Chapter Text
She spends as much time as possible away from the dreary, metallic confines of her trailer, but regardless of where she is, she almost always has the pages of a book to delve into, to escape within from the noise of her mother’s spiraling addictions and the constant threat of further destitution from their already difficulty-fraught living situation. She found fairly early-on in life that her favorite kinds of stories were fairytales, ones where that, no matter what hardships the characters faced in whatever intensity that endured them, they were able to have their happily ever after in the end. She is reading one such of these stories when a cacophony of noises jars her out of the quiet concentration of her solitude, and upon looking up, she finds several of her peers struggling with several piece of outdoor equipment for…something.
Penny won’t lie to herself, a very large part of her wants to just look back down and pretend that she is not disturbed by whatever they’re doing. After all, she is on the beach, and they’ve got just as much right to be here and be disruptive as she does to sit quietly with a book. However, she can plainly see that even with the strong-armed jock, Alex, holding what looks like a massive rolled-up white canvas, he’s struggling, and Shane (Jas’s godfather), Emily (the young barmaid), and Haley (a mean, popular girl who used to date Alex) look equally loaded down with their own supplies. With a small sigh to herself, she closes her story with a bookmark securely in place and walks toward the group.
“Is everything okay?” She asks, and then her cheeks grow pink as the boys flat-out ignore her and Emily gives her a quizzical look. “I-I mean! You…you just…seemed like you all could use s-some help, I…I’m sorry.”
“No, no, please don’t go!” Emily says quickly, before she has a chance to scurry away in humiliated shame. “We would love some help, thank you so much!”
Without missing a beat, Haley promptly extends her full arms out to Penny, glancing away from her as though she were bored all the while. Penny, not wanting to argue or cause any more disturbance, accepts the bundle of carved-wood poles and blankets, then walks along where the other four are headed to set them carefully in the sand. No sooner do they set up does Alex pull off his shirt, exposing several ripped muscles and his toned abs, and Penny can’t help but to politely look away and simply wait for any further instruction she may be provided.
“We’re setting up for the first community movie night!” Emily is kind enough to explain to her while the two guys begin to drive some of the bigger wooden polls into the sand, hammering them down to stay in place beneath the loose top-layer. “We’re going to hoist this backdrop up against the tree line here, and hold it in places with the polls, and then some of the older adults will help us set up food and drinks and some extra chairs and blankets for folks who forget to bring their own!”
“O-oh!” Penny recalls now hearing something about that, or perhaps seeing it on the bulletin board outside of Pierre’s General Store. “I see, that…that sounds fun! Do…d-do…would you like s-some…help?”
“Yes, that would be fantastic!” Emily grins and abruptly hugs her, causing the ginger-haired girl to squeak in surprise. “You’re the best, Penny!”
Penny smiles meekly in return and proceeds to follow instructions, whether they be called to her from one of the other makeshift workers or written from the kits they’re using to set up. For the most part, Shane and Alex do the more heavy-lifting and placing, Emily makes sure things are even and secure, Penny checks securing where Emily isn’t immediate able to and servers like a gopher for detail-work, and Haley…mostly takes photos or plays on her phone. The mild-mannered girl would like to say that she is a saint that isn’t bothered by having a seemingly pointless fifth wheel- after all, why did the blonde accompany them if all she was going to do is nothing? - but she will absolutely not say as much.
After the screen, projector, and all of the outdoor furniture is set-up, Haley actually does go grab the cooler from where it’s been by the cabin on the beach, and the five of them sit around to wait for folks to begin arriving for the screening itself. The four others talk, and Penny resigns herself to sitting quietly while they socialize and have fun amongst themselves. A pang of loneliness goes through her, but as she pulls out her book to read once more, she reminds herself that her help was coincidental, and it’s not like they were a real group of friends, anyway. As a matter of fact, with the exception of Emily, she is pretty certain that everyone there thinks of her as weird and awkward, and that she is better off alone, anyway.
“Hey.”
Suddenly, Penny’s little bubble of isolation is popped once more, and the most beautiful woman in all of Pelican Town is sitting beside her, her long blonde curls blowing in the summertime breeze. Suddenly, she’s much more self-conscious; about how flush her face undeniably is, how her hair is messy and greasy from the work, how she’s got sand sticking to every inch of skin and sweat glistening, too. Why would Haley come to talk to her now? Was she here to mock her?
“Yoba, you look like I’m going to eat you.” As she says it, the girl in question looks annoyed, and she takes a long drink out of her can of bubbling juice. “Relax.”
Penny tries to swallow around the lump in her throat and nods timidly, trying to release the tension in her body. Her heart is pitter-pattering in her chest all the same; she wonders if her peer can somehow hear it.
“You just kept looking at me like you were expecting something,” Haley says flatly, her crystal-fruit-blue eyes on the aquamarine ocean. “And I wanted to say I was actually helping this community thing or whatever. I hyped it up my socials- I’m an influencer, you know- and taking pictures for the town news stuff. So like…You’re welcome, and you can stop judging me for being a stuck-up, lazy bitch.”
Penny is absolutely shell-shocked. “W…wh-”
The blonde is getting back to her feet now, undoubtedly to flounce off and hate her more than she already does. In an absolutely bold move that Penny, quite frankly, had no idea she before she was capable of, she grabs the other girl’s forearm and pulls her back down to sit. Haley gives her a Look that’s a mixture of shock and anger, and Penny begins talking rapidly, tripping over her words and face feeling as hot as the sun itself.
“I-I! I’m sorry, a-and when I say…When I say that, I truly do mean it, and I’m not just saying it to not look like, uh, a bitch! I shouldn’t have judged you, because judging means making assumptions, and those just aren’t fair to you. I don’t…I don’t really even know you and I assumed poorly of you, and I know h-how bad it feels when other people do that to me, and…I-I’m…I’m genuinely very sorry. I understand if you can’t or won’t forgive me for being so presumptuous and rude, but I am appreciative of the efforts you put in for all of us, and…And I hope you enjoy to-tonight.”
For a few long moments, there is the sound of background chatter and the rolling of the waves. Haley continuously stares at her, the gears in her head clearly going as quickly as Penny’s heart, and just when the redhead feels close to tears and running off in utter shame, the blonde woman sighs softly and sits back on one hand while drinking once more when her beverage.
“I like, forgive you. It’s not that deep, girl; lighten up,” Haley says, though her tone doesn’t have the same venom and haughtiness as Penny’s come to expect from her few prior interactions with her. “…You like to read and stuff, right? What’s that book about?”
Feeling profoundly flustered and extraordinarily relieved all at once, Penny begins to explain the premise of the current story she’s reading, hoping to Yoba the entire time that it’s interesting to the most popular girl from their graduating class. Much to her delight, Haley begins to discuss movies and shows she’s with similar storylines and themes (though she doesn’t explicitly call them that), and soon the two have talked for over an hour and have swapped at least a dozen recommendations to each other. When other residents begin to arrive and set up for the main event, Penny is fairly sure that her brief connection will end where it begun, but then Haley pulls her along to take photos of and with her, and they end up sharing a blanket and snacks from the concessions as they watch a movie that turns out to be a complicated fairytale with a happy ending. Given that Emily was the one to propose and initiate the idea of watching movies as a community on the beach, and that the two are sisters, Penny cannot help but to wonder if Haley had some hand in selecting the kind of film chosen.
At the end of the evening festivities, the two young women end up walking together back into town, and Penny finds it only appropriate to accompany her newfound friend to her front door. Even with her hair wind-tousled and her makeup worn off, Haley is still the most spectacularly gorgeous person she has ever met, and her heart does funny little things when the other girl embraces her.
“Thanks for the great time, Penny,” she says, and her eyes glow with content and happiness in the streetlights. “I’ll…see you around, okay?”
“Y-yes, and thank you for the same!” Penny cannot help the probably-goofy smile that spreads across her own face, and she is certain she doesn’t imagine how both of their hands linger along each other’s forearms as they naturally move away from the tender embrace. “And…and absolutely; I will see you soon, and we can…We could begin working through those recommendations we gave each other?”
Haley smiles again, and her cheeks are a little rosy, and Penny cannot help how she can already feel herself beginning to fall in infatuation. “I’d like that. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight!”
Even as she walks back to her far-from-perfect life, to her drunk mother and her problems that never seem to be scrubbed away or broken down like the filth of her home, Penny wonders if she and the princess of Pelican Town may yet have their very own version of a happily ever after.
Day One Prompt(s): Lesbian // Fairytale