Chapter Text
The practice was going really well… up until the drumstick slammed into the back of Farrah’s head.
“Ouch! Hey-”
The young woman yelped as the wooden stick smacked the back of her skull, promptly fumbling the cord she had been playing. Thankfully, she’d had the sense to be wearing the guitar’s strap for once, so there was no disastrous smashing of the instrument. As cool as rock musicians always made it look, those things were expensive. The last thing Farrah needed was another expense on top of rent and tuition.
She turned around, one arm naturally finding lodging on her hip, and turned to the sheepish-looking girl with one less stick than she should be holding. Farrah raised an eyebrow. “I know you’re the drum expert, Mattie, but I’m fairly sure that’s not how the trick goes.” She rubbed the back of her neck that got struck, but her typical smirk was slowly creeping back on her face. Honestly, it was sort of funny. If Farrah had seen it happen instead of being on the receiving end, she’d probably be rolling on the floor by now.
“Sorry!” Mattie shrugged helplessly, although the sophomore knew from experience by this point that the girl could be more devious than she initially came across. “I’m not even sure what happened there. It looked really cool on the tutorial online...!”
“Was it a tutorial on how to assassinate someone with a drumstick?” Farrah deadpanned.
On the girl’s left, their bass player snorted. The brunette always seemed amused by the antics of their band. Farrah had to admit that all of them were very amusing individuals, though, so she couldn’t really blame Eva for laughing. Behind her, Clark was trying hard not to chuckle himself as he busied himself with his guitar. Farrah had her back to their pianist, but she would have bet money that Reese was also smiling.
“Well,” Mattie seemed to consider it. “I mean, it wasn’t marketed that way. I’m not sure a drumstick would be sharp enough to murder in that way. Maybe if I tried it with a knife or something—”
“ NO !” All four of the other members chimed in at once, in various states of panic over the suggestion. The youngest girl was a decent drummer, seeing as she’d only started taking lessons recently, but that did not mean that she was going to be allowed anywhere near sharp objects at any time soon. Mattie had a record of being easily distractible and often clumsy, which led to a lot of things breaking when she was around. If the rest of them hadn’t already been so attached to the girl after only a few months, it might be easier to be mad about this.
Eva adjusted her glasses. Her brown eyes were sparkling. “Let’s stay away from cutlery as instruments in general, yeah?” She joked, adjusting the bass in her hands. Mattie nodded. She was still lost in thought over what had gone wrong with the trick.
The sophomore placed her own guitar in its case a few feet away, trying to rub the sleepiness out of her eyes. She hadn’t slept at all well the night before. Rehearsal was rehearsal, however. That meant pushing through.
(Still, a girl can only sustain so many head injuries before she called it quits for the day.)
“Okay, good session.” Farrah yawned as she leaned against the wall of the practice room and watched the others gather their stuff. “But I think that’s good enough for today. Love you all, but I don’t think I’d ever live down getting a concussion from this.”
The pianist snorted as she stretched, the pigtails she was wearing today bouncing around as she did. Since the university practice rooms came equipped with a keyboard and a drum set to avoid students having to cart their own back and forth, Reese had pretty much finished packing her stuff already. Her sheet music had been stuffed, as it always was, back into the horrifying mess of papers and books that made up the contents of her backpack. “It would probably get us some press, though! Don’t you think? ‘Local band recovers from head injury’! I bet the Tigers Talk column would even feature us.”
“Not,” Farrah rolled her eyes in the senior’s direction. “Exactly the kind of publicity that we’re hoping to attract there, Reese. Besides, when has anyone ever read the school paper? I’m not even sure where you get them.”
“Eva would know, wouldn’t you?” Clark teased, swinging his guitar case over his shoulder. It was decorated with many more stickers than Farrah’s was. She always liked looking at it, because he seemed to rotate them out every so often. Right now, she could spot a new one with the Giles Corey University initials overlaid with music notes. Very on brand.
The bassist shrugged. “It pays to be informed, alright? They’ve got some interesting articles! Besides, if I want to work on the weather broadcast senior year, I have to at least pretend to make friends with the journalism majors.”
Behind her, the blond was still smiling. “Informed, right… so it has nothing to do at all with how you’re in love with the editor or anything, then.” Clark teased. The boy easily moved out of the way of Eva’s fist as she tried to sock him in the arm. “Hey! Don’t silence the truth, Sanchez!”
Mattie giggled as she maneuvered her way next to Farrah, drumsticks now tucked securely into her backpack’s side pocket. “Is that the same editor you met in that creative writing seminar? Why don’t you just say hi already? They were cute!”
“I can’t just say hi to them!” The brunette tossed a sheet of paper in Mattie’s direction, scowl not lining up with her warm eyes.
“That’s actually the standard way to meet someone, Vee.” Farrah smirked as she pushed herself off the wall. When she got back to the apartment, she was going to take such a long nap. Possibly until the next day.
The slight blush on Eva’s face indicated that, despite her scowl, they were definitely talking about the right person. “Okay, fine. Say I do that. Then what would I say? ‘I’m Eva Sanchez and I’ve been in love with you since I saw you freshman year in creative writing two years ago?’ I don’t think so.”
The singer was about to make a retort when she felt her phone buzz in her back pocket. She always left it on silent for rehearsals, although it had only just started to become necessary. Before a few months ago, no one had ever called Farrah. The only person from back home who she kept in touch with was her father, and the two of them had never exactly been close. Her other friends had been made exclusively in college and didn’t exactly need to call when she was about fifty yards away from them at any given time.
But now, however… “Ugh.” Farrah made a face, clicking the power button twice to deny the request when she saw who it was.
“Your future step-sister again?” Reese wondered as the five of them wandered out of the practice room. The lights in the hallway switched on automatically as they trudged down the concrete corridor.
“Who else?” Farrah nodded, tucking her phone back into her pocket. She didn’t want to deal with this on top of everything else. “Honestly, you’d think she’d get the hint already. This is like the fourth time she’s called in two days.”
The others nodded sympathetically.
“Are you ever going to talk to her?” Clark asked, running a hand through his hair. “Maybe she’s great!”
The brunette shot him a ‘who’s side are you on’ kind of look. “I don’t need to talk to her. It’s not like either of us are little kids or anything. Our parents can do what they want, but we don’t have to be a part of this. I don’t know why she’s so desperate to connect, anyway.”
Farrah adjusted the guitar case on her shoulder. Behind her, she could hear Mattie begin to say something before she tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. Reese caught her before completely lost her balance. “Whoa there, girlfriend! Maybe watch where you’re going before you dole out advice.”
“I’m fine! My shoelace just came untied.” The cheer never left the youngest girl’s voice. It was a little uncanny. “But, anyway. Farrah, you have to at least call her back…!” It was also uncanny how often she was right (not that the older girl would ever admit it). “What if she’s, like, famous or something?”
“She’s not famous.” Farrah rolled her eyes, although she was walking the farthest in front, so the gesture was rather empty. Still, she hoped her tone conveyed the same visceral response. “Trust me.”
“Whatcha do, make a fake Facebook account and friend her or something?” Eva chuckled, sticking her hands in the pocket of the jean jacket she was always wearing.
“No!” The sophomore gave the bassist a side eye. “... Her profile is set to public. That’s totally different.”
The rest of the four group members laughed as they reached the upper part of campus. This is where they almost always split off. Reese and Mattie went right towards the freshman dorms, where Reese was an RA and the younger girl resided. Clark and Eva both lived off campus, but they typically headed up to the parking lot together. That left Farrah traipsing to the left, back to her own resident hall.
Reese was smirking. “Totally different, yeah…” She and Mattie exchanged a look before they started heading down their road. “Alright, well, same time on Tuesday?”
The blond boy flashed a thumbs up. “Sounds good! I’ll see you all there, then!” He chuckled. Clark loved that phrase, which made it sound like they only ever saw each other in the rehearsal room. Realistically, Giles Corey was not a very large school. The amount of ‘hey, long time no see’ jokes they told as a band made Farrah’s head hurt.
(Still, it wasn’t as if she didn’t feel happy to run into them. All four of them were nerds, really. But they were her nerds. She wouldn’t change that for anything.)
Her phone buzzed angrily again as she waved goodbye to the drummer and the pianist. Clark had to dash off to a study session, which left just Farrah and Eva.
“You should pick up.” The bassist gave her friend’s hand a squeeze. “Talk to the girl. Maybe she’s nice?”
The shorter girl crossed her arms. She knew that Eva (as always) was right. That didn’t mean she had to admit it. “Yeah, right. You didn’t see all the Bible verses on her story the other day. Pretty sure we aren’t exactly going to be besties.”
Her companion grinned. “I’m pretty sure you don’t have to be best friends with someone to just answer their phone calls or texts once in a while.” The two of them had reached Farrah’s dorm without the girl realizing it.
“Yeah, yeah…” Farrah rolled her eyes as she took out her pass card and swiped it at the reader, unlocking the door. In her back pocket, Annleigh O’Daniel’s call proceeded to be sent (yet again) to voicemail. The singer had to say one thing for her new step-sister: she was probably one of the most persistent people that Farrah had ever come into contact with, and she hadn’t even officially met the girl yet. “Whatever.”
Eva started to backtrack, walking backwards towards the parking lot like the deranged campus tour guides they always made fun of. “Just think about it, will you?”
Trust me, the sophomore thought as she stepped into her dormitory, It’s always on my mind.
“And if you look to your left,” Riley Williams gestured to her right, since she was walking backwards facing today’s tour group (as she always did). “You’ll see the main campus library!”
As the few members of the tour took in the red brick building, the redhead took a moment to catch her breath. It had been a while since she’d taken the long route. Usually, the campus walk started here and then took in the dorm. However, since one of the parking lots was still being renovated, they started down by the main gate and walked upwards. The senior loved her job and her school, but sheesh! Even after four years, the hills still took a lot out of you.
Grabbing a drink from the water bottle she was carrying, Riley surveyed the members of today’s trek. Most of them were the average mixture of people that she always saw. Parents with their high school students scouting out if it was a good match. Young adults interested in a career or a graduate program. The few younger children who had clearly been brought out of necessity of being watched more than anything else. You got good at reading people when you worked in this field. Some tours needed tons of energy. Others, the mood was quieter, more reserved.
After four years, the redhead knew exactly what everyone wanted to see. Riley wasn’t Giles Corey’s best tour guide for nothing, after all.
Today, however, there was someone she couldn’t quite place in any category. As she ran through her usual script from memory, the back of her mind was occupied trying to place her. She was a pretty brunette, probably a year or two younger than herself, but definitely not young enough to still be in high school. A transfer student, maybe? But if she had just transferred, she would have already been given a tour. She seemed distracted, too. When they took breaks or Riley set them free for lunch, she noticed that the girl kept dialing someone on her phone. The other person didn’t appear to be answering.
They reached the last spot on the tour, the cafeteria, just before lunch time. Riley wrapped up and answered the last few questions before everyone started wandering away. The redhead was about to head back up to her dorm room too when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
It was the same girl. She was just a bit shorter than Riley up close, with long brown curls and a sweet face. There was a thin golden chain and cross hanging around her throat. “Um…” It seemed as if she hadn’t expected to get this far. “I’m sorry… um…”
The redhead tried to smile a little less brightly than she had on the tour. Those levels of enthusiasm worked well for group environments, but Cairo had once told her it tended to make her come across like a serial killer one-on-one. (Really, Riley had thought that was a bit far. It was just smiling! But for once, Cairo’s girlfriend hadn’t elbowed her in the side to chide her about making the remark. If Chess didn’t interrupt a comment, that was usually a fairly good sign it was accurate…)
(She’d worked on a more relaxed smile.)
The brunette seemed a bit nervous to begin with., though The whole tour looked as if it had passed in something of a daze for her.
“No worries…!” Riley chirped, turning to face the young woman fully. “Can I help you find something?”
The other girl frowned, as if considering. “Yes, actually… well, someone…! Sorry, I’m sure this probably isn’t a normal tour question, but I’m actually kind of looking for someone. I’m told she goes here and I thought… maybe you might know her?” Her eyes were very wide. The way she looked at you made everything seem slightly more urgent than it needed to be.
This didn’t entirely reassure Riley, but it wasn’t exactly her place to judge. Besides, this girl seemed relatively harmless enough. She wasn’t going to give out someone’s dorm or personal information, but maybe she could lead her to the other student. It was a Sunday afternoon, after all. Not like she had much else to do except homework. Besides, she’d promised Cairo and Chess they could have the room to study for the day.
“Um… maybe!” The redhead tried to give a noncommittal shrug. “I’m better at pointing out buildings than people, but I’ll give it a try! Who are you looking for?”
The brunette held out her phone in response, showing Riley of a familiar dark-haired girl. It was an old picture, one she’d seen before on the girl’s feed herself a few month’s back. “Oh! Are you Farrah’s step-sister?” This interaction was suddenly starting to make more sense.
Well… more and less sense, actually. Had Farrah invited this girl here? Riley didn’t know the sophomore exceptionally well. She was just a resident on the floor that she was an RA for. Once you passed freshman year, you typically stopped interacting with hall advisors unless you were complaining about your roommate or needed help. Still, on the few times they’d spoken, Farrah hadn’t seemed keen on the idea of her father’s upcoming marriage or her new stepsister. Riley felt it was unrealistic that in the span of a few weeks, they were now close enough that she’d invite her here.
So what was going on?
This really isn’t what they prepared me for in training, the senior could feel the headache coming on. I should never have let Cairo talk me into this job. There were actually quite a lot of things that her roommate probably shouldn’t have convinced her to do over their four years living together, but there wasn’t time to unpack everything.
The younger girl nodded. “Yes. I’m Annleigh! Annleigh O’Daniel.”
“I’m Riley!” The habit of introducing herself back came out before she’d remembered she’d done so on the tour already. She winced. Well, too late now. Thankfully, Annleigh was too polite (or perhaps, simply too distracted) to call her on it. “Um… sorry, if this isn’t my place but… did Farrah ask you to come here?” She wasn’t equipped to handle this kind of situation. All she was supposed to do was point out which building was what and reprimand people about noise complaints. Please God, please let Farrah have asked .
Annleigh shook her head. There was a flush on her cheeks which had nothing to do with the cooling October air. “Not… exactly. I’m actually here visiting my partner, but they’re in a club meeting right now. I thought, you know… maybe while I was here…” The brunette sighed.
Riley couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Farrah wasn’t always the easiest person to get to know. The redhead was an only child, but meeting your new step sibling seemed like a fairly reasonable request to make. Still, she wasn’t going to be the one to meddle in this relationship. Riley really did not get paid enough from the Giles Corey administration to try and put a family back together. That was way outside her line of duty. Besides, she couldn’t exactly in good faith stick this girl on Farrah if the sophomore didn’t even know she was here.
“I’m sorry… I wouldn’t know where she is right now.” Riley admitted truthfully, watching Annleigh’s face fall. “You said you were visiting your partner? Have you tried asking them…?”
The brunette considered that for a second. “She might…know, I guess. Actually, I’ll try that! Thank you, Riley! And for the tour, too!” She waved and then dashed away.
“Um… you’re welcome?” The redhead called after the retreating girl, wondering what on earth she’d released onto the school.
Well, she seemed nice, at least! That was good. Maybe she would find Farrah and the two of them could… bond. Or whatever Annleigh wanted. It might all work out… Riley thought.
(Even she wasn’t entirely sure she believed herself, though.)
Annleigh waited outside the large hall, swinging her legs as she waited for the journalism club meeting to be over. Kate had assured her it would end at 3 o’clock and not run late, but Annleigh had learned in six years of dating that her partner’s sense of time wasn’t always the most accurate. It wasn’t their fault that the brunette liked to plan everything to the minute, of course, but it did feel a little awkward just sitting and waiting for Kate to come get her.
The junior checked her text messages for the fourteenth time, making sure she hadn’t gotten the time wrong. Kate’s message hadn’t changed in the thirty seconds that she’d read it before. She sighed. Waiting was not something Annleigh did particularly well. It made her distracted, and she was still… not good at pulling herself out of distraction. It was better when her partner was around, but she still tended to drive herself crazy worrying about any little thing that might have happened.
She checked her phone again. No new texts from Farrah. Same time written from Kate.
Ugh.
Should she call Farrah again? Annleigh wasn’t sure. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known what Riley was hinting at in the cafeteria. She wasn’t stupid. The brunette knew that her new sister (sister… the word still felt strange to her) didn’t want anything to do with her. She knew that. But… well, she couldn’t help it. The junior wanted to get to know her. It wasn’t crazy, right? It was just… that Annleigh and her mother had never been close, not in the way she and her father had been. And since he’d passed away…
… family had just been different since then, she supposed.
You can’t fix the cracks in your heart by throwing someone else at it , her voice of reason chided. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to get to know Farrah, anyway.
(Of course, the fact that she conveniently attended the same university as Kate did which gave her an excuse to visit her significant other helped… you know… a little.)
Speaking of her-
“Sorry…!” The short figure pulled open the door, jogging to the bench where Annleigh was waiting. Kate’s hair pulled into a low ponytail which swung slightly as she rushed out, knapsack swung over her shoulder. Smile creeping onto the girl’s face, the brunette stood up from the bench to greet her. “I got caught up trying to convince Mika that we still can’t have a gossip column in the paper. I mean, seriously? Does no one take news seriously nowadays?”
Annleigh didn’t know who Mika was or why the Tigers couldn’t have a gossip column, but she beamed anyway as Kate automatically took her hand. It was nice… the two of them had been dating since they were fourteen, but silly things like this still made the brunette’s heart flutter. And it was so wonderful to be here, too, in person. Not stuck to be stuck in high school with people who weren’t willing to leave those they didn’t want to understand alone.
“What?” Kate chuckled as Annleigh rested her head on top of theirs, as the two of them set off towards her dorm. “What’s so funny? You’re smiling.” She groaned playfully. “You aren’t about to tell me another Bible-themed knock knock joke, are you?”
One might notice that they weren’t exactly wearing their trademark frown, either, though.
“It’s just…” The brunette allowed herself to be steered in the correct direction. No matter how many times she visited this place, she always got lost. She didn’t know how Kate could ever find anything. “Really nice to see you in person, and not on a screen… you know?” She whispered. Her family problems were forgotten for the moment. Farrah could wait. She wasn’t even willing to give Anneligh a chance, anyway. There would be time to put that part of her life back together soon.
Right now belonged to them.
“It is nice…!” Kate agreed. Smiling, she swung Annleigh out and spun her in a circle. The girl laughed, ducking slightly so that they didn’t have to stand on their tiptoes to twirl her. Around them, other students smiled on their way to the library or the cafeteria. It was just another lazy Sunday afternoon, the kind of day that’s perfect to fall more and more in love.
“I missed you…” Kate squeezed her hand. “I missed us.”
The October light was fading fast, but as Kate twirled her on the lawn, Annleigh knew that this was the kind of moment that existed outside of time.
It was just her and Kate here. In this moment. “I missed you, too…”
(Everything else could wait till tomorrow.)
It should be illegal to assign homework due on Mondays, Cairo thought as she stretched from her position on the couch, attempting to change positions without disturbing her girlfriend. The dark blonde had her head against her chest and had been using Cai as a pillow for the last several hours while she took notes on her chapter.
“Do you think Riley would be chill if I just stayed here for the night…?” Chess’s sleepy voice interrupted Cairo’s thoughts, and she turned her head upwards to make eye contact.
Cairo leaned down and planted a kiss on her forehead, grinning when the shorter girl’s nose wrinkled in the way it always did when she grinned. “Riley? Chill?” The senior chuckled, trying to imagine a scenario when her roommate had ever been relaxed about anything. Despite the fact that the two of them had lived together for several years, she was having trouble calling to mind a time when she’d seen the redhead ‘calm’.
“I think we both know that’s unlikely.”
Chess nudged Cai’s foot with her own lazily, apparently not willing to put down her notebook to chide her. “Be nice...” She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide the amusement dancing in there. “You know what I meant.”
She had. It would be so nice to just capture this moment and live in it forever. No upcoming exams. No trying to figure out what and who to be after graduation. No impending ‘this is the last year at GC’ crisis courtesy of Riley. Just her and Chess on the couch, intertwined, pretending to study when both of them had actually given up hours before.
“Maybe…” Cairo closed her eyes. It wasn’t very late in the day for the typical student timeline. There was still light coming in through the window. Still, she wanted to just lie here forever. “Or maybe she’ll text saying she’s pulling an all nighter in the library and we’ll have the whole room to ourselves.”
She could practically hear her girlfriend’s eyes roll without seeing it. “I’m pretty sure it would be on us to drag that poor girl out of the library if she tried. I’ve seen how much coffee you guys go through on a normal day~!” Chess teased, slowly sitting up. Cairo missed her warmth already. “I don’t want a repeat of Junior Midterms Week Rye.”
That was entirely fair. No one in their right mind wanted a repeat of that.
All three of them had stress in their various majors, but Riley tended to go a little overboard attempting to prepare for tests, sometimes. Still. It balanced out Cairo’s typical system of cramming the night before. She’d been getting better at preparing over the years, but it took all her effort to actually get organized. Chess had always been the middle ground between the two of them. That’s what had initially made them such good friends in freshman year.
Chess yawned, reopening her notebook. Her neat handwriting and color-coded system of recording information always made Cai roll her eyes. She was such a nerd, honestly. Cairo would have bet money that the girl made a table of contents for each subject and everything. “Okay. How about half an hour more and then we go grab dinner somewhere?”
“Ugh...” The taller girl groaned, not wanting to go back to working. It was not her fault her girlfriend was so damn cute all the time. “Fine… but we’re not going to the caf. I’ll die.”
They always played this game. They’d have to talk themselves into doing anything, because it was just too easy for them to curl up in each other’s arms and ignore the rest of the world.
“You two are unbelievable.” Riley always laughed. But their friend was the type of person who always had to be doing something, moving. The redhead hated to stay still. She didn’t understand how nice it was sometimes to just… be.
“Alright, alright! Tell you what, I’ll go anywhere you want if you actually get your reading done~!” Chess picked up her highlighter and set back to work.
(Thirty minutes later and about two more pages read [and not altogether absorbed] on Cairo’s part, they ended up in the cafeteria. She’d gotten distracted trying to count the freckles on Chess’s cheeks.)
(Totally worth it.)