Chapter Text
Kris stood from their desk, stretching their arms and rocking up on their toes. The September air drafted up their sweater where it was pushed on their hip.
“Alright, everyone, thank you for your presentations. You all did great! After lunch we’re going to be working on..”
Susie slammed the back of their desk.
“Noelle wanted to eat at the tables today, right?”
Kris nodded and pulled their bag over their shoulder. The classroom air smelled like something sweet and warm, that perfume Noelle used, maybe.
They were walking down the hallway in their group—Susie, Kris, Noelle, Catti and Berdly—when Catti made a vague choke-cough sound.
“Oh my god..I completely forgot about the dance..”
She glanced at Noelle, her cheeks flushed “Are any of you like..going with anyone?”
Noelle smiled sweetly, oblivious to Catti’s, rather obvious, crush. She was almost as bad as Susie was, which was really saying something, because Susie didn’t know that their entire friend group had a crush on her at some point. Berdly moved on from Susie quick enough, anyways..onto Kris themself, and then onto Jockington and. Yeah. Noelle’s pining wasn’t nearly as obvious now that they were all friends. Kris. um. Kris will not be commenting on the matter.
“I thought we were all going together?” Noelle pushed the back door open. Sunlight slid prettily through her hair as she walked out. “Unless any of y’all are going with anyone?”
The trees around the backyard of the school were a deep orange. Autumn again. It was weird to think that they only became friends with Susie a year ago. It was weird that it had already been a year.
They all plopped down at the table. Kris shoved a piece of pie and an apple at Susie. She gave them that half sweet half awkward smile that looked sort of foreign on her face, and downed both with impressive speed.
“I don’t think so..” Catti prodded at a can of tuna. “But that’s kind of lame, right? Like..we’re almost sixteen. Shouldn’t we be like. More interesting.”
“I’m already sixteen.” Berdly said matter of factly.
He was the oldest, which was something Kris had always found inherently wrong with the universe.
“Anyways…we should go as pairs.”
Catti eyed Noelle. Berdly squinted at the makeshift game of soccer that Jockington was playing with MK and Snowdrake. Kris dropped their head onto the table. It was splintering and worn, tucked next to the cobblestone wall separating the schoolyard from the forest.
“Like..as friends?” Noelle tilted her head.
“Duh. It’d be easier, right..like we could coordinate outfits and stuff..”
“Oooohhh…” she chewed her lip “That does sound kind of fun!!”
They devolved into a discussion of matching dresses. Susie dropped her head on Kris’s shoulder and groaned.
“Do you wanna go together?”
She cracked an eye open “Dances are dumb. Why’dya even want to go?”
“Free food, we can leave after the beginning and walk around the school.” They bumped her shoulder “Y’know, look for chalk.”
She caught on easy
“Hell yeah. Hang out in closets. Find chalk. Touch brooms. Sounds like a plan.”
Kris smiled at her and leaned lightly into her hair. Something in their stomach warmed. Feelings. Oh, great.
Susie flopped off the bench and onto her back in the grass, watching the game of soccer with muted interest.
“Suz’,” Kris leaned over to peer at her “D’ywanna go look around for trees to climb?”
She grabbed them by the hand and yanked them down onto the grass beside her.
“In a minute. S’cold.”
Sunlight stabbed into Kris’s eyes. They curled their arm up over their face and shifted into Susie’s elbow.
—-
It was pouring cold rain, the kind that made you want to cup something warm in your hands.
Kris heard a knock on the door, muffled through the blankets they wrapped up to their ears. Their mom was already in bed.
They pulled it open to find Susie, completely drenched. Wind hit them as the realization did, whistling through the hole it carved in their heart. She had nowhere else to go, did she. They’d known for a while, probably, in the back of their mind. Tuck yourself against her chest and never let her go, their mind said, run your hands through her hair until the knots are all gone and kiss that mottled bruise on her arm. Keep her there, forever, in the warm dense air of your living room.
“Is your mom asleep yet?”
All it took was their nod for her to crash into the living room, pulling her shirt off and dropping it over one of the kitchen chairs to dry.
“Suz’...”
She shook her head “Don’t. t’s fine. Just..”
“Towels, mhm. Put on a show or something, ‘ll be back in a minute.”
The tv hummed on as they pulled the door open to their mom’s room.
She was already awake, her face curled in worry. They hated seeing her like that. It reminded them of when they were a kid, when Azzy smoothed their hair out and cut the cool tension in their house with his character impressions, when he didn’t let them downstairs until he cleaned up dad’s blanket-bed on the couch. When they did their homework in the kitchen in the afternoon and watched the dying light dance across the plates as he cleaned them. When they caught him crying at their mom’s feet and begging her to leave dad so he didn’t have to try to keep their relationship from falling apart anymore.
Kris ached. Azzy would know how to help Susie. A month until he’d be home. A month.
“ Mamá.. ”
She hugged them, pressing her face into their hair.
“ Sí, mije. Yo sé. ” Her hands moved in soothing circles on their back “I’ll handle it. We’ll figure something out.”
They tightened their grip on her for a moment and then pulled away.
“Go take care of her. I won’t interfere, i know.”
“ Te quiero, mamá. ”
“ Te quiero, mije .”
The living room walls flickered with dull light from the tv screen as Kris returned. Susie sat awkwardly on the floor, her knees crossed. They tossed a towel at her head.
“What’re you doing on the floor?”
“Drenching your couch would be a pretty shitty thing to do when you’re letting me-”
“Hush. I don’t care. On the couch, ‘ve got blankets we can share.”
Susie did the face again and Kris’s heart clenched.
“Fine, fine dipshit.”
Susie tugged the towel around her shoulders and mussed her hair.
“Are you tired?”
“Ugh..maybe.”
Freckles are dotted across her nose, Kris noticed, for nothing short of the seven hundredth time. How many did she have…? Fifty-something, around there.
“You..you tired?”
Kris nodded and leaned into her shoulder and she tipped her head onto theirs, and they fell asleep like that, all curled up on that deep and warm couch.