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"I think her name is Noelle."
"Hm?" Stevie grunted around her slushie straw, tipping her head at David in question.
"The new girl," he clarified, and Stevie tore her eyes away from the unfolding scene in front of her to give him an affronted look. "I heard someone call her that yesterday."
"Why would I care what some asshole prep's name is?" Stevie stirred her slushie aggressively – she'd taken a chance on the cafeteria's new flavour and was not impressed.
David snorted. "I don't know, maybe because you've been staring at her like a starving dog."
Stevie flipped him the bird and stole a french fry from his tray.
"He's not wrong," Twyla piped up. She was midway through some sort of braid that looked like a mermaid tail. "You're barely said anything all lunch."
"I never say anything."
"That's not true." Twyla's fingers flew over her hair even as she looked up to send Stevie a gently baffled look. "You're usually talking about something, even if it's just, like, sniping with David about other people."
"Hey—!"
But Stevie's protest was cut off when Patrick and Alexis walked into the cafeteria, instantly and completely distracting her two lunch companions. Stevie drank her subpar slushie while she waited for the exclamations and exchanges of kisses between the two couples to settle down, then nodded in greeting as Alexis sat across from her and Patrick took the space on David's other side.
"What is happening over there?" Alexis asked, pointing a finger at her own chest to indicate the gaggle of students behind her, clustered around the table by the vending machines in an unusually large group.
"New girl," David said. "The vultures are circling."
"She's ringing Stevie's bell," was Twyla's mischievous addition, which earned her a glare from Stevie herself.
"Thankfully, Stevie has more manners than your average vulture." Patrick ducked the fry she threw at his head. "It's a compliment!"
"High fucking praise," Stevie grumped. Why did she hang out with these assholes?
"Is she in Grade 12?" Alexis asked, peeping over her shoulder for a glimpse. The new girl was mostly obscured by the pulse of various bodies, but Stevie could see the occasional flicker of dark hair and bright smile. "Who transfers schools in the last semester of Grade 12?"
"I heard that her parents moved here." David shrugged. "Maybe she didn't want to live on her own for five months at her old place."
"I heard she got in trouble and had to switch," Twyla whispered, her eyes wide. "Something about a prank gone wrong."
"Ugh, Patrick, why do we have to have these stupid meetings?" Alexis whined, tossing her hair over her shoulder with an agitated gesture. "We miss so much of the lunch gossip."
Patrick started in on why student council meetings were so important – they were an opportunity for communication and cohesiveness that was needed to present a unified front against the administration that didn't necessarily have the students' best interests in mind, of course – but before he really kicked the speech into high gear, Stevie stood from the table and slung her bag over her shoulder.
"I've got gym next period," she said in response to the four sets of eyes that flicked her way. "So I'm gonna bounce. Have fun talking about politics, dorks."
"We will!" Twyla called to her retreating back, and Stevie was ninety percent sure she was being earnest.
Dorks.
**
Stevie didn't really believe in luck or fate or karma. Generally, she preferred to lean into the existential dread of a completely unbalanced, unmanaged universe; it was the only thing that could explain the supreme fucked-upness of her life which didn't also imply she was a terrible person who deserved the things that happened to her.
That said, there were some moments that tested that resolve, and when Stevie walked out of the gym's change room a mere fifteen minutes after lunch ended to see Klair chatting with the new girl – Noelle – as they stretched their hamstrings out, she knew this was one of them.
Mrs. Currie blew her whistle to gather everyone together, and then had them pair up to practice their soccer passes. Stevie ended up with Mutt, which suited her just fine; he hated exercise almost as much as she did and was, like her, just taking the class because he needed the credit, so they were content to lazily fumble their ball back and forth while Mrs. Currie ignored them in favour of the students who actually cared.
"Who's the new girl?" Mutt asked when they had meandered themselves back into speaking range, nodding in Noelle's direction.
Stevie was trying very hard to ignore the fact that Noelle and Klair had paired up, forming a bright spot of pep on the opposite side of the gym. Who knew designer gym wear was a thing? "Dunno."
Mutt only grunted in return.
Passing between partners soon morphed into dribbling drills, then low-impact headers, then rapid-fire shots on an empty goal, and Stevie hated every last stupid minute of it as she slogged along, putting just enough effort into her movement to not get noticed by Mrs. Currie. It was a careful balance, but she hadn't spent the entirety of her public schooling years avoiding formalized exertion without learning how to do it well, so she barely broke a sweat.
Well, barely broke a sweat from running, that is. Noelle, Stevie couldn't help but notice, had lovely long legs, bared as they were in her little retro shorts and her not-soccer-appropriate-but-still-very-cool retro sneakers, and Stevie felt flushed at the sight of them. She did her best to put them out of her mind as the pinneys came out and everyone prepped to start a game, but she couldn't help how her eyes wandered, making their way back to Noelle every single time.
Goddamnit.
She'd almost gotten the hang of pretending to ignore Noelle's presence (they were even on the same team, because that was just how Stevie's life went) when Klair, jumping up and down like a cheerleader on the sidelines, shouted, "Yes! Go, Ruth!" as Noelle broke away from the pack with the ball.
Ruth?
Huh. Okay. It wouldn't be the first time David was wrong about a piece of goss—
Stevie came to on the gym's floor, Mrs. Currie's twisted expression of concern hovering over her. "Ball to the head", she was told after going through some basic questions and follow-the-finger exercises. "Didn't you see it coming?"
"Uh." Stevie tried to sit up and Mrs. Currie helped her, reaching up to take an ice pack from an extremely guilty-looking Jake and holding it to Stevie's temple. "No, I guess not."
"You need to pay attention when you're on the field," Mrs. Currie tutted, a mother hen fussing over her chick. "Distracted players become injured players. Think you can walk?"
"Yes." Well, actually, she wanted to keep sitting, seeing how the room was still spinning a little too hard, but she'd just seen Noe—Ruth watching, hand over her mouth with a look of concern on her face, and yeah, no, she needed to be basically anywhere else right about now.
As first impressions went, it wasn't her best.
**
"Nice shirt."
Stevie rolled her eyes. David was categorically unable to comment on her Iron Maiden shirts whenever she wore one, and she was equally unable to not react. "At least it has colour, Monochrome Boy."
They both took a moment to examine David's outfit – black high-tops, black jeans (artfully ripped), black-and-white sweater that probably cost more than Stevie's mother's car – and then shared a smirk as their eyes met again.
Ritual hazing complete, David handed Stevie a red cup of beer. "Why so late? The party got going like an hour and a half ago."
"Ugh, I know, sorry." Stevie finished half the cup before continuing. "Home was... chaos."
David didn't ask her to elaborate, which was one of the reasons she loved him. "Fun. Last I checked, everyone else is by the water. Did you know Ted's dad has an indoor pool?"
Of course she knew – unlike some people, she'd grown up here, remember? – but she pretended she didn't as they made their way through the crowd in the hallway and the kitchen to the back door, just to see how far she could push the lie.
"You're such a little B," David said when he figured it out.
She shrugged and drank her beer as they approached Patrick and Twyla, who were sitting at a table by the edge of the pool. "Yeah."
The room was crowded and the top of the pool had been pulled back to reveal the (heated! Ted really was stinking rich) water, but it didn't look like anyone had yet taken the plunge. Stevie knew it was only a matter of time though, and she eyed the calm surface with trepidation as David greeted Patrick with a kiss on one of his already glowing cheeks.
Stevie took in the space with a carefully curated balance of interest and disdain. Unsurprisingly, Dane and co. were in attendance, hovering in a loose group on the other side of the pool. Klair was there, her laughter audible even over the music and hubbub, and so were Chuck and Albany, and that looked like the back of Jason's head, and that figure Dane was attempting to loom over was – Stevie sighed – Ruth. Of course.
"Why is Ted friends with basically everyone?" Stevie asked no one in particular as she continued to watch Dane be ridiculously obvious in his interest.
David followed her gaze, then snorted and rolled his eyes at her. "Because if he were only friends with people you liked, this would be a very small party."
"What's wrong with that? The beer wouldn't run out and we could pick the music."
Patrick laughed into his cup, already giggly with alcohol, but David just shook his head at her in exaggerated disappointment. "Okay, why are you here again?
"Well, I've been told I'm irrepressibly cheerful and a great joy to be around, so," Stevie said in a flat voice, and Twyla laughed like it was the funniest joke she'd ever heard.
"Does Ruth know how irrepressibly cheerful you are?" David asked, his eyebrows doing terrible things in Stevie's direction.
"I'd be surprised if Ruth could pick me out of a crowd, bud."
David hummed, disbelief dripping from the single note, and Stevie suppressed the urge to beat him over the head with a pool noodle.
"I think she's dating Dane," Patrick said with a little shrug and nod to where the subjects of discussion were standing very close to each other, swaying gently to the beat of the music.
"Oh, there's no 'I think' about that," David responded, patting Patrick's arm condescendingly. Patrick looked down at his hand with drunken confusion. "He's been telling everyone who'll listen that he snared the new girl, like she's a deer or something."
"Do you snare deer?" Twyla asked, frowning. "I thought snares were for, like, rabbits. Or wolves."
Stevie breezed by that, unwilling to accept that particular change in topic. "What does she see in him? Like, he's a dick and he drives his dad's shitty-ass car."
"It's not shitty," Alexis interjected, suddenly appearing at Stevie's elbow like the fucking party wraith she was. "It's vintage."
Stevie covered her startle with a glare. "Whose side are you on?"
"Yours, obviously, babe." She booped Stevie's nose, and Stevie, having long ago learned that accepting the boops was easier than fighting them off, merely blinked. "I just know cars."
"Of course you do," Stevie sighed, but she was mostly drowned out by the shuffle around the table to make room for Alexis to join their little gaggle. Twyla's heart eyes were loud enough to make speech difficult, anyway.
The conversation moved on, shifting smoothly from who'd been invited to Ted's to who was reportedly failing what classes to which schools everyone was applying to and why. Somewhere around Twyla's surprisingly detailed account of who in their grade was sleeping with who, Stevie felt her attention shifting, her eyes tracking back to where Dane and Klair and – coincidentally – Ruth were stationed. Ruth was wearing a green button-up shirt that should have looked formal and pretentious, especially for a party, but she somehow made it look effortlessly cool. It was a skill that seemed to ooze from her very pores in a way that Stevie found both intimidating and ultimately attractive—
"Earth to Stevie."
Stevie swung her head around to blink at David, who was pinning her with an exasperated look. "...What?"
"Okay, if you're not going to pay attention to the riveting conversation happening around you, would you at least just go talk to her?"
Stevie just managed to not choke on her beer, but it was a close call. "Who?" But David's expression darkened, so she dropped the ignorant act. "Uh, no? Yeah, I'm gonna go with no."
"Why not?" Alexis' gamut of intimidating looks was different from David's, sure, but just as effective. Stevie scrunched up her nose as she thought about her answer.
"Because she's dating Dane? And because I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know I exist? And because I'm, like, a fucking dirtbag who listens to weird music and doesn't have a car and can't even properly figure out how to be a human being." She blew out a breath that puffed her cheeks and avoided the round, sad eyes Patrick was giving her. "Any interaction with me would be a net negative for her, let's be real."
"Hey." Stevie looked up from the depths of her cup and found herself caught in Twyla's distressingly earnest expression. "Please don't talk about my friend like that."
It took a moment (and Alexis' vigorous nodding) for Stevie to realise Twyla meant her, not Ruth, and when she did, she glanced over at David, slightly desperate for someone who wouldn't be all sincere at her. But he was just giving her a surprisingly soft look, his mouth twisted like he wasn't sure what to say, and Stevie wanted to sink into the floor.
"Anyway," she said, casting around for a subject change and finding one when her eyes landed on Dane again. "Remember when he brought that gun to school?"
Distraction successful. "What?" Patrick asked, looking alarmed. "Who did?"
"Dane." Stevie tapped her cup against the table pointedly. "He brought his dad's shotgun to school last year."
"I thought that was just a rumour?" Twyla said, peering nervously over her shoulder at Dane.
"You make it sound so dramatic," Alexis interjected, flapping her hand in Stevie's general direction dismissively. "He brought a hunting gun in the trunk of his car on a Friday because he was going to shoot some turkeys over the long weekend. Stupid, but not, like, scary."
"Still." Stevie glared down into her cup so she wouldn't stare at the group on the other side of the pool. "Fucking idiot."
"Well, yeah, never claimed otherw—"
A sudden shriek interrupted Alexis, slicing through the burbling of the crowd like a knife through butter. Ducking her head around the crowd that had appeared around the pool, Stevie could see that Dane had Ruth hefted over his shoulder, her fists pounding his back as she screeched and laughed and pleaded with him to put her down, but, as predicted by basically everyone who walked into the pool room that night, someone was going to get into the water, and Dane had apparently decided Ruth was going to be first.
Her scream of "Daaane!" was cut off as he flipped her into the pool, leaving the room ringing with something more like "Daaa—!" followed by an enormous splash.
There were a few beats of relative silence, interrupted only by the music and Ruth's gasp when she resurfaced, and then all hell broke loose.
In no time, the water was frothing with flailing limbs as more and more people jumped in, shouts and shrieks and laughter drowning out everything else. Alexis took Twyla's cup from her hand, drained it, and promptly pulled them both into the pool with a twinned screech of delight. On Stevie's other side, David was firmly telling Patrick's pleading puppy dog face that his sweater was dry clean only, thank you very much. But Stevie didn't see any of it, her attention riveted on where Ruth had made her way over to the edge of the pool, ducking hands and feet and discarded cups as she hefted herself up onto the pool deck, her shirt clinging to her—
Stevie turned away, her cheeks warm, and went to go find more beer.
**
The last few months of Stevie's high school career were agonizing. Time passed, as it tended to, but Stevie would swear up and down that it did so oddly, moving both faster and slower than it should have. Her days were filled with classes – French, world history, PE, sociology – and her evenings were some combination of applying for post-secondary schools, slumming with David and/or Alexis and/or Twyla and/or Patrick, and working at the motel. It was a slog, monotonous and uninspiring, and Stevie just wanted to be done with it all.
Mostly.
Because somehow, by some set of circumstances that Stevie was rapidly starting to believe were actively planned to best fuck her up, Ruth seemed to be everywhere.
They shared gym class, sure, but also the sociology class that followed, which meant that Stevie spent a full afternoon every single school day watching Ruth be a) unfairly athletic, then b) unfairly academic. Stevie, who preferred to sit at the back of the class and only answer questions when pressed, found herself constantly distracted by Ruth's hand in the air, her smooth voice quoting passages from the textbook, her enthusiastic scribbling of notes in her binder, and it was only the knowledge that she needed at least an 80% in the class that pulled Stevie away from her daydreaming on occasion.
If it were just at school, though, Stevie figured she could probably manage. She'd had crushes before, had this sort of unrequited and pathetically held flame for a person who barely knew she existed, and she'd gotten over herself every single time. But it wasn't just at school. No, Ruth had very rapidly set down her roots in Schitt's Creek and had developed a tendency to be everywhere all the time.
When Stevie and David smoked up behind the dumpster at town hall, Ruth appeared around the corner of the building with Dane and Klair in tow. When Patrick convinced Stevie and Alexis to try snowshoeing (never again), they passed Ruth on the trail with a pair of cross country skis strapped to her feet. When Stevie was using a library computer to apply to Conestoga, Ruth was leaning against the circulation desk and chatting with Eric. She even showed up at the motel once, asking to see Maureen and disappearing into the office for an hour – after she left, Maureen muttered something about a school project and Stevie refused to pepper her with questions, a decision she deeply regretted almost instantly.
And, of course, the pièce de résistance was that Dane lived half a block away from Stevie, and Ruth was over at Dane's a lot. And Stevie had more than once, without thinking, gone out to pick up the mail in nothing but her father's muddy work boots, her ratty pyjamas, and a hoodie that attempted to cover the snarl of her morning hair. And Ruth, out for a run or walking Dane's dog or, fuck, just being a goddamn sprite of joy and dandelions, had seen her with her own two eyes.
It was the weirdest damn spring Stevie had ever experienced, and she wasn't talking about the weather.
**
Stevie didn't know how many collective hours she'd spent sitting in the Roses' living room over the years, waiting for one or more of them to finish getting ready, but surely it was in the hundreds by now. It was more familiar to her than her own living room, which she tended to avoid, and it smelled better, too, so she wasn't really complaining about the situation, just making note. Alexis was the straggler this time; David had already appeared, equal parts stunning and daring in his tux and skirt, to hover anxiously by the front window and pretend he wasn't quietly catastrophising about the how the evening might go.
Endeavouring to be at least a somewhat decent friend, Stevie came to stand beside him with a quiet sigh and tugged the curtain from his grip to cover the window again. "I like your outfit," she said, and stifled a smile when David's attention immediately focused on her (and her compliment) instead of his anxiety.
"Thanks, it's new," he said, giving a little shimmy of his shoulders. "How are we feeling?"
"Like mould." Fuzzy, damp, universally unpleasant to be around – sounded about right.
"Aren't you just a little ray of sunshine." David looked her up and down, his eyebrows moving towards his hairline. "You look gorgeous, by the way."
Stevie glanced down at herself, at the white lace pattern of her cocktail dress. "This is ancient." He should know that, he was the one who picked it out for their Grade 10 formal.
"Okay, and you're gorgeous in it." Stevie gave him a flat look. "And cranky, too, which is great, really. I've always dreamed of going to prom with my best friend while she's in a complete mood."
"We're not going to prom together."
There was a brief pause while David visibly panicked. "Wait, what? You're still going, right? Stevie, you can't abandon me to the true prom enthusiasts of the student council, I'm not going to survive their unfettered—"
"You're going with Patrick," Stevie clarified, her voice flat. "And I'm going stag."
David blew out a breath and fanned a hand over his face, giving Stevie a pointed look. "Oh my God, don't do that to me. My heart cannot take the stress."
"How old are you?"
"You're still coming with me, though," David continued, rolling right over Stevie's commentary with barely a backward glance. "Just not as my date."
Stevie tried not to react to the reminder, but the look that stole over David's face told her she failed. "What?" she grouched.
His eyes narrowed. "Is that why you're cranky? Because you don't have a date?" She didn't answer, but he kept going like she had. "I thought you were doing the whole 'look at me, independent woman, I don't care about your expectations' whatever thing."
"Shut up, David."
Miraculously, he did.
Well, for a moment. They knew each other too well for that sort of truce to last any real length of time.
"Who did you want to invite?"
"No one."
David twisted his mouth in disbelief. "Ruth?"
"No." Damnit, too emphatic. David's face lit up in glee, but he bit his tongue in a rare sensible choice.
Then Patrick showed up in his parents' van, and Alexis bustled down the stairs in a whirl of pink and feathers, and Twyla appeared like a fairy godmother had summoned her, and they all stood around for Mr. Rose's teary-eyed photographs before tumbling into the van and driving to that singular event which decades of movies and television had claimed would be the best night of their teenage lives.
**
Almost five hours later, Stevie felt she could admit that she'd had a good time. Yes, she was a fifth wheel and regretting her decision to go stag, but she was used to that with these four, and they were used to not making her feel like a gross piece of trash that had gotten stuck to someone's shoe. She'd danced with all of them, tolerating Alexis' attempts at swing and enjoying Twyla's quiet singing along to the lyrics that she claimed she just couldn't help. Patrick had twirled her around the dance floor in some complicated pattern she didn't understand, never letting go of her hand as he spun her out and in and out again, but she laughed along the entire time, dizzy and joyous and light for the first time in what felt like months.
She could also admit that her mood was helped along by the fact that she'd only seen Ruth twice all night. The first time had caught her by surprise, a splash of orange on the edge of the gym-turned-dance-floor that had, on second glance, consolidated into Ruth in a breathtaking slinky gown the colour of a roaring fire. Stevie had promptly stumbled over Ted's feet and if his hands hadn't already been on her waist, she'd have fallen flat on her face. The second time, she'd been dancing with David, their hands in proper dance form on waist and shoulder and clasped together, and he'd clearly seen Ruth first, his eyes widening slightly and tracking some stationary object as they slowly turned to the music. She waited for whatever it was to come into view with a faint sense of dread in her stomach, and she'd felt David watching her as she saw Ruth dancing with Chuck only a few metres away. She'd looked away with a frown and David had kissed her temple, affectionate and sympathetic, and left his head touching hers as they finished out the song.
But now it was the end of the night and Stevie was sitting on the bleachers by herself, watching the lingering pairs of students on the dance floor slowly twist to the crooning music of the last few songs. Alexis had abandoned her heels but Twyla's were still strapped to her feet, bringing their heights to something a little more even as they spun in a lazy circle, and David's hands were draped over Patrick's shoulders in an exhausted slump. It wouldn't be long before they all gave in and their plan of pre-after-party pancakes over at the café was launched, so Stevie was content to wait.
She was busily chipping away at her nail polish and silently berating Mutt and Jake for disappearing with their promised weed before she got to partake when someone sat down beside her on the bench. She looked up, ready to tell whoever it was that she didn't want to dance, but the words froze on her tongue.
It was Ruth. Up close, Stevie could see that her comparison to a fire was accurate – her dress was deep orange, her drape a pale yellow, and her hair was pulled back out of her face to reveal the light that always lived behind her eyes.
Stevie almost swallowed her tongue.
"Hi Stevie."
"Uh. Hey." Smooth, Budd.
Ruth nodded a little, like she was confirming that Stevie had responded, then looked out over the dance floor. "How's your night been?"
"Fine." Some sense of manners kicked in from somewhere deep inside her and she pulled her gaze away from Ruth's profile as she asked, "Yours?"
Ruth shrugged, her head bobbing side to side in ambivalence. "Eh, could be better, could be worse."
"Oh." Stevie didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing, and the silence grew to fill the space between them. She was watching the dancers again when she saw a pair of familiar figures pressed up against each other in the corner by the exit doors, out of sight of the chaperones. "Uh, is that–?"
"Dane?" Ruth snorted. "Yes."
"And Klair."
"Also yes."
Stevie grimaced. "I imagine that's the 'could be better' part?"
"Actually, no. That's the 'could be worse' bit." A tiny smile spread over her lips at the confused frown Stevie sent her way. "He dumped me yesterday."
"He dumped you?" Thankfully Ruth laughed, sounding delighted, but Stevie still slapped a hand over her mouth to prevent any more stupid shit from escaping. "Sorry," she mumbled between her fingers. "It's just, he's, like–"
"A fucking idiot, yeah, I know." Ruth nodded sagely, and Stevie couldn't help her laugh, short and sharp. "But he figured his chances of getting laid were better with someone else, so..." She gestured out to where Dane and Klair, having been caught, were getting lectured by Mrs. Schitt. "Klair's welcome to him, honestly. I hope she has fun."
Stevie didn't pretend to understand – if she'd been dumped the night before prom, she might have actually murdered someone – but she nodded anyway. "Okay."
They sat in companionable silence, listening to the crooning of the slow dance music and the quiet chatter of the students still milling around. Despite Stevie's singing nerves, the silence wasn't oppressive or awkward, and she didn't feel the need to break it with babble or cutting commentary the way she normally did. It was a curious feeling, and she was marinating in it when Ruth spoke.
"Want to know what the 'could be better' part is?"
"Um." Stevie blinked, grappling for the thread of conversation. "Sure?"
With a sharp exhale that sounded a little shuddery to Stevie's ears, Ruth said, "I've got two tickets to the Iron Maiden concert in Toronto next Friday." Stevie's head snapped around so she could stare at Ruth, wide-eyed; those tickets had sold out in minutes and Stevie hadn't been able to afford them anyway. Ruth was facing forward but watching Stevie out of the corner of her eye, and her words were almost painfully casual. "Want to come with me?"
A thousand questions rushed to the fore – how did she get tickets? how would that make tonight better? why Stevie, of all people? – but the one that fell out of Stevie's mouth was, "You know I like Iron Maiden?"
Ruth tipped her head in her direction, an amused little expression on her face. "Of course. You wear their shirts all the time."
Stevie resisted the urge to look down and check she hadn't accidentally worn a Maiden shirt to prom. "You—I didn't even know you knew my name until this conversation!"
"Of course I knew your name!" Ruth sounded almost offended. "We shared two classes!"
"Yet never spoke!" For fuck's sake, Stevie, shut up.
"Well." The tops of Ruth's cheeks flushed, highlighting her eyes, and she looked back out over the dance floor again. "You're a little intimidating, you know?"
"Me?" But the denial was pure bluster and they both knew it. Stevie never thought she'd regret her aura of 'fuck off', yet here she was.
"You," Ruth confirmed. "Your glower is impressive."
"Thanks." It came out as a surly grumble, and Ruth laughed again, a clear peal that carried over the music to the people down below. It was infectious, the butterflies in Stevie's stomach dancing and urging her to join in, so she did, starting with a giggle and escalating to a full laugh that almost hurt her throat with its force. It wasn't that funny – it wasn't even a joke – but the tension between them was fading as they laughed, the positive feedback loop of their amusement filling up the space where anything else might have flourished. Three chaperones turned to look up at them, clearly startled by the sudden sound, and then almost immediately disregarded them as a potential concern.
The laughter faded away, chased by hiccups and snorts that earned their own laughs. Ruth leaned back to rest her shoulder blades on the bleacher seat behind her, wiping a finger under her eye to carefully brush away the dampness there. "So," she said, her voice light with amusement. "Do you want to come? To the show, I mean."
Stevie mirrored her lean and folded her hands over her stomach. She could feel the roughness of her ruined nail polish against the pads of her fingers. "Yeah." She looked at Ruth and saw all her nerves reflected back at her, muted by their sudden camaraderie but present all the same. "I think I'd like that."
Ruth's smile started small and sweet, then grew into something blinding. It was infectious and Stevie couldn't help but match it.
"Good," Ruth said, firm but quiet. "Good. I'm glad."
"Me, too." Stevie looked down at her hands, at where her fingers were twisting together. "Though, I feel like I should warn you."
Even the arch of Ruth's eyebrow was elegant. "About what?"
"I'm a mess." Stevie swept her hand up and down her body like she was presenting an exhibit at a trial. "Like, an actual disaster of a human being. I can provide references if you like."
"Eh, who isn't?" Ruth watched the path of Stevie's hand, then looked up to meet Stevie's eyes, her cheeks a bit red. "We're all just a bunch of dirtbags trying to pretend we're something else."
Dirtbag. Stevie's preferred term of self-deprecation sounded odd coming from Ruth's mouth, but it felt well-worn, almost familiar, a sigh of admission from one weirdo to another. "Even you?" Stevie asked, tipping her head pointedly and giving Ruth an up-and-down of her own.
Ruth pursed her lips and nodded slowly. "Oh yes. Especially me."
"Okay." It felt strange, Stevie thought, to realise that the image she'd built up in her head of who Ruth was – preppy, put-together, smooth – was probably wrong. Strange, but oddly freeing. She felt herself relax that much further as her assumptions slid away. "I think I can work with that."
"Cool."
Stevie nodded. "Cool," she echoed.
They were quiet for half a song, just leaning on the bleachers together and watching the spinning couples, when Ruth said "Want to go for a walk?" At Stevie's look, she continued, "Like, outside. I'm a bit warm in here," and hooked a thumb in the direction of the exit doors. They were propped open, the light from the dance hall spilling out onto the meagre grass of the quad.
Stevie wasn't warm – if anything, her upper arms were starting to prickle with goosebumps as she cooled down from the dancing she'd been doing all night – but she also wasn't stupid enough to pass up a suggestion like that after the talk they'd just had. "Sure."
They helped each other down the bleachers, their hands clasped together for balance in a completely unnecessary but very pleasant manner, and when they both had two feet securely on the floor, it took a moment for their hands to separate again. The ghost of Ruth's grip, steady despite her slim hands, lingered against Stevie's palm as they made their way over to the exit doors and Stevie flexed her fingers into a fist to keep the feeling safe.
She caught David's eye as they passed, and his head popped up from where it had been resting on Patrick's shoulder, his face alight with interest as he watched her and Ruth make their way across the dance floor. He wiggled his eyebrows at her and gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up from where his arms were slung around Patrick, and Stevie returned the gesture with a subtle but affectionate middle finger.
"So," Stevie asked as she turned away from David's eloquent eye roll to look up at Ruth, "what's your favourite Maiden song?"
"Paschendale," Ruth responded, firm and without hesitation, as they stepped out into the cool June air.
Much like the rest of the past twenty minutes, that wasn't what Stevie had been expecting. "Ooh, controversial."
"Only if you don't have good taste." The words by themselves would have made Stevie's walls slam back up, defensive and spiky in the face of condescension, if not for the smile and wink accompanying them. Oh, so that's how it was, eh?
Stevie smiled down at her feet as she wrangled her face into something less smitten. She wasn't sure if she succeeded before she looked back up, ready to spar, but it didn't really matter, not really, not when Ruth's eyes were keen and her smile was wicked and her words were clever and her lips were so very soft as they pressed against Stevie's just beyond the ring of dance hall light, the thumping of music that wasn't Iron Maiden quiet in comparison to their racing heartbeats.
Friday was still days away, and then university loomed in the distance beyond that, and Stevie didn't know where this – Ruth, Iron Maiden, dirtbags, life in general – was going, but for the first time in a long time, she was excited to find out.