be awesome, she knows, but it’s the rest of the school she worries about. Because while Simon is happily dating Bram, the two of them being suffocatingly cute all the freaking time, he didn’t have the easiest time of it.
Most if it relating to that asshole Martin. Every time Leah passes him in the hallway, she has to resist the urge to chase him down and punch him.
But even though she doesn’t have her own Martin Addison to deal with, she’s still more comfortable in the closet, even if it means that Simon thinks her behavior around Abby has to do with jealousy.
-
Whenever Leah starts getting overwhelmed, she plays her drums. She sits in her basement and plays until her arms ache and her head pounds with residual tempos. It’s soothing in a way; playing the drums makes her feel quiet inside, even on the days where it feels like her entire head is a storm of emotions and doubts and anxieties.
And today, Abby and Nick left to go to Abby’s aunt’s wedding.
God, sometimes Leah feels like a horrible person. After all, what kind of person is jealous of her friend for going to a wedding with his girlfriend?
What kind of person secretly kind of hopes that her friend will break up with his girlfriend so that she can date his girlfriend?
A horrible person. Just the thought makes Leah’s mouth fill with a sour taste and her stomach cramp with guilt. So Leah goes down into her basement and plays her drums until she’s quiet inside.
-
“I don’t get it.”
Leah groans, reaching for the remote to pause the tv. Again.
“Simon,” she says, as patiently as she can, “He’s a time lord. He can regenerate.”
Simon’s brow furrows. “Okay, but into a whole new face? I mean, shouldn’t he just regenerate his organs or whatever?”
Leah just looks at him. She loves Simon, she really does, but maybe trying to show him Doctor Who was a mistake. He spends the entire time with this adorably dorky look of confusion, like a lost puppy. Or Bieber, come to think of it. The dog is currently happily sprawled across Leah’s lap, fast asleep, and Leah doesn’t even care that her legs are going numb. Simon’s dog is the greatest.
“I mean, David Tennant is totally good looking,” Simon continues, “But logically-“
“Doctor Who doesn’t really have a lot of logic,” Leah says, “That’s what makes it so great.”
Simon looks unconvinced, but he falls back into silence and Leah presses play again. They watch for a few moments in silence, which Leah breaks, hesitantly.
“Have you heard from Abby? Or Nick?” she adds hastily, and Simon, without taking his eyes from the screen, nods.
“Yeah. Nick texted me this morning. Apparently, Abby’s cousins are super cool, and he and Abby are having fun. Why?”
“No reason,” Leah says, perhaps a bit too quickly, but Simon either doesn’t notice or doesn’t really care, eyes still glued to the tv. Nick and Abby should be headed home now, their flight scheduled to land in Orlando in about an hour. She’s both happy, because it means she gets to see them again, and also not, because she isn’t sure if she can stomach hearing all the stories about how amazing it was and how much fun they had together, which gives her the sour taste in her mouth because she should be happy for them. But she’s not, and that makes her feel like a terrible person which makes her chest feel tight and makes her fingers itch for her drumsticks. But she’s at Simon’s house, so instead she buries her hands in Bieber’s fur and scratches him in a way she knows will make his tail wag even in his sleep.
Simon doesn’t seem to notice anything wrong. So they watch Doctor Who.
“Okay, so I don’t understand-“
“Oh my god, Simon. Just watch.”
-
She goes home, and she plays the drums.
-
Both Abby and Simon are auditioning for the play, and Nick, Leah, Bram, and Garret are waiting for them to come out of the theater, so they can go get Waffle House and work on the assignment for Algebra. Bram and Garret are talking about the new soccer line-up and promising freshmen, Nick is off in the stacks, and Leah is sitting cross-legged on the couch, one earbud in her ear and her sketchbook open in front of her. She just got a bunch of new charcoal pencils, and she relishes the clean drag of the pencil against the page.
The couch bounces as someone sits down next to her, and Leah looks up to see Nick recline into the cushions.
“Want to come play Call of Duty after WaHo?” he asks in his typical mild way, and Leah bites the end of her new pencil.
“Aren’t you and Abby going to be hanging out?” She asks, then internally cringes, but Nick just shrugs.
“Naw,” he says, “We’re not.”
“Okay,” Leah says, and at that moment Simon and Abby come into the library, laughing and talking, and the conversation is left at that.
-
The play is The Wizard of Oz. Simon gets cast as the mayor of Munchkinland, something Leah decides then and there to never let him forget, but he’s happy about it because it’s a speaking role like he wanted, and while Taylor beats Abby out for the role of Dorothy, Abby gets the role of the Cowardly Lion.
“The Cowardly Lioness,” Leah says, before she can stop herself, and Abby’s answering laugh makes a little starburst explode behind her ribcage.
-
Sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving break, Nick and Abby stop sitting together at lunch. At first, it’s not super obvious. They’re both acting like their normal selves, laughing and talking and joking, but then, they start having hushed, intense conversations in the corners of the school hallways, and then they stop leaving classes together and it all culminates in Abby coming to class one day with eyes still a bit red and Nick in a gloomy silence.
That same day is Emoji practice, and Nora, Taylor, Morgan, and Anna all cram into Leah’s basement with their various instruments. After warmup Taylor leans against the bookshelf, watching as Nora fusses with her guitar.
“Did you hear that Abby and Nick broke up?” She asks, and something in Leah freezes.
“What?”
“Yeah,” Taylor says, with a bit too much relish for it to be truly conversational. “I heard Abby telling Simon after English.”
“it’s really none of your business, Taylor,” Nora says, and Taylor just gives a little, tittering laugh and stands back up.
“Ready to go, y’all?”
Leah picks her drumsticks again, but she knows she isn’t really in it for the rest of the practice.
-
Once everyone goes home, Leah sits down behind her drums again and plays as loudly as possible. But, for the first time, the pounding beats don’t help calm her. So, instead, she goes to Simon’s.
-
She can’t look at Simon, so instead she lies down flat on the floor and lets Bieber lick her and buries her face in the dog’s soft fur.
“I think I’m in love with Abby,” she says, finally, her voice muffled by Bieber’s fur.
Simon is silent for a long time, and when she finally works up the courage to turn and look at him, his expression in unreadable.
“I need you to say something,” she says, and he slides down the wall so he’s sitting across from her.
“So…it wasn’t Nick?” is the first thing out of his mouth, and Leah laughs. Not because she finds it funny, exactly, but because it’s such a Simon comment, and because there’s a strange flood of emotions coursing through her. Fear and guilt but mostly relief to finally say it to someone, because it’s been a year of this unrelenting crush on this girl that everyone seems to think that she’s jealous of.
“No,” Leah says. “It was never really Nick.”
Simon crawls across the entrance hallway to sit next to her, and, after a second of hesitation, she leans her head on his shoulder.
“So,” Simon starts, “You’re bi?”
“Yep.”
“And ninth grade? Margot Ellis?”
Leah groans. She’d almost managed to forget Margot Ellis. She’d moved a few months into the school year, but it hadn’t stopped Leah from having a massive crush on her, which meant that she had turned bright, flaming red every time Margot had even looked at her. She’d been surprised, later, that no one had noticed. Except Simon apparently had, just hadn’t put two and two together until now.
“Shut up, Spier.”
The corner of Simon’s mouth quirks up.
“I guess that means I don’t have any bi-fi.”
“Oh my god, Simon.”
-
The first time Leah comes face to face with Abby, post breakup, is when she’s waiting for Simon and Bram to show up in English, their first period. She’d gotten to school early that day, and claimed the couch. She’s got her sketchbook open in her lap and is doodling nothing in particular, just faceless figures in various poses, when someone drops their backpack next to her with a hollow thud. It’s Abby, looking a bit more ruffled and less put together than usual.
“I know you’ve heard,” Abby says bluntly, plopping down onto the couch next to Leah, causing the springs to creak and the entire couch to bounce. “We’re still friends, it was mutual, we just need a little bit of time apart. That’s all.”
“Taylor?” Leah guesses, and by Abby’s loud groan, she’s hit on the right answer.
“Look, Taylor is great and all, but if she knows something, the entire school knows, too.” Abby leans back into the cushions, flinging an arm over her eyes. She groans again, but this time it’s less of frustration and more a loud sigh.
“She’s totally great at keeping things under wraps,” Leah deadpans, and it takes Abby a second, but she gets it, and the smile she offers Leah is small, but just the tiny tilt at the corner of her mouth makes Leah’s stomach do a little flip.
At that moment, Simon and Bram walk in the door, laughing and holding hands and being very Simon-and-Bram-ish, squishing onto the couch on Leah’s other side, which means that Abby and Leah are squished together as well.
It’s very hard for Leah to concentrate for the rest of the class.
-
Nick’s that afternoon is…awkward, to say the least. They try to do their usual; play video games and drink massive cups of sweet tea, but there’s a lingering awkwardness there, and Leah isn’t sure how much of it is because of her lingering guilt (what kind of friend is happy that her friend broke up?), and the silence is long and stretching instead of comfortable. The only sound is the gunshots and other sound effects coming from the tv.
Leah wants to make it better. But she isn’t sure how to make it better.
-
One day, Abby comes with Taylor to Emoji practice. She plops into one of the chairs in Leah’s basement and surveys the posters of classic sci-fi and horror movies with interest, scans the bookshelves, all packed to the brim, takes in the pile of sketchbooks on the end table.
“I like it,” she announces, smiling at Leah. “It’s cozy.”
Leah isn’t sure how to answer so she just doesn’t.
Taylor shuffles through piles of sheet music, passing it out, to Nora, to Anna, to Morgan, to Leah.
“She was complaining that she didn’t have anything to do today, so I told her to come with me,” Taylor explains, or possibility just says, because Leah isn’t sure if anyone but herself is listening.
“I’ll be quiet,” Abby promises, and she is, throughout the entire practice. She’s still distracting, though, all bright smile and dimples and bobbing her head along to the music. It’s cute, but not almost annoyingly so, like Simon and Bram, more…endearingly cute. The kind of cute that makes Leah want to take a picture and keep it forever.
She leaves with Taylor at the end of practice, the two of them talking about going over scripts, and Anna and Morgan leave shortly afterwards. Nora lingers a little bit though.
“She’s cute,” she finally says, and when Leah looks up from her drums, Nora isn’t looking at her, instead busily packing stuff away.
“Abby,” Nora says, as if in explanation. “She’s really cute.” Then she’s gone, bounding up the stairs, the door shutting with a click behind her, leaving Leah standing there, drumsticks dangling from her hand.
-
Leah plays drums until she’s literally too exhausted to do it any longer, Nora’s words echoing through her head.
-
“How’s it going?” Simon asks.
Leah shrugs, reaching over to change the radio station on his car stereo. Simon changes it right back, ignoring her mock glare.
“Good,” Leah says, and she knows exactly what he’s talking about, even though she pretends she doesn’t. “It’s all good.”
“Have you talked to either of them yet?”
“Nope,” Leah says, leaning her head against the window, not looking at Simon.
“Well-“
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay, Simon?”
The words come out a bit harsher than intended, and at Simon’s vaguely hurt look, she sighs and apologizes.
“I just…this can’t be the only thing we talk about. It’s my problem. I’ll figure it out.” Simon still looks mildly unconvinced, so she asks him about the play. It’s a stall tactic, yes, but one that works, and Simon starts talking about rehearsal and costume fitting and Ms. Albright, and it’s nice. Even though she knows, she’s going to have to talk to Nick and Abby about this eventually. But for now, she can pretend.
-
Somehow, Abby ends up lying flat on her stomach on the floor of Leah’s basement. Leah still isn’t really sure how it happened; she came with Taylor to Emoji practice again, and then one thing led to another and now she’s still here, and flipping through the illustrated edition of Harry Potter Leah got Simon for Christmas.
“I finally started reading these, y’know,” Abby says conversationally, pausing with her flipping of pages. “Simon’s been on me to read them for ages, and he somehow talked Molly into trying, as well.” She smiles up at Leah. “He’s turned my own cousin against me.”
“Simon is not intense about Harry Potter at all,” Leah says, and Abby laughs.
“He went on a good twenty-minute rant about the laws of time within the Harry Potter universe when I asked why Harry and Hermione didn’t just use the time turner to go back and kill Voldemort. I think it would have gone on longer, honestly, had we not needed to get to class.”
Leah tucks her feet up under her, watching as Abby turns another page. “Do you like it? Harry Potter, I mean?”
“Of course!” Abby says, “Who doesn’t like Harry Potter. Although Hermione should be the main character. I love Hermione. I think I’ve found my new fictional crush.”
Leah’s heart stops. Abby doesn’t seem to notice Leah’s entire world changing, instead continuing on.
“I mean, I’d marry Hermione Granger in a heartbeat. Also, Harry is kind of a dork. He reminds me of Simon a little bit, honestly, although Simon isn’t as angry.”
Leah just nods, mutely, and, later, when Abby leaves, she turns and says, “This was fun! We should hang out more often!” Leah stutters a yes, we should, and as soon as the door closes behind Abby she’s downstairs at her drums.
When she’s done, she knows what she has to do.
-
It’s late, probably too late, but Leah shows up on Nick’s door, hands shoved deep in her pockets and the heavy, anxiety-inducing dread hanging over her like a cloud. Nick opens the basement door, looking mildly confused, headphones dangling around his neck, and Leah exhales, hard, building up her courage.
“Nick, we need to talk.”
Nick opens the door wider, suddenly looking concerned. “Is everything all right?”
Leah looks up, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her hands are shaking, just a little bit, and she curls them into fists inside her pockets.
“I need to talk to you about Abby.”
He steps aside to let her in.
-
They’re sitting at the Waffle House. Simon and Nick and Bram and Garret all left about an hour ago, but they’re still here, on their third stack of waffles, split between them. They have the guise of studying, textbooks open in front of them, but they’re not. Not at all.
Ever since Leah went to Nick’s, ever since she confessed the monstrous crush she’s had on Abby for ages, it’s been like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders, because she can spend time with Abby without feeling guilty. She had told Nick that she didn’t want to ruin their friendship, had told him about the crush, and he hadn’t had much to say, but what he had said has lingered in her mind.
“Abby isn’t mine, Leah. I have no right to tell you if you can or can’t date her. And if you do, you’re too important to me to let something like this come between us.”
She had cried, just a little bit, when she had gotten back home. But the weight was off her shoulders, now, for the first time in months.
Across the table, Abby bites a strawberry off a fork, checking the time on her phone as she does. Her eyes grow wide, and she jumps up, nearly knocking away her plate of waffles.
“Shoot, I have to go!” She begins shoving papers and books into her bag, tossing money on the table at the same time. “If I don’t catch this bus there’s not another one for an hour, and that’d be too late. I’m sorry for running off!” She slides out of the booth, and Leah feels a flash of disappointment. But, before Abby is gone, she reaches out and squeezes one of Leah’s hands.
“This was fun. We should do this again. But just the two of us.”
And then she’s gone, and Leah watches her go through the windows of the restaurant, butterflies in her stomach. That was flirting, right? Was Abby flirting with her? She couldn’t be. Leah has to be reading too much into it.
But still.
-
Leah goes home, and she plays her drums.
-
It’s dress rehearsal day, and both Simon and Abby are allowed to skip classes because of it, and when they come back, Simon is still wearing all his stage makeup, but Abby looks like she’s tried to take hers off. There’s eyeshadow smudged in the corner of her eye, a bit of shimmer still clinging to her cheeks. She all but collapses next to Leah, watching as Simon goes over to Bram, both of them lighting up as soon as they see each other.
“They are ridiculously cute,” Abby says, nodding in their direction. Leah makes a small noise of agreement, and Abby focuses her attention on her.
“So, you’re coming to the play, right? Opening night? As close to the front as you can get?” Without giving Leah a chance to answer, she grabs both of Leah’s hands. “You have to. I want you there. Simon, does, too.” But the last part was worded almost as an afterthought. And Leah tries not to read too much into it, but she does, anyways.
-
The theater is packed, with students and families, and Leah gets there and sits in the third row where there’s been a row of seats set aside.
The play is fantastic, of course it is, and honestly, seeing Simon as the mayor of munchkinland will forever be hilarious. She spends the entire two hours in the dark theater sandwiched between Bram and Nick, eating the crappy but somehow still addicting popcorn the school sold for $2 a bag, laughing at Simon in his ridiculously brightly colored outfit, but, mostly, she watches Abby. Watches as she timidly creeps across the stage as the Cowardly Lion, her lower singing voice a lovely contrast to Taylor’s higher tones, and Leah thinks that if she already wasn’t a little bit in love with this girl, she would be now.
And, afterwards, Simon is swarmed by his family and Abby by hers, and Leah stands back, not wanting to intrude. She plops down into one of the front row seats, stretching out her legs, and lets her attention wander across the theater. Which is why she’s surprised when someone sits down next to her with a huff, and Leah looks up to see a grinning Abby.
She’s shed her lion’s mane wig, but still wears the painted-on nose and dark, dramatic eye makeup of the Cowardly Lion, and Leah’s mouth goes a little dry, because Abby’s eyes. Without the makeup, they’re already expressive and warm, but with the heavy eyeliner and smoky eye shadow, they’re electric, burning into Leah’s own. There’s a warmth in Leah’s chest, a smoldering fire, not quite set alight.
“That was fun!” Abby says, a little breathless, a little hoarse, stealing the bag of popcorn from an unprotesting Leah’s hands. She pops some into her mouth, resting her elbow against the armrest, leaning forward. “What did you think?”
“You were great!” Leah says, voice squeaking a little at Abby’s closeness. “You and Simon both.”
She adds the extra part, Simon’s name, to try and make it seem more casual, but Abby now has both elbows on the armrest, and is even closer than before, close enough that Abby can smell the cinnamon-sugar smell of her perfume.
They’re nose to nose, and Leah’s heart is beating a drumbeat in her chest faster than any tempo she’s ever played, and Abby’s still smiling, always smiling, and it happens so fast Leah barely realizes that she’s doing it, that they’re both leaning forward.
Abby’s lips taste of waxy lipstick and popcorn, and one of her hands is up, tangled in the hair at the nap of Leah’s neck and the hard armrest of the theater chair is digging into Leah’s ribs and the fire in her chest is burning, flowing through her veins, setting every one of her nerves alight.
The cheers break them out of it, and they look up to see a crowd around them; Simon and Bram and Nick and Nora and Garret, all grinning.
“Took you long enough,” Nora says, and Leah’s sure her cheeks are bright red. But Abby just laughs and grabs Leah’s hand.
“Yeah,” she says teasingly, tugging Leah up and out of her seat, giving her hip a small bump. “Took you long enough.”
-
Leah sits in the theater, watching as Ms. Albright gives rehearsal notes. Simon and Abby are sitting next to each other on the stage, scripts open in their laps. Abby is chewing on the end of a pen, swinging the end of her feet. She looks up, meets Leah’s eyes and smiles, and Leah’s entire stomach turns to butterflies.
No. It was never about Nick, not at all.