Chapter Text
When Josie Forbes-Laughlin woke up on the first day of school, her first thought was “oh fuck me.” Her second thought was about whether or not it was possible to live the rest of her life in her bed.
She rolled over, gripping her pillow just a little tighter to her chest, hoping that somehow it could offer a semblance of support.
The pillow did nothing, and she groaned when she realized that she’d drooled all over it again.
Lizzie was right, she had a problem.
She rolled back to face the ceiling, staring up at the fairy lights adorning the roof. She tried to count how many there were. If she was going to stay in this bed for the rest of her life, she should find some activities to keep her occupied.
She got up to twenty-six before a knock sounded at her door.
“Josie?” A voice called out.
She groaned. The door slowly opened and Josie looked up, trying her best to not look like a complete zombie.
Her mum, Caroline peaked her head through, smiling.
“Hey Jo. We’re making pancakes downstairs as motivation, so get your butt out of bed and come join us!”
Josie sighed. She could already smell the beautiful scent wafting up the stairs to her bedroom. It was a pretty good incentive.
Fine. She would get up, eat the pancakes, and then sneakily return to her bedroom without her mothers noticing. It sounded like a great plan.
Her mum took her new expression of interest as agreement to come downstairs, and she left.
Josie kicked her legs over the side of the bed, shivering as her bare feet met the cold air.
She needed to talk to her mothers about the air conditioner, and if they could possibly turn it down just a little in the mornings. Even if Lizzie loved the cold. As the two had discussed many times, Lizzie would make a brilliant Princess Elsa.
Josie would prefer Princess Rapunzel. She’d be brilliant at the whole quarantining herself in a tower for eighteen years. Just nothing but her, books, her ukulele, and maybe she would let her friends visit on the weekends.
Lizzie could come if she promised not to touch any of Josie’s stuff. Josie swore that Lizzie was responsible for at least sixty percent of her missing hairbands and scrunchies.
Josie dressed herself quickly, trying to pick the best outfit for the first day of school. Something that was mature enough that people weren’t looking at her wondering if she was a Year 9, and something cute enough that people wouldn’t think that she was a really young teacher.
Josie would love to say that that had never happened before, but Hope and MG would violently disagree. At the time, she’d had to stand awkwardly and wait for about five minutes for them to stop laughing.
Little traitors.
She picked a little bit of lint off of the edge of her sleeve, and pulled down her skirt so that it sat comfortably around her hips. A little voice in her head asked if there was a reason why she had picked this specific yellow t-shirt, rather than the nice blue one that she bought from the little beach store, or the white one with the flowers.
That little voice knew exactly why it was asking, and Josie wanted to smack it straight out of her head. She had tried countless times over the summer, but to no avail. It seemed that she was stuck with an annoyingly observant subconscious.
She shook her head. Less arguing with the voices in your head, and more eating pancakes.
That sounded like a great motto for the year.
When she got downstairs, Lizzie wasn’t down yet. Josie wasn’t surprised. It would take a miracle to get Lizzie out of bed early. When she saw that her mum wasn't downstairs yet, Josie figured that she was probably trying to figure out how to wake Lizzie up without Lizzie just falling back asleep instantly.
In the meantime, Josie dribbled syrup all over her pancakes, before taking a bite. Delicious, as always.
Her other mother, Josette, walked out from the kitchen.
“Hey sweetie. You ready for your first day? I know it’s a big one. Year 11, you’ll be graduating before you know it!”
Josie groaned.
“Don’t remind me. I would rather not focus on my imminent doom.”
“Hey, don’t be down on yourself. You’re an intelligent and independent girl. You’re going to smash it.”
Josie took another bite of her pancake.
“I know. I’m just stressed about school, I always am. I do this every year; you’d think that I’d have learned not to do this by now.”
Her mother sighed.
“Don’t worry about it, it’s natural.” She pursed her lips, and Josie immediately knew that what her mother would say next was something that she probably didn’t want to hear.
“Is it just school that’s stressing you? Or is it something else?”
Josie looked down at the table. There was a little notch in the table that Josie was pretty sure Hope was responsible for. She ran her fingers over it and tried to find an answer to her mother’s question.
“I’m trying not the think about the ‘something else’,” Josie answered honestly.
Her mother sighed, and Josie was positive that she was in for a deep talk, one that she definitely did not want have right now.
Thankfully, for all her faults, Lizzie did have the gift of amazing timing.
“Oh my god these look so good! Mama, thank you so much!” Lizzie practically tackled Jo with a hug, once that was received with a smile. Their mother followed afterwards, taking a seat next to Lizzie.
“I’m glad that you like them so much. Now, eat up, I’m sure that you’ll be wanting to get to school nice and early so that you can meet up with your friends," their mother told them.
Lizzie huffed.
“You mean MG and Raf, because the other member of our party decided to be a traitor.”
Josie sighed.
“Lizzie, can we not do this right now?”
Lizzie looked at Josie with narrowed eyes.
“Don’t tell me that you’re going to forgive her.”
“There’s not really anything to forgive. I mean, I’m a little mad at her, because I thought she’d take my side on this, but at the end of the day she didn’t really do anything wrong.”
Lizzie huffed again.
“You say that as if the two of you didn’t have the biggest fight I’ve ever seen you two have over this.”
Josie shook her head.
“And you need to stop acting as if you’re just being a good sister and you’re taking my side. I heard you guys yelling outside, remember?”
Lizzie looked down at the table, and Josie felt a little bad for saying that. Even if Lizzie had been the one to bring it up in the first place.
Their mums eyed them nervously, but didn’t try to start any more conversations. They ate the rest of their pancakes in silence.
+++
Josie was lucky that her and Lizzie managed to get such a good park. She knew that in a matter of minutes, all the students of West High would be descending upon the car park like ants on a fallen piece of food.
It probably had to do with Lizzie and her inability to drive below the speed limit. Honestly, the amount of times that Josie had been certain that Lizzie was going to get pulled over was rising unnecessarily fast.
Maybe Josie should take the wheel on the way home.
Josie scanned the grounds. There were already so many students milling around, talking to each other, or walking to get to their lockers.
Lizzie sighed and brushed her hair back over her shoulders.
“Are you ready Jo?”
Josie swallowed. She was not remotely ready, but she remembered once hearing that when you weren’t feeling confident, the best thing was to act confident, and then you’d end up believing that you were.
It sounded like a solid plan. It was just like acting, like playing any other role. Today she would play the role of Josie Forbes-Laughlin, the girl who was totally not bothered by anything or anyone, who was ready to walk through the front doors and deal with anything.
She straightened her back and nodded.
“Let’s do this.”
The twins marched through the front doors and collected their new locker numbers from the front desk. Lizzie’s was in the same hallway as Josie’s, which both of them were excited about, as it meant them not having to walk halfway across the school to see each other.
Josie could recall countless times when she’d been late to class, because she’d stopped by Lizzie’s locker, and then had to sprint to get her stuff and get to class before the bell rang.
They were on their way to their lockers when they ran into a friendly face.
“Hey girls! What’s up?” Milton Greasley, better known to his friends as MG, asked. He opened his arms for a hug, and Josie willingly obliged. MG gave really good hugs, and he distributed them to basically anyone who came his way.
“We’re just on our way to get our lockers,” Josie explained as she pulled back.
MG held out his hand to Lizzie, and she sighed and gave him a fist bump. Lizzie was one of the people that MG had learnt long ago would never hug him. Once he had learnt that she didn’t want a hug, he had quickly accepted, and opted for other methods. Lizzie pretended like it annoyed her, but Josie knew that she secretly liked that MG cared enough to make an exception for her.
“I’ve already got my locker. One of the benefits of my mother being Principal. Even if it meant getting up at the crack of dawn.” He yawned to prove his point and Josie giggled.
“Come on, I’ll go with you. Raf’s already here, his locker is near the science rooms, so we can go get him after you guys have put your stuff away. I don’t know about Hope though,” he stopped for a moment, scanning their faces as they both fell. “Except I’m assuming that you guys still aren’t talking?”
Josie sighed and nodded.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s totally a big deal. She betrayed us in a time of need,” Lizzie argued.
Josie honestly didn’t know why Lizzie was so worked up over Hope. She knew that they’d had a massive fight, one that was definitely bigger than her own with Hope, but she didn’t know any of the details. Lizzie had completely shut down after it, and Josie knew better than to push when Lizzie was in a mood.
She did of course have her theories about the fight, after all, she’d seen the way the two of them had been acting around each other in the weeks going up to the fight.
But that was an issue for another day that wasn’t also the first day of school.
MG nodded.
“Right, well, let’s just get to your lockers.”
The walk there was filled with mindless chatter. Josie hadn’t seen MG all summer, because she’d been away at drama camp. She’d texted him of course, but nothing compared to seeing one of your good friends in the flesh.
Lizzie chipped in as well, but Josie knew that the mention of Hope had gotten her riled up. Josie thought that she just needed to talk to Hope so that she could stop whining and get her best friend back.
Although, Lizzie might only decide to forgive her if Josie forgave her first. Which meant an awkward conversation which Josie again, did not have time for.
Rafael found them just as they were putting away their stuff. Trailing behind him was Landon, but Josie ignored him as she greeted her friend with another hug.
“Hey Raf. It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too Jo.” He nodded at Lizzie and she smiled back at him.
Lizzie and Raf’s past was a little weird. They had dated for a month back in Year 9, but quickly realized that they weren’t right for each other. It would have been fine, except Raf had sort of dumped her at Homecoming, which led to Lizzie hating him for a whole year. Now they were back to being friends with each other, and Josie was so very glad, because she didn’t think that she’d be able to deal with much longer with that awkwardness.
“Hey Jo, Lizzie, MG,” Landon greeted, bobbing his head and waving awkwardly.
Josie met his gaze and gave him a small smile. MG hugged him (of course), and Lizzie did nothing. Lizzie had never really liked Landon, for reasons that she had never been very specific about, but again, that was a topic to think about on another day.
He sighed.
“Right, well, I’m gonna go find my friends. I’ll see you Raf,” Landon said, walking away somewhat awkwardly.
Rafael sighed once Landon was out of earshot.
“So, we’re being weird around all of her friends?”
Lizzie nodded firmly, and Josie shrugged.
“It’s a show of strength for our girl.” She patted Josie’s shoulder to emphasize her point.
Rafael nodded.
“Right. I’ll make a note to pretend that Landon doesn’t exist.” He grinned, clearly trying to lighten the mood, but Lizzie glared at him and he just awkwardly cleared his throat.
“Okay, so are we just going to stand here for the rest of the morning? Assembly’s in ten, we could make our way to the gym and try and get good seats?”
Josie was about to answer when she caught a flash of red hair and immediately looked to see who it was. Judging by the way Lizzie’s hand still resting on her shoulder tightened, she saw it too.
It was Hope.
Josie felt a little sad that she wasn’t able to call out to her friend right now, welcome her over and talk to her about her summer. Hope had been her friend since she had come to the school, and now their friendship was broken because of one reason.
One stupid reason.
Josie sighed.
“Raf’s right, let’s go to the gym.”
They all turned around and walked away. Josie was just glad that Hope hadn’t seen her. It would make it all the harder to ignore her if she saw the look on her face.
It was at this very moment that the reason for all the misery and broken friendships turned the corner and came into view. Because the universe really just liked to play with Josie's feelings.
Josie’s heart stopped.
It was really her. Penelope Park.
Josie instinctively looked her up and down. Of course, Penelope had chosen to wear an outfit that made her look stunning. White shirt, top button undone, black choker, skirt that was painfully short.
Josie torn her eyes away from Penelope’s very nice legs, and met her eyes.
Those stupid green eyes.
The eyes that Josie had fallen in love with.
The eyes that had looked at her as Josie held her heart open, the eyes that had barely filled with a tear as she tore Josie apart.
The eyes that now had the audacity to fill with shock, as if she had somehow thought that Josie wouldn’t be here.
She knew that her friends were probably looking at her right now, checking to see if she was okay.
She wasn’t.
Because walking down the hallway was her ex-girlfriend, the one that had broken up with her barely a week into the holidays.
Josie wanted to say something, to cry out, to scream something, anything at her. Or maybe she wanted to move forwards and pull Penelope towards her, to kiss her as if there had never been any distance between them at all.
“Hey, Josie!”
Josie was pulled from the trance that Penelope’s green eyes had somehow pulled her into, and turned with a smile to see the owner of the voice.
Jade bounded up the hallway to her. Josie took a few steps, and suddenly Jade’s arms were around her.
Josie knew that Jade probably had something to say to her, probably wanted to ask how Josie was or something, but the sight of Penelope had turned her blood to lava, and she needed to do something to reduce the burn.
So, she closed the distance between her and Jade, and kissed her softly on the lips. Jade made a little noise of surprise, but kissed her back all the same. It was nice, even though Josie knew her friends would be judging her for the PDA in a moment.
She pulled back and Jade smiled at her, eyes just a little bit wider.
“Woah. That was unexpected,” Jade commented, a small grin finding it's way onto her face.
Josie moved her eyes away from Jade, scanning the hallway. Penelope was very noticeably gone.
She stuck her slowly falling smile back to her face, and slipped a hand into Jade’s, smiling up at her girlfriend.
“Come on, we’re gonna go get seats for the assembly.”
They walked away towards the gym, rolling their eyes at their friends' heckling and teasing, not even noticed that a pair of green eyes were watching them as they left.