Work Text:
A new student shows up in Izzy's second-period English class on a Wednesday. She claims a desk two rows back from Izzy, one that's sat empty all semester. Most of Izzy's classmates share calculus first period, while Izzy takes history instead, and Izzy figures the new student must have introduced herself then because no one else really bats an eye at her sudden appearance.
"Who's that?" Izzy asks Adrian when he drops down into the desk next to hers, notebook and pens in hand. He takes calculus and thus might know the answer.
He follows her line of sight, and recognition lights his face. "Oh, that's Fern. Her family just moved to Pine Ridge."
Just as Izzy thinks of saying hello to the new girl -- Fern apparently -- the teacher begins their lesson.
But Izzy has trouble focusing as they take up the homework from the night before. Javi jokes that she has a spidey sense sometimes, and right now it's telling her, with a prickly feeling down her spine, that she's being watched. She turns her head and... huh, Fern is staring at her.
Fern's eyes widen when Izzy catches her looking, but she doesn't look away, even when Izzy raises a confused eyebrow in her direction.
"Izzy, would you like to share your answer to number three?" the teacher asks. Izzy's focus snaps back to the front of the class, where the teacher is eyeing her expectantly, and Izzy flounders with her notes to be able to answer.
Her spidey sense doesn't stop tingling though, and when the teacher's back is turned, she turns around again, and sure enough, Fern is still looking at her.
It's not a happy look, per se. She's just watching Izzy and Izzy alone and that's... that's odd, right? Like, they don't even know each other.
Class ends and Izzy plans to finally introduce herself and maybe ask Fern what's up with the staring, but Fern packs up her stuff and rushes out the classroom door before Izzy even has a chance to close her notebook.
*
Izzy doesn't think too much of it, at first. She has classes and her various athletic pursuits to keep her occupied. But then it keeps happening.
Fern stares at her all through second period the next day, Izzy's spidey sense blaring the whole time. Between classes, Izzy's at her locker when her spidey sense has her spinning around to find Fern, standing with classmates she's only vaguely acquainted with, watching her from a distance.
Her spidey sense blares again that Friday, as she's taking out a book for her English class from the school library, and she finds Fern sitting at a nearby table, observing her as she hands the book to the librarian.
Izzy decides that enough is enough, that she needs to ask Fern what's going on, but the librarian has trouble scanning the book, and during the maybe forty-five seconds it takes to resolve the issue, Fern vanishes from the library.
*
Fern shows up at track practice Tuesday morning dressed in tights and sports bra. She's on the other side of the practice area, stretching, and Izzy isn't sure what to make of her being here. Fern easily slides into a front split, bending forward to touch her toes, and for once, Izzy is the one staring.
She almost misses it when coach Evans comes up to her. "I see you've met Fern."
"Fern?" she asks, momentarily confused.
"She was ranked the top track athlete in Silver Hills. I think she's going to give you a run for your money," coach Evans says with a grin, in that way coaches do to encourage a little friendly competition.
It isn't until later, after Fern's eyes follow her through the entirety of practice, and through the entirety of second period again, that she asks Adrian about it.
"Oh, yeah. She's training for the big race in two months. She's going for gold," he tells her.
It's then that she finally understands what the deal with Fern is.
Izzy is not only the best athlete in her class, she's the best in the state. Her track times are the ones to beat, and if Fern really was the best in Silver Hills, then Izzy is her primary competition. It makes sense that she'd study Izzy -- that she'd try to figure out what makes her tick -- in order to become faster than her.
But Fern still hasn't spoken to Izzy, not even once, and she's fled every time Izzy has tried talking to her. Friendly competition is one thing, but between being watched constantly and the obvious avoidance, what Fern's doing doesn't feel friendly at all.
*
Her spidey sense screams at her throughout every second period. It screams at her during every track practice. It screams at her sometimes in the hallway or in the cafeteria. And she doesn't even have to look anymore to know why.
It's Fern's eyes on her. It always is.
It begins to piss Izzy off, so she decides to do something about it: she starts glaring back. The next time her spidey sense screeches, she meets Fern's gaze and narrows her eyes.
Fern's reaction... is surprisingly subdued, to say the least. She blinks the first few times when she's caught, and maybe even seems a little flustered, but Izzy's glaring doesn't seem like much of a deterrent. Fern doesn't stop looking at her.
Glaring back still becomes a thing though. Izzy glares at Fern during class and practice and any other time her spidey sense goes haywire.
It's tiring, but whatever. She's not going to let herself be intimidated.
*
The following Saturday, after running fifteen miles in the morning, Javi takes her out to her favorite cafe for lunch. She's pretty sure it's a way to force her to relax and stop training for a few hours, and that her mom slipped Javi the money for it earlier, but it's nice, and this place makes killer sandwiches.
Her and Javi are sitting in a booth hidden at the back, but she sees it when Fern comes in through the doors of the cafe with a friend. For once, Fern doesn't seem to notice her, preoccupied with reading the menu board above the counter and asking her friend something.
The cafe isn't very busy, but Fern and her friend wait there for a long time without ordering. It takes Izzy a moment to deduce why. The one person in front of them in line is frantically searching their pockets. It's a junior from their school, and it looks like he can't find his wallet.
Behind him, Fern pulls her own wallet out of her bag and hands a bill to the cashier over the junior's shoulder. Izzy can't see the junior's expression, his back to their booth, but he's saying something to her, and Fern is waving him off with a smile.
"Earth to Izzy," Javi says, waving his own hand in front of her face.
She jumps in her seat. "Sorry," she says, returning her attention to him and her sandwich.
He leans over to see what she was looking at. "Classmates of yours?"
"Yeah," she says, but that feels inadequate for whatever her and Fern are.
As if on cue, Izzy's spine tingles and when she raises her head, it's clear that Fern has spotted her. She stands there, tray of food in hand, her eyes boring right into Izzy's. A few uncomfortable seconds pass and just as Izzy glares back, Fern's friend grabs her arm and directs her to a table close to the front windows, a table Izzy can't see very well from their booth.
Izzy groans, drops her sandwich onto her plate, and puts her head in her hands. She couldn't even enjoy lunch with her brother on a Saturday in peace.
"What's up with her?" Javi asks, evidently witnessing the random intense staring that has unfortunately become a staple of Izzy's life.
"I don't even know," she admits, playing with her fries, but she knows where to start so she tells him about Fern being new at school, and about how she apparently decided that she wants to surpass Izzy in track so badly that she's decided to be creepy and watch Izzy whenever she's in range.
"You've never even talked to her?" Javi asks when she's done.
"Not even once," Izzy replies, stabbing a fry into her ketchup so hard it bends in half.
"Huh, that's strange," Javi says, taking a bite out of his own sandwich. "But I guess this means you have a rival now."
*
The staring and glaring continue for another exhausting week, and Izzy, by virtue of their bizarre interactions, pays more attention to Fern. On Monday, Fern stops to help a classmate who trips in the hallway and drops their books, and at morning practice on Tuesday, Fern helps some of the freshmen with their form during warm-ups.
It's what happens on Friday that really gets under Izzy's skin.
She's at the library again, this time looking for a book coach Evans recommended on leg exercises, when she hears Fern's voice. It's coming from the set of tables behind the stacks, an area of the library Izzy only hangs out in when she has group projects to work on. She doesn't want to be seen, so she peers through the shelves, and Fern is there with some of their fellow seniors, books and papers spread in front of them.
What gets her, though, is that Fern is smiling. It's different from the time Izzy saw her smile at the cafe. This smile transforms her entire face, her teeth showing, as she grins at her classmates. One of them says something, a low rumble of a sound at Izzy's distance, and Fern throws her head back and laughs. She quickly slaps a hand over her own mouth to keep quiet, but her shoulders shake with the force of her amusement, and her eyes sparkle with mirth.
A heavy, uncomfortable feeling settles deep in Izzy's gut, like a heavy boulder sinking to the bottom of a pond. Almost mechanically, she turns around and walks to the door, all thoughts on getting the book forgotten. She moves, one foot in front of the other, until she's down the hall, up a flight of stairs, and in the thankfully-deserted second-floor washroom. There, she closes her eyes and forces herself to take a deep breath.
From what she's been able to gather, Fern is smart, athletic, friendly, and cute. Under any other circumstance, Izzy would love to be friends with her. Heck, she's basically Izzy's type. But she and Fern have never even exchanged a "hello". They haven't interacted, not really, not beyond the unfriendly looks they share. And it's pretty clear that Fern doesn't like her very much. After all, Fern is nice to everyone except her.
Izzy knows it isn't her fault, that Fern is the one who decided things would be this way and that some people are just mean like that, but Fern doesn't seem like a mean person. She doesn't think twice before helping people when they trip or forget their wallet, and there seems to be good reasons why she's well-liked by their classmates. Even Adrian has gone on and on about how Fern's been a huge help at yearbook.
So why is she so mean to Izzy and Izzy alone? What did Izzy do to make someone like Fern have such a big problem with her? Is being rivals really enough of a reason for the animosity?
She lets out a frustrated little scream that echoes against the bathroom walls. She doesn't have any answers, and she hates it.
*
The following week, a BuzzBlast reporter shows up at Izzy's javelin practice and her life changes forever.
She ends up with her brother in the woods trying to keep monsters from getting their hands on an ancient orb, and the next thing she knows, she's a power ranger. That BuzzBlast reporter ends up being a sixty-five-million-year-old knight that used to ride on the back of a dinosaur, and the awkward friends he showed up with are rangers too.
Over the next few weeks, she saves the city more than once. It's exciting and exhilarating, and between school, practice, making new friends, hanging out with a cyborg solonosaurus, and learning how to control her new powers, she doesn't think about Fern for a while. They still trade looks at school, but Izzy has bigger things to worry about.
But then time catches up with her. Somehow, the big race is only two weeks away, and while Izzy loves her new duties, they have been cutting into her training time. She only ran ten miles last weekend instead of the twenty she was planning because a sporix attacked the harbor.
Her cousin, Lily, another athlete in the family, volunteers to help her train after school, which helps. What doesn't help is the way Fern is also putting in extra hours, staying late after the additional track practices coach Evans has been running. She literally runs laps around Izzy, and to add insult to injury, she stares at Izzy the whole time.
Fern's eyes stay trained on her at track practice the next day, too. Izzy glares at her, as per usual, but she's genuinely getting worried. Izzy's involved in multiple sports, and her increasingly limited training time is split between them. Fern, on the other hand, is focused solely on track. The whole time Izzy's been practicing javelin, high jump, and her other athletic interests, Fern has been running. Normally, Izzy would appreciate this amount of dedication and hard work, but she has trouble appreciating anything about it because of the way Fern treats her.
She also can't help but remember the way Fern's laugh lit up her whole face in the library, and everything about the situation between them hurts more now.
So at the end of practice, when coach Evans tells them they can go home, and Fern, instead, decides again to run more laps, her gaze following Izzy all the while, Izzy decides she's had it. She doesn't want to waste another second distracted by someone who hates her.
Her legs are moving before she can stop them and Fern's eyes go wide when she notices Izzy is barreling towards her. When Izzy catches up to her, she calls out, "First to the goal posts wins!" She's still behind Fern at this point, so she puts on a burst of speed, but Fern is quick to catch on. She seems confused for only a second, and then they're both sprinting across the field. They're pretty evenly matched, but Izzy pushes forward at the end and is the first to run through the goal posts.
Izzy takes a minute to catch her breath. Next to her, Fern does the same, but her head is tilted to the side towards Izzy and even now, she's staring. She doesn't say a word to Izzy either, and it makes something ugly and vicious climb up Izzy's throat.
"I know you think you're the track star around here, but you don't scare me," Izzy says, her hands on her hips and her words cold and harsh. "Just you watch. I'm going to win the race next week and leave you in the dust." She knows she's being petty and mean, but she keeps going anyway. Fern's the one who's been mean to her, so Izzy is allowed, for once, to be mean back. "And another thing. You know the way you watch me constantly? Yeah, I'm not exactly a big fan of that, and I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone."
Fern's whole body goes still. For a second, then another, she doesn't move a muscle. Finally, multiple emotions flicker across her face. She looks surprised and angry, but also maybe hurt, and when she blinks, Izzy sees tears building at the corners of her eyes.
But then Fern's face shutters into a forced neutrality that Izzy has never seen on her before. "I didn't know you were such an asshole," she spits out, teeth clenched, and she turns on her heel and runs off towards the school, as if her top priority has become to get as far away from Izzy as she can.
Izzy feels a pang of guilt in her chest. Belatedly, she realizes that this was the first time they've spoken to each other.
*
The next day in class, Fern doesn't just stare at Izzy, she glares. Her eyes are narrowed and angry, and if Izzy thought the staring was distracting, the glaring is worse.
Fern doesn't stop though. Izzy's spidey sense alerts her to Fern glaring at her in the hallway between classes, and all through practice that afternoon. It's not lost on her that Fern's escalating her behavior now that Izzy's finally stood up for herself, so Izzy returns Fern's glares with the practiced glares of her own.
To say that it's uncomfortable is an understatement. It's not just that the animosity is clearer now, with an intensity that wasn't there before, it's that Izzy keeps thinking about the tears she saw in Fern's eyes when she called her out. It's the way the pangs of guilt keep multiplying in her chest. It's the way Izzy feels like she's missing something.
*
It doesn't take long for someone to notice the change.
It's Adrian who corners her by her locker at lunch the next day. "What happened between you and Fern? She's been really sad lately."
"Sad" is not the word Izzy would use to describe the way Fern's been acting. She shuts her locker and crosses her arms over her chest. "She's the one who started it. You have to have noticed the way she's been looking at me all semester."
Adrian, though, doesn't seem to understand her reasoning. "And?"
"And what? She had no right to try to intimidate me."
Adrian huffs out a laugh. "Is that what you think? That she's been trying to intimidate you?"
His answer throws her off. "Well, yeah. Either that or she's been trying to figure out how to beat my times."
Adrian sighs and shakes his head. "I'm pretty sure Fern wasn't staring at you to intimidate you, Izzy. I'm betting she had another reason." He pushes off the locker he's been leaning against and Izzy falls into step next to him in the hall. She has no idea what he's talking about.
"What other reason could there even be?"
Adrian heaves another sigh, but this time he sounds tired. "Just talk to her, okay?"
*
Izzy does not want to talk to her. She doesn't even want to see her.
It annoys her that Fern acts like she's angry with her. It frustrates her that she has to spend second period with Fern shooting daggers at the back of her head. And it pisses her off that she has to deal with this not only in class, but at practice too, not to mention whenever Fern spots her around the school.
But she can't get Adrian's words out of her head. Adrian wouldn't just say something like that to mess with her. He's a good guy. It just... how could there be another explanation for what she's had to put up with since Fern arrived? She hasn't imagined the way Fern's been looking at her. Even Javi had pronounced them rivals after witnessing it first-hand at the cafe that one time.
She doesn't get it, and maybe that's why she ends up sitting in the bleachers watching Fern run extra laps around the track after practice that afternoon. Fern hasn't noticed her yet, and without Izzy to glare at, she keeps her head forward, her focus clearly on getting stronger and faster. The amount of effort she's putting into her training is admirable, and not for the first time, Izzy wishes that things between them were different.
As if hearing her thoughts, Fern rounds the corner and spots her on the bleachers. Her face twists into a glare as she holds Izzy's gaze, and Izzy does everything in her power to keep from rolling her eyes. For once, though, she doesn't glare back. She just watches Fern intently.
Fern keeps running, keeps glaring, and when Fern finishes a lap, Izzy isn't sure why either of them are continuing this useless staring contest. Neither of them breaks it though, and a half a lap later, maybe because she's realized Izzy isn't reciprocating her ire, Fern just... stops glaring.
She keeps watching Izzy, but it's like before Izzy yelled at her. She just stares.
Izzy hadn't liked it when Fern had looked at her like this, but now that she's experienced Fern being really, truly angry at her, Fern's expression doesn't feel as hostile as she remembers it. It's still uncalled for and unnerving, but it's... just someone looking at her. Compared to Fern's glares, it's almost neutral.
Izzy's not sure what to make of that, especially with Adrian's words still swirling around in her head.
*
The more she thinks about it, the more obvious it is that there was a before and after in Fern's behavior. The before was the staring, the after was the angry glaring, and the point between them was...
"Can I talk to you for a second?" Izzy asks Zayto when they're alone in the base that evening. He was calibrating a scanning device, but he puts it down on the viewing console when she walks up to him.
"Sure. What's up?"
She tells him about Fern, but focuses on the day she confronted her and the way Fern changed afterwards. She also mentions what Adrian told her.
Zayto listens carefully and when she's done, he says, "It sounds like there was a miscommunication."
"Okay, but where?" she asks, because she still can't figure out what puzzle piece she could be missing that would make any of this make sense.
Zayto is almost overly serious when he tells her, "I think that's why direct communication is necessary. Have you considered talking to Fern?"
Izzy lets out an aggrieved groan and throws up her hands. "She doesn't want to talk to me. She hates me!"
Zayto makes a thoughtful sound. "Does she?"
Izzy is about to exclaim that of course she does, but at the track earlier, when the glaring stopped, Fern hadn't seemed angry anymore, had she?
Izzy doesn't get it. And yet, she feels another pang of guilt.
She runs a hand through her hair and looks around the base. It's quiet save for the soft hum of energy running through the systems, and Solon is running experiments in the back. It's just the two of them here, so maybe... maybe Izzy should be more honest with herself.
She can pinpoint exactly when and where the guilt started. It's... it's the same time Fern's glaring began.
"There might be one other thing," she tells Zayto. She wrings her hands. "When I got upset at Fern about all of this after track practice that day, I was..." It's hard to say, and she knows, deep down, it's because she messed up.
"You were?" Zayto prompts when she lapses into silence.
"Mean," she admits finally with a wince. Because that's it, isn't it? That's the moment everything changed for the worse.
She had wanted to stand up for herself, and there was no problem with that, not really, but she was cruel about it. She could've said her peace without posturing or telling Fern off. She could've opened with "hello". But she didn't. She was hurt and frustrated and turned that into a weapon. And Fern...
Fern had looked like she wanted to cry. Given everything Izzy thought she knew, that reaction was the last thing she expected, because Fern was cruel to her first. Fern was the one who started all of this, wasn't she?
"I'm pretty sure Fern wasn't staring at you to intimidate you, Izzy. I'm betting she had another reason."
But if Adrian was right and Fern hadn't been trying to intimidate her all that time, if it really was some sort of miscommunication then... then maybe Fern had a reason to cry.
Izzy paces between the viewing console and the zord controls before she tells Zayto what she said to Fern, and to her shame, speaking about it makes her words sound even meaner. Zayto doesn't seem horrified though. He puts a hand on her shoulder when she collapses in on herself, her palms pressed to her eyes, and says, "You acted on the information you had. Perhaps it was unkind, but it sounds like you had a good reason to be upset."
"I don't get it," she says for what feels like the hundredth time. "What other information even is there?"
Zayto squeezes her shoulder. "I think you need to talk to her."
*
To say the next few days are hectic is an understatement. She trains what feels like every waking moment and still somehow manages to find time to do her homework and battle sporix. She also gets into a fight with Lily that she thankfully manages to patch up in time for the race, but she's overwhelmed. There's a lot of pressure on her shoulders.
It's not just that she wants to win, it's that she's expected to. Coach Evans, her parents, and her classmates all have high hopes for her. Even BuzzBlast published a story on her chances and it wasn't one of her friends who wrote the article.
That's why she tells herself she hasn't talked to Fern yet. She has to win the race first.
Her spidey sense tingles at the starting line. She and Fern share a look and this one is heated more than it is antagonistic. This look Izzy understands, at least. They're each other's toughest competition here.
So it's not surprising that not long after the starting pistol fires, it's her and Fern in the lead with an increasing distance between them and any of the other competitors. Usually, Izzy is better at pacing herself and begins races like this slower, but with Fern hot on her heels, Izzy pushes herself to run faster.
It's not a bad feeling. She likes the challenge of it, of the way Fern's presence and the accompanying prickling of her spidey sense, makes her try harder to win.
There's a panicked yelp behind her at the same time her spidey sense abruptly flickers off.
Izzy looks over her shoulder and sees it when Fern falls. She hits the ground hard and the force of the impact has her body rolling off the path and down into the ravine.
Izzy slides to a stop. "Fern?" she asks, quickly jogging back the way she came until she finds her. Fern is some distance from the path, sitting up in the underbrush, her hands clasping her ankle. Her face is contorted in pain.
Fern looks up at her. "It's sprained," she says simply.
Izzy wars with herself for only a split second before making her way towards Fern, carefully finding her footing on the decline.
"What are you doing?" Fern asks, her brows furrowed like she doesn't understand. "You need to win."
Izzy does need to win, but she's never been able to ignore someone in trouble. That's not who she is. It doesn't matter if this means her chances of winning are officially toast. Like Lily reminded her recently, there are more important things.
She finally reaches Fern and crouches down to examine her ankle. Fern winces when her fingers touch her skin.
"Come on," Izzy says, putting her arm around Fern's shoulders and carefully helping her to her feet. She expects some resistance but Fern lets her maneuver her. It takes a while to climb the hill up to the path, with Fern unable to put weight on her right leg, but slowly, with Izzy's support, they make it to the top.
They're just in time for the rest of the competitors to rush by them, and Izzy would be lying if she said that she didn't find that distressing.
Thankfully, bringing up the rear of the competitors is a race official and a medic in a golf cart. They stop next to her and Fern, and Izzy hands Fern off to the medic. Fern grimaces in pain as she goes, and Izzy feels even more distressed that Fern, who put in more effort into preparing for this race than anyone else, won't even be able to finish it.
The cart drives off with Fern seated at the back of it, and as they pass Izzy, Fern says, "Thank you." Fern also smiles a little as she says it, just enough for it to reach her eyes. It's the first time Fern has smiled at her, and Izzy just stands there, shocked and spellbound by the sight of it, even after Fern and the cart disappear into the trees.
*
Izzy tries to catch up to the other runners hoping that even if she can't win, she can at least score a decent time, but a monster attack derails even that hope. When she finally crosses the finish line, it's long after everyone else.
Her friends are still there to cheer for her though. Lily, her dad, and coach Evans are there too.
It's humbling. For all her bravado, for all the talk about her being the best athlete in the state, she came in dead last.
It's not the end of the world, she finds. She's not even worried about it. Not really. Instead, once the cheers have died down, she searches what remains of the crowd for Fern. She's not surprised when she doesn't find her. She's probably been gone for ages now, but Izzy goes over to the medical tent and asks after her anyway.
The same medic from the forest is there. "Your friend is going to be okay," he tells Izzy, who doesn't correct him. "As long as she stays off her ankle for a few weeks, she should make a full recovery."
Izzy thanks him, and before she returns to her friends and family, she decides that she can't let this go on like it has. Adrian and Zayto were right. She needs to talk to Fern.
*
Izzy misses her first classes on Monday due to an ill-timed dentist appointment so she doesn't see Fern in second period, but she finds out from Adrian at lunch that there's a yearbook committee meeting later and that Fern will be there. After school, she waits in the hallway outside the room where the meeting is being held, pacing back and forth, unsure of what she even plans to say.
She waits a half hour, but it's not enough time. She still has no idea what she's doing when the door finally swings open. Students file out, and when they seem to all be gone, Adrian pops his head out of the doorframe and waves her inside.
Adrian and Fern are the only ones left in the classroom, and Izzy's focus is instantly drawn to Fern. She still has a notebook open on her desk and is in the process of writing something in it. There are crutches leaning against her desk and her right leg up in a second chair.
Maybe Fern has a spidey sense too, because she lifts her head and looks towards the door. Though upon seeing Izzy standing there, she does a visible double-take.
Adrian is quick to grab his backpack and he pats Izzy on the arm as he quickly slips past her into the hall. Then it's just her and Fern, alone in the classroom.
"Hi," Izzy says awkwardly.
Fern blinks at her. "Hi," she says back but it sounds hesitant and confused.
Izzy sighs and sits down at the desk next to Fern's. "I want to say something and ask a question."
Fern blinks at her some more but nods.
Izzy takes a deep breath. "First, I want to say sorry." She has trouble meeting Fern's eyes. It's something she's done hundreds of times now, but not... not like this. "I'm sorry I was overly harsh after track practice two weeks ago. I was upset at you, but I didn't need to talk to you like that. I apologize."
Fern frowns, fiddling with her pen. "You were upset at me because I kept watching you?" She asks it like she's looking for confirmation.
Izzy fidgets uncomfortably in her seat. "That and because you don't like me."
Fern's pen drops from her fingers. "What?"
"That's been clear since day one. You get along with everyone else and you never even wanted to talk to me." Izzy shrugs, even though this part hurts more than she'd like to admit. "That brings me to my question. Did I... did I do something? It's just... it's been bothering me. I've been trying to figure out why you don't like me."
Fern is staring at her, and the weight of her gaze is heavy in a way Izzy doesn't think she's felt before. "If you think I don't like you, then... why did you think I was watching you?"
Izzy feels exposed all of a sudden. "I think you were trying to intimidate me by staring at me. Because you wanted to win the race."
"Is that why you told me to leave you alone?"
"Yeah."
"I can't believe it," Fern says, and whatever reaction Izzy was expecting, it's not for Fern to cover her face with her hands and laugh. It's a surprised kind of laugh too, not a mocking one. "You think I don't like you."
"Wait. Don't you? Not like me, I mean." It's what Adrian suggested, that Fern had other reasons for watching her, but Izzy isn't sure what's going on anymore.
"Izzy," Fern says, lowering her hands to her lap, and oh, she's smiling. "I was watching you because I like you."
The wind begins roaring through Izzy's ears. Because that sounded like--
"What?"
Fern's smile dims a little. "I knew about you before I moved here, but I didn't think I'd be in a class with you and I didn't know you'd be... cute."
"What?" Izzy asks again, struggling to breathe and to process any part of this conversation at all. "You were watching me because you... think I'm cute?"
Fern ducks her head. "You're great at pretty much every sport, you're better than me at track, you're really nice, and you're nice to look at, too." Her ears are turning red. "And I was avoiding you because I had no idea how to talk to you." She laughs again and it's awkward but also endearing somehow. "Honestly, I'm relieved. I thought you hated me."
The guilt and shame Izzy feels overpowers her confusion. "I'm super sorry. I shouldn't have talked to you like that."
"No, I'm sorry, too," Fern says, and she sobers, laughter gone. "I got angry when I thought... Izzy, I thought you knew. I figured that you just didn't like me liking you..." Fern bites her lip. "Gosh, I really am sorry. I assumed the worst of you."
And suddenly, with an alarming amount of clarity, Izzy understands what changed between the before and the after. Why Fern had started glaring back and why Adrian had said she was sad. She had thought Izzy was rejecting her feelings, and worse, rejecting them in an aggressive and callous way.
Zayto was right. It was a miscommunication. Izzy isn't even upset that Fern thought so poorly of her because on the surface, without any other information, it makes a horrible amount of sense, just like Izzy's own assumption that Fern was simply her mean rival.
Izzy's mouth opens and closes like a fish, the roaring in her ears getting louder and louder as slowly the rest of the conversation begins to catch up to her. Because wait, wait a second, what was that about Fern liking her?
"Fern, are you coming?" someone calls out, and Izzy jumps in surprise. At the door is Fern's friend from the cafe who, Izzy realizes belatedly, she saw leave the yearbook meeting a few minutes ago.
"Yeah, give me a sec," Fern tells her, and as she collects her stuff into her backpack, the friend comes over to help her with her crutches, effectively cutting off their conversation. It's an automatic reaction when Izzy stands to stand to help too, but Fern's friend has it covered so Izzy sits down again, her heart beating a mile a minute as she watches Fern walk to the door, because all that time she thought Fern hated her, Fern had really--
"I'm glad we got to clear the air," Fern says, breaking Izzy from her thoughts. "And thanks again for helping me like that during the race." She offers Izzy another little smile, and Izzy notices that her ears are bright red now, her cheeks flushed.
"Don't mention it," Izzy says, and she's so disoriented that the words feel like they're being spoken by someone else.
Fern and her friend leave. Izzy should leave too. It's coming up to four. She has homework to do and it's her night to cook and--
Fern likes her. Fern has liked her since she came to Pine Ridge.
She can't believe it. It sounds impossible and implausible, but she rewinds back to that first day, when her spidey sense had alerted her to Fern. She thinks of the countless times in class, at the track, and around school when she caught Fern looking. She remembers her own anger, the hostility, all the glaring... and with this new information, it's like her world tilts on its axis.
It's the puzzle piece she was missing, and with it, the other pieces she's collected come together to form a picture. Everything she didn't understand has an explanation now, from Fern's skittishness and supposed meanness, to why Izzy's outburst hurt her so much.
When Izzy finally gets up to go home, an hour has gone by since Fern left.
*
She thinks about it all evening and when she's lying in bed that night staring up at her bedroom ceiling. It's the first thing she thinks of when she wakes up, and the truth of it hits her all over again when her spidey sense goes off in class and Fern... Fern breaks into a shy smile when Izzy turns around in her seat to look at her.
It's, somehow, even more distracting than the original looks or the glaring or the guilt. It's like this one simple truth that has changed everything.
Fern likes her.
She still doesn't quite believe it, but she can't stop thinking about it either. She's not even embarrassed she didn't realize it sooner, because she's very sure she couldn't have. How could she have ever predicted something like this?
*
Some things don't change. Fern keeps staring at her constantly.
But some things do. Fern waves at her in class and in the halls, and Izzy finds herself waving back without much thought. They even talk to each other. Fern catches her off guard by standing next to her desk in second period and asking her how she is. In reply, Izzy asks her the same. As far as conversations go, it's stilted and awkward, but later that same day, when Fern comes by her locker after classes to wish her a good high jump practice, it's easy to ask Fern how her ankle is feeling.
It's not until later that week, when they're put into pairs to work on an assignment in second period, that Izzy understands just how much has changed. Fern is paired up with the girl that sits next to her, and the girl says something that makes Fern laugh so hard she folds in half, holding her sides as her giggles echo through the room. She looks happy, like she did in the library, but it doesn't bother Izzy like it did that time. Instead, it's nice to see Fern enjoying herself.
It's as if the little jealous, bitter beast she carried around for weeks has fizzled out to nothing, and in its wake, a new path has opened up before her. Miraculously, it's the one she originally wanted -- the one where she and Fern could be friends.
*
A damp towel hits Izzy in the face.
She's in the process of washing dishes when it happens, and she startles so badly she almost drops the glass she's cleaning.
"Javi," she growls, plucking the towel off her face with wet fingers and throwing it back at him. He dodges, but it still smacks him in the shoulder. He laughs.
"Sorry, but you've been scrubbing that same glass for like three minutes now."
"What? No, I haven't," she says, quickly rinsing it and handing it off to him to dry.
"Uh huh," he replies, unconvinced. "Want to tell me what's up?"
"There's nothing up," she says, digging another glass out of the sink. She knows she's been preoccupied lately, but she hasn't been that bad, has she?
"Sure, that's why you've been smiling at the walls all week. Unless you're going to tell me you find the wallpaper around here super interesting."
"It's definitely riveting," she says and he smacks her bicep gently with the towel.
"Come on. What's up?"
She passes him the glass and starts working on a pot. "Do you remember that time we were at the cafe and my rival showed up?"
"The one who liked staring at you?"
"Yeah, her." She scrubs at a particularly stubborn spot at the bottom of the pot. "So it turns out she wasn't staring because she wanted to be my rival. She was staring because she wanted to be my..." This part is hard to say for some reason. Her throat feels tight. "She wanted to be my girlfriend."
Javi gasps dramatically, his hand over his chest. "She likes you?"
Izzy nods.
Javi looks like he's about to tease her about being all grown up or something but he must notice whatever is going on with her, because he doesn't joke. His expression goes serious. "Wait. Is this a good thing?"
"I mean, I think we're friends now. That's good," she says and she can't help the way that thought makes her smile.
Javi pokes her in the cheek. "Ah, it's been about her then?"
"What?" she asks, swatting his hand away.
"Your smile," he says and now he's grinning again, the smug one he wears when he thinks he's figured something out. "All week it's been just like this."
"I haven't been smiling," she says, self-conscious.
"You have," Javi argues. "You totally have! You're doing it right now!"
Has she really been like this for days? She tries to school her expression, but doesn't quite succeed. She gives him the pot.
Javi takes it but, annoyingly, leans against the counter as he dries it. "So... tell me about her."
"There's nothing to tell," she replies, though that's not true. "She just looks at me a lot."
"She's still staring?"
Izzy moves on to the plates. "Yeah, why?"
"And you haven't asked her to stop?"
"No?"
"So you just let her stare at you all the time?"
She's not sure where he's going with this and it makes her suspicious. "It's fine," she says carefully, passing off the first plate and starting on the second. "It's not like she's hurting anyone."
"Tell me about her," he asks again. "Please?"
She might be wary of whatever Javi is up to, but this time, she answers him. She tells him that Fern excels in all her classes, that she works harder than anyone else in track, that she's friendly and outgoing, and that she's got a nice smile.
Javi's grin somehow gets even more smug. He looks like he just won the lottery. "So what you're saying is that she's exactly your type?"
"No, that's not--"
Except she is. Fern is absolutely Izzy's type, and now that she's thinking about it...
Javi ticks off his points with his fingers. "You're happy she's not your rival, you're okay with her staring at you even though you found that creepy before, you've been smiling for days because of her, and she's one-hundred percent your type. Come on, sis. It's obvious what's going on here."
It takes her a second, but as Javi's conclusion dawns on her, she drops the plate in her hands back into the sink. It splashes water everywhere and makes a worrying thud but she barely notices because--
Oh.
Oh.
Javi pokes at her cheek again. Pokes her smiles, she realizes. "You like her!" he says, making loud, obnoxious cheering noises and waving the towel in the air. "I knew it!"
*
Izzy doesn't know when she started to like Fern, but there's no denying that it's true, especially when she walks into class the next day. Fern perks up at the sight of her and waves, and Izzy's brain is so busy screaming about her newly realized feelings that she doesn't look where she's going and trips over a chair. She rights herself quickly, and her cheeks heat with embarrassment as she finally manages to wave back.
She knows, as the day drags on and her cheeks still feel warm, that she should probably say something to Fern. Not talking got them into trouble before and she has no interest in repeating that, but for two weeks, all she manages is to wave at Fern, exchange a few words with her here and there, and feel herself smile when her spidey sense tells her Fern is watching her.
She tries to brainstorm what she should even do. Tell Fern how she feels? Ask her out to the cafe, or to sushi, maybe?
In the end, the answer comes to her when she least expects it.
On Tuesday, Fern is at track practice for the first time since the race and her accident. They warm up side by side instead of as far away from each other as possible and Izzy tells her that it's good to see her. Fern hasn't used crutches for over a week now, but she moves a little slower, a little more carefully, and she sits out some of the more taxing exercises and drills. She's there though, and it's great to see her back on her feet like this.
When practice ends and coach Evans tells them to go home, Izzy heads back towards the school with everyone else. She's at the gymnasium doors when her spidey sense starts buzzing.
Behind her, Fern is still running laps. She's not at full speed, but she's watching Izzy, and it's almost like that fateful day, weeks ago now, when Izzy decided she had had enough and did something she ended up regretting.
And just like that day, Izzy finds that her feet are moving without her permission. It's only as she's running towards Fern that she gets a ridiculous idea.
Fern slows down, visibly alarmed that Izzy is heading straight for her, and she's probably hit by the same deja vu that Izzy feels when she shouts, "First to the goal posts wins!" Fern recovers quickly though, and as Izzy sails past her towards the end of the field, she accepts the challenge by running after her.
The last time they raced like this, Izzy was unhappy and angry and determined to win, but this time she isn't any of those things, and she's also mindful of Fern's recovering injury. She doesn't run at full speed and lets Fern catch up to her. When they reach the goal posts, Fern's the one who speeds up and crosses the finish line first. Izzy laughs, glad that this is the outcome this time.
"You let me win," Fern says, brows raised and clearly confused by all of this, as they both catch their breath.
"Yeah, well..." Izzy puts her hands on her hips. "I know you think you're the track star around here, but you don't scare me." They're the awful words Izzy had said to her, standing under these same goal posts, but this time she says them with a smile on her face even as her heart gives an anxious thump. "Just you watch, I'm going to ask you out on a date and you're going to say yes."
It's clear that Fern didn't see this coming. Her mouth drops open and she blinks rapidly, but then she barks out a laugh. "I'm going to say 'yes'?" she throws back. To Izzy's relief, she's smiling, wide and bright and wonderful. "You seem so sure."
She says it like a challenge, like she's flirting, and Izzy can't believe that this is the same person she spent most of the semester despising, that this is the same person who used to flee the room if Izzy so much as suggested they talk to each other. It's a side of Fern she doesn't know yet, but one she hopes she'll know soon.
"I'm pretty sure," Izzy says, because she's still a little nervous.
Fern must notice. She's the one to reach out and take Izzy's hand in her own. She gives it a gentle squeeze. "Then what are you waiting for?"