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Toni had spent most of her teens adamantly denying that she’d ever participate in ‘The Chase’ aspect of romance when it came to girls.
That was right up until the hour she met Shelby Goodkind.
The blonde was everything Toni wouldn’t go for. She was smiley, and preppy, and kind, and Toni was simply the antithesis of all of those things.
Shelby would smile and compliment their teachers at the beginning of every lesson while Toni would rock up ten minutes late with her hood up and headphones in, nothing but a husky grunt in a vague acknowledgment of the teacher’s disapproval.
Shelby would perk herself up in the morning with fresh coffee and a morning run while Toni would still be half asleep by the time lunch break rolled around.
Shelby just seemed so perfect. Too perfect.
At first, Toni couldn’t bare it. Couldn’t bare the fact that everything seemed to bend right to Shelby’s will. Whenever a mild inconvenience would trouble Shelby, it’d seemingly disappear within the day. She’d be complaining one minute about the girl in front of her in the cafeteria line taking the last vanilla yoghurt only to have a fresh tray replaced just as she’d reach it.
Toni couldn’t pinpoint exactly when that ultimately irrational feeling of anger started to remould into a deep, unbridled, admiration, but she did know it was the best thing to happen to her.
That wasn’t to say Shelby made it easy for Toni to chase that happiness, though.
It wasn’t as if the two ran in each other’s circles, and every time Toni would try and catch a lingering glimpse of the girl in any class she had the fortune of sharing with Shelby, the blonde would seemingly sense the eyes on the back of her head and turn around to give Toni a knowing smile; it was never quite a smirk – though the way it cut through Toni often felt like it should be – and though it curled upwards and in towards her ear like a smirk would, and shared all the comfort of public speaking without notes, Shelby Goodkind would always bite her lip as her eyes fell to the floor, shaking her head as she returned her attention to their teacher.
Like every shitty teen romance movie, the two had their first real conversation under the bleachers.
Seventeen years old is too young to know what you really wanted out of life, but Toni was so sure Shelby was it as soon as she got a real look into the green shades of chartreuse flickers and sage smudges of Shelby Goodkind’s eyes.
“What brings you to the fine shade of Hopewell High’s bleachers, Miss. Shalifoe?”
Fuck. Toni thought. She knew my name.
“Peace and quiet isn’t the easiest thing to find around here,” Toni answered simply. “You?”
The excuse Shelby had given was a weak one, some claim about fresh air or an overly-intense biology class – it was one of the few details Toni couldn’t quite remember about their past, most vexatiously.
She supposed it was because it didn’t really matter why she was there, just that she was.
It was odd how things took off from there. They were never really friends, ultimately the two had skipped that step entirely, but they’d talk everyday under those bleachers about everything and nothing. Eventually, ‘What’s your favourite colour?’ turned into ‘What’s your biggest fear?’, and from there, it wasn’t long until they allowed themselves to trust each other with their issues.
“You’d think the fucking pageants would be enough, huh?” Toni sighed, handing Shelby a bottle of raspberry lemonade after taking a swig for herself.
Shelby smiled softly and stared down into the cooled glass bottle. “It’s all part of the image. Easy to brand a former pageant princess and prom queen.”
“Fuck that,” Toni near enough spat. “I say we skip prom, we’ll do our own thing.”
Shelby grinned at that. The smug, and the daring, and the slightly apprehensive despite being one-hundred-percent in kind of grin that Toni grew to love quickly.
“You in Canary?”
Shelby rolled her eyes and smiled into a sip of lemonade before resting it between herself and Toni, and leant back on her elbows, staring up between the bleachers and letting the shadows of the benches dance along her entire body.
“Part of me wants to run away from it all sometimes, you know,” she sighed out, allowing her eyes close as she slowly breathed in.
“Am I invited?”
Shelby smiled as she so often did, but this one had made Toni curious; it wasn’t one she was familiar with. It wasn’t the tired, practiced smile she put on for most people, nor was it the genuine one only she got to see. It wasn’t happy or sad or lonely or peaceful, it was just… Shelby.
She shook herself out of it just as quickly as her body had relaxed into it, and when she looked over at Toni, her features felt more recognizable.
“Not that simple though,” she said softly. “I’m too busy for any adventurin’.”
“So let’s have one now,” Toni suggested, getting to her feet and stretching out an arm to assist Shelby. “Come on, Goodkind, don’t make me beg you to take my hand.”
‘Adventure’ was a bit of a stretch for the journey Toni had taken Shelby on, but they were young and they were too busy falling in love to care about the semantics of what was classed as an adventure and what wasn’t.
Hopewell was a quiet town, always had been and likely always would be, but the one place where that quiet felt friendly was the woods that lined the town’s borders.
It was cold enough for Toni to feel the bite of the breeze claw at her neck, but when she glanced over to Shelby and reassessed what the girl was wearing, she knew she wasn’t the one risking hypothermia. Shelby wasn’t showing it, but Toni knew she had to be cold; if it weren’t the light sundress Shelby insisted on wearing through to the bitter end of summer despite the onset of early autumn, the fact the Texan local complained about the weather being too cold even on Minnesota’s hottest days told Toni enough, and so she bit her tongue and slipped of her jacket, handing it to the blonde.
“Toni, you’ll freeze,” Shelby tried to dismiss, rubbing her arms innately.
“You’re already freezing, dumbass,” Toni pushed, throwing the jacket over Shelby’s shoulders anyway. “It’ll be warmer with your arms in it.”
Shelby tucked her arms through the sleeves as she was told and wrapped the corduroy jacket around her, hugging herself in the newly-found warmth.
“Thank you,” she smiled over at Toni, wrapping the girl up in a side hug and almost sending the two of them tumbling over a fallen tree and into a ditch.
They walked a little farther into the woods, talking easily about the parts of their days the other had missed until eventually the two came to a clearing.
There was a quiet stream bubbling its way through the clearing, tapering off deeper into the woods. Rocks lined the water, creating a path for it to flow with little resistance, and the gentle gush of the stream hitting against those rocks was the kind of peaceful Hopewell itself never quite was.
“How’d you find this place?”
“I didn’t,” Toni smiled down at herself, hands finding their way into her back pockets. “My ex brought me here, actually. I know it’s kinda weird to bring you here, but… I always found it quiet, I guess. Calm.”
It was Shelby who’d pressed her lips into Toni’s, then. Shelby brought her hands to Toni’s face to pull her in closer, and Toni could feel the brush of her jacket’s sleeves against her cheeks.
When she felt the blonde pulling back, Toni couldn’t help but let her own lips chase Shelby’s, leaving a soft peck against them.
“What was that for?” Toni asked quietly.
Shelby smirked and ran her hands down Toni’s arms until they were in Toni’s own hands. “Am I not allowed to kiss pretty girls?”
Toni felt her cheeks flush red at Shelby’s words, but she smiled back at her and told herself she’d never feel this kind of happiness again if Shelby ever left.
“Hopefully not too many,” she rebutted sarcastically. “I might get a little jealous.”
Shelby rolled her eyes and laughed, pushing Toni’s shoulder and skipping off over to the stream to balance along the rocks.
When they stumbled upon the willow tree that loomed prodigiously over the perfect make-shift picnic spot, it’s branches heavy with leaves dipping themselves into the stream that had pooled into a still body of water verging on a large pond, Toni knew Shelby would fall in love with it entirely.
“It’s beautiful,” Shelby had breathed out in complete awe, clutching Toni’s hand tighter as she took in the view.
Toni, though, couldn’t pull her eyes away from Shelby no matter how beautiful that willow tree was.
The woods became their new bleachers, and whenever the two were able to catch a minute alone, they’d spend it sneaking off together under that willow tree. Toni began bringing the old beat-up guitar she’d bought when she was fifteen with one of her first paycheques from the diner in town after becoming obsessed with watching guitar tutorials and not having one of her own to play.
She wasn’t by any means good, but she could play most songs with basic chords, and when Shelby started singing along to what she was strumming, making up her own lyrics as she went, Toni made a mental note to learn a few more chords.
“How have I never heard you sing before?”
Shelby blushed and pushed her thumbnail into the top of a strawberry, popping out the hull. “I get nervous.”
“It’s like, your whole life.”
“And you’re more important than any audience,” Shelby returned. “I wanted to impress you…”
“Shelby,” Toni said softly, resting her guitar on the floor and scooting closer to her. “Everything you do is impressive. How many seventeen year olds can say they’ve written and recorded their own EP?”
“Lorde had two Grammys at seventeen,” Shelby provided. “Miranda Lambert released her first EP at seventeen, Billie Eilish started workin’ on her first album at fifteen, Adele wrote Hometown Glory at sixteen-”
“Okay well none of them are you,” Toni interrupted. “Shelby Goodkind, Texan sweetheart turned Minnesotan rose. What’s not to love?”
“Don’t you think you’re a little bias?”
Toni grinned and reached out for her own strawberry, picking out the top and taking a bite while staring directly at Shelby. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
Eventually, prom night came around.
Toni had hatched a plan she knew Shelby couldn’t agree to even if she wanted to, but it didn’t stop the girl from adding more and more ideas to it until it started to become something close to reasonable.
“C’mon,” she’d started one day, walking alongside Shelby through the halls of their high school as they navigated their way to their next class. “If I come over to pick you up, your parents won’t have to drive you and it’ll be easier for us to sneak off.”
Shelby was patient with Toni. It was one of the things she’d always appreciated about her because not many people gave Toni that, but high tensions and the stress of appearances was starting to get to Shelby.
“Toni, please,” she sighed, stopping in the middle of the hallway and readjusting her backpack. “I can’t do this right now. I’ve got way too much to focus on without needin’… This... You.”
The words had ripped through Toni completely. Shelby had opened her mouth to say something more, but no words came out.
She turned on her heels with her head hung and Toni was forced to watch her leave.
Toni skulked off to class and spent what felt like seventeen days in the hell hole that was social studies. She took none of the information in, though, far too focused on what had honestly been the first time her and Shelby had even had the smallest of disagreements.
It felt bottomless. Guilty. All Toni wanted to do was talk to her and apologise for going over the top when she knew Shelby had been stressed out for weeks over prom because of her parents.
Pulling her phone out in class was too much of a risk, so she flipped to the back of her notebook and began drafting an apology. By the time class had ended, she’d written what was more of a letter than a note seeing as it was four sides of A4 paper, and when the ringing of the school buzzer snapped her back to reality and she looked down at what she’d been writing, she decided her best bet was something much shorter.
She ripped off a corner of her paper and wrote the simple words of ‘I’m Sorry :(‘ and folded it in half, keeping it in her hand as she packed away her things and headed to English.
Shelby was already sat down with her notepad and pen at the ready when Toni walked through the door, so she let out a small breath as she walked over to her seat behind Shelby, clearing her throat and offering the blonde her note.
Much to Toni’s surprise, though, Shelby exchanged her own note in return.
Toni couldn’t hide the smile on her face as she took her seat and unfolded the note.
She’d always envied Shelby’s beautiful cursive handwriting, but that note was what had taught her to envy her words, too.
Toni,
I’m sorry for earlier.
I was irrational and unfair and if I’m honest, I know I took that out on you. Prom’s got me more stressed than a middle-aged divorcee who got cheated out of all their money, but I didn’t mean for it to come out against you.
I don’t want to go to fucking prom.
I’ll wait for your signal, Shalifoe. Meet you after dark. I’ll keep up appearances and go along with my parents little schemes… as long as you wreck my damn plans ;)
-Shelby
She smiled down at the note and as her eyes fell she noticed Shelby’s fingers stretched behind her chair, itching at the air in a call to Toni’s hand.
She happily interlaced their fingers and felt a rush of warmth soak through her.
This is what love felt like. She was sure of it.