Chapter Text
“Guys, check what the thrift store was selling!”
Toni struts over to her usual lunch table, spinning around to show off all angles of her new graphic tee, which features a vintage take on Spiderman, that sat over her white long sleeve shirt. She doesn’t mind how her glasses almost go flying off, or the way the other tables stare at her, not when Nora’s grinning and Dot’s giving her a thumbs up. “Totally robbed that place. Three shirts for six bucks.”
“It fits like a glove,” Dot says, leaning back in her chair to take a closer look. “Total smokeshow, dude.”
“I know, right?”
Toni plops down in her seat, throwing down her brown paper sack that hits the table with a strong thud.
“What the hell is in that thing, a rock?” Leah asks.
Toni laughs and pulls out an apple. “Close!’
“Is that all you have?”
Squinting, Toni continues digging through the sack, as if there’s more than two items still in it. “Uh, I’ve got a water bottle, and a half squished sandwich.”
Dot raises an eyebrow. “Is that half a sandwich that’s squished, or a sandwich that’s only kinda squished?”
“The latter.”
“Maybe if you didn’t keep your full water bottle with it, it wouldn’t be so deflated.” Is Martha’s retort.
Toni laughs again, because, yeah, that’s true, but it doesn’t mean she’s going to stop doing it.
It’s always been that way with the five of them, with the quick banter but total support in whatever stupid shit one of them was up to. Toni wasn’t sure how she was going to survive high school in the beginning, when all she had was Martha, one pair of sneakers, and a bookshelf full of comic books and the classics, but one rogue football to the head in gym class led her to Dot, who profusely apologized and offered up a fake hall pass.
Dot led her to Leah, who was just as into the books as Toni was (but even more so, if that was possible, quoting this author and that, and using literary terms Toni had only ever seen written down). They immediately shared their Tumblr handles, and when that website went down the drain, they switched over to Twitter to rant about their favorite shows and movies.
And Leah of course, led her to Nora, who knew pretty much everything about everything, but only ever used it when necessary.
“With great power comes great responsibility,” Toni had said when she first realized this, a full grin on her face.
Dot had patted her on the back after that, with a simple, “Love the reference, man, but another one of those and there’ll be a locker with your name on it, and you in it.”
That brought Toni to now, surrounded by four familiar faces and a few years of memories under her belt.
All those years also lead her to this moment, her eyes catching a flash of straight, blonde hair headed for a lunch table only a few yards over.
Toni’s smile slowly falls off her face, and she sits up straight as Shelby Goodkind places down her lunch tray right in her line of sight.
Shelby Goodkind, also known as the poor girl Toni’s found herself infatuated with.
Leah’s not sure why, since all the girls who dress like Shelby are dickheads to them, but Shelby’s never shied away from offering Toni an extra pen when Toni’s lost her own in her mess of a backup, or cheering for Toni when she hit that grand slam in junior year gym class during the softball unit.
She transferred sophomore year, coming in with that blinding smile and silly accent that shouldn’t light Toni’s cheeks on fire, but does, and always has. Toni had been out since eighth grade and was no stranger to stupid, straight girl crushes, but she just couldn’t shake this one. It was ridiculous, because Toni’s whole mantra has centered around being cautious and never letting your guard down, so letting herself feel so much for a girl who surrounds herself with some of the worst people Toni knows sounds like it’ll only lead up to a lot of pain.
Still, Toni gives her the benefit of the doubt, because she hopes someday Shelby ignores all the stuff she’s probably heard about Toni (about the anger, the geeky shit she gets into, and whatever people have made up about her to fill in the gaps, since she refuses to share that deep shit with anyone else but her core group).
After a little more than two years of the same shit over and over again, though, her hope is dwindling when it comes to Shelby.
Shelby, who’s currently laughing at some joke, looks so beautiful under the mixture of poor fluorescent lighting and sun pouring in from the massive glass windows lining the cafeteria.
Shelby, who’s now turning her head towards Toni with a direct purpose, like she knows exactly where Toni is sitting and is searching her out-
Who’s doing what?
They make eye contact, but Toni can’t keep it, she’s too jittery, too nervous. Her whole head turns on its own volition, and she bites her lip to stop the smile from forming on her face. It’s a little stupid, how hard her heart just slammed into her chest, but fuck, those eyes, green as kryptonite (okay not like, as green, because kryptonite is really fucking green, but her eyes are pretty, alright?), cut right through her.
She counts to three seconds, before flickering her eyes back to Shelby, who’s still looking at her. And not just, like, blink-and-you-might-miss-it, but full on staring right into Toni’s eyes. Shelby’s own grow wide at being caught.
No way.
Shelby’s back in whatever conversation she was ignoring before Toni can blink twice. She could almost believe that she imagined that entire exchange, if it wasn’t for the blush currently painting Shelby’s cheeks a pretty pink.
The whole situation strikes something in Toni. She wonders how many times she’s missed Shelby looking at her before.
She’s a little too caught up in her own head, though, because she doesn’t notice her name is being called until it’s too late.
“Toni? Toni!” One snap too loud and Toni’s basically falling out of her seat, swinging her arms around to hold onto something to stop her.
“What the fuck, Leah?”
“Stop staring.”
“Dude, she was looking at me!”
The words feel strange coming out of her mouth. She’s waited her entire high school career for some sign that maybe Shelby knows who she is, after years of pining, stealing quick glances, and thanking her quietly when their fingers brushed when passing worksheets around the classroom.
This isn’t exactly evidence, but it’s not not evidence, and you can’t prove a negative, anyway.
“It’s been years, man, you gotta let this go.”
“I know…”
Dot’s probably right. Toni has let too many girls skip through her fingers because of this stupid crush. Regan comes to mind, who joined Toni and Shelby’s bio class last year. Martha swears up and down that Regan had been flirting with her from the get go, but Toni only had eyes for Shelby.
She can’t help who her heart beats for, though, Toni argues. She doesn’t decide to fall apart under Shelby’s gaze or melt under the waves of her voice. If she could, maybe she’d take the opportunity to get Shelby out of her head, but she can’t.
Still. “I just want one chance.”
They’ve shared classes and lunch and the rare study hall, but never has Toni had a direct conversation with Shelby that lasted longer than a few sentences back and forth.
Still, she knows enough about her. She knows Shelby did pageants in Texas, and she volunteers a lot, and she’s so pretty it takes Toni’s breath away. The last one isn’t an objective fact, but she doesn’t think anyone can disagree with it.
“I could ask Rachel if there’s a spot on the diving team,” Nora offers. She doesn’t get along super well with her twin, but they run in completely different circles, so they rarely see each other anyway. “She gets to wear a varsity jacket, girls like those.”
“Nah, I can’t swim for shit,” she crosses her arms on the lunch table, laying her head over them. “I would’ve played basketball, but the team got cut for sucking.”
“Ah shit man, basketball definitely would’ve caught her attention.”
“I know, right?”
She sighs, because she’s not sure what else to say. Making the first move isn’t something she ever learned how to do, but girls like Shelby Goodkind don’t go chasing after girls like Toni Shalifoe.
Girls like Shelby don’t chase after anyone.
And this isn’t Toni’s roundabout way of saying she’s not like other girls, because fuck that, but Shelby doesn’t really seem like the type of person to want to play Dungeons and Dragons in Leah’s basement, or talk about the inaccuracies in historical documentaries, or even argue over which of the million Sonic games is the least shit (because, God, only like three are actually good).
Toni spares one last glance over to Shelby, who doesn’t look too pleased with whatever the girls at her table were saying. Sometimes she wonders if Shelby wants to be there at all, or if this is just a part of what she has to do to survive high school, in the same way Toni has to keep her rainbow suspenders at home.
She hopes not. Shelby didn’t deserve a life like that. No one did, but especially not Shelby.
"I just want you to be careful," Leah offers. She places a hand on Toni's shoulder, like she's being nice, when really Leah just hates anyone she deems popular (which is, essentially, anyone but them). "The social hierarchy is brutal."
"Is that why you never talk to Rachel?"
Leah sputters at Nora. "What the fu- No! Who? No!"
"You stare at her all the time."
Nora says it so matter-of-factly that Leah can't refute it, which makes Toni laugh so hard at the irony that she chokes on the bit of apple she still had in her mouth.
"Fuck you guys," Leah crosses her arms.
She's saved by Martha, who immediately jumps in about her own crush problems, which Toni is content to just listen to until lunch is over.
Toni goes through the rest of her day on autopilot. She doesn’t need to pay attention in Calculus since they’re two days out of a test, and Toni already knows half the unit and can deduce the rest. Instead, she keeps her head in her palm and her eyes on her notebook, doodling the same shapes over and over again while thinking about every instance she’s ever ended up in the same vicinity as Shelby, and what it could mean now that she knows she might be on Shelby’s radar after all.
She draws blank after blank after blank, and instead just starts picturing all the shit she could do to get into Shelby’s line of vision long enough to strike a conversation. She wonders if she could message Shelby and ask about the homework (for a class they don’t even share, but have the same teacher for), but then she remembers the only social media she has is Twitter, and she is not asking for Shelby’s number.
So, she’s got nothing. The only other way to take up the remainder of double-block calc is to route her headphone wires up her sleeve and hide the earbuds under her hair. With her phone screen darkened enough to not light her face up, she scrolls through her favorite playlist and taps on her favorite daydream song.
It takes everything in her to not start drumming out the song on her desk.
She spends the rest of class picturing a parallel universe where Shelby comes over to her house after school to study, yet ends up staying longer so they can do something else.
It took her a long time to move past the shame she felt letting her mind wander like that. Some part of her brain still tries to tell her that picturing Shelby like that isn’t okay, but she knows better, now. She’s a teenage girl with hopes and dreams, and a lot of those dreams involve Shelby. Nothing wrong with that.
At the end of the day, though, she’s still left with that empty feeling, because her real life is still out there to be lived, and she’s still single as fuck, and Shelby still doesn’t give her the time of day.
Tomorrow, Toni resolves, the way she always does on days like this.
Tomorrow will be different.
What Toni doesn’t know is that this time, it’s true.
toni @foestolovers: does a girl ever look at u and ur head immediately goes to ‘she’s in love with me’
leah @rainermyparade: @foestolovers no
toni @foestolovers: @rainermyparade shut up
fatin @foffjadmani: @foestolovers yeah and then i actually make a move
toni @foestolovers: @foffjadmani wtf how did u find this account
fatin @foffjadmani: @foestolovers you’re easier to find than you think. you should fix that before the whole school follows you
toni @foestolovers: @foffjadmani fuck off
fatin @foffjadmani: damnit. she blocked me