Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night, suffocating in muggy, humid air, thick legs kicking out, trapped in the jungle underbrush, burning, never fast enough –

It always takes a moment - a terrifying moment, and sometimes even longer than that - but her breathing evens out and reality catches up to her.

Details of her bedroom come into focus the longer she fights off the tethers of sleep; her air conditioner hums, nowhere near as loud as the revving of motorcycles, the growl of a panther. There’s a One Direction poster hanging next to her bed by one thumb tack, curling at the edges; there are clothes piled on the chair in the corner. She clings to the details of this reality, this world, because it helps take her out of the other. 

It takes a second to remember the body she’s in as well; fat bleeds into toned muscle, paleness into tanned skin. A b-cup either way, but these ones much more aesthetically pleasing (and a lot less hairy). She still feels her dick sometimes, a phantom limb - a sensation this body doesn’t know but her mind remembers vividly. She even lifts up the sheets just to be sure it was really gone.

She always calls Martha because Martha always understands. Not that Spencer and Fridge don’t get it, but talking to Martha is easier; they really bonded in the jungle, and Martha’s usually already awake, studying or binge watching true crime documentaries.

Predictably, she picks up after one ring. “Another nightmare?”

Bethany lies back down against her pillows, stares up at the plastic stars taped to her ceiling. “It’s been five months,” she says softly. Even her voice startles her, octaves higher than in her memory. She clears her throat. “I guess I thought I’d stop hearing drums by now.”

“We destroyed the game,” Martha reminds her, in her logical, matter-of-fact Martha voice. “There’s no way we’ll ever go back there.”

Bethany hums softly. She’d never say it out loud, but maybe that was part of the problem.

There’s a moment of companionable silence, and then Martha adds, “I do miss parts of it though. I miss being hot.”

Bethany snorts. “Shut up, you’re still hot.”

Martha, more open with her feelings now than she’s ever been, whines something about Ruby Roundhouse’s legs and her abs, conversation purposefully trailing off into something sillier. Which is disappointing, maybe, because Bethany feels like she could have wallowed in self-pity for a little bit longer.

But it’s better this way; it’s better to focus on the lighter aspects of their experience than what’s really plaguing her. What has been plaguing her for months, in the back of her head, on the tip of her tongue.

She closes her eyes, focuses on Martha’s voice, and tries not to see his face.

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She starts running with Fridge every morning, a few weeks after the game.

She’s in pretty good shape as it is, left over from volleyball season, but she still remembers what it’s like to gasp for air that wouldn’t fill her lungs, how it felt to have your legs give out on you, and she doesn’t think the out-of-breath feeling will ever leave her entirely. She could have died in the game - endurance was her weakness, after all - was so close too many times for comfort. DID. Twice, technically. She’s just taking precautions. She doesn’t think she can be blamed for that.

They meet on her street while it’s still dark, Fridge yawning too loud for how early it is. He greets her with a pat on the back, a comforting weight, and waits for her to stretch and put her headphones in before they start. They run through half the town before the sun even rises, and she’s happy for a minute, feeling the concrete under her pink nikes, the houses and trees bathed in periwinkle blue.

She pointedly keeps her eyes on the road when they run passed the Vreeke house. Keeps her eyes away from that side of the street for at least three blocks.

Fridge doesn’t mention it if he notices.

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Noah is waiting for her by her locker before the homeroom bell rings. It’s become a pretty frequent occurrence since winter break, and a contradicting one at that; ex-boyfriends weren’t supposed to linger like they weren’t exes. 

The old Bethany would have melted on the spot just at the sight of his tousled brown hair and football-built broad torso. The way his green eyes narrow on her even in a hall full of other girls would have had her completely at his mercy.

She almost hates her old self for how easy she made it for him. 

Thankfully, the new Bethany finds it annoying. He’s been rooted in this spot every morning for 5 months, it’s a wonder he hasn’t burned shoe marks into the floor beside her. Still, she greets him with a polite smile and a nod, and waits patiently for him to step aside so she can gather her textbooks.

He asks what her plans are for summer break and she tries to appease him with as little information as possible. He doesnt acknowledge what she said, and he fills in the second after her sentence ended with his own, explaining that it’s his last summer of football camp before he graduates unless he gets scouted and -

She stares at him and wonders how she was ever as enamored with him as she was.

“Listen,” he says on their walk to her homeroom despite her protests that he really didn’t need to -

“We’re worried about you,” he scratches the back of his head. “Seems like you got close to those weirdos and stopped posting on Instagram in the same week. We miss the old you.” He steps in front of her, making her stop, and hooks his index finger underneath her chin, making her look up at him.

“I miss the old you.”

This was her fantasy, months ago. For Noah to look at her the way he was now and tell her he wanted her back. She daydreamt about this moment a thousand times.

The reality of it was a little less glitter and rainbows and a little more please don’t touch me. 

”I like those weirdos,” she defends, leaning her head back out of his reach. “And...I’m happy with who I am now. If you don’t like it then you don’t have to talk to me.”

She leaves him there, without waiting for his response. She doesn’t really care what he had to say anyway. She doesn’t care what he thought about her. Not anymore.

Little victories, sure, but she’d take them where she could. 

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She doesn’t see much of Lucinda anymore.

She’s sad about that for a while - she’d been her best friend, after all - hours of sleepovers and FaceTime and iMessage all wasted on a friendship that couldn’t last without a screen distracting them. 

But the game really did change her. Now she goes days without charging her phone, goes for hikes with the group and doesn’t even bring it with her. She can’t remember where she left her selfie stick, and doesn’t even care. She hasn’t been on Instagram in like, 2 weeks now.

She likes it - not being so plugged in. She has time for other things - even picked up a few new hobbies, like drawing. She used to text through art class, willingly taking a barely passing grade because she wasn’t interested in getting graphite on her fingers or paint on her clothes. She pays attention now - and she actually likes it. And her teacher says she has a lot of talent.

He looks over her shoulder at the sketchbook in front of her. “Very nice,” he tells her. “What is that a map of?”

Nowhere, she lies. Nowhere that exists, anyway.

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The gang sits together at lunch now, which used to attract stares and whispers from every social circle in the school, but now no one really bats an eye at the four of them. She takes her usual spot next to Fridge, across from Martha and Spencer. She steals a fry off of Fridge’s tray - which he absolutely notices and complains about.

Spencer and Martha laugh at him - laugh with each other and are so completely adorable in their awkwardness that Bethany can barely look at them or she might start beaming and that would just make them feel awkward.

Still, despite everything Jumanji put them through, a lot of good came out of it; she has to remember that.

“Casey is throwing a party Friday night,” Fridge mentions between bites of his burger. “Y’all are invited.”

Spencer raises an eyebrow. “‘Y’all’ or ‘you and Bethany’?”

Fridge rolls his eyes. “I said y’all didn’t I?” He looks at Bethany. “Didn’t I say y’all?”

She ignores him. “Count me out. Last time I went to one of Casey’s parties the cops busted it and I had to walk all the way home drunk. And in heels.”

”I’ll give you a ride.” Fridge says. “Come on, it’s the last party of Junior year. Everyone is going.”

”We should go,” Martha says suddenly, determinedly. Bethany shoots her a look because what the hell, Martha is supposed to be the responsible one. The redhead looks sheepish, backpedals slightly. “It might be fun?”

”Well I’m going if you are.” Spencer smiles at her, and Martha smiles back before ducking her head shyly. She glances at Bethany from underneath her long lashes, all irresistibly pleading puppy dog eyes. 

“We should all go.” She says.

Bethany sighs. She was kind of over the whole high school party vibe; over choking down a drink that was way too strong while some aggressively loud guy she didn’t even know tried to impress her by shotgunning PBRs.

Spencer and Martha wanting to go made sense - they were finally opening up to the possibility of typical rebellious teenager fun, and we’re now in a position to attend such cliche functions (instead of being shunned as outcasts either by their own hand ((Martha)) or decided by everyone else ((Spencer))). She doesn’t want to take that away from them. Not that they couldn’t just go without her but Bethany can already see how it would play out.

Casey’s parties were notoriously boozey, and Bethany knows for a fact that once Fridge started doing shots he didn’t stop, and he’d leave them defenseless in a house full of the same people who mocked them for the first two years of high school. Inevitably their social anxieties would get the better of the both of them and they’d leave after one beer, if that.

And that, Bethany decides, was no way to experience their first high school party.

“Fine,” She relents, friendly affection blooming in her stomach at the smile that twists Martha’s lips. “But I’m not drinking.”

Fridge claps her on the back. “Atta girl. I’ll drink enough for both of us.”

Spencer snickers. ”We all know you can’t handle your liquor, Moose Finbar.”

”It’s Mouse.”

She sees him then, in his hideout. Sees his strong stubbled jaw, Margarita in hand. She forces out a laugh at the memory along with the rest of the group; laughs until the tightness in her chest goes away.

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Hunter tackles her as soon as she walks in the house, before she can set her backpack down or slip off her shoes.

She grunts as she lifts him - she swears he gets bigger every day. He’s telling her animatedly about school, about the story they read in class, waving his arms in an exaggerated fashion and she ducks to avoid getting smacked in the face.

Waddling, she carries him through the hall to the living room, where her mother is seated on the sofa.

”Hi Bunny,” she doesn’t look up from whatever dramatic soap opera she’s watching until Bethany plops down next to her, Hunter squirming in her lap. She speaks over his shrill demands of being let go, glancing back and forth between Bethany and the television. “How was school?”

Bethany keeps her brother trapped for a few more seconds, kissing the top of his curly blonde head before he can scramble away. “It was okay,” she says, watching Hunter disappear into the kitchen. “I got an A on my history quiz.”

”That’s wonderful.” Her mom tells her, reaching over to pat her knee. “Your grades have really improved since first semester, huh?”

Bethany shrugs, eyes turning towards the TV where a ruggedly handsome doctor is embracing a pretty brunette nurse. “I guess. Not having constant distractions helps.”

”Well, I’m proud of you. There are sliced apples in the fridge if you want a snack. And pizza for dinner, since you’re eating bread again.”

”I could eat bread for the rest of my life and not complain.” Bethany says, standing. “I don’t know how I did it.”

“You have your fathers’ willpower. And my good looks.” Her mother’s attention is back on the tv by the time she adds, ”Oh, and you have mail on the counter.”

Bethany raids the fridge for the apples, grabs a Capri sun while she’s there, and takes a seat at the counter, stool scraping against the tile. She grabs the stack of mail, crunching down on an apple slice while she goes through them.

There’s a few pamphlets for the nearby university on top - pamphlets Bethany skips over because there’s no way she’s thinking about college right now, not until September at least. Instead she flips through a Zumiez catalogue absentmindedly while she eats. She finds more mail wedged in between the pages - a coupon for bubble tea at the Vietnamese place downtown.

And a letter.

There’s nothing in particular that’s special about it; it’s a plain white envelope with a generic American flag stamp and her name scrawled messily, off-center.

Ms. Bethany Walker

Still, her fingers are inexplicably trembling as she picks it up, eyes widening when she sees who it’s from. There, in the top left corner, a name she’s been simultaneously avoiding and obsessing over since December.

Alex Vreeke

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She’s not a masochist, so she doesn’t open it.

But she also is kind of a masochist, so she shoves it back into the catalogue, clutches it to her chest and makes a beeline for her bedroom.

She shuts her bedroom door and flops onto her bed, magazine discarded onto the floor. She holds the letter up to the ceiling, squinting at it - like if she looks hard enough she can see through the envelope and won’t actual have to open it.

It’s not like she doesn’t want to; she wants to open it. She really wants to open it. But she hasn’t even talked to Alex since that afternoon in December, when the game spit them out without him. When they found him by chance at his dad’s house, completely different than it used to be, and him - a totally different person.

Sure, she might have his Linkedin profile bookmarked, might still look at it sometimes because it reminds her that it was all real. Might toy with the idea of sending him a message when she’s feeling particularly vulnerable. But she’s never actually pulled the trigger. What would she even say? That she’s still hopelessly in love with his past self? That guy didn’t even exist anymore. Now he was just...someone she knew for a day in another universe. A stranger with an entire family and twenty years on her. 

She squints at the letter. What could it possibly say? She can’t even begin to imagine. 

Maybe he wants to reconnect. Maybe he wants to be friends. Maybe he’s been in love with her since 1996 and he can’t take it anymore. She squashes down that thought the second she thinks it, refuses to go down a road she’s not sure she could come back from. She hates the butterflies that swirl in her stomach, hopes they drown.

Why is she doing this? She shouldn’t be so starry-eyed over a guy she doesn’t even know anymore. A guy she barely even knew then. She shouldn’t be letting herself get so out of hand with her own feelings. 

She had to put an end to it, eventually. Why not now, while the universe was sending her an envelope of opportunity? 

She slides her thumb underneath the seal, applying the slightest pressure, feeling it give and pull apart. She takes a breath to steady her pounding heart.

Her cellphone rings in the pocket of her jacket, startling the hell out of her and making her drop the letter into her lap. She scrambles to find her phone, keeping her eyes on the envelope, afraid that if she looks away it might disappear - that he might disappear.

She answers without looking, distracted. “Hello?”

”Hey,” Martha’s voice greets her. “Did you start the Calculus homework yet?”

Martha, her savior. Keeping her grounded without even realizing it. She swings her legs off the bed, grabbing the letter before she heads to her desk, cluttered with notebooks and that secretly good manga Martha’s making her read and not much schoolwork. She feels stupid. “Uh, no. Hold on, let me get my textbook.”

Her textbook - because she’s 16 and a junior and so stupid for letting herself spiral so far and so fast. 

She shoves the letter into her desk drawer, way in the back behind her middle school yearbook and childhood diary. She doesn’t want to think about it right now - doesn’t want to think about him.

She pushes the drawer shut and it almost feels like a door closing. 

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Chapter Text

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That door doesn’t stay shut for long.

“Oh my god,” Martha says, holding the letter in her hands like it’s fragile - staring at it like it’s priceless. “You have to open it.”

Bethany sighs, squints at her toes and wipes a stray streak of nail polish off her skin. She’s on her bed, giving herself a sub par, distracted pedicure while Martha spins in her desk chair, letter from Alex in her hands.

Bethany didn’t want to show her - didn’t want to bring him up at all, actually. Because she’s - the door is supposed to be shut and stay that way. He had a family, and she had stayed away - not wanting to be a bother and not wanting to get herself even more heartbroken. This was the first attempt he’s made to contact her since the game, and it’s obvious; he’s had two decades to miss her - it had to have gotten old fast. Even if it was new to her, it didn’t matter. And maybe someday it would get old to her, too.

That’s what she tells herself, and it doesn’t make her feel better, but it keeps her grounded. Keeps her from doing something embarrassing, anyway. Even if she needs to repeat it again and again and again...

...but also she’s 16. And naive, and in love. And it’s been eating at her for days now, and Bethany feels like she might explode if she doesn’t tell someone. And who better to tell than Martha?

But that doesn’t mean she has to read it.

“Come on!” Martha whines. “You aren’t the least bit curious? It’s a letter. From Alex Vreeke.”

“I can read,” Bethany sighs and seals the cap of her nail polish. “And of course I’m curious. But it doesn’t matter.”

“What if he’s confessing his love for you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bethany repeats again, swinging her legs over the side of her bed. She snatches the letter from Martha’s hand, where the redhead is waving it like a victory flag. She stashes it back in the drawer, where really she should have just kept it and never taken it out. “What could I do about that, even if that was the case? He’s like, 40.”

“It’s different,” Martha insists, crossing her arms. “You fell in love with him when he was, what, 17? It’s not his fault he time traveled.”

Bethany ignores that, moving to her dresser to rifle through the top drawer. She had no idea what she was going to wear. “I’m not blaming him.” She looks through the piles of clothes, fingers touching the fabric but she couldn’t be further away from recognizing what’s in her hands. She’s staring sightlessly in front of herself but only seeing him. “It’s no one’s fault. Just that stupid game.”

“He’s probably been like, waiting for you for twenty years. He’s been in love with a girl that wasn’t even born yet. And now that she’s alive and like, super hot she won’t even read a letter penned straight from his heart. That’s tragic.”

Bethany rolls her eyes. Martha was nothing if not a drama queen. A romantic drama queen. Which is something that would surprise most people, and surprised Bethany at first, because Martha was always so quiet, so logical. She figured dramatics were above the redhead.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

“I’m going to read it,” Bethany says. “Just...not tonight.” She shuts her dresser drawer more forcefully than necessary, feeling frazzled. But that was kind of the affect Alex had on her. “We have a party to get ready for and you are seriously killing my vibe.”

She wonders who she’s really reminding with that - Martha, or herself.

Martha sighs, long and loud and dramatic, but seems to drop it. She sets the letter down next to Bethany’s laptop before she rises from her chair and moves to stand next to Bethany, in front of the open closet. She reaches out and pushes a few dresses to the side, face furrowing deeper and deeper into a frown the further she gets. “Are you gonna make me look, like, super slutty?”

Bethany rests her chin on Martha’s shoulder. “Do you want me to?”

“No,” the redhead says quickly. Then, after a moment: “Maybe.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.” Bethany tells her. “And Spencer likes you the way you are.”

“I know that,” Martha says defensively, cheeks as red as her hair. “But...Ruby’s crop-top-short-shorts-combat-boots combo made me feel...”

“Badass?” Bethany supplies.

Martha smiles softly. “Yeah. I want to go into my first high school party looking...looking badass.”

Bethany matches her smile fondly, and takes a moment to appreciate everything the game has brought her. Even if most of those things were out of her reach - probably would always be - some of them weren’t.

Her friends weren’t going to disappear.

“Well then, Ms. Roundhouse,” Bethany slings her arms over Martha’s shoulders. “I’m gonna make you the most badass looking chick there.”

Martha audibly swallows, face paling. “The regret I’m feeling is so instantaneous, I think I should lie down.”

Bethany rolls her eyes for what feels like the millionth time that afternoon. “Drama queen.”

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It’s a little after 10:30 when they arrive, fashionably late. In reality they’ve been ready since 9, hostages in Bethany’s bedroom until her night owl parents fell asleep.

Even from the street Bethany can see that it’s packed - recognizes faces through the windows as her and Martha get closer to the house.

Colorful paper lantern lights strung along the bushes lining the front of Casey’s house, the vibrations of the bass inside so loud Bethany can feel it on the front porch.

This is a scene Bethany has grown used to over the years - popularity putting her in these situations more often than the average high schooler. She used to love it - getting dressed up, putting on fake lashes and smudge proof lipstick and drinking enough to disappoint her mother, if she ever found out.

A wave of something flashes through her as she opens the front door, stepping aside to let Martha in. Guilt, maybe - a side affect of her newfound responsibility.

Bethany is proud of the growth she’s experienced since the game but - some nights she wishes it would stop following her.

And that’s kind of what she was going for with her outfit - a lot of straps and a lot of skin. Again, Bethany is happy she’s matured beyond this but tonight she wants to be the old Bethany and forget the game - if only for a few hours.

Or, certain aspects of it, anyway.

It’s easy enough to forget once they’re in the middle of it; gyrating bodies swarming like bees in the middle of the makeshift dance floor in the living room, Bethany with a hand on Martha’s back, pushing her towards the kitchen, where Fridge texted her that he and Spencer would be.

Martha squeaks and apologizes every time someone bumps into her, and Bethany has to smile at that: she remembers how overwhelming her first party had been.

She moves in front of Martha, grabbing her hand and pushing them through the crowd. She smiles at the people she knows, gives a small wave to Lucinda when she sees her on the couch, wedged between two football players. Lucinda makes eye contact with her, but breaks it quickly, turning back to the boy on her left with a loud, fake laugh.

Bethany’s not surprised. She’d be bothered, had she been alone, but Martha squeezes her hand tighter and Bethany reminds herself that it doesn’t matter; she has new friends now. Better friends.

Fridge is the first person she’s actually happy to see, towering over everyone else in the kitchen, standing like a guard in front of the bottles of liquor set up on the counter.

Bethany whistles lowly, linking her arm with Fridge’s. “Casey went all out this time, huh?”

“A good thing, too.” Fridge glances at her, pulling two red solo cups from the stack beside the vodka. “I was feeling too grown up for this. Exploding cake really makes you reconsider what’s a good time and what’s not.”

“It wasn’t the cake that was explosive,” Martha reminds him.

Fridge shrugs, looks over Bethany’s shoulder at her before looking back at the Grey Goose he’s unscrewing the cap of. He quickly does a double take, cap clattering against the counter.

Bethany steps aside, beaming like a proud mother. Martha squawks indignantly, covering her stomach with her arms - a familiar gesture.

“God damn,” Fridge backs up a step, makes a show out of the slow drag of his eyes from Martha’s legs to her face. “I mean, Bethany, you always look good. But Martha. God damn.”

“I know, right?” Bethany sighs wistfully.

Martha had protested vehemently at first, at the cropped hoodie and skintight leather pants Bethany had presented her with, arguing about the logistics of a sweater crop top. She’d complained the entire walk over, combat boots stomping against the pavement, but Bethany noticed it - the way her posture shifted from unsure and small to confident and -

Badass.

She looks a little less confident now, shrinking underneath both Bethany and Fridge’s gaze. “I’m feeling really...really objectified right now.”

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Bethany teases, and Fridge makes himself busy with their drinks, pouring into their cups what Bethany thinks is a little too much vodka and not enough fruit punch.

“No,” Martha groans, pulling down the hem of her hoodie. She begrudgingly accepts the drink Fridge passes to her, frowning when she lifts it up and smells it.

“I bet it will soon.” She teases, teeth gritting together when she sees him - or a flash of him, relaxed and beautiful against the backdrop of the jungle. Martha had never had alcohol before meeting him, Bethany remembers. She shakes her head, shakes him out.

“Where’s Spencer?” She asks. She glances around the rest of the kitchen, but doesn’t spot his curly brown hair.

Fridge shrugs, screwing the cap back on the bottle. “He thinks he dropped his inhaler in my car.”

Bethany pouts. Martha looks about two seconds from bailing, so Bethany raises her plastic cup, feeling silly. “To being alive!” She toasts.

Fridge snorts, but knocks his cup against hers. “To getting lit.”

Martha hesitates, only for a moment, before raising her drink. “To not getting alcohol poisoning.”

Bethany laughs, red juice sloshing over the edge of her cup and down her wrist as their cups knock together, Fridge bellowing, “Here, here!”

She doesn’t give the actual drink much thought until she’s gulped down three mouthfuls. That was a good party rule she learned a while ago - take three drinks, no matter what it was or how terrible it tasted. Like ripping off a bandaid.

Fridge doesn’t stop at three - not until he drains his cup. Bethany watches Martha hesitate again, before her brows set in determination. She takes a sip and swallows - then another, face screwing up. Bethany sees the shudder run down Martha’s spine, the grimace she makes. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” She repeats, grinning.

Martha groans. “No.”

“I bet it will soon.”

Martha groans again.

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Spencer joins them not too long after Bethany finishes her first drink, sputtering and flushing bright red at the sight of Martha, who’s modest and shy but absolutely shines under his attention. Fridge acts as their bartender again for another round of toasting, and
Spencer gives a touching, albeit awkward and short speech about how he’s happy with the way things turned out.

They all toast to that, and Bethany means it. Every day isn’t easy but she’s getting there - to happy.

She bullies Martha onto the dance floor somewhere between her third drink and first tequila shot of the night - one she made the redhead join in on. Martha, a great sport and an even better friend, was only overcome with anxiety for a few moments, until a particularly catchy song came on. Fridge pushes Spencer towards them until he and Martha start dancing, hyper aware of themselves and each other and it’s sweet. It makes Bethany blush - in an innocent adolescent kind of way. It’s perfect. It’s everything Bethany wanted for her friends’ first party.

She alternates dancing beside Martha and Spencer, and with Fridge, who’s so tall and makes her feel safe and small and happy in the sea of dancing bodies. They all take turns getting everyone drinks, her and Martha bring back beers, Fridge and Spencer bring back shots. She doesn’t know how long they all dance for - doesn’t know who she dances with, doesn’t know what she’s drinking anymore. Time passes with no meaning, an endless circle of different songs with the same perfect beat.

Everything is easy for the first time in months.

Bethany is happy.

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The Spotify playlist keeping them entranced switches to something indie and slow, and Bethany psyches Martha up about slow dancing with Spencer - a topic already touched on earlier in Bethany’s bedroom. Bethany wants to stay and watch them - but she’s drunk and sweaty and takes the change of pace as an opportunity to get some air.

She doesn’t remember how she ends up here - running her hand against the rough surface of the side of the house, tripping over too-long grass and a garden hose. She laughs to herself - drunk and clumsy - and doesn’t hear the footsteps approaching behind her.

Not until there’s someone grabbing her by the shoulders, spinning her around.

Bethany would gasp in surprise if her mouth could catch up to her brain (or vice versa), but Noah has her against the side of the house before she can blink, hands on either side of her head, leaning over her. He’s flushed red and smells like beer, and the old Bethany might have felt unthreatened and unsurprised, but Noah made her nervous now. In a different way than before.

“You look so good tonight, baby.” He says, and those words might have made her melt but now they make her nauseous. “I missed you so much.”

Bethany swallows, glancing around. It’s just the two of them, and even though she can hear the chatter of the party and the splashing of water from the pool in the back, there’s no one on this side of the house. They’re alone. “Then let’s go inside?” She asks him softly, voice gentle, trying to soften the look in his eyes. At least until they’re inside and she’s not so alone. “We can dance or talk...just...just back up a little.”

He doesn’t. “I really don’t get it.” He says, brow furrowing deeper. “You used to fucking worship me. Was there someone else?”

“No,” Bethany says quickly. “I just changed. And it’s not like I’m the only girl in the world. See if Lucinda wants to hangout or something -“

“I don’t want her,” Noah bends down and breathes against her ear, hot and sour. “I want you.”

Bethany shuts her eyes tight. “Noah,” his name comes out of her mouth like a whisper. “Please.”

“Hey!”

She opens her eyes at the familiar voice, and Spencer is there, then, pulling Noah away from her. Noah, drunk and gigantic, stumbles easily, and Spencer slides in between the two of them, making it easier to breathe already. Without even trying. “Leave her alone.”

Noah laughs, humorless and angry. “I don’t fucking get this shit,” he says. “You’re acting like a fucking bitch, Bethany.” His eyes narrow on Spencer. “And you,” he says. “You might have grown a pair and convinced everyone else that you’re not the same fucking dork you’ve been your entire life, but I’m not an idiot. Why don’t you go back inside, take your red-headed whore and go home.”

“Don’t call her that,” Spencer says lowly, fists clenching at his side.

Now both Noah and Spencer were looking equally as angry, and Bethany really, really can’t even. “Hey,” Bethany wraps a hand around Spencer’s bicep, but his eyes don’t relax, body tense. “Hey,” She repeats, until he looks at her. “Hey. It’s not worth getting mad over. Let’s go back inside? Spence?”

She’s already pulling him back towards the pool before he can answer, feet dragging until she jerks his arm. He stumbles to catch up to her stride.

They don’t speak until their feet hit the concrete around the crowded pool - Bethany doesn’t even think she breathes. Spencer apologizes to someone that runs past him, and Bethany rolls her eyes, shoulder checking him softly. “You can’t lose your head like that out here, Spencer. You have weaknesses in the real world. You’re not invincible.”

“I wasn’t going to do anything.” Spencer defends.

Bethany smiles. “I know. But I don’t want you getting hurt.” She sighs, and continues, “Thank you, though. I doubt this will be the last time you save me,” She says. “It’s certainly not the first time.”

Spencer looks at her warily. “You let him treat you like that before?”

“He’s not that bad, usually.” And he’s not. Or, he didn’t used to be. Bethany doesn’t really know what he’s like anymore.

Spencer nods his head towards the open sliding glass door, at the people parading in and out of the house. “Let’s go back to the party.”

“Actually...” Bethany’s not in the partying mood anymore. “I’m just going to walk home. You guys stay though, alright? Have fun?”

“Let me at least walk you home,” Spencer sputters, ever the gentleman. “Or let me find Fridge - “

“He is like, 8 jaegarbombs deep,” She says. “And I don’t want you to leave Martha alone. So go - make good bad choices.”

Spencer looks like he’s going to argue with her more, and Bethany expects it when he opens his mouth. But he stares at her slack-jawed, before he says, “You know, I had you all wrong before. I thought you were just some...spoiled blonde airhead. And that you didn’t care about anyone but yourself.” Bethany blinks, but he continues before she can interrupt, “You care about everyone. And I’m sorry I didn’t see that before.”

“I wasn’t like that before,” Bethany tells him. “Don’t apologize. I’m sure whatever you thought of me was well deserved.”

“I guess some good came out of the game, huh?” Spencer teases her.

Bethany rolls her eyes. Like she hasn’t been reminded of that fact every day for the last 5 months. “I guess, nerd.”

.

.

Bethany likes the walk to her house from Casey’s. Casey’s parents were gone a lot, and they’ve been in the same circle since junior high so it’s a walk Bethany has gotten familiar with. It’s quiet, all side streets and cute houses and cicadas and sprinklers humming. She gets lost in her head as she walks, singing to herself, and she doesn’t even notice the way she’s going until she sees the fence in front of his house.

She slows, without realizing it, until she’s stopped in front of it.

She’d grown up her entire life looking at the Freak house like it was haunted, despite the fact that Mr. Vreeke still lived there. If anything he maybe added to the haunting factor of it all; a heartbroken father a ghost in his own home; the home his son disappeared from. She treated Alex Vreeke and his dad like an urban legend since childhood - everyone in Brantford did. She always stared on the few occasions she saw him outside - watching the old house from the sidewalk across the street distrustfully, ducking beneath the car window when she drove by until she rounded the corner.

It couldn’t be further than how she remembers it in her memory. Where there used to be rotted wood and chipping paint there is now American flag banners, potted plants and Adirondack chairs. The front porch light is on, car in the driveway. It hits her - it always does when she gathers the courage to go down this street - that this was the house he was raised in. The one he was taken from and returned to. She can almost imagine him, his stupid aviator shades, his perfect fucking mouth.

He looks like Seaplane in her head; he always does.

“I hate you,” She tells him, voice echoing in the darkness. She doesn’t know why she says it - really it just slips out.

He doesn’t even live here.

She reality of it creeps up on her, combined with the alcohol she’s consumed and her high high heels, her knees buckle, a little ungracefully. The concrete is cool, a nice contrast to the warm summer night. She’s sure it’s scraping up her leggings but she can’t really focus on that. The moon is bright, illuminating the Freak house beautifully, and it’s almost ironic. How ugly and haunted it used to be - how beautiful and carefree she used to feel.

Bethany laughs, mostly to herself. It wasn’t Martha who was the drama queen. It was her. Did everything with him have to be so drastic? She couldn’t even walk by his childhood home without having a breakdown.

“I hate you,” she repeats to no one, softer. She wishes she meant it, maybe. Or she wishes she thought of him less. Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt as bad.

“That’s rude.”

Bethany whips her head around, vision spinning, and doesn’t hide her frown at the double-vision Fridge she sees, walking up to wear she’s sitting on the sidewalk.

He’s crouched beside her by the time he settles back into one person.

She glares at him, “You didn’t drive, did you?”

Fridge has the nerve to roll his eyes at her. “Of course not.”

“You’ve tried to fly a helicopter drunk, before,” she says. “My questioning is well deserved.”

Fridge doesn’t answer, instead he sits down beside her on the ground with a grunt, patting her knee. “How you doing, Professor?”

Bethany shrugs, drunk and pleased that her friend has come for her. Parties weren’t new to Bethany, but friends that stayed after they ended were. So we’re friends that came to find her. “I’m good. How did you know I’d be here?”

Fridge answers with a shrug of his own. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m psychic.”

“You’re drunk.”

“So are you.” Fridge snorts.

“Can you imagine how happy I’d be?” Bethany sighs, resting her head on his bicep, staring off at the Vreeke house. “If things had worked out?”

“You’d be just like Spencer and Martha. And I don’t need anymore of that.”

That’s not a real answer, she almost complains. But then she remembers maybe she didn’t want a real answer. “You tell me what I need to hear.” She says. “I love that. I love you.”

Fridge cups her cheeks, patting hard enough for her to feel her skin tingle. “I love you, too,” he says, and Bethany almost wonders if he means it. But the look in his eyes in genuine, entertained and warm. “And you’re drunk, so let me walk you home.”

Bethany snorts, already waving him off. But she does except his help up when he extends a hand for her. “I think you’re underestimating my strength, sir. I’ve destroyed a hundred men double your size.”

“Bethany, you weren’t Ruby.”

“But I should have been.”

“B, I don’t want to get into this weird Van Pelt fantasy again.”

Bethany explodes with enthusiasm, clinging to his arm tightly. Their shoes slap against the concrete, loud in her ears. “If I had her abs and her short shorts I could have ended the game in like three seconds! You know that!”

“He was programmed to be evil. You could never have changed him. Let him go.”

“That’s bad advice.” Bethany whines.

They seem to sober up for a second, and the both of them know they’re not talking about Van Pelt anymore.

Fridge sighs, clicks his tongue. “He needed to go back, Beth. You know that.”

Bethany knows that. “I know that. But...” Bethany looks up at the sky, cloudy and starless and really she’s just trying to stop her tears from falling. Even if her voice breaks, she at least doesn’t want to ruin her mascara. “I never got to say goodbye. And I’m so happy he’s okay and got to live a happy life. And his children are beautiful and I bet his wife is beautiful. And I just wanted him to be happy. And if he’s happy now then I’m happy too.”

“Who are you trying to convince?” Fridge asks. “Me? Or you.”

Bethany knows the answer to that; knows that sooner or later she’d have to sober up and deal with things like an almost-adult.  But she knows naivety is easier than facing the truth, hurts less, too - and she was happy to play along for as long as she could.

“I’m happy.” Bethany repeats firmly. “Really, I am.”

They’re silent for a while, until they reach Bethany’s street. They stop a few houses down to say goodbye, mindful and paranoid of her parents bedroom window right in front of the house facing the street. 

Fridge watches her while she digs through her purse to double check she still has her phone on her. She makes a happy noise when she finds it, one he interrupts with, “The game changed you for the better, Bethany. It made you more beautiful where it matters. But feeling upset about something doesn’t ruin anything about it. You’re allowed to be unhappy with your situation.”

It’s...it’s surprisingly deep, but they’re both drunk and really, it’s not that surprising coming from Fridge, who has always treated her gently and kindly, even before the game.

Bethany reaches up and cups his cheek, tilts her head back because now she feels like crying again. “The game changed you for the better, too.”

Fridge shrugs her off, clearly embarrassed. “I did a lot of self-reflecting during the game,” he says. “While I was trying not to die or get run over by rhinos or whatever. Being 5 foot really makes you see things from a different point of view.”

“That’s beautiful,” Bethany cries.

.

.

Bethany has snuck out and into her bedroom so many times over the years that it’s easier than using the front door at this point, even while as emotionally unstable as she currently was - even in heels. Even on the second floor. The oak tree conveniently next to her window was sturdy and tall - one she used to swing on as a kid. It felt a little sacrilegious, almost, to use what used to be a fond childhood memory as a step-stool but Bethany repressed that guilt a long time ago.

She spins around once she lands on her feet in her room, and if there’s a transition from when she’s surveying her things with drunk fascination, to where she currently was on her bed, she doesn’t remember it.

She’s drunk and emotional and she really doesn’t even realize she has the letter from Alex in her hands until she’s holding it, looking up at it, squinting against the harshness of her ceiling light. If she was in her right mind she might not even open it, but she’s not so she does, tearing it open a little recklessly.

It’s one page. Four short paragraphs.

Bethany, it starts, and already Bethany is seeing his words blurrier and blurrier. Just her name in his messy, hurried handwriting is enough to break her fucking heart. Part of her wants to tear it up before she can read the rest - spare herself some heartache. But she knows herself enough to know it won’t stop hurting until she has closure. And if this was all the closure she was going to get...she’d have to be satisfied with that. She’d have to hold her breath and get it over with.

I’ve put off writing this letter for a long time now. In every draft I’ve written in the past I was writing to a person that was you, but wasn’t. Meeting you outside my parents’ house after all that time unearthed a lot of old feelings, so I’ll try to make this brief before I say something embarrassing.

I’m sorry we never got to say goodbye. Even though our time together in the game was short, you impacted my life deeply. I think about you and the others often, especially when I look at my Beth.

For a long time the thought of you put me at ease, but lately it’s been making me feel restless. Maybe I’m having a midlife crisis. I think it’s because I know that the You in my head and the You from the game aren’t the same person anymore. I’ve played over our time in the game so many times I don’t know what actually happened and what didn’t. What I said and didn’t say. That sounds pathetic in my head but I had 1 day to get to know you and 20 years to fill in the blanks and my memory is nothing like what it used to be so cut me some slack.

(That last part was a joke, if you couldn’t tell. Haha.)

The point of this is that I’d like to meet up soon, and get to know You. The real you. The Bethany reading this. And if we run out of things to say we could always talk about the game. It would be nice to not have to wonder what’s real.

You’ll be hearing from me.

Alex

That’s...

That’s nothing.

That leaves Bethany with more questions than answers. She wanted closure and all she got was confusion. She re-reads it, reads parts of it a dozen times over (“What I said and didn’t say”) because she’s drunk and it’s blowing her mind and it’s her own fault for doing this now and telling herself to not have expectations but still having a million.

Her phone chirps beside her, wakes her up from her Alex Vreeke-induced fog, and she hurries to answer; her mom was a light sleeper and Bethany didn’t need her waking up to a missing Martha and a distraught daughter.

“Yeah?” She answers, voice breaking.

Martha’s voice is loud, and it takes Bethany a moment to register her words, but it’s a relief - a distraction. She’d fallen (or, forced herself) down a hole and was seconds away from completely shattering into nothing. “How do I get inside your house?” Martha asks, and Bethany hears Spencer whispering in the background. “The door?”

“No, no.” Bethany tells her, standing from the bed. She wipes her eyes on the back of her arm. “Come around the back. I’ll show you.”

She goes to the window, already open from her re-entry. She’s still holding onto the letter - she wants to show Martha, she needs to talk to someone, anyone. But what could Martha say to make her feel better that she hasn’t already told herself? She’d give a fresh perspective on the letter but ultimately did it even matter?

He’s not the same as he was 20 years ago, Bethany tells herself if only to make herself feel better. She was delaying the inevitable. She was being naive, heart hopeful despite her brain telling her what a bad idea clinging to the thought of him was.

Confused and broken and drunk, Bethany crumples the letter in her hands, yanking open her desk drawer to shove it back inside.

It’s over, she tells herself. It’s been over for 20 years. This didn’t change anything.

She slams the same drawer shut for the second time.

Still, this time when she shuts it, it feels like the door stays open -

A problem she thinks she’ll deal with in the morning.

.

.

Chapter Text

.

.

She waits a week - then another. 

She tries not to be so impatient but - his letter had said that Alex would be contacting her, and soon.  Soon was relative to everyone, sure, but at the end of the second week with no contact from him, Bethany is starting to wonder if her definition of ‘soon’ was different; a byproduct of a lifetime of getting the things she wanted within a reasonable time of wanting them. 

By the third week, she’s only a few days away from the end of the school year, on the cusp of the summer before her last year of high school ever, and just about ready to jump out of her skin - every text message and every call she receives enough to drive her crazy. 

She’s lucky at least that she has testing to keep her mind distracted from him, her nights spent studying with Martha rather than staring at her phone, waiting for it to ring. Sure, she does it a little when she gets home, but she’s only human. 

Still, she can’t help but feel like she’s reaching her limit, in a constant state of petulant annoyance.  Why send her a letter after 5 months of silence if he wasn’t going to follow through with actually calling her? 

The reasonable part of her, as always, tries to settle her spiraling thoughts.  He waited 20 years for her to even be born, Bethany reminds herself. She can wait a few more weeks. 

Still, the part of her that was all heartbroken tragedy and Nicholas Sparks novels - the sixteen year old part - echos the same thought on repeat in the back of her mind. 

How long was she going to have to wait?

.

.

Spencer is waiting for her at the front of the school around 6th period, anxiously hopping from foot to foot, looking only moments away from passing out.  

Bethany almost rolls her eyes; some of Bravestone’s courageousness made it back into the real world, but Bethany wonders if Spencer would ever get over his fear of academic expulsion.  Still, it’s sweet of him to meet her like this, especially during the school day.

He relaxes a little when he sees her walking up, at least. “Hey,” he says, voice an octave high and breaking a bit.  He clears his throat. “It’s hot. Is it hot?”

“Yes Spencer,” Bethany says, squinting at the sky - at the blinding sun. “It’s almost summer.” She looks back down at him. “Do you have the thing?” 

He shushes her loudly, whipping his head back and forth to look around - like they weren’t the only two people out there. Bethany sighs and rolls her eyes. Again. “Would you relax? It’s not like you’re doing anything bad - like helping me cheat.”

Spencer pales - if possible. “Fridge told you about that?” Bethany crosses her arms and gives him a look; one he shrinks under. “I know, I know. I know it’s different. Just, last time I did this...you know what happened.”

Bethany sighs. “It’s not even the same thing, and it’s not gonna happen again, Spence. And I really, really appreciate your help.”

Spencer seems to relax, slinging his backpack over his shoulder so he can unzip it and pull a folder out, handing it to her quickly. It almost feels like a drug deal. A really lame drug deal. “I don’t mind,” He says. “Sorry if it’s not what you had in mind; the one you made needed major improvement so I just started over from scratch.”

Bethany flips the folder open, scans the paper inside. “And what was wrong with mine?”

“No offense, Bethany, but no future employer is going to care that you have 6 thousand Instagram followers.”

That’s absolutely inaccurate. “Uh, they would if they cared about marketing at all.”

Spencer wisely doesn’t answer. Instead he asks, “Why’d you need a new resume anyway? Is your dad making you get a job?”

Bethany shrugs. She’s not gonna tell him the real reason; about how she doesn’t think she can handle all that free time alone with her thoughts. Or, she couldn’t handle it when her thoughts consisted of pretty much one thing. So instead she says, “I should probably start saving for a car. Or school or something.”

Spencer looks bummed, face falling. “What about all of our summer plans?”

Bethany reaches up to pat his curly hair consolingly. “Don’t worry, if I’m not at work or watching Hunter, I’ll be with you guys.  And we still have movie night every Friday, right?”

The bell rings above their heads before Spencer can answer, and Bethany steps away from the side of the building, towards the road.   She definitely doesn’t need anyone from the school administration dragging her to class on her day off. “You’d better get to class.”

Spencer adjusts the backpack on his shoulders. “You know, if you were feeling sick I could have brought it to you after school. You didn’t have to walk all the way here.”

“I’m not sick,” Bethany tells him. “It’s senior ditch day.”

“But you’re a junior.”

Bethany waves her hand dismissively. “Details.”

Spencer takes a quick step forward. “Wait, will you sign my yearbook?”

Bethany tilts her head. “Seriously? I didn’t think you’d be into that.”

“Well, I mean - you signed it last year.”

Bethany squints at him. “I did?”

He smiles, lopsided and endearing. “You called me Steven.”

“Oh my god, no I didn’t.”

“You did. You said, ‘Have a good summer, Steven. Get well soon.’”

“Weren’t you sick?” She asks hopefully. 

Spencer’s smile twists nervously - and Bethany can see that he might lie to make her feel better. “Well...not - “

“I’m sorry,” she interrupts, unable to watch that unfold. She’s been trying to step outside of her Hot Popular Girl Bubble, as Martha called it - and take responsibility for past Bethany’s selfish actions. “Why don’t you bring it tonight? So I have time to write something better than last years.”

“Anything would be better than last years.”

.

.

From: Mouse Fin 
To: One Group Chat to Rule Them All

Whose turn is it to pick the movie 

From: Bravestone
To: OGCTRTA

Yours I think. Might I suggest the Killing of a Sacred Deer? It’s supposed to be great 

From: Mouse Fin
To: OGCTRTA

No you may not. 

Bethany tries not to let the disappointment show on her face when she feels her phone vibrate in her bag and pulls it out to find that it’s only the group chat. 

Not that the group chat isn’t super entertaining, but that’s been her general reaction to everyone that texted or called her for the last few weeks. If they weren’t Alex Vreeke, why were they calling her? 

She hates that the thinks like that, denies that she thinks like that most of the time, but she can’t deny the way her lips want to turn down. But it is the group chat; she can’t be properly annoyed by it.  But she can still be a little annoyed by it, so she sends an eye roll emoji and leaves it at that 

From: Ruby Roundhouse
To: OGCTRTA 

I don’t want to watch Pulp Fiction again Fridge

From: Fridge
To: OGCTRTA 

Can y’all chill I wasn’t going to pick that 

From: Fridge
To: OGCTRTA 

Probably wasn’t going to anyway 

Bethany had already dropped her resume off at several different stores; the boutique downtown, the coffee stand, the old-fashioned candy shop (even though she knew she was pressing her luck there - she’s only seen like, three people in that store ever, she doubts they were scrambling for help). 

And that eventually led her to the small trendy froyo shop, usually slammed whenever she comes but right now it’s basically empty, aside from the employee at the register and a mother and child, quietly keeping to themselves. She’d asked the friendly albeit bored-looking girl at the counter if she could pass Bethany’s resume along to the hiring manager, unbeknownst to Bethany that she was the hiring manager, and she’d only asked Bethany’s age and availability before suggesting they do a quick interview on the spot, since Bethany was already there. 

The girl interviewing her is pretty, all long brown hair and sparkling green anime eyes with the prettiest Instagram-level eyelash extensions Bethany has ever seen in real life. Her tan is enviable too - Bethany reminds herself to ask what kind of tanning lotion she uses. 

They’re sitting at one of those corner booths next to the giant chalkboard wall, with Bethany sipping her complimentary strawberry smoothie while the brunette - Amanda - looks through her resume. 

The look on her face is promising; Bethany would have to thank Spencer again later. 

“Volleyball, lifeguard, cheer - are you me?”

Bethany smiles, laughs through her mandatory set of questions and charms her way out of seeming inexperienced when she asks about her previous employment. But like, she’s 16; it’s not like she’s had time to wrack up employment opportunities. And it’s not like anyone would believe her if she wrote, ‘single-handedly navigated a small team through a dangerous, hippopotamus-infested video-game jungle and only died twice’.

“So why do you want to work here?” Amanda asks. “Parents making you get a job?”

Bethany plasters on her best customer service smile; two years of Invisalign better start paying off. “No,” Bethany says, twirling the straw of her smoothie absently. “I feel like next year I’ll be too busy to worry about this stuff, so getting experience now seems like a good idea. Plus having an actual job might make me feel productive, you know? Instead of laying by the pool all summer.”

Amanda smiles and says, “I really just want a cute girl with a friendly personality to bring people in - and someone I wouldn’t mind hanging out with all day. The actual job isn’t that hard.” She continues, “I’ll need to run this by my supervisor first, but I can confidently say that you’ll be hearing from me soon.”

It’s another perfect example of getting the things she wanted shortly after she wanted them. It’s a good sign, she thinks; one she’s going to push into every other aspect of her life.  Her phone still feels heavy in her pocket, but she hasn’t completely lost hope. 

Bethany leaves the shop with butterflies in her stomach, a brain freeze - and probably a job. 

.

.

“Bethany, you look so cute in this picture.”

Bethany leans over Spencer’s head to look at the page Martha is showing her in her yearbook - at the photo of her and Noah, Homecoming King and Queen. The sight of it makes her want to vomit, but Bethany has to admit she looks happy - even in that baby blue strapless dress she should have had the common sense to veto. And those earrings, what was she thinking?

She must be making a face because Spencer suggests, “Maybe we can scribble his face out.” 

“It’s weird,” Martha says, tilting her head and the yearbook in opposite directions. “I feel like I’m looking at a totally different person.”

“You are,” Bethany tells her, pointing at her high-res, smiling face. “Look at that lipstick color. Totally Old Bethany.”

“Are you gonna use Old Bethany as an excuse for all the things you regret?”

“Yes,” She waves her hand dismissively.

Her attention is pulled from the yearbook, to Fridge, who stands with his hands on his hips, looking down at the three of them. “Oh wow,” He says. “I thought it was movie night, not yearbook signing night.”

“Say movie night again,” Martha teases. “It was so cute.”

“Movie night,” he enunciates clearly. “This shit’s sacred, I ask that you respect it.”

Bethany rolls her eyes. “Why are you whining? Are you hungry?” She reaches out for him with one hand, and with the other pats the empty seat next to her on the couch. “Come sit down until the pizza bagels are done.”

Fridge waves the DVD in his hand. “If I sit down who will put in the movie?”

“Spencer.”

“Nah,” Fridge shakes his head, immediately. “He’s gonna change it to something weird and European last minute. I’m not doing subtitles today.”

Spencer protests from the floor. “I am not.”

“Well I’m not taking chances.” Fridge says. 

Spencer and Martha are on their usual spots on the floor - leaving the couch to Fridge and Bethany. Which might suck for anyone sharing a couch with Fridge-sized Fridge, but it reclines so Bethany isn’t particularly bothered.  Plus he always shares his blanket. 

“Can you stop being a baby and go get your yearbook from your room?” Martha asks. “I promise I’ll respect movie night right after I sign it.”

That was the invitation he was waiting for, apparently. “Yup,” he says, tossing the DVD to unsuspecting Spencer before he tears up the stairs. 

“I guess I’ll put this in!” Spencer calls after him. 

It doesn’t take long for his return, and soon Bethany has his yearbook in her lap, trying to write neatly while Martha writes in hers and Fridge and Spencer argue over the movie - again. 

Fridge surprises everyone and doesn’t pick Pulp Fiction (even though Bethany swears she sees his hand hesitate over it when he was picking a movie from the shelf).  He ends up choosing The Boondock Saints, which isn’t as terrible of a movie as Bethany assumed it was; the guy from The Walking Dead is really cute, at least, and she’s not really paying much attention anyway, finishing the page-long heartfelt message in Fridge’s yearbook before she moves onto Martha’s. 

The opening credits roll as Fridge’s mom comes down the stairs with a giant serving plate of pizza bites and cut up celery and carrots which Bethany knows no one will eat but her and Martha. 

“I’m so glad Anthony has all of you,” She sighs wistfully, smoothing a hand down the top of Fridge’s head, even when he shrugs her off, embarrassed. “Those boys he used to hangout with, well - “

“Ma,” Fridge interrupts. “You say this every movie night.”

“Because it’s true,” she says. 

The night moves on as it normally does. Fridge, the secret cinephile, hushes Spencer loudly when he asks for a bagel bite, Bethany scrolls through Instagram and Martha doses off on Spencer’s shoulder.  They stay that way for two hours, and at the end of the movie after Fridge switches the lights back on, the conversation turns to exams and the upcoming summer. 

“We should go hiking all the time,” Fridge says.  “But nowhere we can get eaten by albino rhinos.”

“Those aren’t a real thing,” Martha reminds him. 

“Oh, they’re real.” Fridges eyes close as he shudders. “Very real.”

It’s a good time to bring it up, Bethany thinks, with everyone happy and full of pizza bagels - with the game now a topic of conversation. She debates for a moment just...not bringing it up at all, like she’s been doing for the past month, but - 

“So...” Bethany swallows nervously. She doesn’t know why she’s nervous - it’s just the gang. The gang full of people who love and care about her. And they know Alex. They trust Alex. Why was this filling her with dread? “I got a letter from Alex.”

Spencer and Fridge turn and look at her, raised brows. 

“After all this time? What did it say?”

Fridge is looking at her with a concern she doesn’t think she wants to notice; a sweet, genuine concern that only friends can feel, but she doesn’t - she doesn’t want him to think that he needs to be concerned in the first place. She can take care of herself. She shouldn’t have gotten drunk and emotional in front of him; she clearly ruined the put-together vibe she was trying to radiate.

Still, it’s too sweet for her to feel properly annoyed by it. 

“Nothing. He sent it a month ago. He said he wants to get together...to catch up.”

“Well?” Spencer tilts his head.  “Are you going to meet him?”

“I want to,” She says, and then realizes how desperate she must seem. “You know, I’m worried about him.”

“Should we come with you?” Fridge asks. “In case?”

“In case of what?” She stretches out her legs, puts her feet on him. “It’s just Alex. I’ll be fine. Besides, he hasn’t even called me to like, set up a time or whatever. And it’s been three weeks.”

“Aw,” Spencer reaches across Martha’s head to pat Bethany’s knee consolingly, the asshole. “I’m sure he will.”

“Hey,” Bethany narrows her eyes. “What’s with that tone?”

“What tone?”

“That ‘poor pathetic little girl’ tone.”

“I wasn’t using that tone.”

Bethany makes a face, then sits up, reaching out. “Give me your yearbook. You deserve to have something mean written in it.”

Spencer sighs, and hands her his yearbook. “Fine.”

She doesn’t write anything mean, even if she looks at him every few seconds and makes a face, just to keep him in suspense.  She’s honest - has been honest in Martha’s and Fridge’s yearbooks too. She writes about how happy she is that the game brought them together, how she admires his bravery and badass-ary, even outside the game. Even when he’s being a big old dork. She tells him how she hopes they never grow apart even after they graduate - she even doodles a little picture of cartoon Shelly Oberon and Dr. Bravestone high fiving, comically large hat and glasses next to ridiculous stick-figure muscles. 

When she’s finished she shuts it loudly, pages clapping together, and hands it back over to him. 

She watches him flip to the page she’s filled, watches his face as he reads it, rolling her eyes at the look he gets the further he reads down.  By the time he looks up at her she swears his eyes are a little glassy.  “That’s actually so sweet, wow, Bethany - “

“Look in the back,” she tells him. “I wrote another.”

“You did?” 

He flips the pages of his yearbook to the back, then looks at her, face blank. “Really?”

Martha cranes her neck to look. “What did she write?”

“‘See you next year, Steven’.”

.

.

It’s a little after 10 when Bethany gets home. She doesn’t have a curfew on Friday’s or Saturdays, so there’s no need to sneak inside her window, and her parents greet her warmly from the couch.  Her father is proud of her for her probably-job, gets up and hugs her, even checks her softly and affectionately on the chin like he does when he’s feeling particularly fond of her, while her mom pesters her for details and it’s embarrassing enough to have her hightailing to her bedroom. 

She flops onto her stomach on her bed, pulling her yearbook from her bag. 

She loves the last few weeks of classes specifically for this; for signing yearbooks and having hers signed. She has all of them from every previous grade, every available page filled with well-wishes and phone numbers from names she can’t really put faces to. 

She loves her new yearbook. She loves that the only people who have signed it so far are the people that genuinely care for her. There’s no insincere ‘never change’’s or declarations of absolutely needing to hangout when they’ve barely even spoke, no phone numbers she was never going to save. 

She reads the messages from her friends and wants to cry; she can barely get through Spencer’s sweet paragraph, nearly bawls at Martha’s, which takes up an entire page, front and back. 

Fridge has always been more reserved with his feelings, but even his is sugar-sweet, about how much he appreciates her friendship and ho he can talk to her in a way he can’t with anyone else. 

Bethany thinks she shouldn’t be so sad about Alex - not when she has friends that fill the empty space he left inside her so genuinely. 

.

.

The end of the school year comes and goes faster than Bethany is prepared for.  In between working, babysitting and school, the last month of junior year seems to fly by, and before she knows it her and Spencer are walking out of English class for the last time as juniors. 

“This summer is going to be amazing,” He says, slinging his arm around her shoulder. “Even with your job.”

“Wow,” Bethany raises her brows. “That’s certainly a change in attitude.”

He’s got a dopey little look on his face. “Don’t you feel it?”

Bethany doesn’t really give him an answer, if only because she’s so caught up in the fact that yeah - she has felt it. The past few weeks have felt like a pressure building inside of her; like she was headed for something monumental (or maybe horrific?), only she couldn’t see what it was and she couldn’t stop it if she tried.

Maybe it was just her own impatience, but either way it’s scary - because it seems like she’s always been able to control what’s happening around her. But something about it is thrilling; like the next chapter of her life is going to begin.

She’s just hoping the ending - good or bad - isn’t so anticlimactic. 

.

.

School stops and work starts and it seamlessly folds into routine without Bethany noticing.  The first few shifts were nerve-wracking, and Bethany had to remind herself that the mandatory uniform visor was not an acceptable reason to quit. Besides, she’s worn much uglier hats before; Sheldon Oberon might have been a genius but he had no taste. Seriously. 

She picks it up pretty quickly - she thanks all of those volleyball fundraisers forcing her to work the concession stand at the football games her sophomore year. 

Amanda is a great boss; she blasts Lady Gaga on the loudspeaker when they close, let’s Bethany grab as much free yogurt as she wants, talks in depth about her relationship problems (ever changing and overcomplicated) which Bethany loves, and she smokes weed out back, which Bethany doesn’t participate in, but she does admire the boldness of.

It’s a typical Tuesday, and during the summer it’s gets busy and stays steady around noon, but it’s only 11am and no one is there besides Bethany, Amanda having to run to the franchise in the town over to borrow something she forgot to order. 

She hears the bell ring while she’s cutting up strawberries in the back, and she calls out that she’ll be right there. She hurries to stash everything in the fridge, pulling off her food handling gloves. 

Noah is standing in the lobby in his running gear, looking at the flavors listed on the wall. 

He looks at her when she steps back behind the counter, expression guilty. 

“Hey,” he says. 

Bethany doesn’t say anything - what was there to say anyway? He definitely crossed a line, drunk or not. There were lines that when crossed could be forgiven, and there were some that couldn’t. And from the look on his face, Bethany guarantees that Noah knows that. 

“I wanted to apologize,” he says. “For Casey’s party. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine.” Bethany tells him, even though it really isn’t. But she doesn’t really want to start a dialogue with him, and definitely not while she’s alone at work. 

“It’s not,” he says, insistent. “I’m...I’m glad you’re happy. I really am. I guess I just don’t know what happened? And I acted out. And I’m sorry. Really.”

Bethany looks at him - really looks.  She used to study his face and think that there was no one else that she’d ever want, that the things he put her through emotionally were fine as long as he was looking down at her the way he was now.  Months spent staring weren’t wasted, as she’s been able to tell just from the look in his eyes if he was genuine or not.  Genuine when he told her that he thought she was beautiful, not so much when he said he didn’t fool around with other girls. 

He’s being honest now, anyway. So she thanks him, “Thank you, Noah. That means a lot.”

He smiles, boyish and charming. “We were all going to go to the beach tonight,” He tells her. “Lucinda and everyone else. You should come.”

“Me and Lucinda aren’t really on speaking terms,” Bethany tells him. Which is just as true as much as it is an excuse to not go.  

“Forget about her then. It might be nice,” he says. “To see some of your other friends.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She has no intention of going, no part of that thought appealing in the slightest. If she wanted to see her old friends, she would call them. There’s a reason she hasn’t.  “I’m babysitting Hunter tomorrow so I’m not trying to be out all night.” Another lie; Hunter was going to her Grandparents house, and Bethany was going to lay by the pool - but he didn’t need to know that. 

“Think about it,” Noah says. “Please? I know you’re probably worried...about me, but - I want to make it up to you.”

The bell of the door sounds out, and they both turn to find two parents ushering their children inside.  Bethany calls out a greeting before turning back to Noah. “I have to get back to work.”

He sighs, scratches the back of his head - like he hasn’t quite finished what he wanted to say, but Bethany thinks she’s heard enough. He says, “I’ll call you later, okay? Think about it. Please.”

He’s gone before Bethany can tell him not to bother calling, that her mind was pretty much made up. 

It’s fine, she reasons. She could always just not answer. 

.

.

And that’s what she intends, when her phone rings sometime a little past 8. 

But she was Noah’s girlfriend for a while; she knows he won’t stop calling unless she answers. So she picks up without thinking - practiced excuse already making its way past her lips. “Noah,” she says. “Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to go.”

“Uh,” a voice answers, deep and definitely not Noah’s. “Bethany?”

Just her name is enough to make her breath catch in her throat, and suddenly she wishes it was Noah calling after all. That would make things a lot simpler. Easier. 

Less terrifying. 

“Hello? Bethany? It’s Alex.” Alex’s voice clicks with static - loud, like he’s in the car. 

She covers the receiver and clears her throat, stalling for time. She’s thought about this more times that she could count, more than she should have. It was much easier in theory. 

“Hi.”

“Sorry to be calling so late,” he says. “I uh, hope you got my letter. So you’re not completely blindsided by my calling.”

“I got it,” She says, heartbeat almost a physical pounding in her ears. “How did you get my address?”

“The phone book,” Alex tells her. 

Bethany blinks. “The phone book?” She repeats it, doesn’t mean for it to come out like a question but - but were phonebooks even a thing anymore? “Who still uses phonebooks?”

There’s a brief pause, where the only thing Bethany can hear is the sound of her own heart beating in her ears, and the static on the other end. She begins to worry - and berate herself. The first time she’s heard his voice in 6 months and she has to tease him - 

The sound of his laugher interrupts her thoughts, and fuck she missed him so much she can feel her heart aching. “I don’t remember you being this mouthy.”

She smiles despite her nerves, lips moving without her permission. “That was 20 years ago,” she teases. “I’ve grown so much since then.” 

The second it leaves her mouth she pours back over it in her head. It was so easy talking to him, felt the same as she remembered, but this - this is a different Alex. An older Alex. She should be more careful with the things she says. 

Which would be impossible, her filter was basically nonexistent. 

But Alex hums good-humoredly. “So?” He starts, expectant. “You’ll be a senior next year, right? Enjoying your last summer of freedom? Living life to the fullest?”

Bethany snorts a laugh. “Barely,” she says. “In between babysitting my brother and working I don’t really have time.”

Another pause - one Bethany holds her breath during - and then Alex says, “I didn’t know you had a brother. Or a job.”

She rolls onto her stomach, picks at the loose string on her blanket. “I wouldn’t expect you to. Hunter - he’s turning 6 next month. And I work at the froyo shop in town.”

“Decided to leave cartography behind?” He jokes with her, and her heart hammers wildly in her chest. 

“I’ll pick it back up when you start piloting again,” she teases right back. 

Alex is quiet for another second, before he asks, “Well if you’re not babysitting or working tomorrow, do you think we could meet somewhere?”

Bethany doesn’t hesitate. “Definitely. Where?”

Alex doesn’t hesitate either. “That coffee shop next to the library downtown. Whole Bean I think?”

Bethany agrees, or at least she thinks she does, so caught up in his voice that she forgets to pay attention to what she’s saying. She hangs up the phone after an awkward goodbye, with her stuttering and interrupting him and him interrupting her and then stopping to let her finish. 

It might be cute if she wasn’t so nervous, but she is so she covers her face with her arm, even if he can’t see her. 

Her room is startlingly silent as she stares at her phone, at his number on the screen.  She saves it immediately, fingers shaking while she types in his name. 

Bethany is positive that if they were still in the game, she might hear drums right about now. 

On to the next level. 

.

.

Chapter Text

.

.

“Okay, what about this?”

Martha looks up from the magazine she’s flipping through on Bethany’s bed to where the blonde is standing in front of her closet. Her eyes narrow as they rake over Bethany from head to toe. “Uh, it’s kind of ‘trying too hard’? I think?” 

Bethany sighs, turns and faces her full length mirror.  It’s a nice dress, all crisp white lace and pretty blue chiffon. But Martha is right - it is kind of trying too hard.  She sighs, peels off her dress and hangs it back up in the closet. She’s starting to feel a little overheated; she’s already lost count of how many outfits she’s tried on and had vetoed.  “Maybe I should just wear jeans.”

“Hey,” Martha says sharply. “That would be giving up completely, and I’m not gonna let that happen. Not on this historic day.”

Bethany is tired of hearing Martha call it that - a historic day, or whatever - but she doesn’t have the will to correct her. She doesn’t have the will do to anything but whine in front of her mirror.  “I’m anxious,” Bethany says, hand over her stomach. “I feel bloated.”

Martha sighs, swings her legs off the bed and joins Bethany in front of the closet. Bethany thinks she might be having deja vu - but she can’t focus on it long enough to tell, thoughts spiraling and all over the place.   Martha pushes aside most of her clothes, to the nicer ones Bethany hangs in the back. 

She grabs a fistful of white floral-printed fabric, inspects the hem. “What about this...shorts dress thing. It’s really pretty.”

“It’s called a romper. And the waist falls kind of weird. It makes me look like I have no shape and a belt doesn’t look good with it.”

“So wear a jacket,” Martha says, like it’s the most simple thing in the world, and Bethany blinks at her owlishly. 

She pulls it from the hanger and steps into it, fits the straps to wear she likes them, just low enough to show a hint of cleavage but with a high enough neckline to still be considered appropriate. It’s still as shapeless as she remembers - her own fault for buying something from that mom-store Talbots, but she takes her favorite denim jacket from where it’s hanging behind her desk chair and slides her arms through it before she faces the mirror once again. 

Wow. That’s - that’s a lot better. She doesn’t look like she’s ‘trying too hard’; her jacket simple enough to be casual, but something about the length of the romper - where it ends mid thigh, the delicate fabric...

“Damn,” Martha says. “That is literally the perfect outfit for The Date. Capital T, capital D. T-M. What shoes are you gonna wear?”

“Stop verbally trademarking things,” Bethany tells her. “It’s only funny over text. And it’s not a date. He’s got a wife, remember? And kids.”

Martha snorts, clearly unbothered. “I doubt his wife saved his life.”

Bethany shakes her head, refuses to give that any thought. “You might not look it but you’re actually kind of scary.”

Martha shrugs. “I’m just trying to be supportive.”

Bethany looks at herself in the mirror - practices her smile and tries her hardest not to look so miserable but - the wife comment ruined her mood, even if she’s the one that said it, and it shows on her face, lips curling in displeasure against her will.  It’s a terrible reminder, one that Bethany tries not to think about too often, but it still somehow manages to creep up on her when she’s least expecting it - or when she’s trying to deny it the hardest. 

Bethany swallows, nervous. “What if he brings her?”

Martha manages to look happy, at least, chin on Bethany’s shoulder and she is definitely having deja vu.  “Then smile your pretty smile, be sweet and charming and classy, remind him of what could have been, and make his wife wish she was you. Duh.”

“Okay, there’s no kind of about it,” Bethany tells her. “You’re definitely scary.”

“I know,” Martha says, unbothered. “Now shoes!”

Bethany digs her sandals out of the back of her closet, entertains Martha by spinning around as many times as she demands, posing when she asks.  She’s even stays still for the picture Martha takes of her, and her phone vibrates seconds later with a notification from the group chat. 

From: Ruby Roundhouse
To: OGCTRTA 
1 image attached 

 Wish this nervous wreck luck

Bethany scowls at her through the mirror after she checks her phone. “I’m not a nervous wreck.”

Martha gives her a look, and Bethany sighs. Again. She’s constantly sighing, it’s a wonder she even has air left in her lungs. “Okay,” She concedes. “Maybe I’m a little nervous.”

“And that’s alright,” Martha says. “I would be nervous too. But everything is gonna be fine. It’s Alex.”

Bethany pouts. “Exactly. I don’t even know what to say to him.”

Martha’s got a glittery look in her eyes. She climbs onto Bethany’s bed, sits cross legged and faces where Bethany is still standing. Bethany wishes she could relax her body long enough for her to sit down. 

“Practice on me.” Martha says. 

Bethany rolls her eyes, protest on the tip of her tongue, but she hesitates because...that actually might help. 

Until Martha takes a lock of pretty red hair and pulls it underneath her nose like a mustache, eyebrows narrowed, expression serious. 

It’s so ridiculous Bethany can do little else but blink at her. “Alex doesn’t have a mustache.”

“He might have grown one,” Martha says, hair moving with every word. “How would you know?”

Bethany groans, turns around so she doesn’t have to look at Martha and her hair-mustache, slumps forward miserably until her head hits the mirror. “I wouldn’t.” She says. “We shouldn’t even be doing this.”

“Why are you so worried?” Martha asks. “You’re like, the queen of flirting with guys.”

“But I don’t even know how to flirt anymore.” Bethany whines. “And I definitely don’t know how to flirt with Alex. Grown up Alex.”

Martha looks at her like she’s grown three heads, and with how completely insecure she’s feeling, Bethany might as well have. “Dumb, super into it, or nasty! Flip your hair, sparkle like an anime character!  Bethany, you taught me this!”

Bethany knows, just like she knows how unlike herself Alex makes her. Or maybe she's got it backwards; maybe he chipped away at her conceited exterior in the game, unearthing a better version of herself than Bethany could have hoped for. She just wished this version knew how to flirt. “That’s with other guys.” She says. “Insignificant guys. Guys our age who don’t have wives.” Guys that aren’t Alex Vreeke.  

Bethany unsticks herself from the mirror, looks at her reflection again just to make sure she still looks okay, eyes focusing on how the ends of her hair are starting to frizz and now the foundation on her forehead is partially wiped away, smudging the mirror, and did she miss a section when shaving? - 

That overwhelmed feeling is back, and she looks away before she goes insane with self criticism, turning back around towards Martha, who thankfully has abandoned her mustache. 

“Thank you so much for coming over.” She tells the redhead. “I was freaking out.”

“Rightfully so.” Martha says. “This is Alex. This is The Date. T-M.”

Great. Because that’s exactly what Bethany wants to hear right now. 

Martha laughs at the sour look on her face. “I’m kidding. You look amazing.  If anyone should be nervous it’s him.”

Bethany fidgets with the hem of her romper. “How did you know that - about the jacket?”

Martha shrugs. “My mom and I watch a lot of ‘What Not to Wear’.” She says. She hesitates, only a second. “You know I’ve never really had like, girl friends that I could do girly stuff like this with, but...I like it.”

Bethany’s heart hurts, like it always does when she thinks of the gang before they found each other.  “Well, you have me now,” Bethany tells her before she jumps onto the bed, tackling Martha (who protests vehemently and gets ignored), legs tangling together with the sound of their laughter. 

They’re laying shoulder to shoulder, with Bethany looking up at the ceiling, at the plastic stars. “God,” she sighs. “What am I doing? Like, for real.”

“You’re gonna go get coffee with the man you gave one of your lives to,” Martha tells her simply, and Bethany can feel her shrugging her shoulders. “And the worst thing that can happen is you getting closure. Best case scenario...”

Bethany’s stomach turns at that. “Don’t even go there.”  They’re quiet for a moment, before Bethany sighs and flips onto her side. Martha is looking back at her, eyes soft and supportive. “I don’t even know him,” Bethany says. “20 years have gone by. That shouldn’t even be possible.”

“If you wanted to question every single aspect of this then why did you wait until an hour before you’re supposed to see him?”

Bethany groans miserably. “I don’t even have anymore time to whine about it!”

Martha sits up, forces Bethany to sit up with her. “Good,” she claps Bethany on the back, hard. “That means no more time to get in your head.”

.

.

Bethany feels a little frantic by the time her and Martha go downstairs, and she hurries to collect her purse and slide her sandals on. She checks her phone for the time; she only has 30 minutes to get to the coffee shop downtown if she plans on arriving early. Which she does, since she wants to look put together and flawless by the time Alex arrives, and that means picking a seat with good lighting.   

She turns towards Martha. “You’re sure you don’t mind just hanging here?”

“In your gorgeous house, with your giant TV and the pool in the back?” Martha puts her hand to her forehead in a dramatic show of feint-heartedness. “How will I ever survive?”

“You’re a drama queen. Have I told you that?”

Martha grins. “Every day.  You’re sure your parents won’t mind if Spencer comes over?”

Bethany shakes her head. “They’ve got couples therapy after work and they won’t be home till like 10 tonight.”

“Couples therapy...” Martha repeats back to her, slowly. “Is...everything okay?”

Bethany waves off her concern with a dismissive hand. “Yeah, they’ve been going once a month since I was born, basically. It’s like, preventative, or whatever.”

Martha wishes her luck when she hugs her goodbye, tells her to call her if anything goes wrong. 

“Please,” Bethany says, one hand on the door handle.  For all the teasing Martha has done today, Bethany figures she should return the favor, a little. “If you guys fool around just...not in my room?”

Martha’s face flushes the same color as her hair. She sputters indignantly. “We don’t - we’re not-”

Bethany leaves it at that, shutting the door behind her with a cheerful, drawn out, “Byeeeeeee!”

.

.

Bethany thinks her nervousness is probably palpable by the time she reaches the cute stretch of shops downtown by the water.  

She left the house in confidence, but by the time she’d reached the street sign at the end of her road she was in shambles.  She’d spent the entire walk over practicing cool responses for questions Alex probably wasn’t even going to ask, working herself up into a puddle of anxiety and clenched nerves.  She doesn’t even realize how tightly she’s holding the strap of her shoulder bag until her hand starts to cramp up. She stretches out her fingers, frets with her necklace because it’s stupid and the clasp keeps falling towards the front, counting the number of shops she has to pass before she gets to the cafe. 

She’s four doors away when she realizes this might be a huge mistake. 

If she’s being honest with herself - which she rarely is when it comes to this particular topic - she knows that she’s...not over Alex. It’s been 6 months since the game ended, and she realizes that’s a long time to hold onto something - especially feelings for a boy she didn’t know long at all - but...

It’s different with him. 

Would it feel the same, now that he was 20 years older? They weren’t the same person - the Alex in the game that she fell in love with and the Alex she’s about to sit across from and have a conversation with.  There wasn’t going to be the moment she dreamed about - where she runs to him and jumps in his strong arms. Where she rips off those aviator shades off of Seaplane's face and kisses him like she’s wanted to since the Bazaar. In her fantasy, he kisses her back, and in her fantasy she’s not an overweight middle aged man. She’s herself. In her fantasy it’s fine - because they’re the same age, and he’s not married.  

She hates herself for clinging to such a childish dream. She knows it was destroyed along with the game.   

But...it’s still Alex. 

Parts of him were bound to still be the same. Even after the time that had passed. There had to be pieces of him that the years didn’t change. 

She just hopes that some of them were the pieces she remembered. 

.

.

The older woman holding the cafe door open for her looks at her strangely, and either Bethany has something on her face or her anxiety is coming off of her in waves. It’s a wonder she hasn’t vibrated out of her skin, she’s trembling so hard.  

It’s a cute little coffee shop, family-owned with pictures of children and grandchildren lining the walls behind the register.  Bethany doesn’t see him when she looks around - not at the tables, not at the counter or at the trendy little lounge area by the fireplace. 

She has time, so she orders a raspberry black tea from a bored-looking barista, and Bethany might be annoyed at their lack of customer service if she wasn’t so nervous. 

She takes her drink when the barista hands it off to her, and she turns, figuring she’ll take a seat at one of the window tables so she can see him when he arrives - 

Her eyes scan the vacant tables again, just in case she missed him on her first glance around the room. 

And there he is. 

She’d skipped right over him, looking for Seaplane’s face unconsciously.  The guilt she feels is instantaneous and terrible, but she bets she’d feel a lot worse if he had been looking at her.  He’s not; he’s looking down at his son in his lap, significantly bigger than the last time Bethany saw him. 

He looks good, in a Megadeath t-shirt - even while wearing one of those ridiculous baby Bjorns. 

Even with the wrong face. 

Not wrong, Bethany scolds herself immediately. Just different. And that was fine. She’s different too.  

She takes a step towards him without allowing herself to think about what she’s doing. Takes another before she can chicken out.  She watches him come closer almost in slow motion, anxiety so high she feels like she’s watching a movie rather than experiencing it first hand. 

“Bethany!” Alex stands when he sees her, taking Andy with him. Bethany smiles, stares into the baby’s giant brown eyes, full of wonder, working up last second courage before she looks up at Alex. 

They have the same eyes, she notices immediately. 

Alex steps around the table quickly - a two person table, Bethany makes a note of, so unless his wife is going to sit on his lap with Andy, she wouldn’t be joining them - and Bethany freezes; was he going to hug her? 

But instead he steps around her and pulls out her chair.  It’s a sweet little gesture, so she tries not to be too disappointed. 

“Where’s Bethany?” She asks, thanking him when he pushes her chair back in for her.  She watches him while he settles Andy into the high chair next to the table, and it’s a little bit surreal - Alex being so at ease with a baby. But he’s done this before with his daughter, and Bethany has had 6 months to come to terms with the fact that he has a family. She doesn’t know why seeing him with his son now is making emotion swirl in her stomach. 

Alex smiles when he sits down, meeting Bethany’s gaze unflinchingly, easily.  Looking at ease in a way Bethany wish she could. He takes a sip from the coffee mug sitting in front of him. “She had a play date.”

Her heartbeat hammers in her chest. She takes a deep breath, reminds herself to relax. It’s just Alex. 

She tries to keep it casual, even while she’s memorizing every detail of his face. He definitely has not grown a mustache. She hopes she’s not being obvious. “You don’t have work?”

Alex smiles, boyish and charming. It’s just like she remembers. “I teach, actually. So, summer break for me too.”

Bethany is going to pretend she hasn’t internet stalked him before. “At BCC?” She asks innocently. 

“Yeah, English teacher. Pretty cliche, right?”

“I don’t know.” Bethany tilts her head. “I can see it, definitely.”

They make small talk - Alex asks her about work, about her plans for the summer - and she can’t help but stare at him, kind of in awe because - because it’s just like it would be if they were in the game. He doesn’t look like Seaplane, and she doesn’t look like Oberon (but the image does pop into her head, of him in a romper, and it’s kind of funny. Puts her at ease a little more, anyway) but he’s looking at her and talking to her the same way he did when he was 17. 

“Thank god,” Alex sighs after a comfortable lull in conversation, tipping his head back. 

Bethany takes a sip of her tea. “Hm?”

“I can’t believe how nervous I was for this.”

Bethany can definitely relate. “Why would you be nervous?”

Alex looks at her, holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Teenagers are scary. I will literally cross the street to avoid them.”

“I’m not scary!” Bethany defends herself. He’s the scary one, not her. 

Alex smiles, pauses for a second. “That’s really only part of it.” He says. “The anticipation for this has been building for a while now, and guess I’m relieved that you’re still just as easy to talk to.”

“I know what you mean,” Bethany tells him, honestly. “This past month has been...”

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “For sending that letter and then not calling for a while. Every time I tried I...” he laughs, but it sounds more anxious than actually humorous. “It seems ridiculous now.”

Bethany stares at him, swallowing because - she maybe wasn’t prepared for how sudden and direct the conversation would suddenly become. 

“I know how awkward this must feel for you,” he continues, guilty smile on his lips. “To have some...old guy you don’t even know talking to you like this.”

Bethany smiles back, soft and unsure. “No, I’m glad this is happening. And...it’s you, so.”

Alex breathes through his nose hard, a half-laugh with a half-smile. He reaches over and smooths a hand over Andy’s tiny head, and for the first time it hits Bethany that he might still be nervous too.  He doesn’t act like it, though, voice even, eye contact direct and almost as exhilarating as it is terrifying. 

They’re talking about it, like adults. 

“I know that I’m a lot older than the Alex you first met, and I know I can’t remember the details as clearly as I could 20 years ago but - you’re still important to me,” he says. “All of you are.” He glances back at Andy when he starts to fuss. “It’s probably weird now, but I want us all to be friends. But if that’s not something you’re ready for, I understand.”

Bethany opens her mouth, hesitates because - she can’t actually tell him what she actually feels, can she?  She’s never really been one to shy away from her feelings, but it is Alex. He’s older, and she doesn’t know if it’s even appropriate to tell him how she feels. 

Still, she doesn’t want to waste his time, or lie to him. “I don’t want you to feel bad for me,” Bethany tells him. “Or make you feel weird.”

She knows he can read between the lines and see what she’s really saying. She doesn’t want to put any more emphasis on their current age difference. She doesn’t want to tell a married man 21 years older than her that she was quite recently - and very possibly currently - in love with him. 

Alex gives her a reassuring smile. “There’s nothing you could say that would make me feel weird,” he says. “It’s you.”

Bethany’s breath catches in her throat. Honesty was apparently on the table. 

Bethany takes a deep breath. “I was really self-absorbed before the game.” She starts off.  “The game really...really changed me. Seeing you - in real life with your perfect family...it just-“ Her voice breaks, and Bethany swallows the lump in her throat. She was actually going to say what she needed after months of convincing herself she’d have to keep it to herself for the rest of her life. “It made me so happy. But...”

Bethany looks at the ceiling. Maybe her tears won’t fall like they feel like they might if she keeps looking up. “There’s literally like, no scenario where things could have worked out like I wanted them to in the game.”

Unless the game happened to spit him out in 2016 like she was hoping for - but that was an impossibility. Even more so than being sucked into a video game in the first place. 

“I know.” He sounds sympathetic, which is somehow worse than her own heartache. She didn’t need him taking pity on a teenage girl in love with his memory. 

She looks back down at him, and he’s looking at her gently - but not in the way she was expecting. He’s not looking at her like she’s some pathetic little girl, he’s looking at her like - 

Like he’s just as disappointed with the outcome as she is. 

But Bethany knows she can't trust even her own eyes right now - not with him.  It's part of the whole 'old Bethany' thing; she used to get what she wanted and see what she wanted, anything outside of her own perfect little bubble absolutely unimportant.  Her eyes used to see through rose-colored glasses and turn a blind eye towards things that weren't happening the way she wanted them too - her own selfishness blinding her without her even realizing. Alex - the game - helped her with that.  They were a guiding light helping her through the darkness her own actions caused.  Even now, a voice in her head she didn't have before the game tells her to Stop; to make herself see the reality of what's actually happening.  He's still not looking at her with pity, but he's no longer looking at her the way she had hoped he was.

Bethany clears her throat, feeling embarrassed and overwhelmed, and maybe not as ready for this as she thought she was. But part of her is also relieved; after months of crushing emotional baggage from someone she couldn't even talk to, they were finally right in front of her and she was finally getting the closure she desperately needed.  She takes a deep breath, and it’s like she can feel the metaphorical, emotional weight lifting from her shoulders with every word she speaks. “I know it happened 20 years ago for you but it just happened to me," she tells him.  It still hurts. “And I’ve been working through how I feel, but it’s going to take some time.”

“That’s fair,” he says, and he sounds like he really means it. “I just wanted you to know that when you are ready, I want you in my life in some way. Even if it takes another 20 years.”

Bethany smiles - she’s sure it’s sad and pathetic but it’s hard to look at Alex and hold onto her sadness when he's giving her everything she needed - intentionally or not. She knew this would be intense, but she didn't know it would have this kind of effect on her; making her sad to her core and at the same time - happy.  Not happy enough to keep the stinging out of her eyes, but at least she hasn’t completely fallen apart. Yet. Or, not severely enough to ruin her sense of humor. “You’ll probably be dead by then.” She teases him, the punchline maybe ruined by the way her voice shakes.

But Alex smiles back - kind of - and he laughs, too...kind of.  Really, all he manages is a tired-looking smile and a sharp breath through his nose.  But that makes Bethany feel better than an actual laugh would; proof that at least he's not completely unaffected by all of this.

Proof that Bethany was someone he cared about.   

It’s quiet between them for a moment, aside from soft noises from Andy beside them.  Then Alex says, “It’s probably not okay that we’re even having this conversation,” he scratches the back of his head. “That woman keeps giving me dirty looks.”

Bethany glances to her right, and it’s the same woman that held the door open for her earlier, staring at their table with an engrossed expression. Bethany doesn’t blame her; she knows how they probably look - an upset teenage girl and a man not-quite-old-enough-to-be-her-father but not-quite-young-enough-to-be-her-boyfriend. And an infant.  Bethany hates that she's constantly being reminded about the second-biggest thing keeping the Alex-and-Bethany she fantasized about apart; his age. The woman looks away when Bethany catches her, and Bethany looks back to Alex, rolls her eyes and changes the subject, for her own sanity. “I’m used to people staring at me.” 

Alex smiles, crooked and handsome. “I bet.”

His tone and his words twist at her insides, more than they’re already twisted from their previous conversation, and she decidedly ignores it.  She’s not going to read into that right now. For her sanity. 

“What does your wife think about this?” She asks suddenly, mouth moving as soon as the thought pops into her head.  She hopes her lips close fast enough to cover up her very dramatic and completely embarrassing gasp.  So much for her sanity. There it was, out in the open - the biggest thing keeping her fantasy Alex-and-Bethany apart; his marriage.  Of course, Bethany immediately regrets asking. Fuck, even the thought of her - faceless and nameless but terrifyingly real - makes her sick to her stomach.  “Does she know about the game?”

“Ex-wife,” he corrects her. “Or, soon to be, anyway.” Bethany’s heart skips as fantasy Alex-and-Bethany's first obstacle is stripped away.  She hates the inkling of hope that stirs in the pit of her stomach, hates it, and kind of hates Alex for evoking those kinds of feelings in her. She ignores them regardless, and focuses on what he's saying. “You know...I told her - once. About the game," he says. "About you and the others. I guess she was curious about the nightmares that woke me up in the middle of the night."

Alex isn't looking at her anymore, looking instead at the coffee mug in front of him - fingers pushing and pulling it around the same tight imaginary circle over and over again, fiddling with the handle placement.  He almost looks self-conscious - expression reminiscent to one she saw on Seaplane. Bethany looks at him, easier when he's not looking back - and takes in the concrete proof in front of her that Past Alex and Present Alex were the same person - even with 20 years of distance and who knew what else between them.  Present Alex continues.  "She looked at me like I was crazy, like every single one of the few people I've told. Fuck, I know how crazy it must sound  -“

“But it happened.” Bethany interrupts him, leveling him with an even stare until he meets her eyes - and even after. It happened, as impossible as it should be. It was real. 

Alex holds her gaze for a few seconds, expression nameless and intense - long enough for Bethany to see the older woman's blurry head twitch out of the corner of her eye.  He sighs, looks up at the ceiling, frowning. Andy coos happily in his chair. “There were moments over the years where I questioned it," he says. "Thought that maybe I was as insane as it made me sound - that it was all in my head.” Bethany follows the curve of his jaw with her eyes, and for a second wishes she could with her mouth. It’s kind of pathetic; how attracted she is to him, even with a different face. Even when he’s 21 years older than her. Alex continues - unaware of her train of though. She doubts he'd be here if he was. “I mean, it could have been a dream. A long, terrifying, vivid dream...” She watches the corners of his mouth tilt up, just a bit. “And then I saw all of you. Standing outside of my fathers’ house.” 

Alex looks back down at her. “I felt instant relief - a wave of reassurance so strong it almost made my heart stop. The game was real. You were real.” Bethany's breath nearly catches at that - at the look in his eyes and the emotion in his voice.  He clears his throat - looks away and stirs his coffee, probably too cold to drink. “Anyway,” he says. “We’ve been separated for almost a year.”

Bethany barely acknowledges the last of his words before filing them away for later - for when she’s not sitting right in front of him. He's not married. “I’m sorry,” she says, because that’s what you’re supposed to say when people get divorced. Or, separated in this case. And she is sorry, but she’s also only human and probably not as sorry as she should be. He's not married.

Alex shrugs. “Don’t be. We got married because she got pregnant with Beth, and then Andy was kind of our last ditch effort to keep everything together.”  He says, “That never works, and I don’t know why we thought it would work for us. We couldn’t even make it through her pregnancy.” He smiles, but Bethany wonders if it’s as black and white as he’s making it sound. It rarely is, but Bethany doesn’t know if she even wants to know the details of it.  Alex continues, “We’re better parents when we’re separated, anyway. We’re happier.”

What a coincidence, Bethany thinks. So is she.

But of course she can’t say that - wouldn’t even if she could because she knows how childish that makes her sound.  Instead, she tells him what she's been thinking about since she first saw him outside of the game, 6 months ago. “I’ve been thinking about you getting spit out in 1996 after 20 years of being stuck in the game where you died three times with no one to talk to,” Bethany tells him. “I’m really, really happy you have a family.” 

He smiles at her. “Thank you, Bethany. That means a lot.”

She smiles back, because it’s Alex, and it's easier than it has been since the start of this particular conversation because - he's not married.

There's a brief pause between them, during which they both look out the window at the people passing the cafe and Bethany takes long, slow sips of her tea to calm herself and her racing heart down. 

Then, Alex asks, “And you?”

Bethany just looks at him. “What about me?”

“Doing okay out here? Any nightmares or anything like that?”

“Not so much anymore,” she tells him. “It helps that we...” Bethany hesitates. “We destroyed the game.”

Alex doesn’t visibly react that she can see, other than looking over at Andy. “That’s probably for the best.” He says. “Kind of a shame though - there are some parts of it I wouldn’t mind seeing again.”

Bethany nods, and takes another sip from her tea. She knows how that feels, mind automatically drifting to Alex, like it always does.  But it’s weird, because he’s right in front of her, just in a different body.  But he’s still the same, and this conversation has only confirmed what Bethany already knew - that that Alex and this Alex were still the same person. Time might have changed parts of him, but just like she’d hoped, some parts were still the same. He was still Alex. 

And he’s telling her he wants her in his life, in whatever capacity she needs. Bethany knows it will never be the way she actually wants - but it’s something. 

She’s lucky she even gets that. 

“Game or no game,” Bethany says suddenly, mouth moving as soon as her mind makes itself up. “I want you in my life, too.”

His smile nearly splits Alex’s face, a full-on grin, so handsome and perfect that Bethany marvels for a moment how lucky she is to have met him. Really, it should be illegal to be so attractive. 

“I’m glad,” he says, and it’s obvious he means it. 

Bethany smiles back at him. Even if they - her and Alex - never ended up anything more than friends, that would be enough for her.  She makes him happy, even if indirectly, even if it’s not the way she wants. 

And that’s enough. 

.

. 

“Did you walk here?”

Bethany and Alex are standing in front of the cafe, with Andy strapped onto Alex’s chest. He’s got a hand wrapped around Bethany’s fingers, trying to shove them in his mouth and it’s sweet - it makes Bethany miss when Hunter was so small. 

Bethany shrugs, squints up at the sun. She should have put on sunscreen, but at least it’s breezy. “It’s not that far.”

“Let me give you a ride,” Alex says. “Since it’s ‘not that far.’”

Bethany hesitates. “Uh...” Being alone with him in the car? With nowhere to run if she feels like she’s going to say something stupid? She’d really rather not. 

“Bethany,” Alex says, “I don’t bite.” 

She takes a long sip of her tea, even though she promised herself she’d save some for the walk back. But she needs it - mostly to swallow down the I wish you would that threatens to come out. 

He wins, in the end, and Bethany reasons that it’s just too hot for her to be walking back (even if the walk to the cafe had been fine).

Alex settles Andy into his car seat, and Bethany does her best job to not completely snoop with what she can see after she buckled herself into the passengers seat.  Really, there’s nothing interesting; an ocean breeze air freshener and an opened tangerine Red Bull in the cup holder. 

She holds her breath when he gets in the car, mostly to keep herself from saying anything dumb, and she tries her hardest not to obviously stare at him but - everything about him makes her heartbeat speed up; the way his shirt sleeve fits around his bicep, or how good he smells when they’re close like this. 

They drive in relative silence, for the first few minutes anyway, if only because Bethany is still filtering her thoughts so she doesn’t say anything stupid, and everything acceptable isn’t interesting enough for her to want to say out loud. And really she’s too focused on breathing anyway. 

Alex is the first one to break the silence.

“Are the others also seniors?”

“Yeah,” Bethany says. “You know, they’d...they’d love to see you again. The others. And me. We could all hangout.”

Alex smiles, and Bethany tries to memorize the way his cheek dimples out of the corner of her eye. “Definitely.”

Bethany watches the scenery pass - familiar to her since childhood. She starts to panic a little bit when she realizes they’re only a few streets from her house. “Until then...I...do you text? Maybe we could text.”

“I do text, believe it or not.” 

“Then we’ll text?”  

Alex smile doesn’t fade. “Of course.”

He turns onto her street, and Bethany is thankful none of her snoopy neighbors are outside; the last thing she wanted was someone telling her parents she’s been seen in some guys’ minivan. 

Bethany nods to herself when he stops in front of her house - it seemed like a good place to end the conversation. She even puts her hand on the door handle. 

But she...doesn’t really want to go. Even with the knowledge that Martha is inside and probably watching them right now, Bethany feels like she could sit here talking like this for hours. This was the absolute best case scenario - her anxiety from earlier seeming silly even now, with her nerves twisting in knots. Because - what if this was it? If she got out of the car and Alex decided that he should have left her in the past along with the game. Bethany can’t even think about that, chest tightening -

Alex’s hand on her arm startles her, snapping her attention back to him. He’s looking at her gently, smile crooked. “I will text you,” he says. “I swear.” 

Bethany swallows - hates that she’s so transparent, a little bit, but loves that Alex is aware enough to pick up on her thoughts so she’s not keeping them to herself (or worse, saying it out loud and making a fool of herself). His hand on her arm is warm - leaves heat even when he pulls away. 

“Okay,” she says simply, nodding. “Then I’ll talk to you later.” She turns around to make kissy faces at Andy, to which he squeals with glee. And when she unbuckles herself and opens the door, she still doesn’t quite want to go. 

But Alex said he’d text her, and she knows better than to doubt him. 

He’s looking at her when she turns and shuts the passengers door, taking his hand off the wheel to give her a small wave. She wonders if he’s watching her as she walks up her driveway, hyper-aware of him just sitting there in his van with the engine running until she opens her front door, fighting back every urge to look back at him like she so desperately wants to.

She steps inside, and shuts the door behind her. 

“Oh my god,” Martha is literally on top of her as soon as Bethany walks in the door.  She darts to the window, pulling the curtains back just a touch at the corner, crouching down to peer outside. Bethany can hear his car pulling away. “He drove you home?”

Bethany understands her excitement - she still can’t quite believe it either, opens her mouth to reply - 

“What are you doing?”

Bethany jumps at Spencer’s voice, gasping as she whips around to see him in his swimsuit, curls damp with a beach towel around his neck. Bethany puts a hand to her chest and tries to settle her racing heart - partly from behind startled, partly because it’s been beating fast for the past two hours. 

“Oh my god,” Martha says, again. “She’s having a heart attack.”

“I’m not having a heart attack.” Bethany defends.  If she was going to have one, she would have had it already. 

Bethany sighs, slumps away from the front door - through the foyer, to the living room - and onto the couch. Immediately she feels the tension from the day leaving her body. She looks up at Martha, then at Spencer, who have both followed her through the house and are now starting at her in anticipation. She sighs again. “Should we order a pizza and make Fridge come over?” Bethany knows she’ll need all the moral support she can get, too emotionally and mentally drained to pour over ever detail like she wants. 

“I got the pizza,” Spencer offers helpfully, and Martha already has her phone pulled out, fingers typing furiously. 

“I texted Fridge and told him to bring his swimming trunks.” She says, and she smiles at Bethany. “Pizza Pool Party?”

Bethany can’t do much but lay back and nod, a little dramatically, maybe, but rightfully so.  “Pizza Pool Party.”

.

.

“It felt the same,” Bethany says thoughtfully, through a mouthful of pepperoni pizza approximately 40 minutes later. “Like...he was still Alex. Just older.”

“And with a family,” Spencer adds. 

Martha cuts him off. “But without a wife.”

Bethany has spent the majority of every summer of her life in her backyard; every birthday party, every summer barbecue, every sleepover the minute the water was warm enough. It was just as much of a part of her home as her actual house was, but she’s never loved it as much as she does now. 

Martha and Spencer are lounging on the pool chairs, and Fridge keeps hopping in and out of the water for pizza, despite Spencer warning him of the dangers of not waiting 30 minutes after eating to swim.  Bethany is lying on the concrete, soaking up the leftover heat from the sun now that it’s setting, summer breeze chilling her - and her soaked bikini.  

“Does that really matter?” Fridge is hovering over the outdoor kitchenette, eating his pizza over the sink. “Him being divorced?”

Martha looks at him like he’s gone crazy. “Of course it matters,” she says. “His wife wouldn’t let him hangout with Bethany. And if he doesn’t hangout with her, then he can’t fall in love with her.”

“Wait, what?” Spencer sits up in his chair, expression on his face sour. “Is that really the end goal, here?”

“No,” Bethany says immediately, shooting Martha a look. Traitor. “Definitely not. Martha’s being dramatic.”

Spencer seems to relax again, and Bethany doesn’t even want to think about that - or anything surrounding it. Not after the day she’s had. But she does file his bizarre reaction away for later examination. 

“So your friends?” Spencer asks. “Just like that?”

There’s nothing ‘just like that’ about it - but she really doesn’t want to go over it out loud anymore; at least, not in front of the guys.  So she shrugs as best as she can from lying on her back on the ground, concrete scraping her shoulders, but it feels good after having spent the last part of the afternoon in the sun, with only a thin coat of sunscreen applied before she got into the water. “Just like that.”

And just like that, they drop the topic, instead focusing on what kind of animal-shaped pool float they should order on Amazon, Spencer casually mentioning his two-day-shipping Prime membership in order to tip the scale in his favor towards his suggestion -a hippo.  "Come on," he says. "It would be funny." Bethany and Martha get into a discussion about different types of bathing suits (because Martha had become less self-conscious after the game and actually wore two-pieces now - which Bethany was pretty much an expert on) while Fridge and Spencer geek out about an inside joke that Bethany must not have been paying attention for because it is definitely not funny enough for Fridge to be laughing the way he is. 

It's not long before the sun has completely set, bathing them in faded orange and blue.  Bethany sits up, pops her spine before she sighs. “I’m going to turn on the porch light for my parents,” she says, raising to a kneel before Spencer bolts out of his chair. 

“I’ve got it,” he says quickly. Bethany raises an eyebrow, but Spencer doesn’t look at her. “Martha, why don’t you help me?”

“I can help,” Bethany offers. “Do you even know where it is?”

Spencer shakes his head immediately. “No, no.” He says. “I mean, yes. I’ve got it. And if I don't...Martha will help me.”

Martha looks just as confused as Bethany feels, but she doesn’t resist much when Spencer takes her by the hand and pulls her across the yard to the house, with very obvious forced causality. He ushers her inside the sliding glass door, looking between Bethany and Fridge. “You two just...stay here and talk.”

The door slides shut behind him, punctuating the end of a very strange encounter. 

It’s quiet for a moment, still as they both try to process what just occurred. Bethany sits back, glances at Fridge, who is still staring at the door. He takes another bite of pizza. “That was weird.”

Bethany wholeheartedly agrees, but again, she’s drained all of her mental capability and doesn't want to get into it. ...Still - it’s weird for Spencer to create such an obvious opportunity for her and Fridge to talk alone - 

It suddenly clicks into place, the picture on the puzzle just as awkward, if not more awkward, as assembling it was. “Oh,” Bethany says. “I see what this is.”

Fridge doesn’t - puzzled frown on his face face when he abandons his pizza and heads towards Bethany.  He grunts when he sits down next to her, all 6’5 of him folding up to mimic her position, cross-legged on the pool deck.  After a moment he says, “Oh.”

Bethany nods. “Yeah.”

Fridge shakes his head.  "I told you,” he tells her. “They don’t have sex, they reproduce asexually. Like germs.”

“It’s not that,” she says, rolling her eyes. She doesn't elaborate.

It takes Fridge a second to figure it out, and when he does he clicks his tongue, Bethany’s eye-roll apparently catching. 

“You’re not my type, Bethany.” He tells her, in an irritatingly genuine consoling voice. He puts his hand on her shoulder gently. “I’m sorry. It's time to move on.”

Bethany swats his hand away from her. “I’m gonna smack you.”

Fridge laughs, throws his arm around her shoulder and pulls her close until she's comfortable and warm against his side. Bethany tilts her head back to look at the sky, the back of her head resting on the ball of his shoulder.  She sighs, because that’s all she knows how to do and is too tired to switch up her routine. 

After a moment he starts, tone expectant. “So?” He asks, “Was it as magical as you had hoped?”

Bethany really doesn’t have an answer for that. She had tried to go into it without any expectations - because no expectations meant no disappointment - and she’s by no means disappointed but -
 

Now she had them - expectations. And now she had room for disappointment. She doubts Alex would ever disappoint her, but - now he could.  Bethany isn’t often not in control, not if she can help it because she doesn’t like feeling helpless, and Alex - he’s another issue entirely. 

But she won’t tell Fridge that. He’s already seen her breakdown once this month, and that was already one time too many. So she says, “I don’t know. I guess.”

Fridge raises an eyebrow. “You guess?”

Bethany shrugs, hugs her knees to her chest and tries not to think about how pathetic she must look. “I don’t know where we stand,” she says - not a lie. “So I feel weird.”

“Wasn’t the entire point of this to find out where you stand?” Fridge says, “Did you just forget to ask?”

“No,” Bethany defends. “He said to text him but...I can’t, can I? Like, is that even okay? Morally?”

Fridge tilts his head, looks up at the sky with her. “I don’t think it matters if it’s okay to anyone else,” he says insightfully. “As long as you’re okay with it, and he’s okay with it, I don’t think it’s a problem.”

Bethany hums softly in acknowledgement and agreement. That was true. Well, it wasn’t quite as black and white as Fridge had made it sound, but Bethany truly didn’t see anything wrong with it, when she really thought about it. 

Sure, a 16 year old girl texting a 30-something year old guy was probably not appropriate in ordinary circumstances, but there was nothing ordinary about Alex Vreeke, or the circumstances surrounding the two of them. Plus, Martha was right; he totally time-traveled. The standard rules didn’t apply. 

“I’m happy for you, B.” Fridge tells her softly, after a moment of comfortable silence. “I really am.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Bethany grumbles, pouting. “He could still just delete my number and never talk to me again.” She hates that she put that out in the universe, but it doesn’t make it any less of a possibility. 

“That’s true,” Fridge bumps his shoulder against hers. “But that won’t happen,” he says. “So just let me be happy for you, and be happy for yourself.” 

Bethany doesn’t reply - because he has a point. She’s been too apprehensive about the whole thing to actually let herself be happy. It wasn’t an ideal scenario - not the one she wanted, anyway - but it was something. And after 6 months of waiting for it, she should be satisfied with that. 

She is satisfied with that.  

It’s a few hours late and she’s definitely fried a few brain cells with all the repressing she’s been doing, but Bethany finally lets herself feel the things she’s been holding back all day; terrified, elated, anxious - floating on a cloud of uncertainty but still floating.

She’s excited to see what her future as Alex’s friend holds; excited to see how things play out in the real world. 

She’s ready for whatever level comes next, happy to dive in, even blindly. 

She navigated her way through a dangerous jungle with nothing but a map and an endurance-problem - she could navigate her way through a friendship with Alex. 

It will be terrifying, Bethany knows - probably more terrifying than the jungle. It would be nerve-wracking and more emotionally heavy than she’s prepared for, but she’s already gotten killed and eaten by a hippo - she’s pretty sure she can handle Alex Vreeke. 

At least - she hopes she can. 

She’s going to try either way. 

.

.

Chapter Text

.

To: Alex

Work is going by so slowly I feel like I’m being Punk’d 

From: Alex 

I’d take that over a teething baby any day 

From: Alex

Also I’m pretty sure punkd is before your time

To: Alex

Ashton Kutcher is timeless!

Bethany waits...and then waits 10 more minutes before the smile she’s been hiding in her hand starts to disappear, replaced with a frown that deepens with every minute that passes. 

She can’t help it - not really. She’s a teenage girl. She’s bound to get giddy when a cute boy texts her. And bound to get irritated when he doesn’t. Typically, said boy isn’t actually a man 21 years older than her, but a cute boy is a cute boy, and Bethany’s always kind of been a sucker for butterflies and everything else that comes with a crush. But it’s different with Alex.

Everything is. 

They’ve only texted each other a few times since they met for coffee; tiny conversations that only last about five sentences before someone stops replying. Usually, it’s Alex. In fact, 4 out of the 5 times it’s been him. He had done it the first time, and then Bethany had done it the second because he did it the first time, but she hasn’t had the self control to stop replying any other time. 

Bethany isn’t not used to this; she spent the majority of the first semester of Junior year waiting for texts from Noah that never came. She’s good at waiting but - it’s Alex. She doesn’t want to wait. 

At first she thinks it’s her - maybe he found her boring. But then she thinks that can’t be possible because her and Lucinda used to be able to text for days without more than an hour in between responses. Then she thinks, oh shit, it might actually be her; maybe Alex found her immature? But if he did then why would he keep starting new conversations and reply to hers? Unless he was just being polite - 

She catches that train of thought before her frown makes her cheeks hurt. She reminds herself that Alex is an adult with two young children. Alex has a serious job and actual responsibilities, and probably doesn’t have time to stare at his phone - not like Bethany, who’s leaning against the counter at work, with her phone in her hand even though she really shouldn’t, but there’s only one customer in the store and they’ve been in the bathroom for a questionable amount of time. 

She’d feel bad for slacking on the clock if she was the only one but she’s not; Amanda, her manager, leans in the doorframe of the back room, arms crossed, mouth moving and Bethany realizes that she’s talking - that she was supposed to be listening. She was listening, before she texted Alex - and she’s listening again, now that he stopped replying. Because he finds Bethany boring - and why wouldn’t he? He was interesting and mature and she’s - 

Bethany tries to stop thinking about that before the ugly voice in the back of her head can make her question anything else about her and Alex. Just because she had a habit of obsessing didn’t mean she needed to dwell on it like she was. She focuses back on Amanda, who doesn’t look like she’s even noticed Bethany spacing out. 

“I hate not knowing what we are,” she pouts, mid-conversation, and Bethany mentally catches up. Amanda’s horrible kind-of-boyfriend-kind-of-not is being as horrible as he’s been since she started seeing him. Amanda is somehow the only one surprised by it every time. “Why are boys so difficult?”

Bethany wishes she knew. She also wishes she could stop thinking about them (him) for even 10 minutes. Figures that work wouldn’t be safe - not when she’s PMSing as bad as she is, and definitely not when her and Amanda are synced up. It’s a mess of hormones, and she reasons that really, her overreacting and overthinking isn’t even her fault; it’s this place. But still - how was she expected to stop thinking about them (him) when she was being reminded of them (him) in every aspect of her life?

Amanda continues on, “It’s not like I’m looking for anything serious right now anyway, but like - at least start a conversation about it, you know?” She sighs, slumps against the counter. “Keeping me in the dark is just making me miserable.”

“You should start the conversation then,” Bethany suggests, figuring it might look like she was paying attention if she gives her vague advice. “For real. If you’re unhappy you should talk about it.”

“That makes me feel so weird though,” Amanda whines. “Why can’t he start it? It’s embarrassing if I do it. Why can’t all men just be straightforward?”

Again, Bethany wishes she knew. 

Amanda sighs, rolls her eyes so hard her head lolls to the side. She looks at Bethany. “Do you wanna get chipotle with me after work? I’m trying to drown my man-related sadness in a sofritas burrito.” 

.

Bethany might feel weird walking into Chipotle with her uniform still on, but like with all of her insecurities, she tries to push it to the back of her mind. She just hopes she doesn’t run into anyone from school. 

She orders her food - a barbacoa bowl with extra veggies and chips on the side - and finds them a table in the corner of the seating area. Amanda’s tray clatters against the table when she sits down. 

“The cashier wanted me to give this to you.” Amanda slides Bethany a receipt, and Bethany looks at it - and the number scrawled across it in sharpie. “The one with the glasses and the forearm tattoo. I told him you’re 16, but he insisted he wasn’t much older.”

Bethany looks up - the cashier with the beard is already staring at her, but he flushes and looks down when she catches him. He’s cute, and if the game never happened Bethany might have taken it but - he’s not the one Bethany wants texting her. “Keep it,” She says. Or else it’ll end up being thrown away the next time she cleans out her bag. 

“What,” Amanda asks, “is he not your type?”

Bethany shrugs, tries to mix her food with her fork without spilling it over the edge of the bowl . “Not really.” 

The brunette steals one of her chips, questions her, “So what is your type?”

“I don’t know,” Bethany says, even though she does. Even though she can see them both clearly in her mind - Seaplane, broad-shouldered and rugged and gorgeous, and Alex, in his Megadeath shirt, with Andy in his lap. Somehow when she thinks of him she sees them both but - she can’t choose between them. Not anymore. 

She can’t even remember her type before that; Noah, she guesses, but now that just seems ridiculous. But she can’t say that to Amanda - can’t explain any of it. Instead she settles with, “Older guys I guess?” Even though those words kind of taste bad on her tongue. She puts a chip in her mouth and ignores it. 

“Be careful with that,” Amanda warns, face serious all of a sudden, but it’s good-natured. “Older guys may seem cool and mature, but really they just date younger girls because no one their age wants them. Most of them, anyway.”

Normally, Bethany would agree. And the part of her that’s not distracted by Alex and Alex-related thoughts appreciates her managers’ advice. 

Amanda asks her through a mouthful of burrito. “You don’t have a boyfriend now?”

When Bethany shakes her head, she tilts her head to the side, watches Bethany curiously. “What about that guy that comes in sometimes when you’re working? The football player?”

“Fridge?” Bethany snorts, wishes it didn’t always come back to this. She blames Spencer passively, even though he’s not even here. 

“Yeah. Why don’t you date him? He’s cute. And like, 7 feet tall.”

“He’s one of my best friends,” Bethany says. “It would be weird.” She adds, after a moment, “Also he doesn’t date white girls.”

“That’s too bad,” Amanda sighs into her burrito, and Bethany imagines this is what it might be like if she had an older sister. “You’d be cute together.”

That might be true. Bethany’s never considered it seriously, because it’s Fridge, and when she tries to picture it  - she can’t. She doesn’t want to imagine herself with anyone but the guy she really wants - and she can’t do that either. Because she knows it’ll never happen - her and Alex in the capacity that she wants - and even secretly hoping that it might would just hurt her more in the end. 

Bethany is young and naive and a hopeless kind of romantic, but she’s not masochistic enough to break her own heart over something she knew better than to hope for. 

.

Her parents buy her a car. 

It’s completely out of nowhere; she passes it in the driveway on her walk home from work the day after she and Amanda get Chipotle and she’s almost too tired to give it a second thought other than wondering which family friend she was going to have to hide in her room from for the rest of the night. 

She doesn’t even put it together that hey, her birthday is in a month. Even so, never in her life did Bethany think her parents would buy her a car; she figured she’d have to barter with her parents for permission to drive her mom’s Prius to school next year every once in a while until she saved up enough to buy a terrible Craigslist car herself.  She’d assumed she’d be on her own in finding one - she’s spoiled by her parents, but she’s not car-spoiled. Okay, maybe she is car-spoiled - but it’s still a surprise, and definitely more than she expected. 

“We’ve noticed a positive change in you,” her mother tells her, after Bethany has opened the wrapped gift box her parents handed her after dinner, singular key inside. “At home and with your grades. You’re responsible enough now to stay smart and focused on the road.” 

There’s a but coming, Bethany knows.  Her mother must know that she knows that - and decides not to make her wait. “The summer program Hunter is enrolled it is starting up soon. As long as you drop him off and pick him up on time a few days a week, the car is yours.”

That’s not the ultimatum she was expecting - that’s barely an ultimatum at all. She doesn’t mind bringing Hunter to school, loves spending time with him like that - she would mind bringing him in her own car even less. 

She wants to tell Alex first, weirdly enough. Though she guesses it’s not weird when she reflects on why. 

Look at me, it almost screams in the shine of the red paint. I’m practically an adult. Also - she almost always wants to tell Alex something, seizing everything as a gateway to another conversation. 

She debates it for longer than she’d like to admit, even going as far as to type out a message draft - her wavering self control the only thing keeping her from hitting send.  He’s the one who said he wanted her in his life, why does Bethany feel like such a bother?

She decides against it in the end, unable to keep up the mental back and forth between her heart and her head (it’s a text for God’s sake - it shouldn’t be this hard.) Instead she settles for the group chat. 

From: Mouse Fin
To: OGCTRTA

Finally

From: Mouse Fin
To: OGCTRTA 

Congrats on evolving past pedestrian status. 

From: Mouse Fin
To: OGCTRTA 

We need to break in those backseats at the drive-ins tonight tho 

From: Bravestone
To: OGCTRTA 

That’s awesome!

From: Ruby Roundhouse
To: OGCTRTA 

Oh my~

From: Bravestone
To: OGCTRTA  

Ew dude don’t be gross 

From: Mouse Fin
To: OGCTRTA 

NOT LIKE THAT. YOU GUYS ARE SO WEIRD

.

Fridge forces them to see the newest probably-terrible Mission Impossible, even though he’s the only one who wants to see it, which is fine in the end because Bethany makes him buy her ticket, ‘if you’re gonna make me sit through this’.

With the backseats down - something she didn’t know was possible until Fridge folded them down for her and she screamed, thinking he broke her car already - her and Martha can stretch out, heads towards the open trunk so they can look out across the field of cars, where there’s a rom com they never got around to seeing playing on the other screen. 

“Too bad there’s no sound,” Martha takes a bite from the plate of nachos sitting in front of them. “This argument looks entertaining.”

Bethany slurps on her slushee, maybe obnoxiously. “Yeah, she’s so pretty and I bet she’s making very valid points. And her boyfriend or husband or whatever looks like a loser with his hair parted like that. I hope she slaps him.”

Martha holds up a chip in agreement. “Cheers.”

“I hope the carbs I’ve been eating lately go to my butt,” Bethany tells her, taking a chip with jalapeño. “Does it look like I’ve gained weight?”

Martha looks at her, even if she does roll her eyes first. “Why do you even care -“

“I don’t,” Bethany tells her. And she really doesn’t. But she can dream of Kim K level proportions. Even if it might look ridiculous on her. “God, let me dream.”

“You look as perfect as you always have, your highness.”

Bethany nudges Martha’s foot with hers. “You better not be lying to me.”

“You made me promise to never keep secrets, didn’t you?”

Bethany supposes that’s true. 

The movie cuts to a cute coffee shop scene - with the female protagonist and her maybe-best guy friend/maybe-coworker (Bethany is really not following the storyline anymore, not that she could follow it without sound to start with, but the confusion is better than looking at Tom Cruise for any amount of time) sitting across from each other at a table by the window. 

Bethany can’t help it - she pictures herself back at the coffee shop with Alex. She wonders if that’s what they looked like to an outsider, if they were just as tenderly looking at each other without the other noticing. Okay - she knows it wasn’t like that. But Bethany can dream. 

Martha, who’s a psychic, probably, asks without preamble. “Have you talked to Alex lately?”

Bethany slumps against Martha’s shoulder miserably. “Kinda,” she tries not to sound so sad, but it’s not like she can filter herself around her best friend anyway. “I think he thinks I’m boring. Or something.”

Bethany feels Martha rest her head on top of hers. Feels when she sighs into her hair. “That couldn’t possibly be it. You’re the least boring person I know.”

“Thank you, that makes me feel better.” And it does. Bethany tells her, “I think I got my expectations too high. Somehow. Like, I know that things are going to be different out here but - I don’t know. He was so easy to talk to in the game.” 

“Well,” Martha sighs, “Maybe you just need to figure out how to talk to him as an adult. It’s gonna be different now, with all the time that’s passed for him.”

“And I know that,” Bethany tells her. And she does. “I know he’s not that guy anymore. And I’m working hard on separating the two of them. I even put his contact name as Alex. Not Seaplane. Even though it would have completed the set.” 

“You’re a nerd,” Martha snorts. The she adds, almost gently, “You’ll figure it out with him. All guys are different with texting and stuff. Also, he’s on the older end of thirty, he might still have trouble with his phone.”

“He shouldn’t,” Bethany tells her. “We warned him.” 

They break into a fit of giggles, loud enough for Spencer to look back at them. Bethany ducks her head, lowers her voice. “Should we be talking about this so close to you-know-who?”

Martha rolls her eyes and shrugs her shoulders, voice dropping down into a whisper. “I have no idea. I asked him after we all hung out at the pool if there was a problem but he just said something about you obsessing.”

“Hm.” Bethany looks back at the screen, where the pretty protagonist is now tearfully walking through Central Park (Bethany thinks), but she doesn’t try to argue with that. “I’m a teenage girl, what else would I do? Calmly and rationally categorize him as just another guy? He’s not.” 

She can feel the vibrations against her skull when Martha hums. “Well I know that. I think he’s just worried.”

Bethany sighs. It’s sweet - but his concern is misplaced. As much as Bethany feels like she’s out of her element with Alex, she trusts him. And even more than that, she’s familiar with this aspect of it, at least. “I’m fine. I used to obsess over Noah too - you guys just weren’t there for it.

“Thank God,” Martha snorts. “He’s gross.”

Fridge’s voice makes the both of them turn their heads. Both he and Spencer are looking at them. Fridge has his eyebrow raised. “Who’s gross?”

Martha sticks her tongue out at him. “Mind your own business, Fridge.”

He scowls. “Oh, okay. I see how it is Martha.”

“We’re talking about Noah,” Bethany cuts in. She has to - because she knows from experience that Fridge and Martha’s childish back and forth would go on all night if someone didn’t stop them. 

Her and Martha sit up, and Spencer makes that disappointed little noise he’s always making, tilts his head back like it’s such a bother. “He’s not coming to your party, right?”

Ugh. Bethany’s birthday. “Can you stop calling it that?” Bethany whines. “So embarrassing.”  

“That’s what it is -“

Bethany groans. “I don’t wanna think about my birthday.” Or Alex. Without digging into the subconsciousness of it, Bethany knows they’re related, somehow.  “Can’t we just have a normal non-celebratory movie night instead?

“No way,” Martha’s tone leaves no room for argument. “6 months ago you almost died. We’re celebrating your birthday with a party.”

Bethany knows better than to try to convince Martha of something she’s already set her mind to. Something like this, anyway. “Fine,” she sighs. “But promise it’ll just be the four of us?”

“It’ll have to be,” Martha says. “You forfeited all of your cool old friends when you started hanging out with us.”

“Hey,” Fridge cuts in. “I’m her old friend,” he says, “and I’m still cool. I’m Fridge. It’s in the name.”

.

Unsurprisingly, she spends a lot of time in her car. The house can get a little loud with Hunter out of school, and she likes the peace that driving offers. Also, it means she can get Starbucks whenever she wants, like right now. It might be a waste of gas, but as long as her parents are making her pay for her own insurance she’s going to drive as much as she can, even if her tank is on half and she just. filled. up. yesterday. 

Bethany doesn’t normally pay attention to pedestrians now that she’s no longer one herself, but the vague shape of the one coming up is so familiar, even from down the street, that Bethany actually looks at the person walking on the side of the road.  As she gets closer she realizes that, yes, that curly head of hair and those lanky arms are quite familiar. 

Bethany laughs to herself. Only Spencer would wear his backpack during the summer. 

She pulls over a little bit behind him, and the only sign of Spencer acknowledging her is the way he glances back in her direction before facing forward again. His steps even quicken, a little bit. 

Bethany takes her foot off the brakes, inches forward until they’re parallel, and Spencer gives her car another awkward glance before she remembers she has dark windows. She rolls down the passengers window, calling out to him, “Hey, Bravestone. Need a lift?”

It takes a minute for recognition to hit him. “Jesus,” he says, finally closing the distance between him and the car, opening the door and climbing inside. “I couldn’t see through your dumb tinted windows. I thought you were some random person trying to kidnap me.”

Bethany looks at herself in the rear view mirror while Spencer buckles himself in. “So that was your plan? Walking a little bit faster?”

Spencer shrugs. “I was planning my escape route to Fridge’s in my head in case I needed to start running.” 

Apparently he and Fridge are going to play video games and try to start on Fridge’s extra credit summer assignment for the history class he just barely passed last year. Spencer offered to help him - not cheat, he assures her like 10 times - And Bethany thinks it’s sweet; their friendship. She never knew about them being friends since childhood or their weird middle school fallout - didn’t even know they knew each other until that day in detention - but she’s glad that the game brought them back together. She liked Fridge before, as a hotheaded jock, but she likes him better now that his friendship with Spencer has soften his rough edges. 

Bethany absently follows the way to Fridge’s house, rolling through the absolutely unnecessary stop sign that literally no one stops for. No one but Spencer, apparently. 

“Stop sign,” he calls as they pass it. He clicks his tongue disapprovingly and Bethany can see in her peripheral vision that he’s giving her that look. “Are you allowed to be driving? I mean - don’t you need a licensed driver with you?”

Bethany raises an eyebrow, doesn’t dare look at him because she knows he’d tell her to keep her eyes on the road. “Yeah - that’s what you and Fridge are for.” She nearly forgets Spencer has a license, but then recalls the countless times he’s showed up to her house in his mom’s Corolla. 

Spencer goes, “I’m pretty sure they need to be over 21, though...“ and Bethany snorts. 

“What, are you gonna tell on me?”

“Of course not,” he says, voice suddenly weird, and Bethany glances at him, despite the risk of him scolding her. He’s sitting back, ramrod straight, looking forward with a serious, steely expression on his face. 

Bethany looks at him for another second before looking back at the road. “What are you doing?”

Spencer says, “Trying to look 21 so we don’t get pulled over. Which we will anyway if you keep running stop signs.”

Her phone vibrates in the cup holder before she can respond - it’s designated spot while she drives - and she reaches for it without thinking. Spencer, whose reflexes are apparently faster than hers, smacks her hand away before she can touch it. 

“Bethany,” Spencer sounds exasperated. “Don’t do that.”

Bethany tries not to sound so huffy. “Then you read it.”

Bethany can just barely see Spencer take her phone, look at the screen. “It’s from Alex,” he says. “He said, ‘counting the days until summer camp starts. Does that make me a bad parent?’”

Bethany smiles without thought, temporarily forgetting who’s sitting right next to her. She tries to school her face back to its usual resting bitch expression, but she knows she’s already been caught. “Um,” she doesn’t usually second guess her texts to Alex, but now, with Spencer staring at her, having to say it out loud, she feels almost awkward. Like she’s caught between a Bravestone and a Seaplane.  She tries to shake it off. “Just write back, ‘It’s not your fault your first instinct is survival’ and then add that emoji with the steam coming out of its nose.”

Spencer does as he’s told - but not before Bethany sees the unimpressed look he gives her phone. “So...you two are hanging out?”

Bethany rolls her eyes. “No, Spencer.”

“But you want to.” He doesn’t phrase it like a question. Bethany has half a mind to not answer. 

“Of course I do,” she tells him. “Don’t you want to?” Spencer liked Alex. Or she thought he did. 

“Yes...” Spencer says slowly, like he’s carefully choosing his words.  “But - isn’t it weird now, out here? He’s our parents age. And has kids.”

Bethany doesn’t see a problem with either of those things. And she definitely doesn’t think either of them justify Spencer’s ambivalence towards their situation. She keeps her eyes on the road, mostly to hide the way Spencer’s attitude is making her nose scrunch in annoyance. “So? He saved our lives.” That itself should outweigh whatever qualms Spencer might have with him. Besides, “It wasn’t weird the other day.”

“Because you have a crush on him.”

The steering wheel creaks under her hands, and she forces herself to lessen her grip. “Spencer, if you’ve got something to say to me about Alex, just say it.” 

Spencer makes a sputtering noise like he might try to deny her words, but after a few seconds he sighs, defeated. “It’s not even about him. I just...” he sighs again. “I don’t want my best friend getting her heart broken when I could have prevented it. I would feel terrible.”

It is sweet - but Bethany used up most of her appreciation for it at the drive-ins. Now it’s kind of just annoying. 

“Spencer, I appreciate your concern,” she says diplomatically. “I do. But I’m not - me and Alex are never going to happen.” It’s kind of weird, how the air in the car seems to grow heavy and settles around them after she says it. It might be the first time she’s actually said it out loud. Or had to acknowledge it in her own voice. “I’m not expecting anything to happen,” she says, slowly, telling herself as much as she’s telling Spencer. “I can barely get a text back. You really don’t have to worry.”

It’s quiet between them for a minute, and Bethany parks on the street in front of Fridge’s house in silence, aside from a curse or two when her front tire accidentally hits the curb. Bethany almost doesn’t want to say anything else, mood turned sour.

After a few more seconds: “I didn’t mean to make you sad,” Spencer begins reproachfully. “And my concern is coming from a good place. I swear.”

Bethany wills herself to let it go. It’s not his fault, it’s really not. He’s just looking out for her the only way he knows how - misplaced concern and preparedness for the worst. 

She sighs, exhaling the negative energy he’s forced upon her. But she doesn’t meet his eyes, instead finding Fridge’s mailbox more interesting. “I know that,” she tells him. “I do. But it’s important that you know that that’s not why I want to be friends with him.”

“Then what’s the reason?” 

Bethany doesn’t even know where to start, never having to explain it out loud before. Martha and Fridge just understood it. “He spent all that time alone in the game,” she tells him, meeting his eyes. If Spencer doesn’t get why it’s important, then she’ll explain it as best as she can. “You remember how intense it was, right? We’re probably the only people in the world that could even begin to understand what he went through, and he had to wait 20 years to be able to talk about it. I want to be there for him.”

Even if Alex never wants to talk about the game with her or any of them - Bethany at least wants him to feel like he has the option to. She thinks about what he said at the cafe - about how his wife looked at him like he was crazy. About how he didn’t even know if it was real -

Spencer speaks before she can stew on it and upset herself further. “I guess I never thought about it that way.” He says, scratching the back of his head. “You’re right, though.”

“Yes,” Bethany nods. “I am.”

A sudden knock on Spencer’s window startles them both, and Bethany’s positive Spencer jumps out of his skin. Fridge is standing there, his hands cupped around his eyes, looking in the window. “What are y’all doing in there?”

Spencer opens the door sharply, hitting it against Fridge’s knees and he buckles before catching himself on Bethany’s car. Spencer cackles at his petty revenge and Bethany unbuckles herself enough to lean across the gear shift after Spencer gets out, looking up at the both of them shoving each other back and forth in the yard. 

“Get your essay done before you kill each other, please.”

“He couldn’t kill me if he tried,” Fridge says smugly, puts his giant hand on Spencer’s head, holds his arm out, keeping him at bay. Spencer’s long arms shoot out and he tries to knock Fridge’s arm away. He fails, and Bethany smiles to herself, glad to see her friends like this. But sometimes she does miss the hilarity of Spencer in a body like Bravestone’s and Fridge half his usual height.  “What’re you doing now?” Fridge asks her, purposefully casual and unbothered just to rile Spencer up. “You have work?”

Bethany shakes her head. “Nope. I’m just getting coffee and running errands. I promised my mom I’d go grocery shopping for dinner tonight, so.”

“Lame,” Fridge says. “Have fun.”

“I’ll try. Are your sisters home?”

“Yes,” Fridge tells her. “But I’m not telling them you said hi. They’ll just bug me all day about you coming over and I won’t get my essay done.”

“Fine,” Bethany pouts. “At least say hi to your mom for me.”

After reassurances that yes, they’ll complete Fridge’s assignment in one piece and yes, he’ll say hi to his mom for her, she shoos them off, feeling like their mother more than she usually does. Bethany sighs to herself. She misses Martha, wishes she wasn’t at her grandparents house for the day. Being a single parent is hard. 

She watches them until they disappear inside, Spencer waving back at her before the door closes. Now that she can sit back and think about it, Bethany is glad that her and Spencer had that conversation, as sensitive a subject as it is. She checks her phone, one last distraction before she finally gets the Starbucks she now desperately needs before she goes to the store, blaming the headache she can feel forming on her lack of caffeine. 

She has one new message. 

From: Alex

I think my chances of survival were higher in the jungle

.

Bethany doesn’t start off her promise to take hunter to school with as much integrity as she had hoped, waking up when her mom pops in her room to tell Bethany that she’s headed to work and to have him there by 9am, only to promptly fall back asleep and then stay asleep through both of the alarms she had set for herself. 

She wakes up again when she feels warm air on her face, eyes opening to find Hunter literally an inch from her, breathing in her face open mouthed because he has no sense of boundaries. 

She tries not to cuss in front of him but shit - she can feel her heart leap into her throat with how badly it startles her. At least she’s awake now. 

“Momma said you have to take me to school,” he tells her, matter of fact, and Bethany reaches underneath her pillow for her phone, checking the time and feeling her heartbeat once again spike when the time reads that it’s 8:55. 

It’s a race to get ready after that. She throws on the first thing she can find - which happens to be the beach outfit she laid out last night for that day because it’s supposed to be gorgeous outside - and hurries to brush her teeth and her hair before she fusses over Hunter. 

It’s hard to get him dressed when he starts crying in the middle of her putting his socks on. “I don’t want to go to school,” she can barely make out between his wet sobs, and she empathizes. She really does. 

“It’s not school, buddy,” she tells him gently, wiping his tears away. “You’re going to play with your friends all day.”

That doesn’t exactly cheer him up, but it does pacify him into letting her finish dressing him without much of a struggle, and by the time she’s done and double checking the list her mother left on the kitchen counter for her, all traces of his bad mood have disappeared. 

“Mom is insistent that I also pack your raincoat even though it’s beautiful outside,” Bethany tells him, though she knows her brother has most likely stopped listening to her. She places his folded jacket in his backpack, followed by the lunch box she finds already packed in the refrigerator. “And we’ll respect that even though she’s c-r-a-z-y. Because she’s picking you up and I don’t want to be b-i-t-c-h-e-d at for not packing it when I get home.”

“H-o-m,” Hunter chirps back. “Home.”

For what it’s worth, it is gorgeous out when Bethany leaves the house. It doesn’t stay that way, weather turning about 10 minutes later, sheets of rain so heavy they might as well have erased the road completely. She can just barely see the lights of the car in front of her. 

She’s taken Hunter places in her car a few times before, but all three of those times her mother was in the passengers seat next to her and none of those times was it raining so blindingly hard. 

She’s glad at least that her mother wasn’t around this morning to hear Bethany questioning her. Because while before the day was beautiful and warm and had all signs pointing to a perfect day at the beach, the weather had turned in an instant, turning Bethany from breezy and carefree to absolutely anxious, clutching her steering wheel and going from 50 in a 45 to just barely 30. But she does wish her mom was there now, just to give her some peace of mind. 

Someone honks when they pass her, and Bethany reminds herself to set a good example for her brother in the back and not flip the bird at them like she wants. 

“Why did it beep at you?” Hunter asks curiously, but Bethany knows he’s not really interested in her answer. It’s just a gateway to 20 questions, his favorite game as of late. 

“Because the driver thinks I’m going too slow,” Bethany tells him, looking at him for the hundredth time to make sure he was still fine. He’s staring out the window, probably watching the rain drops racing down, as perfect and as safe as ever.  

Okay, maybe she was being dramatic, slowing down to 30.  She speeds up just a bit, watches the needle hit 35 before her anxiety decides for her that she’s not speeding up any more until the weather clears. Or until they reach the school. Whatever comes first. 

And if the other cars don’t like it, they can pass her. 

“Why are you going too slow?” Hunter asks. 

“Because I want to be careful,” she tells him. “I don’t want to get us hurt by accident.”

“Why would you get us hurt by accident?”

“Because the rain makes the roads slippery,” she says. “Like the tub after your bath. If I go to fast the car might slip.”

“Uh-oh,” Hunter says quietly. “Not good.”

Bethany agrees. Not good at all. So they’re not even going to chance it. And if she has to drive 35 miles an hour for the next 5 miles, so be it. 

They arrive in one piece, thankfully, and Bethany tries to ignore the fact that they’re 20 minutes later than her mom had told her to be there.  Normally that might give Bethany anxiety, but she can barely see that there’s another car parked a few spots away, the only other car in the lot, so maybe she’s not the only tardy parent (or guardian, in her case) there. And also she’s already as full of anxiety as she can get. 

“Ugh,” Bethany looks out of the window, up at the sky miserably.  The rain hits against the glass almost mockingly. “Can this day get worse?”

“I don’t got my rain boots on!” Hunter offers helpfully from the backseat, and Bethany looks down at her feet - at her American Eagle flip flops - and nods in agreement.

“You don’t have your rain boots on. And we don’t have an umbrella either.” Bethany’s mom had bought her an umbrella for her car, of course, and a blanket, and an emergency first aid kit, and other weird things Bethany didn’t think were necessary, but had left the task of actually putting them in her car to Bethany, and well - 

She turns to face her brother in the backseat, tries not to beat herself up for being so forgetful. “At least you have your coat.” In his backpack, shoved in the bottom because at one point not long ago it had seemed so unnecessary. Bethany just wished she had brought hers. “Let’s get you unbuckled.”

The classroom is through the entrance and across the courtyard - far, far away from her warm, dry car in the parking lot.  Bethany has to remind herself that she’ll be back inside very soon, even as she races through the rain, pulling Hunter behind her, his backpack in her arms halfway unzipped because he had to wait until she already locked the car door and sprinted across the grass to ask if he had his lunchbox or if they left it on the seat after getting his raincoat -

The rain, by the way, is not helping - heavy and unforgiving, darkening the sky so much that she can barely see the classrooms; it also doesn’t help that she cant really remember the layout of the school. But Bethany can see a door opening in the distance, a hopeful beam of light at the end of a tunnel. “Ah, hold the door!” Bethany calls out, hoping it’s audible through the rain. 

It must be, because the door stays propped open for them. 

She ushers Hunter inside, shaking off his backpack as she ducks into the room. She sighs in relief, thankful for the warmth of the classroom and the cover from the rain. “Thank you,” she turns, partly to thank her savior properly, and partly to prove she’s got a armful of backpack and doesn’t just helplessly call for people to hold the door for her.  

She has a smile on her face when she turns, and a thank you on her tongue. Both of those fall away when she sees just who she’s supposed to be thanking. 

Alex looks just as shocked as she does, at least. He also looks unfairly good, in the same black hoodie he had on the other week, umbrella in hand. His mouth parts in surprise, eyebrows raising. “Bethany!”

Bethany blinks back at him, mind blank. Or, mind blank of all things other than him. But that wasn’t really different than normal. What wasn’t normal is him actually standing in front of her. 

“Alex.” She says his name, stares at him and then realizes that she must look like a drowned rat.  She combs through her wet hair with her fingers self consciously, as inconspicuously as she can. “What - what are you doing here?”

“Beth is starting summer camp here.” He looks over her shoulder, into the classroom buzzing with playing children. “She’s in there somewhere. Hopefully.”

He looks back at her and he’s - he’s grinning. Bethany is almost overwhelmed by it. And probably would have been - had Hunter not tugged on her hand impatiently. Bethany looks down at him, suddenly remembering why she’s here, and he’s staring up at her pouting. 

“Oh,” she feels her face heating up. “Sorry, buddy. I’ll hang up your raincoat for you.”

Bethany tries to not feel totally self conscious at the thought of Alex Vreeke watching her in this totally bizarre scenario, trying to put away Hunters things into an empty cubby as quickly as she can, hanging up his coat next to the others on the wall. She won’t have his attention for long, she knows, and bends down to say goodbye to him. 

“H-have a good day,” she tells him, feeling bad for being so distracted. She hugs him while she reminds him, “Be nice to the other kids, and be good for your teacher. Okay?”

If Hunter was still upset from having to be here, he doesn’t show it, smile on his face as he turns away from her, before her arms even fall from around him. She watches him make a beeline towards the legos, leaving her alone with Alex by the cubbies, surrounded by tiny jackets and construction paper drawings hung along the windows. When she stands back up and looks back at him, he’s got a crooked smile on his face. It’s so cute she nearly forgets how awkward she feels. “That’s your brother?” 

“Yeah,” She nods. “Hunter.”

“He looks like you.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Bethany says. “We look like our mom.”

There’s a beat of silence, and okay - maybe she doesn’t forget how awkward she feels. Bethany can almost feel it creeping into her bones, or maybe it’s the A/C in the classroom and her soaked clothes. Either way, she doesn’t like it at all. She wracks her apparently void mind for something - anything - to say. 

Alex glances out of the classroom window - at the rain hitting against the glass - then back to her. “You didn’t walk here, did you?”

Bethany’s brain starts to reboot, maybe. “No. No, I - I drove. My parents got me a car.”

Alex’s eyebrows raise - his lips quirk back into a smile. “Really?”

Of course, he would have known this two weeks ago - if she had just sent that damn text. “Yeah, I think so they didn’t have to do this themselves.” She gestures to herself - her wet clothes and her dripping hair. 

“I don’t blame them,” Alex says. “This rain came out of nowhere, though.”

Bethany didn’t have time in the car to mourn the sunny day that could have been, but she looks at the sky outside and sighs. “It was supposed to be so nice out, too,” she says. “I was going to go relax at the beach before work tonight, and now I can’t. Thanks, rain.”

“The rain might stop people from wanting froyo,” Alex adds thoughtfully, and Bethany struggles to calm her racing heartbeat. They were - just talking. Like friends. “Maybe you won’t be too busy.”

Bethany hums in agreement. “And maybe if it doesn’t clear up I can leave early.”

“See?” Alex grins again, turns back towards the window. “Thanks, rain.”

There’s a beat of silence again, but it’s not uncomfortable this time. But again, Alex is the first to break it. “I’m sorry I’m so bad at texting, by the way,” he says, shoving the hand not holding the umbrella into the pocket of his hoodie. “I’ve had the kids every day since school ended, and it’s been a little more hectic than usual. Which is still pretty hectic.”

“That’s fine,” Bethany says, like she hasn’t been losing her mind over exactly that. It’s fine - because the weight that falls off her shoulders at the confirmation that no, she’s not the problem, and Alex standing in front of her now talking to her like they were friends more than makes up for it. 

“But,” he continues, unaware of the mental celebration Bethany is having in the back of her mind. “Andy’s already with his mom, and I don’t have anything going on for the rest of the morning. Wanna get breakfast?”

Bethany blinks. It takes a moment for his words to sink in fully - for his question to click in her brain. She wonders briefly if she’s dreaming. It would be less surprising than Alex actually asking her if she wants to get breakfast after they happen to run into each other at an elementary school of all places. She thinks she should probably just go along with it, dream or not. 

“Um...that would be great,” she tells him. Realizes just as the words escape her mouth that she looks like she just fell into a lake. “But I’m not really dressed to go anywhere...” Especially not after the drastic change in weather. 

Alex glances at her - then outside at the rain pounding against the window. He purses his lips, makes a face and makes a considering hum in the back of this throat. 

“How do you feel about the drive-thru?”

.

“Here,” Alex is holding the umbrella over Bethany’s head the moment she steps out of the cover of the classroom and into the rain. It pelts at the umbrella like hail, harder than before, and Bethany is suddenly much more grateful for her random encounter with Alex - if that was possible. He falls in step beside her, close enough to keep them both shielded from the rain, close enough for Bethany to smell the faint scent of his cologne. “Do you care if we go in my car?”

“Not at all,” Bethany says. “I’m still recovering from the drive over here.”

She can’t believe they’re as close as they are,  thankful for the rain and her own lack of umbrella because every graze of their shoulders is so dizzying, Bethany feels like she might just take flight. 

He walks her to the passengers side of his car, holding the umbrella over her while she opens the door. She looks at the seat, the same as it was the first time she got in his car, but this time Bethany hesitates. “I don’t want to get your seat wet.”

Alex gives her a crooked little smile when she looks at him. “It’s not a big deal,” he tells her. “But actually - “

Alex opens the back door on that side, ducks down and disappears while still somehow holding his arm out to cover her with the umbrella. He resurfaces, a blue blanket with tiny lions printed on it in his free hand. He hands it to her and she takes it, stares down at it. 

Bethany hesistates again. “I don’t want to get Andy’s blanket wet, either.”

Alex smiles at her again, like he finds her funny. “I can always throw it in the dryer, Bethany.”

She gives in at the end, because the alternative is either them standing out in the rain forever or them standing out in the rain until Alex gets tired of waiting for her to preform basic human tasks. She doesn’t want to chance it - not when a golden opportunity to spend time with him alone has just fallen into her lap. Alex shuts her door for her after she’s inside the car, and Bethany tries not to stare at him the whole time he’s walking to his side.

Instead she looks at her own car - what she can make out through the rain, anyway - watches it fade away into the fog when Alex pulls out of the parking lot. It might be awkward at first, like the first time she was in his car after they met at the cafe, with Alex flipping through various heavy metal radio stations that are all playing what sounds like the same song, and Bethany looking out of the window trying to keep herself quiet and trying to keep her leg from shaking nervously. 

She’s mostly comfortable with Alex - when she distracts herself from the fact that it’s actually him - but there’s still that edge to her nerves that comes from being around the person you spend the majority of your time thinking about. And even though she’s still soaked to the bone from the rain head to toe, she can’t really blame her goosebumps on the chill. 

It’s just Alex - what he does to her. 

She wraps Andy’s baby blanket around her shoulders tighter, hoping Alex doesn’t notice how he affects her - because it’s embarrassing. Because even though he’s not married anymore, and even though she’s pretty sure he has to know she has a crush on him - he’s still an adult. She doesn’t want to make him feel weird. 

Bethany doesn’t have to worry for long, since it’s only a short drive to one of the only two McDonald’s in town. The drive-thru is a little backed up, unsurprising for it being the middle of the morning, but it takes longer than normal for it to move forward. Alex drums his fingers against the steering wheel in time with the song playing on the radio while they wait for the white Prius in front of them to finish their order. 

When they pull up to the speaker, there’s a laminated sign hanging on it - Order At First Window. 

“Well,” Alex says with a sigh, “I guess that explains the line.”

It’s a few more minutes after that for them to reach the first window, where a bored looking girl Bethany’s age is popping her gum. At least there’s an awning - so he’s not getting completely soaked when Alex rolls his window down. He tells the girl his order, and Bethany forgets to pay attention to it, too preoccupied with looking at him now that he’s looking somewhere else. He looks good, driving. He looks good in general. 

He turns his head too fast to her reflexes to warn her, catches her staring. Bethany is going to pretend she was looking at something else. Like the girl at the window. 

Bethany looks up at her and - oh. She’s staring at her too. “Um,” Bethany speaks up, once it hits her that they’re waiting for her to tell them what she wants. “Can I get a parfait and a bottled water?”

The girl is staring back at her blankly. “Sorry?” She goes. “I didn’t hear that.”

Bethany doesn’t think about how far she leans forward until she feels the solidity of Alex against her left arm. She feels her face burning as she repeats what she said, feeling kind of dumb, tripping over a word or two because she can feel it when he breathes - 

The cashier rattles off their order and their total and Bethany snaps back into her seat the second she can without seeming weird. She tries to calm her hammering heart, tries to ignore the warmth on her skin from where they were touching. 

They inch ahead in the line, and once they reach the second window Alex pays for her food before she can even protest. It’s - a little embarrassing, the way she almost feels like a kid. But then again, she kind of is. 

She just wish it wasn’t so obvious. 

Alex takes the bag of food from the second cashier, asks if she’s okay with them eating in the car if he parks somewhere in the lot, and she’s fine with it, fine with anything - and thanks him when he hands her her food. 

Alex doesn’t look too impressed with her breakfast. “Who gets yogurt and water at McDonald’s?”

Bethany wishes his gentle teasing didn’t make her heart flutter the way it did. And also wishes her heart would follow the very simple instructions her brain is giving her to play it cool. “Someone who likes yogurt and water. Who gets Sprite at 9am?” 

Alex snorts, holds up his breakfast burrito in one hand, pats his stomach affectionately with the other. “Hey, I had to work for this dad bod.”

Bethany rolls her eyes before staring down at her yogurt, if only to keep them off of his body. “You don’t have a dad bod,” she tells him, “But you do have children! They’ll learn from your eating habits.”

“I know,” he sighs. “That’s why I eat ice cream in the bathroom.”

There’s a lull in conversation, and Bethany thinks about all the things she’s wondered about him in the six months she’s known him. 

“You’re published, right?”

Alex looks at her, raises an eyebrow, speaks through a mouthful of breakfast burrito. “How did you know that?”

Bethany debates whether or not to lie, not wanting to seem weird, but she figures she’s already been caught being weird, so did it matter? “I may or may not have given your name a quick google search once or twice.”

Alex doesn’t look bothered by that, corners of his mouth tilting into a small smile. “Is that how you knew I taught at BCC?”

“Maybe,” Bethany shrugs, his smile catching. “Cute LinkedIn profile picture, by the way.”

“Well, that’s embarrassing.” Alex laughs. 

It isn’t really. And Bethany wasn’t kidding either, or speaking facetiously. It really was cute. “Are you working on anything right now?”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t want to read it,” he says. “It’s YA fantasy.”

“Who says I wouldn’t want to read it? I’m a YA,” Bethany teases. “And I like fantasy.”

Alex looks like he’s debating it. “Yeah,” he says again, “but it’s part of a series, and there are probably 5 other things I’d rather have you read than that one.”

Bethany isn’t going to fight him on that. Not at this particular moment, anyway. “Have you always been good at writing?” She tries to imagine 17 year old metalhead Alex writing his YA fantasy series in between drum sessions. She can’t, mostly because she doesn’t know what 17 year old metalhead Alex looked like, aside from his Jumanji avatar. 

“Not at all. I did pretty poorly in school. All my assignments were usually last-minute, and there were other things I was more interested in than writing.”

Bethany blinks at him. “Then how did you become an author?”

Alex pauses, makes a face like he doesn’t really want to tell her, then looks over at her.  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ rests on her tongue, even though Bethany really wants to know. 

But he speaks before she can actually open her mouth, a little bit awkwardly, eyes turning back towards the dash. “Uh, I think the first serious thing I wrote was about what happened in Jumanji, actually.”

Bethany didn’t see that coming, wasn’t prepared for it, and tries not to let her surprise show on her face. “Really?”

Alex shrugs. “I wrote down everything I could remember. Every animal I saw, every person I encountered, every detail about the bazaar and the weird backstory of the game. I didn’t sleep for two days because I wanted to get it all down before I forgot.” He glances at her, laughs to himself almost self consciously. “And then I slept for a week.”

Bethany doesn’t think she left her bed for 24 hours the first night she was home in her own body. “Do you still have it?” If there’s anything of his that Bethany wants to read - it’s that. 

Alex nods. “Yeah, at my parents house, I think. In the attic somewhere.”

He must know what her next question is going to be, because he looks at her, smiles regretfully.  “I’ve never let anyone read it,” he says. “Before you ask. I read it once in like, 2005. It’s pretty rough. But it’s what made me realize that I liked putting things into my own words. Even if reading it back to myself always makes me cringe.”

Bethany tries not to be such a girl but she can’t help it. She rests her cheek in her hand, bats her lashes. “Am I in it?”

Alex rolls his eyes at her, not unkindly. He holds up his hand, has his thumb and forefinger nearly touching. “There’s like, this much of you.” His other hand comes up, and he extends the space between both of them until one is touching his window and one is next to her head. “And this much of Bravestone.”

They’ve long since finished their breakfast by the time the rain starts to lighten up, but they’re still sitting in the same spot in the McDonald’s parking lot, and Alex is still entertaining the questions she throws at him. They’ve moved passed the game, in a series of questions Bethany can’t think of right now, too preoccupied with shelling out more - using her valuable time with Alex to get some answers to things she’s been wondering for a while. 

“Do you still play the drums?”

If Alex is annoyed by her questions, or if he wants to leave, he doesn’t show it, seat reclined so he can look at the roof of the car when he’s not looking at her. If this was a dream, like Bethany thought earlier, she hopes she never wakes up.  Alex shrugs. “I have a few friends that I still play with when we can find the time but it’s a not often. Between the custody schedule and work I barely even find the time to write, despite the fact that I have an actual deadline for that.” He looks over at her, smiles a little sheepishly. “Sorry,” he says. “I don’t mean to be a buzzkill with my adult problems.”

Bethany shakes her head. Like Alex could ever be a buzzkill. Like anything could ever kill the buzz she’s feeling from this - being here with him like this. “It’s okay,” she tells him. Then, “Why don’t you write when you get home?” 

“I’ll try, but I’m not hopeful. I’m gonna lose motivation fast,” Alex scratches the back of his head. “Without the kids I’ll be overwhelmed by boundless freedom.” He pauses. “Actually, I’ll probably just take a nap.”

Bethany looks out the window - the storm has broken by then, but it’s still raining a fair amount. The type of rain that does tend to make her sleepy. “That doesn’t sound bad. It’s the perfect weather for a nap.”

“Which is the perfect weather for procrastination.” He snorts, to himself. But he’s looking at her and smiling when he adds, “Thanks, rain.”

Once the clock on Alex’s dash hits 11:30 with a sharp tick, Bethany realizes that they’ve been sitting in his car for two hours. She looks at the time and remembers suddenly that she had told Martha she was going to head over to her place by noon to hangout before work - something that completely slipped her mind when she was with Alex because it was primarily focused on him. 

Bethany debates for a minute whether or not she should text Martha and cancel to keep hanging out with him instead - it was Alex after all, and Martha would definitely get it - but no. She’s not going to be one of those girls that cancels on her plans for a guy. Even if it’s Alex. And even though it’s Martha. Especially because it’s Martha. Because there’s no one that gets Bethany’s teenage emotions about Alex better than her red haired best friend. Bethany knows herself well enough to know that she’ll probably have Martha on the phone the second she’s in her own car. 

Bethany is pretty miserable internally when she tells him she should probably head back to the school, but the way his face falls in maybe-disappointment makes up for it a tiny bit. But that’s most likely Bethany’s wishful thinking. 

She wants to tell him how much she liked hanging out like this. Tries to find a way to phrase it in her head that doesn’t sound completely pathetic and desperate. She still hasn’t found the words by the time they pull back into the elementary school. He pulls up right next to her car so she doesn’t have to go too far in the rain - even if it’s just harder than a drizzle now. He even gets out of his car without his umbrella to say goodbye to her after she gets into her own drivers seat. Which she now bitterly realizes are not as comfortable as his seats.

“I’ll probably text you in 20 minutes for motivation,” he tells her. “My outlook for productivity is bleek.”

“I’ll send you some encouraging emoji,” Bethany promises. “And if you don’t text back I’ll assume you’re really deep into your writing.” It’s what she’s going to assume from now on anyway, because it sounds better than him finding her boring - which isn’t as horrible as it sounds now that they’ve established that he doesn’t. Now that she has two hours of proof. 

“If I don’t respond to your first text then send another.” Alex tells her. “What do you YA’s call that? Double texting?”

Bethany feels her heart skip. “You want me to double text you?” 

“Triple text me,” Alex says, and sounds like he means it. “And if I don’t respond to that, then it’s probably safe to assume that I’ve fallen asleep.”

She promises she will, and even though she knows this conversation has organically reached its end, she doesn’t want to say goodbye. She could stay there all day with the window open and the rain soaking her through again, as long as Alex Vreeke was the one standing on the other side of her door. 

But that’s not realistic. She has to leave at some point. She tells herself that again and again when Alex straightens, takes his hand off her door. “Drive safe,” he tells her. 

Bethany smiles, hopes it doesn’t look as sad as it feels. She’s happy that she got to spend the morning with Alex, but she’s sad it had to end - sad because she doesn’t know the next time she’ll be able to be with him like that. Doesn’t know if she ever will again. 

She rolls up her window after they exchange final goodbyes, waves at him before he ducks into his own car even though she knows he wouldn’t be able to see it through the tint anyway. He leaves before she does, and good thing because she’s planning on sitting here and sulking for at least another 5 minutes. 

She watches his car pull out of his spot. Watches it drive up the lot and toward the street. Bethany watches until he turns out of the school, until his car disappears.

Then Bethany wastes no time, digging through the bag for her phone that she totally forgot she left in the car until this moment. Bethany forgetting her phone is practically unheard of, but she’ll take a minute to stop and appreciate a feat like that later. She ignores the messages and Instagram comments she has waiting for her, going straight for her recent calls. 

Martha answers after one ring. “Hey.”

Bethany feels like she might explode, or float into the air and never come back down - her best friend’s voice the only thing keeping her grounded. “Oh my god,” she says. 

“You won’t believe what just happened.”

.

Chapter Text

.

Bethany stays away from Hunter’s school for a few days - after the Alex thing.

It’s for the best, probably. She thinks she spent too much time going over it with Martha, and she definitely let her best friend spend too much time putting ideas into her head instead of telling her to snap out of it like a good best friend would. And as a result, Bethany had spent the rest of the week floating around in a metaphorical sparkling pink bubble, her latest interaction with Alex playing in an endless, dreamy loop in the back of her mind.

Which is too naive to be acceptable (even for Bethany), because she can count all of the times she’s seen Alex in person since that day in December on one hand. So if Martha wasn’t going to tell Bethany the Cold Hard Facts about why her and Alex Vreeke would never be anything more than friends, Bethany would have to do it herself.

And if that meant she had to put actual distance between her and Alex until she could think about him and not feel like she’s made entirely out of weightless, lovesick glitter, she’d do that, too.

And that was easy enough, since the only place she’s seen him without meaning to had been at Hunter’s school. All it would take is a coincidental string of opening shifts at work, and she’d have the space she needed to work through her feelings.

But Alex has kept his word on trying harder at texting. Now if Bethany’s text notification chimes there’s a one-in-four chance that it’s his name that pops up.  And while it’s not the same as actually seeing him in person - which Bethany wants to do but won’t - it’s definitely way better than no Alex at all. It’s almost enough to keep her sane.

There is a part of her that wonders how easy it might have been if somehow the game had brought him back into 2016 with the rest of them. Or even brought Bethany back to 1996 - before she was born, where it didn’t matter so much if she disappeared or reappeared. The game had already altered the reality that Bethany knew, it could have at least done her a favor.  And if they had been the same age at the same time outside of the game, there wouldn’t be anything to question; if things had seamlessly folded from Jumanji into the real world then Bethany and Alex would have been something, by now. And who knows, maybe they wouldn’t have worked out back then anyway, but at least Bethany wouldn’t be left wondering and pointlessly pining over him like she is now.

But things didn’t turn out the way she would have liked, and now she had to handle the fallout. And if handling the fallout meant that she had to stay away from Alex until she could separate her feelings for him from their friendship, and not have to constantly fight the urge to double text him the way she wants to (even though he did say she could) that’s what she’d try to do.

Even if she really didn’t  want to.

.

Typically when Spencer hosts Movie Night, it’s at his mom’s house - because she likes to worry, and pretty much insists on it. And as much as Bethany likes Julia, and she does, she tends to hover - like a panicked, flighty bird that’s afraid of everything, all the time. And between herself and her own mother, Bethany got enough neuroticism at home. So often times after the movie, instead of hanging around the house and leaving themselves vulnerable to one of Julia’s well-meaning but long-winded lectures, the four of them will get dinner at the retro-style diner in town.

They only have to wait a few minutes to a table to open up, and they slide into their usual booth in the corner, in their usual formation; Martha and Bethany on one side, Spencer and Fridge on the other. They order the same things they do whenever they come here from the same waitress that Bethany swears has worked here since before she was born.

She wonders if Alex came here when he was their age.

She still hasn’t told Spencer or Fridge about getting breakfast with Alex. She doesn’t know why. Well, she does - because she knows Spencer would have something negative to say and Fridge’s unenthusiastic response would only bum her out.

Still, she wants to tell them; because it’s important to her, and they’re important to her.  But she at least knows better and waits until they get their food - if only so she has something to distract her nerves with.

It doesn’t take long for their food, and said nerves have her mostly pushing around the spinach salad on the plate in front of her.  She waits for a lull in the conversation before she speaks up. “I got breakfast with Alex last week,” she says, and both Fridge and Spencer look up and stare at her from across the table. So she’s like, “His daughter goes to Hunter’s summer camp and we bumped into each other when I was dropping him off.”

“Isn’t that weird?” Spencer asks, and Bethany might be annoyed since they literally just went over this for like 10 minutes last week, but Spencer sees the look on her face and quickly adds, “I mean - the kids thing. Isn’t that weird?”

“Not really.” And really it’s not. “Maybe it would be if I didn’t have a younger brother, but I do.” She continues, “And it’s not like I was hanging out with his kids.” Other than their first meeting at the coffee shop, when he brought Andy with him. But that doesn’t count.  

“Well, we’re happy for you,” Martha says, giving Spencer a pointed look. “Right Fridge?”

When Bethany looks over at Fridge, he’s shaking his head. “Don’t get me involved.” 

“I’m not saying I’m not happy for you, Bethany,” Spencer tells her. “I guess I just can’t imagine it being the same as it was.” 

Fair enough. “Some things are different,” she says, honestly - and they are. 20 years have passed for Alex, he had a family and a career now. “But it feels like it did before.  Really, when you hangout with him you’ll see.” Whenever that was going to be; probably whenever Bethany got over her stupid crush on him.

Spencer throws his hands up, defeated. “Okay,” he says. “Then you should invite him to your party so we can all hangout with him.”

Bethany blinks, and then blinks again because Spencer Gilpen is the last person at this table she expected to hear those words from. “Really?” Martha looks just as surprised as Bethany feels. Even Fridge has stopped eating mid-fry to look at Spencer with a raised eyebrow.

Spencer shrugs. “I mean, yeah. If that’s not going to be weird for him.”

“That’s a great idea,” Martha says, then turns from her boyfriend to stare at Bethany. “Bethany, you should do that.”

Should she? Is that even something Alex would be comfortable with? Is that even something she would be comfortable with? As nice as it would be to have Spencer stop constantly questioning her judgement, and as great as it would be to have her best friends reconnect with Alex like she has - she’s maybe a little selfish in wanting to keep him to herself.

But she shouldn’t be. Maybe hanging out with him would be better with everyone else; maybe with three other people there for Alex to talk to, Bethany could think a little clearer than she can when it’s just the two of them.

Also, she doesn’t know how many more times she’d be able to have this conversation with Spencer. It would be a good thing for him to see firsthand that despite all the time that had passed for him, Adult Alex was still just as cool as Jefferson Seaplane Whatever-his-name-is. Probably even cooler.

 .

It’s another slow day at work, not unusual for the middle of the week.

Bethany should probably be cleaning or stocking something but - once Spencer plants the idea in her head of inviting Alex, she can’t stop thinking about it. Just when she’s gotten her thoughts of him under control, too. And now every time he texts her she wants to bring it up.  

She stares at his latest text to her; a picture message of his Beth and baby Andy, grown since the last time Bethany saw him, asleep on the couch with the caption: wish I could also take a nap but should probably clean up their mess before they wake up and make another 

She shouldn’t say anything about it. And the longer she stares at the picture of his family on her phone, the more young and dumb she begins to feel. She slumps against the counter, and hopes she looks as sad as she feels. Why would Alex want to spend his very little free time hanging out with a bunch of high schoolers at the Brantford bowling alley?

At this rate, Bethany is sure her birthday will have come and gone before she stops feeling so sorry for herself for her to even think about inviting Alex again. And maybe that was for the best; she didn’t need to see him getting along with her friends in the real world. It would just be another perfect moment that she’d get in her feelings about for no reason or reward. And she’d be feeling the same way she is now this time next week, doing the same thing she’s doing now - wallowing.

Bethany sighs to herself. The same part of her that imagined all those cute daydream scenarios about her and Alex in the right place at the right time - that same voice whispers a wicked little thought.

17 isn’t very far from 18.

She ignores that voice pretty easily. It wasn’t necessarily wrong; 17 was only a year away from 18 - but the fact that she even has to justify it to herself probably means that she shouldn’t think about it.

But it is a persuasive little voice. Persuasive enough to have her typing out a text. Just to see how she feels when she reads it with her own two eyes, she reasons with herself.

To : Alex
I don’t know if you have plans this Friday night but  

Stupid. She feels stupid. She erases it, and starts again.

To : Alex
I’m turning 17 on Friday! You should come bowling with us!

She stares at the message, and the more she looks at it the more ridiculous she feels. She smashes her thumb against the home button, closes out her iMessage app.

Bethany sighs again, loud and long and dramatic but who cares? - there was no one in the store anyway. No one to feel sorry for her but herself. She puts her phone back in her pocket and wipes at a sticky spot on the counter.

Oh well. Maybe by next year she’ll have gathered the courage to invite Alex.

At least she’d be 18.

.

On her birthday, Bethany’s alarm clock wakes her up at 8 in the morning.

Her birthday used to have a different feeling to it - kind of like Christmas. But the older she gets the less exciting it gets, and maybe that’s pessimistic considering 6 months ago she might not have lived to see 17, but Bethany doesn’t care. She just stares up at the ceiling for several minutes and tries to blink the sleep from her eyes. She doesn’t want to get up. She doesn’t want to go to work. 

Sure, after a short day at work she’s going to Martha’s to get ready for tonight, which will be fun - but that was several hours from now, and she can complain about it right up until she’s having said fun; it’s her birthday, after all.  

Bethany could stay in bed and rotate through her top 3 apps until she’s forced to get up and rush to avoid being late, but then she smells coffee, and well -  

Coffee always wins.

When Bethany shuffles down the stairs and into the kitchen, she finds her mother leaning over the counter, eyes on her tablet, picking at a piece of whole grain toast. She looks up at the sound of Bethany’s feet padding on the hardwood.

“Morning,” Bethany greets her, making a beeline for the cupboard they keep their mugs in. She picks her favorite one - the #1 dad mug she got her dad for Father’s Day a few years back, the biggest one they have - and waits for the coffee maker to stop dripping.

She feels her mother wrap her arms around her shoulders from behind, rests her head on top of Bethany’s. “Happy birthday, Bunny.” 

Bethany pats her mother’s hand softly in reply. “Happy Gave-Birth Day, Mom.”

Her mom drops her arms, leans against the counter beside her while Bethany takes the pot from the machine and pours probably more coffee than necessary into her cup. But in her defense she’s anticipating a long day. Her mother finger-combs Bethany’s hair, smooths it down in the back where she’s been sleeping on it. “Thank you.” She pinches Bethany’s cheek for good measure. “It was to the most beautiful girl in the entire world.”

Bethany swats her hand away. “Okay, you’re embarrassing me.”

Her mom isn’t deterred by that, and cradles her head in her arms. Bethany might be annoyed that she can’t drink her coffee like this, but hey, 17 years ago her mom pushed Bethany out of her teenage body; she’ll allow it for a little while.

Her mom goes, “I’m sorry you have to work on your Birthday, my pretty girl.”

“My shift isn’t that long,” Bethany says. And Amanda had promised her free froyo all day and very minimal labor required. “Is Hunter ready for school?” Then, corrects herself, “I mean, camp?” Because she’s learned by now that it was a very important distinction to make.  

“It was a little rough getting him dressed today,” her mom tells her. “I don’t think he slept well. Thank you for taking him, and on your birthday, too.” 

“It’s on my way anyway,” Bethany says, taking a sip of her coffee. “Where is he?”

 As if on cue her brother comes into the kitchen, sleepy-eyed and messy-haired and adorable, and while her mother fixes him his breakfast, Bethany sips down her coffee and pours her brother some juice.

Hunter starts to whine before Bethany has even set the cup down in front of him, “I wish it was my birthday.”

Bethany sighs, helps him climb onto the bar stool at the counter. She tells him, “Your birthday is only a few weeks away, buddy. That’s not so far, and we’re having a big party just for you.”

“Don’t remind me.” Her mother grumbles, setting Hunter’s cereal down in front of him. Then she turns to Bethany, “Your father is going to be disappointed that you’re not celebrating your birthday with us tonight.”

Bethany checks the time on the stove - she only has 20 minutes to get ready if she wants to get her brother to camp and herself to work on time. “Well, tell dad I’m sorry but Martha called dibs like, months ago.”

Her mother makes a face at that, but Bethany knows there’s no real malice behind it. Her mom’s like, “How foolish of us to assume we had legal dibs as your parents.”

“Completely.”

.

It’s an uneventful trip to the elementary school, with no crazy sudden downpours to slow them down this time. Bethany might be a little faster driving today than she would normally, and that’s probably because she hasn’t actually been to Hunter’s school in a while. She wonders if Alex had his kids this week - if he would be the one dropping Beth off. 

Hunter has adjusted quickly to the routine of camp, leaving her side the moment they enter the classroom to put his things away while Bethany goes to sign him in on the sign-in sheet on the teachers desk. She scans the list of student names for Bethany Vreeke, frowns a little without meaning to when she sees the space for a parent signature is blank.  

She shouldn’t be hoping to run into him coincidentally, just because she had before. If Alex was even going to be the one dropping his daughter off, that is. It could always be -

Bethany stops that train of thought. She’s not getting into that, especially not on her birthday.  

She turns around with a sigh, only to suck in more air than her lungs have room for with a frightened gasp.

 Alex is standing literally a foot in front of her face. She jumps, instinctively, lightheaded from how suddenly and deeply she breathes in.

 “Sorry,” he says, reaching out to steady her shoulders. The weight of his hands on her arms assures Bethany that’s she’s not hallucinating. He’s smiling down at her a little, amused with her over-reaction. “I promise I was just about to tap you on the shoulder.”

“It’s okay,” she tells him, hand over her heart just to make sure it’s not about to jump out of her skin. It’s hummingbird fluttering under her palm, half from fright, half from being in such close proximity to Alex without actually being ready for it.

She’s excited to be seeing him right now, but she’s also a little embarrassed she’s in her work uniform. Silver-lining - at least she left her visor in the car.

It takes her a second after she’s settled down enough to talk to realize that he’s not alone; that his daughter Bethany is standing at his side, looking up at her from a safe distance behind him. Bethany smiles at her, and Alex looks down at her, pats her head of long brown curls softly. “You remember Beth, my daughter.”

Bethany bends down to meet her eyes, but she’s shy, ducking behind her dads’ leg. One pretty brown eye peeks out at her, though. The same shape and color as her Dad’s. And her younger brother’s. “It’s nice to meet you,” Bethany says. “My name is Bethany, too. We’re name twins.”

She looks away, like she might not answer, and Bethany knows better than to be offended by the sensitivities of children. But after a moment she says, quietly, “I have a brother named Andy,” she says. “He’s a baby and we’re Not Twins.” 

Bethany smiles. “I have a brother too! His name is Hunter. That’s him over there.” She points him out, kneeling over an overturned bucket of legos.

Beth looks over at him, then back at Bethany. She tugs on Alex’s jeans until he bends down so she can whisper in his ear, and Bethany tries not to be rude by staring but - she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him with his daughter other than that one initial time outside of his father’s house.

Alex straightens, then scratches the back of his head awkwardly. “Beth wants to know if you’d ask your brother if she can play with him.”

That’s adorable. “Of course,” Bethany looks down at Beth and holds out her hand. “Let’s ask him together.”

Beth looks at her for a moment before she hesitantly takes her hand. She looks at her dad (Bethany pointedly doesn’t) and hugs him goodbye with one arm. Alex kisses her goodbye and tells her to have a good day and it’s too cute for Bethany to handle.

Hunter is a good boy who loves attention from anyone who will give it to him, so of course he says yes to Bethany’s request of showing Beth how to build something cool.  She leaves the two of them digging through the pile of legos, tries not to feel self conscious when she walks back over to Alex, who’s watching them.

“Thank you for that,” He says. “She’s so shy sometimes I get anxiety for her.”

“She’s so sweet,” Bethany tells him. She’s always wanted a younger sister. Not that she doesn’t absolutely love having a younger brother - because she does - but she’s always wanted to wear cute matching outfits with someone, and Fridge’s sisters were always so adorable.

Alex holds the door open for her when they leave, and she follows him out to the parking lot without much thought. They walk to their cars together, catching up from the last time they spoke in person - like they really were friends.

Bethany doesn’t know why she keeps building up anticipation for the next time they’ll see each other in person; it just causes her anxiety and unnecessary stress and she always feels stupid about it afterwards - because she’s next to him now and it’s easy. It’s always easy.

Maybe that was part of the problem.

He’s like, “Are you doing anything today?” He broadly gestures to her uniform. “Aside from work?” 

She thinks about her party, immediately. Thinks about how she’s been too cowardly to invite him over text, but now, while it’s easy, since they’re already talking...

“It’s my birthday,” She blurts, face automatically heating up, and wants to stop talking as soon as she starts. But - if she was ever going to invite Alex, it was now or never. She’s forces her words out quickly, “We’re all going bowling. You should come.” Her heart is racing as the last part comes out of her mouth, and she watches him take in her words, watches him blink.

His eyebrows furrow slightly. “Today’s your birthday?” 

Bethany nods, not daring to open her mouth again.

He hesitates - for just a second, and Bethany, so hyperaware of him always, wonders what’s going on in his head. She doesn’t have to wonder long before he reaches out and places his hands on her shoulders, heavy and warm and real. This isn’t the first time he’s touched her - he did the same thing not 10 minutes ago, right after he scared her - but this is the first time she’s been so affected by it; the weight of his hands making her dizzy. It’s a good thing he’s ready to steady her if she faints.  

“Happy birthday,” he says, soft and genuine and the way he says it - the way he’s looking down at her - makes her heartbeat skip. And makes her forget how to speak. Bethany wonders why she never noticed how tall he was before. He leaves his hands there for a moment longer, until a car pulls into the parking lot, the pavement underneath the tires making Bethany snap back into reality. He lets go of her, arms falling to his side, but Bethany wishes he wouldn’t.

And wishes that she didn’t want him to stop. Friends don’t lose their breath over a little bit of contact.

“I mean it,” She says before her words have time to rearrange into something she definitely doesn’t want to say out loud. “Please come.”

Alex hesitates again, then asks, “When you say we’re going bowling, who do you mean?”

“Just us,” Bethany assures him. “Spartha and Fridge.  And me. Obviously.”

He raises a eyebrow. “Spartha?”

Bethany tries not to be embarrassed. “It’s what me and Fridge call Spencer and Martha. Like their couple name.” Could that be any more high school? 

But Alex is smiling again, cheek dimpling. “That’s cute.” 

He’s cute. Unnervingly cute. Bethany bites her lip out of nervousness. Things would’ve be easier if he wasn’t so cute in the real world - she’d be better at talking to him. But even with a different face and a 20-year age gap he was somehow more adorable than she remembers; cute enough to have her second-guessing every move she makes and every word she says. She hates it as much as it excites her.

She forces her words out before she can question them. “So will you come?”

Alex’s face twists in conflict, and Bethany’s heart twists inside her chest. “I have a deadline first thing Monday,” he says, sounding sympathetic. “I’m nowhere near where I should be and I really need to get it done.”

Oh.

Is this what being rejected feels like? It’s not like Bethany’s never been rejected before - even though it has been a while - but why is it like, a million times worse than Noah breaking up with her?

She tries to laugh off the way her chest seizes up. “I’d hate to give you further reason to procrastinate.”

“I want to go,” Alex says quickly, brown eyes big and kind of sad. “I really will try to make it. What time?”

She tells him that their plans are set for 8 while he walks her over to her car door like he did last time. He’s like, “Hopefully inspiration will strike soon. But either way I’ll let you know.”

“Okay,” She says and she can’t tell if he’s just saying that to be polite, or if he really will try to come tonight. But she tries to not let her disappointment put a cloud of sadness over her head - not while Alex is still in front of her, still looking at her. 

Before she can get into her car, or even begin her reluctant goodbye - Alex steps closer to her, puts his arms around her shoulders, and Bethany is frozen. Her brain takes a few seconds to realize that - he’s hugging her.

Alex is hugging her.  

He pulls away before she can react, before her immobile arms can come back to life and hug him back like she really, really wants to. She’ll curse her slow reflexes later - after she forgets how warm he is, how sure his embrace is, and how good he smells. 

Alex’s doesn’t look as frazzled as Bethany feels from their very quick one-sided embrace, but when he looks in her eyes he looks away just as quickly. Bethany wonders if he’s embarrassed.  “If I don’t see you later tonight we should do something this week to celebrate.”

“Okay,” Bethany says, kind of dazed. Her cloud of sadness has turned into a cloud of glitter just like that, mood completely changed just from his touch. She’s stuck staring at him, even when he says goodbye to her, even after he gets into his car and drives off.

Well.

Happy birthday to her.

.

Bethany’s glad that she’s getting ready at Martha’s, glad that she doesn’t have to go home and try to explain the stupid look her interaction with Alex has put on her face. It was hard enough trying to explain it to Amanda, who teased her for her red-cheeks the entire 4 hours of her shift.

But the downside of getting ready at Martha’s is that she only had a few options for outfits; limited only to what she could fit in her overnight bag.  What she packed seemed like a good idea at the time (that morning before work, before Alex (well, maybe packed with Alex in mind but before it was an actual real possibility)) but now -  

“Why didn’t I bring my entire closet?” Bethany asks herself almost as much as she’s asking Martha. She’s been in this almost exact situation before, with Martha lying on the bed while she stress-criticizes everything she hates about herself in the mirror. She should have been more prepared. “You’d think all this deja vu would make me less dumb.”

“You’re not dumb,” Martha tells her, rolling her eyes. “Just dramatic.”  She looks at Bethany up and down, then says, “I thought you said you were wearing that black dress you brought?”

Yes, the outfit she’s had planned for a few days now. But again, that was before Alex. “My PMS is making me feel so bloated,” Bethany whines. “And it’s making me break out. I feel gross.” She’s like, “Can we just not go?” That option sounds better the more she thinks about it.

Not to Martha, apparently. “No, you can’t bail on your own birthday party.” She tells her, “sorry!” And doesn’t sound it one bit.

Bethany glares at her through the mirror, watches Martha sigh, and roll onto her back to stare at her with her head hanging off the mattress. “Are you excited that Alex is coming?” She asks, like she doesn’t already know. “Because I have butterflies. I feel like I’m about to watch Lizzy and Darcy meet for the first time all over again.”

Bethany stares at her with a blank look. “I don’t know what that means.”

“You really haven’t seen Pride and Prejudice?” Martha asks, like it’s an impossibility. “I mean, not even the Keira Knightly version?”

“Are you trying to say Pirates of the Caribbean?” The only Kiera Knightly movie Bethany can name off the top of her head. 

Martha stares at her, and from the look on her face face Bethany worries she might have broken her - for a few seconds anyway. Martha shakes her head, and closes her eyes. “How are we friends?” 

Rude. “Rude,” Bethany says. Then, “And I watch Game of Thrones, nerd. It’s the same thing.” 

“It’s really, really not.” 

There’s a knock at the door, then, and both Bethany and Martha look up just as the door opens, enough for Martha’s mom to pop her head in.

“Hey girls,” she says brightly. “Having fun?”

“Oh yeah,” Martha answers. “It’s always fun to watch Bethany have a mental breakdown.”

An arm pops into view, and her mother looks down at her fitbit. “I have a little time before I leave for work,” she says. “Mind if I stay and watch for a bit?”

Martha scoots over on her bed to make room, and Bethany finger combs through her hair while Martha’s mom enters the room fully, dressed in her work uniform. Maybe it would be nice to get a third opinion on her outfit; Martha’s mom is pretty young, gorgeous, and stylish; she trusts her opinion.

Her mom doesn’t sit down, instead picking up the few scattered pieces of clothing on Martha’s bedroom floor in a very typical mom-like fashion.

“What do you think of this outfit?” Bethany asks, and she feels the weight of both of their eyes on her. She examines herself in the mirror for the thousandth time. Martha might want her to wear a dress, but jeans and a hoodie make her feel less like a child being paraded around. “It’s okay, right?”

 “Cute, but it’s hardly a birthday outfit,” Martha’s mom says. “It’s a special occasion, why not dress up?”

 “I don’t want to make a big deal out of it,” Bethany says. “I’m not putting on a party dress and curling my hair like it’s my 13th birthday.”

“Okay,” Martha says, tone indicating that it’s definitely not. “But that black dress you brought makes you look older. It’s kind of skanky.”

Bethany physically turns her head to glare at Martha. “Don’t call my Bebe dress skanky on my birthday.” Sure, its a little short, and more lace than fabric. But it was expensive and she spent her first ever paycheck on it. It’s like her baby.  

Martha’s mom chimes in, curiously. “How skanky?” 

Before Bethany can answer, Martha says, “Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman skanky.”

Okay, it’s nothing like that -

 “That’s fun,” Martha’s mom says with a hint of mischief. “Sounds like there’s going to be cute boys there? Besides Spencer and Anthony.”

Bethany shakes her head, tries to tame her hair or at least stop it from parting on the side like that. “I’m sick of cute boys. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.” Or, more closer to the reality of her case, they’re perfect and unattainable.  

Martha’s mom is nothing but agreement. “You got that right, sister.”

Bethany smiles at her through the mirror, looks at the two of them on Martha’s bed and for the millionth time wonders how the hell she made it nearly 17 years before finding her soul-sisters.  Jumanji might have made a mess of things with her and Alex, but it knew exactly what it was doing when it sucked Martha into the game with her.

Said redhead rolls her eyes. “Mom, you’re not helping. Bethany, stop being so negative. It’s your birthday.” She’s like, “And who knows, maybe a cute boy will show up. You invited him, didn’t you?”

“Oo, gossip.” Martha’s mom lays across Martha’s bed, rests her hand in her palm. “What’s his name?”

“Nothing,” Bethany answers immediately, besting Martha who also opens her mouth to answer. “And even if there was a cute boy,” Bethany shoots Martha a look. Always a traitor. “We’re just friends. 

“Well, maybe tonight will change that.” Her mom says confidently. “Either way, a skanky dress couldn’t hurt.”

Oh yes it could. “What’s worse than looking like a 13 year old?” Bethany asks rhetorically. “Looking like I’m trying too hard.” 

“Actually,” Martha interjects. “Not trying at all.”

Martha’s mom makes a considerable hum, before she chimes in with, “I’m gonna say, being buried alive.”

There’s a commiserating silence in which the three of them reflect on that, and then Martha’s mom sighs, sitting up and standing from the bed. “Well, I’ll leave you girls to it then. Remember I won’t be home till early tomorrow morning.” She says, “Happy birthday, Bethany. I hope your cute boy makes an appearance, and if he doesn’t - there’s wine in the fridge.”

“Mom,” Martha sounds scandalized. Like Bethany hasn’t had to drag her drunk ass up a tree and through a window.  

“I’m kidding,” Her mom insists. Then, stage whispering to Bethany, “No I’m not. Happy birthday.”

The door shuts behind her with a click and Bethany and Martha both wait in silence until they hear the steps to the downstairs creaking, but Bethany waits a little longer for the sound of the front door shutting.

Bethany spins around as soon as she’s sure the coast is clear, crosses her arms. “Don’t bring up Alex in front of your mom. This is a small town.”

Martha rolls her eyes at her, but Bethany turns around and faces the mirror. Martha goes, “Would you relax? My mom isn’t even from Brantford. And it’s not like I said his name.” Then, she levels Bethany with an even stare, one Bethany ignores in favor of fussing with her outfit. “Hey, stop zipping up your hoodie,” she says. “You’re not wearing that.”

Bethany pulls the hood over her head, over her eyes, and turns back around, blindly stumbles towards the bed until her legs hit the edge and she falls forward. She lands on top of Martha, and Martha grunts from underneath her, but Bethany doesn’t pay it any mind. “There’s no point in trying to look cute,” Bethany tells her miserably. “I’m a monster.”

She feels Martha put a hand on her back comfortingly. “Come on,” she says. “Where is that Bethany Walker confidence? Why are you letting one guy make you so insecure?” 

Okay, first of all he’s not just one guy. It’s Alex, and Martha knows that. “This isn’t like it would be if it was a guy like Noah.” Bethany whines, because she feels like crying but if she does she’ll have to redo her makeup and she’s already had enough of looking at herself and scrutinizing every little flaw she finds for today. “I’m afraid Alex is going to see me as a little kid. I mean, you’re cool, but Fridge and Spencer can act so immature. And them hanging out with Alex is just another thing I’m worried about. If Alex even comes at all.” Because he might not. She was trying to not get her hopes up, remember?

God, if she worked herself up for nothing she’s going to lose her mind.

Bethany realizes that she might actually be having the premonitional breakdown Martha joked about to her mom earlier. “This whole thing is just,” she puts her face into a pillow. Maybe she’ll suffocate. “Stressing me out. I’m stressed out.”

“Well stop it,” Martha says, sitting up and half-attempting to force Bethany into sitting up too. Bethany is happy to wallow into the blankets and doesn’t help much, and she ends up laying halfway across Martha’s lap. Martha says, “I’ve already lectured the boys, and they’ll be on their best behavior. Everything is going to be fine.” Bethany feels Martha’s hand patting her head gently. “And if you still want to bail later, then I’ll make up an excuse and we can come back here and start the sleepover early.” She’s like, “And he’s not going to see you like a little kid. You’re turning 17, Bethany. That’s one year away from 18.” 

Bethany knows that . But it’s not 18. No matter how much Bethany wishes it was.

But there really isn’t any point in being so negative, not when Martha was going out of her way to put Bethany in a better mood. “I wish it was my birthday every day,” Bethany sighs, wistfully. “You’re being so nice to me.”

 “Well don’t get used to it,” Martha tells her, tone shifting from comforting to bossy in seconds. “Change your outfit.”

.

Unsurprisingly for a small town like Brantford, the bowling alley is one of the more popular hangout spots in town, much like the diner. Especially on a Friday night in the middle of June.

Personally, Bethany hasn’t been bowling since she was like, 10. It’s a little more crowded than Bethany thought it would be, and every face she recognizes gives her just a little bit more anxiety.  Would Alex be worried about seeing anyone he recognized? Would that stop him from wanting to come? She wouldn’t blame him, if that was the case.

But she tries not to worry about it. Alex hasn’t texted her all day, and despite her kind-of-breakdown at Martha’s, as far as she’s concerned it’s a non-issue. She’s a little bummed at the thought of him not coming, but Fridge and Spencer make fun of each other for their bowling shoes and Bethany tries to focus on her friends - who didn’t have to plan anything for her in the first place. She’s happy she at least has them.

Fridge doesn’t let them put the bumpers up on their lane, because he’s a jock and a spoilsport.  She tells him that, to which he responds with, “You’re an athlete, Bethany. You don’t need bumpers.”

“Bowling isn’t a sport,” she points out, and means with her entire being. “And I’m saying that as an athlete. They just aim.”

“I’m gonna go tell that senior bowling league two lanes over that you said that,” Spencer says, face completely serious. “We’ll see how good their aim is.”

Bethany glares at him and doesn’t mean it. “Stop trying to get me beaten up on my birthday.”

Like everything with Fridge and Spencer, picking out bowling balls turns almost into a competition - with Fridge picking the heaviest ball he can find and Spencer picking the same one even though Bethany swears she can see his arms shaking when he lifts it. She wonders how long it’ll take before someone drops it on their foot and ends up with a broken toe.

She slides up next to Martha, who is still choosing her ball. Bethany holds hers up. “Are you trying to share this sparkly pink ball with me? It’s only 7 pounds and I took the last pretty one.”

“No, it’s okay.” Martha says. “I like the black and blue ones that look like galaxies.”

Fridge and Spencer set up their lane, putting their names up on the screen while Bethany and Martha go to the concession counter for terrible nachos and a pitcher of soda. When they get back to their lane, Bethany looks up at the screen and frowns.  

“You did not put my name as Shelly,” She whines, “Everyone can see this!”

“Will you relax?” Fridge rolls his eyes at her. “No one pays attention to you anymore,” Rude. “And if they do they’ll think it’s a girls name. You did.”

Bethany pouts, but then Spencer asks, “Should I put Alex’s name in?”

Bethany wants to say yes. She wants to believe that he might show up, maybe wants to speak it into existence, but he did say he had a deadline, and she gets if he felt too out-of-place with them now. She probably would too if she was him.

So she says, “No, it’s fine,” and it is. It’s fine. Besides, “We can always add him into the next game, if he comes.” Unlikely, but saying those words out loud makes Bethany feel better, anyway. 

“Alright,” Fridge says, standing. “I’m up first. Watch and learn.”

As it turns out, all 4 of them kind of suck at bowling. Well, Fridge is pretty good, mostly because he’s strong and flings the ball too hard and too far for it to have time to curve off to the side. But her and Martha and Spencer - they’re pretty terrible, with Bethany coming in last so far as far as points goes.

They’re nearly done with their first game and things aren’t really looking good for Bethany; she tries not to whine when she throws her ball and it makes it about 5 feet before it starts curving for the side. She turns around before she can see it drop into the gutter, but she hears it, and that’s almost just as bad.

“Another gutter ball?” Spencer says like he can’t believe it. Like Bethany’s walk of shame back to her seat wasn’t humbling enough. She told Fridge she needed bumpers. It kind of feels like it’s his fault. “Have you even knocked any pins down yet? I can’t believe how bad you are at this.”

Okay, Bethany is unquestionably bad, but she doesn’t need to be heckled about it. “Hey!”

“Hey.” 

Bethany blinks. Did her voice just drop 3 octaves? She wonders for a split second, before her brain registers that the voice was coming from behind her.

Bethany spins around in her chair and - it’s Alex. He’s standing by the cubbies they’ve shoved their things into, and Bethany feels her heart leap into her throat; he looks great (he always does), dressed in a nice olive green sweater, with his black leather jacket, black jeans and those ridiculous clown bowling shoes, his own shoes in his hand.

Bethany tries not to spontaneously combust when he makes eye contact with her, heart fluttering. “Can I add my shoes to the pile?”

Fridge is the first to greet him, holding his hand out for a handshake that smoothly transitions into a shoulder bump. Bethany’s heart pounds inside her chest, nerves alive, watching him give Martha a quick, friendly hug.  

She watches Alex and Spencer interact with each other with a close eye, ready to jump in at any moment in case Spencer forgets his manners - but they’re both smiling, Spencer seems genuine when he offers Alex his seat - across from Bethany - while he takes his turn bowling.

But not before Alex turns to her, and Bethany is ready for it this time. This time when Alex puts his arms around her shoulders, she’s quick to hug him back. She tries to not curl her fingers in his jacket, tries not to linger too long, pulling away before he does, or else she might not let go.  He’s like, “Happy birthday,” and she can feel the rumbling of his voice when he speaks. “You look beautiful.”

If Bethany hadn’t been standing so close to him she might have missed his words, soft and meant only for her to hear. And she’s glad she does, lighting up like a Christmas tree at his praise, and Bethany is glad everyone is focused on Spencer, so they can’t see how red she knows her face is. She’s thankful for the dim lighting of the bowling alley, at least. And thankful to Martha for making her wear her skanky dress after all.

“So you finished everything for your deadline?” Bethany asks when they’re seated, kind of lamely but she doesn’t know how to talk to him in front of Martha and Fridge. Not that they’re even paying attention - more focused on Spencer whose ball is very slowly rolling down the center of the lane.

 Alex smiles at her, and he looks so cute under the colored lights that Bethany can’t help but stare. He doesn’t notice, or maybe he does but he doesn’t say anything about it. “Yeah,” he says. “Well, mostly. I have a few loose ends I need to tie up but nothing that can’t be done tomorrow.” He’s like, “This was good motivation for me, actually. I guess I work better with incentive.”

Bethany smiles back at him, until Spencer comes back to the table, tapping his fingers against the back of her chair. “You’re up, Bethany. Last round of this game so make it count.”

They wrap up their first game (with Bethany still having the lowest score, which is even more embarrassing with Alex sitting beside her) and start on their second, Fridge putting Alex’s name as Seaplane, right beneath Shelly. It’s weird - the way Bethany’s stomach flips a little when she looks at the screen.

All of her worries about Alex not getting along with everyone like he used to basically vanish within the first 5 minutes of his arrival; especially when he and Spencer get to talking about the latest video game release that Bethany knows nothing about.  She chimes in every so often but mostly she’s happy to watch them talk. They get along just like they did in Jumanji. Bethany knew they would but still - it’s one less thing she needs to worry about.

She tries to pay attention to their conversation - if only to make sure nothing embarrassing is said - but she doesn’t really like video games, less now than she did before but hey, that’s what being stuck inside one will do.

There are only four seats at their table, and their second game of bowling also turns into a game of musical chairs, with the person finishing their turn taking the place of whoever was next up.

It’s Bethany’s turn, so she barely notices when Martha and Spencer disappear for a moment, too focused on trying to not totally gutter-ball again in front of Alex, who has gotten strikes his last two turns. She does notice when she turns around after knocking down exactly 2 pins. 

“Where’s Spartha?” She asks, and Fridge barely fumbles through an excuse of not knowing before Bethany spots the both of them a few feet away, walking towards their table, Spencer carrying a cake in his hands.  “Happy birthday!” They chime in unison.

 “You guys are going to make me cry,” Bethany hides her face in her arms. She wants to take in her friends, all of them together doing such a sweet thing for her - but she also doesn’t want to cry in front of Alex. But if they start singing Happy Birthday at her, Bethany might actually die of embarrassment. She better let them know that. She picks her head up. “Please don’t start singing.”

They show her mercy, thank God. No one has anything to light the candles with, by the grace of a higher power, but M artha still insists that she blow them out unlit, and make a wish anyway as tradition dictates. And normally Bethany might whine about it, but she’s in a good mood now. A great mood. She doesn’t mind playing along for her friends that treat her so well.

And she already knows what she’s going to wish for. If you had asked Bethany 6 months ago, her answer would have been the latest iPhone. And if you had asked just 3 months ago, her answer would have been to have Alex back in her life, in whatever way she could have him.  

Now she had that. And after tonight, after seeing Alex together with the people she loved most; she only had one wish; for things to stay exactly how they were for as long as possible.

Martha takes it upon herself to cut the cake with a steak knife she borrowed from the bar, on plates she also borrowed from the bar. When she tries to a slice off to Fridge, he shakes his head. 

“Fridge, don’t you want cake?” Martha asks.

Fridge snorts. “Hell no. Remember what happened last time?” 

Bethany does - so she doesn’t really blame him.

Once their game ends, Fridge suggests they kill some time at the arcade. Spencer and Fridge make a bet to see who can score the most in air hockey, roping in Martha as their referee. That leaves Bethany and Alex to wander around the arcade for a game. Bethany goes for the ski-ball machine - by far the best arcade game invented, and much easier than actual bowling.

 She rolls two low-scoring balls before Alex puts in the change required to start up the machine beside hers, and Bethany tries to ignore the butterflies in her stomach - tries not to let it distract her.  

She watches him as he picks up a ball and rolls it all the way to the back of the machine, right into the smallest ring at the top corner, scoring the highest number of points on his first try. Bethany wonders if it was just a lucky shot, for all of four seconds, until the second ball he rolls bounces right into the same hole. She shouldn’t be surprised  - he was really good at bowling.

She rolls her ball, trying for the same highest scoring ring that Alex made. They both watch it hit the barrier around the hole and fall off toward the side, scoring zero points as it goes. It’s fine, Bethany tells herself; aiming isn’t a sport. But it is a little embarrassing. Especially when he rolls a third ball and it goes straight into the same damn hole in the corner.

 “Show off,” She says, somewhere torn between bitter and giddy. “It’s not like it’s fair, anyway. You were a teenager in the 90’s. Like, before the internet. I bet all there was to do was go to the arcade.”

 “That’s true,” Alex says, rolling another ball. Bethany doesn’t even look to see if he makes it, but the machine sings out a victorious little tune, and that’s just as bad. “This arcade, actually.”

“Really?” Bethany doesn’t know why that’s so surprising; aside from turning the old Blockbuster into a Taco Bell, a lot of Brantford had stayed the same from Bethany’s childhood. “Didn’t you ever want to leave?”

Alex shrugs. “I went to college in the city,” he says, “and stayed for a few years in my twenties, but I like small towns, and I had a good childhood here. I want my kids to have a similar experience.” He’s like, “Besides, I had a pretty good reason for staying in Brantford. My sanity depended on whether or not I’d run into you guys eventually; otherwise I would have thought I made all of it up.”

Bethany can’t help the smile that pulls at her lips. “Well, I’m glad you stayed here.” She tells him. “For your sanity’s sake.” 

Alex shrugs again, but he has the same little smile on his face as Bethany. “So am I.”

She shouldn’t be surprised that Fridge and Spencer’s friendly game of air hockey has turned contentious, especially with how competitive they both are. Once one of the pucks goes flying across the small space of the arcade, Martha begins to shoo them towards the exit. Bethany kind of wants to stay there, playing ski ball with Alex forever, but she checks her phone and it’s pretty late anyway.

They get to the parking lot, Bethany and Alex trailing not far behind, and Martha turns the the four of them. To an untrained eye, Martha looks perfectly pleasant, but Bethany sees the mischief in her eyes. She tried to sound casual when she’s like, “Let’s go walk on the beach?”

Bethany doesn’t think that sounds like a bad idea, not if Alex is coming along, but it is late. “Now?”

Martha rolls her eyes at her. “We’re celebrating all night. Birthday’s only come once a year and it’s your first since you almost died.”

Bethany doesn’t know if a walk on the beach counts as celebrating, but Spencer and Fridge agree to the plan, and when Bethany looks up at Alex he seems pretty agreeable. And it’s not like Bethany is going to turn down an opportunity to spend more time with him. It’s only a short walk to the beach from the bowling alley, anyway.

Alex asks if she’s cold a few minutes into their walk, and Bethany shrugs. She is, since she didn’t bring her jacket (it’s her own fault she let Martha talk her into this dress, but she should have insisted on her hoodie). She glances over at him when she hears his movement, just in time to see him shrugging his jacket off his shoulders. Her brain short circuits at the realization of what’s happening, but muscle memory has her taking it from him before she can put thought to what she’s doing.

And then she has Alex’s jacket - the jacket he was wearing when they met, 6 months ago - in her hands.  

She stares down at it, mind rebooting, and knows that she should definitely not wear it. Not in front of their friends, in front of Spencer...but she is cold. And it would be weird now that she’s had it in her hands for like, 15 straight seconds of silence. And once she puts it on and is wrapped in his smell, still warm from his body heat, so much warmer than she was before - all thoughts of protesting fly out of her head.

She knows that tomorrow she’s going to have to talk herself out of all of the feelings Alex is invoking in her right now. But whatever, it’s her birthday. And that’s problem for tomorrow’s Bethany, anyway. For now, Bethany lets herself get a little caught up in how perfect everything is.  

When they get to the water, the beach is empty. Of course there’s not much to see at night, aside from what little the lighthouse shines on, but it’s nice. They leave their shoes by the pier and start heading towards the cove.

Spencer, Martha, and Fridge walk a bit further ahead than her and Alex, which Bethany is grateful for - so she can talk to him normally, without second-guessing what she was going to say. It’s not like her and Alex talk any differently when they’re alone, but is different - being the only person to have his attention.

 “Thanks for coming,” She says after a while, looking down at the sand to make sure she doesn’t accidentally fall into any holes - and because it’s less nerve-wracking than looking at Alex directly. “And thanks for entertaining Fridge and Spencer. I know it’s probably super weird hanging out with a bunch of high schoolers.” 

“It is kind of weird,” Alex agrees, “But I’m learning a lot of YA slang. It’s helpful. And it’s not too different from the game. I thought it might be.”

Bethany doesn’t know how exactly the group gets separated - probably (definitely) by Martha’s design - but it takes Bethany an embarrassing amount of time to notice that Spartha and Fridge are no longer in front of them. She looks back and sees all three of their silhouettes hanging by the lifeguard’s chair they had passed a while back, far enough away for her to have to squint to make them out in the dark.  

And - now they’re alone, her and Alex. Walking on the beach. She’s dreaming, right? She got smacked in the head with a bowling ball and now she’s dreaming? 

They reach the edge of the beach, at the bottom of the cliff the lighthouse sits on top of. Bethany balances on one of the giant peaked rocks along the edge of the tide pool, tries not to be so obvious when she pinches herself on the thigh - just to make absolute sure that she's awake and experiencing reality.  There’s only a little bit of moonlight, but it shines beautifully on the water, pitch black and endless; it does feel like a dream - definitely feels like a dream when she looks over and sees Alex sitting down in the sand.

Bethany tries to be casual about wandering over to him, sits beside him close enough to feel his body heat, a welcomed relief against the midnight chill from the water, unforgiving even with his hoodie on.  

She wonders if he’d notice if she moved closer.

She doesn’t - because she’s a coward. Because she probably shouldn’t be as close to him as she is now. Not if she really wanted to just be friends like she says she does. It’s hard, separating her erratic teenage emotions from her rational thinking.

“It’s so pretty right now,” Bethany says, just to say something. Even though the silence between them is always comfortable, she wants to hear him talk. She doesn’t care what about. She’s like, “It kind of reminds me of the game. It’s so beautiful it almost doesn’t feel real.” 

Alex hums softly in acknowledgement. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat here and thought about Jumanji.”

Bethany feels her heart skip a beat, maybe. The same skip it gets when they talk about things like this - about the game.  “What did you think about?”

“Everything.” Alex answers, staring ahead at the water, but Bethany can tell from the look on his face that he’s somewhere else - back in the game. “The heat of the jungle, the waterfall, and the transportation shed.” He rests his head on his forearms, his arms on his knees. “Dying and coming back to life.” 

Bethany definitely remembers that, phantom but vivid memories of teeth sinking into her flesh, crushing her bones. The jungle floor getting closer and closer and the crack of her body against it after her avatar respawned.

“Sorry,” he apologizes after a second, after Bethany forgets to reply, too focused on his face to answer. He must take her silence for something negative, because he’s like, “You probably don’t want to hear this.” 

“It’s okay,” Bethany says quickly. “I still think about the game. All the time.” She watches him blink, and she realizes she’s been staring at him this whole time, observing him like she’s usually too nervous to do. It’s easier under cover of darkness, when she doesn’t have to worry about looking for too long. Still, she looks away, back towards the water. “But I think it might be different for me.”

This time she feels Alex look over at her. She’s so aware of it in her peripheral vision, she vaguely wonders if he was just as aware of her. Watching her without her knowing. But then abandons that thought because it’s a moot point. He’s like, “Different how?”

Bethany shrugs, doesn’t look at him. “I was only there for one day and I wasn’t alone.” She had her friends with her - even if they weren’t friends at the time. Martha saved her ass on multiple occasions, Spencer had no weaknesses and experience with video games, Fridge had defanged a snake - something he mentions at least once a week, even after 6 months - and gotten them to the statue with the jewel without all of them being killed by Van Pelt, and Alex was probably the main reason they even made it home at all. She was the weakest out of all of them - and she would have been absolutely lost on her own. She would have lost all of her lives within the first 10 minutes, if not sooner.

“That was worse than dying.” Alex says. “All that time by myself. Trying to sleep in the jungle when every sound I heard could have been something coming to kill me.” He says, “Trying to talk to NPC’s without triggering the storyline. I could probably still tell you what every person in the Bazaar looks like; what they sell and what they’re wearing.” 

“And after you got back?” Bethany asks gently. “What was that like?”

“Disorienting,” he says. “I had gotten so used to living in the game, and doing impossible things every day. And then I came back here and I wasn’t used to the real world anymore. I had a body I wasn’t used to anymore, trying to process things that I couldn’t talk about with anyone.” He glances over at her. “And the only people who could begin to understand were somewhere in the future, and the only thing I could do about that was to wait.”

Bethany’s heart aches for him; who he was when they met - that sweet, brave 17-year old that offered his life in place of hers. She’s like, “Well, we’re here now. And we can talk about the game whenever you want.”

Alex shakes his head. “I don’t want to make you relive that.” He’s like, “I doubt that your memories of Jumanji are any better than mine.”

“The game was a good thing, for me.” Bethany tells him. “It changed my entire life in one day. If it never happened I would still be the brat I was before, and I wouldn’t have Martha, or Spencer.” She hesitates only for a second. “Or you.” 

Alex exhales through his nose, then - “I’m sorry I’m not exactly the Alex you remember.”

He’s right; he’s not. But that isn’t a bad thing.

“The first thing you said to us in the bazaar was how stoked you were to see us.” Bethany tells him. She wonders if he remembers it as vividly as she does - the way he appeared from the smoke that surrounded them, gorgeous and rugged - he made Bethany lose her breath, even before she knew his name. “And then outside of the game, when you saw us outside of your dad’s house, you said it again.” Bethany smiles, shaking her head at the memory of him, her first glimpse of him in the real world. A completely different person but still breathtaking. “So stoked. 20 years later.”

That was all it took for Bethany’s crush to follow her back into reality - outside of the game. The knowledge that the Alex she fell for was in there somewhere, even after 20 years, even if he had a different face. Bethany’s like, “Things are different now, but that’s not a bad thing.” It’s how things should be, Bethany knows that. She’s like, “And you’re still the same guy that saved our lives. No matter how much time has passed.”

It’s quiet between them for a long time, the only sounds Bethany can hear being the lapping of the waves against the rocks at the edge of the water, the occasional car driving by, and her friends laughing somewhere off in the distance. But with Alex sitting next to her like this, it’s only background noise to Bethany.

After a moment, Alex speaks up. “I got you something for your birthday,” he tells her. “But I felt weird giving it to you in front of the others.”  

She looks at him, with a strange look on her face she’s sure, but - she just told him it was her birthday this morning. How did he already have something for her?

“You didn’t have to – just you being here is good enough for me.” Especially after Bethany was so sure he wasn’t going to show up at all. Alex sitting beside her on the beach after dark - that’s all she’s ever wanted.

 Alex shrugs. He’s like, “I found it in my parents’ attic a few days after we met at the coffee shop. Check the left pocket of my jacket.”  

Bethany does what she’s told without thinking, probably because it’s Alex telling her what to do. She sticks her hand into the pocket at her side, and her fingertips brush against something she wouldn’t have had the sense to notice otherwise.

She pulls it out and squints down at it. It’s a little hard to see in the dark, but the closer Bethany looks at it in her palm, the more details come into focus.

It’s  a small wooden Jaguar. Singular emerald eye staring up at Bethany, gleaming in the moonlight - attached to a delicate silver chain that pools in the dip of her palm.  

It’s almost like she forgets how to breathe. She forgets how to do a lot of things at once, actually: how to breathe, think, control the dumb look on her face -

“Alex,” Bethany starts, and then stops, because that’s really the only thing she can manage. She doesn’t even know what to say, other than his name. Nothing else seemed relevant. She runs her thumb against the smooth wood, against the glittering emerald.

“I hope it’s not weird.” Alex says. He’s like, “I started carving wood in the jungle. I had to find something to do with all that free time and I couldn’t find a drum set in the Bazaar.”

“I love it,” Bethany says. And she does. More than she can put into words at the moment. She looks over at him, heart beating so fast she’s sure it’s dangerously close to bursting. And maybe it’s the adrenaline, coursing hot through her veins, that makes her forget the careful boundary she’d begun to place around him.  Or maybe she doesn’t care at this point, having gotten everything she’s wanted so far tonight. She might as well push her luck. She asks, without a second thought, “Will you help me put it on?”

She turns around before he can answer, a clasp in each hand. She fits the chain around the column of her throat and waits for him to take them from her. 

After a still moment that seems to go on forever - a moment in which she’s too nervous to even breathe - Bethany feels his fingertips brush against hers. Her hands fall into her lap, and his stay on the back of her neck.  

He’s probably as blind as she would be, with how dark it is. But she feels his hands brushing against the skin at the base of her spine, goosebumps rising on her arms that she can’t really blame on the cold. She can tell when he gets the clasp hooked, from the victorious little noise he makes in the back of his throat. She tries not to let out a noise of her own at the longing she feels when the warmth of his hands leaves her skin.

The disappointment doesn’t last - not when she looks down and sees the gift he made for her, resting just beneath her collar bones, between his unzipped jacket.

She’s definitely dreaming. She has to be. She touches the jaguar and feels the warmth of the wood in her palm and it feels real but it can’t be - not when a moment like this with Alex is all that Bethany has wanted for the past 6 months.

She turns back around to look at him, at a loss for words from how perfect everything is. Her friends already made her birthday amazing, but Alex showing up made it perfect. Alex giving her a gift like this made it perfect.

She doesn’t even know how to articulate her appreciation for him. Alex doesn’t say anything either - just looks back at Bethany with a small smile tilting the corners of his mouth. He must know how much she loves it - there’s no way it isn’t obvious in the face she knows she’s making. 

They’re interrupted before she can even think of anything to say, and they both look over to the silhouettes in the distance. Bethany can see the scrawniest of them waving them over.

Their walk back to the others happens kind of in a daze, so does the walk from the beach to the parking lot, which has been mostly cleared out by now - aside from their cluster of cars.

Spencer pulls her aside after Fridge has gotten into the car (after Bethany gave him a giant hug he was too emotionally shy to accept in front of their other friends. She knows he loved it though.)

Spencer’s like, “I owe you an apology. You were right,” he glances over her shoulder, to where she knows Alex is standing - next to his car, talking to Martha. In front of Bethany, Spencer continues. “He really is the same guy. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

Bethany really can’t help her grin - every part of tonight had been perfect, but Spencer admitting that he was wrong about Alex probably topped all of it. Well, not really. Nothing would top Alex’s gift to her, probably ever. But she’s overwhelmed with how happy she is, she can’t help it when she reaches out and punches his shoulder, maybe too hard in her excitement. “When will you learn that you should never doubt me?”

Spencer rolls his eyes at her and rubs his arm where she’s hit him, and looks over her shoulder again just as Bethany feels hands on her shoulders.

Martha’s voice goes, “Swapsies.” Which Bethany has never heard her say before, and she’d probably tease her for it if Martha wasn’t using the hands she has on Bethany to spin her around, practically shoving her towards where Alex is still standing in one strong push.

She was avoiding this - saying goodbye to him. She didn’t know when she’d have all of her best friends and Alex together again. She didn’t want it to be over.

But now she has no choice - thanks to Martha.  

She’s barely stopped in front of him before they both turn around at the sound of Fridge’s car starting up. Bethany gives him and Spencer a small wave when they drive past her, even though it’s too dark to see them inside. She turns back to Alex, wracks her brain for something to say before Martha comes back over to them, aware of the fact that she’s running out of time.

“I’ll text you tomorrow?” Is the best that she can come up with on the spot, despite the fact that there are a thousand other things she’d rather say to him.

He smiles down at her. “Sounds good.” And then -

Bethany’s almost gotten used to the way he looks right before he hugs her - but it still makes her heart sputter inside her chest the moment she realizes what’s about to happen; it’s the third hug he’s given her today, Bethany knows that she shouldn’t lose her breath over it, especially when it was happening so frequently. 

But she can’t really help it. It’s Alex.

She also can’t help the way she holds onto him, or the way her heart is beating erratically; even if she seems calm on the outside (and she doubts she does) there’s no hiding the way he’s making her body react. She hopes that he can't tell, because that would be embarrassing - and too awkward to have to explain.

She lets her arms drop after a few seconds, hug cut far too short in her opinion, but she knows she’s reached her limit for what she can tolerate before her hormones embarrass her somehow.

Alex pulls away from her right as Martha joins them back at her side. He high fives her red headed best friend, and Bethany remembers very suddenly that she’s wearing his jacket. 

She shrugs it down her arms and hands it over to him - not that she wants to, because it’s so warm and smells just like him - and Alex takes it back from her before he gets into his car.

Then it’s just her and Martha, standing next to Bethany’s car, watching Alex pull out of the parking lot.

Martha waits until his taillights disappear before she throws her arm around Bethany’s shoulder and says, “What a night.”

Bethany has to agree with her - and Martha didn’t even know the half of it.

.

“He made it himself? Jeez,” Martha sighs, admiring the necklace in her palm. “Even I’m starting to get a crush on Alex. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.”

Bethany’s glad she waited until they got back to Martha’s before showing her what Alex gave her. Especially when she sees the way Martha lunges for it. Bethany leans back against the couch cushions. How is she feeling? “Terrible. Where’s that wine your mom promised me?”

Martha shakes her head in disapproval, but stands from the couch and starts for the kitchen anyway. Bethany hears the refrigerator door open, then snap back shut a moment later. Then the cabinet, followed by noises of glass clinking together. Martha reappears, this time with a bottle of wine, wine opener, and two glasses in her hands, big red bow wrapped around the neck of the bottle.

Martha’s still shaking her head, but sets everything down on the coffee table anyway. “I cant believe my mother. Or you. This is illegal you know.” 

Bethany rolls her eyes and reaches for the wine, knowing she needs to forget about Alex and the glittery feeling swirling inside of her as soon as she can. “Please. It has like, .6% alcohol content. Also I deserve this wine.” And she does - so she fills her glass a little fuller than necessary.

Martha takes a seat on the opposite end of the table, on the floor by the TV stand. “Why are you trying to drown your sorrows?” She asks, “Shouldn’t you be basking in the afterglow of Alex’s attention?”

“I don’t want to feel like this,” Bethany whines. “I don’t want to have a crush on someone I’ll never have. I just want to be friends with him and mean it.” It’s the only way she’ll be able to be around Alex without wanting to like, die all the time.

“Has it ever occurred to you that he might not want to be just friends?” Martha asks, because she’s terrible.

No, that’s never occurred to Bethany, and she kind of hates Martha for expecting her to answer that question out loud. So she doesn’t. She just glares at her over her wine glass while the redhead fiddles with the DVD player.

Martha rolls her eyes all exaggerated, then says, “Look, if you want to be miserable about the fact that Alex showed up tonight - with something he made for you when he was obviously in love with you - and still clearly cares about you, then at least wait until after your birthday.” She’s like, “You can let yourself be happy for one night.”

“And have to talk myself down tomorrow? No thanks.” Bethany is definitely choosing to ignore the ‘he was obviously in love with you’ that Martha should never had said. Bad best friend.  

“Fine,” Martha concedes. She stands, turning back towards Bethany with her hands on her hips. “I’ll drop it, but only because I want you to be in a good mood for the movie. Even though you already should have read the book in 9th grade.” 

“Be grateful I’m watching it at all.” Bethany tells her. Especially on her birthday, when she can’t really wrap her mind around anything else but Alex. She still didn’t have any idea what this movie was even about - other than the fact that Keira Knightly was in it.  

Martha plops down next to her, couch cushions sagging. Bethany lifts her elbow so she doesn’t spill her wine, and Martha takes the opportunity to snuggle into her side. Martha’s like, “Be grateful I’m not making you watch the 6 hour mini-series instead. Like I should.” 

Bethany is definitely grateful for that.

The movie starts, and Bethany and Martha get settled underneath the comfy couch blanket while the tv pans over vast rolling hills. Bethany tries to focus on the movie - but she can’t get her mind off of Alex.

It really can’t be helped - not after everything that had taken place that night, not after she’s finished her first glass of wine, and especially not when she looks at herself and sees the jaguar pendant he made for her. She can’t help but think of him.  

She shouldn’t - because after tonight she knows she’ll have to work twice as hard as she has been to keep her emotions in check when it came to Alex. She knows what’s a real possibility with him - and more importantly, what’s not - and she definitely knows better than to linger on what could never happen.  

It’s exhausting - constantly fighting a losing battle with herself; she shouldn’t make it harder than it has to be - if only for her own sake.  

But Martha was right - it’s still her birthday, even if it’s past midnight. She can let herself daydream about it - about him - for a little while. She'll allow herself tonight; tonight, she can ignore the voice in her head that reminds her not to let herself get her feelings hurt.

She just hopes she’ll be willing to listen to that voice in the morning.

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Chapter Text

.

Bethany can’t breathe.

She can never breathe; can never completely catch her breath in the jungle. Whether it’s the heat or the humidity or the body she’s trapped in, she always feels like she’s forever gasping for air that she’ll never get. She always feels like she’s suffocating. The landing doesn’t help - she’s been dropped from the sky from 100 feet up in the air, her body cracking into the unforgiving earth. She feels every inch of it, wants to scream with how badly it hurts. But she can’t; she didn’t have time to sit there and choke and try to breathe through the pain.

She knows she can’t relax, even for a second.

She doesn’t know where she is when she gets onto her feet and takes a look around. Why did everything in this stupid jungle have to look the same? But she hears the rushing of water somewhere off in the distance; the waterfall. Her body moves without even thinking about it, knowing the waterfall was her safety the last time she was here. It wouldn’t hold off them off forever - the revving bikes behind her, closing the distance between them fast - but it would give her enough cover from the bullets whizzing past her head, and enough time to try and remember what comes next. The bazaar? Seaplane’s hideout?

She hears the drums in the distance, feels it when the thorny brush she’s running through scratches her legs, too short and too slow - but she doesn’t have time to concentrate on the pain. Not when she can hear them - the roaring of engines, dozens of them, sounding off like a chorus in the distance, entirely too close.

She tears out of the thick of the jungle, hates that now she’s out in the open, pushing her body to the limit to reach the edge of the cliff. The rushing water is loud in her ears, the spray of the waterfall misting her face. She hesitates, because Martha isn’t here to make her jump this time, and the half-second it takes to gather enough courage to actually jump takes a half-second too long. She feels the shooting pain of the bullet piercing the skin of her shoulder, tearing through muscle and flesh, her vision turning black just as the revving of the bikes becomes so loud she feels it swallowing her whole.

Her eyes snap open, chest heaving with the force of the breath she takes.  She stares at the ceiling, heart racing, mind racing.

She runs a hand down her face, down her neck, damp with sweat. She can still feel the heat from the jungle, or maybe it’s just the muggy night air coming into her bedroom from her open window.

It all felt so real. It always does. The fear was always real, anyway. So was the pain, and the inevitable heartache. These are things she’ll always feel coming out of a dream about Jumanji. Out of all of it, the heartache hurts the most.

She was already there, in the game, why couldn’t she see him, just once? All she needed was a moment, standing face to face with him. Bethany is convinced that’s all it would take for her to make sense of all these feelings. Of course, she couldn’t get what she wanted in the game, why would her dreams be any different?

Bethany wonders if she’ll ever see his face again, or if the fragments of memories were all she had left of him. You know, him.

She doesn’t know what else to call him.  It feels weird to call him by his name - Alex. That’s not who she sees anymore when she thinks of him. The face she sees in her mind is 30-something Alex, hands drumming on the steering wheel, a million feet tall and a total dork. He...the other Alex...Seaplane Alex, he’s 17, kind of. With five o’clock shadow and biceps and a ridiculously handsome face.

She hasn’t thought of him all that much since the start of the summer. Maybe because Alex Alex was right there and real, and Seaplane Alex, well, wasn’t. She wasn’t going to waste more time than she already had wanting someone that didn’t exist. She knows it was him, Alex, in a different world, in a different timeline. But it’s also not him; not anymore. She hates that she can’t let go of him, after all this time.

Her heart is still pounding in her chest, adrenaline coursing through her veins.  She wants to talk to him. Both of them. She needs someone else to tell her that she’s not crazy. That the game happened. That she’s really here, that he’s really here.

Part of him, anyway.

She can’t do that, though. She knows it. She hasn’t heard from Alex in days, the last text he sent only a half-answer to whatever it was they were talking about before. She sent a text back, and then another a few days later, but he never replied.

Bethany’s trying not to let herself get upset about it, though. She knows he’s busy. His life out here was hectic, she understands that he won’t always have time for her. And in those moments when she can’t talk to Alex Alex, she wishes she could talk to him .

It was only a day that they spent together, in the game, but it was a day that changed Bethany for good, forever. He was a part of that change, months ago for her, decades ago for him, and the whiplash of Jumanji Alex and Alex Alex still has her head spinning, a little. She wishes she could talk to him about it.

...but she can’t, because he doesn’t exist anymore. Whatever was left of him was somewhere inside Alex Alex, and it’s not like she can talk to him about it. He remains just out of Bethany’s reach. He always would.

Bethany sighs, sinking back into her bed. It’s a little bittersweet. She should be happy she’s not stuck in the game anymore. She should be happy she’s not in constant, life-threatening danger, that she’s safe, in her timeline, in her world, with her friends.

But she isn’t.

Was she ever going to stop dreaming of the jungle? Was she ever going to stop thinking about him? Was it ever going to stop hurting?

She wonders how much of herself she left behind. Was she ever going to feel whole again? Or was she going to dream of him forever, wanting something she couldn’t have. Not in the game, not in real life.

Not even in her dreams.

.

One of the girls at work quits, which is whatever, because Bethany didn’t really get to know her that well in the first place. But it means that they’re kind of short staffed in the busiest season for froyo, so Bethany is stuck working the closing shift every single night until they can hire and train someone else.

It’s draining. Her birthday wasn’t that long ago but life has been so exhausting since then that Bethany feels like she’s just turned 30, not 17. The drastic shift in her sleep schedule means that Bethany has ugly bags under her eyes and can’t even do anything about it. Bethany gets home past midnight, tries to sleep through the sunlight, before she has to get up and do it all over again. And she’s supposed to somehow enjoy her summer in between? Yeah, right. So much for this being the best summer ever.

It’s terrible; adulting. But more hours means more money (but seriously, at what cost), and at least it leaves her busy enough that she’s not totally stewing over the fact that Alex hasn’t really talked to her since her birthday.

It was two weeks ago - that night at the beach. It’s not like Bethany is counting but, it’s not like she can help it either.  It was...significant - the events that transpired. Him, hanging out with everyone after so long, their walk on the beach, the things they talked about, and...the gift. She still wears the necklace he gave her, even through his silence, because she’s a masochist. The weight of it around her neck is a constant reminder of him - and the fact that he’s been pretty absent lately.

She thinks she should just stop wearing it, at least when he’s not talking to her, but it’s kind of the only tangible evidence she has of him right now, especially since he’s giving her the silent treatment or something.

Bethany knows she shouldn’t take it personally; that he’s just busy or something. But she’s also 17 and she can’t help but feel like maybe it was her. Did she do something wrong? Did he realize that her and her friends are actually a bunch of immature idiot teenagers and that he’s better off pretending they didn’t exist? Like the game never happened? Did he decide his life is better without them in it?

Without her?

She’d text him, again, but she doesn’t want to be that girl. She was that girl with Noah, basically her entire junior year, and he had made it clear on several occasions just how annoying it was when she’d blow up his phone. She doesn’t want to be like that with Alex; she can’t be like that with Alex.

But why does she always have to make everything a bigger deal than it actually is? And get in her head about these things?

Why does she always have to hurt her own feelings?

.

Of course Bethany can’t relax on her day off.

Not that taking her brother to school is an inconvenience; really it’s only a fraction of her day that she’s wasting, but she literally went to bed not even 6 hours ago, and she’s exhausted. Waking up is hard, getting him ready for summer camp without a meltdown is even harder, and getting him there on time is just asking too much of her.

She rolls into the parking lot a little later than she should, consciously ignores the time displayed on the radio and instead searches for a parking spot close to the entrance of the school. At least it isn’t raining. Silver lining.

Bethany shouldn’t be surprised to see Alex getting into his car. Why wouldn’t he be here, when they haven’t talked in two weeks, when she’s in her pajamas, when her hair is a mess and she doesn’t have the will in her to deal with all of this right now?

It’s karma, probably, for the way she was before.

She grips the steering wheel a little tighter unintentionally. Now she’s going to be thinking about it all day. About him all day.

She pointedly doesn’t acknowledge the car sitting idle a few spots away when she gets out of her car, or the person behind the wheel. Thankfully Hunter doesn’t give her any trouble, getting out of the car or into the classroom. Her brother is used to this routine by now, and when they get into the classroom he kisses her goodbye on the cheek before darting off to find his friends. Bethany sees Alex’s daughter run over to greet him, and she smiles despite everything, a little envious of how easy they have it.

She can’t decide if she wants to linger in the classroom longer, or hurry back out to her car. She doesn’t know if she’d rather miss Alex or catch him before he leaves; get to the bottom of her two unanswered texts or avoid the confrontation all together.\

Hunter notices her still hanging around by the cubbies a few minutes into playing, and screeches at her from across the room that she can leave now, and well, he’s made her decision for her.

Alex is still there, in the parking lot, car running. She’s not really expecting that, so she takes a few moments on the way back to her own car to mentally prepare herself for whatever is coming, if anything. She knows there’s a chance that she’s blown everything out of proportion, that they’ll ignore it for the sake of being polite, if he even talks to her at all.

He looks up from the steering wheel when she’s a few feet away, and Bethany gives a small wave, ready to get in and drive off if he didn’t make a move to interact with her further.

But he’s getting out of his car, now, and Bethany can’t tell if her nerves are from the relief that he was waiting for her, or the dread of whatever was coming. Bethany is very aware of what a hot mess she looks like, very aware that she looks as tired as she feels - but ignores it in favor of noticing him. He’s wearing a t shirt of some band she’s never heard of but probably wouldn’t like. He looks good in those jeans, too. He always looks good.

Normally that’s something she could appreciate, but Bethany kind of hates it right now, inadequacy catching up to her.

“Hey, Bethany.”

“Hi Alex.” She says, and then waits. She’s tried talking to him over the last few weeks, and she just ends up feeling stupid when he doesn’t answer. She figures that if he had something to say to her, he could initiate the conversation. She’s starting to get tired of trying, with him. Especially with Seaplane still stuck in her head, especially after that night at the beach. She feels a little bitter.

“I’m sorry,” he says first, leaning against the side of his car.

Bethany stands on the other side of the white parking line, has to acknowledge it as the metaphorical line she feels drawn between them. One that wasn’t there before, one that he drew with his two-week absence.

“Why are you sorry?” She asks, and even though his words do alleviate some of the anxiety balling her stomach in knots, it doesn’t take away all of it. She wasn’t expecting him to apologize, figuring she was just acting her age and that he was busy, but now she realizes that her fears were kind of confirmed. It was something.

“For not getting back to you.” He scratches the back of his head, and Bethany tries to ignore how awkward it feels - how awkward she feels. It’s kind of a bummer; being with him was always easy.  Why was it so weird now?  Alex continues, “It...wasn’t intentional.”

How could it be anything but intentional? “I’ve been pretty busy, anyway.” Bethany tells him, not a lie, then asks, despite herself, “Did I do something?” Because she’s 17 and an idiot, and if it wasn’t her, what else could it possibly be?

“No,” Alex answers immediately, sincerely, then, “It’s not you. It’s me, kind of.”

Bethany blinks at him. “Okay?” It’s not you, it’s me? Seriously? “What do you mean?”

“Here goes,” he clears his throat. “The truth is, as much fun as it was hanging out with you guys..." He stops, runs a hand through his hair. He looks frazzled, tripping over his own words. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re all great, but...I guess I just feel...” He pauses. “...weird.”

“What do you mean?” She asks again. He felt weird? Bethany’s the one who feels weird.

“I’m not 17 anymore,” Alex tells her. “I have two kids. I’ll be teaching you guys in a few years.” He continues, “The last time I saw you, I spent the entire night worried that I was going to run into someone that I know, or someone from work, and then I’d have to explain why I’m hanging out with a bunch of teenagers.”

Bethany gets it. Really, she does. Sure, she thinks the bond they have is different, forged in the game and unshakable in the real world, but that’s because it just happened for her. The things that happened in the game happened such a long time ago for him, of course he wouldn’t feel as comfortable with them as he used to. They weren’t in Jumanji anymore, he’s not 17 anymore. Of course he had to worry about his real life.

“It’s alright,” she tells him, finally. “I don’t want you to feel weird.”

Alex is quick to say, “It’s not like it’s you. I like you. All of you. It’s just, I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”

“Okay.” Bethany really does understand. She was worried about it too, someone from school seeing her with Alex, or a friend of her parents seeing them together and making assumptions.  Bethany hesitates before she asks, “We’re still friends though, right?”

Bethany has begun to make her peace with the fact that he’ll never see her as anything other than a girl in high school, but she doesn’t know how she would feel if he didn’t want to be friends at all, after all of this.

“Of course we are,” Alex says surely, and the look in his eyes is sincere, honest. “Bethany, you are the only reason I’m standing here right now. We’ll always be friends. That won’t change.”

“Okay,” Bethany says again, chewing on her lip. She doesn’t know if she feels better or worse. Better, she supposes, now that everything is out in the open. Worse, a little bit, because she was hoping it was nothing. And this is not nothing. “Thank you for being honest with me.” Even if this conversation did nothing but make her feel more 17 than ever.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says again, after a beat of silence. “I wasn’t trying to blow you off or anything. I was just trying to make sense of everything before I saw you. I don’t want you to think I’m jerking you around.”

“I don’t think that.” Bethany tells him. It might feel that way, but Bethany knows better than to blame that on him. It was a weird situation for the both of them. She can’t blame him for trying to navigate it as diplomatically as possible. She can’t blame him for her own feelings.

“Okay.” He says. “I really am sorry. I’m still working this whole friends thing out.” He’s like, “You know, it’s weird. You were gone for so long, sometimes I forget I can just pick up the phone and call you.”

Bethany blinks at him, mind registering his words. But before she can answer, the sound of a car pulling into the parking lot has her looking up, away from him. She takes a unconscious step backward, further away from him. But the car drives by them, the driver not even acknowledging them, and Bethany lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in. Maybe Alex had a point.

When she looks up at him again, he’s staring at her, or, at her chest, with a weird look on his face, eyebrows pitched together.  “You’re wearing the necklace.”

“Oh,” Bethany looks down at it. She must have forgotten to take it off last night before she passed out in bed. It’s resting against Justin Bieber’s flippy bangs, embarrassing. Why did she wear this shirt to bed, again? “Yeah.”

Alex opens his mouth to say something, then closes it like he’s changed his mind. Then repeats the motion again, like a fish out of water. Finally, hesitating, he’s like, “That was a gesture of friendship.” He says. “You know that, right?”

Bethany holds in a sigh. Yes, she did know that, but she loves the reminder - standing in the parking lot of an elementary school, in her Justin Bieber T-shirt from the 7th grade, in her crocs . “Yes, Alex. I know that.”

“Okay.” He says again, sounding as awkward as Bethany feels. And again, “I’m sorry.” He scratches the back of his head. “I’m still trying to figure this ‘friends’ thing out.”

Bethany almost tells him that it shouldn’t be this hard, or this weird. It wasn’t always easy, with her conflicting, schoolgirl feelings for him, but Alex is important to her. And Bethany wants whatever he’s willing to give her. And if that’s just friendship, then she’s fine with that. And it’s simple, easy.

Or it should be, anyway.

Alex steals a glance at his watch, which Bethany assumes is a ruse to get out of the weird situation they’ve found themselves in. “I have to get going,” he tells her, “but text me anytime, alright?”

“Okay,” Bethany says, because what else is there to say?

They get into their respective cars, and Bethany waits for him to leave. He waves, before he pulls out of his parking spot, and then Bethany is left alone to process what just happened. She sighs, rests her head on the steering wheel and sighs again.

So much for enjoying her day off. Seriously.

.

“I can’t believe you’re making us watch this absolute trash.” Fridge groans, like he always does when it’s Bethany’s turn to host movie night. Bethany doesn’t know why he’s complaining. They’ve been doing this for months now, he really should have gotten used to her choice in movies.

Bethany rolls her eyes at him, and starts the movie anyway. “Can you get over yourself? Like, seriously?”

“I have to agree with Fridge.” Martha says, and Bethany turns to her, hands on her hips. She expected this from Fridge, yes, but not from Martha. Not from her best friend.

“Speak one more word against Twilight and movie nights are cancelled forever.” She warns, but doesn’t mean. “I mean it.”

“You play this every time.” Spencer says, unhelpful and unnecessary. “Didn’t we watch this last month?”

“That was part one. This is part two.”

Fridge scoffs. “That’s two parts too many.”

“You’re two parts too many!” She snaps, not the most intelligent retort in history, but it’s her turn to pick the movie, damn it. She can choose Twilight if she wants. It’s her emotional support film of choice, and she needs it, after this morning.

“What is your problem?” Fridge asks, always needlessly confrontational.

“Nothing.” Bethany answers. She’s not going to get into it right now - the Alex thing. What would she even say, that she hurt her own feelings for no reason, yet again? “I’m just tired.”

“You need to get laid,” Fridge tells her. “For real. Get a boyfriend to watch this with you and save movie night for movies that are actually good.”

“Exactly.” Spencer agrees, then backtracks, “Not the getting laid part. Just the movie part.”

“You don’t get to say shit,” Fridge tells him. “Your taste is trash, too.”

Bethany feels her patience thinning. She doesn’t need a boyfriend, she doesn’t need to get laid. “None of you get to say anything.” she tells them. “It’s my turn to pick the movie, and I’m picking Twilight.” She continues, “And Fridge, if I need a boyfriend, you need a girlfriend.”

Fridge scoffs. “I do just fine. Trust me.”

Their constant bickering and unnecessary slandering of Twilight aside, it’s a successful movie night. Bethany’s always at ease when the four of them are together (for the most part), and her friends always help her forget her problems (for the most part). Soon after the movie, they end up at the 24-hour Subway by Bethany’s house.

Bethany’s picking at the veggies that have fallen off of her chicken flatbread when Fridge says suddenly, “Don’t look now, but Sean Thompson just walked in, and he’s staring right at you, Bethany.”

Bethany looks up, her instinctive reaction to the words, ‘don’t look now’. Fridge wasn’t joking, she meets Sean Thompson’s gaze almost immediately. He really is staring, which is weird considering she hasn’t talked to him since before her and Noah broke up.

She smiles briefly, before looking away. She doesn’t want him to get the wrong idea, or think that they’re talking about him. They are, but he didn’t need to know that.

Spencer raises an eyebrow, asks in between a mouthful of bread, “Tom Who?”

“Sean Thompson.” Bethany corrects him. “He graduated last year. He was on the football team with Noah, and he would text me all the time before Noah told him off.” Noah was pretty possessive for someone who hated how clingy Bethany was.

“And why is that so terrible?” Spencer asks.

“Would you like it if some guy was texting me all the time?” Martha asks, and Spencer’s eyebrows furrow in thought. The frown on his face indicates that, no, he wouldn’t like it.

Fridge is like, “He’s coming over here, by the way.”

“Should I just take my chances and run?” Bethany’s confident she could make it to the door before he gets to their table. She doesn’t want to be mean, but she also really doesn’t want to deal.

It’s too late to run, unfortunately, because Sean is standing at the end of their booth, with a smile on his face.

“Hey Fridge, Bethany.” He seems to draw a blank when he looks at Spencer and Martha, staring at them in silence for a solid moment before he settles with, “Uh, guys.”

“Hey, Sean.”

As far as Noah’s friends go, Sean was the least terrible out of all of them. Which sounds like a thinly veiled insult, but Bethany really didn’t mind him. Maybe it was the grade gap between them, but he wasn’t as immature as most of the boys in Bethany’s school, present company included, and he made her laugh. But after the day she’s had, Bethany just wants to hangout with her friends, unbothered.

He asks about their summer, about what they’ve been up to. He and Fridge go back and forth about football for a minute, about Fridge’s summer conditioning, and the upcoming season, the state of the team now that a few key players have graduated. Bethany really isn’t paying attention, content to stare across the booth at Martha, who’s making a face to stress how weird this whole situation was.

Bethany isn’t paying attention, until Sean says, “So, Bethany. Are you still with Noah?”

Bethany shakes her head. “He’s dating Lucinda.” She thinks that he should know that, being the good friend of Noah’s that he is, but she figures that’s what happens when you graduate: you miss out on all of the high school drama.

“You deserve better than him, anyway.” He says with a smile, cute and boyish. Bethany isn’t liking where this is going. He’s like, “Are you dating anyone? Maybe we could see a movie.”

“Oh,” Bethany falters. “I’m - I’m flattered, but I’m kind of doing my own thing right now.”

Before today, before Fridge had rudely suggested she needed to get laid, Bethany hadn’t really thought about having a boyfriend. Maybe she would have been into him last year, before the game; Sean was cute, in a clueless-yet-adorable kind of way. But now Bethany kind of feels like she needs more than that. And she’s pretty sure she won’t find what she wants in Sean Thompson.

“What about homecoming?” He asks with a tilt of his head. “You’re gonna need a date for that.”

“That’s months away.” Martha answers for her. “It’s only June.”

“My window of opportunity won’t be open for long.” He says with a wink. “I’m just putting it out there.”

Bethany blanks on an excuse, other than the fact that it was literally the middle of summer and she hadn’t even begun thinking about school, or homecoming.

Thankfully, Fridge comes to her rescue. “She’s going with me,” He tells Sean, tone leaving no room for argument. He raises an eyebrow, challengingly, takes a bite of his sub because he has zero chill. Around his mouth full of food he says, “Step your game up.”

“Fridge,” Bethany warns, before he can say anything else totally uncalled for. She glances back up at Sean, whose still got an easy smile on his face. Clueless, yet adorable.

He shrugs, clearly not offended. He’s like, “Well, if anything changes you have my number.” He raps his knuckles against the table. “See you later, guys.”

It’s a miracle her friends wait until he’s out of earshot before they start going in on what just occurred. Martha’s like, “That was stressful. Now I have anxiety.”

“You and me both.” Spencer says. “Being a girl must suck.”

“Only if he’s ugly.” Bethany supplies, half-joking. Then, she remembers what Fridge told Sean, smiles at him. “Gonna take me to homecoming?” She teases, leaning against his bicep. She looks up at him, bats her lashes.

Fridge rolls his eyes, pushing against Bethany face with a giant hand on her cheek. “Not if you’re gonna make it weird.”

That’ll be nearly impossible for Bethany. “How could I not make it weird?”

“You already have,” he answers. “So I guess it doesn’t matter.”

Martha invites her to spend the night, when Bethany drops her off at her house. She wants to, but she’s got work the next day. Bethany thinks she could just get her stuff and get ready at Martha’s, but then she’d have to drive home, drive back, and take a shower in Martha’s weird shower, the settings of which she can never figure out. Plus, knowing them, they’d stay up all night talking and wouldn’t get to sleep until the early morning. It’s tempting, but not worth the chance of getting less than 6 hours of sleep.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t talk in her driveway for an hour.

“Why don’t you want to go out with Sean?” Martha asks, like Bethany needs a reason. “He’s cute.”

Bethany has half a mind to ignore her. “I’m telling Spencer you said that.”

Martha snorts. “Whatever. I’m just saying, maybe a boyfriend wouldn’t be such a bad idea. At the very least it would help take your mind off of other things.”

Take her mind off of Alex, she means. Martha doesn’t need to say his name for Bethany to know who she’s talking about. He’s always somewhere in the back of her mind, anyway.

Bethany sighs. “Yeah, maybe.”

Martha’s got a point. There was no better way to get over someone than to get under someone else. Not that Bethany would sleep with Sean, or anyone, but the sentiment is the same. A distraction might help, until her feelings for Alex weren’t so strong.

But was that even fair?; Sean was a nice guy, and he didn’t deserve to be led on. She can’t get into a relationship knowing that she’s not over the last person she fell in love with. Wasting someone else’s time with something half-hearted in an attempt to get over something real would just make Bethany feel...guilty.

More than she already does.

.

She feels every pound of the weight of her body as it smacks into the ground, swears that her spine has splintered just like the wooden posts she’s fallen through. She squints at the ceiling through her vision swimming with spots, at the Oberon-shaped hole in the middle of the roof of the Bazaar, a quiet hush falling over the NPC patrons around her before they quickly go back to their business, like it never happened.

Bethany sits up, rubs at her head before replacing her discarded hat. She knows that she doesn’t really have time to sit there and catch her barrings or her breath, the weight of the last time she was here fresh on her mind. The crack of gunshots echo somewhere around her, lost in the vastness of the Bazaar. It’s impossible to tell where they’re coming from, she doesn’t have time to wonder. She shoves her foot into the boot that had flown off on impact, scrambles onto her feet and takes off.

It’s useless; she can’t go fast in this body. Sheldon Oberon might have been something of a genius but what good was that if she couldn’t outrun the motorcycles she knows are coming after her?

It’s just like she remembers; stalls piled high with mountains of spices, glittering diamonds and rubies and gold at every table. She even thinks she sees the guy that inadvertently killed Fridge with pound cake (and yes, she deflecting the blame for that). She doesn’t stop to look at him, or anything else. She knows where she’d be safest - the hideout Alex took them to before they even knew who he was. Back when he was just a random combination of codes.

She’s surprised that she still remembers how to get to there, pulling the grate over her head to stop anyone from following her down the underground passage. She’s even more surprised that she remembers all of the booby traps set in place, that instinctively she knows where to step, where to stop, when to duck.

It’s a breeze through the rest of the passageway, until she gets to the wide crevice between where she is and where she needs to be, the deep trench filled with alligators that separates her from the outside. She puts down the plank that’s propped against the wall, ignores the way it shakes, unstable.

Don’t think, she knows. Just walk . Because if she thinks about it, she’ll lose her nerve, and she’ll die. She’s not fearless like Martha was, leaping from the waterfall with no hesitation, and Seaplane isn’t here to hold her hand and help her across, but she can’t afford to waste any time. Not until she knows she’s safe. She nearly trips halfway down the wooden board, the snap of alligator teeth so close to her ankles psyching her out for a moment, before she leaps across the rest of the gap. She leans against the wall for support, takes a few deep breaths to settle her nerves, before pushing through the rest of the passage, until she sees the door at the end of the tunnel.

She’s nearly blinded by the sunlight, after being in the dark for so long. She looks back at the way she came - a random door in the middle of the woods. She remembers the first time she came here. She knows the hideout isn’t far from here, just a few dozen feet into the woods, hidden in the trees.

It’s just like she remembers, when she finds it; the candles, still burning, the lights strung above her head. She looks around at the details she’d thought she’d forgotten. She runs her fingers over the name carved into the wood, the one Alex said had built all of this. Alan Parrish.

She’s thankful, for him, for giving Alex a safe space in all of this chaos. For giving her one, too.

She hears a snap behind her - footsteps on the forest floor. Her entire body tenses up, and she can still feel the bullet in her shoulder from the last time she was here - at the waterfall, when she had hesitated too long and gotten herself killed.

She waits for it, but the pain of getting shot doesn’t come, and she turns, slowly, heart beating out of control. If it’s not one of Van Pelt’s men, it’s probably an animal, a Jaguar, ready to pounce. She’d almost rather not look, but she knows she needs to know for the next time she’s trapped in a dream like this.

It’s not a Jaguar.

It’s - it’s Alex.

Not...not Alex. Seaplane, his avatar. He’s staring right at her, in the middle of the treehouse, with his aviator shades and pilots jacket. She forgets how to breathe, body frozen. It’s like the jungle stops moving, ceases to exist outside of this moment. She watches him blink, looking at her like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. She knows it isn’t really him, that there isn’t anything behind his eyes but codes and numbers. It’s just his avatar, idle and unfeeling.

It doesn’t matter, it’s him. She doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t care that she’s not in her own body because she crossed the distance between them, reaches toward him, and feels nothing but solid muscle and the immediate overwhelming feeling of Safe .

It doesn’t matter that she can still hear the roar of motorcycles in the distance, or that they won’t stop looking for her just because she stops running. It doesn’t matter that when she does have to run again, it will be for her life and in this stupid body she won’t be able to run for long. It doesn’t matter that there’s only one black bar on her wrist. That she only has one life left, that if she dies that’s it.

All that matters is that he’s here, in front of her, and she knows that as long as he is nothing bad is going to happen. He’ll keep her safe, she knows this to be true more than anything. A fact as simple as the sky being blue, or the grass being green. As long as she could feel him right there with her, he was real.

“Alex,” her voice croaks, not her own. She says it again, because it grounds her. “Alex.” She curls her fingers in his jacket, breath catching at how real it feels, cool leather under her palms. He looks the same, after all this time.

She has so much that she needs to say to him. So much that she should have said before, it’s overwhelming. Bethany doesn’t know where to start.

She thinks she’s going to start with how much she’s missed him, how often she’s thought of him in the real world, and wished she could be with him, just like this. She opens her mouth, a stuttered sigh coming out before she can stop it. “Alex...”

His lips twist into a smile, perfect, just like she remembers. And then his avatar breaks into tiny pieces. Pixel by pixel he’s blown away by a breeze Bethany can’t feel. She feels her heart drop into her stomach. Instinctively, blindly, she reaches out for him, fingers grasping for something that isn’t there. The warmth she felt just seconds ago is replaced with instantaneous panic, throat closing.

Wherever he’s going, she needs to follow.  She doesn’t want him to leave. It can’t be over so soon.

It can’t be over.

Bethany wakes up with a gasp, chokes on a breath that comes out like a sob because only a second ago she could see him so clearly. She was a foot away from him, she was touching him. He was right there.

Ordinarily, the sight of her ceiling is a welcomed one. The water stain in the corner, the glow in the dark stars still somehow stuck there since childhood. It’s the reality check she usually needs to calm herself down, to remind herself that she’s safe, she can’t get hurt in her own bed. Not when the game has been destroyed.

She wishes she could feel the relief she usually does. She wishes she could feel anything other than this feeling in her chest, so tight her heart might actually burst. She feels something hot slide down her cheek - when had she started crying? Her heart aches in her chest, so badly she rolls over and breathes a shaky breath into her pillow, a sob wracking her entire body. Why couldn’t she stay asleep, why did she have to wake up?

Why couldn’t she stay with him?

She feels like she’s breaking in two, worse than it’s ever been coming out of a dream like that. She can’t breathe. She needs to talk to Martha, needs her best friend to tell her she’d be okay, because right now Bethany feels like she’s falling apart.

She scrambles for her phone on her nightstand, scrolling through her texts for Martha’s contact, hands shaking so badly she can barely type, eyes blurry with tears. She’s about to click on the little icon next to Martha’s name, but Alex’s texts catch her eye before she can.

Maybe that’s why it’s hurting so bad. Because she doesn’t know where she stands with Alex. Even after their conversation at Hunter’s school, she’s conflicted and confused.

You were gone for so long sometimes I forget I can just pick up the phone and call you

His voice is clear in her memory, he had been so sincere when he said it. Did that mean she could call him, too?

She hesitates, heart pounding, but only for a few seconds, half-disoriented and half-asleep. Definitely not awake enough for her rational thinking to take over quite yet. Asleep enough to ignore what a bad idea it was, pressing the call button next to his name.

On the second ring she thinks she should hang up. He’s probably asleep. It’s nearly 1 in the morning. And even if he was awake, would he answer? She shouldn’t be calling him. It rings a third time, and Bethany berates herself for letting her emotions take her this far as to actually call him.

Now, she has to deal with the hurt from seeing him so clearly in her dream, and the disappointment that that’s all it was, a dream -

“Hello?”

The sound of his voice sends a wave of relief through Bethany instantly, and she almost doesn’t feel the nerves coiling in her stomach; she went through with it, called him and now she has him on the phone, what comes next? “I’m sorry,” she says immediately, mostly to herself.

“Sorry for what?” He asks, voice soft.

For actually letting the teenage girl part of her go through with calling him, in the middle of the night. She feels stupid. But she can’t deny how relieved she is hearing his voice. He might be out of her grasp, but he wasn’t going to disappear like...like he did.

After a beat, when Bethany doesn’t answer, he’s like, “Are you alright?”

Not really. “Yeah,” she sighs. “I am. I just had a bad dream?” Or whatever that was. A good dream. A great dream, before it turned into a nightmare. It sounds childish when she says it out loud. I just needed to hear your voice.

“About Jumanji?” Alex’s voice is a little deeper when he’s talking quietly like he is now. He doesn’t sound angry, not like she thinks he should. She wonders if he was sleeping. She wonders if he has his kids with him tonight.

She closes her eyes, can still see his face so clearly in her mind. Seaplane. She thinks she can still feel the weight of him, pressed against her palm.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alex asks, when she doesn’t answer.

“No,” she says quickly. What would she even say? “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“Not at all. I’ve been staring at a computer screen for the last 4 hours.”

Why is she doing this? Because she’s 17 and bad ideas sound like good ideas to her? But she can’t deny that she’s taking comfort in his voice; and in the fact that Alex is somewhere across town, alive and real, sitting at his computer. Talking to her.

“Do you remember what it’s like?” She asks him, voice quiet. Even though she said she didn’t want to talk about it, she kind of does. “Jumanji, I mean.”

“Of course.” He answers her. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget.”

“Do you ever dream about it?” Like she does.

“Sometimes.” In the background, Bethany can hear the quiet clacking of his keyboard. It’s nice, and almost as soothing as his voice is. “Not as much as I used to.”

“Do you think they’ll ever go away?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “Sometimes I wish they would. Other times I don’t really mind.”

Bethany knows how that feels; she wants them to stop - the dreams where she’s running through the jungle, being hunted like an animal. Tonight, this dream, she didn’t really mind. Wouldn’t have cared if she got stuck in it forever.

“Are you alright?” Alex asks again, and Bethany almost tells him that no, she’s not. That she misses a piece of him that she’d never have - a part of him that was left in the game and in the past. And the parts of him that were still there, tangible and real, she’d never have either. She’s glad he won’t disappear, but it’s almost maddening. She almost tells him that having him right there, nearly in her grasp but out of reach, was almost worse than not having him at all.

She doesn’t. Because she knows that would only cause more problems, and she doesn’t want to push him away more than this phone call already has.

Instead she sighs, lies even though it doesn’t feel right being anything but honest with Alex. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“We can talk about it.” He tells her gently. “If you want.”

She does want to. But what would she even say? That she misses his 17-year old self so bad it physically hurts? That she’d give anything to go back to him? That the day she spent in the game fighting for her life, at his side, was the last time she felt happy? That she dreamt of his face and knows it wasn’t real, that it wasn’t him, but wishes so badly that it was?

She can’t say any of that. Not to this Alex. Not to any Alex. So she’s like, “No, it’s okay. I shouldn’t keep you up any longer.” She feels a little better now, anyway - her anxiety momentarily quelled enough that she might be able to fall back asleep. “Thank you for picking up."

“Bethany...” he starts, before trailing off. He sounds hesitant, like he’s going to say something else, but he must decide against it. He’s like, “I hope you get some sleep.”

Bethany hopes so, too. “Goodnight, Alex.” Alex. Because he’s here. Things between them might not be the way Bethany wants, but he’s real, and he answered. And that’s what she needed.

He voice is soft, perfect. “Goodnight, Bethany.”

.

It’s not a nightmare that wakes her up a few hours later, or her alarm (because seriously, if it’s 11am already she might actually cry). It’s her ringtone, entirely too loud, and as much as she loves this song, it’s a little shrill, and scaring her half to death this early in the morning.

She answers without looking at the contact, if only to make the ringing stop. “Yeah?” She asks, annoyance evident in her voice, clicking low, half asleep.

Fridge’s voice answers back. “I’m running past Freak House right now. You up for a run?”

Bethany sighs. She takes her phone away from her ear to check the time. 5:06. In the freaking morning. No, she’s not up for a run. “It’s 5 in the morning, G. I have work later.”

“Fine,” Fridge tells her. “But when you’re too out of shape to make the volleyball team, don’t cry to me. I tried.”

“Hm.” Like that’s going to change Bethany’s mind, when her bed is so comfortable. There’s no way Bethany is getting up and getting dressed right now - she barely got any sleep. She should, maybe, since all she had for dinner for last week was free froyo and McDicks. But that’s because it’s the only thing open on her drive home. She should, but she won’t, because she’s tired, and bets that if she hung up right now and tried, she could fall back asleep. But...she probably should go for a run.

But...she really, really doesn’t want to.

She sighs, peering up at her ceiling. Damn it. “Fine,” She grumbles. “I’m awake now, anyway.”

“You’re welcome. 5 minutes.” And then he hangs up, because he’s rude. Bethany sighs for the third time in 20 seconds. It’s a wonder she’s not lightheaded.

She squints at her phone again and clears her notifications. A few tags in a few memes from Martha on Instagram, a random Facebook friend request from someone Bethany has never heard of, and one text message.

From Alex.

Everything floods back into her memory all at once. Oh god. She called Alex last night.

If the adrenaline rush from her blaring ringtone hadn’t startled Bethany entirely awake, this definitely did. She sits up, stares down at the message.

From: Alex
Sleep well.

Time stamped a quarter after 1am. It must have been just a few minutes after she hung up. Because she called Alex last night.

She feels so stupid. And what’s worse is that she doesn’t have time for this. When Fridge says 5 minutes, he means 5 minutes. And she doesn’t need him banging her door down and waking up her family.

She leaves her phone on her bed, deciding that it would be too much of a distraction. The phone call was already weighing too heavily on her mind, if she takes the time to process his text, she’ll completely lose focus and end up getting hit by a car.

5 minutes is usually enough time for her to find her sports bra in the pile of laundry on her chair in the corner that she still had yet to fold, throw her hair in a ponytail and run downstairs to fill up her water bottle and put on her shoes before Fridge gets too impatient.

He’s standing on the sidewalk in front of her house when she leaves, locking the door behind her. He takes one headphone out to greet her. “Are you good?” He asks. “You look weird.”

Of course she looks weird. She’s a mess. And no, she’s not good. Still, it’s rude of him to say that to her face. “Gee, thanks.”

They start their run down Bethany’s street, and veer onto the main road. Usually they just stick to the side streets, but Fridge must want to run through the waterfront park. The sun hasn’t completely risen yet, and Bethany squints against the headlights of the cars that pass them.

“Do you still have like, dreams?” She asks him, a few minutes in. They typically run in silence, with their headphones on, but right now Bethany has so many thoughts running through her head she think she might go crazy if she keeps them bottled up. “About Jumanji.”

“Not really,” Fridge answers with a yawn. “Not since February? March? I can’t remember. Glad all that’s over with. Why?” He’s like, “Do you still have them?”

“Yeah,” Bethany sighs. “A few nights ago. I was at the waterfall, and I died. It was horrible.” She’s like, “Last night, too. I ended up in the Bazaar.”

She hesitates. She told Fridge about the other day - about Alex and the conversation they had in the parking lot of Hunter’s school. She wasn’t planning on it, since she told Martha, but the redhead’s optimism wasn’t any help. Fridge had a tendency to give her the cold, hard facts of a situation, regardless of whether or not it hurt her feelings. He’s a good sounding board, and he tells Bethany what she needs to hear, even if it isn’t necessarily what she wants to hear.

He’s tactless, but Bethany appreciates his honesty, if anything.

“I called Alex,” she admits, and hates the way it sounds when it comes out of her mouth. It’s just Fridge, but her immaturity and lack of willpower is embarrassing to acknowledge out loud. “I don’t know why.”

She glances up at him and Fridge has got an eyebrow raised. “And?” He asks, like he doesn’t see the obvious problem. Like there’s more to it than that, like that’s not bad enough.

“And I don’t know,” Bethany answers. She’s like, “I feel like I did something wrong.”

“Did you?”

Bethany rolls her eyes at his implication. What a perv. “Don’t be gross. We just talked until I could fall back asleep.” Until she felt like she wasn’t falling apart. “Like I do with Martha.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” He’s like, “Why are you complaining?”

Bethany’s not complaining. “I’m not complaining. It’s just...“ Something about the fact that she’s crossing lines she shouldn’t be, ignoring the boundaries she implicitly set for her own sake, and treating him like he’s a guy her age when he’s not?

She doesn’t even remember hanging up the phone with him last night. She was so tired and so worked up from her dream that she can barely even remember what they talked about. She just remembers the soft lull of his voice in ear, how it slowed her racing heartbeat, brought her back into the real world. It was comforting as much as it was sad.

She doesn’t know what’s worse; the fact that she’s doing everything she said she wouldn’t in order to not completely lose herself in Alex, or the fact that she knows she’s doing it, knows she shouldn’t, and called him last night anyway.

Fridge shakes his head, looking ahead. “I don’t get you, Bethany. Isn’t this what you wanted? For like, months? To be friends with Alex?”

“Yes.” Bethany’s like, “Just friends. I’m bad at Just Friends.” Or it feels like it, with how hard she’s actually trying and how badly she’s failing.

“That’s a lie,” Fridge says, surely. “ We’re just friends. We’re great just friends. You just don’t mean it with Alex.”

Bethany knows that’s probably true, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise. She knows she doesn’t do all that she can to get over her crush on Alex. And she knows that she indulges her teenage school girl crush on him too much and too often for any real progress. She knows she shouldn’t be calling him in the middle of the night - that it would just feed into her feelings for him. She knew it last night. And she knows it now.

“Either you want to be just friends with Alex, or you don’t. But you cant be a real friend to him if you’re waiting around for something to happen that shouldn’t.” Fridge is like, “He’s grown, B. And he told you how it is. You’ve got to respect him enough to be what you say you are and mean it.”

Friends. Just friends.

“He’s a nice guy, and he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings so he probably won’t tell you that you shouldn’t be calling his phone in the middle of the night. But you shouldn’t.”

“You’re right.” And he is. As much as Bethany didn’t want to listen to what he’s saying, she should. Because the last thing she wants is to jeopardize what she already has with Alex.

She must be pouting, because Fridge pushes her on the shoulder, not gently. “Don’t be such a baby. You have Martha, and Spencer. And you have me. I’ll always answer your call. Even if it’s late.”

“You always have your phone on silent,” Bethany reminds him. “You wouldn’t pick up even if I did call.”

“Probably not, but it’s the thought that counts.”

A lot of good his well-meaning thought will do the next time Bethany wakes up screaming, but Fridge is right. He’s always right. Bethany doesn’t know why it still surprises her how insightful he can be. It’s kind of annoying.

She does need to let Alex go, in that sense, anyway - for the sake of their friendship. It wasn’t fair; to hold onto the feelings she had for him in the game when that was so long ago in a completely different world. And it wasn’t fair to take moments with him, in his car and on the beach and on the phone, and want more from it when it was already more than Bethany thought she’d ever have with him.

He really was trying to be her friend, despite the things that made it difficult out here, and Bethany shouldn’t be making it harder for him. For either of them.

It’s not a good feeling - realizing that she’s the bad guy in this situation, intentionally or not. And Fridge is right; she can’t be friends and mean it if she’s secretly pining after him. That wasn’t fair to him, and it wasn’t making getting over him any easier. Bethany knows this, deep down.

So why was letting go so hard?

.

It’s a few days later, and Bethany is sitting in her car mentally preparing herself for the 8 hour shift she’s staring down. She’s been on FaceTime with Martha since she pulled into the parking lot, the redhead complaining about her own job at the bookstore attached to the mall. Bethany doesn’t know exactly what she’s venting about - someone rearranging an entire section of books, she thinks - but she’s supportive either way. Martha listens to her complain about her job all the time, Bethany is happy to return the favor.

Her text notification chimes, and her eyes leave Martha’s face to read the text preview that pops up.

From: Alex
How are you?

Bethany stares at the text until the notification banner disappears. How is she? Since they last spoke, in the middle of the night because Bethany has a truly pitiful and almost shameful lack of self-control? Since the text that he sent not long after that she was too humiliated to reply to? Well, she’s lost, confused, and a little embarrassed. And those are in her best moments.

“Did Alex just text you?”

Bethany looks back down at Martha’s face on her screen. She’s got an eyebrow raised, and a knowing look on her face.  “What? Why do you say that?”

Martha scoffs. “You always make this dumb, super intense expression when he does. And your whole face turns red.”

That’s...embarrassing, but good to know.

Martha’s like, “What’s going on? What did he say?”

Bethany sighs. She’d rather not dwell on Alex, or their phone call right before she has to slip into her obligatorily-friendly retail persona and smile for the next 8 hours, but it’s not like she can really keep anything from Martha anyway.

So she tells her. It’s only fair, considering the promise she made not to keep secrets, and she already told Fridge on their run this morning. And if Martha found out that Fridge knew something about Bethany that she herself didn’t, well, it would open a can of worms that should remain buried. Like, forever. Deep underground.

“You should have called me,” Martha says, tone just short of offended.

Bethany should have. She knows that now, and she knew it last night, realizing she definitely should have called Martha the moment not-Martha picked up. Alex had been sweet, and didn’t seem to mind that Bethany called, but Bethany knows she’s crossed a line she shouldn’t have.

“I’ve ruined everything.” All that progress, down the drain, with something as simple as hearing his voice, deep and tired. So how much progress did she really make in the first place?

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Martha tells her. “Alex didn’t mind, right?”

Of course he didn’t, because he’s perfect. And too nice to tell her if he did. “No,” Bethany says. “But I mind. It’s embarrassing. I want him to see me as a mature, functioning adult and calling him in the middle of the night after a bad dream is the opposite of that.”

Martha scoffs. “Like anyone would understand better than Alex. I think you’re worried about the wrong thing.” She’s like, “I’m worried about you, Bethany. This thing with Alex is going to drive you to insanity. Seriously.”

Probably. “I don’t know what to do.” Bethany tells her, honestly. “It’s like I can’t help myself. I can’t stop myself from wanting his attention. It sucks.” As much as it felt like Bethany had changed, sometimes she still feels like she’s 16, vapid and completely selfish.

“You’ll be fine.” Martha assures her. “You just need to set boundaries for yourself.” Martha says. “Like, rule number 1, don’t call Alex after a nightmare instead of your best friend. If anything, it’s just rude.”

“I’m sorry.” And Bethany is. If she had called Martha she wouldn’t look or feel like such an idiot.

Martha is like, “I think it would be a good idea to distance yourself a little bit. Don’t text him back.”

That’s easy enough. Bethany doesn’t even know what she’d say to him. Hey, sorry I’m such a teenage girl. I promise I won’t let my weird inappropriate crush on you ruin the friendship we explicitly agreed upon.

“I wont.” Bethany sighs. “I probably shouldn’t ever again.” Not if she actually wants to get over him.

But how long would that take, really? She already had 5 entire months of radio silence from him after the game that should have quashed down a crush formed in one day, and that didn’t help at all. Was it going to take 5 more months of silence? A year? 20 years? Were they going to have to go back to that - to not talking - just for Bethany to feel like herself again?

What a miserable thought.

Bethany squints at the time on her phone. “My shift is about to start. I should probably go clock in.” She still has 10 minutes until she starts, but really, she just wants to stop thinking about all of this. I’ll call you later?”

“Okay,” Martha says easily. “Try to have a good day. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

It’s busy all day, which normally might be annoying, but today Bethany appreciates the constant line of customers. It helps keep Bethany’s mind off of things, anyway.

Bethany cringes at the sound of the bell ringing on the door. There’s only 20 minutes till close, and she hopes to God it isn’t a group of rowdy teenagers. She just cleaned the condiment bar, she didn’t need a bunch of poor-mannered kids making a mess of it. But she slaps a smile on her face that she doesn’t mean, and a rehearsed, friendly greeting on her tongue that dies halfway down her throat when she actually looks up.

“Alex.” She says, mind blanking.

He’s standing in front of her, hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie. They’re the only two people in the store, and it’s a little weird, given their last conversation, and the feelings Bethany has yet to compartmentalize.  So much for distancing herself.

“Hi.” He says, sitting down at the table closest to the counter. Bethany stares at him because she can’t believe he’s actually here, after their phone call. He seems to freeze for a moment. “Uh, is it okay that I’m here?”

Of course it is. “Why wouldn’t it be?” Like she’d ever complain about seeing him. Bethany’s only surprised, that’s all.

“I don’t want you to feel trapped if you don’t want me here.” He’s like, “It’s not like you can leave.”

“It’s okay.” Bethany says. Does she feel trapped? A little, but not because of him. Because of her own stupid feelings for him, and the looming embarrassment she feels. “It’s been a slow night anyway, and my phone is dead.” Both lies, but she feels bad ignoring his text from earlier, now that he’s sitting in front of her. She leans against the counter. “So what’s up?"

Alex shrugs, fiddles with the napkin dispenser on the table. “I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

“What do you mean?”

“You sounded really upset when you called the other night,” he says. “And then I didn’t hear from you for a few days. Are you okay?”

Bethany mirrors his shrug, self-conscious and awkward. “I just felt bad calling you so late, after what we talked about. I thought it might be better if I gave you some space.”

She won’t elaborate on that; won’t tell him that until just the other day there was a small part of her that secretly hoped things might work out the way she wanted them to. That despite the time they’ve spent together, platonic and nothing but friendly, she still hadn’t accepted the reality of their situation until Fridge spelled it out for her. Until Alex spelled it out for her.

Now, Alex is making a confused face from across the counter. “Bethany, I didn’t meant you can’t call me.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, I should have just talked to you about all of this. I don’t want you to think not talking about it is how I deal with things, or how I want you to deal with things with me.”

Alex says, “Bethany, I meant what I said. We’re friends. If you need me, I’m here for you. And if something is bothering you, you can talk to me about it.”  He continues, “I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for you. You saved my life, Bethany. You can call me no matter what time it is. I owe you that much.”

“Okay.” She’ll keep that in mind, the next time she has a nightmare like that. But she won’t forget how she felt the last few days - maybe it would stop her from embarrassing herself completely. But he’s sweet - and nicer than he needs to be towards her. She appreciates how thoughtful he is. As a friend.

“Why are you out so late?” She asks him, a tactical subject change. She looks at the time on her register. It’s nearly 11, almost closing time.

If he notices her obvious diversion, he doesn’t mention it, or steer the conversation back. She’s thankful for that, at least. Alex tells her, “Second job during the summer. I give drum lessons at Guitar Center in the mall.”

“Wow.” That’s adorable. “That’s so cool.”

He smiles, “It’s definitely not what I imagined myself doing when I was 17, but it’s something.”

Bethany almost feels bad. She already felt bad, but she almost feels worse. With his kids, and his job - well, jobs - she feels guilty for adding her problems onto his already full plate.

He leaves when she has to lock up the store, before she starts putting the perishable toppings into the fridge in the back, before she starts wiping down the machines. He tells her, “Call me if you need me,” and she knows he means it.

But she won’t take his permission for granted, this time. She’s learned her lesson, and she even starts to feel better about her place in his life. He was incredibly busy, but he was still making time for her, checking up on her when she probably didn’t deserve it.

He’s not asking her to, but Bethany swears she’s going to try harder to not add any more weight onto his shoulders. For his sake. He was being a good friend, she promises that she’s going to try to do the same.

.

It’s the Fourth of July, and normally she spends it with her family. They find a nice spot on the bridge to watch the fireworks go off over the water, then they all get soft-serve on the way home. But her dad is away on business, and the idea of soft-serve after working a 40-hour week surrounded by froyo makes Bethany feel sick. So her mom is taking her brother along with a few of his school friends and their moms to watch the fireworks. Bethany managed to weasel her way out of that, with the promise of being super attentive to all of the screaming children at Hunter’s birthday party on Saturday.

It’s not like she has big plans with Fridge and Spartha, since they’re also watching the fireworks, but Fridge was able to procure a case of beer, and if it’s a choice between beer and babysitting, well, teenage rebellion always wins out.

“Don’t stay out too late,” her mom tells Bethany as she’s sliding her feet into her flip flops, halfway out the door, in a hurry to join her friends so Fridge stops honking obnoxiously in front of her house. “I need you to be up early tomorrow to help me set up for the party.”

Bethany was kind of hoping she’d be able to escape quickly enough before her mom could remind her, and sleep in long enough to skip the set up and wake up just in time for cake, but a deal’s a deal. And she’s a good daughter, if anything. “Yes ma’am.”

Her and Fridge scoop Martha and Spencer up just as the sun is setting, and by the time they park his van by the lighthouse, the fireworks are just about to start. The four of them find a spot on the train tracks that run along the water, a good enough spot to see the fireworks, but far away enough from any prying eyes that might have something to say about a group of teenagers drinking and getting loud. Fridge brought the beer, as promised, and Spencer brought a few camping chairs. Three, to be exact, which is one too few, but Bethany figures she can just sit in Martha’s lap. If Spencer doesn’t call it first.

“Are you sure we’ll be able to see anything?” Spencer asks, squinting up at the sky. “I feel like we should have gone to the bridge.”

“The bridge is going to be too crowded. We’d just be staring at the backs of people’s heads all night.”

“The fireworks are in the sky,” Spencer says. “Just look up?”

Fridge is like, “I’m not driving all the way back to the East Brantford bridge. There won’t be any parking spots left. This is our spot. Deal with it.”

Unlike Spencer, Bethany isn’t complaining. It’s a perfect night, warm with a soft breeze. She can’t imagine being in better company.

“PBR?” Fridge offers, and Bethany grimaces, because Pabst Blue Ribbon is a shit beer, like all beer, but takes one anyone since it’s the Fourth of July. Who is she to spit in the face of tradition?

To her surprise, Spencer and Martha take one too. Bethany kind of figured that after the hangovers the both of them had after Casey’s party, they’d be over the whole underage drinking thing.  Martha makes a face after her first sip and Bethany tries not to snicker at it but really, how did she end up with such a baby for a best friend?

“I’m gonna shotgun mine,” Fridge warns, seconds before he actually does. It fizzes and spatters out of both ends of the can, nearly soaking Bethany and Martha, who are huddled up in their chairs, side by side.

“Why do you have to show off all the time?” Spencer asks, exasperated.  “What are you trying to overcompensate for?”

“Don’t be a hater, Gilpin.”

They stop bickering just in time for the fireworks. They really do have a perfect spot, the silhouette of the lighthouse a backdrop against the sparkling lights. Bethany’s favorite fireworks are the plain yellow ones - the ones that shoot up like comets and burst into bright  glittering tendrils, the ones that take up the whole sky, that you can hear whizzing in the air before they pop and drift back down in a trail of shimmering stardust.

It’s romantic. Bethany has always thought so.

She looks over at Martha and Spencer, with his arm wrapped around her, and her head on the crook of his shoulder.

She’s drunk, somehow, off four shitty beers, and her emotions did tend to tip the scales in her inebriated state. She’s so happy that they found each other, that she found Martha, that Martha found Spencer. She doesn’t think she ever really loved Noah, not for real, but she remembers the feeling of infatuation, the butterflies and the glitter. She’s glad her best friends get to experience it with each other.

It’s weird - maybe it’s the fireworks, or the alcohol, or the heat of summer, or the fact that it’s been so long since she’s thought of anyone that way, (or anyone she actually had a chance with) but Bethany almost misses the feeling of wanting someone and having them want you back just as badly.

Maybe Fridge and Martha were right (it wouldn’t be the first time). Maybe Bethany did need a boyfriend. Or at the very least, someone to fill her time, and to distract her from her own feelings. Someone to share moments like these with.

She won’t worry about it now, though. Fridge is sitting in the ground in front of her chair, has his back against her legs, and she leans against him, resting her chin on the top of his head. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, and he puts a hand against hers, warm and real, and she doesn’t see Fridge that way, but she loves him, and she’s glad to share these moments with him.

She’ll pretend she’s not wishing her arms were around someone else.

She gets home later than she’d like - considering she has to be up early to help out with her brother’s party. But it’s not her fault; Martha insisted that they sit there long enough to sober up before Fridge took them all home, well after the fireworks show had ended. Spencer actually ended up driving the van, and what should have been a 20 minute drive home turned into a cool 35, since he’s the most paranoid, defensive driver in Brantford.

She’s still a little tipsy when she flops down on her bed, head heavy, room spinning - but in a nice way. She’s not tired, she’s been staying up until 1am for work for the past few weeks, her sleep schedule is so out of wack she feels wide awake. She’s bored.

She considers her TV, but she’s too tipsy to really pay attention to Netflix right now. She scrolls through her phone, likes a bunch of Instagram posts, even goes on the tumblr she hasn’t updated since last year. She gets a text from Martha, the I-made-it-home-okay text that she insists she sends her every time they hangout. Maybe she should call her. They just spent hours together, but it’s not like they could talk about anything interesting, not with Spencer and Fridge in such close proximity. She’s still got a lot of feelings to process about Alex showing up at her job, and wants to hear Martha squeal about it again. Then again, she’s too tipsy to shoot down her reckless enthusiasm. Maybe she should call Fridge. He’d bully her into accepting reality, which is probably what she needs right now, because all Bethany really wants is to call Alex.

She’s drunk, and bored, and lonely, and she wants to hear his voice. Only this time she doesn’t have the excuse of a nightmare; she can’t blame it on anything but her own real feelings, and her lack of self-control.

She stares at her phone, considering. He did tell her it was okay - but was it? Just because he had given her permission didn’t mean she had to take advantage of his kindness; even if she’s drunk and the sound of his voice is the only thing she really wants to hear right now. She swore she was going to try harder. It feels like she’s not trying at all.

She knows better. She knows she knows better, and she knows that she can’t keep finding excuses and loopholes in their friendship to try to make something more out of it when she should just accept it for what it is. She knows that the longer she lies to herself, the longer it would take to get over him, and the harder it would be.

But she can’t just sit here anymore, feeling sorry for herself, wanting someone she’ll never have. Martha was right, what she had said the other night -

Maybe a distraction would be a good thing.

She scrolls through her contacts, until she sees the name she’s looking for. Sean Thompson. Her thumb hovers over his number, hesitating. She’s going to call him. She shouldn’t, since it almost feels like a chore, and what kind of relationship starts out with reluctance? She’s already so spread thin emotionally, Bethany should be weary of what she’s possibly getting herself into.

But she can’t talk to the person she actually wants to talk to, can’t do anything with the person she actually wants. And she has to do something.

She puts the phone up to her ear before she has the chance to change her mind, and wishes it was a different number she was calling. Wishes she didn’t wish that in the first place.

It rings twice before he picks up. “Hello?”

“Hi Sean.” She stares at her ceiling, it’s only spinning a little. “It’s Bethany.”

There’s a pause. “Really?” He sounds as disbelieving as Bethany feels. She’s really calling Sean Thompson after the big deal she made about not liking him just a few days ago. She’s a hypocrite, and a big drunk baby, but at least she’s not calling Alex. She’ll take her victories where she can get them.

“Do you want to go out with me?” She asks him, because normally she’d play games, but she’s too drunk and too defeated to be anything but straightforward. But it’s weird to hear herself saying those words. She’s never the asker, has only ever been the askee. “Like, on a date?”

There’s another pause. “Really?” Sean asks again in disbelief. He probably thinks she’s crazy, since she so surely rejected his offer of a date only days ago. He’s like, “What changed your mind?”

She thinks of Alex, immediately. And the unshakable truth that they’d never be anything more than awkward friends at best, no matter how much she wanted more. He was unattainable, he always would be, every version of him. Seaplane, Alex Alex, they’d always be out of reach for Bethany. Holding on to the hope of him and her and them together was going to damage her, possibly beyond repair. If it hadn’t already.

But she doesn’t say any of that to Sean. Even when drunk she’s not a complete moron. So she’s like, “This summer is probably going to be really boring otherwise.”

It was headed in that direction, anyway. What was the harm in filling her free time with someone who would take her mind off of him?

She had to move on eventually.

Why not now?

.