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Straight A’s, straight hair, straight forward / Straight path, I don’t cut corners
Everyone knew Shelby Goodkind was Little Miss Perfect. She was the kind of girl people wanted to be. Her life was seemingly perfect and ideal—what, with her rich parents always spoiling her rotten, the football players chasing after her for dates to prom, being top of pretty much every class, etcetera. She was on track to go to an Ivy League college, and nobody doubted that she’d get into most of the ones she was planning on applying to. With her credentials and charisma, what sort of an admissions tutor wouldn’t accept her?
Shelby was, undeniably, that girl.
All the girls wanted to befriend her; all the boys wanted to date her. Hell, a lot of the time those roles were reversed. If you’d seen her, you would’ve understood why.
She had the most gorgeous light green eyes that shone under sunlight, paired with golden hair which she very often straightened and decorated with a headband tied up in a neat little knot at the top. Her makeup was always flawless, not that she ever needed any, and her nails were always perfectly manicured and the acrylics were always uniform.
Long story short, she was perfect.
I make a point to be on time / Head of the student council
Not only was Shelby head of the student council, but she was pretty much in every single type of extra-curricular activity you could dream of. Not in a vain, Rachel Berry kind of way to get into all the yearbook pictures, but rather because she was genuinely and truthfully passionate about an array of things: singing, cheer, painting, yearbook, even chess. She was always punctual to every single meet for every single club, always fully engaged in every activity and discussion—and she always did everything with a wide smile on her face.
She was all “sunshine and unicorns and rainbows and shit”, as her best friend since ninth grade, Toni Shalifoe, had described her once.
The two of them had initially got off to a rocky start. They had been paired up in English class together for a project within the very first fortnight of the academic year. Dreading spending so much time with the popular girl, younger Toni had begrudgingly agreed to go over to her house one afternoon to work on it, and that one afternoon multiplied by the dozen as they both found that despite seemingly having very little in common, they clicked extremely well with one another.
Soon they had become inseparable, hanging out all the time and calling almost every night. It was now senior year and that fact still remained. They were best friends, platonic soulmates even, and seemingly nothing could change that.
Toni Shalifoe was very much the opposite of Shelby Goodkind: short, a basketball legend, angry, and cold towards most whom she didn’t know very well (she did have a heart of gold, though, which was mostly reserved for those closest in her life—including Shelby).
While Shelby’s lips had scarcely touched alcohol, Toni had one too many times found herself on the brink of blacking out at parties. Luckily, Shelby was always there to hold her hair back and drive her home, and often she’d find herself helping Toni into her bed—Shelby’s, not Toni’s—because she knew she wouldn’t want to bother Martha, who was basically her sister, and her mom Bernice by showing up so late at night in such a complete state. She knew Toni spent most if not all of her time living there, considering the awful state of her foster placement, so the Blackburns were essentially her family. They already did enough for her; Toni didn’t want to bother them any further, so Shelby was always glad to help out. Besides, it worked in her favour because she got to spend more time with Toni, her best friend.
Her best friend who she does not have a crush on at all.
Despite having been best friends for years, and despite the fact that the bed was humongous, Shelby would always be too scared to sleep beside her whenever this occurred. So, she’d set herself up on her beanbag and gladly wake up with a back ache the next morning. Toni had insisted with her that it really was okay for her to sleep in her own bed when she was in it—half out of kindness, half out of secretly wanting to sleep beside her—but Shelby would always mutter an excuse when asked about it over a breakfast that would always consist of Toni’s favourite hangover fry up. Every time, Shelby would give her a small smile—a shy, genuine one she reserved only for her—and Toni would roll her eyes, hoping that the blush in her cheeks wasn’t too obviously visible.
Shelby had a lot of things about her memorised. Not in a weird way of course, more because Shelby was a genuinely kind and attentive person who placed great importance on little details about people—especially her best friend.
Her best friend who she totally was not in love with.
My parents spoiled me rotten, often / I ask myself what did I do to get as far as I’ve gotten
It was no secret that Shelby also happened to be quite relatively rich. Her father ran a Bible spin class, which may not sound like it pays anything above your average middle-class salary, but he also happened to be a stakeholder in the host gym’s company, and his wife happened to be a lawyer, so they were very well-off.
Nobody but herself had ever called her spoiled, though, save one or two quips Toni had made on the first day they met. She had noticed the outdoor jacuzzi in the garden and muttered something along the lines of “freakin’ one percenters.”
Between her humanitarian work and constant charity fundraisers—ranging from bake sales to marathons to sponsored silences—Shelby came across as a very humble, caring person who was aware of her privilege and used it for good. Not for attention, she genuinely just believed it was her God-given duty to help others and all of that.
Of course some people would still roll their eyes about it all, but Shelby tried to not pay too much notice.
She made sure to remind her parents regularly of how grateful she was for everything they’d provided for them. Often she wondered to herself why did she of all people deserve this, when there were so many others who could’ve happily taken her position in life.
Unless you were Shelby herself in a moment of insecurity or a mean spirited person who had a problem with everything, you probably would never find a bad word to say about that girl. And nobody ever did. She was one of those girls who seemingly went through life with a smile and no problems. She was always kind to everyone she met, always held the door open for people, smiled at strangers, offered to assist the elderly with carrying their shopping inside, etcetera. Essentially, she was the human embodiment of sunshine.
Still, Shelby never let herself believe she was worthy of half of it.
If you ask me how I’m doing / I’ll say “Well, hmmm...”
But Shelby’s life wasn’t exactly perfect either.
She was expected to be everything and more; one hair out of place and suddenly the world was in a post apocalyptic state according to her parents. She really couldn’t catch a break—she wasn’t even allowed one.
Pageants took up so much of her spare time that often she’d have to stay up late to revise for classes, having wasted precious daylight hours on practicing her posture with her mom.
Frankly, it just annoyed her. She could’ve been living the normal idealised teenage experience of doing actual things with actual people outside of classes and extracurriculars, save for the few parties she’d snuck out for to attend with Toni, but her parents had written her the role of pageant queen and she’d been cast against her will.
Don’t get her wrong, she loved the pretty dresses and singing was one of her favourite activities—hence why it was her pageant talent—but the sheer plasticity of it all displeased her greatly.
And yes, she knew there were far bigger problems in the world than the fact that she had to participate in pageants, but sometimes she couldn’t help but to feel like she was wasting away huge parts of her life by doing them. It was all so fake that she herself felt like the only parts people saw of her were a falsified shell of who she truly was.
Toni got to see the real her, though.
There was something so caring and loving about the way that she treated Shelby. Toni was an incredibly impatient, hotheaded person by nature, but around her she was the complete opposite. She’d always listen to her attentively, always looking into her eyes during serious conversations to be able to gauge how she truly felt. Whenever Shelby would have any sort of an off-day, whether that involve being in a mildly bad mood or being incredibly upset over something, she’d always make her way to her side, whispering words of affirmation to her or giving her a simple quick hug that would completely turn Shelby’s day around. And Shelby would do that for her too, of course, and in a way they were sort of each other’s grounding force.
Shelby thought—or rather, knew—that Toni was a very deeply caring, loyal person. She was so unbelievably kind despite the world giving her one too many reasons to not be. She understood Shelby—the real version of her—which is why she could be unreservedly herself around her, the person who she truly was but could rarely be.
Although, there was still one thing she was hiding.
A pretty girl walks by my locker / My heart gives a flutter but I don’t dare utter a word
“Hey Shell,” Toni called casually as she strode up beside her, opening up her locker which was only one away from Shelby’s. The nickname made her heart flutter the way it had done every day for the past year.
Toni had come up with it when the two of them went on a weekend away to the beach by themselves and they’d both spent ages searching for seashells in the sand, because why not.
-
“Shelby, look at this one! Wait. Shell... Shelby. Hey, can I call you Shell?” she’d asked her with a glint in her eye, holding up a white and light pink coloured dosina—a type of seashell—to the sun in her mildly sand-covered fingertips.
“Sure,” she’d answered with a warm giggle that, unbeknownst to her, made Toni crumble apart on the inside each and every time it would leave her mouth.
She had stared at the way in which Toni’s eyes had lightened to a honey-like colour under the glow of the sun, before being interrupted by a freezing cold wave washing over her ankles.
Head turned back towards the ocean, she’d ran away from the water and accidentally crashed into Toni’s arms. The shorter girl had caught her, wrapping her arms loosely around Shelby’s waist, and the two of them fell into a fit of laughter, riding off the high that they only seemed to get around each other.
-
Shelby snapped herself back into the present time.
“Hi there Toni, how are you?” she replied in her southern drawl, the one that had weakened Toni’s knees so many times that she feared she’d have to go to the doctor to get her joints checked out.
“I’m good. Can I come over on Friday?” she asked casually, like she didn’t already know the answer.
“Of course,” Shelby responded. Toni didn’t have to ask, Shelby made it very clear that she was always welcome, but regardless she always felt the need to be polite.
“Alright, see you at lunch.”
Toni walked past her, brushing their hands together on purpose as a small reassuring sign of what Shelby assumed was friendship. She knew Shelby’s love language was touch and that she was therefore a very touchy-feely person, and so she always tried to reciprocate that for her with brief touches like those.
Because it’s very obviously a sign of friendship whenever someone memorises someone else’s love language and incorporates it into their day-to-day interactions just to make the other person feel good.
The smile that Toni had flashed at her as she walked past was so captivating and bright that it made Shelby’s body light up. She wanted to tell her how radiant it was, how gorgeous her hair looked whenever her curls bounced behind her with every step, but she didn’t dare utter a word—because that would be absurd behaviour for Little Miss Perfect.
No, I can’t risk falling off my throne
Often, Shelby would have to remind herself of who she was. She’d look at herself in the mirror as she practiced applying makeup for a pageant, perfecting her façade in her head as if it were lines for an upcoming performance. It was very much akin to playing a role; most of the time she was acting.
Her attraction to guys? Fake. Her never-ending pageant smile? Fake. Her grades? Okay, maybe not so fake—she did actually work extremely hard for all her classes. Yet, considering everything else about her felt so false, and considering that her grades contributed to her Little Miss Perfect image, they felt fake to her too.
There was one thing she was sure wasn’t fake though: her feelings towards Toni. She hadn’t yet made complete sense of them; they were rather complicated, and every time she thought about it her body would feel like it was coursing electricity through her veins—and it felt so good that it scared her, so she’d always try to divert her thoughts whenever they consisted of Toni in that way.
Although those feelings never made any sense to her, she was certain they were real.
Love is something I don’t even know
Perhaps ‘love’ was too strong a word for it—or so she thought. She certainly loved her the way best friends do, because that’s exactly what they were: best friends. However, she was sure that best friends didn’t feel like exploding like fireworks every time they saw one another, hence her confusion regarding her feelings towards Toni.
She tried to steer away her thoughts every time, she really did, but with those warm brown eyes and shiny brown curls and arms that wrapped her in hugs that felt like coming home, how was Shelby supposed to think of anything else?
The first time she’d said ‘I love you’ to her out loud had actually been relatively recently—a few months or so ago, maybe.
Toni had got herself into yet another fight—the fifth one Shelby had seen her get into—this time with a guy from the boy’s basketball team. Shelby had made her sit on the empty school bathroom’s counter so that she could clean up the injuries: one small cut above her eyebrow and the one on her lip. Toni had come out relatively unscathed, all things considered, but Shelby fretted over her regardless.
-
“I’m fine,” Toni had said, wincing as a cold, wet piece of fabric came into contact with the cut above her eyebrow.
“Still need to make sure it’s not infected,” Shelby replied, dabbing more gently at her lip.
Toni looked at her, a soft expression behind her eyes. “You don’t have to do this for me, you know,” she half-mumbled against the cloth.
“Of course I do,” Shelby responded casually. “You’re my best friend, I love you, I’m gonna take care of you.”
Toni tried and failed to bite back a smile.
“You love me?” she teased.
“Don’t push it, Shalifoe,” Shelby retorted with a grin. “Or I might never say it again.”
“Oh, shame.” Toni was trying so hard to get rid of her blush, but it obviously didn’t work; a bright pink flushed across her cheeks, and though Shelby noticed it she tried to write it off to a physiological reaction to the cold water she was putting on her face, she knew that wasn’t truly it.
Once Shelby had finished, Toni slipped off the counter to stand in front of her. She had misjudged how close they’d been, however, and so they were left standing so close to each other that she could feel the heat radiating from Shelby’s body due to its proximity to hers.
They’d stared at each other for a few moments before Shelby leaned in to place a feather light kiss on the cut on her forehead. As she pulled away, Toni didn’t miss the way her green eyes dropped to her lips for much more than a brief second that could’ve been written off to a mere innocent glance.
“There,” Shelby spoke, almost whispering. “All better.”
Toni responded wordlessly with a longing stare into her eyes. Shelby, however, was unable to decipher what Toni had been yearning for in that moment, and so with a smile and a, “Don’t get into more fights, please,” she walked out of the bathroom, leaving a stunned Toni frozen in place, fingers tracing her lips which were burning from the kiss she wished she’d been given.
And though Shelby was gone and wouldn’t have heard it, Toni whispered, “I love you too,” against the pads of her fingers, wanting to scream it out into the universe, wanting to stop Shelby from walking away so she could tell her that she’s been in love with her since the day they met.
-
From all the books Shelby had read and films she’d watched, she’d originally envisioned love as this huge, tangible thing that consisted of grand gestures and candlelit dinners and bouquets of roses.
Stolen glances were meant to be exchanged at balls in silk dresses, not across the floor of a bedroom at a sleepover.
First kisses were supposed to be beneath a sky of pouring rain, not sat in bed with a half-eaten bowl of popcorn on your lap and your best friend’s lips so close to yours that if you’d really wanted to, you could’ve tilted your head forward and—
Straight hair, straight A’s, straight forward
Shelby’s train of thought crashed when she felt a large, firm hand come down on her shoulder with a little too much force.
“Oh, hey Andrew,” she said flatly, turning around to face the boy, a fake smile plastered across her face. Sometimes she wished she didn’t play the part of a straight girl so well. She knew what was coming: he was going to ask her to go out for a date, she would say no because she’s way too focused on studying and college applications, and he would make some misogynistic remark about it.
That’s almost what happened. And it would have happened, had Toni not come right up into his face and said, “Fuck off, Andrew. How many times does she have to tell you? She’s not interested.”
Shelby glanced nervously between her best friend and the football player that was double her size. She wasn’t necessarily scared that he could do anything to her—if anything, she was more scared of the damage that Toni could do to him. She may only be five-foot-three, but her physical strength was unmatched; Shelby wouldn’t have been surprised if Toni had knocked him flat to the ground with one singular punch.
“Whatever,” he mumbled frustratedly, walking backwards for a few steps before turning around and rejoining the rest of his jock friends who were sniggering at him. He knew what Toni was capable of, and wasn’t about to go down that road. And good riddance to that, thought Toni.
“You okay?” she asked Shelby in a gentle tone, who only nodded in response. “I can always beat him up for you.”
“No more fights, Toni,” she said with a half-hearted laugh. “But thanks for the offer.”
“Shame,” Toni sighed sarcastically, causing Shelby’s smile to reach her eyes. “Seriously though, are you good?”
Shelby nodded and placed a quick, friendly kiss on her cheek. Very much like a friend.
“Aren’t you meant to be in a class right now?” she asked, holding up her hand so Toni could check her wristwatch.
Toni swore under her breath, uttered a quick “thanks”, and bolted out of there, ignoring the way in which Shelby’s quiet laugh behind her made her warm up on the inside.
Organised as ever, Shelby went to her study period and spent the hour answering practice algebra questions she’d printed off for herself. Though she still got a solid eighty-seven percent correct, her mind was the furthest away from maths it had ever been as she scribbled down some algebraic formulae on the paper. Her mind was swimming with images of Toni, because who else, thinking of some of the memories they’d had together that she most treasured.
Some were small, like a particular time she’d driven Toni home after basketball practice last year. She’d spent an hour studying on the bleachers just so she could look up every so often and catch a glimpse of Toni in her black and gold jersey, dribbling the ball across the court. When Toni had waltzed up to her wearing her letterman jacket, Shelby had to repress the urge to ask to borrow it so that she could have her surname on her back, so that she could wear something that smelled like Toni.
Other memories were more objectively significant, such as Shelby’s birthday gathering that had happened a few months ago in late August.
-
Once their friends had gone to sleep in various rooms around the Blackburn house (Martha’s parents had happily offered to host, anything for their quasi-adopted daughter’s best friend), or passed out in Fatin and Dot’s cases, Toni had led Shelby to the garden and sat on the wooden tree swing with her.
The horizontal plank of wood was held up by two ropes, and it was too narrow for both of them, so Shelby sat sideways on Toni’s lap with one arm draped around her neck on her shoulders, spare hand on her lap. Toni’s arms were loose but comforting around her waist—comforting if you ignore the way it was making her entire body catch fire. Eventually, after a few moments of silence, Toni placed her hand over Shelby’s.
“Did you have a good day?” she asked softly, to which Shelby nodded in response.
“The best,” she said quietly.
Toni’s starry eyes met hers as Shelby turned her head to face her, and both of them could’ve sworn they saw genuine real-life sparks fly between them.
“You know I love you,” Toni whispered into her hair, stroking the back of Shelby’s hand with her thumb before interlocking their fingers. “So much.”
A breath caught in Shelby’s throat and she tried her hardest to not physically choke at the admission.
That was the first time she’d heard Toni say it out loud. On some late sleepless nights, she’d fantasised about how it would happen. The later in the night she’d think about it, the more likely the scenario would’ve involved them kissing each other deeply, with Shelby’s hands cupping her face and Toni bringing her in impossibly close.
“I love you too,” Shelby whispered back amongst the quiet noises of crickets chirping in the background. Her eyes fell to Toni’s lips and hung there for a moment while she deliberated whether her daydreams were wishes that she should act upon.
Little did she know that Toni was begging Shelby internally to have more courage than she did, wanting—needing—her to lean in and close the gap that had been threatening to close itself for years.
She didn’t though.
The two girls sat there for half an hour, looking up at the sky in a peaceful silence until Toni complained that her legs had gone numb. Instead of going inside to go to bed, Shelby retrieved some large fleece blankets that she knew could be used outdoors, and they lay down on the grass together cuddled under the blankets until the sun came up, Toni telling her about the constellations in the night sky and Shelby talking about sunrises and sunsets.
Nora, one of their friends who had stayed over that night after the small party, found them tangled up in each other under the blankets. She chose to walk away and not say anything, having known they had chemistry for years and having long since decided to let them work it out at their own pace.
Fatin, however, was the antithesis to Nora in that latter respect—so the second she saw them in that state she yelled, “Oi, lovebirds, rise and shine!”
Cheeks flushed, they unlocked their hands from each other’s and got up, informing the other girls that they had an impromptu garden camping trip for fun because they were drunk, but Fatin knew Shelby hadn’t even had the wine people pass round in church, which left her wishing she’d left that last part out.
-
Safe to say, Shelby didn’t retain much of the knowledge she gained from self-marking her practice test.
Once the hour long period was over, Shelby collected her things and moved to walk out of school and into the parking lot. However, when she saw Toni waiting for her by the library doorway, her heart stopped and she practically skipped over to her, being so beyond happy to see her.
“Hi there,” she said in her southern drawl that melted Toni right down into oblivion.
“Hey,” she replied with a wide, bright smile. “It’s a beautiful day outside, do you wanna walk home together?”
Shelby blinked confusedly at her before cracking up completely.
“What on earth has gotten into you?” she asked Toni through laughter. “I’ve never seen you this cheerful. Like, a beautiful day? Really?”
“Shut up,” Toni mumbled in response, still grinning up at her—because how could she help herself?
They ended up walking out of school together, arms linked like the couple of gal pals that they were. The Blackburn and Goodkind residences were in the same direction luckily, and there was a park on the way too, which Toni dragged Shelby to just because she wanted to spend time with her.
The two of them walked under the canopies of the trees that were beginning to redden with autumn. Contently, they chatted away with the sound of leaves crunching under their shoes. Toni was wearing her usual hi-top Vans, using them to kick some bigger leaves around in their path aimlessly. They were laced with rainbow shoelaces, which had been a small gift and a hint from Shelby on pride month. Toni wrote it off to her best friend being supportive of her lesbianism, not as a sign that Shelby might most definitely be one too.
Eventually, it started getting dark, so Toni walked Shelby home and they parted with a brief hug that was followed by Shelby planting a gentle kiss on her forehead.
“Bye Toni,” she said quietly.
“See ya later, Shell.”
And with that, she turned on her heels and walked away, leaving Shelby watching her with a stupidly lovestruck smile on her face. As she turned to walk up to the doorstep, trying to hide the brightness in her eyes, she revelled in the way the cooling breeze blew strands of hair onto her face. She felt so thoroughly grounded from just under two hours with Toni; she made the world feel ten times more beautiful just with her presence.
That was the thing about Toni: she brightened everything around her, even if she may not believe that herself.
Dave and Jobeth Goodkind asked her why she’d returned at five instead of four forty-five, to which she said her chess club meeting had run over which they believed. She excused herself to her bedroom to find a text from Toni, which she immediately replied to.
Toni: u still on for tomorrow?
Shelby: Of course! My parents are away this weekend if you want to stay over. Xx
Toni: i’d like that :)
Shelby: See you tomorrow!
Toni: see u
Sleepovers were a regular thing in the Shalifoe and Goodkind (or ‘Goodfoe’, as Fatin had called it) friendship. They involved takeout, separate beds, movies, and a lot of snacks which mainly consisted of Takis, of course, even though Shelby secretly hated them and would only buy them for Toni’s sake.
They’d probably racked up collective weeks if not months of sleepovers, if you add up all the time spent together, yet every time they organised one, Shelby would feel her heart give the familiar nervous flutter it always did. She’d promised herself that one day she’d be able to sleep beside Toni—maybe even hold her hand all night. One day.
For some reason, she had a feeling tomorrow night might be that time.
One night my friend stayed over
Shelby dipped from yearbook club five minutes early to catch Toni the second that basketball practice finished. It was unnecessary, she knew Toni would want to be the one waiting out in the hallway for her anyway, but Shelby wanted to be the cool, slick-looking one, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. That wasn’t how she ended up coming across, though, as she rocked back and forth on her heels, wringing out her hands.
Her anxieties simultaneously washed away and flooded in when she saw Toni walk out of the doors, basically skipping over to her—but not fully skipping because she wasn’t about to be caught dead looking that joyful and peppy.
Her dark brown hair was tied into two neat braids at the back of her head, which Shelby thought made her look incredibly adorable, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud.
“Hey Shell,” Toni called over to her, walking a little bit quicker, just because.
Shelby pushed herself off of the wall she’d been half-leaning on and took a few steps towards her. “Hi,” she breathed, biting her lower lip nervously. It didn’t make sense to her how after all this time she was still this nervous around Toni. “You look real cute like that.”
Did she say that out loud?
When Toni teasingly replied with, “Thanks, you don’t look too bad either,” her nerves returned at full force. She was completely disarmed however when, as usual, Toni linked their arms together and they walked over to the parking lot that way. Toni snuggled into the taller girl’s shoulder as they walked, pressing an extremely friendly fleeting kiss into it. A blush burned bright in Shelby’s cheeks.
They stepped into Shelby’s pink convertible, blasted some Taylor Swift—because of course—and when ‘How You Get the Girl’, a song from the most iconic pop album of all time, 1989, about what it pretty much says in the title, Shelby didn’t stop her imagination from thinking that when Toni sang “I want you for worse or for better”, and “I would wait for ever and ever”, she was singing it to her.
Toni was very much singing to Shelby and about Shelby, and she was sure the constant glances were going to give it away, but Shelby absolutely did not pick up on it at all.
We laughed and drank and ordered / Something about her drew me in
Once inside Shelby’s bedroom, Toni sprawled herself out on the bed like a starfish, exhausted from practice. Shelby sat beside the girl’s head, lightly scratching the top of it with her nails the way she knew she liked as she scrolled through a takeout app.
“Where did your acrylics go?” Toni inquired, her frown quizzical. “They felt nice.”
“Oh, I decided to take them off,” she replied casually. “You want me to get some again?”
“No,” Toni said almost too quickly. “I mean, this feels nice too. You don’t need them.”
The blonde shrugged and hummed the tune of ‘How You Get the Girl’ to herself as she landed on a restaurant and began to click on the order. She didn’t even need to ask Toni what she wanted; she had all of their previous orders from previous sleepovers saved, and she knew that she tended to crave Japanese food after basketball, so that’s exactly what she got.
“My daddy bought a smoothie machine the other day,” Shelby stated in her incredibly addictive drawl. “You wanna test it out?”
Toni shrugged. “Yeah sure.”
Shelby jumped up and grabbed Toni’s wrist, hauling her up so that she could stand with a grunt.
“I love you so much, Shelby, I always have. Can I kiss you?” is what Toni wanted to say in that exact moment, but instead she blurted out a “thank you,” and Shelby just giggled and pulled her downstairs by the wrist.
The sound, although not exactly new to her, made Toni’s heart melt.
Halfway through Toni struggling to slice some fruits in half—because of course she had to look incompetent in front of Shelby—the doorbell rang, and Shelby left a helpless Toni to struggle further with the fruit. When she returned with two large paper bags, Toni happily dropped her knife, but Shelby stopped her.
“Nuh-uh, we’re not leaving that now,” she said, taking out the boxes from the paper bags.
“The food will get cold,” Toni complained, desperate to rid of herself of this duty and tuck into some sushi.
“I’ll just give you the food as you carry on.” Shelby smiled as if it was the most casual thing in the world.
She opened a box up and held out a small roll between her thumb and index, which Toni begrudgingly yet happily took between her teeth, almost swallowing it whole.
“Don’t do that, you’ll get indigestion.”
Toni rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she joked. “Besides, shouldn’t you be doing this? I can hardly hold this damn knife properly.”
“That’s exactly why you should be doin’ it, you need practice,” Shelby said, giving her another piece. “Now stop swallowin’ these down like a freakin’ pelican.”
Both laughed at the joke, harder than they would had they been with anybody else, basking in the comfort of simply being with each other.
When Shelby placed one hand over Toni’s waist and held a piece of chicken up on some chopsticks in front of her mouth, the room got a little too hot. Toni took it into her mouth, actually chewing this time before flicking her tongue over her lips to clean off a drop of sauce that had fallen onto her lower lip.
Shelby blushed furiously at the sight, ignoring the thoughts that had elicited in her mind, and placed the chopsticks on the island counter behind her before wrapping her other arm around Toni’s waist and placing her chin on her shoulder.
It felt a little too much like the relationship she wished they had.
As fun as trying to feed her while she chopped up the fruits was, they both decided it was a horrible idea—mainly because Toni just kept gulping everything down whole—so they took their seats at the table and ate off of actual dishes.
“I swear you don’t even have to chop up fruits that much when you make smoothies,” Toni said whilst dipping a roll in soy sauce.
“Yeah well, my daddy thinks it’ll get stuck or somethin’ if we don’t, and he doesn’t want it to break so,” Shelby replied, looking down at her food.
“That’s so freaking stupid dude, how’s a banana gonna break a machine worth hundreds of dollars?” Toni joked, but then picked up on the drop in Shelby’s expression at the mention of her father and quickly changed the subject. “I missed a shot today.”
Shelby’s eyes widened in surprise, both at the fact that it happened and that Toni was so willing to admit it. “Yep, I know, I just got distracted.” Thinking about you is how she would’ve finished the sentence, had she had the courage, but even after years and years of building it up, she just couldn’t seem to bring herself to do or at least say something about everything she felt towards her best friend.
“That sucks,” Shelby responded, before brightening her tone as she said, “Hey, remember that time when this girl kept foulin’ you so you—”
“Hey!” Toni interrupted, pointing her chopsticks at her and biting back a laugh at the memory of when she legitimately pissed in her hand to throw it at an opponent who had been repeatedly fouling her for no good reason. “Let’s not go there.”
The two shared a comfortable silence for the rest of the meal, and it continued while Shelby finished making their drinks and Toni washed the dishes.
It was easy to wordlessly manoeuvre around each other given how well they simply fit with one another.
The way Toni moved around her like it was nothing, the way she’d steal glances at her every so often, and the way she’d purposefully brush their arms or legs together when she got the chance was so endearing to Shelby. She felt herself being further and further drawn into her, literally and figuratively, and so she took Toni’s hand in hers on impulse, earning her a quizzical look from the shorter girl.
Shelby gave her hand a squeeze, which was reciprocated along with a smile, and the two carried on with their tasks as if it was nothing.
What? It’s totally platonic
Because best friends do this all the time. And they do, it’s true, some best friends are like this—but the difference between those types of best friends and them is that when Shelby was around Toni, the sort of things that she felt and did were far beyond platonic.
“Here you go,” Shelby said, handing a glass of reddish looking smoothie to her. Toni took a sip from it, closing her eyes as the flavour hit her.
“Wow,” she breathed out, the corners of her mouth turned up. “This is low-key amazing. I can, like, practically taste the hundreds of dollars that this blender is worth.”
Shelby pressed her lips together in a failed attempt to hide a smile as she poured herself her own glass to drink from.
“Okay, yeah,” Shelby laughed after she took a sip. “This is actually incredible.”
Toni held up her glass to her and said, “Cheers,” to which Shelby frowned with her mouth still shaped like a smile, and their glasses made a little clink.
“What are we toastin’ to?” Shelby asked, bringing the glass up for another drink.
Toni shrugged. “To this blender.”
Once they’d finished and cleaned everything up, they both went back upstairs to Shelby’s bedroom and lied down on the bed, side by side, looking up at the ceiling. Shelby tried to fight the itch to take Toni’s hand in hers, but it was cured when Toni took the initiative herself and intertwined their fingers.
“Toni?” Shelby quietly called.
“Yeah?”
“I—”
She needed to say it there and then, but she couldn’t bring herself to. If she had, it would’ve been the fourth time she’d said it out loud.
-
The third and most recent time had been a few weeks ago. Shelby had been stressing about how her pageant practice was infringing upon her studying time, so Toni offered to help her catch up with AP Chemistry one afternoon in the library. The two of them sat on rounded armchairs that were positioned perpendicularly to each other, an array of open textbooks in front of them on a round table in a little corner by themselves, surrounded by bookshelves.
It hadn’t been particularly helpful, however, as Toni was wearing her reading glasses, something which she hardly ever wore out of what Shelby thought was the most baseless insecurity of all time. Toni having them on only happened once in a blue moon, so of course Shelby was going to stare.
The frames were round and relatively thin, with a tortoiseshell pattern around the lenses and narrow black metal temples that extended to tortoiseshell tips. They were a bit too big for Toni, so they’d often slide down her nose when she looked down, and the sight of her continuously pushing them back up every five minutes was almost too endearing to Shelby.
Sometimes her hair would fall over her face and she’d tuck it behind her ear, and every fibre of Shelby’s being was concentrated on not giving into the urge of doing it herself.
She propped her chin up on her hand and watched Toni concentrate. The very tip of her tongue was exposed between the corner of her lips as she messily scribbled down something unintelligible, and Shelby looked on as if she were painting a Michelangelo piece.
When she caught her staring, Toni looked up with a small close-lipped smile. “What?” she half whispered.
“I love you,” Shelby helplessly blurted out in response.
Toni couldn’t hide the blush that crept up into her cheeks. She told her, “I love you too,” and it sounded more like a question, like a “me too, but what made you say it at this exact moment?”
“Yeah, it’s just, I dunno,” Shelby said, blushing even more than Toni, averting her gaze to look aimlessly up at the top of a shelf. “I appreciate you doin’ this for me.”
Their eyes met again and Toni looked at her with something behind her eyes—something honest and complex—before her smile came back and she joked, “I’m just doing this so I can steal your revision notes.”
“Yeah, okay sure,” Shelby retorted sarcastically with an eye roll.
Neither of them did much work that day.
-
“I really like your braids,” was what Shelby blurted out instead of the three words that were always at the tip of her tongue. “Could you maybe, um, do my hair please?”
Toni shrugged nonchalantly, not thinking too much of it, and nodded, grabbing some hair ties from the bedside table. Shelby sat up, eagerly awaiting the feeling of Toni’s fingers in her hair that she knew she was going to experience for the best part of a quarter of an hour.
She braids my hair / I sit there blacking out for the first time
“Not gonna lie to you Shell,” she told her as she got up on her knees behind Shelby’s back, “Bernice always does mine and Marty’s braids so I don’t really know how to do nice ones. I don’t even know the different names of all of them, just the ones Marty does for her dances.”
“That’s okay,” Shelby responded softly, relishing in the feeling of Toni’s dexterous fingers working against her hair. She let herself relax the tension she’d subconsciously worked up in her body, letting her back meet Toni’s chest.
Every single little movement that Toni made would send shivers down her spine, all the way across her body down to her fingertips that she was convinced were about to become singed from this burning sensation. It was so addictive that Shelby wondered if this was what it was like to get high.
It wasn’t—it was so much more than that, and it was indescribable. There are no words in the English language for how they feel about each other, and that’s how Toni knew she was well and truly in love with Shelby. She’d always had this thing about how you could only be completely in love when you stopped being able to describe it. Whenever she was around Shelby, her mind would completely blank; her heart would skip so many beats that she was sure she’d end up in cardiac arrest someday. She was the most beautiful, kindest person she’d ever met—why would her heart even bother to try to beat normally around her?
So no, there were no words that could describe how she felt for her best friend, and that was the case for both of them.
“Okay so, um,” Toni half-mumbled as she finished braiding Shelby’s hair. “I tried to do one of those simple double plait things that white girls love, but it’s sort of uneven.”
“A dutch braid?” asked Shelby.
“Don’t ask me,” Toni answered light-heartedly.
Shelby got up and walked over to her mirror, checking out Toni’s handiwork in the reflection. She bit her lip through a smile as Toni came up behind her and stood on her tip toes to be able to rest her chin on her shoulder.
“You look cute like that,” Toni said in a quiet voice, repeating what Shelby had told her a few hours ago.
And Shelby broke.
Next thing I know / I lose control
Years of pent up love and emotion came out all at once in the kiss. Shelby’s hands were holding Toni’s face close to hers, and Toni’s hands gripped so hard onto her waist for dear life that red marks were probably being formed on her skin.
Toni let out a low groan into her mouth as Shelby parted her lips with her tongue, needing to know what it felt like to have Toni’s against hers—and God did it feel so much better than she could’ve ever anticipated, even more perfect than what she’d dreamed of for so long.
She could feel the sweetness from the fruit on her, and there was something about the taste that was just so uniquely Toni about it that it made Shelby physically come apart on the inside.
Not breaking the kiss, she pulled Toni down onto the couch below her windowsill, sitting with her back against the arm and Toni straddling her lap. The warmth of their bodies and mouths together was everything that they never knew they needed and more, so they pressed into each other, needing as much as possible of the contact they so desperately craved.
“Are you sure?” Toni whispered against her lips, bringing her left hand up to cup her cheek.
“I need this, Toni,” Shelby said firmly, darkened green eyes burning into brown ones that had almost turned to black. “I need you.”
Their lips crashed together again with vehemence. Shelby’s hands snaked up Toni’s back to hold her close by her shoulders, and Toni let herself be brought in closer and closer to her, wanting nothing more than to feel her entire body being pressed up against hers.
They pulled apart for breath, foreheads pressed together, but just as Toni leaned in for more, Shelby pressed a palm to her chest to hold her back—which her was unclear.
“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I just need to, uh, breathe for a second.”
Toni swallowed, completely understanding, and nodded. “You okay?”
The caring tone to her voice only made Shelby flush deeper. “Yeah, yeah I’m good. You just…” Her eyes drifted to where Toni’s hands had settled onto her waist again. “You drive me freakin’ insane.”
A breathy laugh escaped Toni’s lips, one that Shelby dived in to capture with her own. And then they kissed and kissed, moving against each other so effortlessly and easily for minutes on end, holding each other so desperately in an attempt to make up for all the lost years.
That realisation hit Toni, making her accidentally break the kiss with helpless laughter. At Shelby’s raised eyebrows, she said, “I can’t believe that for all this time I could've just kissed you.”
“Wait,” Shelby stuttered out, a little flummoxed, “you wanted this?”
Toni blinked. “Shell, I just made out with you for, like, five minutes.”
Oh, that was a bit of a silly question, Shelby thought.
She rushed to correct herself, “Well yeah, I just meant that, um, how long? Like, when you said ‘all this time’, how long has it been?”
Without hesitation, Toni spoke. “Since the day I met you.”
Shelby’s mouth hung open as Toni rushed in a stutter, “No, well, I mean, I liked you since the beginning, obviously, and I thought you were super pretty. I don’t really know when I developed actual feelings for you, but yeah, it was pretty early on.”
“Um, me too.”
They stared at each other for a second, then another, then one more before bursting out into laughter, clutching onto each other’s wrists as Shelby threw her head back. “Oh my lord, we are such idiots. There’s so much time we’ve been wastin’.”
Toni gulped, suddenly turning serious. “I don’t think time with you could ever be wasted.”
Shelby’s voice was barely a whisper, “Oh.”
“Oh.”
“Well,” she said, touching their foreheads together, “good thing we have all the time in the world left.”
And as they kissed again and again, falling into the fifty pillows on Shelby’s bed, she realised that love was something she did know: not just a love shared between best friends, or a romantic love, but a mixture of the two—a real, unconditional love that neither of them held back from showing each other for the rest of their lives.