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Sasha’s pool party was going to be a disaster.
Sasha had told Claire earlier this week, smug and preening, that she was now the captain of the cheerleading squad. Claire’s former title at Saint James had been passed on to the younger Waybright sister. However, Sasha managed to secure the position in seventh grade rather than Claire’s eighth grade victory, beating out all the other seventh and eighth grade candidates. Claire was ecstatic at the news, mostly because cheerleading was something that Sasha enjoyed way more than Claire ever had.
Since their parents were out of town for Dad’s work conference, Claire had decided that throwing a pool party for Sasha’s accomplishment seemed like a perfect idea. Screw their parents who wouldn’t even offer Sasha a simple ‘congrats’ over text. Sasha brushed off their indifference with her own practiced disdain, but Claire could see doubt seeping through the cracks in Sasha’s mask. She had tried so damn hard to protect Sasha from the truth of their parents’ neglect, but in the end, both Waybright girls were made of the same jagged glass. Sasha was just better at weaponizing her broken pieces.
Sasha deserved to be celebrated, so Claire decided to go all out with the party—she asked Ty’s band to play in their backyard, invited all the kids in Sasha’s class, and cleaned the pool thoroughly. She picked up store-made cupcakes and ordered several pizzas from the local pizza joint. Claire bought water balloons and struggled to carry her good speakers outside so she could pull up Sasha’s Spotify playlists when the band was done with their set.
Of course, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The only pizza delivery driver was out sick, so Seline—one of Claire’s best friends and Blood Brink’s vocalist—was going to swing by the restaurant to pick the pizzas up on her way over. The cupcakes had slid off Claire’s lap while she was driving home in an effort to get there before Sasha, Anne, and Marcy, so now the icing was coated on more of the container than it was on the cupcakes.
And now, Claire was at her wit’s end setting up Ty’s beer pong table to repurpose it for snacks and non-alcoholic drinks. She swore under her breath as the table tilted precariously on its busted leg without so much as paper plates on it. “Ty, what the hell happened to this thing since I saw you last weekend?” Claire called over her shoulder as she wrestled the table leg to lock into place. There. It still looked sad, but if she threw the cheap table cloth she had bought over it, none of the middle schoolers present would even bat an eye.
Unless their soda and greasy pizza ended up on the well-manicured grass of the Waybrights’ backyard. Dammit.
Ty popped his head around the corner of the house where he had been filling a tin basin full of water balloons and gave her a crooked grin. “Seline didn’t tell you? Lonnie fell off the second story awning during the house party on Saturday. Crushed everyone’s drinks with his ass, screwed up the table, and started cackling like a madman.”
Claire stared at her best friend for a moment and then rolled her eyes. The summer heat of LA pressed against her skin like an unwanted hug. “You know Seline—she’s terrible at remembering things. Think Lonnie is going to show up today for your gig, or is his ass just as bruised as his ego?”
Ty snickered and pulled his black tank top up to wipe away the sweat beading on his upper lip. Strands of his dyed black hair dislodged from his overly-gelled mohawk and stuck out at odd angles. Claire could see hints of his strawberry blonde roots. Ty’s freckles had been coaxed out by the August sun as of late too, but she knew he would be mad if she mentioned it. “Lonnie will be here. The last thing he wants is to disappoint Sasha.”
Claire snorted as she began moving all the food and drinks off of the lawn chairs and onto Lonnie’s broken table. “Sash learned how to play the guitar to perform Lonnie’s own riffs better than him. You would think he would be more miffed.”
Ty bent down to grab the water balloon basin by the handles and then hauled it closer to the pool. “Yeah right! That’s the best compliment she could have given the bastard. I’m sure he’s half-expecting her to cartwheel out of the damn pool and snatch his guitar mid-performance today as some sort of power move.”
Claire couldn’t help but to laugh at that image. “He has the most older brother-energy of any only child that I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re not wrong. I swear Vince has more memories of Lonnie from when he was little than he does of me. He revoked my older brother card!” Water sloshed out of the basin and onto Ty’s cutoff jeans shorts and his bare feet, slowly trickling over to where Claire’s own feet were scalding on the pavement beside their in-ground pool. Claire dipped her toes into the spilled, soothingly cold water.
“Whatever, you baby,” Claire teased, tucking her wayward curls behind her ears. “As if Vince doesn’t act like you hung the moon. That kid has had a mohawk, pierced ears, and dyed hair since fifth grade.” Claire adjusted the neon pink strings of her bikini under her tank top so they would stop pinching her. “Anne told me that he’s been sitting on picnic tables outside with his guitar at lunchtime.”
Ty pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. “Jesus.”
“Think he’s serenading Cheyenne?” Claire plopped down onto one of the lawn chairs and fanned herself with a paper plate. If the kids didn’t show up soon, she was going to jump into the pool without them.
“I’m sure as hell not asking him about it if that’s the case.”
Claire paused her fanning and tapped the paper plate contemplatively against her chin. “I could just ask Marcy if she thinks Vince and Cheyenne fit the best friends to lovers trope and she’ll find out for us in a heartbeat.”
Ty dunked his hands into the basin and then flicked icy cold water onto Claire’s face. Claire squawked and threw the paper plate at Ty’s head like a frisbee in retaliation. “You’ll forever be on Vince’s shitlist if you get Marcy Wu’s deduction skills involved in his love life. Proceed with caution, Waybright.”
“Asshole,” Claire replied fondly.
And with that, the noise of their guests at the front gate signaled that it was time to get this show on the road.
Claire went around the side of the house so she could gather up the chattering preteens from their front porch. Mrs. Boonchuy was dropping off the girls in around fifteen minutes, so Sasha would arrive to her own party fashionably late. As usual.
Here was a group that Claire was very familiar with—Vince, Cheyenne, and Penn were lazily sprawled on the Waybrights’ concrete front steps, wearing more pleather and mesh than Claire had seen since 2008. She briefly wondered what setting spray Penn used for their makeup because that stuff wasn’t melting off at all.
Claire mussed Vince’s mohawk and grinned. “Hey, gremlins! Are you swimming today or am I going to have to throw you in front of an industrial fan again so you don’t pass out?”
“That happened one time,” Cheyenne complained, but then she started giggling and pulled Claire into a hug. Claire’s sweaty skin clung to Cheyenne’s pleather jacket uncomfortably. “Hiya, Claire! Sasha said you’ve been slammed with work and that’s why we haven’t seen you in ages.”
Claire hugged Cheyenne back, but her smile became brittle. She had been working non-stop to save up money for Sasha’s upcoming field trip. Not that Sasha was aware of that—Claire had lied and said she would talk about it with Mom and Dad so they could handle it. Plus, now that it was clear that their parents had no intention of paying for Claire’s art school, the only way she could make her dreams happen was to work herself to the bone by picking up extra shifts at the coffee shop.
Claire had known this trio courtesy of her friendship with Ty since the kids were all in diapers, but there was no way she was going to burden them with the truth of her absence. Claire pulled away from Cheyenne, bumped Penn’s spike-clad jacket conspiratorially, and faux-whispered: “I have to get my discounted lattes somehow!”
She ushered Vince, Cheyenne, and Penn through the metal gate and into the backyard just as a van full of children and a disgruntled mother pulled up at the curb. The swarm of shrieking middle schoolers who rushed out of the van—skateboards and iPhones and wadded up bathing suits in tow—would have made some freshman college students wince. But Claire had practically raised Sasha Waybright, so she matched the rowdy group’s energy and clapped her hands sharply to get their attention.
She counted heads internally as she informed them that the pizza was on the way and they could change into their bathing suits in the guest bathroom if need be. Gabby and Maggie were arguing about something already, which was no surprise. Bridget, Carlos, Johanna, and Rico were leaning over someone’s phone and engrossed in a TikTok. Tommy was half-wedged between Yoko, Desi, and the Waybright’s mailbox, as short and startled-looking as ever.
Claire led the kids to the backyard and drank in the setup. The busted table seemed functional with the tablecloth over it. Ty was adjusting the extension cords and his amp so they were nowhere near any source of water. Penn had cuffed their jeans and was standing barefoot in the water balloon basin, long brown legs exposed to the intense afternoon sun. Vince and Cheyenne, white and unused to having so much skin exposed after shedding their jackets, were already beginning to turn pink. Claire made a note in her mind to offer that trio sunscreen ASAP.
The lawn chairs around the pool were now crowded with kids, hands full of haphazardly-grabbed potato chips and overflowing cups of orange soda. The gazebo, the only blessedly shaded place in the yard, was home to the band’s other equipment and Claire’s giant speakers. Shade was the least Claire could offer since Blood Brink had agreed to perform today. Ty had helped her move the Waybrights’ heavy-ass George Foreman grill out of the way earlier so the gazebo space would be clear for their performance.
Claire did a double take when she saw Lonnie already lounging on the gazebo’s stairs, misting his face with a giant spray bottle. He must have parked toward the end of the cul-de-sac and came in through their rickety back gate.
Lonnie was probably the most aptly dressed out of all of them—he was only wearing his neon yellow swim trunks, a pair of sunglasses, and a faded baseball cap flipped backwards as he tuned his guitar. A litany of mumbled curses in both English and Spanish spilled from Lonnie’s mouth while tightened his strings, brows furrowed in concentration. It probably didn’t help that the kids were being noisy, but that was what they had all signed up for.
Claire stared at the red hyacinth flowers tattooed on Lonnie’s right shoulder, inked onto golden brown skin between freckles and pale scar tissue from his minor motorcycle accident. Lonnie got tattooed right after high school graduation, newly eighteen, and had semi-successfully hidden the tattoo from his more fussy tias ever since.
Claire snagged a paper cup full of soda from the busted beer pong table and offered it to Lonnie with raised eyebrows. He finally stopped cussing out his guitar long enough to realize that Claire was standing in front of him. “Rumor on the street is that you broke your ass,” she deadpanned as a way of greeting. All the kids stop their conversations to laugh and shout jabs in Lonnie’s direction.
“Keep clowning, brats!” There was no heat in Lonnie’s words, only devilish glee. “Don’t forget that I taught most of you how to swim.”
That shut everyone up. Leave it to Lonnie to use his former lifeguard job as ammo. “Mature,” Claire drawled.
Lonnie stuck his tongue out at her and accepted the offered soda.
Just as Claire was about to go to the shallow end of the pool to cool off, Seline appeared around the side of the house with several large pizzas stacked in her arms. “Y’all are lucky I love you, hauling this greasy shit to and fro. My car smells like stale cigarettes and hot-ass pepperoni!” she called. Claire laughed and jogged to grab some of the pizzas from Seline before she dropped them onto the grass.
“You chain smoke in that bucket of bolts,” Ty pointed out, flapping his hand in front of his face to cool himself down. “The stale cigarettes are all you.” His mohawk was wilting miserably. Claire bit back a smile at the sight.
Seline rolled her eyes, long lashes briefly brushing her thick eyebrows. Seline was beautiful in the sort of effortless way that Claire could never achieve. Her umber skin glowed in the sunlight, smooth and unblemished. Her tightly coiled hair was in a protective style this week—long cyan blue box braids pulled up into a high ponytail that trailed down her back. Seline’s bikini matched her braids down to the shade, as did her new acrylic nails. She had a worn beach towel thrown over her shoulder and was wearing a see-through white lace bathing suit cover over her bikini. Claire felt her cheeks turning pink and looked away quickly.
Maybe I shouldn’t have ordered ten pizzas? Claire thought as she guided Seline to the busted table. Oh well, Sasha will be eating leftovers for the next week anyway.
As soon as all the pizzas were laid out on the table—pineapple in the far right corner, of course, because Anne would be disgusted if it was pressed up against the only pepperoni pizzas—Claire pulled Seline into a hug.
“Thank you for picking the pizza up. I owe you one,” Claire said quietly. Seline’s arms were quick to wrap around Claire’s waist. Nervous energy buzzed against Claire’s sternum when Seline laughed that gravelly laugh of hers and pulled Claire closer. Seline smelled like cigarette smoke and citrus lotion. When Seline’s nails pressed gently against Claire’s hips, Claire wanted to peel off her own skin and jump into the pool to escape the wave of want that swept over her. Sudden and consuming and terrifying.
“No problem, really. I know you would do the same for me.”
I would do anything for you, Claire thought. “Of course,” Claire said.
They separated, and Claire’s heart stopped trying to vacate her body through her mouth. As Claire grabbed a couple slices of pizza and settled onto the chair between Ty and Seline to eat, tuning out the chatter of the kids as they debated filming TikToks of them dancing in the pool, she noticed Ty’s pointed glance before he turned to face Lonnie.
You’re gonna have to say something sooner or later, that look seemed to say.
Claire knew that Ty was right. When Seline wasn’t around, it was easier for Claire to pretend like she wasn’t in love with her. It was easier to pretend like things could stay the same, even as their relationship twisted into something soft and foreign.
Claire bit into a huge hunk of cheese and washed it down with a swig of soda, self-conscious that her entire interaction with Seline had made her look ridiculous. And pining. And pathetic.
She was pissed because she wanted to stay friends with Seline. Feelings made things complicated! Claire hadn’t had real friends that she trusted until her junior year of high school, and that was entirely her own fault. She partied with people who wanted to be close to her because she was a Waybright. She kissed and slept with guys—well, mostly guys—who more often than not ended their night together by asking if she could introduce them to her dad.
Claire was used to friendship or any close relationship being transactional. Her parents’ marriage was like that. Her friendships and work connections and romantic flings were all like that. The only relationship Claire had known was whole, unfettered by expectations of perfection or professional gain, was her sisterhood with Sasha. And Claire had to build that from the ground up when she was small, when Sasha was nothing more than a chubby baby in her arms who she swore to protect with all her might.
It was easier for Claire to surround herself with “friends” who used her and hurt her and despised her, just a little bit, while she was at school. Sure, she was childhood friends with Ty and Lonnie, but they always hovered in the background of her line of sight—acquaintances who waved to her in the hallways but only really talked to her after the last bell had rung, skateboarding too close to traffic as they taught her how to stand on their boards while they all walked to their shared neighborhood together.
Claire knew now that Ty and Lonnie had been waiting for her to get a grip and commit herself to their friendship wholly. Not just to hang out with one another at some asshole’s house party. Not just to bump shoulders and say hello in the hallways when her friends’ backs were turned.
The truth was that Claire had only ever given away tiny pieces of herself in relationships because she knew how easily one wrong phrase or look could shatter her. She offered the sharpest pieces of herself to others in faux camaraderie, but it was nothing but a warning. Don’t come too close—you’ll cut yourself on all these edges. You don’t want to know me. Not really. You’ll hate what you see. My mom does. If my dad even bothered to look, he would hate who I am, too.
It took a drawn out screaming match between Ty and Claire while they were shitfaced on some dude’s lawn during a frat party for Claire to come to her senses once and for all. It happened the beginning of their junior year when she felt like her life was well and truly falling apart.
“You hang out with all these fake losers who want to break you down and then suck up to you!” Ty had roared. “So yeah, I’m worried. They grab you and—and God, Claire, can you even see yourself? Trying to walk home barefoot through the LA streets again because they refused to find you a ride home? They don’t give a shit about you! But Lonnie and I have been watching your back since Sasha was in diapers. You know that, right? We—we beat the shit out of that asshole who tried to grab you, we were the ones who got those girls expelled for sending around those pictures of you. You think—I can fucking tell—you think that no one in the world cares about what happens to you.” Ty had almost fallen down when he grabbed her hand as she tried to stumble away, crying.
She had been thankful that everyone else was inside and the music was screeching so loud that the others couldn’t possibly hear their screaming match. “Lonnie and I have always cared! You’ve been pushing us away. I don’t give a shit if you’re embarrassed to be seen with us alt kids or whatever the hell. We know you better than those people who you call your friends. You—” Ty had hiccupped, and Claire had felt dirty and horrible because now Ty started crying, too. “You like bubblegum pop and alt rock bands. You only eat strawberry-flavored ice cream. When you laugh really hard, your nose scrunches up. You try to cover up the beauty mark above your lip with makeup, but it’s there—you kinda match Sasha, y’know? You like mystery video games and you play table-top card games with Marcy. You worked with Anne on her tennis serves when her parents were busy because she was lonely, even though you had no idea how to play it yourself. You raised Sasha!”
Ty had pulled her into his arms, and Claire felt the fight left in her body draining away. All this time, she had thought that no one had bothered to see her. That no one would care to look. She had just been too stubborn to acknowledge that Ty and Lonnie had been there, all that time. “Please stop waiting for a place to die.” Ty’s words had sobered Claire instantly, and she only sobbed harder. Ty rubbed her back. “If you’ll give us a chance, we’ll stay with you while you figure out this whole living thing, okay?”
And that was that. Ty and Lonnie had stayed by Claire’s side when she rejected her fake friends, confronted her parents about wanting to go to art school, and accepted all the pieces of herself that made living difficult. They talked. They laughed and they cried. Claire became their rock just as much as they were hers. She loved them dearly, in a way that came close to how she adored Sasha. Her brothers in everything but blood. And when Seline transferred to their school during the second half of their junior year, upset that she had to finish out her high school education at a brand new school, they all swooped in to claim her as their friend with no qualms.
Ty and Lonnie were right—Claire needed to tell Seline how she felt. If not, the secret would fester between them until it ruined their friendship anyway. And she would, sooner rather than later. But today was about Sasha, so Claire tucked her gay thoughts about Seline away for now and tried to focus on the party at hand.
Claire smiled a little to herself as she shoved another bite of pizza into her mouth. The girls were running later than expected, but she wasn’t surprised.
Most of the kids were already finished demolishing their pizza and were clambering to the shallow end of the pool, eyes bright as they splashed one another. They started a game of Marco Polo, and it was so hot that Claire didn’t have the heart to ask them to wait for the girls. Besides, the band could play while the kids were all in the pool.
Just as she was about to send Sasha a text to ask her where they were, Marcy, Anne, and Sasha appeared, waving at the huge group of gathered preteens with glee. They were each wearing their bathing suits already. The girls had giant Slurpees in red, green, and blue, no doubt a treat from the Boonchuys.
Claire's heart twinged pleasantly at the thought. She adored the Boonchuys and their inclusion of Sasha at their household even when she could be a handful. They trusted Claire enough as a responsible figure in the girls’ lives to leave Anne, their only child, under her supervision. Whenever Claire was involved, she tried to gently, unassumingly lead Sasha down a less destructive path so that Anne and Marcy wouldn’t get in trouble.
Sasha was a whirlwind who Claire could barely keep up with while she worked two jobs and saved money for college—she tried her best to point Sasha in the right direction, but at the end of the day, Claire wasn’t Sasha’s parent.
Claire would have to call Mrs. Boonchuy later to thank her for looking after the girls and buying them all Slurpees.
“Look what the cat finally dragged in!” Claire crooned, hoisting herself to her feet as gracefully as she could. “The Saint James Middle School cheerleading captain herself has decided to grace us with her presence.”
Claire laughed as she ruffled Marcy’s hair and hip checked Anne gently before holding out her fist for Sasha to bump. “About time, little sister.”
Sasha bumped Claire’s fist and rolled her eyes to the clear blue sky. “You’ll never believe the traffic, Cee. The 10? A mess. Whole portion of the interstate was shut down because some jerk rear-ended a cement truck.” Sasha wore a black lace tankini and had a matching scrunchie in her hair. Her long side bangs were braided out of her face and pulled into her ponytail. The careful work looked like Marcy’s doing.
“The wreck was totally like Final Destination!” Anne exclaimed with a shudder. Her fluffy brown hair was gathered into a high ponytail, bangs plastered to her forehead with sweat. She was wearing a yellow one piece swimsuit with a pair of loose, white paper bag-style shorts over top.
Marcy gnawed on her fingernail and chimed in: “Wait, wasn’t that a logging truck? Or maybe—huh, maybe I’m misremembering.” Marcy’s bangs were pinned out of her eyes with her usual hair clip. She was also in a one piece suit, but hers was lilac and had a ruffled halter top. “I just remember super clearly the third one, you know, where the girls are in the tanning bed? And they get locked in there and fry alive. Morbid! I cannot believe we watched those at our last sleepover—”
Claire sighed internally, hoping that Marcy and Anne hadn’t told their parents that Sasha roped them into watching Final Destination.
Sasha seemed to realize that the conversation was devolving quickly into something that might get her scolded later, so she grabbed Anne and Marcy by the wrists and tugged them toward the busted table. “Exactly, Mar Mar! Gruesome. Yeah. Let’s—eat some pizza and cupcakes and then swim, okay?”
Marcy beamed, topic of her conversation forgotten, and followed behind Sasha with purpose. Anne was a bit slower to follow along, as usual, her expression chagrined as she probably wondered if Sasha was going to get chewed out because of Anne’s outburst later. She met Claire’s eyes apologetically, but Claire just waved her hand and smiled.
Anne visibly relaxed her shoulders and followed the other girls. There was no need for her to get worked up—she already had to deal with her parents’ reprimanding when Sasha dragged the girls into her schemes, so there was no sense in adding to that strain.
Sasha grabbed her pizza and cupcakes and swept around the yard to talk with everyone who showed up, laughing as they gushed and tried their best to be closer to her. People had always been drawn to Sasha like a moth to a flame. She had all the natural charisma that Claire faked, and Sasha was better at reading people. She knew what made them tick.
Claire watched as Sasha asked about Gabby’s eye doctor appointment for her new contacts, Yoko’s trip to visit her grandmother in Japan, Tommy’s audition for the solo in their school’s choir. Sasha flitted between groups and laughed and offered them advice, brown eyes glittering when the kids hung off her every word. They pressed into each other’s sides at the edge of the pool, leaning forward as Sasha crouched down with her plate of pizza, chips, and cupcakes to meet them. Anne and Marcy flanked Sasha on either side, laughing with everyone else and interjecting when needed, their expressions filled with mirth and their eyes always locked on Sasha or each other.
It was wild to see Sasha’s energy bring all these people together in a way that Claire could have never dreamed of when she was Sasha’s age. Sure, people pushed to meet her and hang out with her when she was a preteen, but it was all in the name of getting in good with the Waybright family as an entity in LA, not Claire herself.
These kids truly didn’t seem to care about the Waybright reputation, though. They liked Sasha, bossy and stubborn and charismatic Sasha, who asked about their problems and then casually offered solutions like it was no skin off her back.
With those sort of people skills, Sasha could have the whole world eating out of the palm of her hand. She could have anything she wanted.
But Claire knew that the only thing Sasha really wanted was for everyone to love her.
The group of young adults converged on the newly-arrived trio of girls now—Lonnie, Ty, and Seline all gave Sasha a hug and congratulated her on being younger than Claire when she held the cheer captain role. “Knew you could do it, Sash,” Ty laughed. “Vince told me that Desi is reporting on it? Apparently she saw you kick all the other girls’ asses and was inspired.”
Claire pushed her way into the group and playfully kicked Ty’s shin. “You sound like a jackass talking about a bunch of twelve-year-olds like that, Ty.”
“I never claimed to not be a jackass, Waybright.”
Lonnie and Seline groaned. Sasha beamed up at Ty, whose mohawk was now a limp mess. Anne giggled and whispered something to Marcy that sounded like ‘cockatoo’. Marcy lost it, almost inhaling her pizza as she doubled over and laughed. Anne stared down at her fondly, and when Claire looked over to see if Sash was annoyed about being left out of the joke, what she saw instead made her breath catch in her throat.
Sasha was looking at Marcy and Anne with so much softness and longing in her gaze that Claire almost wanted to avert her eyes. Sasha watched her two best friends wheeze at the cockatoo joke and her smug grin from earlier melted into something tender and small. Claire bit her lip and then met eyes with Lonnie, Ty, and Seline. They all understood, just then, without a doubt, that Sasha was very much enamored with Marcy and Anne.
There was no explaining that look otherwise. Claire felt too young suddenly, and completely out of her depth. How had she missed this? Sasha…well, it had been obvious since the girls were little that Sasha was possessive over Anne and Marcy. Marcy and Sasha got along on a practical level, and they fawned over Anne’s attention and goodwill plenty. Sasha liked to play sports with Anne, and she liked to listen to Marcy ramble when she was tired while they all cuddled. Sasha dragged Anne into all types of shenanigans just because she could. Because Anne hated to refuse Sasha. Marcy would do almost anything for Anne, but she was good about toeing the line with Sasha’s demands. The relationship the girls had with one another was tumultuous and tangled, but it was full of admiration and love and devotion as well.
Claire hadn’t considered that Marcy and Anne and Sasha were all in love with one another.
Maybe Claire was too close to them to have seen the developing feelings that she doubted any of the girls were even aware of. But as soon as Claire had met eyes with her own friends and seen their shock and surety, she knew without a doubt that her little sister was in love with her childhood best friends.
Shit. Claire held Seline’s gaze for probably longer than necessary and felt heat creeping up the back of her neck that had nothing to do with the blazing sun. Shit. The Waybright sisters really were too alike for their own good.
Claire wanted to laugh hysterically when she imagined sitting Sasha down and saying: “Listen, we’re both in love with our best friends. Support group?”
“Welp!” Lonnie said, clearing his throat to break the tension. “This set isn’t going to perform itself, huh? Sash, watch and learn. I want to teach you this riff I’ve been working on.”
“He’s been crushing it,” Ty chimed in, slapping Lonnie on his bare shoulder as he slipped past him and jogged to the gazebo to grab his guitar.
“Only thing that I’ve heard you crushed recently was a beer pong table,” Sasha shot back with a smirk, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder.
Lonnie gave a scandalized gasp and put his hand to his head as though he were going to faint. “Ay dios mio, you caught me! Maybe I should change the band name to Broken Ass after all.”
“Over my dead body,” Seline replied at the same time Claire said incredulously: “As opposed to what?”
“Also Sash, how did you know Lonnie broke the beer pong table?” Claire demanded.
Sasha shrugged one shoulder. “Seline told us yesterday.”
Marcy and Anne nodded along sagely, as though the news had been life-changing.
Claire blinked. And then blinked again. Her friends were assholes who kept her out of the loop and told her little sister and her buddies hot gossip instead. Traitors. Claire fought back a laugh and then jerked her thumb toward the gazebo. “Listen up, kiddos! Show’s starting.”
All the kids in the pool cheered and paused their game of Marco Polo to lean against the edge of the pool with rapt attention. Normally Ty would be on the drums, but since they were performing outside in the backyard, Claire had told him not to worry about dragging them to their house, instead suggesting he just bring his guitar.
Seline adjusted her mic, and when Ty counted off, Lonnie’s guitar screeched to life. Seline joined in after a few beats of Ty and Lonnie’s performances blending together harmoniously.
The thing that made Blood Brink such a success at local venues, Ty often pointed out, was the rasp and grit in Seline’s vocals. Claire walked forward, bewitched, until she was standing right in front of the gazebo where Seline sang about bittersweet cherries and the phantom taste of someone’s lips.
Claire’s own lips parted when Seline leaned closer to the mic and met her eyes. Seline’s body twisted to the melody as she sang, umber skin and cyan bikini brilliant even under her see-through bathing suit cover. Her cyan braids swung as she tilted her head to the side and smiled at Claire, just Claire, and sang: “You’ve been walking the world of the living, and I’ve been in this ditch for the dead—I’m dreaming of bittersweet cherry kisses, baby, and those promises left unsaid.”
The music washed over Claire until tears pricked in her eyes. Sasha, Anne, and Marcy crowded on either side of her, their expressions full of excitement. Sasha was mimicking Lonnie’s riff in midair, trying to remember the fingering of his solo. Marcy clapped, grinning so wide that it looked like it hurt. Anne whooped and threw her arm around Sasha’s shoulder.
The kids burst into joyful cries and watched as Seline belted out her last high note into the summer air and held it. Held it until Claire was sure that the whole neighborhood had heard the performance, until the tears that had been building behind her eyes spilled down her cheeks. She quickly wiped them away while the band took a bow as all the kids cheered, dabbing at her mascara to make sure it wasn’t running.
When Seline abandoned her mic and bounced down the gazebo steps into Claire’s waiting arms, Claire spun her around and choked on tearful laughter. It was one of the best performances the band had ever done, and the song was now Claire’s favorite. “Where the—where the hell were you hiding that one?” Claire asked Seline in a whisper. Her tongue felt too dry and useless in her mouth to form words. “That was beautiful, Seline. What’s it called?”
“The Way-Bright and Lonely,” Seline said softly against Claire’s neck. Claire stilled. Her heart thundered against her ribcage when she slowly pulled back and looked at Seline’s face. “It’s for you.”
Everyone around them was still laughing. Most of the kids had vacated the pool and were jumping around Lonnie and Ty as they dripped chlorinated water onto the concrete under their feet. Anne, Sasha, and Marcy were slipping out of their clothes so they could finally get into the pool.
But as Claire stared down at the girl in her arms, all the other noise and commotion faded away. Seline chewed on her bottom lip like she did when she was nervous and didn’t have a cigarette. Seline’s gaze flitted between Claire’s eyes, Claire’s mouth, and then over Claire’s shoulder to where Lonnie and Ty were probably wildly gesticulating.
Oh. Claire hadn’t even considered that Seline might feel the same way about her.
Everything they had been through together since meeting had been leading them to this—a song that was a question and a promise in its own right. Two girls who had never been in a serious relationship holding each other and asking, without words: Do you think this could work? Do you think we can sort through everything that’s broken us before and make this work?
Claire didn’t have the answers. She didn’t know if they would wake up a week or a month or a year from now and regret falling in love when their friendship was on the line. Claire couldn’t see the future or peer into a different dimension to know if their story would play out as she hoped. She didn’t really believe in all that nonsense, anyway.
All they had was now. And right now, the girl Claire loved was in her arms. Seline had written that song and sang it just for Claire. And Claire wanted to kiss her.
So she did. Claire kissed Seline without faltering. Seline tasted like cherry lip balm and orange soda and her shitty cigarettes. Seline’s arms hooked behind Claire’s neck as she drew her down into the kiss, and suddenly the crowd of kids were shrieking for a completely different reason than the band’s performance or Marco Polo.
“Get a room!” Vince shouted from somewhere behind them. Claire heard Penn’s very distinct cackle and Cheyenne jeering playfully as well.
When Claire finally pulled away from Seline, Seline’s dark eyes were hazy. Claire brushed Seline’s cheek with her thumb and the fluttering softness of Seline’s long lashes against her fingers made Claire shudder. Seline unhooked her arms from around Claire’s neck and then fumbled for Claire’s hand, lacing their fingers together.
Ty and Lonnie leaned against the gazebo and grinned at them. “Alright, free show is over!” Ty called, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Please return to your regularly scheduled romp in the pool and ignore the pining sapphics.”
Lonnie snickered when Claire rolled her eyes. She mouthed thank you to both of her boys, warmth seeping from her stuttering heart through each of her limbs. Without them, Claire didn’t even want to think about where she would be. She owed them one.
Claire was nervous to meet Sasha’s gaze. This was Sasha’s party, after all, and Claire had completely derailed the attention away from her little sister without even meaning to. But when Claire finally looked up, Sash was smiling. Her little sister beamed at her triumphantly like how she grinned when she rode her bike without training wheels for the first time. Sasha normally saved smiles like that for her own accomplishments. Tears sprang to Claire’s eyes again.
Anne adjusted her ponytail and offered Claire a shy look, no doubt unused to public displays of affection from someone who she viewed as a surrogate older sister. But the softness in Anne’s smile let Claire know that she approved.
Marcy, on the other hand, seemed downright ecstatic. “Did you know—” she squealed as she bounced around Sasha and Anne, eyes alight— “Did you know that people who begin their relationships with a solid friendship established first are much more likely to stay together?” Claire noticed for the first time that Marcy was wearing yellow crocs and bit back a smile as she pulled Seline toward the pool. She didn’t have to look at Anne and Sasha to know that they were both sputtering and flustered by Marcy’s sudden declaration.
“So it turns out,” Claire said to Seline when everyone was finally in the pool together and Lonnie had passed out water balloons to the kids. “It turns out I’m kinda in love with you.”
Seline threw back her head and laughed. It was the prettiest sound Claire had ever heard. “Fancy that,” Seline replied, her voice husky. “I’m kinda in love with you, too.” Claire dipped in to kiss Seline’s cheek as they treaded water. Just because she wanted to and could.
They stayed like that for a long time, swimming and laughing and kissing, until the sun sank beyond the horizon and the crowd of children began to thin out as their parents showed up. Ty kissed Claire and Seline on their temples and waved goodbye as he corralled Vince, Penn, and Cheyenne to his car. Lonnie told his tia that he would drive his little cousin Rico home, so he swooped in to kiss Claire and Seline’s foreheads before he departed.
Soon it was just Claire, Anne, Marcy, Sasha, and Seline left, along with Desi, who lived in Seline’s neighborhood. Seline had agreed to drop her off. “Please take some of these leftovers,” Claire begged, handing Seline a box with half of a pizza. Seline relented and offered Claire one last chaste kiss before she left. Insects buzzed loudly in the warm night air, and the back porch lights illuminated Seline’s eyes, full of fire. Claire swallowed hard. Another day. Another night. Claire and Seline would have plenty of time to figure out this whole dating thing when they had a moment alone.
Claire texted the Wus and the Boonchuys to let them know that she was dropping the girls off. Sasha, Anne, and Marcy all opted to sit in the backseat, leaning their heads against one another as they watched Marcy face the final boss of a game on her Switch.
“Ew, that thing has too many eyes,” Anne said with a yawn, her eyelids drooping. “Looks like a demon.”
“More eyes equals more vulnerable targets,” Sasha pointed out. “If you had the right sort of sword, I’m sure that thing would be easier to beat.”
“You just want me to dual wield, Sash,” Marcy laughed. She still had the most energy out of all of them. “You know I’m much better with my crossbow, though. Don’t worry—this thing won’t kill me. I have range on my side!”
Claire smiled to herself at the girls’ antics.
When Claire finally pulled up to Marcy’s house, a familiar Ford Fiesta was parked in the driveway. Claire was struck by a memory that she had buried years ago, when she was a different person living a much more hollow life.
The Ford Fiesta was cold. The heater was broken, but that was fine because in the cover of darkness, fifteen-year-old Claire was warm. The eldest Wu daughter was kissing her. Newly seventeen, pretty as they came with her jagged hair dyed pink at the tips and her overalls smudged with black grease. She had come to the house party only to be the designated driver for her friend, but Claire had been drawn to Marcy’s older sister.
Claire had never kissed a girl before. But this girl was so pretty, and Claire had wanted to kiss her for years. Just to try it. Just to taste. So they kissed gently, and it was so nice that it scared her, so nice that Claire jerked away and said, panicked: “I—I can’t like girls! I can’t—I won’t be allowed! I don’t know why I’m even here, sorry, please don’t tell anyone—”
She put a gentle hand on Claire’s shoulder and just smiled. Not condescending or pitying, but soft. She had very kind eyes. “Hey, hey, Claire? Just breathe. Alright. That’s it. It’s fine, okay? I’m not upset. It’s fine if you’re not ready.” Claire threw open the car door and was already stumbling out when she heard her say: “You have plenty of time. Lemme know when things work out.”
Claire gripped the steering wheel hard when Anne threw open the car door and let Marcy slide out of the middle seat. “Hey—hey, Marcy?”
Marcy paused her game and shot Claire a questioning look. “Yeah?”
“Can you tell your sister something for me?”
Marcy beamed. “Sure thing, Claire!”
Claire thought about Sasha’s success, her good grades despite all her antics. The genuine admiration Sasha's peers had for her. She thought of Marcy and Anne, knotted together with Sasha in a complicated tangle of love and devotion. Claire thought about Ty and Lonnie, who always had her back even when she had been a self-destructive brat who wouldn’t give them the time of day. How they loved her. How they had saved her. And lastly, Claire thought of Seline. Her best friend-turned-girlfriend. A girl who she was in love with. You have plenty of time.
“Tell your sister that I said hi. And—tell her that things finally worked out.”
XxX
Later that night after they had dropped off both Marcy and Anne, Claire and Sasha each took showers to wash off the chlorine from the day and then met back in their living room. Claire made a giant bowl of kettle corn popcorn and they settled in to watch a movie. Claire was exhausted, but she agreed when Sasha asked her if she could French braid her hair before bed.
The TV’s volume was on low—colors flashed across the screen as a car chase started, purple and blue lights illuminating the tunnel where the cars swerved against the guardrail. Sasha was entranced, throwing handful after handful of popcorn in her mouth as she watched. The lights danced across her face. Claire sat on the couch, and Sasha positioned herself between Claire’s legs on the floor so her older sister would have an easier time braiding her hair.
Claire got to work, her nimble fingers separating Sasha’s hair with ease so she could start to weave it together. It made Claire a bit nostalgic for the days when her braids always ended up lumpy. Sasha used to struggle to read Mallie the Monster Slayer aloud as Claire wrestled Sasha’s braids into submission and ended them with pastel pink ribbons. Claire just hoped that Sasha would never stop asking her to braid her hair.
Claire was about to ask Sasha if she wanted to head to bed after the movie when Sasha said, so quietly that Claire almost didn’t hear her over the movie audio: “I didn’t know that you liked girls.”
It was a tentative admission. Curious. The words were not at all like Sasha’s normally blunt or sarcastic barbs. Claire paused, then finished Sasha’s braid and tied it with a scrunchie. Sasha didn’t sound upset that Claire hadn’t told her. That was a relief, at least.
Claire tapped Sasha’s shoulder, and Sasha slowly turned around to face her older sister. Sasha looked more serious than Claire had ever seen her. “I was still figuring some things out,” Claire explained, lacing her fingers together on her lap. “I thought for a long time that it would be better if I didn’t like girls. I thought it would be easier to just be with cis dudes so Mom and Dad wouldn’t ask questions.”
Sasha’s brows furrowed. “But it wasn’t?”
Claire shook her head. “It wasn’t. It made me kinda miserable, actually. Like I was hiding an important part of myself when I didn’t really want to.” Claire looked up at the ceiling and swallowed hard. “I felt like there was this person that the rest of the world saw who had my name and some of my mannerisms, but she wasn’t me. And I got so confused trying to hide certain parts of myself that I forgot who I was altogether.”
“That must’ve sucked,” Sasha said emphatically, and Claire wanted to laugh at the unintentional understatement of Sasha’s words. Her lips twisted into a wry smile.
Claire looked back down at Sasha. “It really did. But Ty and Lonnie helped me get my head out of my ass. And then Seline swooped in and was so beautiful and kind that my gay heart refused to shut up. It all worked out, though, because now I have a hot girlfriend.”
Sasha groaned and slapped a hand over her face, parting her fingers so she could glare at Claire. “Oh my god, I shouldn’t have asked. You’re going to be insufferable about Seline now, huh?”
“Sash, you know me when I find out that I love something.” Claire flicked Sasha’s forehead and Sasha swatted Claire’s hand away with a scowl. “I am never shutting up about my hot girlfriend. Count on it.”
Sasha climbed to her feet and put her hands on her hips. “Whatever, I guess it’s fine. Since she makes you really happy and you never shut up about her anyways even before you were dating.” Claire laughed at Sasha’s blunt statement. Ah, there was her snippy little sister.
“Fair enough! And with that, I think it’s time for bed.”
Claire grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. The flash of color from the screen dissolved into the darkness. Sasha used her phone to light up the way toward their bedrooms as she walked behind Claire.
“Claire…?” Sasha asked as they shuffled down the hardwood hallway.
“Hm?” Claire looked over her shoulder at Sasha, whose eyebrows were once again knitted together in concentration.
“How did you know?”That you liked girls? Was the unspoken second part of that question. Claire stopped outside of her bedroom door and faced Sasha. She could tell her little sister was struggling internally, her thoughts probably racing to Anne and Marcy. Claire couldn’t give Sasha all the answers in the world; she was still learning about herself, honestly. But just like she had always tried to do when Sasha was little, Claire would guide her sister as best as she could.
“For me, there was…this warmth in my chest when I looked at certain girls,” Claire said. The flashlight of Sasha’s phone made the shadows stark across both of their faces. “I wanted to be near them, all the time. I wanted them to pay attention to only me.” Claire ran her fingers through her blonde curls, a bit embarrassed. She stared at the beige wall of the hallway. “I wanted to touch them. Hold their hands. And when I realized that I wouldn’t mind kissing them too, that I would actually really like to kiss them…” Claire trailed off, her face red. “I knew I was bisexual. I just didn’t have words for it then. And I had no idea how to handle it mentally.”
Sasha nodded slowly. “I…I just don’t know—”
Claire grabbed Sasha’s free hand and squeezed. “You have plenty of time,” Claire whispered. Those were the words that had helped her a few years ago. Claire thought it was only fitting that she passed them on to Sasha, just as she did with everything else.
“They’re not going anywhere, Sash. And I’ll be right here with you as you figure it out.”