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She first hears about him because Karma is a little bit obsessed. Okay, more than a little. It’s a full on crazy, wild sort of obsession. And yeah, Amy sees it. He’s attractive, sure. He’s got nice skin and the hair is well, it works. So whatever. But he’s Liam Booker. He’s got girls draped all over him and his ego is probably the size of like Saturn or something and he’s never even looked at Karma
(“Not true,” Karma protests immediately. “We had Psychology sophomore year. One time, he bumped into me. Eye contact was definitely made. So there.”)
Amy doesn’t know him, but she’s never liked him.
.
Then the whole Karma thing happens and their lips meet and her whole world explodes. Amy knows that she’s a goner, down the rabbit hole and all that, but Karma’s still making googley eyes at Liam like she doesn’t feel it too, like there isn’t a chord linking her heart to Amy’s and Liam’s finally looking back because he thinks she’s a fucking lesbian, and god can you say douche? But Karma’s happy, a literal bubble of energy and Amy wants to believe that it’s her, that it’s her hands in Karma’s hair that’s causing her to smile, but she kisses her lips and they taste like Liam.
.
She agrees to the threesome, because she wants to show Karma that this thing between them is real, that they could be something with a capital s. She hadn’t really thought about Liam being there, he’d been a kind of thing in the back of her head, not really existent, like maybe if she didn’t think about him then he wouldn’t really be there. That works for a little while, she doesn’t think about him at all when her lips are pressed against Karma’s. She’s forgotten about the entire world, like she’s just drowning in Karma and she thinks maybe she feels it too-- can see this amazing confusion and wonder on Karma’s face--but then Liam kisses Amy, appearing out of the blue like some sort of fuck you from the universe, and everything goes to shit.
.
It had been nice, the kiss, she supposes, if you discount the fact that it basically ruined her entire life. That kinda surprises her, not that Liam Booker would be a good kisser, that’s probably a duh if she thinks of all the girls he’s kissed, but that she would enjoy it, him kissing her. But she pushes it out of her mind, because nothing matters but Karma and their kiss, the kiss that should have changed everything, and Karma’s face when Amy had kissed Liam back, all betrayal and teary eyes.
.
“Amy, hey,” she hears from behind her.
She turns around and Liam Booker is jogging towards her, looking like a freaking abercrombie model, all unfastened jacket and perfectly tousled hair.
“What do you want Liam?” she asks, shifting from foot to foot, glancing around to see if anyone is watching them.
“Karma’s not talking to me,” he says and there’s something in his face that reminds Amy of a puppy dog, like a lab terrier or something adorable with big eyes and a furrowed brow. Amy is sure that look gets to Karma, but it has no effect on her.
“And?”
“Well,” he says.
“You thought you’d ask her girlfriend if she was mad at you,” she says, crossing her arms, enjoying the way that he looks uncomfortable. “Talk to her yourself.”
“Nice talking to you, too,” he calls to her back.
On no account does she think about the way that he had kissed her, hands pressing into her back, mouth slanted over hers. No way, Jose. No. She really didn’t.
.
She tells Karma she loves her and it’s like explosion take two, except not the good kind. Because instead of it being butterflies in her stomach, it feels like bombs, like every time she tries to move another one goes off.
She sees Liam and he looks just like her, wrecked, and suddenly they’re reaching for each other. It shouldn’t make sense, but it kind of does.
.
He kisses her like he’s drowning and he touches her on the right side of perfect and she clutches him to her, because she needs something (and because she wants to make Karma hurt as much as she does, it sounds terrible but hey, it’s the truth).
.
Amy had thought that when she had realized that she was in love with Karma it meant that she was a lesbian. She’d never really, well, done anything with a guy, and if someone had asked her her type she would have said red hair, curvy and named Karma. But sex with Liam felt good, she means like physically, the emotional aftermath was shit, but the actual act was dare she say it, kind of nice.
.
Afterwards (after she’s kicked him out of bed and he’s stared at her like a lost puppy and he almost dies falling out the window) she decides that they’re going to pretend like it never happens. It’s not like he really gets a say in the matter, because hey, she told her best friend that she loved her and she rejected her, she thinks that’s a bit more of a reason to get trashed and sleep with a random, not random stranger than his “this girl was actually not a lesbian and just into me the whole time” thing. Ughh. It never happened. It never happened. It never happened. If she says it enough times, maybe it’ll become true.
.
She shows up at his house, because she’s desperate, like really desperate. If she’s desperate enough to even be talking to Liam Booker, it’s like a very intense level of desperate. But when she gets there, it’s not exactly what she was expecting. Because she could have imagined the big house and the pretty sister and the money and the overbearing parents and hey, she probably could have even imagined the skwerkle thing, but she didn’t imagine the coldness and the disappointment in his dad’s voice and the way Liam would look scared and wounded. She guesses she didn’t really imagine that Liam was a person with a story and problems and people who had hurt him. She also didn’t imagine he would look at her in that stupid, stupid way that she hates, because it makes her stomach do a thing that he’s not supposed to have access to.
.
Her phone dings in the middle of the night.
Liam: do you ever think about it?
Amy doesn’t reply. If she doesn’t say anything, she can pretend that she has a different answer to his question.
.
Karma finds out and Amy thinks it’s the worst thing that ever happened to her. She’s running around in a panic and when she finds Karma and Karma holds her to her it’s like she’s releasing a breath, exhaling into Karma’s forgiveness.
When Liam is yelling and looking at her with pleading eyes, looking at her like she’s betrayed him, she wants to say “you love her too, don’t you understand?” but she just keeps her mouth shut and hides behind Karma’s love. She’s always been too much of a coward to fight for the things she’s believed in.
She doesn’t want to remember the way that his body had felt under her hands or the way he’d pressed her name into her skin, like a brand. Amy. Amy. Amy. But she does. She does remember. She sighs and allows herself to acknowledge the truth: they’re in it together, thick or thin.
Bye Karma, she whispers, a prayer for forgiveness.
.
They sit watching the stupid abstinence movie--it’s ridiculous and Amy remembers a time, not long ago, when she and Karma would have mocked it together, feet in each other’s laps, laughter loud and bright--in dead silence. The tension could be cut with a literal knife. Amy had never really understood that phrase before now, but she’s starting to really feel it.
Liam keeps stealing glances at her and shooting meaningful looks her way and Amy wants to tell him to cut it out--like seriously, could the guy look more guilty?-- but she’s trying to appear contrite and yelling at him probably won’t help their case much.
She can’t stand the silence, but when they finally do speak, it’s not much better.
Karma’s vicious and Amy finds herself defending Liam before she can help it. She doesn’t know when she started thinking of him as something other than the obstacle between her and Karma’s happiness, but he’s maybe something kind of like a friend. Just a little bit.
“Wait,” Karma says, and there’s something in the way that she looks between Amy and Liam that Amy doesn’t like one bit, “was this more than a one time thing?”
Liam and Amy both scramble back and away from each other, as if putting distance between them might lessen the fact that maybe there were some kind of feelings between them or whatever. Because it’s not like they did it more than once, but he’s seen her naked which is not something a lot of people could say and she saw his house, which Shane has only been to like once, and she still has his mom’s dress hanging in her closet, and okay, she maybe kind of doesn’t hate him anymore, not that she would ever admit it.
.
Her phone buzzes.
Liam: hey.
A quick response.
Amy: why are you texting me?
She sets the phone down and then picks it up again. New message.
Liam: can we talk? i need a favor.
A sigh and then her fingers start typing.
.
“Okay, so what do you need?” she asks.
It’s cold outside and she’s shivering in her thin shirt and wishing she’d agreed to meet somewhere with heating, but she’s too proud to invite him inside. He looks uncomfortable, something Amy rarely sees, and it’s rather satisfying. She prefers seeing him rattled to the put together, douchebag Liam that generally inhabits Hester High.
“Myparentsstillthinkwe’redating,” he says, all in a rush.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. Maybe try saying it at a normal speed. Geez.”
“My parents still think we’re dating and kind of strangely they rather like you and they want you to come to this Christmas party and I didn’t know what to say, so I told them you would.”
“Why didn’t you tell them we broke up?” she asks, huffing.
She and Reagan aren’t really at the point in their relationship where Amy would think she’d be okay with her fake dating someone else. Particularly if that someone was the person she may or may not have lost her virginity to.
“My entire family was there and they kind of pressured me into inviting my girlfriend and I hadn’t told them about Karma and I, so they thought it was you and I’m kind of in a bind. Amy, please. I really need this.”
And maybe Amy is crazy, but she feels herself sighing and saying, “Alright, what do I need to do?”
They’re friends, right? Friends do things for each other.
.
Amy doesn’t tell Reagan about the party. Or Karma. Maybe she should, but it would just cause complications that she doesn’t know how to deal with.
She puts on a dress and has Lauren help her with her makeup. Even though Lauren sniffs and pesters through the whole thing, Amy can tell Lauren’s kind of glad she asked her.
“What is this anyway?” she asks, brandishing the eyelash curler like a weapon, “another date with your punk girlfriend?”
“It’s not anything.”
Lauren hums in an all knowing way, which Amy knows means she should probably watch her back for awhile.
Amy texts Liam and tells him to wait down the block.
“Sorry,” she says, when she enters his car, “I didn’t want Lauren snooping around.”
She turns and finds him looking at her.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing,” he says, turning back to the road, but his hands are gripping the steering wheel too tightly.
“No. Really, what?”
“Nothing,” he repeats, his eyes flashing towards her briefly, “you look nice is all.”
Amy doesn’t know what to say, so she doesn’t say anything.
.
The room is crowded, packed full of more glamorous people than Amy has ever seen in her life.
“Wow,” Amy says.
“Liam! Amy!” Liam’s mom/sister calls, kissing them both on the cheek so swiftly that Amy doesn’t have time to protest. “It’s lovely to see you, my dear. I’m so happy you could make it.”
“Of course,” Amy says, trying to force her lips to smile in a normal way. Judging by Liam’s face, she’s only mildly successful.
“Thank you for inviting me,” she adds, hastily.
“It was nothing,” Liam’s sister/mom says, smiling in that fake way that rich people seem to have down to a tee, “Well, make yourself at home.”
“Right,” Amy says, “Can do.”
Liam’s mom/sister disappears, already moving towards the next, obviously more important, guest, leaving behind a trail of expensive perfume.
“Okay,” Amy says after a moment of silence, rubbing her hands together, “Does this party have the same shrimp as the last one? Because I’m a big fan of shrimp. Like wow. Shrimp are great.”
He shrugs.
“I really have no idea,” Liam says and Amy thinks they’re both thinking about the fact that they’ve never really spent that much time together if it wasn’t some sort of dire, Karma related circumstance.
She starts off towards the center of the room and turns back and sees Liam standing there. He looks lost.
“You coming?” she asks.
.
They end up taking some shrimp and a bottle of champagne that’s probably ridiculously expensive and going to sit out by the pool. It’s kind of cold, but they don’t want to go back inside, so they sit on the lawn chairs and watch the lights reflect on the pool water.
“I’m going to work for skwerkle next summer,” he says out of the blue.
“What?” she replies, “Why? I thought you hated them.”
He’s gazing off towards the house, which is the only reason she feels okay about actually looking at him. She realizes she doesn’t do that often. In the light like this, mouth soft, eyes old, Amy can almost see what Karma saw in him.
“I do,” he says, “God. I wasn’t going to say anything about this. It just came out. Things tend to with you.”
“I’m pretty good with the word vomit and all,” she says, which is of course terribly awkward and not helping, “Like right now. Sorry.”
He laughs. It’s a nice laugh, Amy thinks, though she doesn’t really know why she feels the need to classify it and it’s not even like a distinctive thing, like most people have a pretty nice laugh, unless they like snort or something or like that high pitched thing that’s always grates on her ears, but it’s not like a big deal or anything. He has a nice laugh, so what?
“Why did you notice Karma?” she blurts out. “Was it the lesbian thing? Because I never really got that, because if that is the reason, like, god you are literally the worst, but you don’t really seem like you’re that terrible of a person.”
He looks sort of taken aback, but then he slumps.
“I don’t really know,” he says. “Honestly, the lesbian thing was kind of hot,” he holds up his hands at her wrinkled face, “Hey, you wanted the truth. But...I don’t know… I think I wanted someone who wasn’t as jaded as me, does that make sense? She seemed so innocent, you know?”
“Yeah…” she says.
The silence drags on for a minute and then, “She was my best friend.”
She doesn’t know why she feels the need to justify the thing that she and Karma had, she just does.
“Was?” he asks, eyebrows tilted.
“Is,” she corrects hastily, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “She is my best friend.”
“Do you, you know?” he asks, turning to look at her.
“Honestly?”
“Yeah,” he says, voice this kind of low and throaty thing that makes the conversation more intimate than Amy was expecting.
“I don’t know,” she says, surprised at how honest she is being, “I think maybe part of me will always love her, but part of me is ready to let her go.”
He nods his head like he understands and Amy thinks he probably does. Of anyone else in the world, he’s probably the one who understands the best.
“Amy,” he says and something in the quality of his voice has her standing hastily.
“Let’s go inside,” she says.
.
Inside feels suffocating. There are too many people, and the hand that Liam places on her waist to keep up the couples charade is burning into her skin.
“You okay?” he asks, looking down with concern.
She is trying to think of a way to maneuver away from him without causing another scene. She doesn’t know why she suddenly feels the need to put a little space, like a continent or something, between them.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says, smiling distractedly.
“Look. Mistletoe,” this pudgy twelve-year-old, probably some kind of demon cousin, cries, pointing at Liam and her and sure enough when Amy raises her head, she sees the dreaded plant leering down at her. Typical.
“Kiss, kiss, kiss,” he starts, turning it into some sort of weird obnoxious chant.
Amy wants to punch him in the face.
“Cut it out, Josh,” Liam says.
“This means you have to kiiiiiiiss, right?” he says, his voice carrying that mocking tone that suggests that while he personally thinks it’s disgusting, he’s going to stand right here and watch it. Perv.
“We don’t have to, if you don’t want,” Liam says, looking at her with worried eyes.
Amy thinks of Karma and Reagan. She thinks of Liam’s eyes out at the pool and the strangled way he’d said her name. She thinks of “do you ever think about it?” and the way he had tasted last time, like champagne and heartbreak.
She realizes that she’s decided to kiss him only right before she does. He freezes and she thinks for a second that that’s going to be it--they pressed lips together, the mistletoe is happy, stupid cousin Josh is happy, everybody’s happy, no problem, but then he’s kissing her back.
His hands reach up to cup her face, deepening the kiss and it’s like explosion part three.
She remembers thinking that he was a good kisser when he’d kissed her in that stupid hotel room, but that had been brief, barely a moment in time. She remembers thinking he was good kisser when he pressed her into her sheets, but they were drunk and the whole night seems like a strange blur, like something that happened to someone else.
This time there’s nothing stopping her from experiencing the full effect of kissing Liam Booker. Amy runs her hand through his hair, presses herself closer to him, allows herself to fully kiss him. He tastes like shrimp and things she shouldn’t want. When they draw apart, foreheads pressed together, her breath comes out in ragged gasps.
“What the hell was that?” he whispers.
Amy has no idea.
.
“So Liam told me what happened,” Shane says the next day.
Amy looks at him sharply, eyes wide and frightened.
“Relax, I’m not going to tell anyone you’re his secret girlfriend.”
Amy feels her muscles unclench, “I’m not his secret girlfriend. I was just helping a friend out.”
“I wish I had friend who would help me out,” he says, raising his eyebrows, “if you know what I mean.”
“Eww. Gross,” she says, batting him off, “It’s not like that. There’s nothing going on between Liam and I.”
“If you say so,” he says in a sing song voice.
.
Liam: i can’t stop thinking about that kiss.
Amy types the words into her phone, then deletes them, then retypes them. She stares at them a long time before she hit send.
Amy: me neither
.
Amy breaks up with Reagan because it feels like the right thing to do.
“Why?” she asks, “Is it because of Karma?”
“No,” Amy says, “This has nothing to do with Karma.”
“What then, Amy? I thought this was going good.”
“It was. I just-” this is more difficult than she thought it would be, “I’m having feelings for somebody else and I didn’t think it was right to lead you on.”
“Who?” Reagan asks.
“I…”
“Amy. It’s not like you have that many friends. Who is it?”
Reagan is upset and Amy hates making people upset.
“Reagan. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen. It just did.”
“Okay. You’re not going to tell me," she says, gathering her stuff with sharp movements, "Fine. I knew this was a bad idea.”
“Reagan.”
“Bye, Amy.”
.
Amy cries after Reagan leaves, stares at her phone and waits for it to ding, tries to pretend she’s not disappointed when it doesn’t. She goes downstairs and watches a movie with Lauren, some sort of cheesy romance movie that she would never pick out herself, but finds herself enjoying. She and Lauren mock the main couple, but she thinks they’re both happy when they get together in the end.
Her phone buzzes in the middle of the movie and she promises herself she’s not going to check it until she’s out of sight from Lauren. Lauren looks at her oddly when it goes off once, twice and then a third time, and she doesn’t pick it up.
“What?” Amy asks, taking a handful of popcorn.
“Are you going to get that?” Lauren says, gesturing to the phone.
“Later.”
“Girlfriend drama?” she asks, but there’s no bite to it.
“Nope,” she says, “I’m just watching the movie.”
“Alright, then. Weirdo,” she says and turns back to the screen.
.
Liam: can i see you?
Liam: i need to talk to you.
Liam: if you don’t respond i’m going to come over.
.
Amy sees his car and sneaks outside. She thinks she probably looks like a mess. She’s wearing sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt that used to be her dad’s and her hair in a messy bun. She thinks of the girls that she usually sees Liam with, all perfect hair and lined eyes and flowy dresses. She thinks of Karma, tries not to feel inadequate.
“I broke up with Reagan,” she says the moment she sees him.
He looks surprised and starts towards her, removing himself from the side of his car.
“What?” he asks, his eyes are this sort of vulnerable thing that Amy’s rarely seen and finds she really likes.
“We’re not together anymore,” she says, her voice getting shakier as the distance between them lessens until she can feel the heat of him against her.
“Does that mean...?” he asks.
She doesn’t answer, just leans up and kisses him. Unlike the other times they’ve kissed, It finally feels like the start of something. There are a lot of things still up in the air, things to be pondered and figured out and discussed, but for now, she just presses closer to him, curls her fingers in his ridiculous hair, ruffling the strands, swallows his smile.